Cherry is addicted to pins and Mia's heart is charcoal. I fear for my safety.
Readers- My Forks is backwoods-we-cook-road-kill-for-dinner country.
Preferably possum. They're the yummiest.
Chapter Three: Billboards and Barbeque
It's three this time. More than yesterday.
Not as many as last week.
I sigh and toss the empty whiskey bottles in the trash.
I can't wait to get out of this shitty town.
I'm not like Alice, though. I don't want to go to some big college or university where you actually choose to go to class. No, I've got stars in my eyes.
Sometimes, when Mama isn't at the bar and we go to Seattle for errands, I look at the billboards that are high above all them fancy buildings. I see those models and think how much I want to be them. I want to wear those clothes and have their hair and be photographed by some Hollywood hotshot.
I want to be someone I'm not.
"Bella!"
"I'm on the back porch!" I push down on the lid to the trashcan, trying to make it shut. There's too much garbage.
Only it's not just outside.
"Well get in here!"
I turn the handle to the back door, where the brass has worn off and it doesn't quite lock all the way anymore.
"Yes, Mama?"
I stare at the woman whose genes I share. She's got the same brown eyes and mahogany colored hair, but hers has a little more blonde in it these days. I frown at the miniskirt and tank top she's wearing.
They're mine.
She always takes my stuff and never gives it back.
"Bella, you didn't wash the dishes. I asked you to wash the dishes." She points to the loaded sink, like it's full of poverty and everything she hates about herself.
"I was gettin' to it." She doesn't like the sass coming from me. I know it 'cause she tells me all the time.
She teeters around in her hot pink six inch stilettos, checking her reflection in the toaster. The mascara has spread around her eyes. Using her spit, she wipes away the black streaks. "When I tell you to do something, Bella, you gotta do it. It's just us now. You gotta be responsib-"
"I know, I know."
I have to do my share of the work because Daddy left us for the whore from Pick N' Save.
I have to take out the trash, do the laundry, and clean the house 'cause Daddy couldn't keep it in his pants.
"Bella, come here." Mama gestures towards me with long acrylic nails, sweeping a few tendrils of hair away from my face. She smells like alcohol and weed and dirty men. "I know it's hard, baby. One of these days I'm gonna marry me one of those big rollers that come to see me in the club, and he'll take care of us. He'll be better than your Daddy ever was. You just gotta hang in there. Do good in school. Write them papers and use them big words like they say on TV, all right? Stay away from boys and make me proud. You gotta be smart, baby. I don't want you ending up like I did, pregnant at 14. You understand me, Bella?"
I nod and she kisses my temple. "That's my girl. Now go to Dirty's and pick up something to eat. I got a long shift tonight. One of the girls called in sick. Damn amateurs."
I take the crumpled bills she hands me, mostly ones, and head for the long walk into town.
Barefoot.
Dirty's is just like it sounds, only it smells of barbeque. "Dirty Harry" Clearwater runs the place, and if I'd hadn't came home from school early one day, I would never have seen him fucking Mama on the living room sofa. I bypass the old men who have nothing better to do than gossip and stare at any female that walks through the door.
"Bella!" Harry grins at me, wiping the counter down. "What can I get for you, baby doll?"
I sit on the vinyl stool, spinning in half-circles and touching the metal beneath the cushion.
"I need two half-racks, both with coleslaw, add fried pickles to one."
"You got it!" Harry calls the order to the cooks in the back and leans forward. His blue eyes shine back at me, surrounded by wrinkles and grey hairs that needed cut.
"How's Renee?" It's a repeated question, the same one he gives me every time I'm in here. He doesn't care about the answer. He just wants to know if she's fucking anybody else.
Probably.
"She's fine. Working overtime a lot."
A smile lingers at the edge of my lips, because I know that's not what he wants to hear. He frowns, tossing his hand towel over his shoulder. "Oh. Well you tell her I said hi, will ya?"
"Sure."
I sit there twirling and kicking my feet until the food's ready. I pay Harry and walk out the door, trying to count my change. He stiffed me the last time and Mama raised hell until we got our food for free.
Seventy-eight, seventy-nine…
"Oof!"
I collide with a hard body in front of me, and drop a few quarters on the ground. I lean over to pick them up when I notice a familiar pair of shoes.
"You gotta watch where you're going, Dimples."
Glancing up, I see a pair of the greenest eyes staring back at me. Not the plain, boring green. No, they're first-day-of-spring-fresh-kiwi-Christmas-tree green.
"Cadillac?"
"The one and only." He grins, and today he's wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. His shades are tucked into his shirt, the same bandana hanging out of his pocket.
"Let me get those for you." Cadillac grabs for my bag before I can protest, handling it with ease.
"Wow, twice in one week. Must be my birthday." I'm being sarcastic, but it doesn't faze him.
"I have a thing for helping out defenseless little girls."
"I'm not-" I don't even bother defending myself. It's no use. He'd just laugh at me anyway.
I stuff the change into the pocket of my denim skirt and reach out for my food.
Cadillac pulls it towards him. "I got it. You need a lift home?"
"Yeah, but Mama told me never to ride with strangers."
"She must be a smart woman." He chuckles and leads the way to his car, opening the passenger door despite my hesitation.
"Hop in."
"What kind of car is this?" I glide my hand over the baby blue interior that matches the outside color.
"You really have to ask?" He raises an eyebrow at me, but continues driving down Main Street. "It's a '53 Cadillac. I fixed this baby up myself. New leather and chrome, supped up engine, custom windshield…I'd kill over this car."
"Is that why they call you that? After your car? Didn't you have a name before then?"
"That is my name. My mother gave birth to me right in that backseat." He nods his head in the rear direction, but I don't believe him.
No one would name their child after a car, no matter how much pain they were in.
I was so busy staring at him that I didn't notice he was already down Buckley Lane.
I never even gave him directions.
"Wait! Stop here. I'll walk the rest of the way."
He brakes so fast my body lunges forward in the seat. "See, that's why you gotta wear your seatbelt."
"Shut up." He hands me my bag, but I don't reach for the door handle, not yet.
"I have a few questions for you."
"Okay, ask." He stares at me and runs his fingers through his hair. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was nervous.
"How'd you know where I lived?"
"It's a small town, Dimples. Everybody knows everybody." He says it simplistically, like that's the obvious answer.
"How come I don't know you? You were friends with all those guys from my school, but I've never seen you before."
"That's 'cause you haven't been looking." I press my lips together, not accepting his reason as he sighs. "I used to live here and now I just moved back."
Oh. Well, that explains it. I wouldn't have known that. After Daddy left Mama and me to fend for ourselves in Georgia, we moved to the middle of nowhere Forks and stayed with Pop-Pop for a while until he died.
"My turn." Cadillac's got this sly grin on his face, like a cat right before it pounces on its unsuspecting meal.
I guess that makes me the mouse.
"Why don't you want me driving you all the way to your house? Your old man got a gun or something?"
I open the door handle and get out of the vehicle, carrying the now cold barbeque.
"Worse. My Mama does."
He gives me this look, but out of all the things I want from him, sympathy ain't it.
I turn to walk up the steep driveway, but Cadillac shouts at me.
"Hey Dimples!"
"Yeah?"
"It's Edward!"
He laughs and drives off, spinning his tires until I'm choking on dust.
Edward?
That lying piece of shit.
Born in the back of a Cadillac, my ass.
I wonder how many girls he's told that fib to.
I reckon more than ten, but...
I hope it's just one.