Chapter Five - We're Goine Where?!

“Shopping is better than sex. If you're not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.” ~Adrienne Gusoff


Chapter Five: We’re Going Where?!


BPOV

Classes weren’t set to start for another week. I guess they wanted to give us time to get acclimated to our surroundings before we started over-working our brains. My job at the library didn’t start for a few more days either. A few days before class was the perfect time to train me since there wouldn’t be studies to work around. I didn’t imagine it would be that difficult though, especially since I had worked in the library after school through high school. Of course I didn’t get paid for that, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the books and the knowledge. I loved the smell of academia.

That meant though, that I had a few days to myself to explore if I wanted to. I went to bed pretty early last night, mostly to escape Rosalie and her intense hatred of me. But Alice didn’t seem to be much of a picnic either. She was nice and everything, but she was a little too bouncy for my liking. Plus she had threatened to take my clothes away and was demanding that I go shopping with her. I had tried arguing that I didn’t need new clothes and she laughed at me. Right in my face laughed at me too. It was humiliating.

Then I tried to explain that I didn’t have the money to replace my wardrobe. She told me I was being nonsensical. She came from generations of wealth and was insisting that this be her treat for being her new friend. I still wasn’t sure what qualified us as being friends, but I was afraid to argue that point with her. She might have been tiny, but she seemed pretty fierce to me.

Over the course of the evening I had learned more of their backgrounds, mostly from Alice since Rosalie was still sitting in her chair, thumbing through a fashion magazine. Every once in awhile she would sigh rather dramatically, look over at Alice, and roll her eyes. Apparently they had known each other for quite some time. They were both from very wealthy families, Alice from Mississippi and Rosalie from New York, but they had attended Finishing School together in Switzerland. Needless to say, I was fairly intimidated. Alice must have seen the shock on my face because her smile softened and she assured me that they were no different from me. Rosalie scoffed at that, which was right about the time I had excused myself for the evening.

But this morning, I seemed to be free to do whatever I wanted. Alice was already gone when I had woken, as was Rosalie. I assumed they were together, so I just laid back down and tried to will myself back to sleep. After about ten minutes, I realized that wasn’t going to happen, so I made my way out to the front room. I went to the small fridge we had in the room and pulled out a can of Mt. Dew. It should tide me over until I could get to a coffee shop. I glanced around the room and saw a piece of paper taped to the flat screen on the wall. It was a note from Alice. She wrote in her elegant, loopy scrawl:

Bella

Good morning sleepyhead. Nice to see you’ve joined
the land of the living finally. Rosalie and I have been
up since dawn and ran down to the coffee shop for
provisions. Get dressed in the outfit lying on my bed
and be ready to shop by 10 sharp.
Please don’t dawdle.

Alice

Suddenly I was terrified. She was actually serious. Dead serious. I didn’t want to go shopping, but at the same time, I didn’t want to face the wrath of Alice. Before I started weighing my options, I glanced at the clock. It read 9:40. Crap. That meant I only had twenty minutes to decide what was best and get ready if I decided to go. Finally, I concluded that getting dressed and contemplating at the same time was the safest option.

At 10, right on the dot, Alice and Rosalie came back into the room, both looking fresh and beautiful. I quickly glanced down and myself and was shocked that I hadn’t really paid any attention to the clothes before. I was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans that hugged my figure nicely. I knew they were mine because I recognized them, but I had never worn them before because they made me feel self-conscious. They had been a gift from a friend back home who was trying to get me to come out of my shell. I wondered vaguely what Angela was up to and made a mental note to email her later.

The top on the other hand was nothing that I recognized. It must have belonged to either Rosalie or Alice, but I was betting on Alice. It was a dark shade of blue, but bordering on purple. It was peasant style with billowy sleeves that stopped mid forearm. It hugged my curves and had a plunging neckline, which immediately made me blush. I never wore clothes as revealing as this voluntarily. I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hide my cleavage and heard Alice giggle.

“Bella, that looks fantastic on you. Quit trying to hide yourself.” She had a gleam in her eye that immediately made me nervous.

“Umm… thanks?” I didn’t want to wear this shirt, but I had a feeling Alice wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Doesn’t she look great Rose?” Alice beamed at Rosalie, who had a look of disgust still plastered on her beautiful face. It was a shame really, and totally not fair that she could look so menacing and gorgeous at the same time.

“Yeah, whatever.” Even her voice was gorgeous when it was angry. Life was so unfair sometimes.

“Well girls, let’s get going!” Of course Alice was still chipper. I had a sinking feeling that she was always this way.

“Fine,” Rose snapped at Alice. I knew I shouldn’t let it bother me, some people were just rude no matter what, but that didn’t mean I was going to let her talk to people that way around me.

“You know Rosalie, I don’t know what the hell your problem is with me, but you don’t have to take it out on Alice. Why the hell are you even coming with us if you can’t stand me?” Alice had an amused look on her face, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I stood up to Rose, or because I stood up for her.

“Well Isabella,” she sneered at me, making sure that my name sounded foul and unappealing. “If I am going to be forced to be seen with you, I might as well make sure you look acceptable.” As if that was a good reason to be a bitch.

“Well Rosalie,” I made sure my voice had an equal amount of disgust as hers had, “no one is forcing you to be seen anywhere with me. In fact, I would much prefer if we weren’t seen together. I don’t like hanging around with bitches.”

She had that look on her face again, like the one she had last night, the one that said she’d love to throttle me. I stuck my chin out, waiting for her to take a swipe at me. She was going to learn real quick that even a small town girl like me knew how to take care of herself. Instead, she just stuck her pointy little nose in the air and sailed through the door with a giggling Alice on her heels.


“Alice! Please, no more! I’m begging you. In fact, if I need to, I will get down on my knees if you will just stop. I don’t need anymore clothes. I don’t want anymore clothes.” I had been pleading for the past hour and a half. Who knew she could shop for so long? I was starving and was afraid that she was going to continue shopping from now until forever. It was already nearing dinner time and she had barely let me take a break to get lunch.

“Don’t be ridiculous Bella. Everyone can always use more clothes. You act like having a sense of fashion is a crime.” She rolled her bright green eyes at me. “Besides, we’ve only been to three stores.”

What she failed to mention was that she had ransacked all three places. I was sure the next time she went in they would either sing her praises since she spent so much money, or run for cover in fear of the mess she would make. Alice was a shopper to the extreme. And when it came to shopping for me, she had turned into a terrorizing slave-driver.

We were currently standing in some trendy little shop that was ironically called Bella. We had gone to The Gap first, and then some other little place called JuliAna’s Boutique. All three places were a ‘treasure trove’ according to Alice, who I had been silently referring to as Simon Legree in my head. She was certainly officious enough. ‘Bella, take these in and try them on.’ ‘Bella, don’t make me come in there and change you myself.’ ‘Bella, I mean it. You will try these clothes on and you will like them.’ ‘For the last time Bella, stop complaining.’

Rosalie seemed to be having the time of her life. Apparently seeing me mortified and scared out of my wits brought out the best in her. It made me hate her all the more. What kind of sick person gets their kicks out of watching someone being terrorized? Well, other than Rosalie, who was entertained as hell. Every time Alice came at me with another pile of clothes, she would snicker behind my back. I swore I would get her back one day, I wasn’t sure how, but I was determined to do it.

Finally, when I threatened to pass out due to low blood sugar, Alice decided it was time for dinner. I was sincerely hoping that we would be returning to the dorms afterward, but with Alice there was never any kind of guarantee. I felt a little safer considering we were heading back to campus to eat. Alice had heard of this fantastic place that we just had to try out. I wasn’t expecting a pub, but I suppose I should have considering we were on a college campus. Most of the places around here probably doubled as bars.

The place was fabulous and the food was fantastic. I tried not to be anxious about the fact that it was a higher class place than I was used to, but I guess the people around here didn’t do ‘small town diner’ like they did back home. Suddenly I knew how Dorothy felt when she found herself in such a strange new place. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I whispered to myself. In a way, this was like the other side of the rainbow compared to Forks.

“What was that Bella?” Alice brought me out of my mental wanderings.

“Nothing,” I said, chuckling to myself. I doubted they would appreciate my humor as much as I did.

“Okay Dorothy. Whatever you say,” she had a twinkle in her eye when she said it and a huge grin on her face. I immediately felt a much warmer feeling towards Alice. Someone that got my reference to myself being in Oz certainly couldn’t be all that bad.

As we were heading back out to Alice’s Porsche, she looked at me and said, “Bella, do you know those guys over there? They’re staring at you.” She gestured over to the bar area and I felt my cheeks flame.

“Oh no. Please God not again.” I turned back around and ran out to the Porsche and dove in the back seat, ducking down so that no one could see me. Or so I hoped.

I heard Rosalie huff when she got in the car. People like her enjoyed attention. Especially attention from three very attractive men. But me, on the other hand, not so much. I didn’t know how to handle men, or even talk to men that looked like Adonis himself. I had made that abundantly clear last night in the stairwell.

“What was that all about?” she quipped.

My cheeks burned even brighter. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

She seemed to let it go and just shook her head at me. Alice however was having none of that. “I don’t think it’s just nothing, dear Bella. Pray tell, what has you so embarrassed?” She laughed at me again. I could really choke her right now.

“Please, Alice, I don’t want to talk about it.” She only laughed harder.

“Oh no you don’t. I insist.”

“Fine!” I threw my hands in the air in defeat. “I kind of ran into the bronze-haired one in the stairwell last night. Well, literally.”

“You bumped into him?” Why did she have to press for details? Did she have to know everything?

“Not exactly.” My voice was low, so low I hoped neither of them could actually hear me, but doing so only piqued their interest more.

“This sounds good, please continue.” Of course she was amused. It seemed I was a constant source of amusement to her since I barged in the room in full fury yesterday.

“Alice! This is so embarrassing. Do I have to tell you?” Even Rosalie couldn’t hide her interest at this point.

“You’re totally in love with him aren’t you?” She was squealing in delight. Choking her was sounding like a better and better idea all the time.

“No! It wasn’t like that. I just kind of, sort of knocked him down.” I was back to whispering, but naturally they both heard me and burst into hysterical laughter. They were still laughing at me when we got all the bags back to the room; they’re laughter gaining in intensity as they made me go through the entire ordeal again.

“Please tell me you didn’t really stutter. A gorgeous guy falls right on top of you and you actually stuttered.” Alice had tears streaming down her face by this point. Even Rosalie couldn’t hold back her laughter.

“What was I supposed to do? I said I was sorry!” Fresh peals of laughter rang throughout the room.

“You apologized!” This came from a very amused and astonished Rose. “What the hell is wrong with you? You obviously need much more work than I initially thought.” Whatever in the hell that means.

“Oh God Rose. She’s so innocent. I mean, really. Just look at her!” Alice was having trouble speaking through all of her laughter. “She has no clue what you’re even talking about. We do really have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

“We do indeed.”

“Okay, so not funny anymore. And what the hell are you talking about?” I was starting to get pissed. Alice’s face softened and she took me by the arm, leading me to my bed. She sat down next to me and took both of my hands in hers.

“Honey, never apologize. Make him apologize first. First rule in getting a man.” So there were rules now?

“Who said I even want a man Alice?”

“Why wouldn’t you want a man that looks like that?” Rosalie seemed shocked. It never even dawned on me that she was actually talking to me.

“Rosalie!” Alice scolded. “Bella, even if your priority isn’t finding a man, that doesn’t mean that you should be completely oblivious to the ones around you.” She had me there. But I certainly wasn’t about to admit it. “You look upset. We’ll stop, we promise,” she shot a look at Rose that said drop it! “Let’s just unpack your new clothes and get you settled in, alright?”

All I could do was nod. Words were failing me at the moment. Instead I began to help clear out the clothes that Alice had deemed ‘unworthy’ and put away all of my new clothes. Rosalie had gone off to the other room to do her nails while Alice stayed behind to help me. She was down on her belly, pulling shoes out from under my bed that were going to be donated to Goodwill when she started laughing again.

“Bella, what in the world is this?” She pulled something out from under my bed and I immediately smiled.

“It’s a hockey stick Alice. What the hell does it look like?”

“Well I know that, Bella. But what the hell is it doing under your bed?” Rosalie must have overheard part of our conversation because she came sauntering back into the room.

“What is that?” Alice still had that amused look on her face. But it seemed to always be on her face, I guess I would just have to get used to it. She answered for me.

“I’ve already determined it’s a hockey stick, Rose. I’m just waiting to hear why Bella has it under her bed.”

“It’s Jake’s.” They both had confused looks on their faces. I must not have told them about Jake. “He’s my best friend back in Forks. He didn’t want me to go thousands of miles away without a reminder of him, so he gave me his favorite hockey stick after he made me promise to take good care of it. I didn’t know where else to put it yet, so I stuck it under the bed.”

“Oh. Well I guess that makes sense. Since it’s a personal reminder, we’ll have to find somewhere to put it.” Rosalie didn’t seem to like the sound of that, but she didn’t argue.

“Thanks Alice. Jake would appreciate that.” I took the stick from her and leaned it in the corner by the door. I’d have to think of somewhere good to display it. Jake was really going to get a kick out of this when I emailed him.

When all was said and done, we decided to call it a night. I laid in bed and thought back over my day. I guess I was really lucky the way things had turned out. Alice seemed really great, even if she was a little obsessive over clothing and fashion. Given a little time, I could see us becoming really good friends. I guess she had been right about that.

Rosalie and I, on the other hand, couldn’t be called anything close to friends. At least we hadn’t killed each other over the course of the day. In fact, we seemed to have come to terms that we were stuck with each other for the course of the school year. Maybe, with enough time we could even learn to like each other. I still wasn’t betting on us being friends though. But who knew, crazier things had been known to happen. I fell asleep, content with my lot in life.