Talk Nerdy to Me (Nerds, #5)(7)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"For what?"

"Bugs. It’s truly disgusting. You wouldn’t believe the invasion of bugs."

"You’re right, I wouldn’t believe it." Denise’s determined calm was unnerving. "Not in February. Mice, maybe, but not bugs."

"I meant mice! Mice, bugs, who can tell the difference when they move so fast? Things are scurrying around here all the time. You would hate it, Den. Don’t come. Save yourself some trouble."

"I’ll be there by ten."

"What about your classes? You can’t just walk out on your economics classes! Students are depending on you to give them the secrets of Wall Street!"

"I have a TA who can take over for a couple of days. See you on Thursday. Now, I really have to go."

"No! It won’t work! The plumbing is stopped up! The TV’s broken! The washing machine—" But her sister had already disconnected.

Still clutching the phone, Eve banged her forehead repeatedly against the seat in front of her. She must have fear of success. That was the only explanation for this idiotic phone call to her sister, a phone call that would result in Denise ruining what had promised to be an excellent few days spent with Charhe while they worked on the hovercraft.

Now bossy Denise would be there getting in the way, right when Eve was about to spend some quality time with Charlie. And that was the crux of it. It wasn’t only Denise’s interference that Eve was worried about.

Eve could hold her own in a beauty contest against Denise, but what about a brainy contest? What if the guy in question was an engineer type who would likely choose mind over measurements? What if Denise swooped in and wowed him with her IQ points?

Eve’s reaction to that possibility told her more than she wanted to know about her current state of mind concerning Charlie. She didn’t just like him. She had designs on him.

Suddenly her move to Middlesex took on a whole new meaning. Sure, she’d meant to escape the city and Lyle’s proposal. But her motives had been more complicated, apparently. She’d been running away from one thing, but unconsciously running toward something else.

She wanted more than her little house in a cute New England town and more than a place to create her inventions. She wanted a certain kind of man to live in that house with her. A man pretty much like Charlie. Now that she’d found him, Denise couldn’t have him.

At least her sister wouldn’t show up until Thursday morning. If Eunice could keep Rick busy Wednesday night, then Eve would have time alone with Charlie. Just her, a sexy engineer, and a hovercraft in the garage together—the perfect setup to put some moves on her favorite nerd.

Chapter Five

The next two days moved slower than an overloaded circuit for Charlie, but finally Wednesday night arrived. The pizza was ordered and all he had to do was hop on his bike, run by his aunt Myrtle’s house, get Rick, pick up the pizzas, and head on over to Eve’s. Charlie had ordered three pizzas because he couldn’t decide what kind Eve would like.

He’d ended up with one plain cheese—something just about anybody could eat—one with pepperoni and sausage, which was your classic choice, and the third with all veggies, in honor of Eve’s veggie fuel. If she couldn’t find something to love in that group, then pizza wasn’t her thing.

Two guys and three pizzas on one motorcycle would be tricky, but Charlie was up for it. Still, his life would have been easier if Rick could have picked up the pizzas and met him there. Instead, Rick had loaned his car to Manny and Kyle, who had driven to Hartford on an emergency run for the bakery.

For two days Charlie had tried not to think about the bakery. He’d gone out of his way to avoid driving past it. So long as he didn’t talk to his mother or his aunt, so long as he didn’t drive by the bakery and see some titillating sign out front, he could believe that the booby bun craze was over.

Apparently Charlie’s mother and Aunt Myrtle were treating Manny and Kyle like family, which meant they got to run errands for the bakery. Rick would have been sent to get them if he hadn’t mentioned that he and Charlie were going over to Eve’s at six. The evening had been billed as nothing more than a social occasion. Charlie trusted his mother and his aunt, but the fewer people who knew about Eve’s project, the better.

Consequently he’d asked Rick to listen for the motorcycle and be ready to leave immediately to forestall any discussion. But when Charlie arrived, his mother’s red Volkswagen Beetle was sitting in the drive of Aunt Myrtle’s two-story clapboard house. Nobody came to the door when he rang the bell, so he just went in, because his aunt never locked the door.

That’s when he heard the kind of laughter and chatter in the kitchen that indicated that Aunt Myrtle and his mother were in old-fashioned mode. Charlie wasn’t an old-fashioned fan. The sugar, the cherry, and the orange wedge seemed like a fine way to eliminate the taste of good whiskey. But his mother and Aunt Myrtle thought it was the height of sophistication.

Rather than get sucked into that program, Charlie stayed in the entryway. "Rick?" he called out. "Time to get moving!"

"Come on back here, Charlie!" Rick sounded in no mood to rush off. "You have to get a look at this cookie cutter!"

Knowing it was probably a mistake, Charlie walked into the kitchen and found his mother, Aunt Myrtle, and Rick at the old oak table at the end of the kitchen with the familiar squatty glasses in their hands and the smell of oranges in the air. Judging from the flushed faces, Charlie estimated Aunt Myrtle had served a couple of rounds already.

Neither of the two sisters had been born with red hair, but they went to the same hairdresser so they both had red hair now. Aunt Myrtle was the tallest and thinnest, and Charlie’s mother was the oldest and plumpest. She was forever trying to diet, but she loved to cook, which was her downfall.

Nobody would have guessed Aunt Myrtle was the younger of the two widows. Twenty-seven years of marriage to Jasper Bannister combined with the cigarettes she’d finally given up had taken its toll on poor Aunt Myrtle. Charlie didn’t think she’d been all that sorry to see her husband leave this world at the age of forty-eight, but he was absolutely positive she missed the cigarettes.

Rick had a catalog in front of him. "You have to see this stuff," he said. "Who knew?"

Charlie didn’t want to know. One quick glance at the catalog was more than enough for him. "It’s quarter to six," he said. "We need to go."

"Hold on a minute." Rick held up the open catalog and turned it so Charlie could see. "Check this out."

Charlie could either come off as a prude in front of his much cooler cousin or look at the catalog. The cookie cutter was, as he’d feared, X-rated. The picture wasn’t only of the cookie cutter, of course. Included was a decorated vanilla sugar cookie. The frosting filled in every last detail, leaving no doubt what the cookie couple was doing.

"Innovative." Charlie could feel the heat rising from the collar of his flannel shirt.

"We’re embarrassing Charlie," Aunt Myrtle said. "He’s turning red."

"He’ll get over it." Rick flipped the catalog page. "And look at this. In case your couple isn’t Caucasian, we have the chocolate version and the gingerbread version. I’m not sure how it works if you have a multicultural couple, though."

"You have to go with dual dough," Charlie’s mother said. "But vanilla will work for this couple, which is good because we have a time crunch."

Charlie decided that in this case, ignorance was not bliss. "You say that like you’re talking about a specific couple."

"Oh, we are!" Aunt Myrtle said in her deep smoker’s voice. "These will be for Jill’s bachelorette party Friday night. That’s why we sent Manny and Kyle into Hartford. We didn’t have time for the cutter to be shipped."

Charlie vaguely remembered that there was a wedding coming up in Middlesex, which meant almost everybody in town would be going to either the bachelor or the bachelorette party. "You’re actually going to make these cookies." He battled a sinking sensation. "Did someone ask for them?"

"In a way." Charlie’s mother gave him a coy glance. "I haven’t had a chance to tell you, Charlie, but the bakery seems to be going in a different direction. A very profitable direction, I might add."

"I told him something about it on Monday night." Rick winked at Charlie. "Right, cuz?"

"Yeah, but I thought. . . well, Middlesex doesn’t seem like the place for … I’m just surprised that people .. ." He balanced precariously between happiness and embarrassment. On the one hand, he was thrilled to see his mother so excited about something, but on the other, why did it have to be X-rated baked goods?

"Puritan blood, Charlie." His mother looked smug. "Myrtle and I were surprised, too, but then we figured it out. Nobody’s more interested in the topic of sex than folks who have Puritan blood in their veins."

"Makes sense to me." Rick studied the cookie picture. "And these cookies should scratch that itch for the Friday night deal. There’s a lot of detail in here."

Too much detail, as far as Charlie was concerned. Besides, he didn’t want to have his mind on sex when he was about to go over to Eve’s. He’d thought this through and had decided that because of the timing, he couldn’t get involved with Eve. He could only help her with the hovercraft.

"It’s the detail in the frosting that will take us so many hours," Aunt Myrtle said. "We could really use some help."

Charlie backed away, hands out. "I’m not helping frost. My evenings are booked."

His mother laughed. "I wasn’t going to ask, but now that you mention it, we might get Manny and Kyle to do it. They’re nice boys, and I’ll bet they’d help. We need to get most of them done tonight, because we have to start on the wedding cake tomorrow night. Some extra hands would be a lifesaver."

For some reason Rick got a huge charge out of that. "Yeah, ask Manny and Kyle. I’ll bet they’d love to."

"We will, then." Charlie’s mother looked ten years younger tonight. "We’ll have a frosting party."

Charlie decided to comfort himself with his mother’s cheerful mood. "And now we really have to go," he said.

"Right." Rick drained his glass and stood. "See you two entrepreneurs later."

"Have a good time!" Charlie’s mother called after them as they headed for the front door. "That Eve’s a very nice girl!"

Rick lowered his voice as he pulled on his coat. "You do realize she wants to match you up with Eve, right?"

Charlie snorted. "No. Where’d she get a wild idea like that?"

"The word’s out that you had a pool date on Monday, and you’re going over to her house tonight, so gossip has you engaged by next week."

"I hope this isn’t some plan to keep me in Middlesex." Charlie followed Rick out the door and down the steps to the motorcycle parked in the drive.

"Nah. Your mom understands that you’re hoping to get that job in Nevada. She just wants grandkids."

"I barely know Eve." Except that didn’t seem true. Although they hadn’t met until Monday afternoon, he’d felt an instant sexual attraction. On top of that, he’d recognized a kindred spirit. He knew Eve because he knew himself.

"Whatever you say. I’m only reporting the word around the breakfast table is that you’re stuck on her." He handed Rick his spare helmet. "Well, I’m not." Yet.

Denise was coming. Eve had been trying not to panic for two days, but her self-talk wasn’t working. The minute she hit the front door her tummy started to churn. Denise was so neat, so together, so critical. She would take one look at the clutter that was Eve’s life and—

My door is unlocked. She had a moment of panic. She didn’t have anything valuable in the house except the hovercraft, but what if vandals had come in?

She almost stumbled over the big box sitting in her entryway, and then remembered that Eunice had taken delivery of the new engine while she was gone.

Although FedEx could have delivered packages to Eunice’s house, Eve liked this arrangement better. Then neither of them had to lug heavy boxes across the yard.

Okay, so Eunice had forgotten to lock the door after her. That could happen. And it wasn’t like New York where a locked door was critical to life as she knew it. The Middlesex police report might include a stolen bicycle and a speeder or two. That was about it.

And her engine had arrived! Once she’d pried the box open and looked inside at that gorgeous piece of equipment, she could barely make herself close the box. No doubt about it, she was obsessed with making the hovercraft fly using veggie fuel, and this engine was the key component. She resented every moment she had to spend doing something else.

Three months ago she’d searched the Internet for a supplier who would give her what she wanted, an engine small enough to fit into her hovercraft without adding excess weight and large enough to power her invention. Then she’d blown it up. Here was the replacement, and she wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.

With great reluctance she closed the flaps on the box. Now was not the time. Instead she had to brainwash herself into full cleaning mode, "cleaning" being a euphemism for shoving everything out of sight.

But first she’d drag the engine box out to the garage and take another look at her beloved purple Slammer. After all, she hadn’t seen it since Tuesday morning. By the time she got the box through the kitchen door into the garage, she was puffing. But her baby sat there in all its magnificence waiting for the new engine. And thanks to some fuel research she’d done on the Internet while she was in New York plus the book she’d read on the train, she had some ideas for that, too.

In fact, she ought to make some notes before she lost track of what she’d read in the hotel room last night. After turning on the space heater to warm up the garage, she crossed to her workbench and looked for the pile of notes she’d left there. For some reason they weren’t under the Darth Vader mask paperweight where she always kept them.

That was irritating. Her workbench wasn’t the most orderly place in the world. Nothing in this house was what anyone would call orderly, but she’d always been able to find her notes. She checked everywhere else they might be, even inside the cockpit of the hovercraft. Nothing.