I do not own Twilight. I thank Stephanie Meyer for the lovely characters to play with.
Summary: Bella isn't sure where her life is going, what the next step should be or even how she is where she is now five years after graduating college. Due to circumstances beyond his control Edward finds himself burdened with responsibility and yearning for stability. AH\AU
Chapter One: Typical Tuesday
"Excuse me Miss, You shorted me a penny," the elderly customer complained from the other side of the counter.
"It's right here ma'am, you dropped it on top of the pile of circulars," Bella responded with a thinly pasted on smile as she grabbed the wayward penny. "Sorry again for your inconvenience, have a nice day."
At 27, Bella never expected to still be working at the same grocery store she'd eagerly started working at during her junior year of high school. She had grand plans for her life and they did not include over-apologizing to the over-60 set for things that were either beyond her control or could not possibly been her fault, but here she was two hours into her four-hour Tuesday shift behind the customer service counter at Pathmark.
"Did you really give that woman her money back and free scallops?" Bella's co-worker Jessica asked incredulously a few minutes later after the crowd of customers had been taken care of.
"Trust me, I didn't want to," Bella responded with irritation, "But Aro seems to be in a people pleasing mood today and is willing to give the customers whatever they want."
Bella and Aro, the store manager, had gotten off on the wrong foot within weeks of his arrival at their store and the ice hasn't seemed to thaw any in the two years since. This was foreign to Bella who had always been a favorite of her teachers and bosses. Having worked hard at being a model employee after their rough introduction, Bella was finally beginning to realize that she was just never going to find herself on Aro's good side and she would have to be okay with that. As much as she hated to admit it, the whole situation still grated on her from time to time.
"I'm going to grab a soda while it's slow, you want anything?" Jessica asked, interrupting Bella's inner musings.
"Could you grab me a Vitamin Water?" answered Bella. "You know the XXX kind I usually drink."
Bella rooted through her cluttered purse for a couple dollars to give Jessica to cover the price of her drink. After Jessica left the comfy confines of their customer service counter, she went about doing some paper work for the lottery and money order machines to keep herself occupied.
"Do you have a pen?" a man's loud voice broke through Bella's busy-work haze.
She wordlessly handed over the pen, knowing from experience that pretty much everyone coming into this store was in a hurry and those stopping by the customer service counter needed a pen always seemed to be in the biggest rush. Her using words would slow them down and make them slightly more irritable than normal. This may sound cruel, but Bella wasn't a rude person, nor was she miserable or even cynical. She was far from all of these things, but while at Pathmark she ran on a robotic auto pilot.
Continuing her paperwork, Bella waited until the customer was finished filling out his Western Union form, knowing again from experience, not to hover while they filled out the required information. Sensing that he was just about finished, she walked over to the customer with her work smile fixed to her pale face. It was October and Bella couldn't remember the last time she'd been out in the sun aside from the walk from her car to her office every morning.
"Hi Sir, how can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.
"I need this sent immediately," the portly man who appeared to be about the same age as her father said.
Glancing at the paperwork, Bella noticed that he was sending $500 to a woman with the same last name in Tampa Bay, Florida. She had been to Tampa once she thought wistfully, one of the greatest weeks of her life.
"It can be sent money in minutes, but that will cost more than next day," Bella explained carefully before processing the man's transaction.
"My daughter is in school down there and she overdrew her account, so she needs this money NOW," he reiterated forcefully and slowly as if Bella had trouble understanding.
"Of course sir," she answered in an evenly peaceful tone, while thinking that while she had a fantastic father who loved her and who would never let her hurt for anything, Charlie would not be sending her that money if she was dumb enough to over draw her own account. He might call for a lecture on financial responsibilities and if she were desperate send her a check to cover immediate expenses, but it would be with the unspoken agreement that she'd pay him back. Not that Bella had ever found herself in this situation, but both she and Charlie knew she was too responsible to do it any other way.
Continuing to click away at the Western Union application on the computer, Bella finally has everything ready to send and informs the man that along with the $500 he was sending to his daughter, he would need to pay a $45 fee for it to be there in twenty minutes.
"I know," he said tersely, which led her to believe this might not be the first time his daughter had done a little too much spending in the Sunshine State. She wrapped up the transaction and wished the man, or rather his back, a good evening as he turned and hurried away from the counter.
Turning as she heard the door opening, Bella saw Jessica coming back in with their drinks. Having been lost in her own thoughts, she'd forgotten that Jess had stepped out for the drinks about 15 minutes ago.
"Sorry that took so long, I was talking to Mike," Jess explained with a smile that conveyed that she wasn't sorry at all.
As soon as she heard mention of the front end manager's name, Bella knew she was lucky Jess had come back in just 15 minutes, there were nights when she disappeared for much longer and when it was much busier. Jess and Mike weren't dating, never had been. She didn't even think they ever actually would, but flirting was second nature to both of them and they enjoyed the verbal foreplay that appeared to be heading no where so Bella kept her mouth shut on that topic.
"Was it busy while I was gone?" asked Jess.
"Not at all, just one Western Union," Bella answered. "Oh and I finished the lottery paperwork, too."
"Thanks!" exclaimed Jess gratefully, "I hate trying to get those numbers to add up correctly!"
It quickly got busy again and the girls spend the next 45 minutes selling lottery tickets, cigarettes, processing Western Unions and soothing the ruffled feathers of disgruntled customers, with little time to talk. Bella had a lot to learn when she'd been transferred into the customer service department a few years ago. She wasn't much of a gambler, so the lottery was foreign to her, she didn't smoke so she could barely tell one brand from another let alone menthols, lights, ultra lights, slims, etc… and then there was Western Union. Bella remembered the commercials she'd seen on television growing up about the instant money transfers, but when the commercials stopped airing she'd assumed the company went with it. Not so much. She had no idea it was this popular. During a four-hour shift it wouldn't be surprising to see a dozen people sending or receiving money via WU. While transactions like that of the generous father, to another city in the U.S. weren't normally that common, plenty of people paid their bills through wire transfer, or sent money out of the country to friends and relatives.
Before she knew it, Jess was gathering her things and getting ready to head home. She was done an hour earlier than Bella tonight.
"Finally! Time to go!" Jess cried out happily as she buttoned her coat.
"Lucky you," Bella smiled at her exuberant friend, "Did you still want to go see that new Katherine Heigl movie this weekend?"
"Absolutely!" replied Jess as she made her way to the door. "I'm working until nine on Friday so how about a late movie?"
"Works for me, I'm done at 7," Bella said, happy to have some plans in place for the weekend, "I'll see you then, have a good night!"
"G'night!" Jess called back over her shoulder.
While Bella and Jessica may not be the best of friends, she enjoyed having someone to go see a movie with or grab a drink or dinner with on occasion. Jess was a few years younger than Bella and working part time at Pathmark was her only job, so she normally had much more free time than Bella, who put in at least forty hours a week at her full-time job about 20 miles away.
Having grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs, Bella had grand plans of graduating college and moving south. For no real reason she could pinpoint, aside from a general dislike for winter weather, Bella had always dreamed of living her adult life somewhere between Virginia and Florida. She wasn't picky, any of the East Coast states in between would suffice. But here she was, five years after graduating college spending her weekdays in a cubicle and her nights and weekends catering to the general public. Her life wasn't devoid of pleasure and relaxing free time, it was just a little harder to come by than she would have liked. Nor was all of her hard work for nothing, she'd enjoyed quite a few vacations over the years and tonight when she went home it would be to her house. The one she purchased over the summer with her savings. She knew she worked hard and put in a lot of hours each week between her two jobs, but to be able to pay her mortgage every month, on her own, was a huge accomplishment to Bella.
She'd worked hard for her independence, but now that she had it, she wasn't so sure what to do with it. As long as she could remember Bella had been working toward one goal, save enough to buy a house. She had a house. And while there were still plenty of improvement projects she wanted to tackle, she had no big goal in mind, which threw her slightly off balance. For Bella it had always been do well in school, find and succeed at a job you enjoy and buy a house. She'd come to the end of her long term goal list and she wasn't sure what to add at this point.
Her last hour passed quickly with just a few customers and before she knew it Bella was closing up the customer service counter and heading to clock out and pick up a few things before heading home.
Pulling up to her house, Bella couldn't help but smile at the Halloween decorations glowing in her window. It was the first holiday she'd been able to decorate for at her new home, and while she couldn't afford to go all out, Bella made sure to make an effort. She was looking forward to handing out candy to the eager trick-or-treaters in a few weeks. Halloween had always been one of her favorite holidays. She and Charlie spend quality time carving pumpkins every year that are usually the much more elaborate than any others in the neighborhood. It was one of her favorite father-daughter bonding times. Charlie had promised her that he'd come over in a few weeks and they'd carve double the number of pumpkins they normally would so they could both have some to display.
Walking to the front door, Bella stopped to pick the mail, an assortment of bills, coupons and political advertisements, and sighed as she flipped on the lights. Fifteen hours after leaving the house for work that morning she was finally home. She took a few minutes to grab a drink and a snack before settling in front of the television to veg out and relax for the first time all day.
She lost herself in last night's episode of How I Met Your Mother on her DVR for a half hour before heading up to bed. Climbing exhausted into her cozy queen-sized bed, Bella's last thoughts before succumbing to sleep were what direction is her life supposed to be headed in now?
Thanks so much for reading. All criticism, positive or negative, is welcome. I don't have a strict outline for this story so I'd love to have some readers who want to bounce ideas with me.