Lucky you

Laziness has led me to post a part of my novel on here. Enjoy! This is near the beginning and I chose it mostly because I wanted to introduce you to Glenn and Bakery Boy and it's the only part I've actually read over and edited a tiny bit. Don't hurt me.

Ro

Today wasn’t my normal classes. Today was the Saturday dance class for beginners. The difference between my classmates in this class and all my other classes was almost comical. It was all the stay at home moms out for a dance class to escape their hectic lives of shuffling their offspring from school to home, from after school activity to activity. That would never be me.

After our class we always headed over to the bakery next to the studio for a coffee. It was just me and The Moms, chatting about their mundane lives and my schoolwork and lack of a boyfriend. It made for good times.

I was standing there at the counter debating between a Danish, a triple chocolate cookie and a lemon square when a red headed, sort of cute in a weird way, boy came up to me.

“If you’re thinking about the lemon square, I can assure you that it’s 100% delicious. Magically delicious, even. It has the perfect combination of tangy tartness and sugar.”

“Is this an objective stand-point or do you have some personal interest in the subject?” I asked him with a smile.

This earned a chuckle from him, “Well, I did make them with my bare hands,” he held up ten fingers and wiggled them, “but that doesn’t mean what I say isn’t true. Would I lie to you?”

“I’ll have a lemon square, please.” I smiled and headed over to the cash register as he reached into the glass compartment to get my square. He then put it on a plate and sprinkled some icing sugar over it.

“That’ll be $2.95, plus your soul,” he said.

“Now I want the cookie, does the cookie cost me my soul?” I said.

“Why would you want the cookie? I sprinkled the sugar on this one just for you. I don’t do that for Mr. and Mrs. Templeton,” he gestured toward a couple of seniors sitting by the windows holding hands over the table like they were still in love even after sixty years of dirty socks and soggy breakfast cereal.

“Fine, I’ll eat your magically delicious lemon square. However, if it’s not as good as you say, I demand a refund,” I said, fishing around in my wallet for exact change.

“Granted. You can get it all back if you want it. Your lack of faith astounds me.” I passed over nine quarters, and a handful of pennies.

“As I grabbed the plate he had slid over to me he grabbed it too. “Are you sure you’re ready for the taste sensation that’s about to overcome your senses?” he asked, as I tried to wrestle the plate away from him.

“I’m ready. Give me my square.” He let go and I walked away, my long, black, unnaturally straight hair swinging behind me.

I headed back to our table where Linnie was telling us all about the troubles she was having in the effort to potty train her son, Kian.

You have to wonder what is going through a parent’s mind as they write Kian on a birth certificate. First of all, it sounds a little like a girl’s name, and second, do you really want your beloved child to be spelling out his name to dumb-founded peers, teachers and people in general for the rest of his life? That’s just mean spirited.

I’m glad that I have a somewhat normal name. I’ve only had to spell out my name once, and that women didn’t even speak English as her first language. Caroline is sufficiently ordinary without being commonplace like Megan or Jessica.

I listened to the parenting difficulties and ate my lemon square, which was just as tasty as it had been acclaimed to be. When it came time to talk about the teenager of the party, I was gracefully evasive and non-committal. They all smiled knowingly, pretending they actually understood me, and reminisced about their own teenage lives.

I know it sounds cynical and rude and more than a little cliché, but it’s true that these women don’t know a thing about me. I’m not blaming them, it’s just the truth. They each have their own personal image of me that reflects some part of themselves, and I’d say that that most of them aren’t at all interested in seeing if they’re right. I’m just another teenage girl, and that’s enough for them.

Eventually they all filed out, each giving an excuse such as laundry or picking Chardonae up from soccer practise. I had to stay. My workaholic mother, was—you guessed it—busy working, no surprise there, and thus could not pick me up for another fifteen minutes. In my mother’s world this translated to me sitting in the bakery for the next half hour at least.

Luckily, I was prepared. I pulled out my notebook and started doing homework. Not the most exciting stuff, but it had to be done at some point. Unfortunately—or fortunately depending on which way you look at it—I wasn’t alone for long.

“I see that you ate your entire square. Satisfying?” he plopped himself down in the chair opposite me.

“Yes, it was. My compliments go to the baker,” I said. He was still wearing his apron and his hair was slightly messed. I guess when you have short curly hair it always looks slightly messed. My brother was a testament to that as well.

---Now I skip over a part that I'm not overly fond of but will improve in the editing process. Ro is now home on the same day after a unenjoyable car ride with her mother.---

I was running up the steps to my room, not to get away from my mom but simply because I’m always running up stairs, when my twin brother Glenn called my name. Apparently he’d been waiting for me to get home. Unfortunately for me he followed me to my bedroom and took a seat on my computer chair. He sighed, dramatically. My twin was needy and clingy. If he didn’t have his own sports friends, he’d probably follow me around at school and eat lunch with my friends. I could happily ignore the fact that I had a twin and behave like a regular teenage girl does to her brother, but Glenn insisted we needed to have a connection so that we didn’t become some awful television show version of brother and sister who hated each other and were always caught up in one piece of drama or another. Glenn was... hard to explain.

“What is it Glenn? I’m exhausted from dance and dealing with our mother and I’d really just like to close the blinds, put on some music and jump up and down like a twelve year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. Don’t you have shirts to iron?”

“I’m sorry you have such a difficult life, but I need your help,” he smiled sarcastically at me. Glenn and I shared the same smile as well as a handful of other features. We had the same raven black hair—his was curly, as was mine when I didn’t spend nearly an hour after every shower straightening it—the same dark brown eyes and the same nose. We were also the same height, give or take an inch and my parents sometimes joked that our ears were remarkably similar.

“Okay, but when you’re done, instead of the Jo Bros, I’m going to blast some whiny rock music and sing along to that. And naturally, the sound is going to leak into your bedroom next door and maybe even the neighbours’ house. But you can still leave if you want,” I was hoping against hope that he’d leave me alone, but deep down I knew that when Glenn wanted to talk to you, Glenn was going to talk to you. There was nothing else I could do other than wrestle him to the floor and try to force him out. With, him being a muscular soccer player, the odds were not in my favour if it came to physical combat.

After considering that last option for about a second Glenn said, “Will you please stop being so selfish for five minutes? How was dance class?”

“I quit dance. All those desperate mothers and that little Kristina girl were seriously getting to me and I just snapped. Now I’ll be able to spend more time at home with you,” I said.

“Really?” he said. He was cautiously hopeful, while still being sympathetic to me. No one I know could pull this off but Glenn.

“No, Glenn, of course I didn’t. If I stopped going to dance I might spontaneously combust. No one wants that. Except maybe mom.”

He was accustomed to my dramatic tendencies and ignored it expertly.

“Be serious,” he complained, “I’m just trying to talk to you.” He paused for a moment, collecting himself, or maybe working up the courage to tell me he really was gay, “I need a girlfriend.”

“Oh thank God. I thought you were about to come out of the closet.” She thought about it. “This is the problem you need help with? You follow me like a puppy dog to my room and tell me not to be so dramatic and self centered and you want me to solve the impossible conundrum of your love life? Leave.”

“Fine, Ro. Be that way. I’m leaving.”

“’Be that way’? Who says ‘be that way’? Get a new catchphrase, Glenn. We left the 90’s behind a while ago.”

He ignored me. I sighed. At last I was alone. I grabbed my iPod, lay down on my bed, and wallowed in the patheticness that was my life.