Caught Clueless Chapter Eighteen

The south side of the city was fancy. So fancy, in fact, that even the sidewalks seemed to sparkle when the sunlight hit them just right. The atmosphere was rather inhospitable for a bland office-worker girl like me. Needless to say, I had no idea how to act or even where I was.

I didn't have to worry about the latter, though. Chase had somewhere he wanted to go, and we were supposed to play follow the leader. He wasn't making it easy. We kept getting lost around a corner or stuck at a crosswalk when the light turned red. Then we would catch up with Chase, his impatient crossed arms, and that smooth, playful smile. I could see from the way he carried himself that he knew how to live in the city. People didn't pay attention to him as he slid through open spaces like water. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes were focused on one spot directly ahead, and his posture was slightly slouched to shoulder the crowds.

Luke and I, however, were making quite a scene. Luke was a scene himself, with the wild azure hair, flame bandana, and ripped jeans. Thankfully we persuaded him to ditch the axe at home. I was a clumsy, lanky mess as I tried to rush through the people while keeping one eye on Chase at least a block ahead of us. I bumped into Luke more times than I could count, but we both just laughed. The more lost and ungraceful we became, the funnier it was.

Then Chase disappeared completely, and no matter how many people we dodged, we still couldn't see him.

"Luke!" I grabbed his arm and used it as leverage to hop up above the crowd. "Do you see him anywhere?"

He shook his head.

I said darn it and some guy with a briefcase gave me a dirty look. When his back was to us, I stuck my tongue out at him and Luke started laughing. It was immature, but today felt like a good day to have fun.

We resorted to calling for Chase, even though the sheer amount of people traipsing through the streets seemed to suggest there was some convention in town we weren't aware of.

"Hey Chase!" Luke shouted.

There was another nasty glare as a plump high-heeled woman bustled past.

We laughed harder.

"Chase!" I yelled. I'd been yelling so much that my voice cracked on the a of his name.

I thought for sure Luke and I were going to throw up. I was dizzy; drunk on the car sounds and low chatter and the swirl of people's faces. It was like a game. A crazy, hilarious game where Chase held all the cards but somehow Luke and I had the most fun. Surely just the other day Chase couldn't have been lying in a hospital bed and my world couldn't have been falling apart.

"He's over there," Luke said. He put his hand on my arm and guided me through the people. "Wait, look, he's doing it again!"

I squinted. Chase was standing under a canopy in the entranceway to a restaurant. "Doing what?"

Luke glanced at me. "His face. He always has that expression on his face. Sort of like..." His smile smoothed into a neutral expression, with his lips slightly pursed, jaw set to the side, and a blank look in his eyes. He furrowed his eyebrows the tiniest bit, just so a crease formed in the middle, like he was solving a math problem. All his facial modifications were so slight that I wouldn't have known he was trying to imitate someone. But then I looked back at Chase and laughed.

"Luke! That's scary! He does look like that all the time."

"I know!" he said quickly. "One time I was at the bar, bored out of my mind. Owen and Kathy left to go horseback riding with Renee or something, so I was just sitting there, trying to make conversation with Chase, you know? Well after, like, forty-five minutes of a one-sided conversation, I stopped talking and just watched him mix the drinks and cook stuff. The entire time, his face was like this." He imitated Chase's facial expression. "And I turned it into a game with myself, to see how long he could keep it like that until he smiled or frowned or something else. Now I notice it all the time and I can't stop. It's just too funny. I call it the Chase Face."

"Does Chase know about said 'Chase Face'?"

"He hasn't figured it out yet. I don't think he knows how much he does it. Like, seriously, what's he doing? It's hilarious! Chase is a class act comedian!"

I didn't have the heart to tell him that class act comedian was a phrase that almost didn't make sense. I quite liked it, actually. Luke always spun his words into bursts of emotion. It was a nifty little habit of his. Everything was exciting and passionate in his world. Even things that made no sense.

We finally caught up with Chase. He gave a wry smile and uncrossed his arms.

I peered up at the building. "So where are we? We had a heck of a time trying to follow you."

"It's called a restaurant. Big word, I know. Say it with me: rest-au-rant." He turned toward the entrance. "They serve food here. For hungry people. Which is what we are. This place is pretty good."

"Okay, Mr. Dictionary," I said before starting toward the door. Then I stopped abruptly. "Whoa, hold on, I want to go where you used to work."

"Huh?" Chase looked at me oddly. "How do you know I worked at a restaurant in the city?"

"Gill told me. He said you left the island when you were sixteen to come back to the city and work at a restaurant with high-class chefs. I think you made him sad when you left. Well, what he actually said was, 'Everyone was so used to Chase's cooking that food from the bar started to taste like envelope glue,' but by the tone of his voice, I think what he meant was, 'Chase left and we all cried ourselves to sleep every night.'"

Luke nodded with mock seriousness. "I know I did."

"You guys were talking about me?" Chase's mouth was twisted like snarl. He obviously didn't know that we had talked about him at least a dozen times before.

"We were talking about chimichangas. Then I asked if you were a professional chef and Gill said that you had worked in a fancy restaurant, but he didn't know if you were officially a professional." I smiled. "So can we go to one of the places you worked at?"

He grimaced. Then he sighed a second later in resignation. "Try not to get lost."

XxX

Little tables with red umbrellas and black wire chairs greeted us outside the restaurant. Crimson and white striped canopies hung over the entrance and the windows. Spiral topiaries were on either side of the doors.

I smiled at Chase. "A French bistro?"

He gave a slight nod as he pushed open the doors.

"You're kidding. You in a cute little French restaurant?"

"First job."

The laughter came spilling out of my mouth just as we walked into the quiet dining atmosphere. Some people turned to look at me, so I covered my mouth and tried to disguise it with coughing. A young woman with snowy white-blonde hair and too-red lipstick showed us to a table next to the front window.

Luke and I spent a whole ten minutes poring over the menu, which happened to be mostly in French.

He tried to sound out one of the words. "La soop ah la oog non."

"La soupe à l'oignon," Chase corrected as he stared at the ice cubes floating around in his water. "Onion soup."

"Oh, Chase!" I splayed my fingers out on the table in front of me and grinned. "You can speak French?"

Chase made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "Not really. I just picked up some stuff working here."

"Will you order for us in French? Please? That would be so cool."

He shook his head but smiled. "Wow, is that possible? To get even cooler than I already am?"

I laughed. We were eating a lot of food today with the feast I made for breakfast and now a late lunch, but after eating minimally the past few days, I supposed the hunger caught up to us. Besides, I wanted to hang out with the guys as much as I could while I was still in the mental stage somewhere between recovering from near-death experience and determined to get Roscoe back at all costs.

"Bonjour," the blonde waitress greeted. "What can I get you?"

"En Franҫais, s'il vous plaît," I interjected with a little smile.

The waitress smiled back and cleared her throat delicately. "Excusez-moi. Vous avez choisi?"

Chase sighed and brought his eyes up to meet hers. "Je voudrais un sandwich au jambon. Et pour mes amis, une quiche et la soupe du jour. C'est vendredi, non?"

"Oui," she murmured. She was staring at him. "J'aime vos épingles à cheveux."

Luke leaned into the table and adopted a breathy French accent. "Vat ah joo zaying?"

I almost spit up my water all over the table. Before I knew it, I was gasping for air and trying not to throw up. The waitress retreated to the kitchen, attempting to stifle her own laughter.

"Angela, Angela," Chase said quietly, chuckling. He reached a hand over the table and touched my arm. "Don't make a scene. They'll kick us out and you won't even get to try the crème brûlée."

"Oh my gosh." I inhaled sharply. "What did she say to you? Do you know her? And what did you order for us?"

"No idea. Something about my hair." He sipped on his water. "No, she must be new. I ordered you a quiche and Luke gets the soup of the day. Friday's soup of the day." He smiled, like Friday's soup of the day was mystery meat in the cafeteria. "Now don't go labeling me as the 'coup de foudre' Parisian romance junk kind of guy just because I know how to order a ham sandwich in French."

"Nope, I wouldn't even dream of such a thing. But tell me this: if your range of French supposedly extends from pomme to gâteau, then how do you know 'love at first sight'?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

I shook my head and smiled.

Luke started to fold his napkin with such intricacy it was like origami. He glanced up at Chase. "What's crème brûlée? Man, you guys got all the fun. I've never heard of this cool stuff on the island."

"It's basically custard. That was one of my favorite things to make here," Chase said thoughtfully. "There was this guy I worked with... he thought I was a pyromaniac. You know, from torching sugar on a daily basis. Some kid tried to stick his hand in my tip jar one day, and I actually had to fight the urge to whip out the torch. Then his mom had the nerve to scold me for leaving the jar on the counter. Hello lady, it's a tip jar. Control your little maggot."

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think you just turned the answer to a simple question – custard – into a brief memoir of the beginnings of your misanthropy." I struggled to maintain my deadpan face. "I'm pretty sure the universe is heliocentric. Not Chase-centric."

Chase rolled his eyes and smiled, wiping some condensation off his glass with his thumb. "So are you saying that the poor guy who thought the universe was geocentric is wrong too?"

Luke grinned. "Actually, I think the planets just got confused."

Chase raised his brow. "Confused about what?"

"The sun is pretty big, right?" Luke gave us a duh expression. "They obviously got it mixed up with your head."

Once again I burst out into laughter. It was so funny, coming from Luke of all people, that I couldn't stop laughing. Tears were forming in my eyes. Chase didn't find it funny at first, but after I almost laughed out my guts, he started chuckling.

"Yeah, okay, Luke. Just wait for your soupe du jour."

Chase couldn't have surprised me more with his fancy French bistro roots. He was just sitting there, staring at the ice cubes in his glass, and I thought about what else I didn't know about him. It was kind of hard to know what I didn't know, but I tried to imagine. Then something else wandered into my mind, just as our food was brought to the table. Something Chase might know.

"So," I began, "any idea what's up with Gill?"

Luke pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked at his soup curiously. "Yeah, that's what I was wondering. He sorta avoided the question when you asked him what he was doing here."

Chase didn't say anything. He looked down at his sandwich and then back at the ice cubes in his water. "Oh? Nah, that's just Gill. He's weird about official things. After what... well, you know about Kasey, right?" He waited for me to nod. "That's his problem."

"What?"

"Gill lives and breathes the island. It's an obsession, okay? It's weird. Anyway, after Castanet started to go downhill, he tried to figure out what he could do to save it. Then this guy, Kasey, showed up out of nowhere. Gill's dad helped him out with some stuff, like, let him in on town secrets or whatever, and within a few seasons everything was back to normal. Gill was frustrated. I can't imagine... it was all right in front of him the whole time." Chase shook his head. "Now he's possessive about it."

"Of Castanet?" I asked, making a face. "You make it sound so creepy, Chase. Like he has a shrine in his closet of all things Castanet that he worships."

"His closet? Heck no, that shrine spans an entire wall in his bathroom."

I laughed. "You'd better be careful. One of these days I'm going to believe you."

"We wouldn't want that," he said, smiling.

"Gill was— is, I mean— smarter than Kasey," Luke said. "He totally could've fixed the island. And there's a reason he didn't, right?"

"Hm?" Chase took a bite of his sandwich and said, ever so elegantly with his mouth full, "Enlighten us please."

"You left about six years ago. Maybe more. Or less. Gill left sometime after that... and then Kasey showed up. You came back. Then Gill came back. Is that right?"

"Making a timeline, eh?" Chase raised his brow. "Sure, sounds about right."

"Hey, what do you mean that he showed up out of nowhere?" I asked. "Gill met Kasey in the city and told him about the problems of Castanet himself."

"Oh? That was a mistake for him then," Chase drawled. "Goddess, you guys, I don't know. Just ask him yourselves."

"Ask him what exactly?"

"How should I know?" Chase set his glass down with a loud plunk. He sighed forcefully. There was a long stretch of silence that lasted a few minutes. Then he said, "So you want to hear a story? I'm in the story-telling mood right now. Take it or leave it."

I chewed my food without really tasting it. It was good, but Chase was diverting all my attention. "What a coincidence," I said. "I seem to be in the story-listening mood right now. Please do tell."

"All right, if you insist." He tapped a finger against the side of his face thoughtfully.

My stomach practically turned inside out when I noticed the orangey-blond scruff lining his jaw. Of course, he was a guy, and guys had facial hair. So why did it set off a circus – complete with fire jugglers and high-flying trapeze artists – in my stomach? I never would have imagined Chase with facial hair.

As he started speaking again, I decided he needed to shave. I felt, with the discovery of the boyish scruff along his jaw, that there were suddenly at least ten years between us, and that was a weird feeling.

"I saw Gill in the city a few years ago. I was walking home from work. Actually, no, I got fired and I was walking around aimlessly. It was late, neither of us were paying attention, and he ran into me, literally."

Luke glanced at me sideways and leaned into the table. "This sounds scary. Like the beginning of a horror movie."

"Keen observation," Chase responded, taking on a reflective expression. "After he dropped some stuff, I tried to make a stupid joke about it. He acted like he didn't know who I was at first. It was surprising to run into someone from the island. I'd already been in the city for over a year, and I don't know, it could've been cool."

"But you were fired, right? Why is that?" Luke asked.

"I was too devastatingly charming for the boss to handle. What do you think, Luke?" Chase tensed his hand around the edge of the table. "I fought with one of the customers. Then I left my apartment key at the restaurant by mistake. I was so furious that night. Literally just wanted to strangle someone. Then Gill came along and started talking with his moronic politician jargon, and I just lost it. I made myself sound delirious, cussing out the city and the weather and my life. I was still hung up on what happened at the restaurant, so I threatened that guy too, even though he wasn't around to hear it."

I frowned. "Was this a mental breakdown?"

"No," he scoffed. Then his sentence got all jumbled in defense. "A wha? Breakdown— seriously, Angela—? I don't know. Whatever. Gill left me alone, but I had walked for so long without paying attention, I didn't really know where I was. So I stopped and sat down next to this old building, right in the rain. Gill, that jerk, he followed me because he thought I was drunk. And he said something about how, as future mayor, he couldn't let me do what I was doing. Being self-destructive or whatever." Chase propped his head up with his hand and scowled. "Then, get this, he told me, 'After all these years, I don't really know anything about you, but as your friend, I do know the couch in my living room is probably more suitable for wallowing in self-pity than the dirty sidewalk.' I remember that word for word because it was probably the nicest thing that had ever come out of his mouth, but I told him to take his offer and shove it."

At that moment, Luke bumped his arm against the table reaching for his drink. The whole table began to quiver, including Chase's glass, rattling the ice cubes against each other. His eyes fell to the noise, and he closed his hand around the base of the glass, eyeing it until the water settled. Then his eyes returned to his plate.

"Gill kept telling me that I was going to catch pneumonia. But I didn't care. In fact, I think I told him that it'd be okay if I caught pneumonia and dropped dead. Hah, mistake. Gill doesn't joke around like that."

"So did you?" Luke started up with his soup again. It was a sickly color, pale, like soggy mashed potatoes.

"Did I what?"

"Catch pneumonia?"

Chase shook his head. "No, of course not."

Luke made a face. "Well excuse me for asking."

"So what happened after that?" I cut in.

"It was around three in the morning when I finally decided I didn't want to look like a street bum – or catch pneumonia – so I crashed on the couch at his apartment. The next day, I kept waiting for him to kick me out." Chase tugged on the button on his cuff. "I can see how he might've thought I was wasted. He didn't have to be so presumptuous, though. I was above the influence."

"I'm skeptical," Luke said bluntly, making me laugh.

"Yeah. Rightly so." Chase rolled his eyes. "Have you ever seen me drunk?"

"I don't know, man. You work at a bar."

"Exactly. The idea of stripping my pants off while attempting to sing Love is a Battlefield is somehow not appealing."

The waitress stopped by our table to ask, in French, if everything was okay. Chase just said, "Yeah. Great." And the girl's fire-engine-red lips puckered in a frown. Chase waited until she left before starting to talk again. He was completely oblivious to the way she was looking at him. Or maybe he just didn't care.

"Now that I think about it, maybe he let me stay because of those extra sandwiches I brought to school for him all those years ago. You know, repaying the favor." His eyes widened as though he just remembered something. "Before I moved to the island, my... um, I was forced to see a counselor for a little while. It was stupid... But she told me that I should do things for other people to make myself happier. So imagine me: this twelve year old trying to make it in a new town with no parents or anything. I see this kid in my class whose mom just died, and it looked like he was going anorexic. So yeah, that annoying counselor's voice told me I should do something. In a heroic act of bravery, I made sandwiches!"

"You're so sweet," I said, laughing.

"Aha!" Chase flashed a grin at me. "I know. Now back to the story."

I learned a while ago that he couldn't be trusted to tell the whole story. This one was intriguing. I'd have to ask Gill for the other half sometime.

"When I finally woke up, it was starting to get late." Chase looked up from the ice cubes and smirked at us. "There was this girl there. Gill was with her in the kitchen. When I went in there to see what was up, he looked at me with this horrified expression on his face. Like I wasn't supposed to be alive, let alone standing in his kitchen."

Luke was listening with his eyebrows furrowed. "There was an actual girl in his apartment?"

"Yeah. I mean, way to go, Gill, right? Who'd have thought? They were talking all professional, like it was some business conference in his kitchen. I guess she just came by to drop something off that he had left somewhere. But they were talking about me and it was weird." Chase looked down and stared at his hands. He stayed like that for a few seconds, thinking about something. Then he shook his head once.

"Ah, the moral of the story," he said. "When the something... is... then the... hmph. I don't remember how it goes. Point is: Gill may have been a little sidetracked in the city."

"The girl?"

Chase sipped his water and scrunched up his face as though I just suggested something absurd.

"Then what do you mean? Sidetracked by what?"

"How should I know? It wasn't the girl. She had something to do with it, though. He wouldn't tell me. That's when he kicked me out." Chase laughed a little at the last part.

"Well that couldn't be more confusing." I shook my head at him. "I was better off if you hadn't said anything."

Luke smiled wide. "See? Gill was smart enough to do it. He just couldn't because he was distracted with something else. Hmm, I was right."

"It sounds like Chase was the one who got sidetracked in the city with all this 'getting in fights with customers' and having mental breakdowns," I said, trying to make a joke. Chase wasn't taking it.

He narrowed his eyes at us, drumming his fingers idly on the table.

"Why'd you come back?" I asked after a moment. "To Castanet, I mean. Why didn't you stay here?"

He looked out the front window. People were walking past, brisk and hurried. A little boy, unsteady on his feet in the bustle, was being tugged along by a woman with a pinched face. Her other hand was awkwardly tapping at her cell phone.

"The city's cold," Chase answered, watching the same thing I was. "It's too far from home." I wondered what he meant by that, but before I could ask, he turned to Luke. "How was lunch?"

Luke grinned. "Great! Why? What was it?"

Chase smiled, his features gradually being overtaken by the turn of his mouth. His words came out slowly, deviously. Like a victory. "Didn't know you enjoyed escargot soup, did you?"