A/N: I wrote some review replies in which I said that this chapter would be out on Sunday. I failed you, I'm sorry :( But, to make up for it, not only am I gifting you my longest chapter yet, but I also have a little surprise planned out, the details of which can be found in the Author's Note at the bottom.
A word of warning: The following chapter does feature a spot of underage drinking. If that's not your thing, I'm sorry, but this is an M-rated story :)
(StephenieMeyerownsall. – There. I said it.)
xxx
Chapter 6. Shirley Temple and Sir Edward
On Wednesday, Bella brought apple muffins for dessert. Alice was monologue-ing incessantly about her upcoming birthday party, while everyone else was enjoying Bella's baking skills in silence.
"– and I'm so glad that I only invited a few people this year. Do you remember my seventeenth?"
"Please don't remind me Alice. The images will be forever burned into my mind," Rosalie groaned.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Rosie. I have no unpleasant memories of that night," Emmett countered.
Bella laughed. "Yeah, because you've repressed them all."
"What happened?" Edward asked curiously.
"Mike Newton thought Alice's home cinema would be a good stage for his party trick."
Edward was still none the wiser. "So what's his party trick?"
"A naked rendition of 'I'm Coming Out'," Alice giggled.
Rosalie shuddered. "He pretends to play the trumpet bit on his winky."
Emmett groaned. "I'd forgotten about that part."
"I haven't," Bella muttered darkly.
As everyone got up to leave at the end of lunch, Edward turned towards Alice. "So, may I expect more disasters of the naked variety on Friday? Because I might decide to wear very dark sunglasses."
"No, Newton is staying far away from my house, this time. Don't worry; your virgin eyes will remain unblemished. It's a shame really – he got me an Anthropologie gift certificate last year," she said as they walked inside the main building.
"That's very thoughtful of him."
"Or Mrs. Newton." Alice waved at him and walked towards her next class.
Suddenly Edward realised what his brain had been neglecting to remind him of.
"Bella!" Edward shouted down the crowded hallway. She turned around with a perplexed expression on her face, which quickly turned into a small smile, as he ran to catch up with her.
Bella leant against her locker. "Hey, is everything ok?" she asked when Edward finally reached her.
"Yeah, everything's fine," he said a little breathlessly. "I actually have a bit of a favour to ask of you. I have no idea what to get Alice for her birthday. I'm thinking maybe an interior design book or something, but I suspect that might be a little like opening a coffee shop in Seattle."
"More like giving Shirley Temple a fifty-seventh curl." Bella smiled. "Plus, she'd probably criticise your lack of taste, no matter what you choose. Unless it's the Ikea catalogue - but she has about six copies of every edition."
"Exactly. So, do you think you could help me find something for her?"
Bella answered somewhat hesitantly, "She's really hard to shop for, but if you want we could head downtown after school and then we'll see if anything can be done."
"Thanks. It's just, since she's already knee deep in preparations for redoing my room, I want to get her something good. Something that won't make Alice regret spending most of her spare time making my sleeping quarters more comfortable."
Bella laughed, but her expression fell quickly as she stared at a spot to Edward's left.
When Edward turned, he realised that she was looking at Jasper Whitlock. He was standing less than ten feet away from Edward - scowling.
Nothing unusual about that.
But Edward noticed that the scowls were not only aimed at him. Jasper's grimace was directed at Bella and Edward in equal parts.
Bella frowned and turned to Edward with a determined looking smile. "I have to get to my next class now, but I'll help you pick out a present for Alice. You got a lift in with Emmett this morning, right?"
Edward nodded.
"Ok, then meet me at my car after school, okay?" She smiled one last time and joined the throng of students shutting their lockers and heading towards their next lessons.
Edward watched her leave. He could tell Jasper was still looking at him, and after a minute turned towards him.
It was the closest Edward had ever been to him. He had caught glimpses of Jasper around the school, and had almost gotten used to his daily, lunchtime examination, but from the short distance that now separated them, Edward could make out several things about Jasper.
He didn't look particularly well cared for. He was thin, and his clothes appeared even scruffier on closer inspection than they usually did. He had a handsome, chiselled face. His hair was very blonde. Unnaturally blonde.
Jasper looked at Edward with undisguised animosity. Then he made a small snarling noise.
Because snarling makes you look so ferocious when you're standing in front of a notice board publicising accordion lessons and the Mime club auditions.
Jasper turned on his heel and walked down the now deserted corridor.
It took Edward all of two seconds to decide that he was getting sick of Jasper's unexplained hostility.
"Yeah, well I don't really like you either, Captain Peroxide!" he shouted.
Jasper stopped mid stride for a second, then straightened his shoulders and went on his way.
Edward – 1, Assface – 0.
xxx
'…The grass and the daisies
Think a lot more of the days than you
And you're you
The walls of the maze
Know the will more than the way than you
And you're just you…'
"Do you always listen to power pop in your car or is that just for my benefit?" Edward asked.
Bella stuck her tongue out at him. "There is a comment box in the glove compartment for all snarky passenger-seat-remarks. Your complaint will be duly noted and then ignored."
"Duly noted and then ignored? That's such a bastardisation of logi-"
"Glove compartment!" Bella interrupted.
Edward laughed and inhaled the scent of the car. It smelt of her. All tiny, purple flowers, tobacco and leather. Once again Edward noted how similar Bella's and Oliver's scents were.
Yeah, compare her to a rusty old car, you douche.
He inspected the inside of the car more closely. It was pretty cluttered. The backseat was full of old Domino magazines, a Monopoly set and a stuffed, pink rabbit.
"Who's this?" Edward asked, reaching for the toy.
Bella took a glance at the rabbit he was now holding. Her expression turned wary, as if she was steeling herself for his teasing. "Spirabbs," she muttered.
"Spirabbs?" Edward asked.
"He started off as Alice's, but now we all kind of have joint custody over him. Emmett was embarrassed to have a pink toy bunny, so we decided that he was a hardcore bunny, who'd been bitten by a radioactive spider and developed super-bunny powers. Hence, Spirabbs."
"It's all so much clearer now." Edward chuckled. "Your car is really messy, by the way."
"Yep, one thing about Alice – she thinks her car is too precious to be cluttered, so she uses everyone else's as her personal rubbish dump. All that stuff on the backseat is hers."
Edward smiled. "I like this, though. Where did you get it?" he asked, fingering the small figurine dangling from the rear-view mirror. It was a tiny wooden model of a wolf. It looked hand-carved.
"Um…a friend made it for me," she said quietly as she pulled the Daihatsu into an empty spot along the main street through Ashland.
"Ok," Bella said as she hopped out of her car, "we should probably try the vintage and second hand stores. Alice loves those, and sometimes you can find some pretty cool stuff."
Edward nodded and followed Bella, trusting her judgement.
An hour later, he wasn't quite so trusting anymore.
"This is the fifteenth stained watercolour print I've looked at in as many minutes," he complained.
Bella seemed equally dispirited. "And this vase looks like it was the victim of a particularly gruesome hate crime."
"You know, I still have to make dessert for tomorrow. Maybe we should leave present hunting for now."
"But we only have a couple more days!" Bella protested. When she noticed Edward's disheartened expression, however, she relented. "Fine, you're probably right – we won't find anything here. What are you baking anyway?"
"I'm not baking so much as refrigerating. I'm making rice crispy treats."
"Well that's pretty advanced."
"Thank you." Edward said with mock-pride.
Bella smirked. "For a five year old."
He picked up a discarded piece of cloth from a side table and threw it at her. Bella caught it surprisingly nimbly.
Edward pulled his backpack higher up on his shoulder, took one last look at the stock the store tried to advertise as 'antique', but which was basically just junk, and turned to leave.
"You're a genius, Edward," Bella gasped behind him.
"Uh…yeah, I am. What made someone finally acknowledge it?"
Bella held out the piece of fabric Edward had just thrown at her. "This is what you're getting Alice."
"Okaaay…umm…has God been lending your imbalance a helping hand again? Did you knock your head on something earlier?"
Bella glared at him.
"Sorry," Edward said, "it's just, I don't really know how to break this to you, but…that's a tea towel, Bella."
She rolled her eyes and then turned the towel around to reveal a colourful print.
Edward took a closer look at it and smiled. There was a girl holding a cat, a rabbit with a coat and pocket watch, a sour looking Duchess, a caterpillar on a mushroom, and living playing cards painting rosebushes.
"An Alice in Wonderland tea towel?"
Bella nodded. "This is why she named herself Alice."
"She named herself Alice?"
"After her ma read the book to her. Her name is Mary Alice, but you'd have to have a death wish to call her that to her face…I named my dog Mary instead." Bella smiled.
"Huh, now I'll have something to hold against her the next time she says 'Eddie boy, it's vital for you to acknowledge the importance of colour-coordinating your bathroom cabinet.' Yesterday she gave me a speech about not keeping both my painkillers and multivitamins there, because the packaging clashed."
Bella nodded in a sympathetic manner as she held out the tea-towel to him.
"Do you really think I can just give her this?" Edward asked anxiously.
Bella looked thoughtful for a minute. "Maybe not. I'll give you a ride home first and then I'll drop this round to my aunt's store and see what she can do with it."
"Are you sure? I mean, you seem to be doing all the work…"
Bella laughed. "Don't worry, I won't let you take all the credit."
As Bella drove him home, Edward had a bit of an epiphany. It was once thing for him to admire her a little because she was funny and pretty and smelt like a bit of woody heaven. But Edward had grown somewhat reliant on her. In the same way that he had grown attached to Emmett and Alice and Rosalie – Bella Swan had become his friend.
xxx
"Aunt Esme!" Emmett shouted, startling a couple of the customers in the store.
A well-groomed lady standing behind a pine-wood counter turned towards them and smiled widely. She seemed to be in her late thirties, though she looked very youthful.
She had a kind, pretty face and her hair was a strange, but attractive, mix between a caramel and coppery tone. Switzerland, Edward thought, feeling an instant affinity with her. But where his hair was completely untameable, hers fell in perfect ringlets around her shoulders.
"Emmett, did you grow again? I only saw you a couple of days ago, but you seem to get bigger every time." The lady walked towards them and Edward noticed her deep, brown eyes that were so similar to Bella's.
"Esme, this is Edward Cullen. Edward this is Esme, Bella's aunt and everyone's favourite fairy godmother," Emmett introduced.
"Hello Edward, I've already heard so much about you. Everyone seems rather taken with you," Esme smiled.
"It's nice to meet you. Your store looks great," Edward said looking around the bright interior. The shop was an eclectic mix of antique furniture, rolls of fabric, old mirrors and china patterns. In the back corner of the store, behind the old-fashioned cash register, there was a cast-iron spiral staircase that led nowhere.
"Thank you – years of travelling and extortionate shipping costs. So, I hear Alice is decorating your room?"
Edward nodded.
"I think she's a natural. She has an eye for detail," Esme offered.
"I think she's anal retentive," Emmett muttered.
Esme playfully hit the back of Emmett's head which, with the difference in their respective heights, seemed comically difficult.
"I guess you're here to pick up Alice's present?" she asked Edward. "When Bella dropped it round yesterday I knew exactly what to do with it."
Esme knelt to retrieve something from underneath the counter. When she stood up she held a bright turquoise picture frame in her hand. "Alice has been debating about whether to get this frame for weeks, but she couldn't make up her mind because she didn't know what to use it for." Esme turned the frame around and Edward saw that the towel had been neatly mounted in the middle.
"I like the use of colour," Emmett said pensively, "If Martin Parr made tea towels, that's what they would look like."
"Dude…" Edward said.
Emmett looked sheepish. "I think it's time for us to go now, Esme. Being in your shop always turns me into a girl."
xxx
Edward walked through his front door and into the kitchen where he deposited the frame.
"Edward? Is that you?" he heard Carlisle shout from the back of the house.
"No, it's the Ghost of Christmas Past and I've come to rebuke you for the year you didn't get Edward the Beast Wars Transmetals Nintendo game," Edward said as he walked into the library.
"You still haven't got over that? Well, I'm sure it didn't harm you in the long run, son."
"They called me Airazor at school for months," Edward mumbled.
Carlisle smiled encouragingly. "But Airazor is a Transformer right?
"Airazor is a female Transformer, dad."
Carlisle set aside the book he had been reading. "Well, I'm terribly sorry. Come on, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Let's go forage the house for something edible." He got up from the couch and walked through to the kitchen.
Edward followed and made a beeline for the still unopened box of Lucky Charms in the cupboard.
"Cereal for dinner, Edward? Carlisle asked as his son got out a bowl and spoon.
"Yep - traditional, Irish cuisine."
"The leprechaun on the box does not make it Irish."
Edward demonstrated his indifference by lifting a spoonful of cereal to his mouth and promptly chocking on a marshmallow.
"So elegant, Edward."
When Edward had recovered he said, "Well, it may not be foie gras but I'd much rather eat this," he shook the box of cereal, "than support the snail eaters in their evil, force feeding ways."
Carlisle pumped a fist into the air, "Yeah, you go girl!"
Averting his gaze from the withering look Edward was shooting him, Carlisle's eyes fell on the frame his son had leant against the wall. "What's that?"
"It's a tea towel," Edward answered.
"A million dollar tea towel?"
"No."
"Did Chuck Norris use it to singlehandedly bring down Communism?"
"Nope."
"Can you use it as a magic carpet for little people?"
Edward once again realised how similar he and his father were.
"It's an Alice in Wonderland tea towel, dad."
Carlisle scratched his hairline. "I don't understand – why is it framed?"
"It's Alice's birthday present. She really liked the book when she was a kid. Bella helped me pick it out and she had it framed at her aunt's store. To be honest, I really didn't have much to do with it."
"Alice? The girl that was here on Sunday?" Carlisle asked, as if Edward had been bringing home a different girl every night.
"Yes, she turns eighteen tomorrow."
Carlisle looked uncomfortable. "Oh."
"What's wrong?"
"It seems like quite a thoughtful gift for a girl you haven't known that long."
"As I said – Bella helped me."
Carlisle sat down at the breakfast bar and sighed. "Ok, I think it's time for us to have a talk."
"What do you mean, Dad?"
His father looked uncomfortable. "I mean the talk."
"Dear God." Edward blanched.
Carlisle lifted both his hands in a placating manner. "Now just hear me out -"
"Dad, we had this conversation when I was twelve! I haven't forgotten – the memory of you telling me about the hippie named Bill and how he ended up with pustules on his little man and a kid called Hobie will haunt me for the rest of my life."
"You seemed to handle it pretty well at the time."
"I was hiding behind sarcasm and a sardonic smile! Anyway, you could have gone with an analogy – I gave you every opportunity to do so."
"Believe me the experience was just as excruciating for me, and I'm not exactly thrilled at repeating it, but things are different now."
"How?"
"Well, you seem to be hanging out with more girls than before…"
"Dad, they're my friends – I'm still…you know…I haven't…," Edward took a deep breath, "My virtue is still intact."
"I thought so, and I know that you understand the…mechanics of it, but there are other things that need to be considered…" Carlisle was anxiously running a hand through his hair.
"Like what?" Edward asked just as anxiously.
Carlisle's knee began shaking under the table. "Like, um …responsibility and…mutual…pl-pleasure…"
Edward groaned, "Please Jesus – I thought you were on my side. Why won't you make it stop?"
"I'm just trying to help."
When Edward was ten his cousin Jane had dared him to climb the tallest tree in Tanya's backyard. He fell, and Edward now suspected that Jane had secretly hoped he would. If so, she must have gained a lot of satisfaction from the resulting compound fracture of his right foot. His big toe was never the same again. But this conversation was turning out to be more painful than that experience.
"Fine – make it quick." And painless. Please let it be painless.
"Okay. Always use protection…umm Bill always made sure that his lady was ready for…"
Edward dropped his head to the table.
"…basically it's amarathonnotasprint." With that Carlisle jumped up from his seat and fled back to the library.
Edward savoured the feel of the cool tabletop against his forehead. "Son of a gun."
xxx
Edward pulled up to the large farm house Alice had given him directions to. Her house was situated about twenty minutes outside of Ashland, and as Edward got out of his truck he could hear the loud music and laughter pumping out of it.
Alice had said that this party was going to be smaller than the one she had thrown the previous year, but there were still large numbers of semi-incapacitated teenagers stumbling around the front yard. Edward even thought that he could distinguish a baby blonde mane that would undoubtedly be Mike Newton's. No one else could carry off spiky, gelled hair in quite the same, obnoxious fashion.
He walked through the front door and tried to find a familiar face in the crowd of people. It seemed as though the entire school had congregated at Alice's house. As he walked down the hallway, every now and then someone would throw their arm around his shoulder and tell a dirty joke. Edward hoped that they would be too drunk to realise that he couldn't remember their name.
"Hey Ed!" a boy from Edward's gym class called out. Edward seemed to remember that he was named Tyler. "Did I ever tell you about the time a nun, a glow worm and a sluice operator went on holiday to Argentina?"
Before Edward could reply, a booming "Edward!" erupted from the living room. He turned to see Emmett standing on a coffee table, covered in party streamers and holding a balloon.
As Edward walked into the room Emmett shouted, "Watch this!" He lifted the helium filled balloon to his lips, inhaled deeply and began to sing.
'…Like stars burning holes right through the dark
Flicking fire like saltwater into my eyes
You were one inch from the edge of this bed…'
He took one more hit from the balloon and bellowed, "…Sleepyhead, Sleepyhead…", then he started to headbang while Bella and Rosalie appeared, as if from nowhere, and began to jump up and down on the couch.
Suddenly a tiny body flung itself at Edward. "You came!" Alice shouted gleefully.
"Of course. I even brought you a present – courtesy of Bella and her aunt," Edward said as he handed her the frame.
"It's perfect!" Alice screamed as she embraced him in another bone crushing hug.
"Thank you! Haha - look at that little guy with a Six of Spades as a body! Come on, let's get you a drink. To the kitchen, Officer!"
"The kitchen, Edward!" Emmett shouted. "You have to check it out. It's like a fucking Oktoberfest in there!"
Alice dragged Edward into the kitchen, which was overflowing with kegs, plastic cups and what seemed to be a small off-license worth of liquor bottles.
"Alice!" a girly voice shouted behind them. Alice and Edward turned to see the freckled girl that sat in front of Edward in History. "It's that time again." she said rather breathlessly.
"It's what time, Jess?" Alice asked.
"Mike is undressing in your home cinema."
"Right." Alice straightened the pink, sparkly crown adorning her head and turned to Edward with a big smile. "I decided to let him come after all. He got me another gift certificate. So, wanna come and watch?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
Edward declined politely and Alice left with Jess. As they left he could distinctly hear "There's a new me coming out, And I just had to live…" drifting through the door.
Edward tried to peruse the kitchen for a non-alcoholic drink. He wanted to be able to drive home later on, so a beer wasn't on the cards for him.
His eyes fell on a familiar looking girl sitting at the kitchen table. She had turned an empty bottle of scotch upside down and was shaking it furiously over a whisky tumbler. "Jack! Where d'you go, Jack?" She let her shoulders and head fall onto the table. "Why does everybody leave me?"
Edward approached her cautiously. "Angela? Are you alright?"
Angela snapped her head up. A cardboard coaster was stuck to her cheek. "Do I fucking look like I'm alright?" Edward was taken aback by the vicious tone adopted by the otherwise pleasant girl.
He turned to leave.
"I'm sorry," Edward heard her say in a small voice.
"It's ok." He walked back and knelt down beside her. "Do you want to talk about it?"
A lone tear travelled down Angela's cheek and she shook her head. Edward sympathetically put a hand on her forearm.
'…Weve come a long long way together,
Through the hard times and the good…'
Emmett sang at the top of his voice, while electric sliding into the kitchen. It appeared that he had taken off his button-up shirt and tied it around his head like a turban.
'…I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should…'
Emmett filled a crystal vase with beer from one of the kegs. Angela burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen. Emmett stared after and his expression darkened slightly.
"Fucking Whitlock." he muttered to himself, before electric sliding back out of the kitchen. He hadn't noticed Edward.
Edward got up. He started to look for Angela, worried that she had locked herself in a bathroom to wallow in self pity. When he encountered the first projectile-vomiter of the night by the rose bushes, however, he realised it was time to call off the search.
He wandered over to a wooden deck overlooking a small pond at the back of the large garden. It was littered with streamers and empty beer cups, but there were no people around, so he sat down on the planks and looked up at the stars.
After a few minutes he heard someone approaching.
Bella sat down next to him. She mirrored his posture almost perfectly. Her arms were slung around her legs, her knees tucked to her chest, her gaze turned skywards.
"It's just so damn perfect." she said quietly.
Edward kept his eyes on the stars. "The night sky?" he asked.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see her nodding. "It's just so much older and more beautiful than we can really grasp. But we hardly ever take the time to really appreciate it. You walk underneath it, when you get out of your car in the evening or shut the curtains in its face at night. We just take it for granted."
I call Bullshit, Edward thought.
"Are you drunk?"
"Yes," she lolled her head to the side, "but I'd appreciate it if you could humour me nonetheless."
Edward smiled, took a shaky breath and started to recite a poem his aunt used to tell him on the nights that his father had to work.
"When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;…"
Bella lowered her knees, so she was sitting cross-legged, and angled her body towards Edward, as he continued to speak.
"…When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,…"
A small smile played across Bella's lips as she joined in to recite the last line with him.
"…Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."
She sighed. "I am Walt Whitman's bitch. Too bad Oscar Wilde got there before me."
Edward shot her a questioning look. "Whitman's shmexy," was her reply.
He felt somewhat bewildered. The poem reminded him strongly of the clear, cold Alaskan nights of his childhood. It was a strange feeling to be reciting it with Bella, on a mild September night, with the sounds of laughter and pop music in the background.
They heard singing behind them.
'…I'm coming out
I want the world to know
Got to let it show…'
Emmett, Alice and Rosalie were making their way across the lawn towards Edward and Bella.
"Bellie! Eddie!" Emmet exclaimed, then dropped down next to Edward. He placed a bottle of Champagne and five tumblers in front of them. Alice and Rosalie sat down, also. Alice put a single sparkler and a lighter down next to the bottle of Champagne. Rosalie added the pink toy rabbit Edward had last seen in Bella's car to the small pile.
"What are you doing here, Alice?" Bella asked, slurring her words slightly. "Shouldn't you be in there, enjoying your birthday party?"
"Well I was, but then I realised that I really only wanted to celebrate with a handful of people." She smiled kindly at Bella.
"Umm…" Edward felt slightly awkward. Even though he had felt warmly welcomed by Emmett's friends, he wasn't entirely sure that Alice counted him as part of the 'handful of people'.
Rosalie seemed to notice his discomfort. "We have a surprise for you, Edward," she said.
Emmett took off his make-shift turban and handed it to Alice. She took it, threw it around her shoulders and tied the sleeves loosely around her neck. Then she once again straightened her sparkly crown and picked up the unlit sparkler and the rabbit.
Alice handed the rabbit to Edward.
"Kneel!" she giggled.
Edward tucked his legs underneath his body.
Alice stood in front of Edward and cleared her throat. "I knight you, Sir Edward Cullen," she touched both of his shoulders with the sparkler, "co-guardian of Spirabbs, the radioactive rabbit. Arise, Sir Edward."
Edward awkwardly got up to his feet and Alice immediately wrapped her arms around him.
"Aww, group hug, guys!" Emmett said, throwing his arms around them and crushing them to his bare chest. Rosalie and Bella jumped on top of the huddle.
"Woohoo!" Emmett shouted at the top of his lungs.
Alice released Edward and picked the lighter off the ground, while Rosalie opened the bottle and filled the tumblers with champagne. Alice lit the sparkler, twirling and dancing and waving the little sparkler until it went out.
"Oh. It died." she said with a pout.
xxx
A/N: So, what did you think of Bella's choice of music? What would you play if you were giving Edward Cullen a ride in your car?
I move back to University soon, so the next chapter won't be up for at least another ten days. However, I wrote a little outtake to get the backstory of Edward and Carlisle's first 'talk' straight. I wasn't going to publish it, but I know that most of you really enjoy the father/son banter between the two. So, if that's something you're interested in and you want to learn more about Bill the Hippie, drop me a review, and I will post it before the weekend :)