Chapter 3
Present Day
It was with great relief that they woke up by their alarm clocks and not Renee's post-travel schedule, indicating that Renee had left again.
"Do you know what she does to keep this house?" Rose asked to Alice, they lived in a nice neighborhood in Ridgewood where German immigrants in the late 19th century had made the facades and so, they were rare anywhere else in Queens. It wasn't an obviously expensive house, but they'd all seen the bills and knew it wasn't easy to keep in their current state of bankruptcy.
"No idea." Said Alice with a seemingly unconcerned air. "Maybe she's a magic whore."
"What?" asked Bella, not trying to hide her disgust.
"You know, she makes spells and jinxes people for the highest bidder."
"Again, what?"
"Yeah, where do you get these ideas?" Rosalie asked as she finished putting her hair on a milkmaid braid.
"Well, I dreamt that's what she did, so I thought… maybe it is what she does." Rose and Bella looked at each other with concern for their oldest sister. "Look, for all we know about her, she could be totally doing something like that." She finished defensively and started straightening her hair.
"I rather not think of our mother as a voodoo high priestess or whatever she may or may not be doing according to your dream." With that, Bella donned on some jean shorts and a black tank top and Alice sighed in despair.
"Wear something pretty! Puh-lease!" she begged.
"I'll be dead before you see me in something that by your standards is pretty." Alice stood up and stared at her, all signs of mockery gone.
"One day." She gave one step towards the youngest sister. "One day you will." Alice smiled and sat back down on the floor to continue fixing her hair.
"Cryptic much?" Bella looked questioningly at Rose who just shrugged.
The bell rang and they all sent inquisitive gazes at each other. The bell rang again and Bella knew who it was.
"My man!" she said happily as she put up her hair in a high ponytail. Alice made a face and mouthed: 'why?' The bell rang again.
"Go open the door for your man before I kill him. Doesn't Mike know about patience?" Rosalie said, her voice full of exasperation.
"Mike?" Bella laughed. "I broke up with him two weeks ago." Alice smiled and looked at Rosalie as if she should've known better.
"Oh. Then who is your man?" Rose asked while putting on concealer over her freckles, she hated them and often found herself wishing for Bella or Alice's clear skin.
"Jake." Bella stated proudly with a smile. Alice laughed.
"Of course." Rosalie sighed and rolled her eyes.
The bell rang again. Rosalie gave an irate look at Bella.
"He has to learn that I'm not available anytime it tickles his fancy to see me. I have a life."
"Well, your life might kill you if you ignore your man." Rosalie's eyes were hard, filled with annoyance as the bell ran again.
"Fine" huffed Bella and went to open the door. "My man!" exclaimed Bella loudly from the first floor and Rose gave a small laugh imagining her sister launching herself at the mutt.
"I'm going to tell Bella's new man that he better be more patient or I'll make sure Bella's title for him changes." Alice laughed and claimed she wanted to see Bella's face when she threatened her man.
The two sisters went down the stairs, Rosalie barefoot and Alice in high heels. As they expected, Bella was getting off Jacob's arms.
"You guys, this is Jacob, or Jake. Or the man, if you will." Bella announced.
"About that…" Rosalie was not lying when she said she'd threaten Jacob's title, she didn't do it in a sweet voice, no. She did it with a flat voice and stone face. Jacob looked very uncomfortable, maybe even a little scared and Bella was outraged.
"Come on, you can buy me breakfast." Bella said as she pulled Jacob out of her house, hoping to avoid any more threats. Jake managed to wave goodbye as he was being dragged outside and the two remaining sisters snickered and high-fived each other.
Bella eyed his car, thinly veiling her dislike of it.
"Don't judge the car." Jacob said as he opened the door to the driver's seat. "Hey, I wanted to ask: what happened to your face?" Bella's hand immediately reached for her cheek. It didn't hurt and it didn't look too conspicuous, there was just a red mark – as if she had spent too much time on the sun.
"Oh. It's nothing. The ladies in jail can be pretty rough." She smiled, attempting to joke.
"Is it worth it?" Bella made a puzzled face. "I mean, getting your pretty face beat up over that shit?"
"Of course!" she answered as if it was the dumbest question ever asked. And to her, it was.
"I just—I think that it's a lousy cause that you're fighting for." He looked directly ahead. Hoping Bella wouldn't be too mad, but he had to make her understand. Someone had to.
"My mom doesn't think its right." She looked out the window, suddenly wishing she could make someone understand, anybody. The only one who understood was Rosalie and she didn't really count because she was a zealot. Alice didn't care and Renee, well… she was Renee. "Anyways, I thought you agreed with my cause, what gives?"
"Renee was here?" he ignored her last question altogether. "Maybe you can introduce me, I mean, I'm an awesome specimen." He wiggled his eyebrows and Bella scoffed. "That is if she wants to meet me, of course."
"What if I don't want you to meet her?" Jacob blanked. "Besides its not like she's still here, she left sometime around midnight." Bella found herself wishing the drive to school wasn't as long as it was.
Jacob's face fell and then started apologizing. Assuming that Bella was lying about Renee, that she just didn't want him to meet her mom because he didn't agree with her views.
"I'm sorry that I trashed your cause, but think about it. You are basically fighting against your own sex."
"Not this again." Muttered Bella as her temper started to rise. "I am not fighting against, I am fighting for."
"I'm not sure that you are." He tried to explain himself, but could sense that Bella was being unreasonable. "I'm not a feminist, but I understand the basics. Equality. And all that shit. What you're fighting for ain't feminism, it ain't for the wellbeing of girls." They had arrived at a small café a block away from campus, Bella got out of the car, not waiting to listen to whatever else the stupid boy had to say.
"You're being unreasonable."
"No. You are the one being unreasonable. I did not agree to dating you so that you could make a case for the enemy's cause."
"Do you even hear yourself? You sound ridiculous. Come on, lets go, I'll buy you Nutella crepes." Bella gave a dry laugh.
"No way buddy. You do not get to insult me and what I believe in, buy me food and then hope everything is fine." Her voice was starting to rise.
"Please." He looked around and motioned towards the café.
"No. I'm so done with this. You and I, we bonded, I… I agreed to go out with you because you made me think that you had the same ideals as me. And now you pull this bull on me."
"Bells, lets talk about it." He pleaded.
"No. Forget it." She walked away, her eyes stinging with angry tears.
"Dick!" She turned around and screamed at him from a couple of feet away and flipped him off.
"Real mature, Bella!" he said and turned around, obviously embarrassed at her outburst. She spent the rest of the day in silent anger, mulling over her actions, wishing she wasn't as short tempered. Even her most hateful teacher asked her if something was wrong after class; other teachers simply ignored her, assuming that her silence was due to some plotting for a way to sabotage next week's conference.
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"Afternoon, Ms. Swan." Rosalie smiled.
"Hello Gwyn," the girl repressed an annoyed face, Rosalie had been working at the Industry for a week and she just couldn't get her name right. She was oblivious to the newly acquired name placard on Gwen's desk and continued on to the main workshop, giving the angry girl a bright smile.
"Blondes." She muttered.
"What was that Gwyn?" Rose didn't understand the word, she just heard Gwyn's voice, she turned around and gave her a questioning look.
"Have a nice day." Gwen shook her head and Rosalie smiled again.
Upon arriving at the main workshop she sought Vera out. Her hair was up in a high ponytail and her face had smears of grease, unaware of it, she reached for Rosalie and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Guess who's here?" Vera asked basically out of the blue.
"The president?" Rosalie guessed.
"No! Your admirer." Vera said in a whisper. Rosalie looked around, confused as to whom this admirer of hers was. She was certain she'd already scared all of them.
"Who? Emmet?" he was the only man she could distinguish among the cars, the others were on their lunch break, and he was looking in their direction.
"Pft, no! Royce!" Vera rolled her eyes as if the suggestion was the stupidest thing ever. She ran a dirty hand through her ponytail and Rose winced at the gesture.
"If you wanna make a move on that piece of meat, and don't feel like going alone with him, give me a call. We can double date." She winked and left to keep working on the model for the car axis.
She gave another 360 look around the workshop, trying to find Royce. She didn't know what she'd do if she spotted him, say hello? Try not to punch him? Clean off the grease on her cheek? Before she could decide that it was better to not spot him and run away the man in question appeared.
"Hello, Ms. Swan." He was as handsome as she remembered, blond hair carefully combed and not a single hair out of place, blue eyes, slightly darker than hers, framed by small wrinkles from smiling too much. His smile was the cherry on the cake, white teeth and full lips. Rose tried not to swoon.
"Mr. Hale" she mustered.
"Call me Royce, sweetheart." Rosalie couldn't help herself and rolled her eyes. He was gorgeous when quiet, but his attempt at flirtation annoyed her.
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with calling you Royce sweetheart."
"What?" he looked bewildered and wondered why she'd think he'd want her to call him sweetheart. Recognition flashed in his eyes as he recalled what he'd told her. "Oh, no, just call me Royce. You're the sweetheart."
"Nice." She raised her eyebrows.
"I'm the epitome of nice. Want to go for dinner with this nice nice man?"
"Mmm, I don't know…" his smile remained and his eyes twinkled with amusement.
"It'll be fun. I'll even pay." He finished and Rose was obviously torn by the free food offer. She was tired of eating sandwiches, pizza and frozen meals.
"All right. Next weekend."
"Saturday sound good?"
"Perfect, meet me at seven, you already have my address." Rosalie was slightly annoyed that he did have her address, but was glad that she wouldn't have to speak any longer with him.
"Of course, Ms. Swan." He reached for her left hand and kissed it. Rose smiled.
"Sorry to break the flirting time, but we need to get to work. Mr. Hale, Ms. Swan." Emmet interrupted and Rose didn't spare him a glance, enthralled by Royce's unfaltering smile and the tingling feeling on her hand, where he'd kissed it.
"No problem, gotta make a living, huh?" Royce broke away from Rose and addressed Emmet. "Cousin, always a pleasure." He turned his blue eyes towards Rosalie: "I'll see you later, Ms. Swan." He gave a small bow and turned.
"You can call me Rose." She said when Royce had disappeared. She didn't consider Emmet to be interested in her and so she treated him like a human being. Emmet raised a single eyebrow and smiled, wondering if she liked him better than Royce.
Her time at the fabric was short, from one to five and was always sad to leave such an amazing place. Before she left she looked for Vera, disappointed in not having found her she headed outside and as luck would have it she was speaking to Gwen.
"Sorry to interrupt, Vera, Gwyn." The both girls smiled, but Gwen's eyes turned harder as she inconspicuously straightened her placard. "Vera, can I take you up on your double date offer?"
"That was faster than I expected. Of course, when?" Vera's face was clean and after Rose explained the details, she hugged her. As this was happening Vera whispered in her ear: "Her name's Gwen, not Gwyn."