Q: What is Renee and Phil’s last name?
A: Heh heh! I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to work this information in for a long time. Did you ever wonder why Bella doesn’t go by her mother’s last name, since Renee pretty much had sole custody of her since the first year of her life? Well, Renee went by Swan, too, until she married Phil. Her maiden name was Higgenbotham. (Poor girl.) Phil’s last name is Dwyer.
Q: Could you provide us with any more information about Bella’s human friends? They all have a tendency to blend together for me – especially Mike and Eric. I get the feeling that Tyler is more of a "geek" than the others, but I’ve been wrong before.
A: Nope, Eric Yorkie is the geek in this crowd. (You’ll be happy to know poor Eric finds love with a sophomore in book two—it’s such an incidental thing that I don’t feel bad mentioning it). Mike Newton and Tyler Crowley are pretty much the school catches. Mike is a little better looking, but Tyler is the better athlete. Tyler is the more arrogant of the two, and the less intelligent. Tyler is about 6’1", with brown hair, brown eyes and a bit more of a tan than the rest of the Forkians. Mike is 5’11" with pale blond hair and washed out blue eyes. Eric is a gawky 6’3" with black hair that always looks greasy, brown eyes, and a poor complexion.
Jessica Stanley is pretty well described. She has no siblings. Her mom works at the local bank and is the town gossip. Angela Weber is 6’0" tall and has light brown hair and eyes. Her father is a Lutheran minister and she has two loud younger brothers. Angela’s brother’s are 9 year old twins named Joshua and Isaac. They are the apples of her eyes. She lives close enough to the school to walk. Lauren Mallory is 5’6" tall with white blond hair and green eyes.
Let’s see, then there’s Jacob and Billy Black. Jacob is 6’2" tall (by the prom) with long black hair and dark brown eyes. His mother, Sarah, died many years ago and he has twin older sisters, Rachel and Rebecca.
The nurse’s name is Mrs. Julia Hammond. Ms. Cope’s first name is Shelly.
Q: Where did the Cullens get all their money? Investments? Property?
A: Long term investments, heh heh. Carlisle originally got some financial help from his Italian friends (remember the painting? They’ve got an astronomical amount of funds) and then was earning a doctor’s salary all those years without really having normal expenses to worry about. Edward inherited a lot of property from his parents (he did pretend to "survive" to claim that later, along with his "uncle," because he wanted his mother’s things. He still owns the house in Chicago). All this was invested shrewdly (both Carlisle and Edward are good with finances). And then Alice came along. Ha ha. She loves the stock market.
Q: How do the Cullens forge all the necessary paperwork – i.e. birth certs, past school records, etc.?
A: They buy them off skilled forgers. At the present time, Jasper has a contact in Seattle.
Q: Do they ever revisit an area they once lived in after enough time has past? Note – this was a silly question once I saw the answer. She pointed out when Jacob told Bella about the cold ones living in the area a long time ago. Duh. But Stephenie did make a few interesting additions.
A: So the answer is yes. In the late 1930s, Carlisle, Esme, Edward, Rosalie and Emmett lived a few hours south of Forks in Hoquiam. Before Edward joined him, Carlisle had already been through the area.
Q: They are described as being very physically alluring all the time. How much of that is a change from how they looked when they were human? There seems to be a bit of a contradiction from what you said about them looking exactly as they looked as humans and how they look as vampires and we are just wanting to clear it up.
A: Hopefully I phrased it right the first time. After the transformation, there is no more change–hair doesn’t grow, etc. They are frozen at that state. But there is a marked physical difference before and after. Everything intensifies–senses, abilities, and looks. The change into a vampire makes an average person stunning and a beautiful person absolutely beyond breath-taking. The reason Rosalie is such a beautiful vampire is because she was the most beautiful girl in Rochester, New York when she was human. Maybe the most beautiful girl in the whole state. The reason James is relatively average, for a vampire, is because he was quite unattractive as a human. This is rare, because even vampires are drawn by beauty. They tend to, when looking for companionship, choose exceptional humans. All of the Cullens were attractive humans to start with.
Q: And what’s with the breath? Can they get humans to do what they want by breathing on them? It seems that everyone Edward talks to – breathes on – gets dizzy. Well, the females at least. Is the breath soothing? Do they use it to lure prey?
A: Vampires just smell really, really good. Breath, skin, etc. It’s the fragrance of the venom that exists in various forms throughout their bodies. It’s a lure, like the beauty. It’s a smell that’s so good you want to smell it again, to get closer.
Q: How about stakes through the heart? Reflections? Photographs? Holy water? Garlic? All that traditional vampire lore.
A: Bunch of garbage. I think all of them get addressed in New Moon except garlic and stakes. But you try shoving wood through granite.
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