"But I received an unexpected call today. Joe Whitlock asked me to hear this Esme Platt."
"Wow! Really?" Joe is Jasper's grandfather, the ex-manager of Dazzle Proximity and still a close friend. But to get his intervention on this matter there must be something important.
"Aha. So I set a date with Miss Platt at that coffee shop you like. I want you to come with me, I need to hear your point of view of whatever she asks."
xxx
So after a late night fixing the washing machine, we arrived to Gino's my favorite coffee shop only to be called by a young blond seated in one of the corner booths.
"Carlisle! Hey! Over here!" The blond waved.
"Oh! I can't believe it." Dad said with a bright smile, so I guessed he knew her.
"Rosalie Hale! You look so ... mature!"
The blond stood up to greet Dad, and that's when I noticed her face was familiar.
"I was still a teenager last time we met." She answered with an equally bright smile.
"Yep, at Nonna Whitlock's funeral. It seems like it was so long ago. It's sad how we only reunite for weddings and funerals, after all those years together."
Yeah, for that nostalgic look on his eyes alone, now I know this blond is the daughter of someone related to Dazzling Proximity. We used to be in touch with a few members and with Joe Whitlock. But life happens... and then he remembered he didn't come alone. "Hmm, do you remember my son Edward?"
"Gosh! Last time I saw you, you were this tall!" Blondie also regaled me with her bright smile while she pointed to a place just a bit higher than the table. Now, that she mentioned it...
"Rose! Now I remember!" I was polite enough to plaster a smile and greet her, but my memories of her weren't so fond as Dad's. Let's see, when I was three, she drew pink hearts all over my cast along with many Barbie sparkling stickers despite my refusal for such girly things, she forced me to play with her dolls when I was nine, and I had a vague memory of her pushing another boy but I can't remember why.
"I was so bossy, I know!" She had the decency to blush. "But I hope we can sit and talk and you'll see how much I had changed." She even dared to wink at me!
"So Rose, not that I'm not happy to see you, but why the sudden reunion and what does it has to do with Esme Platt, who by the way, still haven't arrived."
"Oh, no. I asked her to get here late. I wanted to talk to you first. See, I'm getting married," She lifted her left hand to let a shiny shred of an asteroid blink under the lights of the coffee shop. How could she move with something so big on her finger was a mystery to me.
"Congratulations Rose." Dad was fast to say.
"So, well, I'm inviting both of you to my wedding."
"When it's the joyous event?"
"Well, it's kind of postponed."
"Oh, is something he did? Because I can still kick somebody's ass if you want me." Dad gave her his mot charming smile, the one which makes his eyes twinkle with mischief. Jesus! He does it without thinking. The waitress who was coming to take our orders almost tripped and fell.
"No, nothing like that. You already met my fianceé, it's Emmett McCarthy. Alec's nephew."
"Big burly guy? Of course, I know him! And you're getting married! Time flies so fast." Dad had a wistful smile. I guess he had fond memories of this Emmett too.
"The thing is, well, Dad had a stroke."
"Peter? Oh my God! Is he fine?"
"Yes, he's recovering. As a matter of fact, the doctors say he's fine as long as he keeps his diet and avoids stress. But the thing is... the stroke kind of put things in perspective for him. And while I don't mind moving my wedding or postponing it, as long as he walks me down the aisle; what he really wants to do first may turn to be impossible. He wants some sort of Dazzling Proximity reunion."
I was about to protest but she continued.
"Not like a tour or a record. No. He said the group disbanded in the worst conditions and before he goes, he wants to make peace with each one of you."
Dad put his hands under his chin, deep in concentration. "So with you marrying Emmett, Alec is on board, right?"
"As long as it only to make peace. He avoids the limelight like the plague because it wasn't a pleasant experience for him."
This was news for me. I barely recalled the names of Dad's partners: Peter, who remained in music though he changed his genre and now is a renowned rocker; from Alec all I remember is an extremely well-dressed man, always serious. Then there were Chuck and Marcus, but I'm sure I never met them. That part when Dad was together with them was a bit vague for me because he never liked to talk about them.
"And then, you have Joe's support; because he was the one who encouraged me to hear Miss Platt."
"Uncle Joe got very scared when Mom called him from the hospital. I'm sure he supports Dad's wish completely."
"Well, with me you have three out of five, though I want to make sure I'm siding with Alec. Nothing goes to the public eye or the media. This is just a friends reunion."
"Sure. I promise you it's only for my Dad's peace of mind. Now we just have to find Marcus Volturi and Chuck Eagles. Tell me, do you really broke apart in such an awful terms that not even Joe knows about their whereabouts?"
Dad answer got cut by the arrival of a woman with caramel hair and a pleasant smile.
"Well Rose, I'm here. I guess this gentleman is Carlisle Cullen, right?"
You could see how time stopped, Dad turned around to greet the nice woman and his eyes got big like saucers. His usually confident smile faltered for a second but came back in full force along with a strange twinkle on his yes.
For the first time in my 19 years, I saw a woman dazzling my father.
xxx
I got back to my apartment on Sunday morning, tired of hearing all the qualities Dad discovered on Miss Platt during the forty minutes interview they had. Now, I can't begrudge him to find someone, I could count with one hand the number of relationships he had over the years. Well, now that I think about, he leads a very lonely life. But if I heard one more time how her eyes were green as the forest on spring I would vomit. I have green eyes, my mother has green eyes, and we never heard such compliments over our eye-color. I was lucky if they weren't green vomit or snot. Ok, I liked to have puke-colored eyes when I was seven, but the point is he never praised my eye color.
Jasper was locked up in his room because the riff of Gary Moore's 'Still got the blues' was blaring through the door; meaning he finished his homework and was 'relaxing'.
"I'm home!" I yelled to get his attention. Tanya was very generous and sent him a special container with lots and lots of goodies so he surely would come out...
"Eddie boy! Is it something cheesy hiding inside your plastic bag?"
Do you know the definition of 'millisecond'? Well, usually is the time that goes between the traffic light changes from red to green to the first honk; in our case is the time it gets to Jasper smelling cheese.
"Maybe. Were you a good boy in my absence?" I asked while dangling the bag over Jasper's head. Sucker wasn't as tall. Sadly, he knew about my tickling side and he wasted no time and was dirty enough to use it against me. We were interrupted by the sound of the front door banging, some fierce steps stomping and then Bella's door was slammed.
"Do you think she's on her days? Because sometimes she gets..."
"Shh! Don't even whisper those words! Don't you know those words always will get you in trouble?" and he was the experienced man! "Jasper, go and hide in your room. This is a task for real men." I said, but before he dared to answer, my phone beeped. It was Renee.
"Is she home safely?"
"Hmm, I think so. She went to hide inside her room. Did something happen Renee?"
"Ugh! It was a very difficult weekend and I have one hot-headed husband to blame. Just let Bella be and I promise she will tell you. Now, I have to go and deal with my, now in the doghouse, husband. If I have trouble with him, do you think Bella will let me share her room?" Renee joked, and after promising to call later to check on Bella she said goodbye.
"So?" Jasper asked, he was carrying Tanya's container and was chewing on something.
"She had a fight with her father."
"Oh."
Nothing new. Bella, despite being over intelligent, it's a bit immature in many aspects. She's been too sheltered her whole life.
When her parents married, they wanted to have kids more than anything, but by the third miscarriage, Renee felt like having a baby was out of the cards for her. So while she began to investigate the procedures to adopt, she miraculously got pregnant.
Charlie tended to her so she wouldn't lift a finger, and when they passed the six-month mark, she felt like they finally made it. Bella was born one month later, too weak and too tiny. She spent her first two months in an incubator and her first two years she didn't put a foot out of her house.
By the time she was supposed to begin kindergarten, Renee was so scared, because little Bella was so delicate... every time she was in contact with kids, being a birthday party, a walk on the beach, an afternoon at the park, she always ended sick. Rubella, mumps, chicken pox... Bella caught any virus floating around her.
So, her parents decided to homeschool her. And in a way, it turned out to be a blessing. Bella is almost as intelligent as Jasper, absolut MENSA material. The little school in Forks probably would have suffocated her thirst for knowledge. So she blossomed under the care of tutors, but very lonely. Around the time she was eleven, Renee was commissioned to paint a mural for one of her old mentor in a little villa in France. They spent six months in Gordes and Bella remembers then as one of the happiest periods from her childhood. She made friends and she found that she could play around without getting sick. She felt blessed as her lonely days would be over!
So when the time came for her to begin middle school, her parents allowed her to go to the public school in Forks. Big, big mistake. She lasted one week and ran away screaming asking for never coming back. She said those kids were so mean to her, that she stills avoids them and never discloses what they did to her.
So she remained studying with tutors but her parents stepped up from time to time to take her for something extra, like paintings classes in hopes of finding she inherited Renee's talent. Or dance lessons as Charlie showed her his moves since she was little and Bella enjoyed dancing. Turns out Bella and ballet are a no-no, and you can't ask her to draw something above stick figures. But she finally found her niche in more modern types of dance, so she has something 'artistic' in her, as Renee proudly says.
A brunette mass of hair showed through the kitchen door. "Sorry guys."
She extended her arm to show us she was bearing goodies to make for her hasty entrance. Jasper took the containers and sat happily to continue eating.
"Are you alright?" I asked. I took one of her curls which was hanging low over her eyes and brought it back to tangle it with the others.
"I'm better. It's just he's so stubborn... I'm eighteen, and I don't have to obey him anymore. I don't have to abide by his rules anymore!"
Yep, I told you, Bella is very young. I was so proud when I skipped a year and got into college at seventeen, well, Bella skipped two years, and suffered because she was too young when she finally got into college.
That was a big battle too. Charlie was adamant to keep her close, so community college in Port Angeles was fine to him, but Bella had a bout of rebelliousness and argued that she was accepted in many colleges, including Harvard. Renee finally made them agree that U-dub was close enough to home and would give Bella the chance to spread her wings.
When Charlie found Jane was her designated roommate, he was over the moon, thinking she was perfect but you know how that ended. Jane had her own rebel phase to go through.
"What did he do to make you this mad?" I asked. Those fights never came out of nowhere.
"Well, he had something to do at work, so Mom took me shopping." Bella turned around and slowly she got up pushing her chair back. "She bought me this. It isn't scandalous, right?" She asked nervously.
Now, the nervous one should be me. She looked gorgeous! Bella has some body image issues. She's very... curvaceous. And she covers herself with clothes three sizes bigger to hide that fact. The first time I saw her, I thought she was a bit... plump. Nothing bad, she's the best person I ever met. But once I saw her on formal clothes, namely a pencil skirt and a fitted blouse... I found she was a bombshell! She just hides behind her clothes, though I'm not one to talk as I hide behind my glasses. Well, today she was sporting one of those pants who reach mid-calf and one very demure top. She looked feminine and beautiful and gorgeous and, and...
"You look great Bella. What 's wrong? Do the colors don't mesh well together? I mean, that's something my mother and sister always frown upon." Jasper said, busy with the food.
Bella's face lighted up a bit and then she turned to me.
"You look excellent! As a matter of fact, you should wear more clothes like these when the weather allows it." I answered nodding enthusiastically. I can't tell her how much it means to me and my horny ass to see her like this and I have to stay seated to not scare her with my reaction to her curves, but I can try to show her my appreciation for her outfit.
"Well, when we woke up this morning Dad surprised us asking to go to church."
Jasper spat his food. "Your Dad what?"
Yeah, he's the less spiritual person, he's the least man one would expect to see in church.
"Yeah, we were shocked. He asked Mom to change to a dress and then he looked at me. He got so mad! He said my pants were a few sizes shorter, because they don't cover my legs appropriately, and don't let me start with his words for my top. He was so mean! Now, Mom was right there defending my clothes, starting with explaining that these are capri pants; she mentioned they didn't expose anything improper but Dad got so angry... then he dropped the bomb. The reason why he wanted us to go to church is because he found Reverend Webber's daughter goes right here to college. He wants us to be friends! That's when I got crazy. That's the bitch who called me weird girl when I was a kid. She's the source of many of my problems! And he wants me to be best friends with her!"