Chapter 18 – Small Thing Everything

"I've got some books to return, but I want to hand in this paper first," Edward says. "Come with me, there's someone I want you meet."

Obligingly I get out of the Cadillac and follow Edward across the college lawn. "Who am I meeting?"

"One of my math tutors. Now one of my former math tutors." Edward grins and waves a thick sheaf of paper at me. "Her name's Pat."

I don't know what on earth Edward thinks I'm going to have to talk about with a college level math tutor, considering that I haven't set foot in a classroom for more than six years and can't even remember my times tables. But Rosalie and Esme are at the haberdashery debating over which buttons are the best match for Rosalie's new dress and likely to be another hour given the earth shattering importance of the decision, so I don't have anything more interesting to do with my time. Bracing myself against the scent of humans I follow Edward into the building and through a maze of corridors until he stops and knocks at a door, waiting until he's bid to enter.

"Ah, Edward." The woman behind the desk looks up. "You've got your final paper for me?" She takes it from him and flips through it quickly. "Presumably it will be up to your usual standard. And I expect I'll be seeing you back in my class next year, when you're enrolled as a fulltime student?"

"I hope so," Edward says. He gestures me forward. "This is Eleanor, who I've told you about…Eleanor, this is Pat."

Pat stands and offers me her hand and I shake it quickly, concentrating on not breaking any bones. I probably still grip a little too hard, but Pat doesn't even grimace. She's a solid, square shaped woman with a severe haircut and is wearing a shapeless grey shirt and tweed skirt. She doesn't look at all like I would expect a mathematics professor to look like. But as she shakes my hand and points me to a chair as she takes her own seat, I have a sudden feeling about why Edward would have thought I might want to meet her. Huh.

"I must return these books," Edward says. "I'll be back for you Eleanor."

"Bit of an odd duck, that one." Pat gazes after Edward's retreating back.

I give a sudden snort of laughter. "You don't know the half of it."

"Gifted mathematician though." Pat eyes me keenly. "He's spoken about you. Thought you might like…well, I'm still not entirely sure how he…but anyway. Look, I run a social group for women. Not a big thing, we're quite private, but Edward seemed to think it would be something you'd be interested in? You and his sister – or are you the sister?"

I sit up straight. I don't think she's talking about a group like Esme's sewing circle or the charitable auxiliary. "Rosalie's his sister, I'm kind of an extra, but if Edward thinks I would…I mean, yes."

"Fine, fine. We're certainly not advertising, but we're always open to meeting like-minded women. As I said, we're not a large group but we have some fun. There's a gang of us that go bicycling and hiking, and we organise card and game nights, sometimes we go out to dinner…we've arranged for something a little more formal for Saturday, drinks and a band at a place downtown. You'd be welcome to join in."

"Oh sure, thanks! Going out dancing is definitely Rosalie's thing, she'll be rapt." Just being able to say her name like this!

Pat smiles. "Good, good." She scribbles an address and some instructions down on a scrap of paper and hands it to me. "The venue's discreet, but you should be able to find it all right."

"I'm looking forward to it. Really! I mean I've never…it'll be new," I say a little awkwardly.

"We're a pretty easy-going group," Pat says kindly. "And this kind of social group was new to all of us at one point or another. You'll be fine."

Hearing Edward approach I get to my feet. "Well thanks. I'll be seeing you on Saturday." I make it as far as the door and then stop, glancing down at my somewhat crumpled shirt and slightly stained skirt. "Oh! Obviously I'm not really asking on my own account, but Rosalie WILL want to know what she's supposed to wear…is there a dress code? And be specific here, because she's got standards and apparently there's a whole range of dresses suitable for different occasions that I don't know anything about…"

Pat roars with laughter. "Oh, she's one of those? I know exactly what you're talking about! So while I will say with all sincerity that you can wear exactly what you'd like – there'll be all sorts of get ups – you can tell your Rosalie that if she's the dressy type then cocktail attire would be the ticket."

"Thank you," I say, with a wry grin. "Much appreciated!"

Edward greets me with a nod, and then we head back towards the car. "All organised?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Thanks, I suppose – how'd you manage it?"

"She thinks about her…friend? partner?...quite often."

I snort. "That's got to make concentrating on math kind of hard, listening to that."

Edward rolls his eyes. "Fortunately Pat's thoughts about Kate, at least while teaching math, don't tend to be quite as explicit as yours are about Rosalie far too much of the time! But I knew that she was like you, and then I caught wind of their social group." He shakes his head. "Trying to work the conversation in that direction was more difficult than the mathematics, let me assure you. But I know that Rosalie has had some trouble accepting the need for discretion about the two of you together, and I thought it might…well, make it easier for her, if there was a chance for something a little more like what she wants."

"I really wish you two could be nice to each other a bit more directly," I say with a sideways look. "All that bickering and moaning, and yet you both know you'd do anything for each other."

He shrugs it off. "It's probably still a little risky for you to attend some of their events, but I know what it would mean to Rosalie."

I know what it'll mean to Rosalie too. But it's not just her. The idea of being out with her, of pretending to drink cocktails and being able to dance together, with her all dressed up, being able to lay some kind of public claim to what's in my heart…I'm fairly quivering with anticipation.

Whistling tunelessly, I take up a comb and attempt to impose some order on my chaotic hair. I've spent most of the day hunting, hoping that gorging myself is going to make an evening spent in a confined space with a lot of humans a little easier, and my eyes in the mirror are the lightest gold I've seen. As I hear Rosalie's step in the hall I turn to greet her.

"Hey, I'm nearly ready…oh Rosa-girl, you look so beautiful!"

Rosalie's dress is a shimmering black silk that sets of her porcelain skin and gleaming hair to perfection. There's the sparkle of diamonds at her throat, and as she twirls to give me the full picture the rhinestones edging the low back of her dress sparkle too.

"You'll be happy to walk in with me?" she asks, half laughing.

"Happy to walk in with you? You're going to be the prettiest one there, and they'll all be raging with jealousy that you're mine." I cup her cheeks and kiss her, and then look down at myself. "As for me - you don't mind? I just couldn't even begin to dress up like you…you won't be too mortified walking in with me?"

I'm wearing a plain skirt and shirt. It's all clean and even ironed, and Esme bought me a pair of proper stylish dancing shoes and silk stockings so it's a pretty big step up from my usual state of things, but even so…Rosalie looks like a movie star, and I know we don't match. I would hate to think she's disappointed in me.

"Stop," Rosalie says, almost before I can finish. She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me. "I love you Nell, you look beautiful and I wouldn't want to be with anyone else. I did buy you something though." She opens her palm and shows me a brooch, red, green and white stones forming a circle of roses. Reaching up Rosalie pins it at my throat, and with a sudden quirk of memory I remember my sister Cat doing almost the same thing. "I know you're not really a jewellery person," Rosalie says, "But I thought it would look nice, and I wanted to get you something…and roses…just to say you're mine."

I cover her hand with mine, squeezing gently. Mine. "I love it. Thank you."

Rosalie smiles and then adds briskly, "And you're going to let me do your hair. Nothing too fussy, don't worry!" Grabbing my hand she tows me up to her room and pushes me down in front of her dresser, immediately picking up handfuls of my hair. Working quickly she twists and clips it all into place. Once she's finished she wraps her arms around me from behind and rests her chin on my shoulder, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. "There you go. It'll be all right, tonight, won't it?" Her voice holds a note of uncertainty. "Going out like this? Not too…strange?"

I curve my hand around the side of her face and turn my head enough to kiss her cheek. "It'll be fine. They'll all just be ordinary humans. It might seem kind of weird to you with no men, but I think we'll have fun. I hope you do. And if you don't – well, we can leave any time you want."

"That goes for you too." Rosalie straightens up and smooths a non-existent flyaway hair back over her ear. "If it gets too much, tell me and we'll come home. Don't do anything rash."

It takes Rosalie and I a little while to find the address Pat gave me, and when we finally reach it we see a fairly unprepossessing bar opening on to an out of the way back street. Rosalie looks doubtful, but when I open the door there's a spill of light and cheerful noise, and I take her hand and pull her inside with a grin.

"Come on Princess, let's live a little."

It's nicer inside, clean and surprisingly well appointed, but I don't spend a lot of time looking at the décor. Not when my attention is thoroughly caught by the sight of a social event that, despite the relatively small numbers, looks like any other I've ever attended, with people laughing and talking and drinking and couples dancing - except that it's all women.

I see what Pat meant when she said to wear whatever. Lots of them are wearing evening dresses like Rosalie, but I'm not the only one dressed a lot less formally. There are also a considerable number of women wearing trousers, some of them even in full suits. I think some of these might be borrowed because they're a little too big or ill-fitting, but I note the tailoring on a few of the jackets and immediately wonder if Esme would do that for me.

One of the suited figures detaches herself from a group and comes towards us. It's Pat, her hand raised in welcome. "Eleanor, you found us. Marvellous."

I smile back, and take Rosalie's hand to tug her slightly forward. "Yes, hi. Rosalie, this is Pat, Edward's math tutor…and Pat, this is Rosalie."

It's such a small thing. To hold her hand as I introduce her, to not have to say anything and yet know that the unspoken is clearly understood. This is Rosalie. She's mine, and I'm hers. A small thing – and yet everything.

Pat has the same reaction to Rosalie that nearly all humans do, a momentary pause and several extra blinks as they look at her and have to amend their entire understanding of beauty, but she pulls herself together pretty quickly. "Rosalie, it's good to meet you. Glad you could both make it. Come on, I'll introduce you to a few people." She puts an affectionate arm around a small woman in the nearby group. "This is Kate. That's Hilda, Mary, Elizabeth…everyone, this is Eleanor and Rosalie."

As easily as that, we're absorbed into the group. I find myself with a glass of something in my hand that I have to pretend to drink, listening as Hilda and Mary go back to discussing the Tigers' baseball season. Beside me Rosalie answers a question from Pat, and then asks her about the math program at the college because she's applied for next year, and their conversation veers off into academic territory. Kate asks me what I do, and I tell her about starting to farm some of our land. And then a little later, when the band moves into a romantic song, I take Rosalie's hand and ask her to dance with me.

"I used to wonder what it would be like," I say to her as we circle the floor. "Being able to ask some girl to dance and having her say yes, and then just dancing. Not causing any scenes or drawing attention, just dancing together like this…and it's good, Rosa-girl, it's so good." I stroke my fingertips over the bare skin of her back and hold her a little closer.

Rosalie's smile is bright. "It is."

"Of course I can't really say no one is paying any attention though," I say. "Not when you're the most beautiful one in the place. You light up the whole room, angel-girl, no wonder they all can't stop looking."

"Vampire glamour," Rosalie says dismissively, although as she catches a brief glimpse of our dim, blurred reflection in a window she smiles complacently. "Although I do think I look nice tonight, so…" She laughs ruefully. "You know I really am incorrigibly vain – there's no one else for me but you, but I still want everyone in the world to admire me, men or women!"

I laugh too. "Enjoy your evening in the sunshine then, because I'm not the only one here who thinks you're beautiful."

And I spin her around, kissing her quick and hard as she comes back to me, before the music changes and we're swept up into something faster as the night goes on. We dance together, and then we pretend to eat supper and talk to lots of different people who want to get to know us, and then a group of girls drag Rosalie off to dance with them and I just watch her, my heart light seeing her come into her own. Because this is Rosalie too, this sociable, vivacious flirt, and it's a side of her I've never really got to see in our quiet home life. I love that I'm getting to know another part of her.

"Having a good time?"

I look up from the glass of whiskey I'm clutching, using the alcoholic burn of it through my nostrils to give me a slight reprieve from the scent of so many warm humans in this enclosed space, as Pat stops by my side.

"For sure. You?"

"Yes…although admittedly I'm usually a bit more of the bicycling and hiking type than dancing!" Pat looks over at the dancefloor. "Your lass looks like she's enjoying herself."

"She really is. She loves this kind of thing, and we don't really get out that much." For more reasons than you probably think.

"Yes, it can be difficult. You're quite lucky to have found each other though, especially given that you're so young. Nice to have someone to grow with."

"It's the luckiest I've ever been," I say. "Completely unexpected actually, Rosalie just kind of tripped over me and now here I am."

"You're fortunate to have a supportive family too." Pat chuckles. "I'm still not sure how Edward managed to get me on the subject of our group! It's certainly something I'm very cautious about mentioning, especially with a student, and I've never had anyone's brother suggest their sister might be interested."

"How do you usually figure it out?" I want to know. "I mean, you'd have to be careful."

Pat shrugs. "We do tread very carefully, but you develop a sense for it after a while. Not that you can always tell, but sometimes it's pretty clear." She eyes me with amusement. "I would have clocked you just walking down the street."

"Well, I don't know what it is I do, but right now I don't really care!" I grin at her. "I've had a lot of fun tonight. It's so good to just be, and not worry about who might see what, you know? It's good not feel like I'm not a total weirdo and odd man out for once."

It's funny, because I'd never really thought I was overly bothered by being different. I was always the tallest girl in the room, and the girl that boys would rather arm wrestle than dance with, and that was just the way it was. Sure, my aunts were always clucking about my lack of grace and my dim prospects for marriage, but I knew they loved me anyway and I'd never minded too much. But here tonight has been a different kind of openness and acceptance, and it's meant more than I would have expected.

But Pat just nods, and I think she understands. "We'll keep you in the loop about our activities going forward if you'd like. Rosalie's interested in my undergraduate math courses for next year, so perhaps I'll see her there." She glances at her watch. "Last dance – go on out there!"

I walk out on to the floor and Rosalie glides into my arms, and for a moment the scent of her drowns out any temptation of blood. There isn't anything in the world that is better, or more beautiful, or more right, than this.

"I'm going to have to say thank you to Edward," Rosalie says, grimacing before she giggles. "I feel bad for tormenting him with some of my silent thoughts now. This has been so much fun, and it wouldn't have happened without his mental eavesdropping."

"He's got your back."

"When he's not sticking the knife in to it!" Rosalie says, rolling in her eyes.

I laugh and squeeze her hand. "You two are impossible! You know that you owe him for tonight – just say thank you and tell him that it was great. He wants to see you happy, and I know you'd do the same for him – or something like, anyway!"

"I heard what Pat said about us being lucky to find each other when we're so young," Rosalie murmurs, her head against my shoulder. "It's true, but it's so much more than she knows. Two hundred and fifty eight years – that's how long Carlisle had to wait before he found Esme. All that time alone! Edward hasn't met anyone he cares for in eighteen years. And yet I've only had to endure two years, and now there's YOU." She caresses my face with a soft hand. "We're not humans, and it's different for us. Falling in love, like this…it will always be this way. Always be this overwhelming, all-encompassing, everlasting passion and wonder. You've changed my world, you've changed me…Nell, I love you so much. You've given me everything I need."

"Stand up straight…that's it." Esme's needle flies as she stitches the hem into place. "All done. Take a look."

I jump down from the chair I'm standing on in Esme's sewing room and feel the smile breaking across my face as I look at my reflection in the full length mirror, wearing the grey pinstriped suit she's just finished making me. "Esme, you're a star – it looks amazing!"

Esme surveys me with satisfaction. "You look quite resplendent! Really, it's very flattering and looks so comfortable I'm half tempted to make one for myself."

"You should!" I twist around to see both sides of myself. The suit is better than I'd hoped – it's a masculine cut, but tailored and fitted just enough to make me look stylish, rather than someone playing dress-ups in her daddy's clothes. I give Esme a hug. "You did such a great job; I really love it! Thank you."

"You're more than welcome," Esme says, picking a loose thread off the trousers and straightening my jacket. "You should go and show Rosalie, I think she'll be very impressed."

I head out to the barn. Rosalie, sitting on the ground and polishing the chrome parts of her car, looks up as I enter and raises her eyebrows.

"Esme finished my suit – what do you think?" I spin around and then hold my arms out with a laugh. "Do you like it?"

"I do." Wiping her hands, Rosalie stands up and looks me up and down. "I really do."

"You sound surprised," I say.

Rosalie laughs sheepishly. "No, I knew it would look good. Esme's an excellent seamstress, and how could you look anything but handsome?" She comes closer and strokes the lapels. "But I'll confess, I didn't know if perhaps I wouldn't like it, if it would make me uncomfortable…if it made you look too much like a man."

I cover her hands with mine. "I didn't know that worried you - you didn't say anything."

"I would never try and change you. What you wear, however you want to look – I want you to be comfortable and to feel right as yourself. I love you, exactly as you want to be. However you want to be." Rosalie kisses my knuckles. "But after all this time I've come to love that you're a woman, and everything that means when it comes to the two of us."

"So you don't secretly wish I was a man? A muscle-bound meathead with a big cock…Emmett, maybe? That's what my mama would have named me if I'd been a boy."

"No!" Rosalie makes an appalled face, and then bursts out laughing. "I mean, maybe if I'd found him being mauled by a bear I might have learned to like him too, who knows? Maybe, if he'd been like you…because it's you Nell. I love you."

I lower my head and press a kiss against her forehead. "I love you too, baby. And hey, if ever you want to have sex involving dick it'd be pretty easy to come up with some kind of fake one I could use on you. Consider me willing to try out anything that you think might turn you on. Could be kind of fun, actually." Maybe more than fun, if the heat I'm feeling between my legs at the thought of it is any indication.

Rosalie raises an eyebrow. "Interesting." She slides her hands down my belly and grips my belt, pulling me closer. "Something to consider, one day. But at the same time…I don't feel like we're missing anything. What we do together feels complete to me." She kisses me deeply, her fingers moving tantalisingly across my body. "Although by all means, tell me if there's anything in particular that sounds good to you. I'm quite open to new experiences after all this!"

I laugh breathlessly as her hands dip inside my trousers. "Oh well, immortality is going to give us plenty of time to try out all kinds of things. Wouldn't want it to get boring."

"Boring?" Rosalie bites my neck. "I hope you're not implying that I could ever be dull."

"Sweet Jesus, no!" I gasp. "Not you, never!" And once again there is just me and Rosalie, and all the pleasure and love and beauty of us.