Bella

Friday 11-15-11/13:37

Esme's Pov.

Unhurriedly I was walking to our garage when my cell phone started ringing. A really familiar number appeared on the display. It was my husband, Carlisle. I answered the phone and immediately I could hear Carlisle's wonderful voice.

"Hi Darling, I'm so sorry, but I won't be able to come to Port Angeles with you", he said.

"An emergency?" I asked. It wouldn't be the first time. My husband was a physician at the local community hospital and there often were emergencies that caused him to work a lot longer than he was supposed to.

"Yes, of course... I mean, what else? Somebody wasn't intelligent enough to follow the speed limits. The tree was there faster than the young man thought. He will probably be fine, but it will take me some time to treat his injuries. I don't want anybody to die and I'm on call, so it's my job to look after him. Sorry sweetheart", he said.

"No problem", I assured him, "I'll see you later. I love you." "I love you too."

So I got into my grey Mercedes on my own. On my way to the airport of Port Angeles I had a lot of time to think about god and the world – the highways were empty (not unusual for the area, it was only sparsely populated) and it was drizzling a little bit. That was the normal weather for the coastal areas of Washington State. On the Olympic Peninsula, the climate was quite humid and rainy, perfect for vampire. We didn't want to arouse attention or make anyone suspicious, so it obviously was great if there were barely any days on which we couldn't go out.

I also thought about my family. I just loved them so much. There was no way I could live without them. Carlisle, my husband, was really generous, Emmett was optimistic and funny, Alice was very buoyant, Jasper was calm and intelligent and Rosalie... Well, Rosalie was just Rosalie. I was a bit worried about Edward though. In the past few years he kept getting more quiet and lonely. He was the only one of us who hadn't found his the love of his life yet. I couldn't remember him laughing even once this month. I was sure that he would find the right girl one day – he was a wonderful young man with a great manners and a lots of different talents and I couldn't find even one reason why he wouldn't be the perfect partner for a lovely young lady.

I got a little bit nostalgic as I remembered how Alice and her Jasper were standing at our door in 1948. That was almost 64 years ago. Time really did fly by…

I was also thinking about my own life – although the word 'existence' maybe was a better fit. I was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1895 as the only daughter of Peter and Theresa Platt. Now we were writing the year 2011 and I still looked like 26. My life was a bit crazy, but I was happy.

I had the best husband in the world and five wonderful children, whom I loved more than anything else. I could spend an eternity with them and never get tired of all their little quirks. Sometimes it wasn't that bad to be immortal.

Meanwhile I arrived at the airport. It was just Port Angeles, so it was tiny and while it technically was an international airport because of the close proximity to Canada, but they really only had a couple of flights coming in per day. Most of them were coming out of Seattle, but there also were some charter flights to other cities in the region.

I was waiting for Isabella. She was a new student at the boarding school – our boarding school. It was thanks to Alice that Isabella was coming here. She made us organize a poetry competition because of one of her visions. Isabella's poem was the best by far.

It was about war and peace, about grief and happiness. It showed how close some opposites were and how quickly a situation could change. I fell in love with the poem the moment I first read it and so did everybody else. The first prize was a full scholarship for the CPS. She first didn't want to move here because she was from Switzerland and all her friends and family were there too. I could really understand her decision and offered her to come back on the scholarship whenever she wanted to.

Now Isabella had decided to accept the offer and move to the United States – on condition that she was paying half of the school fees. She told me it just wouldn't feel right to go to school here for free even if she didn't have any financial problems and that other people needed scholarships more than her.

Alice was describing Isabella as an unusually pretty girl with long brown hair, pale skin and a skinny body. Already for several days, the whole family was thinking about her all the time and Edward was quite pissed off by that – if I was allowed to say it like that. He could read our thoughts so one of the only things he had been seeing for the last few days was Isabella Swan.

The airplane landed meanwhile and the passengers were getting off. The plane had an astounding capacity of about 20 people, so I immediately recognized Isabella. She was the youngest person among the group of passengers walking towards me. She had a medium-sized trolley, a small black shoulder bag and a violin case. I was a bit confused about the latter, but I was sure I would get an answer if I ask her.

Alice' description actually applied perfectly, but Isabella was a lot prettier, skinnier and paler than I expected. I was a little worried because Rose couldn't stand if somebody was as pretty as her. Fortunately this happened quite rarely – she really was a beautiful young woman, but Isabella was really pretty too. Rosalie could get very aggressive and she could seriously harm her 'rivals'. Isabella was human and wouldn't have a real chance if Rose would get angry. I expected the worst.

More about her appearance – she was wearing dark blue jeans, a beige trench coat and flats. It looked great. Alice would probably think that it was too tame and not fancy enough, but I really liked it. I was amazed by her appearance generally, but I was most astonished by her face.

It was very narrow, heart-shaped and just gorgeous. Her light green eyes were framed by long, black eyelashes and looked at me friendly and somehow curiously. Their color was fascinating – I had never seen eyes like these before. Isabella's eyebrows were gently bent and reinforced the kind expression on her face. Her long dark brown hair was pinned up into a perfect bun and her motions – even though I would have never even dared to think that until five minutes ago – were, if possible, even more graceful than Alice'. And that said a lot.

She seemed to be inauthentically perfect – and I had never even talked to her face to face. There had to be a catch somewhere… I made a few steps in her direction and stretched my hand out. I was standing quite close to her. There were maybe three feet between us and now I could see that she was shivering. Not a lot, but I was still asking myself why that was.

She took my hand and started speaking, even though she was still shivering a bit, with a surprisingly calm voice: "Hello Mrs. Cullen, nice to meet you."

It sounded friendly and I was optimistic that she was a nice person. What surprised me a little bit was that she was speaking perfect English with an obvious British accent. She was Swiss, so I didn't really expect that.

"Hello Isabella, I'm glad to meet you too. You can call me Esme. How are you?" I asked her. "I actually prefer Bella. I'm fine, how about you?" "I'm doing great. I was already looking forward to meeting you, Bella. Carlisle, my husband couldn't come with me to pick you up. There was an emergency at the local hospital", I explained.

"That's no problem at all. My Dad is the head physician of a hospital, so this sounds very familiar. There are a lot emergencies at his hospital, it's the leading trauma center of the region. It's obvious that patients come first", she replied. Her voice sounded kind of distant, but her eyes were watching me attentively. We walked to the Mercedes together.

During the trip back home (which took about one hour) I asked Bella a few questions about her old school in Switzerland.

I found out that she had been going to Summers School of Arts, short SSA, until now. That was a small, but world-renowned private school in Switzerland, her home country. Around 400 students from all over the world and in all grades went to the school. It was really hard to get in and without a scholarship it was also really expensive. Whoever went there could be really proud.

The admission standards were extremely high, you had to be very gifted in at least one of the so-called 'arts'. I was pretty sure that the 'arts' were music, a few athletic disciplines, and academics. "I don't mean to be blunt, but how did you get into your old school? I've heard the acceptance rate is below 5%" I asked Bella. She wasn't feeling comfortable talking about the subject and her cheeks blushed.

"I first got in because my parents both went there and I seemed to be really good at learning languages and I also liked numbers and such things. I went to my first ballet lesson when I was six years old and it turned out that I wasn't too bad at that either." That sounded interesting.

"I assume you also play the violin...?" I asked. "Yes, I had to take lessons when I got to 3rd grade and I really enjoy it. I think I'm okay at it, but there are some musical geniuses at SSA and I was nowhere close to being as good as them. I brought it with me because it would have broken my heart to leave my violin at home. I really love it." "It seems like if you were the perfect SSA student. Why did you decide to leave such a fantastic school? I know that it was me who offered you the scholarship, but still – your new school isn't that well-known."

"I know, but you have a really good reputation as well. The pressure that was on me in Switzerland was just too big. Everybody expected me to solve all the world's problems and I was expected to win awards and competitions. I just want to live my life the way I want, in Switzerland it was dictated by the school. Besides that … there also was a little incident that definitely sped up the decision process. It made me think about my life and the way I wanted to live. I want to start from zero again because I don't want to be in my famous parents shadow anymore. I want to be Bella Swan, I don't want to be 'the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Swan'. That's why I came here."

She sighed. "Um, Mrs… Esme? Is it a problem if I'm ahead of the curriculum? I'm not sure, but I imagine that the curriculum at the SSA is a bit more stressful than yours." I had to grin. She almost was too friendly – it seemed like she was afraid of my answer. "That's no problem. I already thought that you would be ahead. All the European students we've had so far were really well-educated, and if I look at where you come from… I just hope that you won't be too bored." I laughed.

"By the way, why is your English so good? I mean you're Swiss, right? English isn't the language you speak there, I guess", I asked. "That's a legitimate question. There are actually four official languages in Switzerland – German, French, Italian and Romansh – but my father originally is from Great Britain, so we talk English at home quite frequently. Additionally half of the classes in Switzerland were English because the SSA is such an international school", she responded with a shrug. That seemed to make sense, so I nodded.

"Cool. I personally really like British English. My husband was born and raised in London. He will be happy to hear someone with a British accent. There aren't many tourists or immigrants from England in the region and he misses talking the way he was used to before he came here. He usually hides his accent because people keep asking him about it", I told her.

Bella was talking to me openly and she was very friendly. She was also patiently answering all of my questions, but somehow I felt like she never really smiled. Her face spoke another language than her words. It was kind of strange…