Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз (книги полностью бесплатно TXT) 📗

But, of course, they didn’t. We hung out in the kitchen, and Mom made us tea.

I ran my fingers over the wood grain of the long table, my hand weaving back and forth over the swirling patterns and designs.

“I saw one of the members of the Rotary Club at Dairy Queen,” Thorsten said.

“What’s Rotary Club?” I sipped my sweet, milky tea.

Mom sat down by Thorsten, and I could tell by the way her eyes sparkled that it had something to do with me. Mom reserved a lot of her excitement for things concerning me.

“It’s a group of community leaders who do social things,” Mom said. “And they have this study abroad program!” Thorsten took a large envelope and slid it across to me. “That’s just the simple brochure,” Mom explained. “He had some copies in his car. But we’re on the mailing list to get the complete brochure.”

I opened the envelope and turned the pages of the glossy catalog, looked at the pictures of kids on ski slopes and swimming in rivers and wearing what looked like German lederhosen. “This looks really cool,” I said, only lying a tiny bit. “But I don’t think I can take another year off of high school.”

“They have a summer program.” Thorsten flipped through and pointed to the summer program page for me. “These are a little more like camps. The one in Ireland is a creative writing camp. There’s one in Iran that does archeology.”

Mom wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know about Iran,” she said, making no attempt at political correctness. “But wouldn’t Ireland be amazing?”

They started to get me excited. “There’s a website. I’ll check it out before I go to bed.”

We smiled and talked and laughed for a while, and when they were finally ready for bed, I went to my room too, clutching the envelope.

On one hand I wanted to go so badly I was practically packing in my head. This other tiny, little part of me wondered what I would miss if I left for a whole summer. There were a lot of normal teen things that I kind of wanted to do. Like go to field parties. Or go to the shore. Or spend mind-blowing hours kissing my new boyfriend.

If that’s what Jake was.

Or would be.

I checked out the website and read the testimonials, which ran the range from pure cheesiness to what sounded like honest life-changing experience. It seemed like it would be pretty awesome.

I put my pajamas on, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and tried to pop an enormous zit that was forming on my chin. Unfortunately it was just big and painful. I put a little cream on it—the kind that advertises your zit will be gone in twenty-four hours but never ever works, at least, not on me – and tried to relax. My brain refused to cooperate on that one.

I went back to Golding, now even more preoccupied, and forced myself through the required chapters and notes before I closed the book and put it in my bag. I looked at the Folly CD cover, trying to get inspiration, but it was pretty bland. Just the band name and a black background with green splatter all over the back. I listened to a few more of their songs, trying to get a feel for what I would put on a shirt if I did manage to design one.

And finally, the phone rang. I didn’t want to admit how much I’d been waiting for it, but I had been. And it never crossed my mind to play games like waiting for it to ring a few times or keeping my voice even when I answered, because I didn’t feel like I needed to hide anything from Jake or pretend with him.

“Jake!”

“That’s a nice greeting.” I could hear his smile over the phone.

“I’m glad you came over today.” I listened to the sound of metal jangling and hitting something. I imagined he was emptying the change out of his pockets and putting his keys down.

“Me too.”

“Did it take you long to get home?” I walked over to my window and put my hand against the freezing pane. I shivered when I imagined flying through fields and woods on a night like tonight.

“No,” he said too quickly, then changed the subject. I knew he was lying to me, but I let it go. If I knew that it had taken forever and he’d been freezing the whole time, I’d have to tell him not to come again. And I knew neither one of us wanted that.

“So there’s this movie theater in Newton.” He paused. “They play, like, random older movies. So tomorrow they’re going to play Footloose and Dirty Dancing,” he said with a groan.

And I squealed and got all girlishly excited. “Jake! That’s awesome!” I gushed. “How did you know I love them?”

“Because you’re a girl,” he pointed out. “And because you have both Dirty Dancing and More Dirty Dancing soundtracks on your shelf.”

I felt a little embarrassed. “I forgot about my CDs.” I had transferred most of them to my iPod, but some I kept for sentimental value.

“So, I’m too lame to be able to pick you up,” he said dryly, “but I thought if your parents could drop you off, I could buy your ticket and popcorn and candy. If you want to.” He waited a second before adding a rushed, “Or not.”

A date! My first date! “No. I want to. I do. What time is it?” I danced around my room and silently screamed with excitement.

“The first movie starts at two o’clock.”

“I’ll be there. Do you mind if I invite my friend Kelsie?” I fell back on the bed and clutched a throw pillow to my chest. Kelsie would love this.

“Kelsie Jordan?” he said, and I felt the clench in my stomach that I started to associate with finding unexpected things out about Jake.

“That’s the one. Do you know her?” I held my breath and waited on the edge of a precipice for him to answer.

“Just from being around.” His voice didn’t sound weird or upset. “Bring her. It’ll be fun.” I could tell from his tone he was mildly let down I’d crashed our date.

“It’s just, if I ask my parents to randomly drop me off at a movie theater, they’re going to want to know who I’m going with, and I don’t want them to get all crazy if it’s a date.” I stopped. “It is a date, right?”

“Seriously, Brenna? I’m asking you to meet me in public to see two girlie dance movies. This is all about me trying to impress you.”

I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle the insane giggles that threatened to overtake me. I had to take a deep breath before I could calmy say, “Let me call Kelsie and check, and I’ll call you back, ok?” I thought about it. “Or are you beat? I know you worked all day, then came over here.”

“No, I’m not beat. And I definitely want you to call back. Even if it’s late. I’ll wait for you.”

We clicked off, and I dialed Kelsie’s number with fingers shaking from pure excitement. It rang and rang and she finally picked up.