Chapter Twenty-Eight (Part Two)

Author's note: Thanks all of you for being very patient with me while I went through my life issues (my computer going kaput, my dental drama, my flu drama, and my work drama). I don't know what I'd have done without your support. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress. Don't worry, our geek chick hasn't gone anywhere ;-)

The diffuse sunlight beamed over Chester Gieke's off-campus apartment, filtering in through his bedroom window, illuminating the leaves outside. He had come to college to study the vagaries of science and the technology of robotics, but had recently found himself spending more time studying the mysteries of the fairer sex. He understood a lot of things he'd read in books, but he didn't understand women, he concluded.
Chester didn't have any illusions about his appearance. His stringy red hair and thick glasses turned off a lot of potential targets. Or so he thought. But, what did he know? He'd spent most of his spare time in the company of electronic creatures made of metal and wires, not real human beings with human feelings.
He spent his teen years in Strangetown with his uncle, Dieter, a master robot maker and gadget head, and his cousins.
Of course, Chester had made the acquaintance of a few females during his time at Le Tour, but he didn't have any "special friends." They often called him to complain about their loser boyfriends, and he'd calmly listen and even commiserate. He didn't understand why they continued to date these "jerks."
That day he woke up, as usual, and did his assignment from the day before, and ate his usual bacon and cheese omelette for breakfast. He attempted to watch a little TV to pass the time until his physics class started. Failing that, he walked upstairs to one of his computers and checked his online personals. "Hi Ubergieke, SweetiePie here. I got your last message. I'm a Pisces of the knowledge aspiration. I have blond hair and green eyes. My interests include weather, travel, sports, and paranormal. If you're interested, give me a holler back."
I wonder who this girl is? Chester wondered. Perhaps I've seen her before. She certainly sounds like she's familiar.
Chester had not had much luck with the opposite sex. He'd never had a steady girlfriend, because most of the girls he'd ever met had regarded him as too 'geeky' for their tastes.
Just then the phone rang. It was his buddy Edwin Sharpe. And he sounded upset. "What's going on?" Chester asked.
In a rushed manner, Edwin proceeded to tell Chester all about what happened with Delilah.
"Dang!" Chester exclaimed. "And I thought I had bad luck when it comes to women. Welcome to the club."
"I really thought it would be different this time," Edwin said sadly.
"Geeks like us don't get hot girls," Chester said. "Hey, Mel just picked up Command and Conquer, wanna come see?"
Edwin couldn't believe his ears. "How'd she manage to get that? That's been sold out for ages."
"Hah, you forget she's the Tinker toy heir. She can get what she wants."
"I'll be right over, as soon as my class is done."
Like clockwork, Edwin showed up. Chester greeted him with a high five that missed badly. After they laughed it off, they sat down in front of the TV. Edwin leaned over and picked up the empty cartridge. "Command and Conquer, eh?" he asked.
"Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out all morning."
Edwin picked up the controller. "Why are women so complicated?" he asked, out of the blue.
Chester shook his head. "I wish I knew. I guess I'll never be able to get them." He proceeded to tell Edwin about his last date, which ended with a flaming bag of poo in his mailbox.
After a few minutes Edwin commented, "Melody's a girl," his thumb hurting from the constant pressure of pressing the red button on his controller.
Chester grinned, determined to win this round. "Yeah," he replied, watching yet another beast disintegrate under his character's mighty weapon, "but Mel's different, you know. She's cool."
"Cool?" Edwin asked, laughing. "You two are Siamese twins, practically inseparable. What's up with that?"
Chester grinned again. "Mel and I met in a chat room, ages ago it seems. We started chatting to each other."
"What chat room was that?" Edwin wondered.
"It was the alien conspiracy chatroom on SimSpace."
Edwin laughed. "I used to go to that chatroom and I never met girls like Mel in there."
"Well you didn't go in there at the right times, it seems. She was in there a lot." He then proceeded to tell Edwin how he ran into Melody face to face.
"So she applied for your assistant position at the Ledger."
"I didn't think she was serious," Chester said. "But she was. Then we started talking, and it just seemed like we'd known each other for years. Then it dawned on me who she was. Tinkerbell from the chatroom. I was positively bowled over. Here she was, this tall dark beauty. I expected someone completely different."
Edwin laughed. "You sound like you like her."
"Of course I like her."
"You know what I mean -- I mean like, like, her. Like you have a crush on her."
Chester sighed. "Mel and I have a deep connection," he said, without revealing to him their experiments with the cowplant.
Edwin gazed over at Chester. "Oooh, somebody's got a crush on somebody!"
"I do not!" Chester protested weakly. But he had to wonder to himself. Did he?

Meanwhile, unlike Chester and Edwin, Chaz Whippler had a different problem when it came to women. He juggled many of them at once -- yet, in a way, he, too had bad luck. His tendency was to go after girls who were way out of his league. Granted, with his grant money he'd only managed to recently purchase a double bed to lure them, and he was doing all this in the confines of the dormitory, but if he was anything he was resourceful. He was most intrigued by the scent of ladies' perfume, and he liked to follow it as far as he could.
Occasionally, Chaz's mind would drift towards Melody. Melody? Now, that girl was a mystery if there ever was one. But for some reason he couldn't do anything to her. Was it just because she was tutoring him in math and had helped him to pass that semester? He already figured she had a great body underneath that T-shirt and jeans. And her geeky glasses concealed lovely brown eyes. But still, Chaz thought, there was something else about her that caught his eye.
Realizing that Melody was a health freak (he'd never seen her eat anything more than a salad), he knew that inviting her for a burger at the local 'greasy spoon' would definitely never win her over. Besides, he'd watched as she ate, hardly picking at her plate and shoving it aside with a grimace. He'd had no difficulty approaching women. But how on earth was he going to approach THIS woman?
On this day, though, he was entertaining Ellie Frost, a pretty, tanned, long-legged stunner he'd been chasing, but he'd so far been unable to lure to his bed. Why are you after Ellie? he asked himself. She's nothing like you, she's money-aspired.
"Charles," Ellie called, sitting along the side of the bed. "I told you, you've got to make yourself more presentable!"
"Ellie, babe, if you've been dealing with cars all day, how are you supposed to look?"
Ellie haughtily dusted herself off. "Look, Charles," she demanded, refusing to call him by his nickname Chaz, "I really like you. You're fun and charming. But --"
"What's the 'but' about it?"
Ellie was brutally honest. "You're not my type."
Chaz scoffed. "What is your 'type' then? Stuffy suits like Fin Furley?"
Ellie shook her head. "Charles, Fin and I are friends, that's all."
"I see the way you look at him."
"I don't 'look' at Fin any differently than anybody else around here. Besides, you know what I'm after. I want to get out of here as soon as I can so I can start building my business empire."