Contest: Twilight of Craigslist One-Shot Contest (Part II)
Title: Hardcover Paranormal Romance
Rating: M
Word Count: 4081
Contest Ad Prompt: http : / / www . fanfiction . net / s / 7455354 / 1 / Infuriating _ Bookstore _ Jerkw4m
Summary: "It's not like I enjoy being a jerk; I just have my reasons." Edward has an issue with Bella Swan that can't be found in the employee handbook.
Warning/Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and places belong to SM
Don't forget to read the other entries! http: / www. fanfiction. net/u/ 3211840/ Also, follow us on twitter! twiCraigslist
"Edward, can you come to the front registers?" Jessica's voice rang out over the PA, interrupting the light rock that Ryan, my manager, has a preference for. Days when he worked tended to be musically challenging for me. Honestly, I have heard "Wind Beneath Your Wings" way more times than I think is reasonable.
I put away the books I had in my hands and sighed. Jessica was constantly calling me up to the front of the store on little or no pretense. She had decided that I was just shy and needed some encouragement in order to ask her out and/or get it on with her. In reality, I just really wasn't interested. She read Nicholas Sparks novels, for Christ's sake! How do I get past that?
"Your brother is on the phone," Jessica said to me with a smile. I gave her a brief "thank you" and went down to the far register.
"Emmett. What's so important that you have to call me here?" I hissed at my brother while turning away from Jessica.
"What, you worried you're not going to get promoted to head manager and get your own clipboard?" Emmett laughed. I could hear the sound of the TV behind him. Emmett has a serious television problem. He must watch about twenty hours a day.
"What do you want? Isn't there a "Hogan's Heroes" marathon that you're missing?" Emmett sucked in his breath and I could hear him checking the channel guide before realizing that I was lying.
"Don't be a dick. Bob Crane is nothing to joke about," Emmett warned. "I have two things to tell you. Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"The bad news," I said, nervously. I was telling myself that it couldn't be worse than what had already happened today but I lie to myself sometimes.
"Of course you want the bad news," Emmett chided. "That's because you are a fundamentally pessimistic person. You know, things wouldn't seem as bad if you just tried to have a more positive attitude about life."
"Emmett. What's the bad news?"
"No. Forget your negative world-view." Emmett was getting worked up. Clearly he'd been watching Dr. Phil. "I'm going to give you the good news first."
"Fine. Just tell me what you called for and let me get back to work." I looked over my shoulder at Jessica. She was ringing up a customer and trying to eavesdrop on our conversation.
"Well, the good news is Rosie isn't mad at you anymore about the Charger."
"I didn't do anything to the Charger," I responded. "You're the one who threw the football into the garage."
"Yeah, well, she's not mad about it anyway." I rolled my eyes.
"What changed her mind?" I asked.
"Well, it's the bad news," Emmett said hesitantly.
"Jesus, Emmett. Can you just spill it so I can get back to work?"
"Remember how Chief Swan had that heart attack last month?" Emmett blurted out. "His daughter's moving back home to take care of him."
"I know," I responded. "I just climbed up the wall of the stockroom backwards to get away from her."
"She came there?" Emmett's voice got really loud and I glanced over to Jessica again. She was busy helping a customer and didn't appear to have heard Emmett. Which was weird because I swear they could hear him in Portland.
"Yeah, she interviewed for an job here," I sighed. "She'll probably get it, too. Ryan would hire an illiterate kleptomaniac if she was pretty."
"How are you going to…" Emmett paused and I realized what I had done too late. "Wait, did you just say she was pretty?"
"Empirically speaking, I think four out of five teenage boys would call Isabella Swan 'pretty,'" I said as dryly as I could.
"I just haven't heard you say anyone was 'pretty' since…I guess…1953. You told Rosie that Audrey Hepburn was prettier than her after you saw 'Roman Holiday,' remember?"
"Yeah, Emmett. Thanks for bringing it up," I turned around to see Jessica staring at me. Damn! She must have heard what I said about Bella Swan, too. "Listen, I have to go. We'll talk about it tonight, OK?"
"Alright," Emmett agreed. "Just don't forget to grab the new 'Entertainment Weekly' for me. There's an article about the cast of 'House.'"
"Sure thing," I said, trying to avoid Jessica's glaring eyes. "Just don't tell Rose what I said about Bella Swan, OK? I can't replace some of those records again."
I hung up the phone and tried to escape back to the Business section again but Jessica caught me.
"Edward," she called, in that really fake, sweet voice.
"What's up?" I tried to look really busy, glancing at the section I'd been working on.
"I heard you mention Bella Swan," Jessica said. "I didn't know that you two knew each other! She and I were like best friends in high school!"
Surprisingly, she seemed to be telling at least a quasi-truth. I could see images of Bella and Jessica together in Jessica's head. Eating lunch at Fork's High and at what seems to be a dance, dressed up and talking to each other in a balloon-infested gym.
Another strike against the dreaded Miss Swan. Not only does she smell like the vampire equivalent of bacon and have a void where her thoughts should be but she's "BFFs" with Jessica. My co-worker is either the most vapid, insecure woman in the continental US or the tallest, most sexually precocious toddler.
"I don't really know her," I said to Jessica. "Emmett was just filling me in on the latest gossip." I gestured to a waiting customer and escaped back into the shelves, away from Jessica's interrogation.
Unfortunately, Ryan was lying in wait and that other shoe I was expecting to drop? It does.
"I have a trainee for you," he said, bouncing in his shoes the way he does when he's pawning his work off on me. "Isabella Swan. She starts Monday. Smart kid." Ryan reached over to move a book that he thinks is out of place. Unfortunately for him, "S" comes before "T". So I moved it back.
"About that, Ryan…" I needed to tell him that I was going to have to quit so that I didn't eat the new employee. I had to come up with a compelling story and I hadn't had a chance to think about it yet.
"Unless you think that Angela is ready to do some training?" Ryan didn't really care, honestly. He just wanted to get out of here before 4:30 so that he could catch his hot neighbor at the mailbox.
"Yeah, I think Angela could do a lot of it," I answered. This gave me time to collaborate on a good story with my family. At the least one that isn't made up by Emmett at the last minute and sounds ludicrous. Like the time he told all the people we knew in Minnesota that we were moving to San Francisco for the Summer of Love. And fifteen people wanted to go with us. I was stuck in that Volkswagen bus for five days with nothing but people reading from "Siddhartha" and the smell of patchouli to keep me draining people like human Yoo Hoos.
"Great," Ryan said. "I'll have Angela get started and you can just fill in the blanks, okay?"
I nodded and got back to stocking the shelves. I was feeling a little sorry for myself having to quit this job. Despite the fact that my boss was an idiot and Jessica was sexually harassing me with her mind, I liked this job. I got to work with books, the people who came in were generally a little smarter, since they could usually read, and I liked some of my coworkers. Angela's actually pretty cool.
God Damn Bella Swan! This was the second time I'd had to rearrange my life to avoid draining her like a cold soda on a hot day and it irritated me. The last time this happened I ended up having to live up in Alaska with my skeevy cousins for two years, speaking of getting mentally groped on a daily basis.
I should be clear that not all my cousins were unpleasant to be around, mostly just Tanya, the oldest. Kate, the third sister, was pretty pleasant and she and I would come up with creative ways to waste time, like making a gigantic Mahjong set out of rocks and then playing with the tiles upside down, like a huge game of memory. I know it sounds dorky but it's not like there are endless opportunities for entertainment in Alaska. There's only so many moose you can eat, especially since they're like the state animal.
Anyway, I was not looking forward to having to uproot my life just because Bella Swan smells like heaven. So I was a little more broody than usual when I got off work. And then I remembered that Rose had her support group at the house that night.
Fuck my endless life.
I'm kind of a jerk to complain about her doing something so altruistic but her group drives me nuts. She hosts this support group for women who have been abused and they get a little…strident. Especially since I have an alleged penis.
They're cool with Carlisle since he's all "I'm a caring doctor and I ooze sincerity" and Emmett makes them cookies and sucks up like a bitch so he's usually not the target of their ire. That leaves me, although I have never once abused a woman, unless you count all the nasty stuff I've said to the Rose and the cousins. And Jessica. And all the other annoying women I've encountered in my century of reading the minds of every woman I've ever come in contact with. Oh, and the women I killed in the 1930's. And the drunk teenager I locked out of the concert hall in 1980 because she yelled "Free Bird" during a Pink Floyd concert.
I know this sounds like a lot but you try being alive for as long as I have and not stepping on a few toes.
Ok, maybe I deserve some of the man-haters club's wrath. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to continue to switch their coffee out with decaf when Rose isn't looking and let Esme's dog, Renfield, lick their cookies.
But I was surprised to see the driveway not full of Saturns and Honda Civics when I got home.
Emmett met me on the porch. "Rose is moving her group to the Vet's center." He grinned at me.
"Really?" I asked. "That's nice of her." I was perplexed by Rose's niceness. Something was up. Emmett and I sat down on the porch.
"Yeah, she's really upset about this Swan situation," Emmett said, slapping his thigh and calling Renfield. The drooly little bastard came running out but he decided to chew on my Ferragamos instead. Typical.
"Rose doesn't want you to go again. She said it's really boring without you." I listened to Emmett's thoughts to see if he was telling the truth about Rosalie. Which he was. Weird.
"Well, you are kind of a dullard," I said, pushing the dog away with my foot.
"At least I'm not getting chased off by a girl," Emmett answered. "That's pretty weak." Emmett appeared to think for a minute. I assure you that "appear" was the operative word here. There was no way he was really getting any heavy lifting done in there.
"Why don't you just try to get her fired?" Emmett suggested. "You know, try to catch her doing stuff like texting or taking long breaks."
"What if she doesn't do that stuff?" I asked.
"Everybody does that stuff," he responded. "Come on man, you're a vampire! You can't let a teenage girl push you around like this!"
"Yeah," I said, getting indignant. Emmett had a good point. I'm a vampire. I'm the world's deadliest predator. I'm letting a girl tell me what I can and can't do?
Forget that. I decide I'm going to show Bella Swan who's boss.
Carlisle pulled up into the driveway and got out of his car, looking at me sympathetically.
"Edward, I suppose Emmett's told you what's happened." Carlisle leaned against the porch rail and petted Renfield.
"Yeah, but we have a plan so Edward doesn't have to leave," Emmett interjected.
Carlisle looked at us skeptically. "I hope you two aren't planning on doing anything untoward to the Swan girl."
"No," I said, faking horror. "Carlisle, you know we would never do anything to harm an innocent girl. Frankly, I'm hurt that you would suggest it." I tried to look indignant.
"I'm sorry, Edward. It's just that Bella Swan is making a sacrifice for her father coming back to from college like this to help him. I admire her devotion to him."
I knew it was going to be better for Emmett and I to keep our plan to ourselves. Carlisle totally didn't care that Bella Swan wanted to ruin my life.
"Emmett's going to steal clothes so I can get used to her scent," I blurted out, nudging Emmett so he'd go along with it.
"Yeah, and we're going to offer to help her out around the house," Emmett said. "You know, since the chief isn't doing well." See? This is why it pays to collaborate with Emmett on our stories ahead of time. Now I was going to end up mowing her lawn and helping her put up Christmas lights. Damn Emmett!
But then I decided that the stolen clothing thing isn't such a bad idea so that I can be at work with her without wanting to slurp her like a socialite with champagne.
So I went to work on Monday, designated Operation "Pink-Slip the Swan" Day, having just spent the last twenty-four hours with one of her t-shirts wrapped around my head, with a note from Carlisle stating that I have a medical condition that may make it necessary for me to leave suddenly. Why he needed to say I had diarrhea, I don't know. It might have been at Rose's suggestion.
I spent the first two hours of my shift looking for her anxiously but when she does come in she ends up having to spend forever in Ryan's office doing paperwork so I was about as anxious as a vampire gets, waiting for her to come out.
When she does, and Ryan introduces us, she managed, once again, to surprise me.
I didn't have to keep my hands full so I didn't have to touch her because she didn't offer her hand for me to shake.
I didn't have to position myself on the other side of anything so she doesn't get too close; she stayed a good ten feet away from me
She seemed completely disinterested in me. All the stuff I spent the last three days planning so that I could avoid her attempts at social niceties were a complete waste of time because Bella Swan seemed to be just as anxious to avoid me as I was to avoid her, which is weird because I'm like…ultra-hot. It almost hurt my feelings. Silly, I know.
Oddly, this continues. Bella, enigma that she is, actually seemed kind of…indifferent to me.
Perplexing.
Then I began my clever campaign to get her fired. Which I figured will incite some sort of response. Except that it didn't. Each time I left a little envelope with her name and a half-assed write-up on her locker I waited but…no response.
Every time I ignored her in the break room, no response.
Bringing in coffee for everyone but her? Nothing.
Denying her time off request for no good reason? Nada.
What does it take to make a girl feel unwanted? Young girls are supposed to be more insecure than that. The biggest gesture I get back from her is the time she rolls her eyes at me when I insist upon her clocking out to take a personal phone call. An eye roll. That's it.
Ridiculous. What did she have? Iron self-esteem?
About a month of this and two things start to happen. First, I start getting used to her appallingly good smell. Second, I get called into Ryan's office.
He dropped a pile of papers on the desk and looked at me expectantly.
"What?" I asked, shrugging.
"These are Bella's write-ups. You realize that you've written her up seven times?"
"That's part of my job, right? Making sure people are following the rules."
"Yeah, Edward, but I think you might have gone a little overboard here," he said, picking up the one from the top of the pile and looking at it.
"You wrote her up for wearing black nail polish?" he asked.
"This is a book store, not Hot Topic," I said. He shook his head and looked at the next one.
"Giving unauthorized discounts?" he asked. I nodded vehemently.
"That was a retired elementary school teacher. There's no reason to give her the educator discount."
"Fraternizing?" he asked. "Who was she talking to?" I looked down.
"You," I mumbled. Ryan looked at me in surprise.
"Me?" he laughed. "You wrote her up for talking to me?" Ryan shook his head. "Edward, these are ridiculous. She's a good employee. I know you don't like her but this is silly." Ryan took the stack of write-ups and tore them in half.
"Lay off," he said, looking me in the eye.
"Alright," I said. "But don't blame me when this place goes to hell." I got up to leave. Clearly, the "getting Bella to quit" plan wasn't working anyway.
"One more thing," Ryan said as I was leaving. I paused in the doorway.
"Next Friday is Halloween," he said. I raised my eyebrow at him, waiting for him to continue. "I expect you to wear a costume this year. That whole, 'I'm a book store employee' thing isn't going to fly this time. It's for morale, Edward." I nodded. "And let Bella know about wearing a costume, ok?"
I nodded again, resentfully. I hate Halloween. It's always just an excuse for Jessica and her ilk to dress slutty and get no work done. One thing I can say for the inscrutable Miss Swan is at least she dresses modestly. I've looked.
I found her in Literature, talking to a customer. She was explaining epistolary novels and holding "Lady Susan" and "Dracula." Funny, right?
I waited until she was finished talking. She saw me waiting and looked at me warily.
"Hi," she said. Her face looks really tense. I guess mine would too if I were getting written up all the time.
"Bella…" I felt nervous talking to her. I reminded myself that I'm a vampire and getting intimidated by a young woman is wimpy. "I just wanted to let you know that next Friday is Halloween." As soon as it left my mouth I realized how dumb it sounded.
She nodded carefully, quirking her head at me slightly. "Yes, yes it is Halloween," she answered slowly. "Did I tell someone it wasn't?"
"No, I mean, you're working that day and Ryan expects us to dress up," I added. She nodded again.
"Are there rules around it? I mean, are there guidelines so I don't mess it up?" I couldn't tell whether she was being cautious or snarky. I suspected a little of both.
"No," I frowned. "Just use good judgment." She smiled wryly.
"Ok." She turned back to the books she was reshelving and mumbled: "I guess I'll find out when you write me up for wearing the wrong costume."
I paused. I wanted to get on her case for "talking back" or "mumbling back" or whatever but it was right then that I saw Angela and Ryan giggling over the monitor behind the registers. Which would have been no big deal but then Angela shot me a glance and I could see him her head an image of me, only exaggeratedly pale and creepy, dressed in a tuxedo and clinging to the ceiling in the stockroom. Wearing makeup. What the…?
Ryan looked up when he saw me coming and waved me over.
"Edward, you gotta see this," he turned the monitor towards me and I found myself looking at a Craiglist ad.
Bella Swan. It had to be. She had posted a "Women for Men" ad the day she came in to interview.
"Manscara?" I practically shrieked. "Is that even a thing?" Ryan and Angela laughed. Angela had the decency to feel guilty about making fun of me.
I looked back to where Bella was in the store and then back at the ad. "She thinks I'm gay?" I huffed, to my co-worker's amusement. How could she so misunderstand me? Although, clearly she had picked up on the discomfort I felt at her presence I had no idea she would so misconstrue it. And frankly, I was a little insulted that she thought I was gay. Did that mean…?
I looked at Angela and Ryan. "Do you guys think…?" They looked at each other nervously, their laughter forgotten.
"Well, I…" Angela looked down at her hands and then glanced at me. "You never talk about having a girlfriend…"
"Yeah, but have I ever talked about having a boyfriend?" Angela flinched a little at my tone. I was getting hysterical.
"Thanks for showing me guys…" I wandered back into the store. The only thing I could do for damage control is make sure Emmett never, never saw the ad.
I had to admit that I was a little perturbed that Emmett wasn't more sympathetic to my troubles with our scheme. He actually was pretty amused when I told him about my conversation with my boss. Also, I told him how I overheard Bella calling me Ednerd and Repressedward.
"Whose side are you on, Emmett? She's the enemy, right?" Emmett just kept laughing.
"Dude, I just admire her spunk. Plus, you haven't had to lose your precious job and you haven't lost control and drained her. It just doesn't seem as bad as we thought it was going to be."
I grudgingly admitted that he was right. She really wasn't as big of a pain in the ass in my life as I initially thought. But that didn't mean that we were suddenly going to be friends or anything.
Emmett talked me into wearing his Star Trek uniform to work on Halloween and he even came in an hour into my shift to make sure I didn't chicken out on the Spock ears.
"Where's Public Enemy Number One?" Emmett asked, leaning on the top of one of the shelves.
"Not here yet," I answered, putting away a self-help book and leaning on the low bookshelf with him to watch the door.
"Well, at least you can write her up for being…" Emmett looked at his watch. "Two minutes late, right?"
I am just about to remind him that I am not allowed to write her up anymore when she walks in.
Clearly she was late because she was getting into her costume. But I don't care because her costume?
She's wearing this Victorian-looking black dress with…remember how I said she always dressed pretty demurely?...some kind of corset that makes her breasts look…Jesus, I can't even believe I'm thinking about her breasts...but they look that great.
Her hair was down around her pale shoulders and she's had all this dark eye makeup and red lipstick and…fuck me, fake blood on the corner of her mouth and fangs and Bella Swan was dressed up as a vampire and she looked…sexy and adorable and if I had drool I would have been drooling.
I realized I was staring only when Emmett jabbed me for the seventh time and I looked at him with this "deer about to get killed by a vampire" look. He chuckled.
I pointed to Bella and stared at Emmett and he laughed harder. I looked back at her and she still hasn't noticed that I was having a "moment" with her. I looked back at Emmett.
Emmett continued to laugh and he slapped me on the back and choked out, between spasms of hysterical laughter: "It's too bad you spent the last month being a dick to her, huh?"
It is only then that I realized how well and truly fucked my endless life was.
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