WE ARE VISITORS

Chapter 6: Questions

It was unusually cold and grey for October. Bella, Angela, Ben, and Mike piled out of Bella's truck and unloaded surfboards from the back. Two other cars pulled up next to them, releasing the rest of the beach crew into the nearly empty parking lot.

"Y'all are gonna freeze your backsides off," Lauren said with a disdainful glance at the wet suit Bella was squeezing into.

"That's what the wet suits for," Chris said with a good-natured grin. He bumped Lauren with his shoulder and then unloaded an armful of firewood. "And, that's why we drove all the way to T.O. instead of kickin' it in Malibu. Bonfire!"

"I've got the marshmallows!" Jessica said and held up a plastic bag. Her pronouncement caused Ben, Mike, Tyler, Eric and Chris to descend into Sandlot quotes and manly giggles.

"Dude! These waves are huge!" Chris said with a whistle as they neared the ocean. "It's gonna be gnarly for the newbs."

He gave a sympathetic glance to Bella and Ben before ushering them to the water for their lesson. The rest of the group huddled around the bonfire and underneath blankets. When Jacob and Nessie arrived, he passed his guitar around and Angela joined him with hers as the rest took turns cooking s'mores.

"Dude, my knees are turning purple, it's so cold!" Bella said between chattering teeth as she pulled her surfboard to her again. True to his prediction, the waves pummeled her as if she were attempting to corral a sea serpent instead of riding a wave with a surfboard. More times than not, she found herself turning somersaults beneath the waves and bashing her limbs against the hard surface of her yellow surfboard. A red trickle of blood painted her legs as she came up sputtering and coughing up the thick saltwater yet again.

"You stood once! That was sweet!" Chris called over his shoulder. He was the pro. On a normal day, he could do a handstand on a surfboard. He made surfing look like a dance and not like a sport with the ease and grace with which he did it. Ben and Bella…made it look like some form of masochistic punishment.

"You going again?" Chris called as Bella righted herself, untangled her leash, and wiped the blood of her leg with a grimace.

"Of course!" she said. She fought her way into the waves again until she could lay on board and paddle. In between the waves, she watched the reflection of the gray, cool sky against the fathomless green depths, and there was no longer a delineation between herself and the sea. She bobbed up and down, straddling her surfboard as if it were a saddled horse, and drank in the waves, feeling them in viscerally within.

Another set of wave upset the moment of peace, throwing her into the water and pounding her against the surfboard again. She feared when her legs were no longer purple from cold they would instead be purple from the myriad of bruises she could feel developing. As she sputtered to the surface again, she turned to look back to where Chris perfectly caught another wave and rode it to the shore, gracefully alighting in the shallows.

"I need a marshmallow," Bella said over her shoulder and she slowly made her way to the glittering bonfire.

Three beach towels, a sweatshirt, and a cup of hot chocolate later, Bella's teeth finally stopped chattering. She glanced between the parking lot and her phone again and caught Jessica staring at her.

"Who are you waiting for?" Jessica asked.

"No one," Bella said with a shrug. "I invited a friend from school to come, but he said he wouldn't be able to make it. But I wanted to make sure. You never know. Things change."

Bella tried to hide her slight grimace when she found herself enveloped beneath Mike's arm. It was warm, so she couldn't despise it that much, but it still made her uncomfortable.

"Which friend?" Jessica pushed.

"My partner in biology," Bella said. "Edward Cullen."

Tyler gave a dubious snort before catching himself. "Good luck with that," he said.

"What do you mean?" Bella asked, irritation in her voice.

Tyler shrugged but refused to answer, even after Bella prodded him a few more times.

"Don't worry about it," he said and threw a pile of sand at her feet.

"Fine," she said, without really meaning it.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Bella sat on a swing set, lazily pushing herself back and forth with one foot, and staring at the beauty of the San Gabriel Mountains around her. Her mother perched nearby, her hazel eyes bold and fierce, her long brown hair chaotic and unruly in the warm breeze. But that was always Renee. She was like her sister's mustang-brown and wild and pushing at the gates of the pasture longing to get out, fighting bridles and reigns, simultaneously longing to be tamed and remain wild.

This trip was her idea. A weekend in the camper for "family bonding time". Her idea of a vacation involved days as full as a Thanksgiving turkey, jam-packed from sunrise to sunset with horseback rides, kayaking, shopping, museums, antique shops, and tours. Her body and her soul constantly twitched with relentless, insatiable energy and the need to go, to move, to run, to exert herself.

She could never understand Bella and her thirst for stillness. Bella longed for solitude, for reflection, for quiet as if it were a physical craving. She drank in hikes through the mountains, the sound of the gurgling stream, the colors of the sunset. She fed her soul with words inscribed in ink and paper from wizened saints who knew how to force their souls into the brittle frailty of language. She basked in the connections between people-playing cards with her little brother in the back of the camper, lessons in driving the manual car with Charlie during the miles of the open road, and storytelling with Renee on the swing set of the camp ground-those rare moments when the entire Swan family was trapped in one place at one time and forced to interact with each other. But Bella and Renee always seemed as different as night and day.

"How do I know he's the right one?" Bella asked, brown eyes fixed on her Converse. "We are friends and I like him but is that how love works? Is commitment enough?"

Renee looked at her and, in her usual bluntness that crashed through pretenses like a battering ram, she spoke. "Bella, you aren't married to him yet. If you don't like him enough, don't waste your time. You can't force yourself to love the guy."

She continued staring at her feet where her Converse drew little patterns in the dust. She bit her bottom lip and thought through how to appropriately word what she do desperately wanted to know. "How did you know with dad? How have you made it so long now with him?" She asked.

Renee gave a long sigh and leaned deeper onto the picnic table where she sat and watched her daughter. "When I was your age, my mother gave me two requirements to find in a husband: someone older than me who had a good job and a house. Your dad fit all those. Later on, I began to realize there's a bit more to it. It's also important to find someone who fills your needs and can relate with you on a heart level. You need to share passions and dreams and have things in common."

"I guess."

"Bella, you are still young. You have time. There's no hurry. Oh! Did I tell you I ran into Jacob at the mall last week?"

Bella's eyes shot up from her feet to meet her mother's again. Her mother's pleased expression made her heart jump into her throat and she groaned. "You did not tell me that. What happened?"

"I found him hanging out with that new girl of his and, you better believe, I gave him a piece of my mind! I let him know you have a new boyfriend now and he better regret letting you go when he did – the idiot!"

"You didn't!" Bella said, her cheeks burning with mortification and barely suppressed horror. She groaned and hung her head into her hands. "I will never be able to look him in the face again."

Renee clicked her tongue and stood to loosely wrap her arms around Bella. "You aren't the one who should be embarrassed. He's lucky he got away with both balls still intact. If your aunt had her way…"

"Do not allow Auntie Marge anywhere near Jacob. I'm pretty sure I'd never survive the embarrassment," Bella said. She gave a small jump off the swing and rubbed at her face to try to encourage her blush to dissipate more quickly.

"No promises, Bells. No one messes with our girl and gets away with it. Come on, let's go back. I want to get a bike ride in before it gets late."

They walked back to the campsite and found the men already performing magic with logs and newspaper and kindling in the fire pit, both grinning as if they were sending rockets to the moon as opposed to simply starting a campfire.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

"Full house," Bella said and placed her cards onto the rough picnic table. Liam groaned.

"No fair. You cheated."

"I didn't cheat. It's called winning."

"No, it's called cheating and it's what you do."

"Did not."

"Did too."

Bella stuck her tongue out at her brother and pulled the deck of cards together to shuffle them again. She pulled another cookie from the paper plate between them.

"You've had enough of those, don't you think?" Liam said, taking the cookie from her. "The rest of us did a long bike ride. You didn't. You're fat enough." He pinched her arm and then motioned to his athletic, tanned fifteen year old frame. Overnight, the remnants of his baby fat had melted away into hard, lean muscles and he now towered over his older sister, much to his smug enjoyment.

Bella stole the cookie back and ate it promptly before her brother could take it back. Liam stole the rest of the plate away. While his attention stayed fixed on his sister, Charlie removed a handful of cookies from the plate and plopped them all in his mouth with an oversized crunch. Liam's eyes grew wide as he turned and saw the missing cookies.

Bella laughed. "Serves you right."

"Deal me in this round," Charlie said, spraying cookie crumbs over the table as he spoke. He gave his children a goofy, chocolatey grin and picked up the cards Bella dealt him.

"My turn to start," Liam said. In the flickering light of the campfire, his brown eyes held an almost golden glow and he pondered his cards carefully before choosing one to place on the table with a flourish.

Nearby the fire, Renee sat on a folding stool with her guitar. Every camping trip, her self-appointed task remained the same. She filled the campsite with old folk songs and belted out her renditions of "Greensleeves" and "Time in a Bottle" for all to hear. Renee's guitar was as quintessential a part of camping as s'mores and hunting for frogs and family bike rides.

"I win!" Liam shouted, jumping to his feet in excitement and upending the rest of the cookies onto the ground.

Bella rolled her eyes and placed her cards back into the deck. She closed her eyes and inhaled the thick scent of pine and smoke and earth around her.

"I saw a shooting star!" Charlie shouted in excitement and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. "Over there! I'm going to set up the telescope."

Renee found this exciting enough to pull her away from her music. She put her guitar away and came to where Charlie wrestled with the tall, white contraption. He adjusted the view till it pleased him and he gave a wide grin.

"Check it out!" he said. "I think I've found the International Space Station!"

Bella groaned. "Not again."

"Oooo! I want to see!" Renee said. She peered through and shouted in excitement when she saw the tiny moving speck of light.

"Kids! Come see!" Charlie said. Liam and Bella both rolled their eyes to each other but obeyed. They feigned the appropriate amount of enthusiasm required to appease their parents before Charlie began to fiddle again.

"I've got the moon now!" he said. "But the brightest star in the sky is here," he said as he pulled Renee to him to kiss her. Renee groaned in disgust and pushed him away.

"Charlie, your face. I told you. If you don't shave your face, I'm not shaving my legs. It's like kissing a porcupine."

Charlie gave a wide, goofy grin in response, which clearly communicated how Renee's threats failed to change his mind, and he pulled her to himself again. Bella and Liam ignored their parents and meandered back to their deck of cards.

"Double Solitaire?" Bella asked.

"You're on!" Liam said.

ooooooooooooooooo

Bella lay on the top bunk of the camper in her sleeping bag. Her headphones blared the soundtrack from "My Fair Lady" and adequately drowned out Charlie's snores. She couldn't sleep. From the long window, she could make out the journey of the stars between the silhouettes of the pine trees. Liam had long since left her alone in her thoughts and only disturbed her with the occasional movement in his sleeping bag beside her.

After a month of "dating" Mike, she didn't feel any more convinced than after their first picnic. Besides providing the bragging rights necessary for her mother to humiliate her to her ex, not much else had blossomed. She couldn't help but feel like the absence of Jacob had left her with a huge, gaping hole in her heart that hadn't been there before and, despite her attempts to fill it, she couldn't simply replace him with someone else.

Sweet, silly, kind Mike. When she thought of him, he reminded her of a fire that, when touched, doesn't burn. It puts forth no element of heat. It is visible, but not dangerous or life-changing. It simply is and it shines and is attractive and real, but it lacks strength. But sometimes she got butterflies in her stomach when he looked at her, his light green eyes so full of adoration-so similar to the expression their Yellow Lab gave her when she snuck him her leftover steak. She kept hoping that, just maybe, if given enough time, he could grow to fill the space Jacob left so glaringly barren.

Still, if she stopped avoiding the uncomfortable voice of honesty in her head, she doubted it.

oooooooooooooo

With the door of their study room in the library shut, they could continue their discussion on their report without gaining the ire of the other students who came to study (or to sleep) in the quiet of the cavernous, dark building. Edward's red pen scratched notes and edits into the margins of the latest copy of their report. He tapped the pen against his face, lost deep in thought.

"If I am understanding you, your family believes it is enjoyable to spend the night in the middle of the forest, separated from all the accouterments of civilization?" he asked, jarring Bella with his reversion to their earlier obligatory small talk.

She shrugged. "Yeah. It's nice to get into nature and get away from it all. I mean, we are in a camper-that's like a house on wheels-so we have a stove and fridge and bathroom and all, but, yeah. It's fun."

"If you carry your house with you, it is more understandable," Edward said. "Still, it is strange."

"Not for us-not that my family ever has been described as 'normal'-but most families I know go camping. Don't you ever do that back at home?"

"Willingly and for enjoyment? No. By necessity? Yes," he said. He did not elaborate further and Bella didn't push him. This evening, he sat as if he carried a weight on his shoulders and she let him remain in his silence, staring at the same line on his paper repeatedly, lost in his thoughts. He tapped his pen on the table in a light rhythm.

"May I ask you a question?" he said, turning the full intensity of his dark eyes onto her again and dropping his pen onto the table.

"Of course," she said. "I'm guessing it's about something other than river otters?"

He gave her a half-smile and wrestled internally. "Do I smell unpleasant?" he finally asked, stumbling awkwardly over the question as he asked it.

"Do you smell unpleasant?" Bella repeated, incredulous at the question. The look on Edward's face told her if it was possible for his complexion to show a blush, he would be glowing in embarrassment. She gave him a half-smile and leaned across the table to get close enough to inhale. As she did, she burst into giggles.

Edward's expression grew even more distraught and he hunched inward, as if a turtle pulling into his protective shell. Bella quickly pulled herself together and placed a hand on his shoulder in a way she hoped would be comforting.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. You just took me by surprise. You don't smell bad…you just don't smell like what I was expecting….I mean, ok, I'll just say it. You smell like baby powder. Here you are, a full grown man, and you smell like a baby. That took me by surprise. It's not a bad thing though. Why do you ask?"

Edward hardly looked comforted by her words, not that she could blame him. He licked his lips and wrung his hands together, then dropped his eyes from hers to stare at his hands.

"When I was coming here today, a woman walked past me and she stared at me as if I were doing something wrong. Then she held her nose as if I had not showered in a week and she crossed the street so she would not have to be near me. Even from across the street, she glared at me and still held her nose. I could not figure out what I had done to so offend her. I would not have asked you such a personal question otherwise. It has been bothering me ever since," Edward said, finally meeting her gaze again with such a timid, unsure expression that Bella couldn't help but give him a reassuring smile and squeeze his lean shoulder with her hand.

"That's weird," she said. "Maybe she was having a lousy day or had just stepped in dog poop or something."

"Perhaps," Edward said. He tilted his head to one side and looked at her through his slanted eyes. "My Vaseline," he said, now breaking into a brilliant grin, and he pointed to his arm. "Perhaps I should switch to unscented so I am not mistaken for a baby."

Bella laughed.

The pair continued to work through their report in companionable silence for another half hour, broken only by Edward's occasional mumbles to himself and Bella's phone beeping for occasional text messages.

"Dude, what's this?" Bella asked and pointed at some notes written in red ink on the margin of one page.

Edward took the page and read silently, mouthing the words as he read. Then he grinned again. "Do not mind that. I was simply…taking notes."

"Taking notes…on our conversation? 'Lousy day'…'dog poop'…'baby powder' is clearly written here," Bella said. "Do you normally take notes in the middle of regular conversations?"

"Of course. I was paying attention," he said, his smile growing even wider with a hint of mischief in it.

Bella snorted a laugh through her nose and shook her head. Edward handed her back her copy of the report and gathered his into his folder.

"I hear babies need at least ten to twelve hours of sleep at night if they are to grow properly," he said as he stood and stretched, towering over a foot over Bella as she also stood. "Till class on Wednesday."

"See ya then!" she said and they parted ways in the dimly lit parking lot.