over from the night before, so there was nothing to do there. I had already chosen the silverware we would use that night—the sterling silver set from Charlie's grandmother—and which plates we would use. Charlie had had these green and blue fish-shaped plastic plates since before I was even born. They were the only thing in the house that he and my mother both liked. I sighed. I spent a focused half hour on homework, but then I was through with that, too. Why couldn't school be harder? I asked myself. I checked my e-mail, reading the backlog of letters from my mother, getting snippier as they progressed to the present. She always got so annoyed when I ignored her for long periods of time. I sighed and typed a quick response, because I didn't really have a lot of time to write a really long one like the one she probably wanted. Everyone wanted a piece of me, but nobody knew that there was only one person I wanted to give them all to...

Mom.
Sorry. I've been out. I went to the beach with some friends. And I had to write a paper and research vampires.

My excuses were fairly pathetic, so I gave up on that and drafted an email that told the truth.

It's sunny outside today—I know, I'm shocked, too;—so I'm going to go outside and soak up as much vitamin D as I can. I'll write more when I have less friends and homework. I love you.
Bella.

I decided to kill an hour with non-school-related reading, like I often did. I had a small collection of books that came with me from my enormous collection of books I'd had in Phoenix. The shabbiest volume was a compilation of the works of Jane Austen. It's funny, I enjoy reading the classics far more than I enjoy teen magazines, tabloids, or MTV. I guess I'm just different. I selected the Austen and headed to the backyard, grabbing a ragged old quilt from the linen cupboard at the top of the stairs on my way down.
Outside in Charlie's small, square yard, I folded the quilt in half and laid it out of the reach of the trees' shadows on the thick lawn that would always be slightly wet, no matter how long the sun shone. I accepted that as an inevitability. I took off my shoes, then my socks, left to right, then my pants, carefully shimmying them down my leg, then my red thong, followed by my cardigan, t-shirt, and tank-top. I was not wearing a bra that day because I only have one and it was in the laundry. Anyway, I lay on my stomach, crossing my ankles in despair, flipping through the different novels in the book, trying to decide which would

148

Chapter 7

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