8. A Game of Pool
They're playing Steppenwolf ("Magic Carpet Ride") when Jasper, Leah, Edward and Seth enter the Red Dirt Roadhouse. Feeling silly, Leah raises her hands and snaps her fingers, shimmying to the music. Behind her, Jasper laughs, Edward coughs, and Seth says, "Quit acting like a dope."
She gives up, but mutters, "If you can't remember the last time you danced or the last time you sang, your heart isn't happy and you're not right with the Spirits."
"We've been singing in the car all afternoon," Seth points out.
Beneath the music comes the pop of pool balls, bursts of laughter, and the buzz of people talking. The air is indistinct with smoke. Once, that wouldn't have bothered her and she still remembers the sharp bite of Marlboros on her tongue, but since her Transformation, she can no longer bear the smell of thick cigarette smoke. The vampires seem to have a similar problem and they all find a booth near the door.
Leah and Seth are hungry, and Edward and Jasper have been good at remembering they have to eat. Seth can put away four Big Macs without blinking, then have three more three hours later. "What?" he'd asked when Edward had stared at him the first time he did it. "I'm a growing boy."
"Obviously," Edward had replied.
Now, they are somewhere in southern Oklahoma and if this bar's clientele finds it odd to see two Indians and two white men (one with new boots and a brown Stetson, even if he's taken it off inside), they shoot them no more than a few glances. Leah is glad for the normal human aversion to vampires.
It takes a while for anybody to come to their table, and the waitress who does -- a girl about Leah's age -- has teased bangs standing straight up, lacquered with hairspray in a style that went out with the '80s. Her nametag says, "Crystle," and Leah wonders -- unkindly -- if her mother did that on purpose or if she just can't spell. With the girl's wide cheekbones, flat face, and fleshy nose, Leah thinks she might have some native blood in her, despite the dirty-blond hair and light eyes. Coloring isn't everything. And this is Oklahoma -- Indian Territory.
"WhatkinIgetcha?" Crystle asks, all in one breath. All she needs is a wad of gum and she'd be a walking cliché.
"Two cheeseburgers," Seth says, "with fries and coleslaw. And a large Dr. Pepper."
Crystle gives him a disapproving stare. "Ain't you heard of ladies first?"
Edward is trying not to laugh as Crystle turns to Leah, enunciating more clearly. "What can I getcha?"
"Chicken strips, fries and green beans," Leah says, handing over her menu. "And coffee."
Crystle looks to Edward and Jasper, who just shake their heads. "Water for me," Edward says and Jasper orders coffee too. Leah knows he'll give it to her.
Dinner passes without incident -- just one more human thing in which she and Seth need to indulge that the vampires don't, although they do eat. They hunt every evening, and one nice thing about the less-populated west/midwest is that they can fill their stomachs without attracting undue notice or needing to go too far off the beaten track. (Do vampire even have working stomachs, Leah wonders? Then again, she wouldn't have thought vampires had working dicks, but they must or Bella's not just useless in a fight, she's a raging idiot too.)
They should probably have gone back to the car after, but with being on the road or sleeping in a tent since Wednesday, Seth and Leah are stiff. Jasper and Edward indulge them, and when Seth spots an empty pool table and challenges Edward to a game of 8-Ball, Edward agrees. "Don't beat him too badly," Leah whispers. Edward smiles back; it's crooked.
He does his best to play poorly; Leah can tell. Jasper is suppressing laughter and when Seth and Edward are done (Edward wins but he doesn't crush Seth), Jasper asks her if she'd like to play too, so they reset the table. It's getting late, but for them, the driving day's just began. They'll be in Texas tomorrow.
Jasper's cell phone interrupts as Leah racks the balls and Jasper listens for a moment, one sandy brow up. He says something fast that Leah can't hear and shoots Edward a glance. "Who was that?" Leah asks. She tries to make it casual.
"Alice," Jasper says.
"She checking up on you?"
"She called to say she saw the police show up here after we leave. She can't see the cause, though."
She couldn't see the cause, just like she hadn't been able to see the tornado, because Leah and Seth are along. Leah frowns as Edward walks over, his gaze flicking across faces in the bar. Seth follows. "I'm not sure," Edward says, probably in reply to something Jasper asked silently. Jasper has lined up the cue ball to break the rack, trying to act normal. "But those four in the booth on the far side don't like Indians, don't approve of us being with you, and assume you and Jasper are a couple. They want an excuse to cause trouble. Otherwise, I can't sense anything in anybody's mind that would bring the police."
Leah refrains from looking where Edward has indicated. "Great. Maybe we should leave?"
"But why?" Jasper's grin is wicked. "I ain't gonna run just because of what some small-minded people are thinking." Leah doesn't point out that the Cullens do a lot of running from what people think, at least when it comes to being vampires. "If those boys wanna make something of it . . . well, I ain't been in a brawl in years. Not unless Edward and Emmett count." He pops the cue and breaks the rack neatly. The 13 ends in a corner pocket. "Stripes," he says.
"You could hurt them," Leah admonishes.
"Not unless they make me. Can't walk away from a fight, darlin'."
She rolls her eyes and lines up a shot, muttering, "Men. You're all the same, whatever you are: human, wolf, vampire -- it's testosterone-induced stupidity." It's appropriate, she thinks, when Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Three Steps" starts on the Juke Box. Somebody needed to take three steps out of here.
But it won't be her. She likes to play pool, and a small part of her likes to brawl too, even if she won't admit it.
It begins innocently. An Indian boy saunters over, grin wide. He and his friends were sitting at the bar, probably drinking when they shouldn't be. Indians don't hold their liquor well. He has pretty hair. "Aaaay, cousin," he says. "I ain't seen you 'round here."
She spares him a quick glance. "Probably 'cause I'm not from around here." Seth has moved up behind her protectively. She rolls her eyes and takes a shot. It doesn't go in, and Jasper is beating her, damn him, giving no quarter unlike Edward with Seth. But she'd pop him in the nose if he did, and he probably knows it.
Her interrogator leans on the bar and sizes up her ass. "What tribe are you?"
"Quileute," she says.
He blinks. "Never heard of it."
"Northwest Coastal Salish," she says. "Washington State." She doesn't ask his tribe.
He blinks twice. "Wow. You're a long way from home."
She straightens, leaning on her pool que, and sticks out a leg to keep Seth back. She can handle this. Jasper and Edward are -- wisely -- just watching. "Yes," she says, "I am. And I still have a ways to go. So why don't you get some coffee, sober up, and go home, ennit?"
"Aw, why you gotta be so hard, honey?"
She rolls her eyes and turns away from him. "Shove off."
She feels a hand on her arm -- which is jerked away abruptly. For a moment, she assumes it's Seth who intervened, or maybe one of the vampires decided to step in -- but no. It's a cold-eyed, tanned cowboy, a bit short but burly. "We don't want no trouble from your kind in here," he says. "If you're gonna have you a lover's spat, you take it outside, y'hear?"
And suddenly Jasper is right there. He's taller than all of them. His gold eye is cold, but he's smiling. "Excuse me, but I'll take care of my sister." His accent is suddenly as thick as any of theirs.
The cowboy looks startled. "Your sister?"
"That's right."
And there is . . . something. The subtle menace of facing a vampire is too much even for this hardened man. He backs off.
Unfortunately, the young buck is too far into his cups to notice, and says, "That's right! You heard 'im! You leave her alone."
Leah knows it was the wrong move one breath before the cowboy hauls back to belt him.
And that's it. Like an explosion of motion, chairs and stools scrape as men (and a few women) get to their feet. Fists fly. So do a couple of hats.
"Oh, holy hell!" Leah mutters as she grabs the Indian boy who'd propositioned her and hauls him free of the worst of it, over to the door and to shove him out. "Go sober up!" she yells.
He stares back at her. "You're one strong woman!" From an Indian, it's a compliment, not an insult.
"And you're drunk!" she tells him, hoping he'll forget about it by morning, chalk up anything unusual to a few too many Miller High Lifes.
By the time she returns, the roadhouse is a mess -- and Jasper, Edward and Seth are square in the middle of it. Laughing, damn them.
"Men are stupid," she says. But she wades in with them. She's got a good right hook. On the Rez, it's a necessary skill to acquire.
They leave before the cops arrive.