Spinning Bottles
~Chapter 4 – Alien~
Beep
Beep
Beep
"What the fuck is that?" I asked groggily. My eyes were still heavy with sleep, but the beeping refused to stop.
Beep
Beep
"I got it," a female voice said. I didn't even realize that someone had been lying in bed with me until she spoke, but then she started moving and her thin arm stretched out from under the blanket to hit the alarm clock besides my head.
Fucking Tanya – I thought to myself, but having Tanya there to disrupt my peace would have been too simple, and I wasn't that lucky.
I slowly began blinking away the haze covering my eyes, and that's when I realized that there was a mess of brown hair sprawled out across my face and neck…
Obviously, not the very blonde Tanya.
Fuck!
A warm hand began rubbing my stomach softly, and I had to admit, it felt fucking amazing, but I couldn't help but glance up and look at my surroundings.
"Oh shit!" I yelled.
"What?" Bella said concerned as she popped her head out from under the covers.
"No, no, no, no, no," I mumbled as I rolled out of bed. I jumped towards the window and looked out, and to my unsurprising surprise, there was still a huge vineyard there. "Fuck!"
"What's wrong?" Bella asked worriedly.
"I'm still here," I told her.
She laughed once. "Where else would you be?"
I shook my head. "Not here."
"Daddy!" a little voice shouted as the door swung open, and in ran the little girl from before.
"Oh, please help me," I asked towards the ceiling. I wasn't a particularly religious guy, but I figured that if there was a god, he was the only one who could get me out of there.
"Are you taking me to school today?" the little girl asked as she began bouncing on the bed. Bella had disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me helplessly alone with the strange child.
"Uh….look, kid, I have no idea what's going on here," I told her honestly.
"But you always take me to school on Tuesdays," she said disappointedly.
"I do?" I asked confused.
She nodded, and then stared at me intensely for a moment, and I didn't know what else to do but stare back. I tried to break free from her glare, but it was like my line of sight got completely frozen in hers, and I had no idea how to escape it.
"Carlie, go on and get dressed," Bella said as she came out of the bathroom. When the girl still refused to look away from me, Bella took a step closer and said her name again. "Carlie?"
The girl finally turned away, and thankfully allowed me out of her strange daze.
"What mommy?" she asked Bella.
"Wow, what's up with you two?" Bella asked her. "Yesterday daddy was acting all crazy, and now you're zoning out on me?"
"Sorry momma," the girl said distantly. "I'll go get dressed now." She glanced at me one more time, and then slowly walked out of the room.
"That was odd," Bella commented.
"Everything about this place is odd," I told her.
"Um…ok," she said, and went back to getting ready for her day.
I laid back in the bed and began hitting the side of my head, hoping to all things holy that I would snap out of the crazy place I had found myself in, and back into my life…but it was of no use. Ten minutes later, Bella reemerged.
"Edward…."
"Yep," I responded. My name was just about the only thing that made any sense at that point.
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for work?" she asked suggestively.
"I don't know, should I?" I said, refusing to get back up.
"Yes, you should…Are you not feeling well?" she asked. She then walked over to me, and placed her hand gently on my forehead.
"Uh…no, actually," I said, but lost my entire train of thought because all I could focus on was the way her hand felt against my skin. She moved it to my right cheek, then the left, and then back to my forehead. Her face was within inches of mine, and as her breath washed over me, I momentarily forget everything else. For a moment I was eighteen again, and wanting nothing more than to grab her and hold her against me and never let go….But it only lasted a moment, and then the moment passed.
"You don't feel hot," she said still concerned.
"No, I'm fine," I told her, and pushed her hand away from my face, before sitting up.
"Okay…. Oh, Em called, he needs you to close today," she informed me.
"Who's Em?" I asked with a sigh.
"Em…as in Emmett," she said slowly.
"Emmett McCarty?" I asked curiously. My childhood best friend was just about the only 'Emmett' I had ever met, so I assumed that was who she was talking about.
"Edward, maybe you should go see the doctor today," she said gently.
"No, no, I'm fine," I told her. I got up and headed into the bathroom, and tried to figure out what I needed to do in order to get ready for the day. If there was anything worse than having a strangely realistic nightmare, it was going to see a doctor, and I always did whatever possible to avoid them. I had no idea why the hell I was still dreaming, but I figured that it was probably best to play along. Who knew how long the dream was going to last for, so I might as well make the best of it.
Having no idea what the hell I was supposed to be dressing for, I decided to play it safe and put on a suit…except, I didn't have one. It seemed as though I owned a ton of t-shirts in an array of colors, some sweaters, and a few casual button downs, but nothing nicer than that.
"I get it," I said to myself as I pulled out the third pair of holy pants that I found. "I must have had alcohol poisoning, and now, I'm in hell."
I shook my head at the thought, and then reluctantly put the horribly cheap clothes on, before grabbing the equally tacky shoes, and heading towards the living room.
"Hey, Carlie said you weren't taking her to school this morning?" Bella questioned me. I noticed that she was dressed in what looked like a polyester skirt business suit, which I thought was odd. - What the hell did she do for a living?
"Uh…I didn't think that I was," I said quietly.
"You always take her on Tuesdays," Bella informed me.
"Right, that's what she said," I told her.
Bella narrowed her eyes at me. "If you need me to take her today, then I will."
Something made me glance at the little girl, and she deliberately but subtly shook her head no. I had no idea why, but I turned back to Bella, and said – "No, I'll take her."
"Are you sure?" she asked me.
"I always take her, don't I?" I said with more attitude than I intended.
"OK, great," she said, dismissing my sour tone. She then went over and kissed the girl on the head, before turning to the toddler sitting in the living room, and kissing him as well. "Have a good day," she told them, and then turned and left.
I stared at the toddler for a minute, and then it hit me – "Wait, I'm supposed to take him somewhere too?" I asked in a panic.
I ran to tell Bella to take her kids herself, but I was too late, and she was driving away.
"Fuck!" I yelled.
"My daddy doesn't cuss like that," the little girl said from behind me.
I turned slowly around and just stared at her blankly for a minute. Did she just refer to her father as someone other than me?
"Your daddy doesn't cuss?" I asked her.
She shook her head no.
"And who is your daddy?" I asked slowly. Despite the fact that I never liked kids, and even though the little girl wasn't real, I still didn't want to freak her out by telling her I wasn't her dad if that was who she thought I was.
She turned around, and went back into the house, so I followed her. She continued walking down the hall, and then stopped and pointed at the wall. "That's my daddy," she said quietly.
I didn't even notice the pictures hanging in the hall before, but when I looked at them, my heart just about leaped into my throat. There was a wedding picture of Bella, and she was standing with a guy that looked a whole hell of a lot like me. Beside that picture, was a bunch others of the family; most of which had me in them as well.
I already assumed I was dreaming, but actually seeing pictures of me in a life that didn't exist, was definitely a trip.
"Where did my daddy go?" the little girl asked me.
"Uh…I guess I am him," I told her, having no idea what the hell else to say.
She shook her head no.
"Yeah, I guess I have been acting strange yesterday and today, right?" I asked as nicely as I was capable of. I really didn't know how to talk to a kid, but she seemed pretty upset, so I was just trying to calm her.
"Are you an alien?" she asked me unexpectedly. "My friend Claire said that sometimes aliens come and take over people's bodies so they can study the way humans live."
"Uh…why do you think I'm one of those?" I asked curiously.
"Because I know you're not my dad," she said sadly.
"And how do you know that?" I asked.
"Because you don't remember anything."
"Well, maybe I just hit my head and having trouble thinking clearly," I told her.
She shook her head again. "No, his eyes are different."
"Really?" I asked puzzled. I looked back at the pictures, and saw that there was absolutely nothing different about that me, and 'me' me. "Nope, we're the same. See, we both have green eyes," I told her.
But she shook her head again. "It's not the color that's different."
"Ok, then what's different?" I asked, actually hoping that she knew something real and would cue me in on it.
"I don't know what it's called, but it's something behind your eyes….they don't sparkle the way his did."
"His eyes sparkled, huh?" I said with a sigh.
"Yeah, so are you an alien? It's ok, you can tell me, I can keep a secret…as long as you don't try to eat me or anything."
I couldn't help but crack a smile at her; either she was smarter than her years, or certifiably crazy. "Um…yeah, I'm an alien. You caught me…but, you can't tell anyone. Ok?"
"Where is my dad?" she asked protectively.
"Uh…he's back on my planet, we just changed places for a short time. But I promise, as soon as I'm done here, you'll have him back," I told her. I really didn't know why I went along with the alien thing, but something told me it would just be easier that way.
"Do you promise?" she asked intensely.
"Yes, I promise," I told her.
"And you're not going to hurt anyone?" she asked strongly.
"No, you can trust me."
She stared at me for a minute, and then nodded. "Ok, then I guess you're going to need my help then, right?"
"That would be wonderful," I told her thankfully. I could use all the help I could get.
"Ok…first, you need to take Anthony to daycare, and then drive me to school," she explained.
"Right…and Anthony is the baby?" I asked her.
"He's not a baby, he's fourteen months," she said as matter of fact.
"Ok, so Anthony is that one," I said pointing at the toddler. "And you're Claire?" I asked apologetically.
"No, my name is Car-lie. Claire is my best friend," she informed me.
"Carlie, huh? Where did a name like that come from?" I asked her curiously.
"It's like my grandpa Charlie," she said with a smile. "He died before I was born."
"Oh…really?" I asked stunned. "Well…that…sucks," I said regretfully. I never really liked Bella's dad, but hearing that he had died actually hit hard for some reason. "How old are you anyway?" I asked her.
"I'm six, and I'm in Mrs. Amun's first grade class at Forks Elementary," she said proudly.
"You have Mrs. Amun?" I asked disturbed. "She was my first grade teacher also."
"How? Do they have a Mrs. Amun double on your planet too?" she asked suspiciously.
"Um…Yes," I told her.
"That's so weird," she stated. "We better be going before I'm late."
"Ok," I walked towards the door, and held it open while waiting for Carlie to get her things.
"You have to get Anthony. He won't walk out by himself," Carlie told me.
"Why not?" I asked becoming slightly anxious.
"Because he won't," she said simply.
"Ok," I huffed and then walked towards the toddler. "Ok, kid, time to go."
"No go," he said, and then got up and ran down the hall.
"What the hell?" I said frustrated.
"See what I mean?" Carlie asked with a giggle.
"What do I do?"
"Chase him."
"Right," I said, and ran down the hall after the kid. He was standing in a doorway, so I bent over to grab him, but then he slammed the door onto my head. "Shit!" I yelled.
"Shit, shit, shit," the toddler began chanting from the other side of the door.
"No, don't say that!" I opened the door and found him smiling at me, and still repeating the word. "Stop saying that!" I yelled at him.
Immediately, his face dropped, and he started wailing.
"Oh crap, no, don't do that…shit," I said, but the kid wouldn't stop crying. Once again, I had no idea what to do, so I reached down and picked the kid up under his arms, and ran with him out to the car.
"You have to put him in the car seat," Carlie told me.
I did as she said, and then stared at all the straps wondering how the hell I was supposed to know what went where.
"Here," Carlie said. She unbuckled her seatbelt, and scooted out of her chair, and then showed me where everything went. All the while, the toddler wouldn't stop screaming.
"How do I make him stop?" I asked Carlie.
"Here, give him this," she said while digging in the mess on the car floor. She pulled out a pacifier, and shoved it in his mouth.
"Great…thanks," I said to her, grateful for the quiet.
Carlie told me that the daycare was around the corner from her school, so after finding it and dropping off the toddler, I drove her to the school.
"Pick me up at three, and then you can pick up Anthony after that," she told me slowly.
"Three…right," I said with a nod. She got out of the car and went to shut it, but then I called after her. "Hey Carlie?"
"Yeah?"
"Where do I go now?" I asked her.
"McCarty Garage," she said with a smile, and then she shut the door and skipped off.
"McCarty's Garage…of course," I said and then let out a loud huff.
McCarty's Garage had been in Forks for as long as I could remember, and I always feared that one day I'd get stuck working there. It was owned by my friend Emmett's father, and he and I had always complained about the fact that both of our fathers wanted us to take over the family businesses, and it seemed like in this nightmare, our fears were realized. Why I was stuck working at both the vineyard and the garage, I had no idea.
As I drove down the familiar roads of down town Forks, I began to remember exactly why I had left it all those years ago – the place was a dump. The same old buildings, full of the same old people. Nothing was different than how I left it twelve years prior, but then again, since it was all just a dream, I guess nothing could really change.
I pulled into the McCarty Garage parking lot, and turned off the car.
"Shit, why am I even doing this?" I asked myself out lout. I leaned my head against the steering wheel, and actually banged it there three times.
I just wanted to wake the fuck up.
And then, there was knocking on my window.
I looked over and saw a man standing there waving with a huge cheesy grin.
"Holy fuck," I muttered to myself. He made a turning gesture with his hand, so I reluctantly rolled down my window. "Hey…Emmett," I said with almost a whine.
"Hey bro. Why the hell are you sitting in the car?" he asked entirely amused, and way too happy.
"Emmett, let me ask you something," I said to him. "Why the hell do we work here?"
He laughed. "It beats working at Taco Bell….'course, I do miss all those free burritos we used to get."
I nodded. "Free burritos were always good," I said remembering our time working at the fast food joint when we were in high school.
"Bella mentioned that you've been having a rough couple of days… So, the meeting with the investors didn't go to well, huh?"
"When the hell did you talk to Bella?" I asked him, slightly resentful and not really knowing why.
"This morning…on the phone…when I called to ask if you could close today," he said slowly, and then he laughed again, but this time, it had less humor to it. "Jeeze man, you sound paranoid like I'm going behind your back or something."
"Nah, you wouldn't do that, because you know I'd kill you," I said seriously.
He laughed again. "Yeah…right," he said, sounding unsure if we were joking or not.
It was funny to me that I almost seemed a little possessive of Bella, even though I really had no reason to be. She wasn't real, and I wasn't really married to her, and everything would all disappear soon enough.
"I guess we should get to work," Em said while opening the car door for me.
The next few hours went slow, and even though it was mindless mundane work, I still found myself getting confused as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing. First I didn't ring up a customer right, and then I neglected to check the oil on someone else's car. For the most part it was all shit I had been doing since I was a kid, but figuring out the business side of it was surprisingly more complicated for me.
"Dude, what the hell is going on with you?" Em asked me at lunch.
"You know, people keep asking me that, and I keep giving them the same answer – I have no fucking clue."
"Well, whatever it is, you know you can tell me about it, right? I mean, sometimes we go through crap that we can't even talk to our wives about, and that's why we have each other…You know what I mean?" he said.
"Yeah…well, if I have anything like that, I'll tell you," I assured him.
"Ok," he said. "More importantly, I hope your wrist is feeling better, cause we really need your strikes tomorrow for league."
"Huh?" I asked confused. It was like he was speaking a different language, and I had no idea what the hell it was.
"Bowling. You hurt your wrist last week and our team can't afford for you to sit out, so I hope you're back to normal by tomorrow night."
"Let me get this straight…we are part of a bowling league?" I asked incredulously. "Us, as in you and me?"
"Uh.." he said baffled. "Yeah."
"Fuck man!" I shouted. "How lame can someone be? We used to be fucking cool, we used to rule this fucking town, what the hell happened to us?"
"Uh…Bowling is fun," he said confused but unwilling to push his questions onto me.
"Fun? FUN? Man, going to night clubs in New York is fun. Making a shitload of money is fun. Drinking until you're so drunk that you can't even think straight is fun; going home with a different chick every night is fun. Bowling is NOT fun!"
"Well, the money part would be nice, but everything else you just said seems…lonely in a way. I don't know, maybe I am lame, but I'm happy I have a family to go home to every night. I like stability, you know?"
I stared at him for a moment and really thought about what he was saying, but then shook my head. "No, you only think that because you've never experienced what it was like to be a rich bachelor in the city."
"Are you having some sort of pre-mid-life crises, or something? Oh, I get it," he said with a chuckle.
"Get what?" I asked.
"You just turned thirty, and now you're freaking out about it. Fucking dork. It's really not that bad."
"Did you just call me a dork?" I asked incredulously. "What, are you a fucking child, or did your brain just stop developing when you were ten?"
"If my brain did stop developing at ten, then I'm sure it was your fault. Every time I got in trouble or hurt in any way, it has always been a result of one of your harebrain ideas. Fuck man, no wonder why Alec is so screwed up; having you as a role model would fuck up any teenager." Emmett spoke like he was joking, but I didn't take it that way. I was pissed, and yet again, I really had no idea why.
"Man, I don't need this shit," I said bitterly, and then got up and walked out towards the parking lot.
"Where the hell are you going?" Emmett called after me.
"Anywhere but here," I replied.
"You were supposed to close for me!" he shouted.
"I'm sure you'll manage," I told him carelessly before getting in my car, and driving down the street.
"Fuck why am I here?" I asked myself. "Is this some kind of learning…thing? What the hell am I supposed to learn from all this shit?"
I drove around for a few hours and just relearned the town, but nothing was different. I passed by several more people I remembered from before, and they were all the same…except older. It was all surreal and yet, it strangely felt very real at the same time. But the less dreamlike my time there felt, the more I wondered what the hell happened to put me in that situation.
After driving the entire length of the town for the fifth time, I decided to finally drive home. On my way however, I passed by a big yellow school bus, and realized that I had forgotten something.
"Crap!" I shouted while punching the steering wheel.
I forgot to pick up Carlie.
I was supposed to be at her school by three. She told me that fact more than once, and I completely forgot. It was only three thirty, but I knew better than to be late for any meeting. But even more importantly, I knew what it felt like to be waiting at school when all my friends had already left for the day. My father always forgot to pick me up, and I hated the fact that I had done the same…even if it was only in my dream.
I sped to the school, and saw Carlie sitting patiently on the steps with a teacher. I practically jumped out, and ran over to her.
"Sorry," I said quickly. "Sorry," I added to the teacher standing with her.
The woman seemed annoyed, but otherwise unaffected by my apology. I picked up Carlie's backpack, and then walked her to the car. After helping her in, I began apologizing again.
"I'm really sorry Carlie," I told her.
"It's ok," she said with a shrug. "My daddy is never late to pick me up, but I guess it would be hard for any alien to compete with a perfect dad like him."
"Yeah, I guess." I said. I got back into the car, and couldn't help but glance back at her in my rear view mirror. She looked up at me and smiled, and then went back to looking out the window. "I won't be late again," I told her.
"Ok," she said.
I swung by the daycare center and picked up the toddler, and then headed back to the cottage. Thankfully, both kids were quiet for the trip, but when I pulled onto the property, I knew the peace was over.
The teen boy was just arriving from wherever he came from, and he turned to glare at me. I didn't know him, or who exactly he was to me, but I knew that look. I used to give my old man that exact same look when I was pissed at him for something, and I was sure the next few hours were definitely going to be hell.
****Coming up next: More about the teen, bowling, and a frisky Bella ;)
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