I do not own Twilight or any of its characters.
Chapter Two - Shopping
For the others, it was frustrating to not have a clue what to do next. We spent all night gathered in a circle, going over and over every remote possibility. Personally, I was having a lot of trouble seeing what the big deal was. Either Aro was alive, in which case we just had to keep watching our backs just like we'd been doing for the better part of the last decade, or he was dead, in which case we probably didn't need to worry about the guard showing up in the middle of the night to try whisk Alice and Edward away. In any case, they would never succeed in pulling off a mission like that. They had no legitimate weapons apart from the twins, and Bella could hold them off. If it came to blows, Jasper and I could take out quite a few of them with some others left over for the wolves to tear apart. Now that Nessie was in the picture, the wolves would be all too happy to help us in a fight.
Everybody around here liked to get so worked up over every little inconvenience. What was worrying going to change? If we worried hard enough, would that make Aro come back to life and be back in charge? Did we even want that anyway?
"As far as I'm concerned, everybody just needs to take a chill pill," I finally said, leaning back in the couch with my hands clasped behind my head, elbows pointed outward on either side. I crossed the ankle of my left leg over my right knee to emphasize just how relaxed I was about this latest world-ending crisis. Sometimes I really wondered what exactly I'd done wrong in my life to get myself wrapped up in an eternity of angst-ridden companions. Too many women, too much wine?
Rose aimed a sharp kick at my left leg, knocking it down. "Idiot, we don't know what to expect from the Volturi anymore if Aro is dead. And if he isn't, then they've obviously got something new up their sleeve."
"I understand all that, Rose. I know you all like to think I'm a big dumb idiot, but I have been listening. I just don't see what standing around wringing our hands is going to do about the problem, and I don't see that we even have any proof that there is actually a problem. So what do you say, we go out, bag us a bear, and start preparing once we have an idea of what we're preparing for?"
"Is everything always about food for you?" Rosalie huffed and turned her body away from me.
"I can think of at least one other thing I like more than food," I grinned, moving toward my wife.
"Emmett," Edward moaned, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Could you try to think a little more quietly, please?"
And with that, things returned more or less to normal. Jasper decided that it had been awhile since he ate after all, and Esme decided to tag along with us since she needed to run out to the store anyway to pick up some things for the lunch she was going to pack for Jacob and Nessie's planned beach trip. I felt a little sorry for her for needing to take on that task. Either one of those kids ate enough to feed the entire population of Forks High School.
Speaking of Forks High School...
"When does Nessie start going to school anyway?" I asked Esme casually as we piled into my beloved Jeep. We had decided to go a little out of our way, feed first, then double back and hit the store. That way, we wouldn't be tempting fate by being hungry in a store full of people.
"She starts in two weeks. She's been so excited about it. That's why she bought so many new clothes yesterday. I feel so badly that we didn't give her a chance to model any of them last night," Esme answered, fretting needlessly over her perceived slight against her granddaughter.
"She'll be fine, Esme. So she'll model her clothes for us today instead. Girl must be nuts, excited to go to school."
"It's the first time for her," Jasper piped up from the back seat. "She'll get sick of it eventually. I'm a little jealous though, she'll have a much easier time fitting in than we did, since she can eat and isn't ice cold to the touch."
She had wanted to start school the previous year, and she had looked about the right age to start high school, but Edward was concerned that the staff might notice the rapid pace of her aging. Now that she was finished, there was no harm in sending her. The problem was that she looked too much like both Bella and Edward, and since we had stayed in Forks for so long, she would be going to the same school where they had both been taught. The final decision had been to dye her hair and enroll her as Vanessa Swan, Bella's cousin who had come to stay with Charlie. Hopefully no one would notice that some of he facial features were much more reminiscent of Edward Cullen, since she at least wouldn't have his hair anymore.
Staying in Forks for this long had been trying for all of us, most of all Carlisle. We didn't have a lot of options open to us. Nessie didn't want to be away from the pack (read: Jacob), and Bella didn't want to be away from her father. Most of us could get away with making only short trips into Forks and conducting the majority of our business in Port Angeles or Seattle where no one would notice that we hadn't changed. Carlisle, on the other hand, had been forced to leave his job. He'd barely been able to pass for 35; there was no way anyone would believe that he was 40. It had been a terrible strain on him, since helping people was one of his greatest joys.
We had talked about splitting up for a few years, leaving Bella, Edward, and Nessie to their own devices in Forks while the rest of us moved on to another city so Carlisle could return to work and the rest of us wouldn't have to hide. Normally, it would have been a great plan, but Rosalie didn't want to spend one day away from Nessie while she was growing up, and Esme didn't want to be away from half of her family for so long. It was hard enough on her when Rose and I would move away for a couple of years at a time to enjoy married life. Now that Nessie was done growing, it might be time to suggest that as an option again.
"Ever think about revisiting the idea of moving away for awhile?" I asked nervously.
"We can't do anything drastic until we know more about Aro," Esme told me firmly.
"Yeah, I know, but after that?"
"I'm not making any plans until I know my family is safe."
Right. Stupid of me to even bring it up. I considered pressing the line of questioning further, but I'd never really seen Esme get pissed off at anyone, and something told me this wasn't the day to change that. It was time for a new topic, but I'd had entirely enough of discussing the Volturi for the day.
Jasper must have sensed my discomfort and even managed to guess at the reason for it. "Emmett, I heard you and Seth the other day talking about putting together a vampires vs. werewolves tournament." Bless that brother of mine for having talents that are useful without being irritating.
"Yeah, we were really just joking around, but if you think there might be some interest we could try to do it for real," I told him.
"Tournament?" Esme arched an eyebrow. "It sounds dangerous and bloody and not something I want happening in my house."
"Relax, Mom," I grinned. "A video game tournament. Fun way to get out some pent-up rage without getting PETA on our asses for hurting any actual animals."
"Yeah, because we never hurt animals," Jasper muttered.
"We don't hurt them, we kill them. There's a huge difference! By the time they even feel it, it's over!"
We spent the rest of the trip having a jovial debate about whether hunting with our bare hands and teeth constituted cruelty to animals. In the end, Jasper and I decided that it was only cruel if we let Edward talk to them about the influence of literature on modern society, and Esme decided that we were both being terribly inconsiderate to our brother who wasn't present to defend himself. Thank goodness he found Bella. Dude had absolutely no game at all. He might have managed to bore a few girls into sleeping with him just so he'd shut up and quit droning about what a monster he was, but I really couldn't imagine him actually trying to flirt with a girl.
Hello, my name is Edward. I enjoy playing the piano and brooding. Also, I will alternate between reading your mind and obnoxiously pointing it out, and reading the minds of those around us and having irritating one-sided conversations with them. Would you like to go make out?
Actually, that might legitimately work. Edward could've rocked the whole "emo" fad if he would've just combed his hair into his face.
We found a nice secluded spot to park and went on a hunt for bears. Unfortunately, the only bear I could find was no challenge at all. If I hadn't put him out of his misery, he probably would've keeled over and died later that same day. Esme and Jasper settled for whatever they could find and we were back on our way, needing to grab some human food for the slightly different non-mythical mythical creatures.
"Emmett, that bear didn't seem too satisfying to you," Jasper remarked once we were back on the road.
"Ehh, bear blood is bear blood."
"Really? As slow as that thing was moving, I figured it'd taste like chipmunk blood."
"Nope, it was nice and beary."
"What kind of berry? Strawberry? Blueberry?"
"Bearberry," I deadpanned.
Esme shook her head at us, but I could tell that our conversation was lifting her mood. She took everything to heart so much, sometimes she needed a good distraction and she sure never seemed to go out of her way to find them on her own. She always spent so much of her time and energy making sure we were all right, I felt a sudden twinge of guilt that we didn't expend nearly as much effort on making sure that she was.
"The berries were bare? Seems immodest." Jasper had apparently reached the same conclusion as I.
"Berry much so."
By this point, Esme was staring straight ahead out the windshield and her mouth was twitching in an effort not to laugh. Jasper went for the kill.
"Seriously, Em. That thing was barely alive."
Esme lost her composure. "You two, I can't bear any more of this!"
"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an overbearing mother," I called back to Jasper.
"Can you blame her? Bear in mind, she's got to put up with us!"
Esme's face was buried in her palms, her shoulders shaking in hysterics. It was uplifting to see her laughing again. Who knew when we might have another chance, depending on what we managed to find out about our latest crisis.
I pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket, which looked to be just opening for business. We'd have to hurry all the same if we planned to get back home in time for Esme to throw lunch together for Nessie and Jacob before he arrived to pick her up. Normally, Esme preferred to do her grocery shopping solo, but since we were on a tight schedule and we couldn't move at our full pace, Jasper and I thought we'd help her out.
We weren't much help at all, actually. Neither one of us had ever set foot in a supermarket before. We didn't eat that kind of food, and large-scale supermarkets hadn't existed when either one of us was turned. Jasper kept finding the most brightly-colored packages and reading them intently, trying to decide if it sounded like something Nessie might like. I was just floored by the array of foods available. Who knew humans had so many options? How was it possible that any of them stayed at a reasonable weight when there were so many types of food to sample? And why the hell were there so many kinds of breakfast cereal that it took up an entire aisle by itself?
Jasper picked up a box of Count Chocula. "Nessie needs this."
Esme rolled her eyes. "She's not going to eat cereal on a picnic at the beach."
"Well she needs it at home then!" Jasper insisted, shoving it into the cart. Esme didn't bother arguing. If Nessie didn't like it, Jacob or Seth would eat it, vampire box art notwithstanding.
Esme stopped at the deli and bought a ton of different meats and cheeses. "I'm throwing a party," she said dismissively when the clerk gave her a strange look. "And my little brother is developmentally disabled," she added upon seeing how I had my face pressed against the glass to get a better look at the difference between Virginia Baked Ham and Hickory Smoked Ham.
In a much quieter voice, she told me that I should make myself useful by getting some bread. "And take your brother with you," she hissed. I turned around and found Jasper furrowing his brow, trying to figure out the difference between ketchup and catsup.
"Come on, we're going to get some bread!" I informed him.
"It looks like blood," Jasper mumbled, stuffing both bottles back onto the shelf.
We slowly made our way to the bakery, stopping to ponder why salads needed to be dressed in dozens of different colors and exactly what the difference between Coke and Pepsi could possibly be.
"Um, Emmett?" Jasper had a look of mild horror on his face. "Did Esme say what kind of bread we should get?"
I had no idea there were so many different types of bread.
We stood and gaped for awhile before we finally realized that there was an entire section of bread specifically labeled for sandwiches. Unfortunately, that only narrowed our search slightly.
"This one says 'premium,'" Jasper pointed out.
"Yeah, but there's 12 different varieties," I told him. "Even with all the meat and cheese Esme's buying, we probably don't need that many loaves."
"Excuse me," Jasper said politely to a store employee stocking a shelf nearby. "What kind of bread would you recommend for a teenage girl and her boyfriend?"
While Jasper tried to look less insane to the poor clerk who was just trying to do her job, I wandered over to look at the huge case of doughnuts that had caught my eye. I hastily packed a couple of boxes, deciding that pastries were definitely called for on this occasion. After Jasper finally convinced the clerk that he really was just inept enough to be incapable of choosing bread without help, he returned to me with two loaves of white bread and two loaves of wheat bread tucked under his arms. He was holding them gingerly, as if he were afraid that they might spew out of the bags and worm their way into his mouth.
We caught up with Esme, who was busy trying to look as if the case of soda (apparently, Jacob preferred one brand over the other for some reason) was actually heavy enough to cause her difficulty loading it into the cart. She cast a suspicious glance at us for our selections, but sighed and told us to just put them in the cart.
The three of us finished our shopping trip without further incident, although that was due mostly to the fact that Esme had picked up everything else she needed while we were busy figuring out what kind of bread to get. I had a hunch that she'd planned it that way. Loading the groceries into the Jeep was an easy task. We understood how that part worked.
A short time later, we were back at home, and as we were putting the mountain of food on the kitchen counter, I had the distinct feeling that Esme would not be asking us along the next time she went to the grocery store.
"Do you want some help putting the kids' lunches together?" I asked politely.
"No!" Esme said, a bit too quickly. "No boys, you've helped plenty today," she said more calmly. "Why don't you go play your games and decide if you're going to have that tournament of yours? I'll get Edward and Bella to help."
At the sound of their names, the two of them appeared in the kitchen and began tearing through the bags rapid-fire looking for specific items and assembling sandwiches. I was in awe of their ability to comprehend what kind of food went where in light of what I'd just seen, but Bella had done a lot of the shopping when she was human, which had only been a few years ago. She'd never un-learned how to do any of it, since she'd had a daughter to feed immediately. Edward was almost as good at it as she was, but that made sense too, because he'd learned how to prepare food for Bella while she was human. Now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be invited along on the next trip to the supermarket either.
"Count Chocula?" Edward asked, amused. He chuckled aloud, probably in response to some stray thought of Esme's about how the box had gotten there.
"That's a lot of bread," Bella remarked. A split second later, Edward was laughing again.
"I'm pretty sure we're being made fun of," Jasper whispered under his breath.
"That's okay. As long as they're making fun of us, they're leaving somebody else alone."
"Okay, come on now," Bella called in a shrill voice. "Why exactly did somebody buy two dozen bear claws?"
Esme turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen.