The Opposite of Geek (3 page)

“Oh, no no — don’t turn one of my passions into chemistry. That’s depressing.” I put my head on the table.

“You have a passion?” He looks at me intensely.

“Well, yeah. I guess a few.”

He cocks his head like a spaniel or something.

“My family is food obsessed. We make our own yogurt. I know some cooking terms that impress the food club. It’s not that big a deal.”

But he’s shaking his head. “This is great. We can use this. Glucose, lactose — I can show you the chemical structure of basic molecules in food and how they get denatured and converted by the heating process. It’s perfect!” He looks at me so triumphantly that I can’t say what I’m thinking:
Doing that will ruin my love for cooking! Why can’t we keep the sucky separate from the sublime?

It seems the world of swimming is beyond me — a simple landwalker. Nemiah asks if I’ll go to see her swim in her first competition (a swim meet) and be her cheering section. Her mum will be working an extra shift at the pet store she manages. This makes us Sport-and-Entourage, something I never in a million years thought was possible.

“What do I have to do?” I ask. We’re walking to her house after school.

“Just be there and scream really loud when I swim,” she says. She always wears her hair in a tight ponytail now. It makes her forehead look big but I don’t tell her.

“What if you lose?” I ask.

She looks at me funny. “So?”

“Won’t you be embarrassed that I was making all that noise?” I would be.

She stares at something behind my head. “Being on a team is about competing, doing your best. It doesn’t matter how you finish.”

I start to do our gag routine, thinking she’s joking, but I realize she’s not.

“Will you come?” she asks again.

I wonder if I’ll be the only non-swim-related person there. I hug her and her backpack. “Of course I’ll come.”

Red twisted threads shine

from the torn bag on my lap

we devour with grins

I am a Foodie. This sucks. It’s Wednesday afternoon and I feel like I’m going into an exam. There’s nobody I’m friends with here. There are no hot boys in Speedos. No lifeguards.

We better be making something chocolate.

Method: take a bunch of yummy ingredients and layer them on a plate. Take some nacho chips and eat the layers. Tasting notes: salty, spicy, creamy — gimme more.

Ashlyn’s impressed that I can chop green onions really fast, like a chef. I only cut myself once.

She’s so happy I’ve changed my mind about the club that she’s my new best friend. I kind of feel icky about it — she’s nice and really helpful, but it’s like I’m cheating on Nemiah.

“Next week we’re making chocolate mousse,” Ashlyn says, washing her hands in the sink for the seventh time.

Just then [angels sing here] LUKE MY LUKE walks into the Foods room and all movement ceases. Well, only mine does. I freeze with what must be a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face. Oh, god, let me not have a zit on my forehead. “Hey,” Ashlyn giggles, and sidles over to my future husband. Then the impossible happens. The polar ice caps melt all at once and we are enveloped in a sudden and ferocious flood.

Okay, no. Something worse happens. Luke kisses Ashlyn on the cheek. Ashlyn hugs him with her clean hands around his neck.

I try not to puke up my seven-layer dip.

How broken, broken

Not a living heart remains

I ache: only Luke

James is actually, shockingly, late. After ten minutes of my doodling lightning forks into Ashlyn’s head, he drags himself through the door.

“Apologies,” he whispers (he is very obedient of library rules).

“What happened?” I ask.

He shakes his head and opens my textbook. “People issues. You don’t want to know.”

I stick my neck out (figuratively). “Yes, I do.”

He shakes his head again. That’s a lot of exercise for his scrawny body. “It’s unimportant. Let’s chemistrate.”

“If it’s parent issues, I know about that. You’ll recall the Doctor Dream? The Board completely doesn’t understand me,” I say to give him an out.

He snorts. “That can’t be correct English.”

“And do you tutor English?” I say. “You know what I mean. They’re totally in denial about who I am.”

He nods appreciatively. There’s a moment when I think he’ll say something about his issues, but he thumbs through the textbook and is silent.

“So?” I ask.

He stares at the page. “Let’s chemistrate.”

My worried mother (who worries as a pastime, not just sometimes), corners me before dinner the next night to ask if there’s something I want to tell her. Do I have any news of good grades? New friends? How’s Nemiah? Firstly I tell her to mind her own beeswax (actually I sigh heavily, but it has a waxy feel to it). Secondly, I say, one must not ask so many questions. Questions make one appear foolish. I actually do say this; it gets me a dirty look. Thirdly, I tell her Nemiah’s getting along swimmingly (ha!) and that I have to get to my chemistry homework. She smiles faintly, unable to resist this positive attitude.

I win this round.

As I’m drifting off to sleep at eleven, my bedroom door squeaks open.

“Are you asleep?” Layla asks.

Why do people ask this? Why don’t they say, “Are you awake?” If I was asleep I wouldn’t be answering!

“I’m asleep.”

She sits on the bed. I open my eye a slit. She’s wearing her Winnie the Pooh nightie and her hair is in a messy ponytail. “I have a date,” she says.

In spite of myself I sit bolt upright in bed. “You have a what?”

She looks startled, then giggles. “I’m going to a movie with a boy. And our other friends. But he asked me first.”

Her face is red — even in the dark I can tell.

“That doesn’t sound like a date,” I say.

Her tone is certain. “It’s a date.”

I take a moment to consider my options:

1. Be the big sister. Offer advice, be cool. Lend her makeup and swear I didn’t.

2. Be above grade seven so-called dating. Claim to have no interest and threaten to call the cops (M&D) if she keeps me awake any longer.

She stiffens at a sound outside my door like a deer hearing a hunter in the woods. She’s so small, so cute in some ways, it’s hard at this moment for me to hate her, even though I do. I want to know who this boy is.

I go for option 1.

She celebrates quietly on my purple throw rug like a freak. I offer to show her some suitable makeup possibilities in the morning.

“What about clothes — what should I wear?”

It’s like she’s going there tonight.

“Can we wait until tomorrow?” I groan.

Her face falls and I know I could throw down the veto because it’s my room, my sleep and my big sister experience she’s counting on.

I switch on my bedside lamp.

She gets ready to leap again.

“Just two minutes,” I warn.

We spend half an hour looking for tops small enough to fit her bony shoulders.

My little sister potentially has a better dating record than mine. I wake up to this thought the next morning, after the warm glow of being the helper of true love wears off. She’s only twelve and already she has a date, a movie date, not just a let’s-kiss-in-the-woods-behind-the-grade-seven-portable date. Okay, so that wasn’t really a date. Unfortunately, that’s all I have. It was Kevin Millar and he was supposed to be a veteran kisser. I couldn’t tell, being a novice, but it felt wet and warm and not awful, so when he told all his friends I wanted to do other things with him, I naturally freaked out — and said yes. I was the coolest girl in our class for a week — until I realized what “other things” might be. Then I punched Kevin in the gut and got suspended.

So far, Layla’s beaten me to a real date and in the harsh morning light it stings a little. I consider taking back the shirt I lent her.

James is into heavy metal. Last century, rock-the-spandex-and-long-hair metal. I know because my cousin used to listen to it in his basement and it made me scared of basements until I was ten.

I discover his musical taste when James is actually at our table on time, and I am late. He’s wearing his ear buds and doesn’t see me, so I yank one out and listen before he can turn the music off. “Hey! What are you doing?” he shouts (the librarian sends us death rays).

“You’re a metal head?” I say in a stage whisper. “That’s unexpected. It makes you so three-dimensional.”

“Because I wasn’t before you knew this?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s an expression.”

He looks at me through those terrible glasses. “I want to show you something.” He takes out a blank notebook.

“What — you write poetry?” I say. I guess notebooks just push my poetry trigger.

“God, no — only uber-geeks do that,” he says, glancing at me with what appears to be a trace of a smile.

“Screw you.”

He slaps the table. “So I was right. You are the poetry geek whose poem is in the hall by the trophy case. Initials GM. I knew it.”

I’ve completely forgotten about that poem. It was from grade nine English, an anonymously entered contest where the students chose the winner. I got Nemiah to take a photo of me next to the case but the glare from the flash makes it hard to read. “So I like poetry — so what? You like chemistry. My neighbour’s dog likes toilet water.”

He points at something in the notebook. It’s a doodled sketch of a slogan, like the ones on his t-shirts.
Geeks: turning enthusiasm into stuff the world needs since forever
.

“Okay, what’s with the t-shirts?” I ask. “Was there a sale somewhere?”

“Actually they’re pretty expensive.” He points to the one he’s wearing — a profile of some guy. “It’s Becher — phlogiston theory of combustion?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Okay, so this one’s a little obscure. But
this
is going on a t-shirt — I’m getting it made.” He points at the slogan in the notebook again. “This is the problem with the social community of high school. No one understands the value of geekdom. How come what I love makes me a geek, but what Henry Gladstone loves makes him a stud?”

“Because Henry Gladstone is a basketball star.”

“So? He’s a good athlete and he practises a lot and he can spout all the stats from the games. He’s skilled and enthusiastic, right?”

I’m starting to get where he’s going with this. “You mean, how come being good at something and having enthusiasm makes
him
a god and
you
a geek?”

“Basically, yes.”

I look around the library at the people with cool clothes and not-so-cool clothes, the Drama Queens harassing the librarian and the Crunchy Granolas cruising the stacks. “I don’t know.”

“And what is the opposite of geek? Because it’s not what you think it is.” He taps his notebook with my pen.

“And what I think is …?”

“That it must
have
an opposite, which it doesn’t.”

I’m about to ask him if I can just do my chemistry homework tomorrow because I’m kind of scienced out, when he says, “If being a geek means you’re intense and skilled at something and love talking about it, then non-geeks are the real losers. Because what does that make them? Uninterested, uninteresting.”

I stare at the slogan on his page. “So it’s better to be a happy geek than unhappy pretend-cool.”

“Right.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because no one’s told the cool people that, and they still rule our world.”

Since my blissful love fantasy was steamrollered by Luke and Ashlyn, Nemiah’s been pretty busy, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s avoiding me. I’ve texted her a few times, but either her phone’s broken or she’s mad at me. Or something worse.

After English I find her by her locker, popping three sticks of bubble gum at once. Her cheeks bulge.

“You training or something?” I ask.

“Wha?” she mumbles.

“For the bubble-blowing Olympics?” It’s stupid but she smiles.

“I haven’t seen you in
forever
,” she says, “Oh my god, I pulled a muscle in my back so bad.”

I nod, unsure how that explains her being MIA.

“You want to come over after school?” I ask.

She winces. “I have to do homework. Tomorrow’s the swim meet. Gotta sleep.”

I make it sound like that’s understandable but it’s not — I can’t shake the feeling there’s something up.

“Hey, Nem.” A red-headed girl comes up to us and leans against the lockers. “You psyched about fly?”

I guess this must be some code because Nemiah says, “Yeah, totally.”

They giggle and then remember I’m there, and I wish I wasn’t, my stomach twisting a little because Nemiah’s got a world without me. A secret language.

I was in grade three, the new girl in class wore homemade jeans and mismatched socks. She had bangs that were too short and clip-on earrings that she must have taken from her grandmother’s jewellery box. The first day, as she stood at the classroom door, her eyes scanned the room for someone who would be her friend. She ate lunch alone for three days until I sat down beside her and we compared sandwich contents.

Me: ham and havarti with cucumbers. Nemiah: peanut butter and jam.

So I don’t cry. I vent.

On Layla.

It’s date time.

I’m eye-shadowing her.

L: You think purple?

G: No.

L: Petal pink?

I take it away.

We go for subtle.

Burnt amber.

Her lids shimmer

like a prom queen’s.

Venting begins

when she insists

on doing her own

mascara and jerks

the wand

from my hand.

She’s like a goddamn

toddler.

Can’t she see

I know what I’m doing?

I snap, poke her

in the forehead

with it, dark

smear hole,

tears and howling.

I guess I deserve

the death threat

my mother gives me.

I sit in the highest row of the chlorine-infused bleachers and wait to recognize my best friend’s freshly shaved legs walk out of the women’s change room.

I am beside a mother and her preschooler, who slurps a yogurt drink and keeps looking at me like I’m some kind of family member. I forgot how happy four-year-olds can be.

Then the audience claps and the teams march out, and there’s Nemiah, my pride and joy, even though I couldn’t get a hold of her to say good luck. She looks into the crowd and waves; I wave back, as does half the audience. I feel like a giddy loser.

The preschooler laughs. Soon the swimmers have disrobed and each lane has an antsy, swim-capped competitor waiting to dive into it. Nemiah’s all focus. I try to stare hard enough that she’ll look at me, but she rubs her legs and stares at the clock. I inhale warm chlorine air and clap as the first race ends with a tie by two brothers.

Finally it’s her turn and I find myself on my feet, heart beating for her, praying she doesn’t mess up, and I remember what she said: it doesn’t matter if she wins, just that she swims. At this moment there is no more profound statement. I scream as she swims the final length, so strong, so athletic.

I cheer with the four-year-old as the race is won by a girl from another school. Nemiah comes in third. I couldn’t be prouder; I want to high-five everyone.

Nemiah wet-hugs me as I make my way down after the meet. She shrieks in my ear but I don’t mind losing a little hearing.

“You came! Wasn’t it awesome?” She doesn’t seem to need a response. “You have to come with us!”

“What’s going on?” I ask, and Redhead Girl from the locker says, “Party at Becca’s. There’s always lots to see.”

I don’t know what that means, but I giggle with them.

“What do you guys do?” I ask.

Apparently that’s a stupid thing to say: Red rolls her eyes, saying, “God, nothing crazy, we carbo load and jump on the tramp.”

This must be the best thing about being an elite athlete. You get to party after with your teammates and other hot people.

“You should come,” Nemiah says. “Shay’s mum can give you a ride.” Shay (Red) shrugs her assent and I am officially a third wheel.