Bella MacLeod's Twilight Fanfiction

Besotted

By Mama4Dukes

Chapter 03:

“Okay, how much more do we need for rent?” Bella asked Esme.

“Four hundred thirty-eight dollars and thirteen cents.”

“And how many days do we have?”

“Six.”

Bella sunk to the floor. “Oh, no. How are we going to come up with that kind of cash?” They were scrambling to come up with rent again. They had nothing, absolutely nothing except for their apartment-not even a TV. They each had a meager selection of clothes that they’d purchased at thrift stores and their tiny apartment was furnished with furniture that had been thrown out on the curb. Even their lamps and laundry baskets had been picked up curbside. It was a rough existence, but so far, they were surviving.

“We’ll have to go job hunting again. We can do it.”

“Esme, it’s not as easy as you think. We keep getting fired.”

“Well, I’m sorry, the last job was too… that man kept watching us.”

“He was our supervisor, Esme. It was his job to watch us.”

“But he was creepy. He had greasy hair and beady eyes.”

“He can’t help how he was born!”

“He was sweaty, too. He looked like death.”

“Esme, we’re dead.”

“Yeah, but we don’t look like death. We’re actually quite perky looking.”

“You’re right, we are perky.”

Esme sat down and whimpered. “I’m really bad at this ‘modern working woman’ thing, aren’t I?”

Bella sat down and pulled the older vampire close to comfort her. She would do anything not to see Esme unhappy. The woman, who was like a sister to her, sacrificed everything just so she could stay alive. For all intents and purposes, Bella should be dead-as in drained of all her blood and buried under the earth dead-not walking, talking, and struggling to make a living dead. Edward, in his cowardice, had sent his newly acquired mate to kill Bella immediately following the war with Victoria’s newborns. Esme had saved her and taken her away to a safe place because Carlisle’s solidarity was clearly with Edward. Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and Alice had sided with Esme and had remained to subdue Carlisle, Edward, and his newborn mate; they were supposed to find Bella and Esme, but they hadn’t heard a peep from them since that day. They feared that their friends were dead.

Bella put a reassuring smile on her face. “You don’t suck at the ‘modern working woman’ thing, you just haven’t found the right job yet. Now come on, let’s get dressed and hit the pavement. If worse comes to worst, we will just go to the ‘work today, paid today’ place and suck it up. We have six days to come up with rent so let’s do this.”

“Okay, but can we go to the library first? I want to return the books we borrowed last week.”

“Of course we can. I need a new batch of books anyway.” Bella sighed as Esme gathered up the library books. She felt guilty; she knew that their poverty was difficult on Esme. She had gone from having millions at her disposal to living paycheck to paycheck without a steady job on hand. Well, at the very least, they had each other and that counted for a great deal. Still, it was going to be a long and difficult eternity if their lives continued the way it had been for the past five years.

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An hour later, Bella and Esme walked through the majestic double doors of the library and approached the circulation desk. The silver haired librarian looked up and adjusted her reading glasses. “Are you girls back already? Weren’t you girls here a few days ago?”

“It’s been five days, Gladys. We’re here to return our books.”

“Give them to me, I’ll check them in.” She read the title to each book as she scanned them in. “‘ My Undead Earl ?’ Now, honey, how is this even possible? Once you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“Oh, but he’s not exactly dead. He’s a zombie,” Esme informed her, nodding her head.

“Sweetheart, you are deep into your own fantasy world, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t want to love a zombie. It’s just that the Earl was turned into a zombie and somewhere, deep in the recesses of his heart, he still knew that he couldn’t bite his Countess because he loved her.”

“I swear to God-you and your supernatural romances.” Bella shook her head.

“It’s better than all of those historical romances that you read. Seriously, Bella; how many times can you read about some bad boy rake from the English peerage marrying a common girl?”

“I beg to differ. I don’t just read about rakes in the English peerage, I read about Scottish lairds in kilts too.”

“Shirtless with rippling muscles?”

“Of course, there is no other way to construct a laird in a kilt. I wish they’d bring back kilts for men, it would be a really refreshing fashion comeback.”

The girls giggled and turned to Gladys who advised, “You two girls need to stop dreaming about Mr. Perfect because you’re not going to find him no matter how hard you look.”

“Are you telling us that we should settle for someone less than perfect?” Bella asked.

“Of course I’m not telling you to settle. You should never settle. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t go looking for perfection unless you yourself are perfect. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can say that I’m not perfect-can you?”

“No, I’ve got a ton of imperfections.”

“Exactly, we all do. It’s our imperfections that make us who we are. Remember that when you finally get married. Of course, you two girls are still young. You have plenty of time.”

“Thanks, Gladys.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, I have the new romance releases on hold for you. Do you want them?”

“Later, we’re job hunting again,” Esme told her.

“Again? Didn’t you just start a job yesterday?”

“It didn’t work out. The supervisor had beady eyes.”

“Well, then, you’ll just have to find a supervisor without beady eyes, I suppose. You might get lucky though; the flu has been almost epidemic this year and especially these last few days so you might at least find a few temporary jobs. Even at the library, we’re on skeleton crew. There are only two of us here, six others called out sick today.” Gladys pointed to the shelf behind her. “I have the books on hold with your names on them right there. Just come in later today.”

“We will, thanks, Gladys.”

The girls left the library and hit the pavement in search of a job, any job. Well, any job except for those in the sex industry. They drew the line there.

“Hey, Bella?”

“Yeah?”

“Does the city seem kind of different to you today?”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know, it seems kind of… quiet.” She peered at a sign across the street. “Oh my God! There’s a ‘Help Wanted’ sign up at the dry cleaners. It’s fate!”

Bella scratched her head. “Esme?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you noticed that there are a lot more ‘Help Wanted’ signs up than usual?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Esme, look around you. It’s not only the dry cleaners that has a ‘Help Wanted’ sign up; apparently, the florist, the mini-mart, and the sports bar also have openings. Just last week, there were hardly any jobs in the city. Do you think Gladys was right? Do you think it’s the flu?”

“It could be, the last great flu pandemic was in 1918-people would get sick in the morning and die by nightfall. I remember it well,” Esme reminisced. “Fortunately, I was as healthy as an ox so I didn’t even get the sniffles.”

“You mean, the one that Edward could have died from?”

“Yeah, too bad Carlisle changed him, huh?”

“You’re not kidding.” The girls giggled together as they crossed the street. They stepped into the dry cleaners, Esme called out, “Hello?” No answer. “Hello?”

“Weird. The TV is on. Maybe the owner is just out back or something?”

“Maybe. We’ll just wait here I guess.” Esme sniffed the air and crinkled her nose. “On second thought, let’s not. It kind of stinks in here.”

“Yeah, I totally agree.” The girls quickly left the dry cleaners and walked into the flower shop next door, but soon rushed back out. “Hey, Esme? Aren’t flower shops supposed to smell floral?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how come that one didn’t smell very nice and where the heck was the florist?”

“I have no idea. Let’s just go to the sports bar and see if there are any waitressing jobs.”

The girls loped off to the sports bar wondering how in heck the dry cleaner and the florist could leave their businesses unattended. Sheesh, they should at least lock their doors if they were going to leave for extended periods of time. The double doors to the sports bar were wide open; they stepped inside and looked around. There were people scattered around the bar and a few in booths. All of them seemed asleep. In fact, the bartender was hunched over on one of the beer taps with her head down.

“Ooh, I think Gladys was right about the flu. I mean, shouldn’t a sports bar be more… alive?” Esme asked. “These humans look sick.”

Bella sniffed the air and turned to her friend with a terrified expression on her face. “I think they’re dead. It smells like rotting flesh in here and… and… I don’t hear any heartbeats.”

Without saying another word, the girls left the bar. As soon as they got outside, they screamed, “Oh my God!”

“There’s something weird going on. We need either a newspaper, a TV, or a laptop… anything really so we can catch up on the news.”

“There was a TV on at the dry cleaners. What if we switched the channel to the news?”

“Good idea.”

They walked a few steps to the dry cleaners and walked inside, thankful that breathing was unnecessary for vampires because the stench was horrific. Bella quickly spotted the remote control on top of the counter and tossed it to Esme who fiddled with it. “What channel is the news?” she asked.

“I don’t know. We haven’t watched TV since we left Forks. Just start at channel 1 and keep going forward until you find the news.”

“Ooh, I think I found something. Actually, almost all of the channels are on the news, it looks like…” Esme trailed off as the girls stopped to listen to the news.

“ Again, all residents are urged to stay home. I repeat, all residents are urged to stay home in order to avoid this fast spreading pandemic flu outbreak. Frequent hand washing is…” Thud.

Esme and Bella stared at the screen in horror as the newscaster apparently collapsed from the flu. In the background, they could hear voices in the TV studio stating, “Shit, we lost another one. She was our last reporter. Where the hell are we going to find a perky, reasonably intelligent girl with public speaking skills on such short notice?”

The girls smiled at each other knowing that they’d just been hit with a stroke of good luck. “Bella, I believe we’ve found jobs. We’re perky!”

So, after borrowing the telephone at the dry cleaners to locate the TV studio. The girls took off for their offices to offer up their services, confident that they would make rent in six days.