"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd
forgotten.

As she looked up to see who I meant — though already knowing, probably,
from my tone — suddenly he looked at her, the thinner one, the boyish
one, the youngest, perhaps. He looked at my neighbor for just a fraction
of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to mine.

He looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of
embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance,
his face held nothing of interest — it was as if she had called his name,
and he'd looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to
answer.

My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.

"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one
who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his
wife." She said this under her breath.

I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now,
picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving
very quickly, his perfect lips barely opening. The other three still
looked away, and yet I felt he was speaking quietly to them.

Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had.
But maybe that was in vogue here — small town names? I finally remembered
that my neighbor was called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were
two girls named Jessica in my History class back home.

"They are… very nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous
understatement.

"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though —
Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live
together." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small
town, I thought critically. But, if I was being honest, I had to admit
that even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.

"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related…"

"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in his twenties or early
thirties. They're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins —
the blondes — and they're foster children."

"They look a little old for foster children."

"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been
with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight. She's their aunt or something
like that."