fork (fôrk) n.
1. A utensil with two or more prongs, used for eating or serving food.
2. An implement with two or more prongs used for raising, carrying, piercing, or digging.
3. a. A bifurcation or separation into two or more branches or parts.
b. The point at which such a bifurcation or separation occurs: a fork in a road.
c. One of the branches of such a bifurcation or separation: the right fork.
- The Free Dictionary Dot Com : Fork
I suppose the name of the town is kinda poetic in a way. Sunny ol' Phoenix, Arizona, or gloomy little Forks, Washington - a fun and special biographical bifurcation just for me.
Here's Fork 1 - Stay with my Mom and her new husband Phil as we trot around the country following the man's baseball team. Attempt to home-school self via internet whist living in a succession of too-small hotel rooms with the two of them whilst they enjoy some more of that glowy middle-aged post-marital bliss they've got going on.
And Fork 2 - Move in with my Dad, who, despite his adorably cliché role as a small-town police chief, is a pretty nice guy and still has all of his own hair. He's got a spare bedroom for me and I can focus on my final year of high school to try and get some decent grades for college acceptance. Now there's another bifurcation that will need a whole lot more thought than this one.
Don't try and make me do another paragraph on the trusted Debate Team dictionary analysis of the other meaning of 'Fork.' Fingers crossed this next year won't include a single instance of piercing, stabbing or pronging with any number of tines. I could add an aside about potential body modification because honestly, the piercings and tattoos that some of the girls on the forums have gotten recently are intriguing, but a) needles scare the crap out of me and b) I figure at 17 I still have plenty of time to brainstorm other ways to piss off my parents and estrange future employers. Perhaps the dual nipple piercings can wait until college.
If I were a writer of terrible self-published erotica I'd segue here into a line about how my nipples tingled with anticipation as I stepped onto the plane, bound for my titillating new life. Since I'm just a writer of the occasional overwrought English essay and I'm not terribly excited about the prospect of my new perceived persona as the goody-two-shoes-cop-kid, I'll steer away from lines like that. Mainly it was just sort of awkward and a little bit stuffy as I tried to decide whether to smile at the flight attendant and ask for direction or be cool and aloof and find my own seat, and I ended up just smiling too early and ducking my head as I passed her and then went too far down the aisle and had to back up. Businessy dude behind me in a hurry to get to his seat was unimpressed.
The new jacket Mom had bought to keep me warm and dry in Forks was ridiculously large and I picked the wrong split-second decision when I ducked in to my seat - instead of stashing it up in the overhead lockers I was now forced to ball the massive thing up and keep it in my lap for the four-hour flight. I shoved it down as best I could between my white pointy elbows and opened up the slightly battered Anais Nin book I'd purchased at a used bookstore on my last day in town. I'd seen her name flung around the forums before and I was mildly curious, so for $2, why not?
The seatbelt sign went on. The plane started moving. It was me and my fancy friend Anais for the next few hours.
Yeah, I probably should have checked Ms Nin up on Wikipedia before all of my fellow commuters saw me with my face buried in incestual erotica. If I held it higher, could the book perhaps cover my burning cheeks? My newfound knowledge of carnal lore wasn't going to make the upcoming one hour drive with my father any less awkward.
I'd forgotten Police Chief Charles Swan had been cultivating the beginnings of a moustache the last time I'd seen him. Now here it stood in full and majestic bloom, squatting reverently on my father's top lip as he waved at me from the Arrivals gate.
"Isobel!" The moustache widened slightly as Charlie - I mean, Dad - smiled. "Hey, sweetie."
"Hey, Dad," I managed meekly as I tried to hide the book inside the folds of my big olive-colored jacket. "It's good to see you."
He nodded. Ten points if you guess correctly which side of the family my awkward comes from. I'm not sure, back in the times when people first decided last names would be a good idea, how anyone related to Charlie and I could have decided the name Swan worked for their family. Aside from the fact that we're pale and long-necked, the two of us have nothing in common with those big elegant birds. Maybe my squawky voice was more handed down from the Swans than Mom's side, like I always figured.
Charlie made little clicky tunes with his mouth as he led me out to the parking lot where his police cruiser was parked. We stuffed my two bags in the trunk of the car and strapped ourselves in wordlessly. Charlie was the first one to speak as we pulled out the airport lot onto the highway.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap."
"Oh, wow," I said, surprised. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."
"Well, I can't drive you around all the time. It's a little more rural out here than I know you're used to. I thought having a car of your own would be useful."
It was possibly the longest string of sentences I'd ever heard him say. I smiled.
"It's a truck actually, a Chevy," he continued, surprising me again. "My old friend Billy Black down at La Push didn't need it any more and he offered to sell it to me cheap."
I vaguely remembered the man and his son, who we'd been fishing with once or twice near their reservation when I visited Dad during the holidays.
"That was kind of him," I said. "How is Billy?"
"Ah, not too great," Charlie said, distractedly checking his rear-view mirror as a loud sports car slowed to a crawl behind us. At least being in the cruiser prevented people road-raging on you. "He's in a wheelchair now. His son Jacob, you remember him, good boy, he's taking care of his Dad. He's said he's looking forward to seeing you again. Jacob, I mean."
Last time I'd seen Jacob he was foot shorter than me with a long black ponytail and squeaky voice. I figured he probably looked and sounded a lot different at 15. Still...
"It'll be nice to have a friend here already," I told Charlie. He nodded, and we settled into a comfortable silence for the rest of journey in to Forks.
The small town we drove into couldn't have been more different to the big hot city I'd left behind. Everything seemed almost unnaturally green and lush - the trees were covered in cushiony moss and big, dinosaur-era ferns sprouted from the ground. Forks, my research told me, was the wettest town in America. The moist air and perennially grey skies were always a nice change from the desert-salty air of Phoenix. I'd probably get sick of it after Week 3, but for now, Forks seemed like it might be a good, quiet place to finish up my last year in high school.
The old red pick-up that Charlie had picked up (hurr hurr) looked solid as a rock (a big, red-painted rock) as it hulked in the driveway of the little two-bedroom house that my parents had bought in the salad days of their marriage. The truck definitely had character - I felt like I should give it a big, solid name to match, but quickly tossed out the idea and name (...Montague perhaps?) after deciding that I might be getting too old to anthropomorphize everything I owned. Once I'd clambered out of the police cruiser and stomped my feet to wake my legs up, I gave a slap to the big curved fender of the truck and grinned as I heard the dull metallic thunk in response. "This is so cool."
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly as he heaved my backpack onto his shoulder. "Oof - what've you got in this one? Bricks?"
"Close enough," I said as I grabbed my suitcase out of the trunk and slammed the lid shut. "We may need to invest in a bigger bookshelf for my room."
Despite my personal library, it only took one trip to get my stuff upstairs. My old nursery had only changed slightly since last time I'd lived here full-time - the crib had switched out for a cast-iron bed and a wooden desk had been squeezed in one corner near the recently-installed phone jack. I unloaded my laptop and plugged it in straight away. Dial-up internet was something I'd have to deal with. At least Charlie had finally seen fit to put an extension in the room, so that I wouldn't be downstairs hogging the kitchen bench and phone line like I had for the last two holidays.
I shuffled the vinyl dining chair out from under the desk and dragged the old rocking chair over in its place, propped my feet up on the desk and sat my laptop on my thighs. I leaned back and let familiar old David Bowie croon to me about life on Mars whilst I pondered how the next day at my new school would go.
It might be like life on Mars. Everyone in Forks knew each other and their families, and maybe I'd be a glamorous unknown quantity for a little while. That's now it goes in all the books and movies right? New school, new start. I could be anything I wanted.
What did I want? Mostly I think I was just looking to be same old me. Perhaps there was school paper I could join - maybe do music reviews, wanky book reports. Maybe there was a band? I'd never played in instrument before, but why not start? Surely knocking off a Nirvana cover on the acoustic wouldn't be so hard. Surely finding a group of fellow nerds to eat lunch with would be easy enough. Surely I could become a useful part of the student body with little to no fuss.
Oh, that's never how it goes in movies.
So, tomorrow at school might be tough. That was okay. At least my decision was now behind me and I could look forward to getting some shit done with my life instead of trailing behind my mother, picking things up after her. At least Charlie had that down. So many years alone, he'd learned to look after himself. It'd be nice to be strong and independent like him.