Chapter 4 – Friend or Foe?
Never in a million years did I think this was how I was going to meet him. Here I am, in a headlock courtesy of Emmett and the smug bastard is staring at us with a stupid smirk on his face.
"Emmett, let Bella go for God's sake!" Rose orders somewhere behind us. I hear a thwack, and my head is released.
While my head is regaining blood and equilibrium, I take in the scene before me. Rose is reprimanding Emmett like a child and Edward is staring me down like I committed murder.
"Wipe that look off your face before I smash your pretty little face to the ground, Edward!" Rose threatened, backing me up. "Bella, this is Edward if my husband didn't make that clear already. Edward, this is Bella, the fan-fucking-tastic makeup artist who did this lovely job on me and had all the guests stepping foot in my home pissing their pants and crying for their mothers."
Silence. None of us say anything. That is until Emmett breaks the silence.
"Well, us two will give you two some time alone to discuss your…differences."
And they leave me alone with him.
"You're the infamous Swan who hates everything scary?"
I cross my eyes and put on my bitch face. "And you're the infamous Cullen who talks shit before you even see my work? You've had how many months to find me yet you failed to find me."
"Same goes for you, sweetie."
I bite my lip from preventing myself from giving him a verbal lashing. I resume removing the makeup from his face. Perhaps a bit too harshly, but the job gets done. With his makeup completely removed, he looks like a completely normal guy. Not the guy who's insulted me several times.
Up this close, his face is quite attractive. Still can't quiet determine what his body's like with his ragged clothing, but it looks like he definitely works out.
"Thanks, Bella." Oh, he finally said something nice to me! He rises from his seat and begins to walk away. Without turning back to me, he leaves with his final remark. "Not scary enough, Swan. I want Rose and the slaughterhouse actors looking like they've been through the ringer!"
If this was a cartoon, this would be when my face turns completely red and steam coming out of my ears.
What am I going to have to do to impress him?
*Field of Screams*
"Alice, will this give you nightmares and make you shut down in the middle of an attraction?" I ask her for the hundredth time, shoving my screen in her face.
"Bella," she carefully breathes out, moving the screen out of her face, "everything you have shown me the past several days are top notch."
"But it's not enough!" I whine, sounding like a child.
Alice takes a moment to give me the one over. A sly smile overtakes her lips. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think you're freaking so much because you want to impress Edward-"
"That much is obvious, Alice!"
"You didn't let me finish!" she huffs. "You want to impress Edward to impress Edward." She wiggles her eyebrows at me suggestively. "He's pulling your pig tails, and you're trying to push him in the mulch."
"Will everyone stop with the elementary school metaphors? I do not like Edward."
To further support her, I stomp my way back to my room and slam the door. Alice's laughs can be heard through the walls and door.
I sulk on my bed and scream into my pillow. After that, I lay on my stomach with my feet kicking up behind me and my laptop in front of me. I go onto Facebook and type.
Edward Cullen.
Unfortunately for me, he has most of his content private. The few feature pictures he has public are interesting though. One of him with Emmett, Rose, Masen, I'm assuming Carlisle, and also assuming Masen and Carlisle's wives. All of them are wearing old Field of Screams shirts from a few years ago. There's another one with all of them and Liz at what looks like Emmett and Rose's wedding. One from Christmas where he seems to be less than a willing participant in matching sweaters and pants with Liz. One very dramatic picture of him just looking out a window with a beanie on. And to take the cake, one of him in full costume and makeup which is exactly the same picture of the creepy ass Joker spin off I saw a while back in that brochure.
His cover page of course is the entrance of Field of Screams. Figures.
He's definitely a family man, and his affection for Halloween and creepy ass shit is a year-round thing.
The urge to stalk him on social media hadn't emerged before because I had no actual interactions with him. He was purely all talk, almost like a mystical figure that I wasn't sure really existed or not despite strong evidence. Now, I wish social media could let me see more of him to understand his motive.
I look over to my window sill, finding two of the mini pumpkins he gave me. Alice stole the other two. Rose took back the demon possessed doll and brain. I examine those pumpkins like they have the answers to all my problems.
*Field of Screams*
The five of us have dinner together during the week as a little get to know each other a little better outside of Field of Screams. All the attention is primarily on me though. Edward and I make some small talk, you know basic information where I grew up, how Alice and I met, all that crap.
Emmett interrupts Alice during her retelling of a presentation gone wrong with an off topic ridiculous statement. It is ridiculous, but it gives me an idea on how to impress Edward.
"Yeah, talk to me again when Hogwarts flies out of my ass, Emmett. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid, and all the students come flying out on their brooms and Voldemort curses us all with the Killing Curse," Edward responds to him.
He's just given me a great idea to prove him wrong again.
*Field of Screams*
"Dressing it up today I see, Pumpkin," Edward comments from the side with a fake chainsaw in hand. He just loves calling me Pumpkin. It's not the cute kind of nickname either, usually it's meant to mock me.
I'm dressed in black cloaks, a hint of what's to come later. "Not scary enough for you?"
"And I thought you were better than that?" He shakes his head and walks away.
He'll be back at the end of the night.
After Alice and prep all our actors for the night, we rush home and begin my transformation. When we're finished, I look in the mirror and smile evilly at myself. Perfect.
Back on location, nearly everyone does a double take of me, asking who I am. They're all amazed at both my and Alice's work. If only I was a little taller and had a deeper voice.
The real test is him.
Actors start trickling in and he's nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell?" Emmett approaches me in my chair and circles me like he's suspicious. Then he places his hands on my sides and runs them up and down until I glare at him to knock it off. "Definitely female under all those cloaks. Last I knew, Voldemort was a man."
"The cloaks give the allusion that I'm a man until I speak."
Rose finally arrives looking like the perfect distraught, bloody bride I made her to be. "Magnificent, girls. Edward's probably going to be here soon so be ready." She does a circle around me and gives me a double thumbs up.
Emmett can't get over the fact that I look like Voldemort, but sound like a woman. He claims it's giving him a headache so I snapped back it's rude to stare. Rose and Emmett are both wiped clean, but still no sign of Edward even though nearly all the actors are now wiped clean. Maybe he left early today? If he did, I'm going to be pissed because my nose is taped down and it's not the most comfortable feeling.
He texts Emmett that he's talking to Masen, and he'll be here soon.
"Hey, Bella, you know Jess's party? You should totally be Voldemort again! No one will recognize you, and if some guy is annoying you, you just poke them with your wand." Alice points out.
"Alice, I'm not walking into a party looking like this! If I had to go as a Harry Potter character, I'd go as Hermione, not a guy who literally split his soul into seven parts to be immortal and has no nose."
Alice is about to respond before someone interrupts her. "Having no nose makes him terrifying. Add in the fact that he was so desperate to be immortal that he killed someone for each horcrux. He deliberately killed seven individuals to save himself. While he is not necessarily the scariest villain looks wise, looking at the depth of his character, he is quiet terrifying."
And there he is in a tight black shirt and jeans. The shirt is clinging to every muscle in his torso, emphasizing his biceps. I snap out of my temporary daze to realize what he actually said.
"Did you actually compliment me?"
He rolls his eyes, stepping closer to our gathering. "I'll admit, the makeup is good, but I'm assuming Alice or someone else helped you. However, props to you being in costume while helping out here. You're a bit short to be Voldemort though."
He just had to one up me. "Well, thanks, Edward."
He smirks evilly. Clearly, he has some sort of plan. "I'm starving. Let's go to the diner down the street for some food."
We all agree with him. I walk towards my chair to get my makeup off, but an arm blocks my seat. "Oh no, you don't want all your hard work to be done in two hours. You have to show off your hard work. Let's go."
He grabs my arm and guides me along to where all our cars are parked.
Now, I have two options.
Option 1: tell Alice to drop my ass off at home and go eat herself. That will save me embarrassment of showing my face like this in public, but result in more endless teasing and mocking from Edward.
Option 2: go to the diner with the group. That will result in Edward seeing I play to win, but I may never be allowed in public again.
Oh, what the hell? Unless I get IDed, no one will know it's me.
At the diner, I definitely get some looks. No one else is dressed as a crazy freak of nature. I feel like Pam when she dressed up while she was at corporate in New York. I don't look like Hitler at least. The few people I do pass though are on high alert, afraid of what I may do to them.
No one in our groups make any comment about my appearance. I'm guessing no one will until Edward or I break the ice about it. When the waitress takes our order, she too is confused that I'm dressed as a guy, but sound feminine.
Once we're left alone, we all look at each. Leave it to Emmett to break the ice.
"If you added your nose back, added some sunken sink and wrinkles, and put in yellow contacts, you'd look like Palpatine."
I shake my head. "Star Wars is too old, and no one will recognize that I'm in costume. I'd get the cops called on me because I'd look like a dirty old man. With my luck, I'd get thrown into a mental institution."
"That'd be in for a hell of a surprise to find that Palpatine has boobs during the pat down," Edward joked, making everyone at the table laugh. The mental image has me laughing too, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction of making a good joke.
"We're going to a Halloween party, and Bella has yet to decide on what she wants to be. So far on the list is Voldemort and Palpatine. Can somebody suggest a normal costume she can be?" If Alice had her way the previous years, I would've been Wonder Woman, a smurf, or Cruella de Vil. Nothing was wrong with them, but Wonder Woman I would've been cold, I didn't want to paint my skin blue, and I didn't want a huge ass faux coat on the whole night.
"Mystique, Lestrange, Umbridge, Quinn, Nurse Ratchet, Wicked Witch, Regina George, Hela-" Edward goes on with about a dozen other female characters. It's almost like he's prepared for the question.
I interrupt him and look at him like he's crazy. "You just happen to think of all these female characters that I could be for a party?"
"Yup."
I narrow my eyes. "I don't believe you."
"Better believe me, Pumpkin." And there it is again. I really want to stomp on his foot like a little kid.
The rest of our meal is uneventful. We talk about Field of Screams and predictions for traffic for Halloween and the coming weeks, but nothing about this rivalry that's brewing between Edward and me.
"You really stuck out there, Bella. You really came here and dressed as Voldemort. I think you're deserving of an award."
I'm suspicious again. "What kind of reward?"
"Dinner at a restaurant of your choosing this coming week. And you don't have to be dressed as Voldemort."
Posted: September 25, 2020