Chapter 21

Bella managed to maintain a euphoric high for most of the afternoon.

The book store was swamped with customers, leaving her little time to ponder the events of the morning. Yet they colored her every action, making her beam at her customers with a warmth and enthusiasm she’d never managed before. She couldn’t match their grumpiness as they forked over exorbitant amounts of money for text books and other class-related supplies. She was too giddy at the memory of Edward’s hungry kisses, longing stares and heartfelt words to feel anything but happy.

She knew, deep down, that this happiness was built on a foundation of sand, just like the castles created by the children in the park. But she wasn’t ready to come down from her tower just yet. After all, her prince had scaled some impressive heights so far to reach her. Now all they had to do was face the monsters waiting for them the minute they attempted a descent from their fairytale world.

“Bella? Ohmygod! I totally forgot you were working at the book store.”

Jarred from her fantasy, Bella jumped at the sound of a familiar, slightly grating voice from her past. She looked up at the familiar brown curls, blue eyes and enormous jugs of her high school “frenemy,” Jessica Stanley.

“Hey, Jess, how are you doing?”

“I’m great! How are you? You look great,” Jessica replied with typical overbearing zeal as she hefted a giant armful of books onto the counter.

“So do you. I’m really good, thanks. Did you just get here?”

“No, I’ve been in Seattle for over a week now, for sorority rush. We found some really cool girls to pledge this year. You really should have gone through rush week, Bella. I made so many great friends last year by joining Grab-A-Thigh-Later.” Bella blinked, wondering what she’d just heard, because it couldn’t have been that. She realized she really ought to brush up on the Greek alphabet.

“That’s great. I just don’t know if the Greek system is really my thing, you know?” She busied herself scanning Jessica’s books, which, from the looks of the titles, revealed that she was either majoring in business administration or interior design, maybe both.

“You’d be surprised. There are sororities and fraternities for every type of personality, even yours.”

Bella blanched and raised an eyebrow at Jessica’s back-handed insult, but her high school friend seemed oblivious to the slight.

“So where are you living this year, then? Still in the dorms?” she continued.

“I’m in McMahon this year,” Bella told her. “But I have a single, so at least I can get some studying done without having to go to the library all the time.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I’m living in the Grab-A-Thigh house this year with my sisters. It’s gonna be so-o-o much fun, I can’t even wait! Our house isn’t that far from the north dorms, so maybe we’ll see each other more often. Our dorms were clear across campus from each other last year,” Jessica lamented, as if that had actually been a hardship for her. About a month into freshman year, she’d dropped Bella like a hot potato after pledging her sorority. Not that Bella had minded that much, since her friendship with Jessica had been strained ever since she’d been Mike Newton’s choice for prom date senior year. Jess had kept her unrequited crush on Mike to herself, so how was Bella supposed to know that accepting his invitation would be such a blow?

She seemed to be reading Bella’s thoughts right now about their high school classmate. “Did you know Mike transferred here this year?” she asked as she pulled her wallet out of her purse.

“Yeah, I saw him a couple of nights ago. He looked good. He seems to be really into the whole forestry thing,” Bella commented as she swiped Jessica’s student ID through the magnetic sensor on the register.

Jessica’s eyes narrowed the minute Bella mentioned that Mike looked good. “He does look good, doesn’t he? I think it’s all that fresh Arctic air, you know? Turns the boys into men.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Bella said with a shrug. “I think he just looks happy, like he knows what he wants to do with his life.”

“Well, that too, obviously,” Jess agreed, giving Bella a look like she was a simpleton. “Did you know he and his roommates are having a party tonight? He texted me this afternoon. Did he invite you, too?” She looked a little like she hoped the answer would be “no.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t had a chance to check my phone since this morning.”

“Oh, well, you should totally come anyway. I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, that’d be fun,” Bella said, rather unconvincingly.

“Great! So maybe I’ll see you later, then?” Jessica’s tone was equally insincere.

“Definitely. I’ll stop by.” She already knew it was the last thing she wanted to do after her eight-hour shift.

“Cool,” Jessica gushed as she picked up her book bags. Just as she was about to leave, she stopped and turned back. “You know, I’m really glad to see you’re doing okay after that whole debacle with Jacob Black at La Push. I told you at the beginning of the summer not to waste your time hanging out with a high school guy. I mean, how immature did he end up being? You had to be SO embarrassed at that party. I was, like, second-hand dying inside for you. But I’m sure you’re totally over it now, right? Upward and onward!”

“Right.” Bella could feel her smile twist bitterly, and she clamped her lips together to keep from telling her old friend what she thought of her advice and her fake condolences. Instead, she kept her tight-lipped smile intact and waved good-bye as Jessica took her book bags and thankfully left the building.

Her euphoric cloud slightly deflated, Bella switched to book-bagging for awhile and tried not to wonder what Edward was doing. It was nearing dinner time, and she imagined that he was now impeccably decked out in a suit and tie, hair moussed into disheveled perfection, escorting some unknown 28-year-old to her tenth class reunion. By the time the head cashier dismissed Bella for a half-hour dinner break, she was as cranky as the customers. She hoped some food would help.



As she stood in the bookstore café queue to order a sandwich, she dug her phone out of her backpack and checked for missed calls. She chuckled at the discovery of a text message from Mike, asking her to his dorm-warming party that night. But her heart leapt with elation at the sight of another text from a brand-new but already well-known phone number.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she pressed the button to read Edward’s message:

Bella, sorry to bother you, but there’s something missing from my day planner. Please give me a call when you get a chance. ~Edward

It wasn’t exactly the “I miss you already, I have to see you again” plea that she was hoping for, but under the circumstances, she’d take it. She wondered what on earth he could be talking about - something missing from his appointment book? The only thing she’d found was a pen, tucked inside the front cover. Other than that, it contained nothing but spiral-bound pages, and she certainly hadn’t removed any of them, despite the brief urge she’d had to tear them to shreds and use them as kindling for a garbage can bonfire.

She was suddenly impatient for the line of people ahead of her to move so she could get her dinner, find a place to sit and call Edward back. The seven minutes it took to accomplish the feat felt like hours while she tapped her toe, crossed her arms, sighed and ruffled her hair repeatedly until it was her turn to order.

Cashew chicken croissant and soda in hand, she zoomed toward an empty corner table and pulled out her phone before she’d even bothered to unwrap her sandwich. Edward answered after two rings. His tone was warm and familiar, putting her at ease.

“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for calling me back.”

She heard him excuse himself from his date, telling her this was “an important call;” then the background noise of people milling around faded. She’d obviously interrupted some kind of class reunion cocktail hour.

“Of course I called you back,” she told him. “But I don’t understand your message. There was nothing in your day planner but a pen. What is it that’s gone missing?”

He was silent for a beat, and her stomach tensed in apprehension. “You’re sure you didn’t see anything else? Could you check your backpack for me?”

“Sure,” she agreed, reaching over and unzipping the nylon bag so she could rummage through its contents. “It would help if you could tell me exactly what I’m looking for.”

“It’s. . . kind of a bookmark.” He sounded sheepish, though she couldn’t comprehend why.

“A bookmark. Hmm, I’m not finding anything. What does it look like?”

“It’s got a four-leaf clover on it.” He was so quiet, she could barely hear him.

She shuffled through her wallet, a couple of paperback books, make-up, hair-bands, breath mints and sticky notes, but came up empty. “I’m sorry, I don’t see anything like that.”

He was silent again, and she could definitely feel the tension coming through the phone. She imagined the pensive look on his face as he let out a long breath.

“What about the purse you were carrying last weekend? Did you look in there?”

“No, but I haven’t really cleaned it out since then. I’ll dump it out as soon as I get back to the dorm tonight. Maybe your bookmark fell out and is buried there. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. My purse is like a black hole - that’s why I never use the thing,” she told him, adding an encouraging laugh at the end.

“Okay. I’d appreciate that, thanks. Just let me know if you find it, okay?”

“Sure, of course.” She was a little surprised that Edward was superstitious enough to get so worked up over the loss of a good-luck charm, but if that was his worst flaw, then she was lucky.

Of course, that wasn’t his worst flaw. There was also the ugly fact that he frequently boned other women for money. She cringed at the thought.

“So how’s the reunion going?” she asked, trying to keep the bitterness from her tone.

“Oh, it’s going swimmingly,” he replied in a slightly sardonic tone. His voice took on a nasal quality as he continued, “My name is Brock Lundquist and I’m a venture capitalist. Here, let me give you my card - oh, damn, I must have left them in my other jacket. I don’t give financial tips outside the office, but give me your name and number and we can talk stocks sometime.”

Bella couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously? You made up an alias for tonight?”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t come up with that shit. My client did. It’s not the first time. Reunions are the worst. I was an up-and-coming racecar driver at the last one, if you can imagine that.”

“Wow. That’s. . .” She couldn’t come up with the appropriate response. “That sucks.”

Edward laughed. “Yes. Yes, it does. On the upside, however, it’s only 6:30 p.m. and my date is already drinking heavily and combing the place for her high school boyfriend. With any luck, she’ll either hook up with him or pass out entirely before eleven so I can make my escape.”

“Really?” Bella tried not to sound too desperately hopeful. “You think that could happen?”

They both knew what she was really asking. “Oh yeah, definitely,” Edward assured her. “It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, either. Not that I encourage over-imbibing. But I don’t police anyone, either. She’s a big girl - she can make her own decisions.”

“You’d do well to remember that,” Bella reminded him, thinking of their conversation that morning.

“I’m trying,” he said, and his tone told her he got her meaning.

“So am I,” she answered sadly. She hated the thoughts flooding her head right now. What did Edward’s date look like? Was she at all attractive? Did she want to sleep with him? Maybe she wasn’t interested in sex, since she’d apprently hired him primarily to make her old boyfriend jealous. But once she spent some time with him, how could she NOT want to sleep with him? Edward was too sexy for his own good, and no one knew this better than Bella.

The irony was cold comfort. She could only pray that he was right, and the woman would be too sloshed for sex later on. But she had her doubts about that.

“I should go,” he said, sounding regretful.

“Yeah. Me, too.” Her regret was equal to his. “I’ll call you later if I find your bookmark.”

“Thanks. Call me either way, okay? I’d welcome the distraction.”

She smiled a little at that. “I will.”

She glanced at her watch as she hung up the phone - two more hours until she was officially done for the day and could go back to the dorm. She was dying to dig through her purse to see if she had the item Edward was looking for. She hoped to God she did, for it would be another guarantee that she would see him again soon.

The minutes dragged, but eventually one-hundred and twenty of them has passed, and her manager told her to clock out for the night. She raced back to the tiny space she called “home” as fast as her rusty old truck would allow, then made a beeline for her closet to retrieve the bottomless pit she called a purse. She dumped its contents onto on her bed and began combing through the debris for buried treasure.

It didn’t take long to spot what she was looking for. It stood out like a sore thumb from the pile of old receipts and gum wrappers. Edward’s four-leaf clover was not some simple dried specimen glued to a piece of cardboard. Instead, it was carefully affixed to the lower right corner of a heavy, oblong piece of watercolor paper with artfully frayed edges. The now-faded clover was meant to be the foreground object in a beautiful miniature painting of a sunny meadow landscape. Fascinated, Bella examined the exquisite rendering of the scene: broad washes of watercolor created the background, while meticulous details were added later in much smaller brushwork. A field of green, dotted with clover and other wildflowers, led to an ornate bridge over a placid stream, which was painted to mirror the gold and azure sky above.

And on that celestial background was written a poem, in small, elegant calligraphy:

I know a place where the sun is like gold,

And the cherry blooms burst with snow,

And down underneath is the loveliest nook,

Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,

And one is for love, you know,

And God put another in for luck—

If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith,

You must love and be strong – and so—

If you work, if you wait, you will find the place

Where the four-leaf clovers grow. *

Bella stared at the art piece in her hand with a mixture of surprise and heartache. What a strange thing for a grown man to be carrying around with him. There was no denying how beautiful the artwork was, and though the poem was a bit old-fashioned and syrupy, the message itself was lovely. Obviously this “bookmark,” as he’d referred to it, had some significance to him, or he wouldn’t have sounded so anxious to have it back. She peered at the paper for clues, and finally found her answer. Down in one corner, nearly buried in a sea of watercolor clover, was a tiny signature:

~E. Masen

And suddenly, it all made sense. His grandmother must have painted this - perhaps she’d even written the poem. As family heirlooms went, this was a keeper. No wonder he’d been so upset to think it was lost.

Bella reached for her backpack and dug out her cell phone. She deliberated: call, or text? He did say he’d welcome the interruption, but she was afraid of what she might interrupt. The phone read 8:30 p.m. Surely they wouldn’t be doing much but chatting or dancing, or playing some lame “remember when?” game.

The phone rang several times before going to voicemail. Disappointed, Bella left a short message. “You’re in luck - literally. I found your four-leaf clover. Why didn’t you tell me it was a painting by your grandmother? It’s really beautiful. Anyway, I have it, so just let me know if you want to meet somewhere again so I can give it back to you.”

She hung up, feeling oddly rejected, even though it was probably just too noisy for Edward to hear his phone. Her heart sank as she realized that this was how it would be almost every night if she were to get involved with him. Wondering what he was doing, and with whom. Trying to swallow the inevitable backwash of bile when she thought back to what her night with him entailed, knowing that sort of intimacy might be on the menu again tonight, for some other girl.

There was nothing she could do about it now. Nothing except get the hell out of this tiny, claustrophobic room before she drove herself crazy. Suddenly, Mike’s party suddenly didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.

Bella checked his text message again for the room number, then went to the closet to find something suitable to wear to get mind-numbingly drunk at a dorm party on a Friday night.