"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car foryou" as opposed to just "good car."
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indianreservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blockingpainful, unnecessary things from my memory.
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "sohe can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that thiswas the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine - it's only a few yearsold, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. "When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties - or late fifties atthe earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Ch - Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic..."
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like thatanymore."
The thing, I thought to myself... it had possibilities - as a nickname, atthe very least.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on."Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.
Wow. Free. "You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car."
"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at theroad when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straightahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to addthat my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer along with me. And I never looked a free truck in the mouth - or engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled,embarrassed by my thanks.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for Conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green:the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
It was too green - an alien planet.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small,two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days oftheir marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had - the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new - well, new to me - truck. It was a faded red color,with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it.Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged -the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.
"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be justthat much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly,embarrassed again.
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the westbedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window -these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. Thedesk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.
One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven - now fifty-eight - students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together - their grandparents had been toddlers together.
I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this tomy advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan,sporty, blond - a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps - all thethings that go with living in the valley of the sun.
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself - and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty - it was very clear, almost translucent-looking- but it all depended on color. I had no color here.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?