Chapter Four - Bonnie
I was going to Washington. And I was furious.
Maria married Wayne in Boston, our hometown, the place where Maria had grown up. I was Maid of Honour, and the one bridesmaid was her childhood friend Kathy. I was just relieved that I had hair for the occasion. My hair had grown out, though it wasn't the perfect blonde curls that Maria had, and that I'd had until I'd gotten chemo for the first time. I'd wanted to do something different for the wedding, so I dyed my pale blonde, wispy shoulder length hair magenta, to match my bridesmaid dress. Maria was not impressed. Dad sniggered behind his hands, but as soon as Maria turned to glare at him, his expression became stern, and he lectured me profusely.
Still though, it was a nice day. Wayne seemed like a nice enough guy - shy, and maybe a little nerdy, but obviously very in love with my sister, and that was good enough for me.
As soon as they were married, and they were back from their Italian honeymoon, they started to make plans for moving to Washington. They bought a four bedroomed house in Forks, the dreary sounding place that Wayne was from.
"See?" Maria had cooed, showing me the pictures of the red bricked, two storey house. "Isn't it beautiful?"
I had to admit, it did seem pretty nice.
"And look, Bonnie, two of the rooms are en-suite. This one can be yours!" Maria jabbed a finger at one of the upstairs bay windows.
"No." I said bluntly, shaking my head rapidly. "I am not coming."
"Bonnie -"
"Maria, it isn't up for discussion. I'm staying here." I gestured around our apartment.
"Oh yeah?" She got all mad, and stood up, her hands on her hips. Wayne, who was sitting at the round scrubbed table in our tiny kitchen, obviously smelled a row brewing, as he got up and left the room.
"Yeah!" I said, as defensive as she was mad.
"And how do you expect to pay the mortgage? And the bills, for that matter?"
I stood up too. "I have a job," I said, and the defence crept into my voice.
"Oh yeah, a job at Wal-Mart is really going to keep you going!" Her voice was laced with acid.
"Well, I was kind of too sick to be able to go to college, Maria! In case you forgot, while you were off swotting to become a computer programmer, I was getting drugs pumped into my body!"
Maria's face drained of all colour, and she took a step back, crashing into the refrigerator.
There was silence in the room for a full minute, and neither of us moved.
"Maria," I said, and my voice was far softer this time. "I'm sorry. I should never have -"
"No, Bonnie, you're right. I'm selfish, I am."
"What?!" I was shocked. "Maria, you're the least selfish person in the world!"
"No, Bonnie!" She dropped the notebook with all the pictures of the Forks house in it. They scattered across the floor of the kitchen in a brightly coloured cascade, and I watched them.
Maria continued."I am selfish. I'm leaving you here, all on your own, because of my own selfishness!"
"Maria -"
"NO, Bonnie! I'm your big sister, I'm supposed to look after you! I love you, and I can't leave you here!"
"You can, Maria! You can! I want you to be happy! You've spent nearly all your life looking after me, and now it's time for you to finally do something for yourself!"
She started to cry. She slid down the fridge and buried her head in her lap, bawling. I crouched down beside her, trying to comfort her.
"You don't understand, Bonnie!" She looked up at me, her hair mussed, her eyes red, mascara running down her cheeks. "I need you to come! You're my sister, and my best friend, and I love you! I need you to come with me! I'm actually that selfish, that I'm asking you to leave your friends and your life here in California, and to please come with me!" She was hysterical by now, and she started to hiccup loudly between her sobs.
"Maria, I don't -"
"Bonnie." She looked at me, her huge grey-green eyes brimming with tears. "Bonnie, you aren't listening to me."
I looked at her.
"I lost my mother. I practically lost my father. Numerous times, I came this close to losing my sister. Please come with me. If not for your sake, for mine."
She had done it. She had played the card. The card that made me want to shrivel up and die, it made me feel so bad. She had played the card, and I was going to Washington.
***
And that was how, a month later, I was sitting in the back seat of Wayne's dark green Mercedes, a distinctly grumpy expression on my face. We arrived in Fork's after hours of driving.
I was right about the rain part, anyway.
Forks proved to be a tiny little town, miniscule in comparison to the urban sprawl that I was used to. The rain lashed down onto Wayne's car, making it hard for me to see, even though the windscreen wipers were working furiously.
I glared out the window, hating everything about the place. But when I saw the expression on my sister's face, I could hate it no more. She was glowing. Her eyes were bright in her tanned face, her mouth was curved up into a smile, and her left hand resting on Wayne's as he drove the car.
When we reached the house, she was even happier. I had to admit, the house was nice. My room was wide and spacious, it being the biggest bedroom I had ever had. In truth, I'd never lived in a house before, only various apartments.
I liked the house. No, I loved it.
My room was painted white, with pine floorboards that still had the scent of the forest on them. I lay on the floor on the first day there, and just inhaled the glorious scent of pine resin.
After lying on the floor for a half hour, I decided to do something about the bland white walls in my room before the moving vans came with my stuff. Without asking, I took Wayne's car and drove to the nearest hardware store, which turned out to be in some place called Port Angeles, which was a half an hour drive from Forks. When I was half way there, I got an angry call on my cell phone from Maria, wanting to know why I had stolen Wayne's car. When I explained I was only gone to get supplies, she calmed down. She was probably happy that she and Wayne had a couple of hours to relish in their newly-wed-ness.
When I got to the hardware store, I got a little excited. Using my cash bonus from Wal-Mart, I bought the large tins of paint, in purple, lime green and light blue. Then I bought dark wood shelves that would match my bed, for my colossal amount of books. I already had two large book cases, but they weren't big enough.
When I was done in the hardware store, I put the stuff I'd bought in the trunk of Wayne's car, and proceeded to wander around the picturesque town. I bought a couple of framed Van Gogh prints to hang on the walls in my room - Starry Starry Night, and Sunflowers. Then I went to McDonalds and had a Big Mac and a McFlurry before driving back to the house really slowly.
Wayne and Maria were getting set up in the kitchen. Maria was giggling loudly about something as they re-constructed our table, so I left them to it and went upstairs.
I had the best fun ever decorating my room. Basically, I just got the paint brushes, dipped them in the paints so that all the bristles were covered, and sort of flicked it all each wall in random places. The paint splattered all over the walls in an amazingly cool way. Sporadic, brightly coloured patterns danced across my once sparse walls, and I loved it.
When Maria came to investigate, she was shocked. "It looks like it was attacked by Barney the Dinosaur," She said, looking at my walls.
"It doesn't," I said. "Barney isn't blue."
She grinned at smacked me lightly across the head.
By the time the furniture arrived, it was almost eight o'clock. The movers carried my mahogany bed upstairs, and dumped it in the middle of the room, along with my book cases, chest of drawers and boxes and boxes of books and clothes.
"This sucks ass," I muttered, sitting on the empty frame of my bed and glaring out and the rain. With Maria's help, I shoved the mattress onto the bed. Then I made up the mattress and the duvet with the Pottery Barn bed clothes my Nana had bought me for my birthday. She bought a set every year. Same as she bought me Old Navy hats and Victoria's Secret pyjamas every Christmas. The baby pink covers kind of clashed with my vibrant walls, but I didn't care. I loved the colours. I pushed my bookshelves against a wall and started opening my boxes of books and shelving them. Then I folded my clothes into my chest of drawers. Slowly, as the room filled with my belongings, it began to look like home. I took out my art set and painted little hearts and flowers and birds on the wooden shelves I'd bought, and I hung them using and electric srewdriver I borrowed from ou eighty-two year old neighbour, Arnold. By the time I'd stacked them with some of my favourite novels, they looked great.
To my intense surprised, I began to settle into life in Forks. After being there for only three weeks, I was already starting to call it home. I loved spending hours wandering in the wet, green forests, or sometimes going up to the beach in the small Indian reservation that was a few miles from Forks. It was there, in La Push, that I found the vehicle of my dreams.
I was driving Wayne's Merc past this little garage in La Push when I saw it. It was a 1960's original model Volkswagen Hippy Van. And I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.
I pulled Wayne's car to a screeching stop and practically leapt out of it in a hurry to inspect the van. I walked up and down it for about five minutes, just loving every inch of it. It was painted yellow and was rusting slightly. The interior was old fashioned - it was evident that no work had been done on it since the eighties at least.
"D'you like it?" A loud voice interrupted my inspection. I looked up to find an incredibly tall Quileute man, in his mid-twenties or there abouts, grinning down at me.
"It's… I'm lost for words. Is it for sale?"
He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that was somehow childish and manly at all once. "You wanna buy this piece of crap when you're used to driving something like that?" He gestured towards the Mercedes.
I laughed dryly. "It's not mine."
"Thief."
"It's my brother-in-law's," I said to his grin, though grinning back.
"I'm no thief."
He laughed again, and I laughed too. "Well, you can buy it, no problem."
"Are you serious?"
"I'm serious. It's yours."
"How much?"
His eyes tightened, but his grin was still there. "We'll discuss that when all the work is finished."
"Work. Of course." There would be work involved, I'd expected that.
The mechanic, who introduced himself as Jacob, took my details and promised me that the van was mine. To reassure me, he took a Sharpie and wrote BONNIE HENNESSY in block capitals on a sheet of paper and stuck it in the window.
"Mine," I whispered as I drove home. "Mine, mine, mine."
To my surprise, even with all the work done on it, the van didn't cost that much. It was well within my price range anyway, though I still had to borrow from Maria. Which meant I had to get a job to pay her back.
"You got any jobs going here?" I asked Jacob the mechanic the day I went to pick up my glorious, canary yellow van.
"Jobs?" He raised an eyebrow. "What kinda jobs?"
"You know, working jobs." I let a little sarcasm leak into my voice.
"You wanna be a mechanic?" There was laughter in his voice, though his expression was serious.
"A mechanic?" I liked the sound of that. "Yes. I want to be a mechanic."
He looked at me, suspicion in his eyes.
"I do!" I said.
He laughed. "I like your determination. One sec." He walked across the garage work area to the tiny office.
"Hey, Seth!" He shouted in the door. "That slot for an apprentice still open?"
"You got a guy?" Who ever Seth was, he sounded surprised. "That spot's been open for ages."
"Not a guy, exactly." Jacob said, and he laughed. The guy, Seth, stepped out of the office. He was huge too. A little taller than Jacob, but leaner. His brown eyes were bright, and disbelief swept across his face as he took me in.
"A girl?"
"Yeah, a girl." Jacob replied.
Seth looked me up and down. "You got any experience with cars?"
I decided to give an honest answer. "Well, I can drive one."
He laughed. "You look pretty slight. You up for it?"
"I'm up for it," I said stubbornly.
Jacob and Seth exchanged glances.
"Well?" Jacob said.
"The girl has purple hair," Seth said, shrugging and smiling. "I say she's up for it."
Jacob smiled. "Okay, Bonnie Hennessy. You're in. Welcome to the life of a mechanic."
***
Hey! I quite like this chapter.. it gave me more insight into Bonnie's character. You guys are probably getting really sick of this story, since the main two characters haven't even met yet! But I promise, I'm getting there. These things take time.
Anyway, please review (reviews are what keep me writing) and if you have any questions or anything, I promise I'll get back to you.
Love,
Lily
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