Chapter 3: The Oblique Angle
As Alice pulls back into the street and drives us toward Broadway and the city beyond, I do my best to steer the conversation away from Edward. I ask Alice about the band we're going to see, knowing her response will last all the way up through Queen Anne and across the Fifteenth Avenue bridge. But I can tell she and Rose are humoring me. They know I get self-conscious. Or they believe that I do. I'm not even sure what's real myself, to be honest.
Alice keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror. At one point Rose twists toward me and bites her lip, toying with how to phrase whatever she's about to say, but Alice reaches across from the driver's seat to cover her mouth. I shrug and look out the window until Alice finds street parking in Ballard and yanks up the emergency brake.
I brace myself for an onslaught of questions, but it never comes. They both just stare at me, waiting.
"So," I say.
Alice must see something in my face, because she twists her lips to the side and seems to be biting her tongue. Rose chuckles under her breath and shakes her head.
A strange wave of bitterness suddenly swells in my heart. I feel muted rage at the idea that I can't just go giddy over a simple thing like a cute boy the way they expect me to right now. I'm supposed to be better at this—lying to my friends. I huff and make an awkward face.
Rose finally breaks the silence. "So. New Guy."
"He's new," I say. This feels true, in a way. My mind is reeling with flashbacks of the weekend I've had with him. "Still very new."
"You don't have to tell us a thing, you know," Rose says. "It's okay to keep it private."
"But you get along, right? You've hung out three days in a row," Alice says. She smiles as if she's trying to give me permission to get excited. "This could be something. I mean, if you like him."
"Yeah." I nod my head vigorously. "Oh, totally. He makes me nervous, but in a good way. He's sort of…I don't know. Thoughtful." This, of all things, makes me blush. Because it's true.
My phone buzzes with a text. Thanks for the warm welcome. This is for show, or he would have said it over the SatCom. I let Rose and Alice see me texting him back, a grin spreading across my face. The pleasure is all mine. And then we go inside the record store.
I like the band. They're young, with the sort of energy and bluster that so often stands in for real confidence in people our age. I buy the CD and sit on the curb outside while Alice smokes a cigarette with the skinny bass player. She turns red and shakes her head when he asks if she's coming to see them at the Crocodile this weekend. She doesn't even have a fake ID. She's told me she doesn't trust any of the sketchy characters who pretend to have a hook-up. I think she's probably right.
Rose looks sideways at Alice and this guy, and then makes wide eyes at me and stifles a laugh. I start to relax. This is going to be a fun night. Things aren't changing all that much just because I have a pretend boyfriend, I tell myself.
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We're supposed to start a swimming module in P.E., but the pool filtration system isn't working. Coach Clapp has us crowd into the library where we're told to find books that have something to do with swimming. There's already a class of sophomores in here for Intro to Research Methods. I can feel their eyes watching Edward and me as we drift toward the back of the room.
He runs his fingers along the spines of various books, not really looking. He sneaks glances at Coach and leans in to whisper in my ear when we're not being watched.
"How are you?"
I don't know how he manages to make that look flirtatious, but he does. It's the way he moves my hair behind my ear, I decide.
"I'm good. You?"
He nods, grinning. His gaze lingers on my mouth for a moment, which I think is for the benefit of the two sophomore boys blatantly staring and eavesdropping from the table nearest to us. "Thanks for the music last night."
I'd opened up his audio channel a couple of times during the car ride home, surreptitiously giving him a sample of the sounds blaring from Alice's car stereo.
"I think you'd like this band. They're playing at the Crocodile on Friday. And I was thinking we…you…could get Alice and Rose IDs, and we could all go."
He nods, silently agreeing that this is exactly the sort of thing New Guy would do. But just as quickly, his face clouds over.
"My usual source might be...overkill in this instance." He shoots me an intense look that translates to: let's not deal Aro one more ace to work with—especially one that involves the girls.
I nod. "I have an idea. Come over after school; I'll show you."
Coach chooses this moment to interrupt us. "Hey, lovebirds. Finding much about swimming in the sociology section?"
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Half of my Math Team hour is spent coordinating ride-shares down to Tacoma for Sunday's regionals. I'll already be there for a Sundial skills clinic, so I make up something about a Saturday night camping trip with Edward and suggest Angela pick up Eric and Ben. She's the best driver out of the three of them. They draw maps for one another with comical precision and argue over who'll ride shotgun.
When we finally turn to our mock quiz, Ben makes conversation while he races through the problems. "You guys are pretty serious already, huh?" He asks. "You and that Edward dude."
I'm glad to be able to draw a clear line for once. "Yep."
Angela oh-so-casually tilts her head, her eyes flitting to Ben's face. I gather she's trying to interpret his interest in my situation. Or Edward's situation.
"I'd like to go camping. I think I will go camping. Soon as I'm over this cold." He sniffs for effect. I have to stifle a laugh. "If one other person wants to come along, she can. But it has to be a girl. My tent says two-person, but it's close quarters, if you know what I mean."
I wait to see how Angela reacts to his clumsy hint, but she's looking at his work. She jabs a finger at the page. "Ben. Pay attention. Both y and n are less than six. You can just double the integers instead of going by trial and error."
She's right, too. He slaps a palm to his forehead. "D'oh."
"Ang, why don't you pick up Ben first? You can use the extra time to review formulas."
She flashes me a quick grin.
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Back at my place, I chatter with Edward about our thwarted swimming module while I wordlessly direct his attention to the two half-dead laptops Dr. Berty gave me. He inspects them, then nods. For the first time since he's been in Seattle, I see what looks like real enthusiasm in his smile. He tucks both machines into his backpack.
Neither of us has ever logged onto these computers. Assuming we stay off of the secured Volturi network, they won't be traced to us. I know without him telling me that the next time I see mine, it will be configured to ride the neighbor's wireless, and I'll have some generic fake login name—and a way to talk freely with Edward. As an added bonus, he can also use these off-the-grid machines to make fake IDs for Rose and Alice before Friday's show.
He turns the conversation to work. "Hey, why aren't we riding to clinic together Saturday? Aro says I'm supposed to meet you there."
"Um, I'm taking Bree for her SatCom procedure beforehand. It was either me or Aro, so…"
"Yeah. She'll be more relaxed with you." Edward looks at his hands. "Will she be at the clinic, too, then?"
"She'll be there." This Saturday's clinic is a sniper drill, much as Aro finds it distasteful. He hates conventional weapons. He says a gun is a thug's tool. Nevertheless, he makes sure we don't get rusty. One never knows, he says. Apparently he doesn't think it's too early for Bree to start training.
For the time being, there's French homework—a three-paragraph description of something we like to eat. We sit on my bed to do it. My back is against the wall, and his is against the headboard. Our legs form a ninety-degree angle and our feet touch.
Miss Violet plods into the room, and Edward leans down to lift her up. She's tolerating the new food better, and I think she's stopped losing weight. She settles into the nook made by our feet and dozes off.
My head swims with conjugations and grammar rules. Edward, however, finishes quickly. His completed essay sits beside him, his uniform looping script peppered with perfectly placed accents.
"Do you remember our first weapons orientation?"
I look up from my French-English dictionary. "Of course."
"You were all skinned knees. So scrawny." He knocks my feet with his.
I frown. "And you weren't? We were eleven."
He rests his warm hand on my shin. "You didn't let me finish. I was going to say no one would have guessed you were such a natural with a pistol."
"Mhmm. I don't see it as being a natural so much as paying careful attention. It's not like I can see targets the way you do."
"No. But you control your piece. You stay calm."
"I guess Charlie always taught me to have a healthy respect for guns. For how dangerous they are." He is fastidious about his service revolver. The first thing he does when he comes home from the museum every day is unload, lock, and store his gun.
I start to page through my work again, but Edward's comments have started the wheels turning now. I glance up at his face to find him watching me.
"That's not really what you remember about that weekend, is it?"
He smiles sadly and shakes his head. He's never told anyone that during our search-and-rescue simulation he came across me half-submerged in a pond behind a deadfall of trees. I was hiding. From the rescuers. From all of it.
At the time, I'd tried to explain to him about the explosions triggering flashbacks to the fire that killed my mom, but he didn't want to hear any of it. He just waded in—fully clothed—and distracted me with stories about make-believe colonies of elves living in the mossy shadows of the branches. Elves are afraid of humans, he'd said. So they just pretend we're not real. It's easy.
I let myself rely on him so completely that day. If I hadn't been so exhausted and overwhelmed, if my defenses hadn't been down, I would have railed against it. But as it happened, it felt like comfort. It still does. It was like a part of me attached to him the way the arrow on my little gunmetal compass tied itself to the poles of the earth—invisibly, irrevocably.
When we finally made our way back to camp, caked in mud, Aro praised us for helping him illustrate an important lesson. Sometimes rescuers are not to be trusted, he'd said. Let your gut tell you whether to be found.
Edward scoots over to sit beside me. He drapes his left arm over my shoulders and takes my French composition in his other hand, changing the subject and not changing it at the same time.
Double-speak and dissembling come second nature to us both by now, it occurs to me. I can't seem to talk about anything straight-on. I wonder whether this tendency has always been here, or came about because of Sundial. He pulls me toward him tightly while he marks corrections lightly in pencil.
"On dit 'une limonade.' Feminine." He murmurs into my hair.
"Stupid gendered nouns. There's no logic to it."
"I know. It's language, not math."
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The next day after school Edward drives me to Evergreen Manor and says he'll read in the car while I do my volunteer shift. He wiggles his eyebrows at me when I pull the large print romance novels out of my book bag.
"What? Shut up. These are for Mrs. Cope." I'm giggling.
"I didn't say a word." He furrows his brow in mock concern. "But did you at least skim them? Are you sure these will get the job done?"
"Mrs. Cope is in her seventies. I'm not sure I'm the best litmus test for her likes and dislikes." I laugh at the obvious amusement on his face. "Think what you want. I'm gonna be late."
Whatever Edward's doubts may have been, Mrs. Cope oohs at the new selections. "Oh, goodness," she says. "Thank you. A person can only re-read the same old storyline so many times."
She looks the covers up and down a few times before shoving both books under her pillow. She glances at me, slightly abashed. "If old Mary Ellen Newton gets a look at these, she'll be on me like glue until I'm done. And then poor Mr. Stanley…" She gazes into the hallway as she trails off. I'm sure I don't want to know how she would finish that sentence.
"But you've got the real deal waiting for you, how about that? Young love and such." She gestures toward the window overlooking the parking lot as she eases herself down into her reading chair. "He's certainly a handsome young man. Does he treat you properly?"
"Oh. He does, yeah. He doesn't mind waiting. He likes to read."
She continues peering out the window. "I think I know him. Yes. My sister sold his family their house."
"Oh." I don't know what to say. I've heard the staff here say she doesn't have any family left—certainly no sister who is an active real estate agent. This isn't the first time I've worried that her mind is slipping.
"Does he care for Hemingway, your young man? Here, take him this." She strains to point to a well-used book in her personal stash lining the shelf next to the electric tea kettle. I pluck it out.
"What's it about?" The cover depicts an old-fashioned bridge.
She laughs softly. "Oh, heck if I know how to explain it. Paris and being young and all that. But worth a read. Boys seem to like it."
I thank her and shove it into my bag before moving on to organize the recreation lounge down the hall. When I stop in to say goodbye, she's asleep.
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We stop at Kinko's on the way to my place. Edward slips some bills to the pale kid behind the counter. When we're finally in the relative privacy of my room, Edward holds the fake IDs under my ultraviolet light. They are flawless. I call Alice and hold the phone away from my ear when she shrieks in joy. She rushes me off the phone so she can call Rose about Friday night—but not before berating me for forgetting to mention this camping trip she heard Angela tell Jessica I'm taking with Edward. He smirks and cocks an eyebrow at me, overhearing.
Aro pages Edward and me on our SatComs and then patches in the others, two by two. Kingfisher and Crow—that's Sam and Emily. Jacob and Leah are Finch and Raven. When we're all assembled, he reviews the clinic agenda. He reminds us that Bree—Hum, he says, for Hummingbird—will be observing the clinic, even though she's still a month away from starting boot camp.
"King, since you'll serve as her mentor, I gave you an hour with her for trust-building time while Crow orients to her zero year transition," Aro says. He clears his throat. "I'm sure there will be ample opportunity for celebration in honor of dear Crow's transition, but take care not to overwhelm our impressionable newcomer, shall we? I don't need to remind any of you that this delicate little Hummingbird of ours is a full three years younger than the youngest of you. She needs to witness your confidence and your teamwork. Make me proud."
And we sign off.
We spend almost two hours powering through tedious French translations we won't have time to do this weekend. I know I'm overtired when I ask him to recite a certain passage three times. It's just so soothing, hearing how sensible and fluid he makes this troublesome language sound.
Before Edward leaves, I get him to come to the basement with me and investigate the telltale snapping noises that have been driving Miss Violet wild all evening. Sure enough, four tiny dead mice are waiting for me.
"Gross."
Edward scoops them up, traps and all, using plastic bags as gloves. He buries them under some heavy piles of newspapers in the trash can where Miss Violet won't get at them. We both wash our hands, even though I never touched a thing, and I walk him to the door.
"Well…I guess I'll see you at school. Thanks again for the help with French."
"You're forgetting carcass removal."
"That, too."
I watch him start to leave, only to see him spin on his heel and shut the front door again.
"Wait. There's something…something else. Speaking of French." He cringes as if in apology. "That was stupid. I mean, I don't want to do this for the first time in front of everyone in the cafeteria or something."
"Hmm?" I ask out of reflex, but I can guess what he means. And I agree. "Oh. Yeah."
He shuffles from one foot to the other, squaring his shoulders to face me. He brings a hand up to my face and gently strokes my cheekbone with his thumb. This is how it looks in movies, I think to myself.
"You can kiss me, too, you know," he says.
"Of course I can. Especially if you keep volunteering for rodent duty. That's so very boyfriend-ish of you."
"Can you not mention rodents right now?"
"Can you hurry up and shove your tongue down my throat?"
The look on his face melts into something softer, but just for a moment. "You're nervous." In a blink, he's grinning again. "Should I role play? Would that make it easier? What's something what's-his-name says? Ryan Gosling?"
"You're already role playing, remember? You're 'New Guy' now."
"I am?"
"Your nickname at school. That's what they call you."
He squints his eyes in mock dismay. "It's a little bland, isn't it?"
"Alice thinks you're a narc."
"Oh, that's good. Man of mystery. Mature. And only the really corrupt narcs make out with the students."
Somehow, he's distracted me so much that I've forgotten his fingers are in my hair. Almost.
"Ready?"
"Whatever. I'm sure it will be fine." Actually, I'm thinking it will feel like CPR, but I keep that to myself. "Just don't make it weirder, if you can help it."
He opens and closes his mouth. "I wish…never mind. I'm not helping."
"What?" I huff into my palm to check my breath.
"No, you're fine. God, Bella." He does this funny thing with his hands, moving back and forth between friendly shoulder-pats and softer experimental touches. "I just…you're a girl, okay. I know girls like to have moments. With some guy whose picture they have in their locker. I wish this was like that for you."
I shake my head. He's making it weird, all right. Him saying that makes me feel flushed. "Nobody really lives that sort of life anyhow. But for the sake of your inner-fantasy reel, if I were the type to get crushes, I'd have one on you."
He cracks a smile—his complicated smile. The one that always makes me feel a strange lump in my throat.
"Requests? Last chance. Tongue or no tongue?"
"You've kissed girls before. Just do whatever."
"Okay. Here we go. Don't hit me." He places his palms on either side of my face.
I close my eyes. I'm prepared for his mouth to crush me, but he only brushes his lips against mine at first. It's soft. He stays just like that for a moment, neither pressing on nor moving away. He smells different, being this close. It's his hair or skin or something. And then I feel his lips again, still soft, still slow.
I can't help thinking the craziest things—like: We're breathing the same air. Has this air been in his lungs, or only his mouth? Can he feel my heartbeat in my lips, or is that just me? The tip of his tongue, light and wet, catches me off guard. When I gasp, I feel him sigh roughly, and then I feel the strength of his lips—but only for an instant.
"Um. Okay—sorry. This okay?" I feel his breath on my skin when he speaks.
I realize I'm gripping his wrists in my hands, and I can't tell if I meant to hold him to me or keep him at bay. I nod against his forehead and peck him quickly on the lips and then his cheek.
"Yeah. Good. That should be believable, right?" My voice wavers.
He leans away from me, looking off to the side for a moment and then looking me in the eye. "If 'believable' is what we're going for, yeah."
I wrack my brain for something to say. Anything to get that strange look off of Edward's face. "Oh! Speaking of French…Mrs. Cope asked me to give you something."
That did it. He laughs. "Did she, now?"
"Here." I pull the book she gave me off of the table next to the door. "It has something to do with Paris, she said. Hemingway. She saw you from her window and picked it out for you."
"Uh, okay. I guess I'm flattered." He flips back and forth through the pages, scanning. "All I know about Hemingway is he had a big old beard. Super rugged. Yes, definitely flattered." He shoves the book into his bag and swings the front door open. "If you don't mind, I'll leave you with that impression of me."
Before I can shut it behind him, he pokes his head back in.
"Don't forget to tell her how tough I looked manhandling those mousetraps."
"Shut up." I start to physically push him out, laughing, using the door as a lever.
As I lock up, I can hear him continue to mock-plead with me through the door.
"Promise you'll tell her?" And "I'm a good kisser—tell her that, too." And "Call me!"
Miss Violet looks back and forth between me and the door.
"I know," I say. "I know."
The sound of Edward's engine fades as he drives away. Miss Violet starts sniffing at a slip of plastic on the edge of the area rug—something that must have fallen from between the pages of Mrs. Cope's book. I bend down to pick it up before she can decide to start chewing on it.
"What's this, Miss V.?" Even as the words spill out of my mouth, I silently answer my own question. It's flexible, with random-looking markings around the border and a stiff translucent circle in the center. I've seen something like this before—once.
I slide the thing between the pages of my French textbook and zip everything into my backpack, not even remotely imagining any of the ways this flimsy polymer is about to change my life.
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AN: Thank you all so much for reading! I'm floored by all the responses. So sweet. The beta and prereaders for this story are happymelt, faireyfan, and midsouthmama. -so much great guidance and tender loving grammar help! Thanks again - until next time.