He can't know. No one can. It would just him worried and he would tell Steve and he would cancel the tour. I can't let that happen.
"Doctor, you cannot tell anyone this news. It is vitally important that you don't. If you do it could end my career."
"Of course not. It would end my career too. The whole patient-doctor confidentiality thing, remember?"
"Oh right. Well, thank you," I say, standing up. He nods and walks toward the door. I go out of the office and of course Edward is waiting for me. He smiles when he sees me come out. I shake the doctors hand and Edward and I walk to the car.
"So how'd it go?" Edward asked me.
"Fine. I'm as healthy as a horse."
"Did he say anything about you feeling tired all the time?" Quick, got to think of an excuse.
"Oh, umm, he said it might do me good to have a little more iron in my diet…" I think up on the spot.
"I told you. We're going to make sure you get plenty," he promises. Ugh, I hate lying to him. But there's too much at stake to tell him the truth just yet.
"I've always hated plane rides. They give me the creeps," Adam worries. Adam is the new tech person, and he's damn annoying. I don't know why Steve hired him. I asked him, and he said that 'he's good at what he does'. Yeah, sure. We'll see about that when he has to check mics in front of ten-thousand people. I just happened to be the one sitting next to him. Good thing I've got Edward on my other side. Ah, first class seats get better every year. So comfy. And I'm actually able to sleep. I'll need it, because we're on a 10 hour flight. Ugh.
"You okay?" Edward asks. I nod. He doesn't look very convinced. He never does.
"I'm fine, honestly." I smile and place my palm to his cheek, if only for a second. He sighs, and grabs it, holding it there. He kisses my palm and lets it go, setting it on my lap, where the other hand is. He smiles. It's my favourite thing in the world. I think I could live off those smiles. Well, food and water and maybe oxygen are essential too…
The plane starts to move and it's not long before we're in the air. I could watch a movie, go to sleep, listen to music… hmmm. Or just stare at Edward… I look over at Adam, and he doesn't look too good. He looks like he's about to puke. Eww… I certainly hope he can hold that until we land. I shudder and try to think about something else.
I decide to contemplate what the Australian audience will be like. How will they receive us? Are the magazines in Australia spreading the same rumours as the ones in America? What will the food be like? Is it true they eat kangaroo? How hot is it going to be? 85 degrees? 100? I'm going to melt. It's weird over there, they have summer during Christmas. No white Christmas for them. How weird. Actually I'm more worried about trying to understand them… what with their accent that sounds more like a speech impediment. I must have had worry on my face, because Edward brushes his fingers across my forehead, trying to smooth out all the worry lines. I smile at him, trying to look happy.
"Are you sure you're oka-"
"I'm fine," I interrupt. He looks like he doesn't believe me. I'm not going to be able to lie to him much longer, he knows me too well, and I've always been a terrible liar. The food comes down the isle, and I can smell the meat and fish smells. They make me want to vomit. The flight attendant comes to our seats and places a plate in front of Edward. He starts to place one in front of me, but I hold my hand up for him to stop.
"Vegetarian?" I ask.
"Oh… um…" he takes out a little piece of paper. He asks me what my name is and I tell him, not telling him my stage name obviously. He looks at the paper for a long time, or so it seems. He gives me a sheepish look. "Errr, you're not on the list…" I stare at him blankly. List?
"Excuse me?" I gape at him.
"See there's a list of people who have elected for a vegetarian meal when they booked their tickets…" What's he on about? No airline does that anymore. Steve is now looking at us, with a confused look on his face. I am still staring at the flight attendant with an almost angry expression. I'm starving. They're not giving me food. The bastards. Edward sees the look on my face and interjects before I lose it.
"You don't have any vegetarian options at all?" he ask calmly.
"Well, we only have a certain number of meals for the people who are on the list…"
"Screw your list!" I shout. I want to punch his face in. "Do you know who I am?" The flight attendant starts to get nervous.
"Errr, I think we have a-a s-spare meal s-somewhere…" he walks off very fast. I try to calm down, but I'm not doing very well. Why am I so angry? It's only a meal. I'm not even that hungry. Ok, that's a lie, I'm starving, but so what? Oh, I see now. The wild mood swings. That's a symptom of… well, you know. God, I can't even think the word, let alone accept the fact.
Edward notices my distress and puts his arms around me. This melts my anger almost instantly. I bury my face in his bony shoulder, hiding my teary face from him, and everyone else. Then Steve speaks.
"When I booked the tickets, the chick didn't say anything about vegetarian meals, I swear."
"Steve, I think it's best to just leave it," Edward answers for me. I nod. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Steve turn back to his meal. Edward hasn't touched his. He hasn't even opened it. Sit there in his arms, even when we landed.
"I'm never flying that airline again. What shit service," I comment as we move out of the airport. We are in Sydney, on the east cost of Australia, apparently. The group of us, and our 2 bodyguards, are attracting attention. Even with me in the centre of our little clump, people still stare at us with narrow eyes. Then the inevitable happened.
"Oh my god, it's Penny!" a kid screams. Then the rush starts. Lots of people run toward us, surrounding us. Sigh. Why must I be so recognisable? Oh right, because my face is all over the magazines. There are mainly teenage girls amongst the stampede of people. There are some boys there too, being dragged by the girls. Ah, boyfriends. What would we do without them? Who else would we drag to our ridiculous shindigs? We gradually move towards the exit, and towards the limo that should be there. If it's not, I swear I'm going to crack it at someone. Preferably the person closest to me who's not Edward. Once the guards have fended off all the girls in the doorway, we walk briskly to the limo. Thank god it's there. It's not as hot as I thought it would be. Although, it is only October. I put my jacket on, over my summer dress. As soon as we're in the limo, I take off my sunglasses. I blink a few times to get used to the light. Edward gets in and sits next to me, an automatic gesture. There's no separating us now. Unless you have a lot of brute force. It's like magnets. Very strong magnets. You can't pull us away from each other.
No one says anything as we drive along. I look out the heavily tinted window, watching the city go by. It's very beautiful. The sun is shining on the water of the bay, and on the glass windows of the skyscrapers. You can see the almost white sand of the beaches, and the bridge over the water. The Sydney Harbour Bridge I think it's called.
The limo stops outside a grand building, with lots of gold furnishings. We must be at our hotel. There are guys in uniforms at the door, porters. I've always thought they kind of look like toy soldiers. We get out of the car and they take our bags out of the trunk. As we go into front reception, the people in the desk are running around madly. Clearly they were not prepared for our arrival. Steve goes up to the desk and a pretty blonde who is wearing too much make up smiles at him.
"Hi. We have a reservation under Williams Music Industries?" Steve asks the girl. She looks at her computer.
"Ah, yep. We have you in the Presidential Suite. 3rd floor, the porters will carry your bags up for you. Have a good stay." She says this very fast and in their weird accent. I can hardly understand her. She gives Steve the keys as we start to head over to the elevators. People stare as we move through the lobby. I don't blame them, we're surrounded by security. Not all of us fit in the elevator, so Edward, two security guys and I go in first. Edward holds my hand the whole way. He even gives me a kiss on the cheek. The security guys looked around awkwardly when he did that. It made me laugh.
We finally got to the room. There were only two rooms on this floor, one being ours. Probably because they were so big. The name of the hotel was Star City, according to the hotel stationary. There were several rooms, with double, queen or king sized beds. We were quick to claim the king sized bed, Edward and I. The porter came into the room then, and dumped our bags. We thanked him and grabbed them before they could fall over. As we were here for 4 days, I started unpacking some stuff, stuff that needed to be hung in the wardrobe. As I did some lingerie that I bought yesterday fell out, still the tags. Edward eyed them and raised one eyebrow. I winked at him as I stuffed them back in the enormous suitcase. I didn't realise that Steve had ordered us food, but I could smell it. The smell made me feel sick. I knew what this was, and I was determined not to give over to the sick that was lingering in my stomach. I knew Edward, and everyone else, would get suspicious then. And even if they didn't suspect… that… they would still be worried. Unless they thought Edward had stuffed up and given me a cream bagel again. But I was not going to be sick. I'm strong, I can handle it.
Edward notices my discomfort anyway. He opened his mouth to speak, but I gave him a glare as if to say "don't you dare say it". He shut his mouth after that.
We didn't have any shows until tomorrow, but we have a dress rehearsal and sound checks pretty much all day. I wasn't required the whole day, so I had breaks in which I could explore the city.
My costumes had their own truck, my make up had it's own car, and I won't even begin to tell you about my accessories. I like shiny things. Hehe.
Once they arrive, we can do a run through of the show. But they aren't here yet. Looks like I'm going on stage in my white dress. Well, I'm sure it's a nice change compared to what I usually wear on stage. I'm not as bad as a certain pop star who never seems to wear pants and has a tendency to sing songs about sex, but my costumes do leave something to the imagination. One of them is a full length leather body suit, tightly fit, with a low neck. Accompanied by thigh high boots. I usually wear this for my song "Superman". It seems appropriate. Takes ages to get into though…
My train of thought is broken by the stage managers yelling things, and one of them came over to me.
"It's time to do a run through now Miss Swan." I nod, and he leads me into the backstage area. There is nothing in the way of costumes or make up anywhere. My stylists are going to have a heart attack. We continue onto the stage and the first thing I notice is that the props aren't there either. We're screwed. Did they get lost in transit or something? Oh well. Costumes and props aren't important. Sure, they make for a great show, but in the end, all you need is your voice. And preferably a microphone. But they're there, so we're ok. For now.
We run through the songs in order, and I attempt to do my blocking, but it doesn't really work without the full set and props. I stuffed up one of the verses, got them mixed up. I shall have to go through that song before tomorrow.
Finally, we get to go back to our hotel. I'm so tired my eyelids are barely open. I collapse on the bed, but Edward starts to talk.
"Bella, we need to talk about this. You are clearly not fine. You've avoided me the whole day, every time there's food in the room you look like you might puke, and you look like you're going to faint in about 10 seconds." He frowned. Sigh. He knew me too well. But I wasn't going to revel my secret just yet. It's not the right time. I paused for a minute, trying to come up with a sufficient lie.
"Look, I haven't been feeling well since the plane ride, and I've had a really big day. Maybe a little bit of jet-lag. And I'm not avoiding you, I just had a lot of things to do." Okay, I was avoiding him kind of. I can't bear his accusing eyes. It just makes me want to cry and tell him that his child is growing inside me. Ugh, that sounds so ridiculous. He stares at me, disbelieving. I can tell he was hurt. He knew that I was keeping something from him. He knew that I knew, I think.
A wave of nausea came over me, and I fought it back, as I undressed for bed. Edward's eyes were on me the whole time, as if he were going to catch me as soon as I fell. Which was more than likely.
I fell to sleep easily, in Edward's arms of course, but it was wrong.
I needed to tell him.
Tomorrow, maybe. This week at least. Before he could figure it out, if he hadn't already. He needed to hear it from me.
Sorry for the long wait, year 10 is a bitch :P
It was kind of a boring chapter, I know, but I'm establishing mood :D
Review, it would make me happy :)