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Posted 14 June 2009 - 04:55 PM
As for what I've changed, I've cut out some of the characters, or changed them completely, and twisted the whole plot into something completely different. Go in a completely different direction. Hopefully. I'm going with the flow a bit here (I'm not merticuously planning as I usually do), so hold on. It's really just an experiment to test myself, and for fun. Though I appreciate criticism. Don't be afraid to knock it as hard as you can. I need that to get better.
1. Before Forks
I hate Forks. It’s a pretty simple statement, really. I think, at least. I hate Forks. Three little words. They’re not the sort of words you’d get on a stupid vocabulary test like ‘colloquial’, or ‘plebeian’. Nor are they unpronounceable. Eye hay-te ff-orcs. Easy enough. Suggests the hatred of lonely desolate little towns in the corner of Washington State, which have no meaning to the wide majority of the population. Perhaps I should write it in little symbols or something, like I did with Suse when passing notes at the back of Biology class. Maybe people would understand more if I did something stupid.
‘I hate Forks.’
‘What’s that honey?’
Mom was pouring her fourth glass of Orange Juice for the day, whilst having the radio blaring in the background. The plastic worktops had a permanent stain of OJ where she always split it. Not that it was out of place in our dilapidated little kitchen.
Mom ‘decided’ when we bought the apartment ten years ago, that she would do it up straight away. Result? Peeling seventies art deco wallpaper still wilting. A couple of splashes of tester paint on the bathroom wall, over the mouldy patches in the corner. Bathroom rugs over the holes in the carpet, or where the black and white chessboard linoleum was cut two and a half inches short. But it had many various pieces of degrading artwork by me stuck on walls, documenting my crappy art skills and hopeless teachers K-11 (not that I took art as a class, of course, at high school). It was home, that’s all.
‘I hate Forks.’
I repeated what I said before. For a moment she pretended not to hear, before putting the carton of OJ down.
‘Oh honey...’
She looked me in the eyes for a moment; a little smile breaks on her face. That sort which means ‘you don’t understand’.
‘It won’t be that bad when you get there – you’ll have Charlie there, and we’ll call you often, and you’ll be sure to make lots of friends and...’
By this time she was hugging me, the feel of pink polyester sweater in my face.
‘You’ll love it honey, I know you will.’
And then she withdraws, with a beaming smile on her face. Like little lights are radiating from it, the sort that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and all of that crap. What else can I do but smile back? And before I think about saying otherwise, she’s flounced off with her OJ to play bingo on her laptop.
Even though I don’t have lots of friends. And I’ve only ever seen Charlie – sorry, Dad – twice. I can’t even remember what he looks like properly. She knows that. Twelve years in the school facade, and Susan was the only friend I ever got out of it. Forks is one of those sleepy small towns where everyone’s grandparents knew everyone else’s grandparents. Where do I, the city girl from Phoenix, at least thousand miles away, fit in?
So, I tried plaguing her. I repeated this exact conversation twelve times, whilst Mom was playing bingo on the internet (what kind of person calls themselves a technophobe whilst playing bingo on the internet, I don’t know), about to go shopping, dancing to ABBA CDs, watering her cactus, phoning Just-call-me-Phil, and doing the laundry. I tried varying my tone. I tried begging, on my knees. Heck, it didn’t work. Murphy’s Law doing it’s bit again.
Why can’t I live in Mom’s world, of a scatty waif of a blonde who thinks that their only daughter will be perfectly fine and happy in going to some miserable rainy town in the middle of nowhere whilst she is loving it up with minor-leaguer Just-Call-Me-Phil in Florida, who has ‘dreamy blue eyes’ and collects cactuses (or is it cacti? No wonder can no one ever spell anything in English), and even though it’s unlikely, Everything Will Always Turn All Right Out In The End? Because it does, apparently, and I just need to look on the bright side of life more often. See the butterflies and the tweeting birds floating around in the land of rain.
‘So will she let you stay?’
‘No Suse, she didn’t.’
‘Did you try the–’
‘Yes, I tried it whilst she was watering that damn cactus he gave her. I even threatened to throw the precious thing in the garbage can. She didn’t pay any attention.’
‘Are you–’
‘Suse, she won’t let me stay.’
There was a moment of silence, where I could just hear the phone tone humming in the background because I jammed the four key several months back.
‘Fućk. That sucks.’
‘Yeah, it totally does.’
Suse is a Senior, the same year as me, and wears glasses with cool technicolour rims and dyes her hair cherry red. Her Dad is a plumber. Her Mom is dead. She writes poetry in her spare time and bites her lip when she’s confused. She cannot stand Biology, which is why we started writing notes at the back of class. I wrote it at the back of a notebook, and underlined it three times, before I put it in my suitcase. My room looked lifeless without all the posters on the walls, without the junk thrown on the floor, or even sheets on the bed. Like it was missing something very obvious, like some grand period of chaos and delight was over, and its doors would be shut for several years more, yearning for those sweet memories to live once again.
Mom was selling the apartment. She told me this, the big plan, over and over again. I count recount it word for word, rolling my eyes simultaneously at every exact pause and break. As she retold me this again in the car, gliding along the roads to the airport, I drummed my fingers against the seats, trying to make a rhythm.
‘Bella, what are you doing?’
‘Drumming my fingers.’
She made no comment, as usual, but the perky smile-lined face turned to a lingering expression of a different sort. I knew this expression, and stopped. Because as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hate Mom. That was hard. I’d tried quite a few times as a kid, and it never worked. You couldn’t hate someone who would just hug you to death every time you tried to have a serious dramatic tantrum. I looked out the window. I looked at the spotless sky cast above me, whilst the high-rise buildings rose up from the earth to touch the ocean of blue above. They were a couple of feet short of heaven, I reckoned. Then, almost within a few seconds, we were there at the entrance of the airport.
‘I love you honey.’
‘I love you too Mom.’
We smiled at each other for a moment, her’s beaming, mine awkward and grimacing.
‘You’ll have a great time in Forks, honey, I know you will.’
She kissed me on the cheek quickly.
‘Gotta go – have fun!’
‘I will Mom.’
That was a lie. I didn’t even try to disguise that one – not that I ever was good at lying. Mom didn’t notice. She always notices the lies like ‘I love your top Mom, it really suits you’, but thinks ‘you owe me $20 allowance from last month where you forgot, Mom.’ is a lie as well. Or, for instance, like how I don’t actually like Forks. Or how I won’t have fun, or won’t have a great time. Because that’s the truth. Because I know sitting in the airport lounge, waiting for the hour delay – or is it two hours – on the next plane to Seattle, that I’m missing that endless blue sky already.
***
‘You okay Bells?’
I was staring out the window. Four hours of waiting on the plane from Phoenix to Seattle. Another hour wait from Seattle to Port Angeles. And an hour with Dad driving back. I was watching the water droplets dribble down on the car window, tracing them with my fingernail.
‘Hmm?’
‘Oh– yeah–, I’m fine Dad.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’ I was still looking out the window
He nodded, mumbling quietly, ‘Alrighty.’
Awkward silence resumed. He’d already asked about school was. Fine, I replied. I’d assume he’d question me more about it, try and see what I exactly meant by ‘Fine’, or tell that I was blatantly lying. He didn’t. He then asked me how life in Phoenix was. Then if I was cold at all, you know, in my chequered T-Shirt I was wearing. And he then insisted on giving me his jacket. That took up the first five minutes of the conversation. I then tried looking out the window, to try and stop him from talking to me more. I noticed he didn’t ask about Mom.
I’d already drawn on the steam, doodling flowers and butterflies, and stick men shooting each other, and graffiti-ing in Spanish (¿Cómo estás? Tiene cinco calabazas. Ella huele en una ventana.), before wiping it away with the sleeve of the jacket Dad had leant me. I then tried making as many stupid expressions I could in the reflection of the window, having a mini-competition to myself, but after five minutes, I could see Dad watching me in corner of his eye. So I’d decided to stare out the window for the past forty minutes, and watch the rain drip along the window. It wasn’t even hard, fast, exciting rain, those brilliant downpours. It was showery, and pathetic.
Outside the window, and in the world beyond, the warm honey-browns had been replaced by green. It was green everywhere up here, almost like it mutated over the ground and over-spilled onto everything. Green with grey sky.
Very beautiful, of course, with the water droplets splashing onto leaves, the few light rays there washing against the moss-wrapped trees. It was peaceful almost, for along the road. The sort of place which you’d imagine fairies twirling in the shadows.
Black.
I blinked. I swear, I swear... I just saw...something move. I shook my head. Trick of the eye. Though my palms were hot and sticky. They were shaking too. I pressed my hands against the windows, to make them stop. Five hours on a plane was enough to make you hallucinate, I bet.
‘Why did you come to Forks, Bella?’
‘Huh?’ I turned. Dad was still staring at the road ahead. Of course. He was a cop after all.
‘Well, why did you?’ He was still a little mumbly. ‘Not that I didn’t want you to come, of course. No, that’s not it at all...’ his voice trailed away a bit. His jacket suddenly felt heavy on my shoulders in that moment of silence before I spoke.
‘I came because, well, I don’t really–’
‘Don’t really?’
Dad was now looking in my eyes. They were dark brown, the same dark brown as mine. I’d never noticed that. Of course I hadn’t. I’d only seen him twice, and really only got Christmas and bBirthday cards to remind of his existance now and again. His eyes were slightly sad, unlike Mom’s who were always perky and sparkling, but warm inside. There was something very disconcerting seeing your own eyes on a different person. I suddenly felt tongue-tied.
‘Well, um, I didn’t want to cramp Mom’s style; I wanted to let her have her own life, for once. And I hadn’t seen you in a while, so...’
Mom would of given me a sympathetic look and told be to let out my life’s problems to her, ‘aww’-ing at every pause. Then probably would have hugged me, telling me that everything was much better now, wasn’t it? (It wasn’t). Dad didn’t do any of that. He just nodded slowly, and turned back to the road. His jacket felt even heavier on my shoulders. I wondered if he secretly stored bricks in it or something.
Aged four, I went to California with Dad on vacation. He was different from Mom – he’d let me buy ice cream at any time of the day I wanted. So I did everyday. Strawberry and mint flavour with multi-coloured sprinkles and a chocolate brownie. I was sick as soon as I got home. Aged nine, I went to Forks with him. We went hiking – it was cold – and fishing – it was wet – once, to spend the time. It had rained the rest of the two weeks. All I could recall from those hazy days was a tall, dark stranger who liked to lift me up onto his shoulders, and tickle me till I squealed in fits of laughter. Even though I was nine years old, and way too old for anything that embarrassing. Eight years had been quite a while. He was still taller than me – no surprise, I am practically a midget. His dark crop of hair was now greying and receding slightly, the wrinkles on his face more pronounced.
‘We’re here Bella.’
The sign ‘welcome to Forks’ stood at the side of the road, in all of its coloured glory. As coloured as something can be when it’s drenched.
Okay, that's it for now. The chapters will be probably reasonably short (for me). Thanks.
MultiQuote
Posted 04 August 2009 - 06:04 PM
