Keeping Up With The Cullens 7

“Why is she coming over?”Isabella asked Tanya. Tanya sighed hearing the question repeated once again. It was her and her sisters’ hope that Isabella would want to befriend Rosalie and Tanya thought they had made progress. Apparently even though Isabella gave Rosalie a car and made her custom tools it didn’t mean Isabella wanted to see Rosalie again. When Rosalie had first signed up for Irina’s class no-one thought she would amount to much. It was Rosalie’s hard work and passion that peeked Irina’s interest and the sisters started to pay closer attention to her. Seeing how little respect Rosalie got in the field and knowing that if she got any offers from companies the jobs would most likely revolve around her giving the company publicity the three of them felt bad for the young woman. There was no way Rosalie would ever achieve anything working for someone else and there was no way she could afford to strike out on her own. Knowing this Irina brought the idea to Tanya and Kate that Rosalie should work with Isabella. The pair agreed with Irina and had been working on convincing Isabella by talking to her about Rosalie’s situation for years. It had been slow progress so far. Rosalie only had one semester left so the sisters were being more proactive in pushing Isabella to let Rosalie work with her.

“She is coming over because we think it’s a good idea for you to befriend her.”Tanya told her.

“I don’t need friends.”Isabella said as she finished soldering a wire onto a motherboard.

“In this instance I think it’s Rosalie that needs the friend.”Tanya took Isabella looking up from her project as a positive sign she wouldn’t dismiss the idea right away.

“Why would someone like Rosalie need me to befriend her?”Isabella asked.

“As you know Rosalie has had her life controlled by other people since she was 8 years old. You said it yourself she should have been a prodigy but her mother forced her to model instead. Due to her modeling and the last decade and a half as a reality tv star no one takes her seriously. Her school is not a good one for someone to get a respectable job when they graduate. For Rosalie it’s even worse because no one thinks she is smart at all. That being the case Irina thinks that Rosalie’s only chance to do something with her education is for her to work with you.”Tanya explained.

Isabella furrowed her eyebrows.”Is it really that hard for Rosalie?”

“It’s extremely hard for Rosalie. I bet your entire wealth that Rosalie will never be able to get a job where she can actually work on projects. She will likely be used to promote things. If she tried to go off on her own she would have to continue to do the reality show so she could afford even basic supplies. Rosalie has no future in the industry without your help.”Tanya thought Isabella asking questions was good.

“I don’t know. I like to work alone.”Isabella reminded her.

“Yes you do work alone but would it be so bad to help Rosalie? You don’t have to work side by side with her. You can just give her things to work on and maybe help her with her own projects. She just needs a chance. You being the only chance she has.”Tanya really wanted Isabella to work with Rosalie.

“I’ll think about it.”Isabella told her.

“That’s all I ask. That and you need to be nice to her at dinner. Try not to blurt things out like you did at lunch.”Tanya was working with Isabella on her social skills. It was an another slow process.

“I don’t mean to blurt things out.”Isabella said.

“I know sweetheart and you did great with the group. All three of us are incredibly proud of you for how long you let the group stay.”Tanya had been very proud of Isabella for how long she put up with Irina’s students.”Now Rosalie has already been invited to dinner so I need you to change into something different.”

“What do I need to wear?”Isabella asked.

“I left something on your bed.”Tanya usually wouldn’t insist but Isabella was in work clothes that were covered in who knows what kind of substances.

Isabella finished what she was doing then twisted three of her fingers causing the various tools attached to each to detach. She stored the tools in a compartment on her forearm then replaced the tools with incredibly realistic fingers that moved when she flexed them. Once the compartment was closed it didn’t look like it was there at all. Her arm and fingers looking completely real and natural. She stood from her stool.”I’ll go get ready now.”

“Thank you.”Tanya gave a reluctant Isabella a hug. It didn’t bother her that Isabella wasn’t enthusiastic about the sisters showing her affection. They would still give it to her whether she liked it or not.

“Come get me when it’s time for dinner.”Isabella said before leaving the room.

“That went better than I thought it would.”Tanya mumbled. She left the lab to catch up with Irina and Kate. Walking through the halls Tanya went over some things for Kate to text Rosalie so she was prepared for Isabella’s behavior. Finding the pair in the entertainment room Tanya saw they were watching Rosalie’s show.”Is this the new episode?”

“It’s just ending.”Irina told her.

“They pumped it out quickly.”Kate was unsurprised that the network aired the special two days after the event.

“They had to so they could get publicity off of the scandals Rosalie exposed plus her telling them about the battery and speaker.”Irina would have had done if she was the network.

“How bad does it make the family look?”Tanya wanted to know how the network framed it.

“Really bad. Alice tried to convince everyone that Isabella made up the pictures because she was obsessed with Rosalie. A couple of them agreed with Isabella being out to get Alice.”Kate didn’t think anyone else would believe that.

“The network was smart how they edited that part. By the end of the show it proved that Alice was lying.”Irina wasn’t worried about Isabella getting bad press from it.

“It also made Esme look like a horrible person. I doubt the network will want to film anymore seasons with the family no matter what their contracts say.”Kate wouldn’t touch the family with a ten foot pole after everything came to light.

“That would be good for Rosalie.”Tanya said.

“I think that they will film with at least Esme because Rosalie called her out for getting a percentage from her patents. Esme denied it so Rosalie got her to agree to meet with her lawyer so they could void the contract. Rosalie invited the cameras to witness it. No way the network is going to miss out on that.”Irina thought it was a smart move on Rosalie’s part.

“It’s just proves what we already know. Rosalie is a lot smarter than people give her credit for.”Kate like her sisters thought Rosalie deserved better and wanted to help her succeed. That meant coaching Rosalie on how to get Isabella to like her.

“Speaking of Esme she sent Isabella a cease and desist letter trying to forbid Isabella from using Rosalie’s idea for the pitch. She apparently believes that Rosalie should be compensated for her saying that the limb was the Swiss Army Knife of artificial limbs.”Tanya was unsurprised that Kate and Irina laughed.”That was my response to reading it as well.”

“She doesn’t have any legal rights to do that on Rosalie’s behalf.”Irina didn’t know what Esme thought she would accomplish doing that.

“She is only thinking about the imaginary contract that Rosalie would sign if we went along with paying her for her idea. It’s all about money with that woman.”Kate said.

“It makes me feel even worse for Rosalie. The entire world even people not in the tech industry know how extraordinary of an opportunity for anyone to work with Isabella would be and her family has tried to sabotage her every chance she has had to make a good impression on Isabella from the moment Rosalie told them about the trip. I’m just happy that Rosalie asked you to look for cameras or we would have had a hell of a time justifying why the other three got in trouble and Rosalie didn’t.”Tanya would never have held Rosalie responsible if they found electronic equipment on her during the trip. The sisters knew that her family was likely going to do something to get her in trouble.

“I would have told her as soon as I finished checking the students if she hadn’t come up to me.”Irina would have prevented Rosalie from getting on the van if she was wired.”I want Isabella to give her some scanning equipment so she can check everything in the future. Especially her vehicles. The one she drives tonight will likely be overloaded with stuff.”

“I want her to have one of the contacts but Isabella wouldn’t allow it.”Tanya wanted Rosalie to have a discrete way to check for bugs and the contacts Isabella made that the sisters wore would allow that.

“Speaking of the contacts Carlisle has contacted us again. I got an email from him telling us about all the best reasons for Isabella to use him as the face of her fake eyeball line. He also tried to claim that he had assisted Rosalie with a lot of her projects so he would have no problem understanding the technology behind it.”Kate was the one who took care of Isabella’s outside correspondence. If it wasn’t for Rosalie she would have blocked Carlisle after the first email but the sisters wanted to keep an eye on what he was doing.

Irina rolled her eyes.”He doesn’t even know what the thing does or if Isabella would release it to the public and he thinks that he is qualified to promote it. That’s not even getting into the fact that he knows about the lawsuits and the fact he is losing his license. No one would be stupid enough to attach him to any of their products.”

“I hate having to do it but I think we should tell Rosalie about both of them.”Tanya didn’t want to upset Rosalie but she deserved to know that her family was trying to use her to gain for themselves.

“It would be wrong not to tell her.”Kate said.

“What else happened on the show?”Tanya wanted to know what else kind of drama the Cullens were involved with.

“Rosalie called out Esme for the contract and for stealing money from her. Esme said that she would be more than happy to have the family accountant prove that Isabella was lying about it but Rosalie told her that she was using Lana and that she worked for the White House. Esme tried a couple times to get Rosalie to change her mind but I think the network would veto that from happening because of the off chance that Lana would want to be on camera.”Irina knew if Lana did it would get huge ratings for the show.

“You know she just might. Her kids love that show.”Kate wouldn’t be surprised if Lana agreed to go on if her two daughters were allowed on as well.

“It might be good for her public imagine if she did it. I mean she has been trying for a cabinet position. If she got popular with the public then it would give the next president a reason to give her a job. Right now all she does is work for the finance department.”Tanya thought it would be a good move on Lana’s part to be on camera when she was helping Rosalie.

Irina was thinking the same thing as Tanya.”If she was seen helping Rosalie who is America’s sweetheart it would be very good for her. Especially because she is helping Rosalie uncover her own mother stealing from her.”

“I haven’t been online yet but I am positive that the public is pissed off about that. I personally hope that Rosalie will sue Esme for the money she stole. Even if she doesn’t get all of it back it will ruin Esme.”Kate wouldn’t let anyone get away with stealing from herself, her sisters or Isabella.

“To prevent people from stealing is the reason we deal with all of Isabella’s financial and legal affairs.”Tanya went to school for law and dealt with all of Isabella’s legal issues. Irina had gone to school for tech and dealt with all of Isabella’s patents. Plus most of Isabella’s pitches for her various products. Kate was actually an accountant who dealt with Isabella’s finances. That and her correspondences. Kate usually did all of her work while spending time with Isabella to force Isabella to have to interact with someone throughout the day. Tanya and Irina filled in to spend time with Isabella as well but their jobs took them away from the compound often.

“Something I have never regretted.”Irina couldn’t afford to go to a fancy school to get her degree so she was never going to amount to much in her field. Teaching others and helping Isabella was extremely fulfilling for her.

“I don’t regret it either. Isabella saved me from having to work in an office dealing with clients.”Kate liked her career path because she loved numbers and math. That said she wasn’t made to dress up and work in an office with clients that she didn’t hand pick. With Isabella she got to do what she loved on her own terms.

“All of us know I love my job. I get to represent the most powerful person on earth. Also Isabella is a joy to be around and I am extremely proud that Isabella Sr. and Ronda chose me to adopt her.”Tanya had cried when the women had asked her.

“I saw on social media that Rosalie posted a picture of her and Brad at Ronda’s museum today.”Kate said.

“That will likely bring in more visitors to the place.”Irina hoped that more people would visit the museum due to the plug given by Rosalie.

“I bet Brad was excited to have the chance to give the museum some publicity.”Tanya and the sisters were familiar with everyone who worked at the museum. That was because Isabella took a lot of pride in the place and wanted to make sure everyone involved was taken care of.

“I like that Rosalie took me seriously and is trying to learn about Ronda. I just hope she puts in the effort to learn about Isabella Sr.”Kate wanted Rosalie to have things to talk to Isabella about.

“Did you talk to Rosalie about what to expect tonight?”Tanya asked.

“I just sent her the one text message.”Kate told her.

“Let me have your phone I want to write a few things to prepare her for.”Tanya took Kate’s phone from her and started typing out a message to Rosalie.

“Did Isabella agree to eat dinner with her?”Irina asked.

“I had to explain Rosalie’s situation to her and how she was Rosalie’s only chance to succeed in the future to get her to agree. She said she would think about helping Rosalie but she did listen to what I said and asked questions so it seemed she was at least considering it.”Tanya really wanted Isabella to give Rosalie a chance.

“I think Rosalie is the perfect friend for Isabella to have. The girl won’t try to take advantage of her and truly just wants a chance to prove herself.”Irina trusted Rosalie to respect Isabella.

“I feel guilty we haven’t pushed harder for her to have friends. We promised her grandmother and Ronda that we wouldn’t let her hide away from the world and we have done just that.”Kate felt they should have forced Isabella to be more involved with other people.

“We tried that and you remember what happened both times.”Tanya said.

Irina winced thinking about it.”I don’t think any of us could have predicted her to freak out and become violent.”

“I’m just happy she had the prosthetics someone else designed because if she had an arm and two legs made by herself she would have been able to do a lot more damage than she did.”Kate had gotten a black eye and a lot of bruising while trying to calm Isabella down when she became overwhelmed on both of their trips into public. The first time was to go grocery shopping and Isabella had gotten noticed by someone who was in the tech industry. The guy wouldn’t leave Isabella alone even when Kate and her sisters told him to get lost. Finally Isabella had had enough and attacked the guy. Kate got in-between them so she took the brunt of Isabella’s anger. By the time Isabella calmed down she had destroyed an entire aisle of food. The sisters then thought maybe trying to take Isabella to the park was a better idea. That was until Isabella had been approached on the playground by a kid who told her she looked gross because of all of her scars and her messed up eyeball. He said other things as well and Isabella went after him. The boy was able to outrun her but Irina had to tackle Isabella to get her to stop chasing him.

“Small miracles.”Tanya had been in agreement that it wasn’t a good idea to take Isabella out in public after those things happened. They had upped Isabella’s therapy seasons after that but eventually the therapist told them that Isabella wasn’t going to make anymore progress. That the best thing to do was to keep her calm and try not to stress her out. They tried three other therapists who said basically the same thing. So they bought a bunch of land and gave Isabella the freedom to build whatever she wanted for a home and the four of them had lived on the compound ever since.

“I just wish we could help her more.”Irina felt like she had failed Isabella by not being able to help her cope with society.

“I think Rosalie is going to be the one who is going to help her just as much as Isabella helps Rosalie.”Kate was sure that Rosalie would be good for Isabella.

“I think so too.”Tanya agreed.

“I told Rosalie to bring some Milk Duds with her tonight.”Kate smiled at the glare Tanya sent her way.

“She isn’t supposed to have candy.”Tanya reminded her.

“No she isn’t supposed to only eat candy. The girl deserves to have a treat every now and then.”Kate didn’t approve of the diet Tanya kept Isabella on.

“We have been over this. If I didn’t monitor what she ate then she would either starve or live off candy. We tried to let her be in charge of her own meals and it was an epic fail.”Tanya had to step in after three days when all she saw Isabella eat was bags of candy and drink soda. That was when Isabella was 18 and Tanya wanted to give her some independence.

“It may have been a fail for you but Isabella loved it.”Irina knew it was going to fail and had snuck Isabella most of her candy supply. Kate got in trouble for it but Irina wanted Isabella to enjoy her life for a few days.

“She did smile once when I asked if she liked being in charge of her own food.”Kate had been alright with Isabella going crazy with her snacks every once in a while.

“Well regardless she proved she couldn’t be trusted so now she has a strict diet.”Tanya wasn’t going to change it either. She handed Kate back her phone.”I think we should have dinner in the kitchen. What about you guys?”

“I think Rosalie would likely pass out due to excitement if we had dinner in the kitchen.”Irina was positive Rosalie would have an extreme reaction to having dinner in the kitchen.

“Let’s do it but not warn Rosalie about anything.”Kate wanted to see Rosalie’s reaction.

“I think that would be mean.”Tanya said.

“If we are having dinner in the kitchen we aren’t telling her.”Irina like Kate wanted to see Rosalie’s reaction.

“I will agree only if you help me keep Rosalie from overwhelming Isabella with questions.”Tanya knew Rosalie would likely have thousands of questions if she saw the set up in the kitchen.

“I was already planning on running interference.”Kate was going to do everything she could to make the dinner a success.

“Me too.”Irina told her.

“I asked Isabella to try not to blurt things out like she did at lunch.”Tanya didn’t have much faith it would happen.

“It’s not really her fault. The information flashes in front of her every time she looks at someone. Due to that half the time she doesn’t realize what’s she is saying.”Irina didn’t blame Isabella for that habit. She herself would likely do it if she to had an eyeball like Isabella’s.

“I like that she does it because it catches the person she is talking to off guard when she reveals she knows all their secrets.”Kate enjoyed the random bombs Isabella dropped in conversations.

“The problem is she shouldn’t be letting people know she has certain information.”Tanya also didn’t really blame Isabella for the habit she just wanted Isabella to try and refrain from saying certain things.

“If you really think about it her blurting things out has mostly helped people and the times it didn’t it exposed people doing bad things.”Irina said.

“Look at Lana. Isabella figured out who her birth parents were and where each of them lived after Lana had been searching for over a decade before Lana even had a chance to introduce herself to Isabella.”Kate thought Isabella did a lot of good with the information she found.

“I think that based on Alice claiming Isabella made the pictures to discredit her we should have Isabella release the rest of the evidence she has to the public.”Irina wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Alice was the liar not Isabella.

“That’s a good idea since Alice is attacking Isabella’s character.”Tanya wouldn’t put up with someone attacking Isabella in any way.”I will tell Isabella to do it as soon as I see her.”

“Do you think we should have her put out the evidence she has on Carlisle as well? Rosalie mentioned that Isabella said he was harassing her and wanted him to stop. Which he didn’t do. Also I want to get ahead of this before Carlisle starts going on the offensive.”Kate wanted Carlisle to lose everything because of what he did to all his victims.

“We can’t release any living person’s medical records but we can release the ones he killed or have died since.”Tanya didn’t have a problem exposing Carlisle.

“If we do this it would make it extremely hard for him to get a lawyer to work for him whereas if we didn’t they could in theory cover it all up.”Irina didn’t want that.

“Then it’s settled we expose Carlisle and Alice.”Kate liked that plan.

“And we will make sure Emmet’s scandal is made public as soon as it happens so that can’t be swept under the rug either. Something Rosalie will appreciate because of her many complaints of Emmet getting away with doing horrible things. Actually Rosalie complains about all her family members except for Jasper.”Irina hadn’t heard Rosalie say a good word about any of them but her twin in the four years she had known the young woman.

“We complain about them and they aren’t even our own family.”Tanya didn’t have anything good to say about the Cullens or Alice. The sisters all thought Jasper was an idiot for wanting to marry the girl when it was obvious she was just with him for the fame and money.

“Well with our help Rosalie now has a way to break free from them and their tv show.”Kate said.

“Also with our help she is going to work with Isabella and fulfill her dream of being an inventor.”Irina was happy about that.

Tanya checked her watch.”I am going to check to make sure Isabella actually went to get dressed and didn’t stop in another room on the way to her bedroom.”

“What was she working on?”Kate hadn’t seen Isabella that much because Tanya had been on Isabella duty that day as she needed to talk to Isabella about some business stuff.

“She is trying to get the toes on the artificial foot to work. I think she figured out a way to do it so the cost will be a lot cheaper than she originally expected.”Tanya had never even thought of how it would make a person without a foot feel having the ability to move their toes.

“That girl constantly surprises me.”Irina was never not amazed by the ideas Isabella came up with. Especially with her artificial limbs.

“She wants people to have the technology she has when it comes to body parts but the cost would be too much. Except for the eye. She doesn’t want anyone having that technology which I agree with her. It would be used for bad things if the public got their hands on it.”Tanya didn’t have to know the future to know people would abuse the eye. Humans were just despicable like that.

“I’m just thankful that she made the contacts for us. They aren’t as cool as the eye but they still do cool shit.”Kate said.

“Alright. I’m going to search out Isabella. Let me know if you need me.”Tanya gave a wave over her shoulder to their replies of good bye. She had plans to watch Rosalie’s show later. Tanya wanted to know exactly what was said about Isabella to see if they would have the option to sue anyone. She thought that Rosalie would get a kick out of it if they did. That didn’t matter right then. What mattered was getting Isabella ready and helping her make it through an entire dinner. Tanya was hoping the dinner would go well enough that Isabella would spend time with Rosalie afterwards. If that didn’t happen then Tanya wanted Isabella to be willing to spend more time with Rosalie in the future. Most of that would depend on how Rosalie acted during dinner. Tanya had faith Rosalie would do well because she was a good person who was honest even when that honesty did her no favors. Plus she was just as into technology as Isabella was even admitting that Isabella inspired her to get into the field. That meant that Rosalie understood how important this dinner was. Tanya sent a tiny prayer to any god listening for the night to go well.