Geek Abroad (3 page)

“I take that as a yes,”he said.

“I haven’t eaten since dinner on the plane,”I said sheepishly. I checked my watch. “Which was about fourteen hours ago.”

He feigned horror. “Fourteen hours? You must be starving! Here.”He handed me a cup of punch. “Drink this for strength.”Then he seized one of the white buffet plates stacked up on the table, and began to pile it with crackers, cheese, and cookies, while I watched in amazement.

“Here you go,”he said, handing me the plate. Then, noticing a platter of tartlets, he grabbed one to add to my plate. “And you have to have one of these mincemeat pies. They’re brilliant.”

“Thanks,”I said, laughing a little as I stared down at the mountain of food he’d just gathered for me. I set the plate on a small table and picked the mincemeat pie off it. “Mmm,”I said, once I took a bite. “That is really good.”

“Told you,”Henry said. “I never lie.”

“Like the island of knights and knaves,”I said without thinking, recalling a series of classic logic problems featuring an island where knights and knaves lived. The knights always had to tell the truth, and the knaves always lied. Then I blushed. Because bringing up logic problems at parties? Seriously not cool.

“You know about the island of knights and knaves?”Henry asked, his eyes widening with surprise.

I laughed at his shock. “We do have schools in America, you know,”I said.

“And here I thought you were a country of Paris Hiltons,”he joked.

“Oh, we totally are,”I said, managing to keep a straight face. “When I’m at home, I dye my hair platinum blond, and say, ‘That’s hot!’about everything.”

“Yeah, I just bet,”Henry said. “So, tell me, which one am I—a knight or a knave.”

“I don’t know,”I said. “A knight could say he never lied, because it would be the truth. But a knave could also say it, because it would be a lie.”

“Oh, that’s right,”Henry said, drawing out the word
right
. “I forgot. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of a mathematical genius?”

I couldn’t help it: I blushed. “Not really,”I said, shrugging.

“And modest, too,”he said.

“No, it’s just . . . well. I just don’t like talking about it,”I said.

“Fair enough. So you probably don’t want me asking you what 732 times 569 is, huh?”

“416,508,”I said, without thinking.

Henry’s eyes went round with surprise. “Really?”he asked. “Is that right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Great party trick, huh?”

“I’ll say,”he said, looking at me admiringly.

Normally, calculating sums on command makes me feel like a circus seal balancing a ball on my nose while clapping my flippers and barking for a fish. But for the first time, I felt a rush of pride at my odd, geeky skill. It certainly seemed to impress Henry.

“Thanks,”I said, quickly taking a gulp of my punch to hide my grin, as I contemplated just how attractive an English accent was.

As soon as the thought was loose and rattling around in my brain, guilt surged within me. Dex had only been my almost-quasi-boyfriend for less than forty-eight hours . . . and already my head was being turned by some random English guy? Admittedly, a very cute random English guy, but still. What kind of an almost-quasi-girlfriend was I turning out to be?

Chapter 3

“
Mom, may I use your laptop to check my e-mail?”I asked Sadie over breakfast the next morning.

“Hmmm?”she asked, not looking up from her newspaper. Sadie has never been a morning person. There’s no use trying to have a conversation with her before she’s downed at least two cups of coffee. In fact, we still hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up. When the cocktail party ended, Sadie went out to dinner with some of her guests. Despite having slept all day, I’d felt too jet-lagged to go with them, and instead went back to bed. But once in bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. Which wasn’t surprising, considering it was only two o’clock in the afternoon, Florida time. So I pulled out my journal and worked on the short story I’d been writing, about a teenage girl who wakes up from a coma and doesn’t recognize her friends and family.

“Your computer,”I repeated. “May I use it?”

“Help yourself, sweetie. It’s upstairs in my office,”Sadie said absentmindedly. She buttered a piece of cranberry-orange scone, popped it in her mouth, and then disappeared behind her newspaper again.

I dumped my plate and juice glass in the kitchen sink, and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. Sadie’s office was in a littlealcove off the living room, just big enough for a desk, chair, and printer stand. In typical Sadie style, the desk was a mess. It was covered with the debris of her life pages edited in red pencil, bills, stray paper clips, receipts, empty coffee cups, invitations, fan letters. I pushed the mess off to the sides as best I could, and turned on the laptop. It hummed and then sprang to life with a computerized melody. I logged into my e-mail, and there was . . . nothing.

Well, not
nothing
. There was the usual spam, and a joke e-mail my friend Finn had forwarded:

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Best Titles Ever!

Rejected Children’s Book Titles

1. Strangers Have the Best Candy
2. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
3. Some Kittens Can Fly!
4. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her
5. How to Become the Dominant Military Power in Your Elementary School
6. Controlling the Playground: Respect through Fear
7. The Kid’s Guide to Hitchhiking
8. You Are Different and That’s Bad
9. Things Rich Kids Have but You Never Will
10. POP! Goes the Hamster . . . and Other Great Microwave Games
But there wasn’t anything from Dex. When we’d said good-bye to one another after the dance, he’d asked if he could call me the next day. And for one happy, stomach-fluttery moment, I was thrilled. . . . Before remembering that I’d be leaving for London, and that my cell phone wouldn’t work over here. So knowing that his parents probably wouldn’t be thrilled if Dex ran up their long-distancebill with overseas calls to Sadie’s house, I gave him my e-mail address, and he’d said he’d write me.

Well, it’s only been a few days since I’ve seen him,
I reasoned.
Maybe he’s busy with his friends or family or whatever.

But even so . . . something suddenly occurred to me. I’d given my e-mail address to Dex. He hadn’t given me his. It hadn’t struck me as odd at the time. But now a little voice of doubt was starting to pipe up in my head. If Dex really was interested in me, why wouldn’t he have given me his e-mail address, too? And even if he was busy, why couldn’t he have dropped me an e-mail by now? Even if it was just a quick, hey-how-are-you-how-was-your-flight note? So did that mean . . . maybe he wasn’t really that into me after all?

And just like that, my stomach soured.

No,
I thought, shaking off the gloom.
Don’t blow this out of proportion. So Dex didn’t send an e-mail yet. Big deal. He’s probably just waiting until he has something to say.

I closed out my e-mail program and shut the laptop with a decisive click. I was not going to waste my first full day in London fretting about whether a guy was going to e-mail me. Even if that guy happened to possess the most gorgeous pale blue eyes and a smile that made my entire body quiver.

“So what are you planning to do today?”Sadie asked when I padded back into the kitchen. I’d showered and dressed, and my hair was still damp. In the time it took me to get ready, Sadie had evidently consumed enough coffee to be conversant. Which was a good thing. Except . . .

“Wait. What do you mean what am I going to do today? Aren’t we going to do something together?”I asked.

“Oh! Didn’t I tell you? I thought I did, but with the excitement of your getting here, and then the cocktail party, I must have forgotten,”Sadie said, first smoothing down her royal blue robe and then shuffling the newspaper into a stack.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Whenever Sadie gets twitchy like this, it usually means she’s hiding something.

There was a long pause. “Well . . . as it turns out, I can’t spend the day with you, honey,”Sadie said apologetically.

“What?”I asked. This was unbelievable. I hadn’t seen Sadie in four months, and I’d traveled all the way across the ocean to visit her. Now that I was finally here, she wasn’t even going to spend my first full day in London with me? “Why?”

Sadie sighed heavily, as she downshifted into martyr mode.

“I wish I could. Believe me, I’d much rather spend the day with you than go to a boring old editorial meeting. But today’s the only day this week Giles is free to get together and go over my research notes on
Victorian Widow
. You understand, don’t you?”Sadie said pleadingly. Her eyes were so wide and mournful, she actually reminded me of my greyhound, Willow, when she’s begging for food at the table.

“Well . . .”I said, hesitating. But then I felt like I was being bratty. She was going to a work meeting, after all. It wasn’t like she was ditching me to get her nails done. “Of course I understand. It’s just I haven’t seen you in so long. I wanted to catch up. I have a lot to tell you.”

“And I want to hear it
all
,”Sadie said, brightening. “I thought tomorrow night we could go out for a nice dinner, and talk and talk and talk until we’re all talked out.”

“Tomorrow?”I repeated. “What about dinner tonight?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention that? Madame Aleksey is having a dinner party tonight, and I can’t get out of it, I’m sorry to say.”Sadie made a face. “I’d invite you along, but you’d hate every minute of it.”

I closed my eyes for a minute and counted to ten. This was
so
typical of Sadie. And she knew very well that she hadn’t told me about the dinner party.

“Mom,”I said, keeping my voice as level as possible. “Why did you invite me to spend Christmas with you if you were planning to spend the whole time going out and socializing with your friends?”

“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. It’s just this one day I’m booked up, and then I’ll be as free as a bird for the next two weeks. Sure, there are a few holiday parties here and there, but I promise you, by the time you go home, you’ll be sick to death of me,”Sadie said brightly.

I opened my mouth, ready to argue, but then decided against it. What was the point? I knew she wouldn’t change her mind. Sadie is genetically incapable of missing a party. And besides, she was right. We’d have loads of time to spend together. There was no point in getting into a stink over today’s plans.

“Okay,”I said.

Sadie looked surprised for a moment—she’d clearly expected a battle—but when she saw I wasn’t going to pursue the argument, she smiled warmly and reached out to smooth a wayward lock of hair behind my ear.

“You’re getting so grown up,”she said wistfully.

The phone rang then, and Sadie turned to answer it.

“Why, hello there! Miranda and I were just talking about that,”Sadie was saying into the phone. “Yes, that sounds perfect. . . . No, I’m sure. . . . Yes, she’ll be thrilled . . .
thrilled
. . . No, I don’t have to check with her. . . . Okay . . . right. Bye!”

Sadie hung up the phone. When she turned, I saw that she had a huge Cheshire Cat grin on her face.

“Who was that?”I asked, trying—and failing—not to sound suspicious.

“It was Henry. Remember? You met him last night,”she said brightly.

Too brightly.

“I remember,”I said cautiously.

“Guess what? I’ve arranged for him to take you sightseeing today.”

“You arranged . . . but . . . but . . .”I spluttered.

“You don’t have to thank me, darling,”Sadie said happily.

“I wasn’t going to thank you!”

Sadie’s forehead puckered into a concerned frown. “I thought you wanted to go sightseeing,”she said.

“I did. I mean, I do. It’s just . . . why didn’t you ask me first if I wanted to go with Henry? I’m not a child. I don’t need you to set up play dates for me.”

“What’s wrong with Henry? I think he’s adorable,”Sadie said. “He’s very smart. At the top of his class, from what Giles tells me.”She smiled again. “I know you’ll only be here for a few weeks, but you never know. . . . A little holiday romance could be fun.”

“Mom,”I said, aghast. “I don’t want a romance. For your information, I happen to have a boyfriend back home.”

This stopped Sadie cold. “You have a boyfriend?”she asked.
“Really?”

The
really
was a little insulting. Although . . . it was true that Dex wasn’t really my boyfriend. Not yet, anyway.

“Well. Sort of,”I said, and I could hear the defensiveness creeping into my voice. “There’s this guy, his name is Dex, and I think he likes me, and I really, really like him. It isn’t official or anything yet, but I think once I get home . . .”

“That’s so exciting! Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”Sadie asked.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk, remember?”I said pointedly.

“Oh. Right,”Sadie said. She sat down at the kitchen table, looking thoughtful, and took a sip of her coffee. Then she hit her open palm against the table decisively, and said, “I’m going to call Madame Aleksey and tell her I can’t come tonight,”she said.