In Which Jacob Tells Edward That Bella Is Dead
Jake shows up and is agitated by the vamprie scent. Sensing this, Bella proceeds to antagonize him in some sort of replay of her dance of death with Edward. Sure, why not see if the Werewolf can keep calm while he feels hurt, betrayed and threatened by the presence of his sworn enemy. Poke him with a sharp stick, too, moron.
Anyway, Jacob's mainly interested in establishing that the Cullen truce is still in effect in regard to Alice and Victoria, letting Bella know that she's not under Tribal protection in Forks and finding out if the rest of the Cullens are about to return. This is all reasonable and good to know stuff, which is probably why Bella continues to be a shrill harpy until Jacob apologizes. Low blow, dude. Bella finally backs down and they have a moment of rational, friendly discussion. Jacob can't be around Vampires and the feeling is clearly mutual. Bella doesn't like it.
Jacob takes a moment of tenderness to try his luck with a kiss (she's pretty much inviting it) and in the middle of a huge monologue about whether she's ready to give up Edward for the boring safety of Jacob the phone rings. I swear this was supposed to be some sort of climax. In any other book I'd have taken the bait. Bella was giving some consideration to this, she's trying somewhat to get Edward out of her life and HAD she kissed Jacob it would have added a gigantic amount of tension and drama to the book. Meyer, of course, is allergic to building dramatic tension for very long, so it all gets deflated by a phone call.
Jacob answers and tells whoever it is that Charlie is "at the funeral" and hangs up. He tells Bella that it was Carlisle Suddenly, Alice is there and very upset.
Right, so there's a huge, weird confusing reveal and it works out like this (you're welcome). Some time prior Alice told Rosalie about her vision. Why? Because that way Edward would find out and kill himself. Or because I don't know why and otherwise the plot would be stalled in Charlie's foyer. Edward calls Charlie and instead gets Jacob (the phone call above) to confirm Bella's death and Jacob tells Edward that Charlie is "at the funeral". Jacob means the recently re-introduced Harry, not the still-alive Bella. Why not say "at Harry's funeral"? You know why. Edward, of course, assumes Jacob means Bella's funeral and boom, we're all caught up, they're all caught up and we can get on to that stupid European clock-square thing.
Can't believe I didn't tie "the funeral" chapter into the Edward puzzle. I'm getting sloppy.
Bella is annoyed because she doesn't get ye olde bigge picture while Alice hyperventilates. Why? No idea. It's not like Edward didn't tell her point blank directly to her face in plain English that his Plan A was to off himself thirty seconds after she snuffed it... oh wait, that's exactly what he did. Yeah, well, we'll just call the suicidal vampire on his cell to let him know not to do that. Oh, but he's ditched it. Of course.
Bella finally remembers the "I'm going to kill myself" scene (and we get to read it again in case we also forgot) and Alice tells Bella/us that he's going to Italy to get the Volturi to kill him. Which is what he just said in flashback. Maybe they're not taking notes like I am.
Luckily, Bella has her passport all situated (insert eye roll) and after a bit of growling between Jacob and Alice, it's off to the airport.
SumUp F-
Right. Since we're robbing Shakespeare, we might as well flip the corpse over and check the back pockets. In R&J, Friar Laurence concocts the whole fake suicide plan to get the crazy kids together and sends a message to Romeo to let him know that Juliet really isn't dead and not to do anything, you know, rash. The guy who actually carries the message can't get through to Romeo in time (plague) and, not knowing the urgency, returns with the letter. I'll leave it as homework for you to figure out all the ins and outs of the analogy here.
Once again Bella is determined to annoy a monster in a situation where help isn't readily available. The frustration she must feel at defending her friend against what amounts to racism/monsterism is tangible. That aside, she has a werewolf in her foyer who's really, really annoyed and grumpy. Maybe the direct, in-your-face approach should take a back seat to something a little less suicidal. Guess she's put a lot of stock in Jacob's promise.
Worse than all that, though is the endless miscommunication and roundabout misunderstandings and dragging Rosalie into all this as a trusted confidant when it came to Bella jumping off a cliff. This is why I have huge slash scribbles and swear words in my notebook. This is why I lose focus on a chapter and shout unanswerable questions at my dogs. This is what drags every nice thing I said about the first part of the book into the swamp and kicks it in the head. This. This. This. It's gone on for chapter after chapter and it makes Bella look like a giant imbecile.
Bella is, again, flying off to the climactic chapter. Now we're going to Italy where Meyer has already told us what's going to happen. Why? I don't know. The prelude isn't some allusion to the next chapter, it's a VERBATIM COPY of a big chunk of the scene. That means we have two choices as readers: assume that Edward is going to die and watch in amazement as Meyer tries to resolve the repercussions using literary kung-fu OR assume that Bella somehow saves him.
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