ghost

[shesepankh]

Kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan (36) was killed in a car crash one mile from her residence in Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2005. She is survived by her daughter Isabella (16). Her service will be held at -

Bella has the entire obituary pasted into a page of one of her compilation notebooks but tends not to re-read past the first lines. It's repellent. The concept of obituaries is repellent. The funeral is over. Renée's vibrant brief life has been summed up over the course of a paragraph, and is also over.

Bella pretends to sleep on the plane. Her neighbor is talkative and she doesn't want to say shut up, my mom just died, because - what if it doesn't work? What if this news doesn't have the power to bludgeon everyone else into stunned silence the way it does Bella?

Charlie collects her. Charlie hugs her. Charlie doesn't make her talk. Good wonderful understanding quiet Charlie does not say a word. He takes her home. Her room's where she left it last August.

It's raining.

Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn. First class is English. Okay, whatever.

The teacher wants her to introduce herself. Bella wants to yank on the skinny end of his tie until he regrets making her.

She stands at the front of the room and says that her name is Bella Swan and she's moved here to live with her dad. The teacher makes an impatient go on gesture and she stands there for a moment before robotically saying the same thing she produced at the beginning of the year in her old school in Phoenix when they were doing go-around-the-room-and-share-facts. "I'm one of those people who actually likes Shakespeare."

He lets her sit down.

She sits.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"Do you have a list?" wonders Bella.

[castmyown]

"Of requirements for someone to have before I date them?"

[shesepankh]

"Yeah. Must have Nobel Prize, must wear tulips in hair, must have Don Giovanni memorized?"

[castmyown]

He snorts. "Um, no? It's not like - a list of qualities a person must have to be dated. It's the end-sum of their qualities and if I think we would work together if we date."

[morethanimaginary]

His sister stage whispers, "He's a romantic."

[shesepankh]

Bella giggles.

[castmyown]

Darren sighs. "Thank you for the commentary, dearest Savannah."

[morethanimaginary]

"I'm here to help. Well, sometimes. When I feel like it."

[shesepankh]

"Is she only teasing? Are you not in fact 'a romantic'?"

[castmyown]

He glances at Savannah and she decides to help.

[morethanimaginary]

"He is, but he's really embarrassed calling it that, so he can't manage it on his own."

[castmyown]

"So it's not just teasing, but it is still teasing," provides Darren.

[shesepankh]

"Understood. Why's it embarrassing?"

[castmyown]

"I have no idea, but it is."

[shesepankh]

"Okay."

Erase, erase, erase.

[castmyown]

Darren goes back to erasing, as well.

He makes the mistake of rubbing his face.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah notices and snorts with laughter.

"Hey, Dare, face."

[shesepankh]

Bella snorts a little when she spots the mark.

[castmyown]

Darren looks at Savannah with utmost gravity and seriousness.

Then he boops her nose.

"Now we match."

[shesepankh]

Bella snorts more.

[morethanimaginary]

Savannah laughs. "Thanks. Do we count as identical twins, now?"

[castmyown]

"Yes. That is how biology works. Obviously."

[shesepankh]

"That's not even Lamarckian inheritance, let alone Mendelian."

[morethanimaginary]

"Shhhh we are now identical twins. We'll wear the same outfits and people will mix us up all the time."

[castmyown]

"I am so glad you don't like wearing dresses."