Living Within The Elements
Ch 2
"Hey Mom," Bella said, only barely crossing the threshold, before her mother accosted her with her usual over enthusiastic hug.
"It's so good to see you sweetheart," Renée said, finally letting go of her only child and stepping aside to let her into the house properly.
The home was a little... eccentric for want of a better word.
Her mother had always been what you might call a free spirit and the house was covered in dream catchers, esoteric pictures and references, bright colours and perpetually smelled of incense.
Renée herself looked like she'd fit in well within a hippy commune, mostly dressing in her comfortable soft, flowy and often tie-dyed clothes. She had grown older gracefully, her hair was long like Bella's but in a stunning shade of silver that was a few shades lighter than her expressive grey eyes.
Bella didn't even get to the living room before her mom asked her, "Bella, what's wrong?" The concern clearly evident on her voice.
Renée may have been a little airy fairy, but she knew her daughter well enough to see that there was something amiss in her aura; although the way Bella carried herself with her shoulders hunched and how she worried the ring on her index finger may have also been a clue but either way, she was definitely out of sorts.
Bella took a deep breath before sitting herself on the edge of the couch, draped in one of those multicoloured crocheted 'nanna blanket's'.
"You might want to sit down," Bella said seriously, prompting her mother by patting the vacant space beside her.
Renée's face looked understandably apprehensive and surprisingly, she didn't put up a fuss before sitting tentatively next to Bella.
Following a silent pause Renée said intuitively, "Charlie's dead, isn't he?"
Bella nodded, and after giving Renée a moment for the news to sink in, she filled her in on the legal proceedings once her mother had prepared some calming camomile tea.
Renée had been divorced from Charlie for twenty five years. They had spoken amicably over that time, but they were hardly the best of friends and had each moved on with their lives.
Even so, Charlie was Bella's father and Renée was still saddened by the news, particularly for Bella and what she had to face in the coming weeks.
Phil - Renée's equally eccentric long term lover and never to be husband -
breezed in through the front door like the character, Kramer from the sitcom Seinfeld.
"Heeeeyy Bella," he said enthusiastically, but his exuberance deflated the moment he registered the solemn energy in the room.
"What's got you ladies so glum?" he asked in concern, before lowering himself into the recliner closest to Renée.
Once he was brought up to speed, the group did their best to function as they normally did and by supper-time, they were eating at the table with the news channel burbling on the T.V. in the background.
Bella's ears perked at the mention of a hurricane and asked Phil to turn up the volume so she could better hear.
"Ugh great," Bella said with a grumble as the weather reporter rattled on about the tropical low brewing in the Gulf.
"Well, that could put a spanner in the works for ya Bell," Phil said, pointing out the fact upon spearing a piece of Avocado before popping it into his mouth.
"Yeah, I'll have to see if I can head West early on the off chance I'll get stuck here." Bella said thinking that it probably wouldn't even be worth wasting the time to even go back home at this stage.
The unpredictable nature of hurricanes could mean anything from it being a complete fizzer, to most of the Panhandle coming to a screeching halt while battening down the hatches for a category five storm and waiting around to kiss your ass goodbye.
Bella's first thought could have been to contact Mr Jenks and get her flights rearranged, but it clearly wasn't.
"I thought you said the Lawyer's name was Jenks?" her mother asked looking a little confused.
"Pardon?" Bella wondered, now equally perplexed.
"You just said you needed to talk to Edward?"
"Did I?"
Bella looked up at her mother first who remained adamant and then to Phil for some sort of support, but he wasn't going to give her any.
"Who's Edward?" he asked.
Shit.
Bella shrugged, "oh, just some guy who asked me to take a flying boat over to Australia with him," she said trying to stay nonchalant.
"With him eh?" Phil asked with a touch of insinuation in his voice.
Double Shit.
"Yeah," Bella couldn't look at anyone at this point, so she tried to save herself from further implication, "Mr Mason's in a bind, his pilot got sick or something and he was looking for someone and..."
But it was too late.
When Bella's explanation got beyond the point of saving, Renée was like a dog with a bone.
"...and the stars aligned," her mother said through a self-satisfied breath.
"Mom!" Bella said, scolding Renée in her annoyance.
Phil chuckled. He was used to these two women bickering about Bella's potential love life.
"Hey! You're not helping!" Bella rounded on him.
Phil held up his hands in surrender and knew when to back away, so he gathered his dishes and promptly left the table.
"So," Renée sat forward in rapt attention, "what's Edward like sweetheart?" she asked non too innocently.
"Ugh! I don't know, I've never met him! He's just a guy!" Bella said with exasperation.
Renée gave Bella her captive, mother knows best look.
Bella just rolled her eyes in defeat.
Unfortunately for Bella, the interaction at the dinner table meant that she couldn't get Edward's offer out of her mind and then, that in turn led to the loss of many hours of sleep that night.
It was late when Bella surfaced the next morning looking exactly how she felt.
Shuffling to the kitchen, she made it to the breakfast bar and plonked herself on one of the stools.
On the contrary, Renée was bright eyed, and bushy tailed.
"Here," Renée said, placing a strong brew of black tea in front of her before she went about putting together one of her signature breakfast concoctions.
Bella took a sip, pulling a face at the strong taste.
Magically, a small jar of honey was slid in front of her, followed by a teaspoon.
"Did you call him yet?" Renée asked in a deliberately innocent voice.
Knowing there was nothing at all innocent about her mother's question, Bella answered her with feigned ignorance, "who?" she asked, while focussing on making a show of adding honey to her drink and taking her time to stir it in.
Of course all the while, Bella could feel Renée's laser like gaze boring into her.
Bella sighed and took another sip looking up over the rim of the mug. "No," she reluctantly admitted, annoyed that Renée could be so darn perceptive.
"Well you better get onto it then, because hurricane Jake has formed into a cat one," she said, placing particular emphasis on the name, the implication not lost on either of them.
Bella groaned, a flash of his face entered her mind for the second time in as many days.
Trying to banish the image, she forced herself to eat the 'enriched' yogurt breakfast that Renée set before her.
Watching her daughter turn herself inside out was not new for Renée. Ever since Bella had closed the door on Australia, Bella often tortured herself over things that became too personal and when she did, she often let opportunities pass her by.
She had closed off and emersed herself completely in her flying career. Over the years Renée often tried to talk Bella into healing the rift with her father but she couldn't be swayed.
Renée always had a sense that Charlie's new family had something to do with it, lord knew that the boy was a fistful of trouble. But for reasons only known to her, Bella never said enough about anything that was going on in that remote part of the world to know for certain.
"Do you want to know what I think you should do?" Renée asked to try to distract Bella while throwing her an impish look.
"What?" Bella asked acerbically, knowing that resistance was futile.
"Don't be like that sweetheart," Renée said, trying to counter Bella's pessimism, "have you stalked Edward yet?"
"No? What difference would that make?" Bella asked, almost appalled at the suggestion.
"You'll see," her mother said, giving Bella a cheeky wink before leaving the kitchen and Bella sitting there with her jaw hanging open in disbelief.
"You didn't!" Bella called after her, only to hear a tinkling chortle in response.
She did!
Bella needed to get away from her mom's unique brand of scrutiny, so she decided to leave the house and go for a walk around the block to see if that would clear her mind.
No such luck, because half an hour later she had almost made it back and she was still ruminating over her predicament.
Once back inside, she headed straight for the spare room and closed the door.
She felt like an emo teenager with the world on her shoulders, trying to avoid the 'rents and brooding all day. This couldn't go on, she needed to adult right now, so there was nothing for it but to do the unthinkable.
She would follow her mother's advice.
The irony.
With his dark hair, greying at the temples and with a neatly clipped beard also adorned with salt and pepper markings, Edward looked every bit like a distinguished gentleman dressed in a three piece double breasted suit that he had entered on his Linked In profile.
She was tempted to go through his profile with a fine toothed comb but stopped herself short when she scanned over some of the basics.
Buisiness Owner.
Tourism.
Kimberley Region.
Western Australia.
She exited out of the page and closed her eyes tight. She did not need to know any more. IF she decided to, she only had to deliver the bird to Sydney and that was that.
The fact the wasn't unfortunate to look at, or that his voice matched his looks should have had no bearing on her decision. But she couldn't unsee or unhear it now and all she had left to keep her centred in her decision making were the red flags that were glaringly obvious to her.
Or maybe they weren't there at all, maybe she was just looking for them.
Her gaze was fixed on her phone for what seemed like forever while she contemplated whether to call Mr Jenks or Mr Mason first.
The order in which she would execute the calls would determine everything for the next week and she couldn't make the decision lightly.
She could take the easy, low risk option and simply do the first leg west to Denver early, thereby avoiding any potential weather delays and then meet up with the rest of her scheduled flight to Australia a few days later.
Or. She could do the other thing.
She knew what she wanted to do and just because she could, didn't mean she should.
Sighing for the umpteenth time, her mother's uncanny timing and knack of knowing once again revealed itself as she passed by in the hallway, "For crying out loud Bella just call him already!" she called out from the other side of the door.
Bella shook her head and could no longer ignore the elephant in her mind. It was now or never, and she pressed the call button on the screen she'd been incessantly staring at before she could second guess herself for the hundredth time.
The phone barely rang before Edward answered it.
"Ms Swan, I do hope that you have some good news for me," he said expectantly.
"That was quick, were you sitting on it, Mr Mason?" Bella jested, easing straight into the comfortable banter.
"Er, you could say that." Edward admitted.
"Look, I won't hold you in suspense any longer," Bella said.
But she immediately contradicted herself by leaving a lingering pause hanging ominously between them.
Her mind was warring with her as she hung onto the last vestige of her final decision with a tenuous grip.
What was she so afraid of?
Was it the very real risk of the long over ocean trip in an old, slow aircraft that she wasn't familiar with?
Was it the timing of it all when she was already emotionally pressured with her own family commitments?
Or was it the fact that she was going to be holed up in a mid-sized tin can for the best part of five days with a complete stranger that could be an axe murderer for all she knew – even if he was a good looking mate of Emmett's.
The silence felt like an eon to Edward and he couldn't let it continue, "C'mon, I'm not above begging, can you please just put me out of my misery?" he asked, sounding endearingly hopeful to Bella's ears.
Bella felt a stab of sentiment and tried to appreciate Mr Mason's position on all of this.
"Ms Swan? Are you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm still here." She said, her mind snapped and she threw caution to the wind. "Say hello to your ticket out of the land of milk and honey Mr Mason."
There, she said it.
"Really?" Edwards voice rose an octave.
"Yeah, but I have conditions." She said, breathing life back into the pieces of the broken part of her brain.
"One I'm a contractor, so no hanky-panky, this stays professional and as such, I'd like you to write a contract to make it official and have it ready by the time I get to Santa Barbara. We'll go over it and if everything pan's out, we'll seal the deal.
"Two, I get the last word with regards to the airworthiness of that plane.
"And three, well I haven't thought that far ahead yet... maybe just go back to one and two for now and underline them," Bella said, rambling on now that she was flooded with the nervous excitement of her pronouncement.
"You beauty!" Edward announced with one of those colloquial Aussie-isms, "You have no idea how happy that makes me Isab – Ms Swan." He corrected.
Bella smiled at his exuberance "Bella is just fine, Edward."