I meant to get this up earlier this week, but our Christmas tree took the outlet I usually use for the computer and I had to rearrange!
One of your favorite characters appears in this chapter. My gift to you! And one of my favorite chapters is coming up soon, so be sure you stay tuned. Big thanks to those of you who have been adding me to your favorites or alerts. I like knowing you're into the story!
You know the drill: all titles are songs recorded by Frank "Let It Snow" Sinatra, and all characters and associated material belong to Stephenie "Don't Hate Me Because He Was In My Dreams First" Meyer.
Chapter 7: Sand and Sea
That Saturday, we all met up at Newton's Olympic Outfitters to carpool down to First Beach. Since Mrs. Newton had given Mike the green light for me to come apply for a spot at the store, I arrived a bit early. It was before the store's posted hours of business, but the front door was unlocked. A friendly bell heralded my entrance.
"Good morning," chirped a woman's voice from somewhere behind the register. I looked for the source of the voice, but saw nothing but an empty counter.
"Um… hello?" I said loudly so my voice would reach wherever the woman was. Just then, an attractive, round-faced woman bobbed up behind the cash register.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I thought you would be one of our regulars." She put down a dust cloth and eyed me carefully. Smiling, she stuck out a well-manicured hand. "Bella Swan?"
I nodded, accepting the handshake. Mike must have told her about "Isabella;" maybe he was smarter than he looked!
"I'm Karen Newton, Mike's mom." She grinned. "So you're looking for a job, hon? I think we could use some extra help around here. Mike used to be in here a lot, but he's had more homework this year, and I'm starting to realize how much he helped out!"
Mrs. Newton rummaged through a stack of papers on a stark, wooden table behind the counter.
"Ah! Here it is!" She handed me a single sheet of paper. At the top, the words "Application for Employment" were marked in purple, fuzzy script. I stared at the application, not believing what I saw. The whole page was mimeographed. Who used that kind of technology anymore? Mrs. Newton gave me an apologetic smile.
"We don't take a lot of applications," she said, excusing the paper with a wave of her hand. "You can use my pen, here," she said, gesturing to the counter, "or you're welcome to take it home."
I scanned the application. Aside from my name, phone number, and address, there wasn't really a lot of information to give. There was a small box for previous work experience and another box for education. No mention of background checks, references, or a social security number.
"I can go ahead and do this while I'm waiting for the others, Mrs. Newton," I said, pointing at the empty parking lot with the pen and bending over the ancient application.
"Oh, you're going to the beach, too, then!" Mrs. Newton exclaimed. "That will be fun! Have you been to First Beach before, Bella?"
I nodded as I scribbled out all my contact information.
"Yes, but it was years ago," I said. "My dad used to take me."
"Oh… Did you live with Chief Swan then?" She was trying to recall if she should have remembered me as a child.
"No, I would just visit in the summers," I answered, looking up from my work experience box to give her an encouraging smile. The little crinkle that had formed between her well-groomed eyebrows faded.
"Well it's a shame you and Mikey didn't know each other back then. You seem to get along very well now!"
I felt myself begin to blush, so I kept my head low and pretended to concentrate very hard on the end of my application, giving a noncommittal "Mmhmm" to avoid what would have become an awkward silence.
After lingering over the application an extra moment to let Mrs. Newton's last sentence fade from the air, I handed it back to her. No one had arrived in the parking lot yet, so I asked Mrs. Newton to give me a tour of the store.
She was obviously very proud of the family business. While she didn't strike me as the outdoorsy type, she knew everything there was to know about every piece of equipment in the place. The aisles were not only kept in meticulous order, but they featured attractive displays over which Mrs. Newton had clearly had an influence. Pointing here and there, she drew my attention to things that would be my responsibility if I worked there.
By the end of the tour, "You would" had changed to "You will." "You will want to check that these don't get out of order," she was saying. I had gotten the job.
The friendly chime rang as the door swung open.
"Hey, Mom, is Bella in here?" Mike called.
"I'm here, Mike," I answered, just spotting the top of his head over a rack of cane poles. I turned to thank Mrs. Newton.
"You go have fun, hon," she said, catching me off guard by folding me into a hug. She smelled like hairspray and fabric softener. "Come in after school Monday and we'll work up a schedule. It was so nice to meet you!"
"It… It was nice to meet you too!" I stammered, and I went out to the parking lot with Mike.
The ride to First Beach was a little awkward. First, Mike was not very subtle about wanting me to sit next to him. Jessica was, in turn, not very subtle about being mad at me for sitting next to Mike, so I had to squeeze her into the seat between us. Mike was not very subtle about the seating arrangement being less than he'd hoped for. And Lauren was not very subtle about being a &*%#. By the time we got to the beach, I was so tired of all the conflict that I was keen to go back home at any time.
In an effort to not be the Shy New Girl Who Gets All the Boys' Attention and Then Pouts and Has No Fun at the Beach, however, I did agree to go on a little exploration hike to some tide pools with the group. I had always enjoyed the tide pools as a kid; something about the complexity of a world so much smaller than mine really fascinated me. I loved complexity. I could use more of it in my life. I did scrape a palm when I tripped on the rocky shore, but I managed to make it back to the campfire without needing emergency care.
As I approached the crackling driftwood fire, I noticed some boys from the nearby reservation had shown up. They were tall and lanky, with silky, black hair and warm brown skin. The smallest one, probably no more than fourteen, surprised me by introducing himself in a familiar way.
After calling me Isabella, and accepting my curt correction, he extended a hand.
"I'm Jacob Black. You bought my dad's truck," he said with a hopeful little smile.
"Oh, Billy's son! Jacob!" I exclaimed, hoping it wasn't too obvious that I didn't exactly remember him. I knew Billy, of course, but I remembered his daughters-Rachel and Rebecca-better than I did his son. "How are you?"
An attractive grin split across his face.
"Good! I wasn't sure you'd remember me. We didn't spend much time together, you and me…" he rubbed the back of his neck with a disproportionately large hand. It reminded me of a puppy's paws, big paws on a bony, little thing. "My sisters are moved out; it's just me and my dad these days. We see Charlie a lot, though. Used to see him a couple times a week before you showed up!" He faked a scowl as though I had taken a treat from him.
"Sorry," I laughed. "I'll be sure and send him your way more often."
Jacob nodded appreciatively, gazing at the ground.
"Or we could come visit him, you know, at his house." He peered at me from under his dark eyebrows. He was flirting with me! How cute. I wondered if he had ever gotten past flirting with a girl before. Not that I was all that experienced, myself.
"Yeah," I answered, hoping I wasn't being too encouraging by agreeing to a visit. Jacob was little more than a kid. He still had that awkward gangliness of his early teens. He probably thought of me as an "older woman." But it felt good to have someone in Forks I knew, even if I didn't actually remember him. "You could come over for dinner. I usually cook for him."
"I know!" Jacob exclaimed with a knowing wink. "Everybody's glad of that, truuust me."
"Did he eat at your house before?" I asked, a little surprised. Charlie had never mentioned having a home-cooked meal other than his "hard-cooked" fried eggs and "crispy" bacon, which, to anyone else, weren't so much hard-cooked and crispy as burned and inedible.
"Oh, not a whole lot. But we sure never ate at his!" He laughed, his teeth shining white against his russet skin. "No, I think he worked through dinner most of the time. And well… We don't go into Forks a lot, but I've seen his cruiser parked at the diner down the street from the station more than once."
I had to smile to myself. That seemed like Charlie, all right.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, my mind drifting back to Jacob's introduction at the mention of cars. "Tell your dad I really appreciate the truck. It's amazing."
Jacob raised an eyebrow. "Amazing? Well I never thought of it quite that way," he laughed, "but I'll pass the message along. We did a lot of upkeep on that thing. If he were still able to drive it, I'm sure he wouldn't have let it go."
"You worked on it, too?" I asked, impressed.
"Oh yeah," Jacob answered, matter-of-fact. "Probably more than he did, these past few years. I have a project car, too, but it's tough getting parts without spending a lot of money." His boyish face was honest, not bragging.
"What kind of car is it?" I asked.
"A 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit." His eyes went unfocused, wistful. He was distracted just thinking about it. I couldn't imagine being that in love with a car!
"That's… cool," I said uncertainly. I had no idea what a Rabbit was, but it didn't sound very cool at all.
And just like that, Jacob was off in his own little world, talking a mile a minute about master cylinders and MPG and PSI and WHP. My mind, meanwhile, was chanting, "WTF?" After a very long discussion about combustion (in which my share of the conversation consisted solely of nodding periodically), Jacob breathed a happy sigh.
"How are you liking Washington so far?" he asked in a complacent tone.
"It's… cold," I answered plainly.
"Well, yeah," Jacob answered, his dark eyes crinkling in amusement. "We're pretty far north. But cold is okay; you just wear more layers."
"I moved from Phoenix," I reminded him. "I don't have any layers. At least, none with sleeves." His eyes roved over my body, verifying what I said with the sight of my cobbled-together outfit on a day of "nice" weather. To my surprise, his eyes did not linger overlong on my chest. This kid was turning out to be more agreeable than I thought!
"Hmm, yeah, I see what you mean," Jacob said with a pensive expression. Then, suddenly, he started pulling his sweatshirt over his head.
"Here." He stretched the wad of black fleece toward me with one oversized hand.
"What?"
"Take it. You need more layers." He reached the sweatshirt even farther. I could vaguely smell a spicy, woodsy scent wafting from him.
"No," I protested. "I'm fine. The weather's getting nicer and…" As I scrambled for excuses, I noticed the gray clouds overhead. The weather was on Jacob's side.
"Bella," Jacob said, raising his eyebrows, "are you cold?" He knew I would have to say yes. The moment the word "cold" escaped his lips, I could feel the mist of the Pacific Ocean on my neck. I suppressed a shiver and met his gaze sheepishly. He shook the shirt at me for emphasis.
"Oh, fine," I grumbled, taking the warm fleece from him and pulling it on. I glared at him and shook my hair out. "You happy?"
Jacob leaned back on his heels, folding his arms across his loose-fitting, short-sleeved shirt. He rubbed his bare arms and smiled, eyeing his accomplishment with relish.
"Yep," he replied. "What about you? Isn't it nice to know that, if you ever get cold, I can warm you up?"
I wasn't sure how to respond to that. As my mouth hung open wordlessly, Mike and Jessica returned from their little foray to the local general store.
"Bella, you ready to go?" Mike asked, placing a hand on my shoulder but looking at Jacob as he spoke.
"Oh, sure," I said warmly, but pulling away from his grasp. "Er… Mike, this is Jacob Black, a friend of the family." I gestured weakly.
Jacob reached a large hand forward.
"We go way back," Jacob said, shaking Mike's hand. He smiled, but the warmth of his earlier grins was absent.
"Nice to meet you," Mike replied, smiling the same empty smile. "C'mon, Bella."
"Well, uh, bye, Jacob. I guess I'll see you around," I mumbled, starting to wriggle back out of the sweatshirt.
"Keep it," Jacob said, and his voice was low and serious. "I'll see you soon anyway." His eyes were on Mike, who had his back turned to us and was gaining distance.
"Thanks," I whispered.
I waved goodbye to Jacob and headed back to the SUV. Jessica was hinting at riding up front for the ride home, and I took the opportunity to ride in back, where I could tune out Jess's incessant chatter. I leaned my head back on the seat and let my mind relax, sleepily replaying the highlights of the day: the warm sunshine of the morning; the quiet peace of the tide pools; and the beautiful, innocent laughter of Jacob Black.
