Bella
I tossed the clothes from my suitcase into the dresser drawers. If I didn't keep my hands busy, I would pull out my hair. I couldn't believe that I'd actually agreed to go somewhere with Edward Cullen.
What had I been thinking? Obviously I hadn't been thinking! And now I'm stuck going on a "date" with Edward Cullen!
He was so smug about his desire to draw the Eiffel Tower. I guess I wanted to be present when he realized that I was right and he was so totally wrong.
I know, that was a lousy reason. Why did I care what he drew? I didn't care anything about him! If he flew home tomorrow, my life would be complete.
I slammed a drawer shut just as someone knocked on my door. Alice walked in and plopped on my bed.
"So, tell me everything about Edward," she demanded.
I zipped up my suitcase and moved it to the floor so I could sit on the edge of the mattress.
"What do you care? You have a boyfriend."
"Jasper is wonderful, oui, but I amfascinated by this Edward," she commented. "He is the first American guy I have ever talked to."
My eyes almost popped out of my head.
"Fascinated? He is so uninteresting!"
She shrugged. "I thought he was hot. What scores would you give him with your rating system?"
"ALL zeros!" But even as I said that, I knew I was lying.
"Come on. Let's see how he rates," she prodded.
"It doesn't matter how he rates," I pointed out.
"He isn't French."
"Afraid you'll discover he has a good score?" she challenged.
Sneering –half jokingly—I reached for my notepad and pencil. I stretched out on my stomach.
Alice rolled over so our shoulders touched. For a brief moment I thought of Angela and Rosalie—and all the times we'd lain on the bed together like this, looking through teen magazines or our high-school yearbooks.
"Eyes?" Alice asked.
"Well as a rule, I only give a three for blue eyes…"
Edward had eyes the color of the finest emeralds you can buy, and I was a sucker for the color green. So I generously gave him a three.
"Smile?" Alice prodded.
"It's imperfect," I stated, my pencil hovering over the paper. His smile was lopsided; crooked really. The right side always went up higher than the left. It was kind of dazzling in a way, made him look a little shy. I put a three in the smile column.
He had smothered his laughter in class, so I couldn't rate it fairly. Hair. A bright Bronze color. No other guy in Forks had his hair color, not even in the school here in Paris—as far as I could see that is. Two. I erased the two. He wore it sort of longish and messy, but it was an orderly disarray of a mess. Three. I thought of what it would feel like to run my fingers through it. I didn't like how much that thought appealed to me. I erased the three and put back the two.
"What are you doing?" Alice asked.
"Trying to be subjective." But the task seemed almost impossible.
I had to give him a one for temperament after his angry display in sculpting class that day. A three for manners since he's included Alice in our conversation and he'd picked up my notebook and pencil when I dropped them. He liked art. Three. Intelligent. Three. It stood to reason that anyone who appreciated art was intelligent. Romantic. A big, fat zero.
I smiled triumphantly. Where it counted the most, he was an absolute loser.
"He'll never do," I commented.
"Are you looking for someone with perfect scores?" Alice asked.
"You bet," I confirmed. "And French."
"Want to double-date?" Alice suddenly asked.
I laughed lightly. "I haven't found Mr. Romantic yet, but when I do—"
"A practice date," she interrupted. "So you can get used to the French dating scene."
"I'm not sure who I'd ask," I confirmed.
"I could have my boyfriend ask one of his friends to take you out," she offered.
Quickly I sat up. "Do you think he'd do that?"
She grinned. "Oui. Jasper is very romantic. He'll find someone good for you."
"This will be great!" I told her. "I really don't want to blow it when I discover the real thing, and Jacob wasn't exactly good practice material for how a date should be handled."
As we began discussing possibilities, I turned over my notepad. It bothered me to look at Edward's scores, confused me to even think about him.
The next morning I arrived at sculpting class early. I quickly scouted the room and took a seat beside an absolute dreamy guy. Brown hair and blue-eyed, he was the complete opposite of Edward. So his score shot up before I'd even finished assessing him.
He didn't have Edward's broad shoulders or Edward's height, but that was okay. He was French.
He took my hand and kissed my fingers. "Ma chère, Bienvenue à Paris."
My dear, welcome to Paris.
I was melting. How romantic. "M-Merci," I stammered.
Great going, Bella. Impress the guy with your lack of sophistication. There were times when I really resented coming from a small town.
"I'm Bella Swan," I told him.
He smiled, a three-point smile. "We all know who you are. I am Pierre Robards."
I repeated his name, It was fantastic, not dull sounding like Edward.
I glanced over my shoulder, and who should I see but the bane of my existence. Edward Cullen was talking with a beautiful French girl, making the girl laugh like a hyena. Good, maybe he'd cancel on this afternoon. I thought. I was accustomed to guys bailing out at the last minute. Jake had done that repeatedly. If one of the guys called with a better offer than a night out with his girl—like driving trucks through mud—he was there.
I knew instinctively that French guys would be too romantic to cancel a date—for any reason.
Although I would be here for only a year, I knew whoever I settled my heart on would follow me back to Washington, would swim in the Pacific ocean at First Beach in order to be with me.
So maybe I had an overactive imagination where love was concerned. I mean, I understood that he wouldn't actually follow mw across an ocean. But he would be romantic, and he would give me a year that I could hold close for the rest of my life.
"Messieurs! Mesdemoiselles!" The teacher tapped his knuckles on the desk. Then he us in perfect French that we had to sit in the chair we had sat in yesterday. His seating chart was made.
My stomach dropped to the floor. I wanted to stay where I was! I was on the verge of offering Monsieur Henri an eraser or some White-Out when he snapped, "Vite! Vite!"
Hurry! Hurry!
I trudged to the table where Edward sat and dropped in the chair beside him.
With a wide grin, he leaned over. He jabbed his thumb over his thumb, "Pierre over there? Before class, I saw him in the hall with a lip lock with some girl—" He Shook His Head. "Man, they probably had to bring in the Jaws of Life to separate them so they could get to class."
Disappointment hit me hard. :He has a girlfriend?"
"Either that or they say howdy different over here."
"They do say 'howdy' differently," I shot back, wanting to wipe that smirk off his face. "They say bonjour."
I was fuming. Not so much because of Pierre had a girlfriend, but because Edward had witnessed my mooning over a guy who was unavailable. I was allowed to make mistakes! I just didn't want Edward Cullen to witness them! For all I knew, the girl he'd been talking with might have been lip locked before class as well.
With anger still too close to the surface, I started to mold the clay, working to finish up the project I'd started yesterday—a vase. Unfortunately, it looked more like a lopsided bowl.
"Hey, by the way, " Edward whispered conspiratorially.
Startled that he had leaned close enough for me to feel his warm breath skim my neck and to have the same breath send a shiver along my spine, I crumbled one side of my project. Great! Just great! Now I had to rebuild. I hadn't planned to have someone from my school back home witness any mistakes.
"You're gonna need a bike for our excursion this afternoon," he added.
I glared at him. "Where am I supposed to get a bike?"
"Check with your host sister," he suggested calmly.
"Don't you think you should have told me sooner?" I asked.
"I'm telling you now," he pointed out. "You've got all day to find a bike."
Just like a guy not to realize all that was involved in going out. They never got ready for things. They just went as they were.
Why the heck couldn't Edward Cullen have gone to London like my friend Rosalie or Rome like my friend Angela? Why Paris, where he could torment me without even trying?
~/YB\\~
After school I went straight to my host home. I'd seen Alice at lunch, and she'd told me that I could use her bicycle. How typical of a guy to remember at the last moment that a girl needed to prepare for a date!
Whoa! I stopped that thought. This was not a date! No way. We were just working on our project for sketching class. Hopefully I could find something other than the Eiffel Tower to sketch. I refused to be boring Bella from Forks.
But before I went on the field trip to Ho-hum or wherever Edward planned to go, I needed to get psyched up. And my best friends were the greatest at helping me accomplish that goal.
We'd finally figured out how to get into a private chat room. It was almost like talking on the phone, only our fingers did all the work. I sat at my desk, turned on my computer, and logged on the Internet, and accessed our private room. They were there waiting.
Bella: Hey guys!
Rosalie: Bella! Good to see you! :)
Angie: Bella, how is Paris?
Bella: Paris is beautiful! How is Rome?
Angie: Interesting. I'm engaged in a little experiment with a guy named Ben Antonio.
Rosalie: What kind of experiment?
Angie: Teaching him a lesson. Unfortunately, the better I know him, the more I'm regretting this brilliant idea I had. He hates Americans. And he doesn't know I'm American.
Bella: What?
Rosalie: What?
Angie: It's a long story. How's your host brother, Rosalie?
Rosalie: He has a girlfriend.
Bella: Bummer :(
Rosalie: Her name is Rosalie, and she's beautiful. :P
I laughed. Rosalie just stuck her tongue out at me, and admitted that she has a boyfriend! I'd met her host brother-Emmett—while I was in London. Emmett was really cute, and he had the sexiest British accent!
Angie: Bella, got any dates yet?
I groaned. I'd failed to mention my lapse of judgment when I e-mailed them yesterday. Angie or course, would ask. I debated what to tell them.
Bella: Not really. I'm going out on an outing with Edward Cullen this afternoon.
Angie: Edward Cullen, as in Edward Cullen from Forks?
Rosalie: Thought he was boring.
Bella: He is! The purpose for this outing is to show him exactly how dull he is.
Angie:Why bother?
Good question. Trust Angie to get to the heart of the matter.
Angie: Hello, Bella! Why aren't you answering? You don't like him, do you?
Bella: No way!
And I didn't like him. At least, not in the boy-girl kind of way that Angie meant. My point system proved that Edward wasn't the one for me. I glanced at my watch. Yikes! Edward was going to be here at any minute…