Mom said the only reason we moved here was because this was what she could afford with her book sales. She wrote under the name Sophia Grimes and kept the air of mystery about her through no public appearances and mysterious letters to newspapers and other authors. She's collaborated with a few known authors and even had one of her books (Fast Times At Vampire High) optioned for a movie.
"It's easy writing for teenagers," she told me once. "All girls think the same. They want supernatural high school sweetheart stories. Thanks to Twilight, you can just rewrite it with different supernatural creatures that're male and attractive, and make tons of money...."
She always said more, but by this time I'd already walked away, feeling bad about having liked those stories.
I hated Twilight.
I also hate to admit it, but I was a former Twi-Hard too. At fifteen, I was a bookworm, but I was also still gullible. I believed that if it was published, it was because it was really good. I'd fallen for it like millions of other girls around the world. I was Team Edward and I let everyone know it (because he technically won). I reveled in the fact that my name was Bella, and girls were jealous... of me. I had brown eyes and hair. I was sort of pale, and definitely plain-looking. It was a great time to be like me... until two things happened.
First-the movie came out. The first time I watched it, I was all over it. I thought it was the best thing to ever happen. Then I started reading reviews and started to notice everything they pointed out, like Kristin's stuttering, Robert's permanent frown. I watched it more times and realized that it sucked. It ruined the story. Bella was not that inept at socializing. She was smart and funny and could even cook.
Second-the last book happened. By then I was smarter about what I read, but I still held some kind of loyalty to the series. I managed to get my Twi-Hard friends to open their eyes. When we read the last book, we saw that Stephenie Meyer had broken her own rule.
Let me just stop here and hope that you already know how babies are made.
Stephenie... oh, poor Stephenie. Maybe she cracked under the pressure of making her last book the best. It's hard to blame her... but I blame her.
She made her vampires like stone, forever the same, never changing. The female vamps can't have kids-Steph made it that way. So, by default, that should apply to the boys, right?
NO! Stephenie allowed the males to have kids, THEY can have children while poor female vamps like Rosalie have to make do with a mutant niece, and the werewolf gets his happy ending by default. It's a total double-standard, practically sexist, a slap in the face to feminism that allowed Fifty Shades of Gray to happen-
*deep breath*
I apologize. I probably lost half-if not all-of you. But you have to understand why I'd asked my mom to legally change my name to something else before we moved to Cheshire. The town was old and quaint, and everyone grew up together. I was not only the new girl, but I also had the most recognizable name in recent history. Once kids knew my name, I was going to hear the following forever:
"Hey, Bella-where's your vampire boyfriend?"
"Did you choose yet?"
"You're not cutting yourself to get attention, are you?"
"You can only have one, Bella."
"Vampires or werewolves?"
And these had come from people I knew. The cutting one was from a counselor, but that was after my parents divorced. It fits, though, doesn't it?
Anyway, when people think Twilight, chances are they're thinking about the movie. More people saw the movie than those who read the books. I don't have statistics on that, but it can't be that difficult to believe. The movies screwed up a story that was already barely plausible as a book.
And I never met another Bella to commiserate with. I hoped there was another one in Cheshire.
*
I'd wanted school to be my first outing, but Mom made this dumb case about needing food and stuff, so I had to go out with her.
The speed of gossip travels faster in small areas where neighbors talk for longer periods of time because they already know each other. As far as we could tell, we were the only new people in town. The high school probably had only a thousand kids or so, but that didn't matter. Come Monday morning, people were already going to know things about me-some of which might not even be true. (Mom sent me into a convenience store, and when the guy asked what brought me to Cheshire, I just said, "Witness protection program," and left.)
We started at the local food market (it just has the town name on it, like everything else). Cheshire had managed to slip under Wal-Mart's radar, so almost everything was local, which brought on something I absolutely hate: when employees try to chat with you.
I understand they're trying to be nice and helpful and all, but, come on-let me get my toilet paper and leave. Maybe it was the divorce... maybe it was Twilight... but I just couldn't be a people-person like my mom.
"New in town?" the lady at the checkout asked. She smiled at us both.
"Moved here yesterday," Mom said, unloading our cart. "I'm Tania Ford. This is my daughter, Bella." I hadn't stopped Mom in time.
"How old are you?" the lady asked.
"Seventeen," I answered, managing not to squirm.
"Oh, like in Twilight?" the lady-Peggy-asked. I wished I had a name like Peggy. No one writes about a Peggy. You can't compare a teen girl to Peggy Hill from King of the Hill. I was sure I could pull off Peggy. Peggy Ford-it totally works. "My daughters love those books," Peggy went on. "They still read them sometimes. All those vampire books...."
Mom laughed with her. "Weren't we the same at their age?"
"Yes, but we had classics like Gone with the Wind and Pride and Prejudice... Little Women." Peggy finished scanning our stuff. "I remember watching Gone with the Wind in class, and I just fell in love with Clark Gable."
"Have you seen It Happened One Night?" I cut in, hoping to keep the convo as far from Twilight as possible.
Peggy looked surprised that I knew about a movie from the 30s. "I did. It's a really good movie-made me love Clark even more. My husband gets jealous whenever I watch it. Where's your husband?" she asked Mom. I had a distinct feeling she'd been waiting for an opportunity to ask, and I'd sort of supplied her one.
"Divorced," Mom said casually, handing Peggy the cash. "Some men you just can't trust. That's probably why girls fall in love with fictional characters. Come on, Bella."
I quickly gathered our stuff, running after Mom.
"Can you believe her?" Mom seethed. "I wish we could've lived in the city." We'd lived in a small town before this one. I'd grown up there, but after the divorce, Mom just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge (that wasn't the town name, but I wanted to use that phrase).
"We still can. I can forget about college. It'll be great!"
Mom rolled her eyes at me. "Put this in the trunk. We still need a few things."
*
Cheshire was small, and everything was local, but we still managed to find over half the things that would be scattered around our house, including small appliances. It was unintentional, but we'd managed to hit practically every single store in town (including that convenience store next to the antique shop). And at every single store, we went through the same thing as with Peggy.
"I want to be homeschooled," I announced the second we'd set up the microwave oven-the last appliance we'd bought.
"Sorry, honey, but you've got to go to school. Besides, the internet here is bad. And we're only going to text in this house from now on. The cell reception is horrible."
This was depressing me more. "I'm going to my room and watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."
*
After dinner, I went back to my room and continued my secret love affair with Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, he's, like, more than twice my age, but it's better than being in love with an emotionally awkward vampire.
I'd fallen asleep until RDJ's screams made me jolt awake. I was at the part where that guy was electrocuting my hubby by his balls.
It was past midnight, early Sunday morning.
I turned off my little DVD player and put it on the floor as I went to go brush my teeth. Mom was already asleep, but I bet she'd stayed up a bit to work on her new story, something about ghosts this time.
I never described my house.....
It's old.
There.
The floorboards underneath the carpet under my feet creaked with every step, enough that I felt just little insulted. Every door whined when it swung open to a certain angle. And in the dark? It's twelve times scarier. I ran back to my room when I thought I heard something downstairs.
Not only that, but it was cold everywhere. I couldn't understand why Mom couldn't have moved us here in the summer instead of January. I dug around until I found a second heavy blanket and buried myself under it.
I dreamt that Clark Gable and Robert Downey Jr. were an out-of-work actor and a detective (either way) and were trying to solve my murder. It was horrifically nice.