We had a date with a vampire.
We were an hour and a half early for the first daytime showing of "New Moon," the second movie in the "Twilight" saga about teenage Bella Swan and her love for vampire dreamboat Edward Cullen, but the theater already was packed with women our age. The air was thick with pheromones. (Is it hot in here - or is it just me?)
OK, technically, we're a little old for "Twilight," a series of four books and now two movies geared toward teenage girls. But moms got sucked in, wanting to know what their daughters were devouring so voraciously. Next thing you know we brought it to book club and were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Team Edward" and necklaces that say "Bite me."
We remember what it was like to be 17 and madly in love for the first time. "Twilight" lets us relive it. It's the kind of story a girl can sink her teeth into. (And, as grown-ups, we can go to the movies on a school day and edge out the teenagers for the best seats.)
"I'm so excited!" coos Stacy Nelson of Tempe, an otherwise normal, 40-year-old mother of two.
She started reading the books last summer after hearing her teenage niece and sister-in-law go on about them, and saw "Twilight" at the top of the New York Times best-seller list for weeks. She got the first book, "Twilight," at the library, read it in a day and half and then went right out and bought the next two, "New Moon" and "Eclipse."
"I was addicted," Stacy says. She told her husband to take the kids out for dinner without her and read late into the night. She says, "For me, it was just a nice reality escape. Sometimes life is just so serious and so busy."
We've got jobs and kids, and we're happy with the women that we've grown to be. But "Twilight" lets us travel back to that time when all that mattered was whether our lab partner was cute and if someone (please) would ask us to the prom. Yes, we know it's corny, but it's also so much fun.
Jennifer Howell, 32, of Queen Creek, understands us. She and her friend, Esperanza Lumm, 33, of Phoenix, are obsessed with "Twilight." They met a year and a half ago at Arizona TwilightMOMS, a book club of women dedicated to the series.
"All of us remember first love and how it's all-consuming," says Jennifer, a mother of two who has been married to her high-school sweetheart for 12 years. (Her husband gave her "New Moon" pajamas for her recent birthday.)
She and Esperanza are "Twi-hards," among the most hard-core fans, following the author and cast on Twitter and going to cast appearances, conventions and book-release parties. Seems there is safety, if not sanity, in numbers.
"We talk about them like they're our best friends. That's how obsessive we are," Jennifer says. She and Esperanza saw the movie at its midnight release.
Esperanza likes the romance and that the books are written by local author Stephenie Meyer, a Cave Creek mother of three.
After reading "Twilight," Jennifer and Esperanza began reading other young-adult fiction and now write reviews and host author chats on their Web site, L8bloom eronline.blogspot.com.
In the new movie, Edward leaves Bella, thinking she'll be safer if he moves away.
Bella, near zombielike from the abandonment, spends time with her very cute friend, Jacob Black, who turns out to be a man-wolf. In the end, Bella must save Edward from doing himself in after he mistakenly thinks she's dead. (Shakespeare, what are you doing here?)
Edward (played by actor Robert Pattinson) is insanely dreamy. Don't grimace; this is not a case of robbing the cradle. Edward is 109 years old despite his youthful appearance. So, technically, he's more than twice my age.
(However, I gasped along with the rest of the audience when Black, played by 17-year-old actor Taylor Lautner, took off his shirt. I felt so dirty.)
My friend Shannon (last name withheld because she should've been at work) is into vampire Jasper Cullen (played by Jackson Rathbone), who can regulate the emotions of those around him, bringing peace when things get tense. Shannon, a Maricopa mom of three, settles into her seat and says, "I told my husband I'm going to see my movie husband. He knows not to bother me about my Jasper obsession."
Her real husband, Merle, decided last minute to join us and showed up just before the movie started.
"I at least have to be here to revive her," he says.
Shannon read the first "Twilight" book in one night. Merle bought her the next two books the next day. When the fourth book, "Breaking Dawn," was released in 2008, Shannon lined up early at Costco, even though she had preordered it on amazon.com. She couldn't wait.
At Jasper's first appearance on the screen, Shannon let out a breathy "Whoo!" Merle just chuckled.
When the theater lights go up and our heart rates go back to normal, we glance at our cellphones for a time (and reality) check. Edward will have to go on without us. Heavy sigh. The kids are calling to be picked up from school.
This article is from www.azcentral.com
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