My name is Jenny Schwarber. I don't really like my last name because people always and think I'm this Jewish babe. I'm not even officially Jewish according to Jewish law since my mother wasn't born Jewish. I've grown up celebrating both Christmas and Chanukah (but not Chrismukkah, The OC really lied to me about that.), but I had a feeling that the days of that were going to be coming to an end. My parents were getting divorced because my dad had cheated on my mom with three different women and surprisingly gotten them all pregnant. She was trying to get full custody of me and apparently she said that she had a way to guarantee it. She didn't tell me what that was though.
Right now, I was in Los Angeles, specifically the San Fernando Valley neighborhood because we were going to be staying with my grandparents for the holidays. She took me to a Christmas party. It was the first time that I had been back in years because apparently my dad didn't like the neighborhood. I was actually pretty sure that he didn't like the state of California. Though they probably wouldn't admit it, I had a feeling that politics was another reason my parents were divorcing. My dad was a huge Trump supporter and went on rants about immigrants and how California was the worst place in the world. He even tried to make me stop taking karate because of something with the Asians trying to brainwash the youth of something.
I started to walk around the neighborhood, I did have a license, but I couldn't actually drive in the state of California. Not to mention, even if I could, my car was in Colorado and no one else would let me drive theirs. It might have had to do with my ticket. Nobody told me that I wasn't allowed to go to the store at 11:30 okay. My grandmother was shopping for Christmas. I had pretty much decided to boycott it this year because the year sucked too much. Apparently, my mom wanted to meet some old friends and I was pretty sure that I was going to pass on it.
I wasn't sure if we were going to be moving to California but I had to admit that I loved being able to wear shorts in the winter. Granted, I could wear skirts in Colorado, but only if I had tights under them. If we were, I would have to find a new place to do karate. I noticed that there was a small strip mall with a place called Cobra Kai. For some reason, it sounded familiar to me. I was pretty sure that my mom had mentioned it before. I decided that I would walk in and take a look around. It happened that my timing couldn't be worse though because they were in the middle of a class.
"I'm sorry." I declared as I headed for the door. I should have known better anyway.
"Hold up." The sensei remarked. It was then that I realized that there was only one girl in the class. That probably made me stick out. He looked to his class. "Continue practicing. I will speak to our visitor."
He took me to the office. I had to say that he seemed pretty old to be a sensei.
"So, what brings you here, young lady?" He asked. He was polite.
"I'm just visiting from out of state and I thought that I would stop by to see one of the local karate places." I remarked. He was probably wondering if I would be interested in joining.
"What's your name?" He inquired. I was a little surprised that he was still showing interest after I told him that I probably wasn't going to be staying.
"Why?" I asked.
"It's just that you remind me of someone." He stated. That was a bit of a weird thing for him to say. Also who did I remind him of that he felt the need to tell me that?
"Umm it's Jenny Schwarber." I responded. Part of me wanted to say my mom's last name because I wasn't even sure if I wanted to be associated with my dad anymore.
"Would you like to observe our class today?" He asked me.
"I think I'm just going to go. It was nice to meet you Sensei…" I stated as I got up.
"Kreese…John Kreese." He responded. "And if you change your mind before you leave town, here's my card."
He handed me a business card. Something about him creeped me out. It wasn't in a sexual way, but he seemed creepy in another way that I could not really explain. I knew that I should hightail it out as soon as I could. I probably needed to get home soon anyway.
In fact, no sooner than I left the did I get a text from my grandma wondering where I was. I had to tell her that I had gone for a walk and I would be home soon, but unfortunately walking and texting at the same time was not a strength of mine and I crashed into someone. I fell to the ground but thankfully my phone screen didn't crack.
"Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going." A girl replied. I looked up at her and saw it was a girl with curly brown hair and blue eyes. She was one of the most beautiful girls that I had ever seen. Did I forget to mention that I'm a lesbian because I am? Of course, neither of my parents know that. I was pretty sure that I couldn't tell my dad because he would try to put me in conversion therapy.
"No, it's my fault. I was trying to tell my grandma that I was coming home, but I can't really walk and text." I explained.
"Yeah it's a built of a tough skill to master." She quipped with a smile. Oh, I cannot start crushing on a girl that I am never going to see again. It won't end well. "I'm Sam."
"Jenny." I replied as I took her hand so she could help me up.
"So I don't think I've ever seen you around here before." She remarked.
"That's because I don't live here." I answered. "I'm here with my mom for the holidays."
"Oh what hotel are you staying at?" She asked. Did I really look like a tourist?
"None of them. We're staying at my grandma's house." I replied with a bit of a blush. Why was I blushing?
"Oh, yeah, right. You said you were telling you were coming home. You know I could give you a ride if you don't want to walk." She offered.
I began to consider my options. I knew I wasn't supposed to take rides from strangers, but seriously doubted that this girl was any threat and in the off-chance that she was, I could probably take her. It would give me a few more minutes to spend with her and would also increase the chance of spending time with her for the rest of the time that I was in Los Angeles.
On the other hand, I knew that I probably shouldn't. I didn't know if she would be interested in me as more than friends or if she even liked girls. It wasn't exactly something that you went and asked someone that you just met and I wasn't sure it would be worth getting my hopes up. Not to mention, even if she did, I was going to be leaving in a few days and we wouldn't even really time to develop our relationship. There was a small chance that we could kiss but we likely wouldn't be doing anything else.
"Sure." I said. I didn't know if anything would happen, but I knew that nothing would happen if I didn't at least take a shot at it. At worst, she could tell me no, but I didn't even know if we would get to that point. I was still a little nervous when talking to girls I was crushing on. I decided to walk with her to her car. She had a pretty nice car, but we were in the rich part of town. I decided to ask it in the least weird way that I could ask. "So what do your parents do?"
"They own a string of car dealerships." She responded. So they probably weren't super-rich but I supposed that they were rich enough to be comfortable. "What do yours do?"
"They're both doctors." I answered.
"Trying to outdo me." She quipped.
"It's not a competition." I pointed out. "Anyway, they are getting divorced."
At that moment, there was a brief period of silence.
"Oh…I'm sorry." She said.
"It's okay. You're not the reason that my dad is an asshole." I replied. I hadn't ever used that term to describe him before but it was true. He was an asshole and I hated the fact that he was my dad. I really wished that he wasn't.
"Are you sure of that?" She asked.
"I don't know what else you can call someone who cheats on your mom with three different woman and manages to get all of them pregnant." I explained. I did have to admit that it was a little bit impressive that he managed to choose three different women who were ovulating around the same time. I also couldn't help but wonder if he was going to try to be in any of those kids' lives. I then noticed the look on her face. "I'm sorry for making this so awkward. I don't mean to be a downer."
"No, I get it. You need someone to talk to." She responded. That was probably true. It was possible that I needed therapy but I didn't think that I would be able to do anything with that.
"Still, I shouldn't put my issues on you." I declared. This might be a good time to tell that I was a lesbian, but I didn't want to freak her out. I decided to give her some directions. "It's right down this road."
She drove before we were in front of the house. She looked a little bit confused.
"This is it." I replied. I noticed that she still looked a little confused. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. It's just…this is my house." She said as she gestured to the one next to my grandma's house.
"Oh." I remarked, and it got awkward again.
"So you're Mrs. Mills's granddaughter then." Sam commented.
"Yeah. So how do you know my grandma?" I inquired.
"I mean we're neighbors. She's babysat me and my brother a few times. Oh and I'm pretty sure that your mom dated my dad." She replied.
Well that made things very awkward. Would it be weird to try to date someone whose father my mom used to date? That meant that my grandma knew her dad most likely.
"I guess that's kind of cool." I remarked. I didn't know why I had said that. It was then that I realized that I should head inside before I embarrassed my any more. However, before I could get out, Sam stopped me.
"Wait, let me have your phone." She declared. "I wanna give you my number and if you want hang out any more before you go, we can maybe do that."
I wasn't sure if she was flirting or just being friendly, but it would probably be a good idea to spend some more time with her. I handed her my phone and she put her number in it. I then got out of the car and went inside of my grandma's house.
"I'm home." I called. I was not sure if my mom was back yet. She was supposed to be meeting a friend. In any case, I expected that my grandma would be there at least.
"Where have you been?" She asked me.
"I went for a walk. I went by this karate place and then this girl gave me a ride home." I explained. "Well she says that you knew her. Her name is Sam LaRusso. She also told me that Mom used to date her dad."
"Well they were in high school. They weren't always as rich as they are now." She replied. "I'm sure that your mom could tell you more about it."
"Where is she right now?" I asked.
"She's still out with her friend. Don't tell your father but I always liked him better." She remarked. I wasn't quite sure who she was talking about, but it probably didn't matter.
"I haven't been telling my father things for a while." I retorted. "So do you know what's going to happen? Has mom decided on anything yet?"
"That's something else that you're going to talk to her about. There are a lot of things that I think she should tell you. Some of them may be shocking but I promise you that she all of your best interests at heart."
"Okay…" I replied. Now I had a feeling that she was hiding something from me. I could try to get her to tell me or I could just do the mature thing and talk to my mom about it.
What could my mom be hiding from me? Why was it so important that Grandma couldn't tell me about it? Part of me thought that if we were going to tell each other secrets, maybe I should let her know about me and the kind of people that I am attracted to. The only issue I had with that was I needed to make sure that she didn't tell Dad about it. From what I knew of my mom, she would be okay with it. At least I hoped that she would.
Of course I didn't know when I would get a chance to talk to her about this. Would it be something that we did before we went back to Denver? Even if we were going to be moving here, we would still have to go back because all of my stuff was in Denver and I didn't really want to get new stuff despite the fact that we had the money in order to make that happen. And Jessie was there too, and I didn't just want to leave her and get a new cat.
Since we were in town, Mom and I were going to be going to the country club Christmas party. We weren't a part of anything like that in Denver and I was pretty sure that my mom didn't really want to go. I didn't really want to go either, but my grandma was making us go. I was wearing a modest purple velvet dress and matching heels. I had to wear them to these things because of how short I was and I kind of hated it.
The thing about the party was that there really wasn't anyone my age in there because I figured that most teenagers did not want to go. They would rather be spending the holidays with their friends. I didn't really have any friends around here, so I technically didn't have anything better to do. That didn't mean that it wasn't boring. I was one of the only people there that couldn't have any of the drinks and I really wasn't a fan of what the rich people ate at parties. I could never remember what they called them but I was pretty sure that it was French.
As I was walking around, I got a text from my mom asking me where I was. I told her that I was in the bathroom and she came over to me as soon as I was done.
"So there's something that I need to tell you," She responded. "This is going to surprise you but simply put, your father isn't your father."
"What?" I asked. I was definitely surprised by that and I was a little bit thrilled that I wasn't actually related to that asshole. "If he's not my father then who is?"
"Well it happened around the same time that I started dating your father. I met up with an ex and we had some drinks and long story short, I got pregnant. I had also slept with your father around the same time, but I saw how you looked and how you acted and knew who your dad was. I didn't want to tell you because I figured it wouldn't come up and a few weeks ago, he messaged me out of the blue. I think he's really turned his life around lately." She told me as we walked.
We kept walking until we were in front of a man with blonde hair and I was surprised because he really did look like me.
"Jenny, this is Johnny Lawrence." She told me. I already knew what the next words she was going to say were but it still felt surreal hearing them come out of her mouth. "He's your real father."
So I know I probably shouldn't be starting another story but I had this idea and I just wanted to write it. In case you can't tell, Jenny is played by Olivia Holt (in another karate role). And she has a bit of a crush on Sam, who didn't get back together with Miguel either. Please don't forget to review.
