Double Clutch (5 page)

It wasn’t even like I was really thinking about it. I just followed my feet and wound up sitting next to him.

“
Hey.” He radiated happiness. “How were the other two classes?”

“
Good.” I basked in his glow. “So do you do Share Time or do you stay at Tech all day?”

“
I’m a full day Techie.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “My grades were pretty crappy in middle school.”

“
Really?” If someone asked what the first word I thought of when I thought of Jake was, I would say…well,
hot.
And
sweet.
But
focused
and
hardworking
would make the top five, no doubt.

“
Yeah. I have dyslexia.” Jake moved his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed self-consciously. “I know a lot of people say that they have it, but it’s pretty rare.”

“
Didn’t you get help for it?”

“
Oh yeah. My teachers were really good. But it’s just a huge struggle for me to read. I kind of hate it.” He bumped the toe of his boot on the table leg absently.

“
But
The Odyssey
?” I asked, confused.

He smiled. It was crooked. I loved it. “Some books on tape are really good. That one was.”

“
That’s the same as reading,” I protested.

He looked at me and his crooked smile stretched out over his whole face. “Yeah, okay. Like drafting is the same as carpentry. I’m a dumbass, Brenna, whether you want to admit it or not.”

It took a minute for it to sink in that he was serious. “A dumbass doesn’t speak the way you do. I can tell just from talking to you that you’re smart.”

He blushed a little and we smiled shyly, then went back to work. I felt warm from the inside out every time I looked his way. When the bell rang, Jake followed me down the long hall and finally put a hand on my shoulder.

“
Where are you going?” he asked. “The parking lot is over here.”

“
I rode my bike in.”

He didn’t bat an eyelash. “Cool. Where do you live?”

“
Augusta. I live on Dickerson. Off of Plains Road.”

“
Oh. I live in the Lake.”

“
The Lake” was Lake Neapolin, the butt of most of Sussex County’s jokes. It was rumored to be the dirtiest lake in the county, and no one ever swam there. Houses around the lake were typically dilapidated. Back in the 50’s they had been cute little summer homes, but in the 80’s people bought them up to live in permanently. So they were kind of summery and cute, but also prone to being kind of run-down and neglected.

“
Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I gave him a friendly wave. Jake smiled his crooked smile and I felt my heart thud faster in my chest.

I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.

I remembered to call my mom before I biked home, and thought about stopping at Frankford to talk to Coach Dunn, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I wanted to ride as fast as possible because I knew Mom was timing me down to the second. If I took too long, she would make me get on the bus tomorrow. By the time I rode into the driveway, she was peering out the kitchen window.

Our kitchen was awesomely designed. It was open, with the kitchen and dining room connected, and the entire front wall had nice big windows so you could see our wide front yard and the thick tree line that bordered the edge of our property. Our house was on a tiny, quiet back road. Only half of our road was even paved; half of it was still dirt and loose gravel. It always cracked people up that we still lived on a dirt road, but I liked it that way. It meant that not many people chose to use our road, and that was fine by me. I loved living in a cozy, tucked-away place.

I came in through the garage, kicking off my Chucks at the door.

“
Hey Mom!” I pretended that I was surprised to see her standing there. “Oh, were you waiting for me?”

She didn’t say a word, just came over and grabbed my face and pinched my ears.

“
Ow!” I squeaked. “Mom, what are you doing?”

“
You’re frozen.” She shook her head. “You’re going to get frostbite. This isn’t going to work, Brenna. I can’t believe it’s this damn cold and we’re only in September. Winter is going to be miserable this year.”

“
I just need to wear a hat. Mom, I like riding my bike. You should be happy. At least I’m not some obese lazy teenager. Imagine if I weighed four hundred pounds and you had to home school me because I couldn’t fit through doorways at school.” I grabbed an apple from a bowl on the table and crunched down on it. “You’d be sad,” I said around the bite.

“
I’ll be sad when you’re hit by a car or your ears turn black and fall off from frostbite. Do you want a sandwich?”

Mom wasn’t big into cooking, and since we’d moved back to the States, she’d been even worse. In Denmark, I’d been around all day to help with cooking and cleaning, but now it all fell to her. It wasn’t that my mom was lazy or anything like that. She just got bored doing things all by herself.

“
Yeah. I’ll make them. You go relax,” I offered.

“
That’s okay, baby. I’ve been relaxing all day. Thorsten switched schedules with another guy today, so he ran some errands and I had time to myself. He‘s got to go back in tomorrow, though.”

Thorsten worked on the show
Saturday Night Live
on NBC, so he had to commute to New York City and stay overnight. I only ever saw him in the morning most of the time, and sometimes on Sunday. I had been really worried about living with him for a whole year in Denmark, but he’s a laid back guy, and we got along really well.

“
I had a good day. Some of the girls from elementary school saw me and they were nice. Do you remember Meg and Kelsie?”

“
The girl who was Annie in your school play?” she asked, and I nodded. “And of course I know Kelsie. It’s too bad she has such a low hairline. She could be very pretty.”

I rolled my eyes, but she didn’t see me. “My classes seem pretty good. I’m reading
Lord of the Flies
now.”

Mom groaned. “Didn’t you already read that one?”

“
Yeah. It’s not so bad. It’s always cool to see what a new teacher says about things. And I ran cross country today. Apparently I beat some unofficial school record for most laps in a period.”

“
Wow.” Mom raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were such a fast runner.”

“
I’m not.” I examined my apple quizzically. “I think I have endurance. I mean, I wasn’t sprinting. Coach Dunn wants me to try out for the cross country team.”

“
That might be fun.” Mom looked at me from the corner of her eye to see if I would agree.

I took everything out for sandwiches and was setting it all on the counter. I took a plate, put one plate in front of Mom, and we started to make our sandwiches, picking through tomato and lettuce and all of the meats.

“
It might be.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t it seem like they always want you to live at the field or track or whatever?”

“
I guess they think practice is important.” She shook a finger at me. “You don’t have to, Bren. You need to develop your ability to say no.”

This was another of my mom’s favorite lecture topics. She was always reminding me that it was my right to say no whenever I didn’t want something. Not in a corny ‘say no to drugs’ way, or even ‘say no to sex,’ just no in general. Like ‘no’ when someone offers you food you don’t want or ‘no’ when your friends want you to go get your nose pierced with them, or ‘no’ to a teacher who asks you to be her assistant if you don’t want to be. Saying no was actually a pretty hard trait to get a good hold on, especially with someone like Coach Dunn willing you to say yes.

“
So.” Mom took a bite out of her turkey and Swiss with extra tomato. “Any boys hanging around?”

I shrugged, praying that my cheeks didn’t get red. “I guess. You know, I’m the new girl, so there’s always that.”

“
Just remember, it’s better to date. Don’t get yourself hooked up with one person.”

Mom was madly in love with her high school sweetheart, who got her pregnant and then acted like a jerk. Mom severed contact with him, gave me her last name, and didn’t even acknowledge him on my birth certificate. She raised me alone until she met Thorsten, and I think she stuck with him mostly because on their first date, when she told him about me, he asked her to bring me on the second date.

He took us to a great pizza place and then we saw a kid’s movie at the drive-in. I sat tucked between the two of them like I was their daughter already. Mom had stars in her eyes from that day on. Thorsten was in, and he knew it, but I know that’s not why he did it. He just thought families were nice and important and he, my mom, and I made a good instant one.

“
I’m not even interested, Mom. School is going to be crazy enough without it. But I think Kelsie and I might start hanging out again.”

“
Good girl,” Mom smiled. “You always had a good head on your shoulders.”

I helped her clean up the kitchen and then went to my very purple room to think for a while. I thought about Saxon’s incredible eyes and his brilliance and the way he could match every joke I made. I thought about Jake and how humble and cute and sweet he was. It was a little embarrassing that I couldn’t think a little more about my classes and schedule, but how could they hold a candle?

I got out my binders and put everything in order. I hole-punched my worksheets and put those little color-coded tabs on my folder partitions. In short, I reveled in my dorky love of organizing my school supplies. I did my homework pretty quickly and was in the process of taking notes on
Lord of the Flies
when I heard a light knock at the door. I expected Mom, but it was Thorsten, looking uncomfortable. He didn’t really hang out in my room much, so it was always a little weird when he appeared out of nowhere.

“
Hey, Brenna.” He couldn’t hide his eager grin. “I know your birthday isn’t for a few weeks, but I wanted to give you this so you could start the school year right.” He handed me a messenger bag.

“
Thanks, Fa.” I reached for it, but when I went to take it, my arm almost gave out. “What’s in here?”

“
Open it up.” Thorsten tended to be a pretty calm guy, so it was strange to see this much anticipation on his face.

“
Oh my God,” I breathed. “You got me a laptop? Really?”

“
I thought you would need it for school. And I know you fill your journals up pretty quickly, so now you can have it all in one place. If you don’t like this model, we can switch it, but I did some research and I think this one is pretty good.”

“
Pretty good? Fa, this is top of the line. Thank you. So much.” I got up and we made our way towards one another awkwardly. I put my arms around him and hugged him hard. “Thank you. I’m going to use this so much.”

“
Well, I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to leave all of your friends and your school to come to Denmark.” Thorsten’s eyes are very light blue and his hair is very blonde, so he always looks kind of young and uncertain, but now he looked even more so than usual. “I just want you to know that I appreciate you doing it for me, and you didn’t even whine or anything.”

“
Fa, you’re good to us. I love you. I wouldn’t whine. Thank you so much.” For a second I thought about my biological father and was glad that he and Mom hadn’t wound up together just because of me. Because there couldn’t be a better guy than Thorsten to have as a dad.

Mom was right behind him and we took a few minutes to ogle over the new gadgets and all of the cool software that Thorsten had built in. I didn’t know much about computers, but I knew for a fact that this cost a huge chunk. Mom petted my hair and kissed my cheeks, and then she stopped suddenly.

“
Look at this room, Brenna!” she cried.

“
I’ll clean it up in a little bit.” I was surprised that she was so upset about my school stuff. Mom was usually pretty laid back.

“
No, Brenna,
look at this room
!” She put her hands up and shook them dramatically. “This is a little girl’s room. This is not the room of a world traveled teen. That’s it.”

“
What’s it?” I asked, but I felt energetic suddenly. Mom’s enthusiasm was always infectious.

“
My birthday gift to you. We’re going to redo your room.” She framed it out with her hands and moved them around like she was checking camera angles for the before and after pictures I knew she‘d want to take. “Whatever you like. Whatever you want.”

“
Even if I want black walls?” I tested.

“
Even if you want to paint blood dripping down them,” Mom said calmly. She knew I would never paint my room black, but even if I wanted to, she would find a way to make it look awesome. My mom could take the ugliest thing and make it amazing.

“
Thank you, guys.” I was looking forward to redecorating my room with them. Maybe it was because I was an only child, but I’d actually always liked having Mom and Thorsten around. We had fun together, but they weren’t always in my business. I could do things without having them breathing down my neck.

“
I have off this weekend. We’ll go to IKEA,” Thorsten suggested.