Disclaimer:
Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight.
Morgan Locklear owns a sweet walking stick with a sword hidden inside.
Chapter Twenty Nine:
C'est la vie
Benjamin Edward Black was born on the morning on April 6th, 1893.
The year had seen enormous success for his parents' business dealings in Canada, and the theatre that he would come to call his home had featured several one act plays written by English majors at Columbia College.
The new baby was delivered at home (in his parents' room) by his grandfather, who was assisted by Dr. Whitlock and Dr. McCarty. The infant boy immediately voiced his disapproval with the cold and the light. Even the smoky tint of the high windows that wrapped the room could not keep the daylight from flooding in. Benjamin was not impressed.
He was a big boy with dark skin like his father and swirls of black hair matted to his head. Within a moment he was wrapped tightly in a blanket made with love by Alice and handed to Rosalie.
Benjamin stopped crying as soon as his mother spoke. He squinted at her mouth as he listened to her familiar voice.
"He knows you." Edward's voice came in from around the doorway. He wanted to give his sister privacy, so he, Alice and Bella were all in the corner room. They were sitting on the same bistro chairs that had once been used during a phone call to Carlisle and Jasper during their near disastrous trip to the South.
"Come in here and meet your nephew," she called to her brother.
Edward stepped into the room and received something mentally from the baby at once. There were no words of course, but he felt safe, warm, and happy to hear Rosalie speak to him.
That was the beginning of a deep connection that Edward would share with the child. A connection that Bella was soon made well aware of. She followed her husband into the room, wiping her nose with one of Edward's handkerchiefs. She and Alice were both bursting with happiness for the young couple.
During the pregnancy, Jacob had been an absolute angel to his wife and the new parents were obviously happy.
Rosalie had become mildly weary of Jacob's doting by the end, but did her part by not getting mad at him just for trying to make her comfortable. In the final days, the rooftop garden became a place where she found the cool breeze as necessary as the blood in her veins.
She and Jacob would sit there for hours and discuss the kind of childhood their son would have in such a wonderful home. The theatre showcased several one act plays while her belly grew and she liked knowing that Benjamin would be exposed to so much.
Rosalie held the squirmy baby for a while longer and was smiling so much that her face hurt. Joy released a few tears from her eyes and they splashed against his tiny cheeks, making him twitch comically. She laughed through her sobs and looked over at Jacob. He was watching them with his mouth and his heart open.
"Would you like to hold your son?" she asked.
He nodded. He was happy to accomplish that much.
Rosalie handed the bundle over to Jacob, who gently took him with both hands. The baby was positively minuscule as he rested in the giant hands of his proud father.
"Hello, Ben." Jacob did not know what else to say so he repeated himself. "Hello Ben."
He felt almost panicked that he would never know what to say to his little boy.
Edward walked over and placed a hand on his brother-in-law's shoulder. "He knows you too."
Jacob was weak with relief and smiled at the room. "This is my son," he whispered to those gathered around.
That simple, profound statement was what finally got Emmett to cry along with the rest of them.
By the time Benjamin was two weeks old, Jasper had convinced everyone that he was never going to turn into a wolf like his father had. His most persistent argument, and one he made the day the boy was born, was that he did not smell the same as Jacob.
Jasper clearly remembered meeting Jacob Black at Val de Grace Hospital in Paris. He had carried Dr. Cullen's son into the building and Jasper caught his earthy animal scent but could not identify it. Jacob had carried that scent every day until his injury under the streets of Brooklyn, where he had sacrificed himself to save Bella from Michael's savage grasp.
Jasper knew that he was right and even though the other vampires agreed that Jacob had lost a certain musk, Rosalie was still worried for her son's normalcy.
"Honey," Alice told her when she voiced her concern. "You just had a baby in the most beautiful theatre in the most exciting city in the world, and to top it all off, he will be living with a bunch of immortals. I think normalcy flew out the special vampire proof window a long time ago."
They were all gathered in the library, and laughed heartily at the truthful statement. Jasper was eager to continue with his findings but was patient. They were all in a good mood and he really wanted to put all worry out of the family's minds forever.
He had purchased some medical equipment and converted one of the bedrooms behind the stage into an impressive laboratory. He studied all the blood he had on hand, including a sample from the infant and some from his vast private stock of converted wine bottles and was very excited by what he found.
"I have proof that Benjamin is one hundred percent human." The only person not present for the announcement was Benjamin, he was napping in his room in the clouds.
Rosalie knew that Jasper was trying to help and his convictions were always convincing, but ever since she became a mother, she worried about that little baby morning noon and night.
"What makes you so sure?" She prodded.
"It's in the blood," he answered simply. "Ben's blood looks exactly like Jacob's blood does now. Exactly the same as a matter of fact."
"What makes you so sure that it's the blood that makes the difference?" Rosalie asked.
It was a good question, but not one he had expected. "It's always the blood," he said decisively.
That seemed to satisfy Rosalie, which surprised Jasper greatly. Jacob was also surprised at her acceptance after such a cliché response. He had honestly believed that the scent theory alone was enough to consider the matter closed and was sticking out his bottom lip and nodding his head.
"That's great news, Jasper. Thank you," Jacob responded, still nodding his head. He looked like the old men at the barber shop he and Carlisle visited every week. Edward, Jacob and Emmett did not require the services of a barber of course, but they were quite jealous of what looked like a jolly good time in the parlor.
As is frustratingly frequent for mind readers, most people label important items in their thoughts as "It." Edward and Bella both heard Jasper thinking about an "It" and how he had gotten off easy that no one had really asked about "It."
The celebratory mood in the room gave Emmett an idea and he herded everyone down one level to the lobby lounge, where he made drinks he called Red Peaches.
Bella and Edward also took advantage of the situation by discussing what they heard Jasper musing about. He had secrets, they knew that, but he always shared the ones that mattered. As far as Benjamin was concerned, they concluded he would not have used the words 'one hundred percent' unless he meant it.
If he was happy that no one probed medical details about his findings, who were they to think that it was even suspicious? Who would want to dissect something so complicated anyway?
Jasper did.
They decided to drop it anyway.
Benjamin sat on the bench in the rooftop garden, swinging his legs with individual rhythm. He and his family were five stories above Manhattan and watching the biggest fireworks display to have ever been ignited above the Hudson River. Light and smoke filled the midnight sky as the year 1900 stepped forward.
At six and a half years old, Benjamin had already taken his first ride in an automobile, a Duryea Motor Wagon, and his father had spoken of something called the Olds Motor Company often. Benjamin wondered how a new car could be old.
He watched the sky explode in brilliant reds and whites and had no idea that he was entering a century that would be so industrious that some would come to believe that it actually started a decade before hand.
Rosalie sat next to the excited but exhausted boy and held his hand. They had spent the crisp winter day in the park, just the two of them. She had learned to take days off from time to time to enjoy her growing boy. After all, he was the reason she worked so hard in the first place.
Alice sat on the other side of Benjamin on the bench and held his other hand. He liked Alice - she made funny faces and funny hats. They all tried to lace their fingers together but they were wearing gloves and the fingers kept getting stuck together. This made Benjamin laugh heartily and he barely noticed the fireworks display for minutes on end.
Jacob had finally gotten his chance to vacation with Thomas Edison that year. He was invited once again to Edison's winter estate in Florida and Rosalie was encouraged to accompany him.
Benjamin had spent those weeks with his grandparents at their home next to Central Park. The area was not as secluded as it once was, there was even a subway station a few blocks south. This pleased the elder Cullens of course, but it also meant the end of their country life.
While in Florida, Jacob, Rosalie and Mr. Edison played croquet in the morning and cards in the evenings and in between they discussed the new world of electronic discovery. Rosalie had Thomas convinced that if she had enough gears and steam, she could build a rocket to the moon.
He was impressed with the six patents she held by then but was downright dancing about the plans she had for the upcoming year.
He told them that he would offer to help but that they didn't seem to need it. He also told them that he would offer to invest but they didn't seem to need that either. In the end, he wished them luck and promised to look for Black and Black products in the future.
A package arrived a week after they returned home and in it were a few large looking tubes with wicks sticking out of them. Thomas Edison had sent them fireworks. He knew that they would all be up in their garden on New Year's Eve and cautioned them in a short letter to light the cylinders on the cement path leading to the gazebo.
They had taken his advice and lit the gifts off just before the show over the river started. Benjamin was not standing close to them but still felt that childlike mix of fright and delight. The adults looked skittish as well, but everyone laughed and marveled at the bright and loud devices.
Jasper was the only one brave enough to light them with matches borrowed from Carlisle. Esme gave her husband a stare that told him she knew why he had matches in the first place. He was supposed to have stopped smoking cigars many years before, but he looked so handsome in his canary yellow vest that she forgave him. If she was being honest, she had to admit she missed that taste on his lips.
After the fireworks over the Hudson were over and after Benjamin had been carried off to bed, Edward and Bella found some time to kiss next to the bird bath.
The stone monkey stood with two enormous palms turned skyward. Emmett had used it to serve drinks to Michael and all his friends once during another fireworks display that seemed so long ago.
Eventually, they went downstairs and found the rest of the vampires in Emmett's room. It was large and had been made by converting several rooms behind the stage into one low ceilinged suite. He loved it and decorated it with the latest and boldest design fads.
They toasted their friendship and a century of good times and Emmett told them about a vampire tavern he wanted to establish. He explained that if he could provide delicious and affordable alternatives to human blood, he would have a corner on the market by providing a much needed service.
Edward wanted to know where he wanted to build it.
Jasper wanted to know how he was going to keep humans out.
Bella wanted to know what he was going to name it.
Emmett had answers for all three queries: "I want it to be in Manhattan, uptown, preferably. Humans won't be able to get in, the door will be far too heavy, and I'm going to call it, "The Adam's Apple."
Benjamin was ten years old when he discovered that vampires were real.
It was an accident, of course. His parents had decided not to inform him until he was an adult and could understand the gravity of keeping such a powerful and damning secret.
As it happened, he was excited about the first ever baseball WorldSeries, even though it was Boston and Pittsburgh competing and not his beloved Yankees. His Uncle Emmett took him to night games and his Grandpa "Carly" took him to day games at "Hilltop Park" on 165th and Broadway.
He walked in on Edward and Bella enjoying an afternoon conversation about the last two productions they had completed, "Seagull" by Chekhov and Ibsen's "Enemy Of The People."
Edward and Bella each taught an evening class at Juilliard; she on Wednesdays and he on Thursdays. That evening, they were enjoying a few more moments together before Bella had to get to her class. The happily married couple had just decided to produce a musical at the Theatre of the Heart.
They were drinking from brandy glasses filled with rich dark blood.
The boy could see it on their lips and could smell it in the air. A thousand memories of that smell finding his nostrils came to him, flooded him. It was in the theatre almost every day but he never really stopped to think about it. They had been doing whatever with it for his entire life.
"Benjamin," Bella spoke very quietly.
They both heard his thoughts as he tore from the room. He believed that he was living with devils, or worse yet, devil worshipers.
The boy did not want to wait for the elevator and instead ran through the corner room and into his parents' room where the stone spiral staircase gave him sacred distance.
Rosalie was down in the shop working on a new clasp design and overseeing her husband as he learned how to work the glass projects she had going. They had overtaken the storage room below the stage and the shop now produced over ten thousand individual pieces of various complexities in a single year.
They had enough work to give many of their friends a piece of the pie and that only sped up production.
Benjamin ran in from the street entrance because the stone steps ended in the lobby lounge. His eyes were wide and filled with shocked tears.
Jacob was on his feet instantly, looking his boy over for a street injury.
Rosalie knew.
His mother always seemed to know. Even though Benjamin came from outside, she was positive that it had something to do with one of the vampires.
She knelt down and held out her arms. He ran to her and buried his face in her neck. He was not prone to outburst, had actually been a strong and courageous child from the beginning but he was badly shaken.
His father looked on as he heard Rosalie whisper.
"What did you see?" She put her hand on his head, his thick dark hair making her fingers disappear instantly.
Benjamin did not answer for a moment.
"Blood." His voice was shaky but loud.
Edward and Bella came down in the elevator just then and to his credit, Benjamin did not cringe away from them. If he had, Bella was certain that her heart would break in half.
"He just walked in," Bella said. "We had just woken up and..."
Initially, Jacob thought his son had discovered sex. "Oh hey, it's alright, it's natural, he has seen worse on the streets by now. We just need to teach him how to knock that's all."
Edward somberly shook his head. "We were having dinner."
Jacob's face went white as he looked down with new understanding at his son. He wasn't just shaken, he was frightened.
"It's time for us to have a talk," Jacob declared. "Would someone please tell Jasper and Alice to meet us in the auditorium?"
Edward said that he would and Bella asked why he chose the auditorium.
"Emmett is going to want to show off for him," Jacob reasoned. "And it might just make him feel better about the whole thing if he can be amazed rather than afraid."
Rosalie did most of the talking. She had been planning the speech for a decade but thought that she would have nearly another to refine it.
She told Benjamin that the people in his family were as good as angels and that they had been given both a blessing and a curse to live with. She cried when she spoke of her brother as a little boy growing up with her in Paris.
He believed every word of what his mother told him, especially the part about how the penalty for revealing what he knew to anyone, even by accident, was to see his entire family taken from him.
He was curious but cautious about their abilities and was glad that his mother and father were not vampiresas well.
Edward did not blame him.
Carlisle spoke up and explained how their condition was really medical in nature and that they were in fact suffering from what could be categorized as a disease.
"Can we catch it?" Benjamin asked.
Carlisle gave him the simple answer, the best for his grandson's age. "No."
Later that week, when his parents took him to see the Hanover National Bank building demolished to make way for the ever increasing vertical expansion in the city, he began to think about all the times his aunts and uncles were unable to make daytime events.
He saw signs all over in the following months, and couldn't believe how blind he had been. He thought about it often and began to wish that he had some of their powers.
It turned him into a questioner, a seeker of answers and explanations.
Benjamin was far too young to have been burdened with that kind of information and everyone in his family knew it. Edward and Bella were keeping tabs on his inner monologue and the way he was processing the startling new reality he found himself in, but so far they only detected a child's wonder and the desire to be strong and fast.
If Alice had heard his thoughts, she might have recognized some of the same things she had thought about as she obsessed over Bella during her final human days just before she tricked her best friend into turning her into a vampire.
By 1909, New York City was the fastest growing city in the world. It was already home to many buildings that seemed to scrape the very sky, but in truth it was still in its infancy where such matters were concerned. Even the remarkable Flatiron Building would eventually spend all its days in the shadows of much bigger but younger brothers.
Benjamin was a handsome and well-muscled teenager, who had completed his education early and was splitting his time between his parents' thriving metal works company and attending classes at four nearby colleges and universities.
He was stupendously intellectual and looked remarkably like his father, but he had no idea about what he wanted to do with his life and that produced an unease in him that sometimes showed on his face.
Rosalie's blonde hair had pale streaks in it by then, but her eyes were sharp and she coaxed things from her reluctant son better than anyone else could. She suggested that he be content with soaking in the education he was getting and that purpose would one day find him.
He thought it was easier for her to say than most. After all, every trinket she invented was another success that threatened to outsell the previous ones. She had eighty five retailers in various fields, all of whom clamored for her latest clever improvement or original devices.
Still, Jacob drove up and down the eastern seaboard for the first few days of each week, seeking new interests and training store owners how to use the newer inventions when necessary.
Some of Rosalie's inventions took a skilled hand to operate, except her improvements to the fishing pole. She made that sport far easier and, if possible, more fun.
When he was younger, Benjamin used to go on those trips with his father in the summer months when school was not is session. He found out that his dad had hundreds of songs, scratched on paper scraps and hotel napkins, stored in the glove compartment along with the hand crank and a wool hat.
His father wrote elegant songs and emotional lyrics. Benjamin could appreciate them as he had been taking piano lessons from Edward and Bella his entire life.
Benjamin was indeed considering a sincere pursuit of music as a career but did not feel a calling to it like he expected he should. Still, he attended Juillard as well as NYU and Cornell, in order to get into certain classes taught by specific professors. His favorite class was at Columbia University, one of only nine colonialcolleges in the country, and the history professor there reminded him of talks with Jasper.
He had carefully considered the fact that his Uncle Edward had been human at one time like his mother and his parents and had therefore been infected somehow. He still did not know if he would be willing to miss the sun for an eternity, but the possibility had been very appealing from the beginning.
He was popular with the ladies and his parents offered him a generous curfew, which he broke only once.
The attention from girls made him uncomfortable. Other men seemed to know how to play it cool around a pretty girl, but women were just snorting and giggling messes in his presence and all he wanted was to have a real conversation with a person who smelled like coconuts and who was not his mother or his Aunt Alice.
Bella smelled like flowers and his grandmother smelled like vanilla.
Emmett had indeed opened his tavern and was quite literally the toast of the New York vampire community. The Adam's Apple also gave him the ability to gauge the atmosphere in the underground vampire society.
Emmett made drinks so wonderful and had so much blood content that one a day for most vampires would be enough to eliminate the need to harm any humans at all. It was by no means the beginning of a new era, but he was trying.
Alice was happy being the rich wife of a surgeon. She and Jasper had married in Kentucky, under the very tree they had sat in on July 3rd, 1892. He bought her that house, and since the previous owner had been killed (an unsolved mystery to everyone except Alice & Jasper), it went cheap.
Everyone attended the southern wedding. Benjamin had been about four years old at the time and maintained that his only memory of the event was the long ride in the glass topped carriage.
Since then, Jasper had acquired his American medical license and worked as a children's surgeon, repairing cleft palates in pre-mature infants and giving babies with spinabifida a chance at a normal life.
He arrived at the hospital before dawn on work days and stayed until after sunset. It was not uncommon for any surgeon to hold such hours, but Jasper slept only four hours at night because of his extra-curricular activities. He also insisted that he took a two hour nap in his office every day.
Alice, Bella, Rosalie and Esme were almost always on foot, their heels clipping along the sidewalks at night. By the time the first decade of the twentieth century came to a close, they were known as the four winds of Manhattan.
Edward and Bella performed together on stage in the spring of 1911. He played a gorgeous dark blue stage grand piano, a twentieth anniversary present of sorts, while she sang with her usual effortless skill.
Edward sang as well, a few nice duets with his wife, and once he even performed a beautiful song solo that Jacob had written the year before. Bella sipped a cup of tea off stage and wept.
Over half of the songs that night were written by Jacob Black, the others were originals Bella and Edward had written together. His favorite was a song called "Confessions of a Clown" but she much preferred the works they performed in French.
His hands and her voice. It was magic.
The audience was awed by the grace and talent that stood before them and the occasional treat of hearing the couple sing together was sublime. Goose bumps were cheap that night and a few men borrowed back the handkerchiefs they had lent their wives earlier in the evening.
It was supposed to be a special and singular evening, but after tremendous uproar, threatening on the verge of ugly, they agreed to extend the engagement for a few nights, weeks, and then months.
In the end, they ran "Black Magic" for ten weeks. It was one of the most well-attended and talked about events of that year. Jacob never stopped blushing.
That was also the same year that Bella finally published a skinny novel about a plucky would-be detective in the guts of Manhattan. "A Rose by Any Other Name" chronicled the adventures of Rosalie, a file runner for the New York Police Department who was constantly pushing cops in the right direction with her keen observation and clever analysis.
It had a modest reception by the press and the readers, but it made a lasting impression on her eighteen-year-old nephew. He loved the story and praised her writing. He didn't know it yet, but it would be a life changing impression.
Benjamin had several frank conversations with his family about the subject that he largely avoided since discovering that it was a subject at all, but as his education failed to bring him peace from his restlessness, he began asking questions.
He started with Edward. He thought his uncle would be evasive, but instead shared what he remembered of his murder and how Jacob had saved his life by running him from his house to his new girlfriend, Bella.
"My father saved your life?" Benjamin had always admired his sweet but serious father and it was he who suggested that Jacob's songs be performed before an audience. His discovery of the glove box full of songs was shared with his musical aunts and uncles and they pressed Jacob for the melodies.
Edward laughed. "Your father has saved my life no less then...four times and I bet the number would be even higher if you asked Alice or Jasper...well maybe not Jasper, but Alice AND Emmett. Oh yes, he's saved Emmett's behind a few times as well."
Benjamin narrowed his eyes. "Why would anyone need saving after becoming a vampire? And why on Earth would you need a human to do it?"
Edward's mouth only fell open a little bit but Benjamin saw it.
"Edward?" The kid could really lean into a guy.
"Maybe we should go find your parents," Edward answered finally.
Benjamin folded his arms. "Oh, did I get to something good?"
Edward stood up. "That's not the word I would use, but if you are asking about why your father would be in the vampire rescuing business, then I think it's only fair to let him tell you that tale."
Benjamin had to admit that it was a great way out of the interrogation and since the smell of dinner was already turning corners, he decided to wait until he could ask the whole family.
Esme and Emmett, with some help from Carlisle cooked peach chicken and crisp green beans with enough mashed potatoes to dress the set of "The Winter's Tale" in faux snow.
Benjamin mentioned how he had heard that Jacob had saved Edward from death several times in Paris. He asked for details which were provided by his father and anyone else who had anything else to add, like Esme.
Benjamin just sat back and waited for the conversation to turn to other instances where Jacob had been heroic and long after Alice and Emmett had each told a story about vanquishing bloodthirsty vampires in Paris, he calmly turned to his father.
"What were you?"
It all happened so naturally that no one even thought of it as the big other secret that they all had, but the passing down of family history. Benjamin did that. He made them feel that it was time to share.
Jacob told his son about the argument he had with his father on his fourteenth birthday and how he had gotten so angry that he had changed into a wolf. He knew that most of the people at the table did not know the story, and as he shared it he felt more relief with every word.
At one point, Jacob stopped to clear his throat and Benjamin grabbed his hand. "It wasn't your fault. You know that?"
Jacob didn't know, but hearing his own son speak so certainly gave him a stitch in his heart that he never believed possible.
Jacob told him about his life as a shapeshifter and his relationship with Bella when they were both new to the godly powers they each possessed. He talked about how it felt to shift, and what it sounded like.
Esme remembered his loud crackling transformation in the dining room of their Paris house, and how it looked like it hurt him greatly to perform the feat.
Benjamin listened intently. If he had questions, he was keeping them to himself and when Bella tried to listen to his thoughts, she only received a transcription of Jacob's words.
When he spoke of Michael, Bella stiffened. She did not like remembering how close she came to losing Jacob in the confrontation with her maker. She was still not prepared to accept his current mortality despite a discrete gathering of gray hair above his right ear.
Benjamin looked from his father to anyone else who briefly picked up the story, all the while keeping his mouth gently closed and his head cocked to the side the way Jacob did when he was learning something new. He never let go of his father's hand.
When it was over, he leaned back and asked his questions, an hour's worth, and they held nothing back. He even asked if he would be allowed to pursue immortality, and to his surprise from the way they all looked they seemed to know he was bluffing.
"There's something you need to know about Bella and myself," Edward told him. "We can both read your thoughts, everyone's thoughts. We watched you closely when you were about sixteen..." He looked over at Bella, who nodded her head. "But we know that you are disgusted by us in some ways and have nightmares about being turned."
Edward thought about taking a step towards the boy, but decided against it. "You need to know that none of us would ever harm you."
"I'm not worried about one of you," he said quietly. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" He sounded like he was ready to drop the matter altogether and go back to asking Bella when she was going to begin her follow-up to her detective novel.
"Well," Rosalie was not going to let the moment escape when they could unburden themselves. "We didn't really tell you much about the book Michael was obsessed with...but it's gone now."
Jasper shifted his eyes to Jacob. The book was not exactly gone, but it was safe.
Benjamin thought for a moment. "I don't care about the book."
Emmett believed that Manhattan was home to over two hundred vampires by the year 1914. Half of them were over a century old, but the other half were young and revolutionary.
He took it upon himself to council them and, if necessary, rebuke them if they disrupted the harmony of co-existence. He was seen as a big brother or even a father to many of them and was generally successful in keeping them on the right path.
The Adam's Apple developed a reputation that brought in vampires from all over the East. On any given night, one could hear a Bostonian accent competing with a Massachusetts accent and during the day was when Emmett made his real money.
Twenty feet below his tavern floor was a secure vault that held over sixty private rooms. It was like a vampire hotel and it was always full on the weekends. There was a common room with a rich library and a radio that was connected to an antenna on the roof. Each room had electricity and a complementary pint of that day's special.
He had hired Lawrence and Yan early on to tend bar and made Boston an offer he could not refuse as bouncer. The business ran flawlessly, its daily expenditures were nearly thirty dollars, but their morning deposits, usually made by Rosalie, were in excess of fifty five dollars on slow days.
He had banked over a hundred dollars in one day on many occasions and once did a three hundred and seventy dollar weekend.
Edward and Bella frequented his thriving establishment as did Jasper and Alice, but he would never let them pay.
So they tipped heavily.
Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie and Jacob all knew of The Adam's Apple but had only been inside once, before it opened.
Benjamin found out about it when they all had their talk in the green room of the theatre and he was even given the address, but only to insure that he kept his distance. He was all but happy to oblige.
Lawrence told Emmett one day that he didn't know if the city would ever stop growing and they both liked to imagine a metropolis that scraped the moon and had huge floating platforms in the upper and lower bay.
The group of friends had many good times with Emmett in his downtown digs, but Jacob's absence never escaped Bella. His mortality revealed itself with each new eye wrinkle and a subtle change in his voice.
The two of them had long talks in the garden and spent the whole time pinching each other just to make sure that they weren't dreaming. They were the two most lonely, yet loving people on the planet for centuries and would now spend the rest of their lives in the arms of a spouse. In Jacob's case, holding a child as well.
Benjamin had celebrated his twenty first birthday by then, but had no more direction than when he was fifteen. He was the smartest person any of them knew and was eagerly hired by all of them to assist with whatever projects they had in the works.
With the developments in photography, Alice had begun designing for overseas clients and gave Benjamin steady employ as a clothes model. He had the handsome face and young body for the work and he got to spend time with his Uncle Jasper, who was her photographer. He would make Benjamin feel less foolish during the photo shoots by discussing the latest breakthroughs in medical science.
"Just getting people to wash their hands has been the single biggest progression of the last decade," Jasper would say almost every time. He always felt close to his nephew despite the young man's disinterest in his unique collection of weaponry or offers to teach fighting technique.
Jasper was the one who gave Benjamin his first drink of alcohol. The two had been in Jasper and Alice's wing of the theatre and sitting near his vast collection of bottles that Benjamin knew by then were filled with blood.
Interspersed between the bottles with ink scratched corks bearing names were a few merlots. Benjamin had been seventeen and did not care for the tart liquid that looked too much like blood for his comfort.
Later, he suspected that Jasper was testing him somehow.
When Alice was done sending him off to don a new outfit and Jasper was done capturing a few natural poses that showed off the entire ensemble, they would play records until sunset and then go walking until they found someplace new to eat.
They had fun, the three of them, and Benjamin felt lucky to have friends like Jasper and Alice.
In 1916, the world was on edge and so was Benjamin.
He was a well-respected young man in his community with many accolades and a modest purse, but he did not like the Jack-of-all-trades reputation he had with the ladies.
They looked at him like a cute dog that they would like to pet but not take home.
That June he went on a long road trip with his father and the two of them took turns driving the Black family's 1915 Oldsmobile roadster. They drove to Chicago and back and the roads were smooth but dusty.
Benjamin was curious one afternoon when the sun was just giving their ears a good tanning and opened the glove box to see if his father had more songs inside. He was inundated with all manor of paper, all with his father's handwriting.
"You've been busy."
Jacob just smiled.
"Do all of these have melodies?"
"Yup."
"Do you still sing them for Mom?"
"Yup."
"Does she like them?"
Jacob looked over at his son and smiled broadly. "Of course she does."
Benjamin looked back down at the stack of songs in his hand. He kept them below the windshield because they were going pretty fast, 35 miles per hour, and they were liable to scatter all the way back to New York if he did not keep a tight hold. "How do you remember them all?"
Jacob laughed and for a moment, the car was not the loudest thing on the road. "It's a long drive son, even with company, you'll see."
"I remember." The trips Benjamin took with his father when he was younger were not nearly as long but he had clear memories of extended bumpy silence.
"Go ahead, pick one," Jacob said.
At first Benjamin was puzzled but then grinned and reached into the glovebox. He retrieved the first piece of paper he felt and unfolded it.
"Rose Petals."
Jacob took in a great big breath. "Well, that's an interesting one, you see, I usually hear piano in my mind when I write songs but with this one I hear some guitar, Spanish guitar actually. Something delicate, but commanding. It's a tad high for me and the road is pretty bumpy here so..."
"Quit trying to wiggle your way out of it and sing." Benjamin liked to encourage his father. Even after all the exposure he received when Edward and Bella performed many of his compositions, Jacob rarely spoke of it.
Jacob began singing immediately. It was a tenor song alright, but he handled it fairly with his voice rasping along with the motor. He sang about a woman that was embarrassed by her beauty but not holding back. The title of the ballad not withstanding, it was clearly about his mother, Rosalie.
Benjamin listened to his father sweep up and down a simple but sublime chorus and began thinking of how well the song would go with Bella's third installment of "A Rose by Any Other Name."
Largely due to Benjamin's constant badgering, Bella penned and published a follow up to her first novel and it was far more successful than the first. Well, at first it was more successful than the first, then everyone went back and bought the first which made it the most successful than the second again.
The third book had come out only days before the two men left for their trip and even Bella did not get an advanced copy. Benjamin gobbled the whole thing up in a night but brought it along with him because he was positive that he missed many hidden secrets in what easily became his favorite in what was being called the SubwayRoseseries.
Bella constructed elaborate capers that were effortlessly foiled by the smart thinking and observant gal whose pluck has gotten her into more hot water then an ear of corn. Rose as a main character was witty, yet very old fashioned. In one sentence, Bella described her wardrobe.
"Rose dressed that day like any other. She looked like an Amish mud plucker and her shoes were so sturdy that any soldier would trade for them in a heartbeat."
Benjamin loved her humor but she baked it up with genuine suspense and well thought out scenarios that were as original as they were believable.
Jacob finished his song and Benjamin clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks, Dad. That was one of your best."
Jacob did not agree, but took the compliment and kept his eyes on the road for a while.
When Benjamin brought up the book, Jacob admitted that he had read a rough draft a few months earlier.
Benjamin wanted to be hurt, but truthfully, he understood and was glad that the two of them could continue discussing future developments for their favorite fictional character. He seemed interested in crime solving in general and his father suggested a police detective as a worthy vocation.
The idea seemed to stick and they talked over his possibilities in law enforcement. They even kicked around the idea of him striking out on his own as a private investigator.
Four days later and Jacob was still trying to discuss a future for Benjamin in the investigatorial arts. It seemed to unitize nearly all of his talents and most importantly, seemed to spark something in him. Benjamin seemed far away and Jacob wondered if it had just been another false lead.
The road trip was a long one, two weeks total, while they went all the way to Chicago and back. The roads were smooth almost all the way there, but great sections were dusty enough to require them both to wear goggles.
It was then, when they both had big round lenses over their eyes and leather wrapped around their heads, when Benjamin told him what he really intended to do with his life.
"America is going to enter the war soon. I can feel it."
"It's overdue," Jacob stated, nodding his head.
Benjamin was driving and it made him brave. "They're still fighting in Verdun."
Jacob sighed. "I know."
"When America declares war on Germany, I'm going." Benjamin held his breath, waiting for his father's reply.
Jacob sighed again. "I know."
NOTES:
Hello and welcome back to Brutte Parole. In the last four weeks I have moved to a new house, fought off the flu, wrote a new Cockeyed Optimist for a fundraiser and worked about a dozen double shifts. I regret that it has taken so long to post a new chapter but we might as well savor it because it will all be over soon.
Special thanks to Just Duckie for creating my "Baby Spoon" avi.
The last chapter will post within a few weeks and an epilogue (complete with a new song that Jenn says is my best so far) will follow shortly after that.
The whole thing should be wrapped up by well before Thanksgiving and then I will begin a story called "Exposure" that I am writing with my wife, RandomCran. It will post on her FF page so if you haven't put her on author alert, you might want to.
Thanks to you all for reading and your continued kind reviews. I an indeed fortunate to have you as friends.
MOG
