Money and Other Awful Green Things
Chapter 1
My name is Isabella Marie Swan. I am 16.
My mother is Renee Parks. She is 37. She is married to a pro baseball player named Phil.
My father is Charlie Swan. He is 45. He is a lawyer.
I like sweet potato pie, I do not like pop tarts.
I paint my toes nails bright yellow every two weeks.
Summer is my favourite season.
Cats don't like me.
These are the facts of my life I know.
A new one, brand new, apparently, is that I am moving towns.
"What do you mean I'm moving to forks?" The words whisper out of my lips and I can feel the vicious frown I wear creasing my skin. Horror coats the walls of my mind.
"Phil and I are moving to New York Bella." Renee sits in front of a mirror, putting a hot pink lipstick on. "You can't come...not with your history."
She raises an eyebrow suggestively as though I would have had no idea what she meant otherwise.
"Why not?" I cross my arms over my chest.
"Because I have enough trouble with you here." She slips a pair of dainty pearl earrings on, aggressively adjusting her breasts in her low-cut dress. "I can only imagine what you could get up to in a city like that. You need some quiet."
She turns and shrewdly eyes me. I am wearing a pair of slouchy yoga pants and a tank top and she shakes her head. Renee didn't believe in house wear.
"Besides, your father has requested it." She purses her now lurid and bright lips. "And you know I can't continue to argue with him, not on this. I've been doing it for too long."
My mother was a beautiful woman, whose features were youthful and soft. She was funny and vibrant, and cunning like a fox. She also had so much juvaderm in her lips they looked like stuffed pork.
I study her for a long moment, but at the steely look in her eyes, I knows I'm not getting anywhere. Not right now, anyway. Renee is ready to go out and her mind is clearly on the drinking and gambling she is looking forward too.
Turning dramatically, I leave, shouting behind me as I go.
"This is some bullshit Renee." I holler, and Renee let's out a delighted peel of laughter.
"It always is darling!" She shouts back.
Sighing balefully, I make my way down the sweeping staircase to the lounge room.
We live in Arizona, in a neighbourhood filled with massive 8-bedroom houses and high ceilings. Our neighbours were the wealthy, the floors were marble, and the pool parties were lux.
I love it here. I have healthy, glowing, skin, and long bouncy curls. I have friends. I have a bedroom with walk-in robe and a spa bath. I have a car. God I hope they let me drive. I don't want to give up my car.
Phil is sitting on the low leather couch, watching some car racing thing.
"Hey Bell," He says distractedly, his phone his hand. "You pissed at me?"
I should be, it's his fault Mom is leaving.
But I'm not, because Phil is okay. As far as stepdads go, he's a lot better than a lot of the others around here. He doesn't yell at me, doesn't try telling me what to do.
"Yeah, I guess." I snatch the remote and slump down into the lonely arm chair, flipping through the channels until I find some documentary about the Japanese whaling industry. "Can I take my car?" I ask, trying to not give away how badly I want it. Need it.
"Yeah I don't see why not." He shrugs, pausing his scrolling and looking up at me. "You can't drive across country by yourself, but we can probably ship it in."
I nod in thanks.
I do not want to go back to Forks. It's a miserable, wet, and cold small town, filled with old money and gossipy cliques. I did not do well there as a child. The other kids didn't like me, too smart, too fiery, too different.
When Mom said she was going, I begged her to take me with her. I hadn't been back since. I'd only seen Charlie once a year, for the last 8 years, usually around Christmas.
He was a busy man, in a town like Forks. Divorces are big business, he used to say. Too busy to bother visiting me.
But if Renee and Phil couldn't - wouldn't - take me to New York, I didn't really have a choice.
Here I come Forks, baggage and all.
The sun was toasty warm before I got on the plane. I had smiled sadly at Renee and she had slapped my shoulder playfully. The response all children dream of when being sent away from their family. Nonchalance.
"I'll come visit soon," she promised airily, "or we can meet up in the middle somewhere for a weekend."
Phil had grinned at me and I tried to smile back.
They both seemed to not realise, or care about, my distress. My roiling worry. I had cried last night, briefly, before popping my sleeping pill and passing out in my bed for the last time. It wasn't really my bed anymore.
My room was bare, everything of value packed away, and I didn't want to go.
Charlie wasn't exactly the epitome of a loving father. I didn't want to go and live somewhere cold, and I didn't want to be alone. Loneliness has always done weird stuff to me.
"Only a few years." Phil said, rubbing my shoulder gently.
"It will help Bella. Charlie is stable. You can think about the future some." Renee was looking at me with frank honesty, something she didn't do often. It made me feel off-kilter, and her big blue eyes continued staring until I looked away. "Just...try." She asked solemnly.
She sounds like she's trying to convince herself, not me.
Renee used to care a lot more than this. She used to be attentive and proud. And then I had done so much wrong. And now she seemed resigned to let me do pretty much whatever I liked. Had given up on me.
"I will." I promise anyway.
With a few more kisses and pats on the head, I was sitting in the plush first-class seat, leaving my sun and my beloved dry heat and my comfort.
Heading into near certain doom. Death by green. Damp, mouldy, defeat. The worst kind.
I got off the plane and a young man with bright blue eyes was waiting with a sign that read "SWAN."
He couldn't even be bothered to meet me here. I rolled my eyes. Yeah, Charlie really gives a fuck Renee.
I walk towards him, slowly. My stuff was coming with my car, sent a days ago. All I had was my carryon to get me through the week.
"You must be Bella." The man's voice was authoritative and quiet. "I'm Riley, I work for your Dad." He put his hand out to shake mine and I slowly take it. He smiles at me, and I can tell he's not used to dealing with teenagers.
"Hi Riley." I say coyly, my eyes raking over him. "My useless fuck of a father couldn't be bothered picking me up himself?"
He's shocked, I can tell. He's probably never heard anyone talk about their father like that. Or maybe it's that he's never heard anyone talk about Charlie like that.
"I...uh...he's in meetings today, all day. He said to take you back to his house and he'll pick you up for dinner tonight."
"Mmm" I hum at him, and he looks thrown off.
When he continues to just stand there I raise my eyebrows.
"So…are we going to go or..?" I say, and he nods jerkily.
"This way." He takes my duffel and begins walking towards the doors. I slip my large, black sunglasses down and roll my eyes.
Fucking Forks.
The worlds epicentre of ineptitude.
I can tell Riley is thoroughly discomforted as he leads me to a shiny black BMW, a licence plate that reads FRK5L4W. I grunt in disgust. Tacky.
I pull my mobile from my pocket and shoot Renee a text to say I arrived and that Charlie wasn't here to pick me up.
Off to a killer start, really. She can rip him apart for me.
Charlie's house is...big. Like all the houses in this part of Forks. Massive, tidy and old. Charlie's house has fat white columns out the front, with a large wrap around porch. Windows litter its facade all over. All around it are heavily manicured lawns and shrubs. Rows of giant willow trees drape over the driveway.
The same as when I was a child. Goosebumps ripple over my arms at the sight of it. I can't think of many happy memories as I stare.
It must be lonely for him in here. This house could fit a family of 12, yet he's here alone.
Riley had tried to start conversations on the way home from Port Angeles. But I had cruelly shut him down at every turn. I do not want to make small talk with anyone, let alone him.
I am angry and taking it out on the hapless victim, and it's not fair. But I can't seem to stop.
The neighbors aren't necessarily close here, but I can see their houses. Maybe 200 meters away. All large houses, all different but somehow all the same. It feels like suburbia still, despite the obvious wealth.
Riley pulls to a gentle stop in front of the marble steps.
"Do you need help with your bag?" He seems hesitant to even ask.
"No." I say, and when I hear how biting my tone is, I internally wince. "Thank you." I say, trying to soften my voice. I don't think I'd always been such a bitch, but it was my natural reflex these days. Scare them off, before anyone gets hurt.
He gives me an attempt at a sympathetic smile and hands me a key.
"Not too long now till Charlie will be home."
I nod and say nothing more. I get my bag and get out.
This lonely behemoth of a mansion is going to be my home. Just an empty man and his broken daughter, rattling around its walls.