Double Clutch:

A Brenna Blixen Novel

Book 1

by Liz Reinhardt

Double Clutch: a pattern of breathing in which a runner inhales two breaths

for every one breath exhaled.

Chapter 1

My mom waltzed into my room early on the morning of my first day of high school back in Sussex County, NJ, after a year in Denmark, and I breathed a sigh of relief that she kissed my forehead like it was my first day of kindergarten instead.

“Good morning, Brenna.” She smoothed back my short, blunt bangs, which had been very cool in Denmark. I hadn’t seen them on anyone here when we were shopping at Wal-Mart and Target for back to school stuff. I shuddered a little when I noticed a good chunk of the girls had big bows tied around their high ponytails, like they should have been wearing poodle skirts and saddle shoes too. My bangs might as well have been a neon mohawk based on the open-mouthed stares I got.

“Morning, Mom.” I slid a look at her out of the corner of my eye. People always talked about how they thought their mother was the most beautiful woman in the world when they were little kids, but I still felt that way. My mom wasn’t beautiful in a lots-of-hairspray, full-of-herself way, like women were when they regretted having kids and wound up trying hard to stay physically perfect. My mom had soft, freckled skin and a cleft in her chin and blue-gray eyes, like the sky in summertime when thunderclouds rolled in. She had the softest, most delicate hands, and any perfume that smelled good in a bottle smelled incredible on her skin. I loved her fiercely, and to protect her, I swallowed around the lump that seemed to swell by the second in my throat from pure, raw nerves.

“Don’t be nervous.” My mom was a fortune teller when it came to reading my thoughts.

“I am not.” I raised my eyebrows, mostly to keep the tears from plopping out of my eyes. “I am world traveled.” Funny how glamorous our little joke still sounded. Like we sunbathed on the Riviera or strolled through Paris modeling all the latest fashions for a year. In fact, we spent most of our time holed up in a quaint, centuries-old dairy farm and read books. A lot of books.

“Don’t I know it.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled.

I smiled back. “We already conquered The Scarlet Letter. What more can they throw at me?”

Mom guided me through a home school program in Denmark, because there was no way I could curl my tongue around Danish fast enough to be eligible for even elementary school. Since I breezed through the thin ninth-grade packet and moved on to devour the tenth just to do something other than stare at the fields around our house, I was a technical sophomore. But being ahead didn’t mean school would be a breeze, because this year I would be attending two schools.

Mom pursed her lips and squinted at me a little. “Are you sure tech school is a good idea?”

“It’s Share Time, Mom,” I pointed out.

It meant I would be spending half my day at the regular academic high school and half my day at the vocational technical school down the road. Share Time students, or Techies, as they’re called, graduate with a regular diploma. But Techies might as well wear a big scarlet ‘T’ on their shirts as far as academic high schoolers are concerned, and I was trying not to dwell on the whole outcast thing anymore than I had to.

“It’s tech school.” Mom rolled it off her tongue like she was trying to spit a bad taste out of her mouth.

She graduated, six months pregnant with me, from an academic high school. She should have gone on for more schooling right away, but she had to put it off for years to raise me. My mom has always been one of the most brilliant people I’d ever met, degree or no.

“Don’t say it like that.” I tug on her little hand. I didn’t get my hands from her. Mine are long and bony with short, thin nails and bumpy knuckles. “It’s only half the day. I still get a good academic thing in the morning. When we did all of that photography and silk-screening in Denmark, I was really interested. Technical art is a skill you can keep forever. And it will help when I want to get a job. More than throwing pots and making macramé will, but you never get upset when I take an art class. Haven’t you always taught me to be self sufficient?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” She closed her eyes and kissed me by my ear, hard. “You want breakfast?” I let out a small sigh of relief; the tech conversation was over for the day.

“How about oatmeal?” Hot oatmeal had never been high on my list of foods before, but I’d acquired a taste in Denmark and couldn’t shake it now.

I rolled out of bed and stood like a dazed alien in my own room. On one hand it was so familiar, I could see every detail when I closed my eyes. On the other, it was another world. It was exactly the same as the day Mom decorated it when I was nine, the year Mom married Thorsten. Every detail was like I remembered it, right down to the lace-edged gingham curtains. I always felt comfortable in it, felt like it was a part of me, until the day we got off the plane and I opened the door and stood, shocked, looking at my private space with new eyes. Really new eyes.

Lilac walls complimented a patchwork bedspread. Over the bed hung three pictures of cats doing cute, silly things like batting at girls’ petticoats. The rug was black and white checked over a wood floor. The tall, white dresser was filled with clothes I hadn’t worn for over a year. I pulled open the creaky drawers and took out piece after piece slowly, surprised by how little sense they made. When did I ever like clothes like this? And, more importantly, why? They were mostly plain crewnecks and polos and unflattering jeans with glitter and heavily stitched logos on them. I had two pairs of Keds and a pair of penny loafers in the closet. These clothes were so unlike me, I felt like I was looking through a little kid’s dress-up trunk.

I pulled my suitcase from under the bed, and vowed that I really would unpack. Soon.

The clothes in my suitcase were the only part of the room that felt real to me, and my stomach clenched with excitement as I dug through for the perfect first-day-of-school outfit for a new year and a new me. I took out my slim midnight black jeans, a pair of black Chuck Taylors, my favorite black and purple striped sweater, and a tight black v-neck t-shirt to go underneath.

I yanked a brush through my long, light-brown hair, and imagined it a come-hither red or a daring black. Mom cut my bangs herself, happily, but she told me hair-dye was a mistake that could wait until I was older. I ran the toothbrush in slow circles around my teeth and tried to swallow back the acidic churn in my gut.

As I smoothed my makeup on, I thanked Odin for all that time in the Danish countryside with Mom’s Cosmopolitan magazines and no soda. My skin, which was a little lumpy and gross in middle school, smoothed out and became the perfect canvas for hours of cosmetic experiments in Denmark. If the retro-disco look ever caught on like Cosmopolitan promised it would, I would have hours of practice with metallic eyeshadow and false eyelashes under my belt.