Love Storm (18 page)

 
           "Sure," I said, glancing at her. "Do you even know how to drive?"

 
           "I know how to drive," she said indignantly, tapping her sneaker once. "I've taken my Driver's Ed. class, thank you very much. I have my permit. I drive perfectly well," she sniffed.

 
           "Perhaps."

 
           "I'll prove it to you," she said. "Let me drive on Sunday after you pick me up. We'll see who's laughing then."

 
           "Alright," I said in a purposefully skeptical tone of voice. She smacked me gently on the arm but let it slide with a reluctant smile.

 
          
~Tristan~

 
           I laughed along with everyone else at whatever stupid, pointless joke our star quarterback had just made, but my eyes kept being drawn over to two figures sitting next to each other on the far bleachers.

 
           Zack and Winter.

 
           What was he doing with her, I wondered. Perhaps the more pressing question was: what was
she
doing with
him
? I had thought that she couldn't stand his guts.

 
           Hmm… Perhaps I was witnessing a breakthrough. Either that, or Winter was more masochistic than I thought. Where was my sister? Shouldn't she be sitting with them?

 
           "Westley? Hey, West, are you even listening?" a laughing voice said to me quietly.

 
           "Huh?" I said. The guys liked calling me by my last name, which they had conveniently shortened to a simple "West", being the lazy people that they were. I turned and came face to face with a smirking Martin Rifkin.

 
           "Sorry Martin, what'd you say?" I asked, taking a bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with extra peanut butter, just the way I liked it.

 
           "I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't take these people's jokes," he muttered to me. I chuckled quietly. I always knew I had an ally in Martin. "I was asking you what you were so preoccupied with." We were conversing in low voices so as to not attract attention to ourselves. But as it was, it probably didn't matter anyway; all the idiots I sat with at lunch had lost too many brain cells to get anything through their heads other than football plays, and even
those
had to be drilled constantly into their heads.

 
           I shrugged. I didn't want to disclose too much information to Martin: I figured everyone was entitled to his or her own privacy, so though the fact that Zack and Winter were sitting together at lunch,
without Eva
, had not escaped me (big brother instincts kicking in, I think), I said nothing about it to Martin. "I dunno," I said, taking a swig of my water bottle. "Nothing, really."

 
           Martin nodded, probably figuring I didn't want to talk about whatever was on my mind. I spent the rest of my lunch hour sending periodical glances over to Zack and Winter, but nothing extraordinary happened. At the end of lunch, they bid each other farewell, and Winter made her way back to the school building while Zack headed in the opposite direction toward the boys locker rooms to change for PE. I followed Winter toward the school.

 
           "Hey," I said when I caught up to her, "How's life?"

 
           She smiled at me. "Well, I guess one can then question how much life can change in the 48 hours since I've last seen you."

 
           I raised my eyebrows. Sometimes Winter mystified me. "Care to come again?" I asked, falling in step beside her.

 
           She simply shook her head. "Later, my little confidant," she said vaguely.

 
           I chuckled at her choice of words. "Confidant?" I asked.

 
           "Sure," she said as we pushed past people at the front door to enter the building, our backpacks clashing and banging into others. "You
are
my confidant. Doesn't that mean I confide in you?"

 
           "Uhm, maybe," I said, pretending to be confused. "Winter, you
know
I'm not good at vocabulary."

 
           "Tristan, I know for a fact that you are excellent at vocabulary," she teased. After this, I lost her for a moment in the sea of students in the B hall, but found her again standing by a drinking fountain and waiting patiently for me to see her. I pushed my way past an impossible number of people before reaching her once again.

 
           "This hall is crazy after lunch," I muttered.

 
           "I know," she said as we started down the hall again. "Every day I half expect to trip and fall over someone. Oh, here's me."

 
           I waved goodbye to her and headed to my AP English class. I must not have been paying attention, because one second I was reading a bright orange flyer for the Chess Club as I passed by a bulletin, and the next I found something hard connecting with my foot in midair as I toppled rather ungracefully toward the cold linoleum floor in the middle of the hall. So much for my athletic grace.

 
           Someone groaned softly and I realized after a split second that I had landed on someone. A passing thought of the cliché-ness of this situation went through my brain before all I could register was the most beautiful pair of dark hazel eyes I'd ever seen in my entire life.

 
           "Oooh, I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I'm such a
klutz
–" She was trying desperately to shuffle her papers back into her purple binder, which had completely opened up, while apologizing.

 
           "That's alright," I said, picking up a textbook and handing it back to her.

 
           "Thanks," she muttered as I began helping her to straighten her papers. I snuck a peek at the name on one of them – "Katherine Lin". I glanced quickly at her as she messily stuffed some lined paper in the back of her binder. She was Asian. Oriental Asian – perhaps Chinese. Or maybe Japanese; I wasn't sure. At a first glance, her looks were unremarkable. A second would tell you otherwise – her dark eyes were the traditional almond shape, her skin lightly tan, and her medium length black hair was lustrous and shiny.

 
           I helped her up, and she blushed slightly when our hands made contact. "I'm sorry for bumping into you," I said. "I wasn't paying attention."

 
           "Neither was I," she smiled.

 
           "I'm Tristan," I said, offering her a hand which she shook.

 
           "Katherine," she replied. "Aww, I've really gotta run now," she wailed as the warning bell sounded, "I just know I'm going to be late for Richards again, and she'll get pissed off. Thanks for helping me with my stuff."

 
           "Anytime," I replied, and gave her a slight nod as she departed in the opposite direction. I continued my daily after lunch pilgrimage to English, but suddenly a thought turned itself over in my mind, and on impulse I turned around a second later, unconsciously searching out Katherine in the crowd. I found I didn't have to try – she, too, was looking over her shoulder, and as our eyes connected, I gave her a smile before I found I had bumped into yet
another
person while my attention had been diverted.

 
           "Brother, you should watch where you're going!" It was said in a teasing manner.

 
           My head snapped up. Only one person ever called me 'brother'. "Hey Eva," I said.

 
           She grinned at me before entering a classroom on my right. I turned around again, hoping for another sight of Katherine, but she was gone.

~*~*~*~

            "Why didn't I think of this sooner? You're a
genius
!" I rambled.

 
           Winter waved a hand lazily in acknowledgement. "
Now
you figure it out. Come on Tristan, get with the program already. Everyone knows Winter Bruin is a genius extraordinaire."

 
           I scowled at her.

 
           "Hey, hey, what's the look for? Remember, I'm a genius that has just figured out the brilliant solution to all your monetary problems."

 
           "I could have asked someone else. I could have asked Zack. He would've given me the same answer. I could have asked my dad – he would have given me the same answer too. I could have asked Mom. I also could have asked E–"

 
           I stopped abruptly, realizing what I had been on the brink of saying. I continued instead, hurriedly, "The point is, I should start looking for a job to get the dinero I so desperately need right now."

 
           "Don't you have a bank account?" she asked me out of the blue.

 
           "Yea," I said, scratching my head. I automatically turned on the sink faucet and began rinsing the used mugs and cups the kids had left.

 
           "That's what I thought," Winter said. "You get statements every three months." She was lounging in one of the many sturdy chairs around our dining table, stirring a spoon in her cereal dregs. We had just put dinner into the oven.

 
           "Have you been going through my mail again?" I asked incredulously, putting a clean glass on the drying rack.

 
           "No, you always leave your statements open on the counter after you receive them," she replied. "I look over them. Four thousand dollars is a really, really good start Tristan," she said earnestly.

 
           "Yeah, I'll need more than that though," I muttered. "Dad'll pay for the textbooks, which are expensive, but I'll need more than four thousand dollars to take care of the extra costs. I can't maintain myself and my car on that for four years."

 
           "
That's
why you need a job," she concluded for me matter-of-factly.

 
           I stopped. "What am I going to do?"

 
           "I don't know," she said thoughtfully.

 
           We were quiet for a while, the only sound in the kitchen the ticking of the clock and the steady splash of water as I methodically washed the cups.

 
           "Where's Eva?" Winter suddenly asked me, casually.

 
           I jumped and accidentally knocked over a plastic cup. "Uhh, I'm not sure," I said cautiously.

 
           She only nodded in response. "You could work at a book shop. I saw a 'Hiring Now' sign up at Borders the other day."

 
           It took me a moment to re-adjust. Talking to Winter required one to constantly pay attention in order to keep up, though quick subject changes only occurred when she had more than one pressing thought on her mind. "I don't think so," I said. "Could you see me working at a book shop? Like Borders or Barnes and Noble or something?"

 
           She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. "Nah. Maybe… you could work aa-at," she drew out the word, her eyes drifting upwards to look at the ceiling. All of a sudden something lit up in her eyes and she returned her gaze onto me. "Payne's!"

 
           I shrugged helplessly as I turned off the faucet and dried my hands on a clean dishtowel. "And that is…?"

 
           "A sports equipment store in downtown Hampton. You like sports, and you already know lots about it, so it sounds pretty ideal."

 
           The more she talked, the more logical it became. I could already see this working out. "Why do you say Payne's though? There's other sports equipment stores in Hampton too. And one in Branner," I said. Branner may have been a residential city, yet we had somehow found room for a little shopping center off the main road. There was a tiny sports store there, I now recalled. Probably barely big enough to hold a wall of shoes and some racks of clothing.

 
           "Yeah, but I know Payne's has an opening right now. A friend told me," she added on to my raised eyebrows.

 
           'Payne's Sports…' I thought. "Who?" I asked out of habit.

 
           "My friend Victor," she shrugged. "He's a sophomore. Super smart too. Straight A's…" She shook her head and mumbled something I didn't quite catch.

 
           I let it slide – I was thinking too hard about how a job at Payne's would be.

 
           A few minutes later, I drove Winter home on her request. After bidding farewell to her in front of her house, instead of turning east to return home, I changed my mind and took the main road to Hampton.