Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
CAROLINE
In the small hours of the Canadian morning, with my arm thrown over Chase’s naked backside and my head resting in the dip of his back, my phone buzzed under my head.
I fumbled through the luxe pillows for the vibrating square, wincing when I saw my brother’s name on the screen.
Mike had been hounding me for the past few days, but I kept missing him since he usually called at three a.m. and didn’t understand either sleeping or time zones.
I pulled on a sweater and snuck into the bathroom. “It’s six a.m., assclown.”
“Hello, Bucket!”
“Dad!” Remembering sleeping Chase, I lowered my voice. “Why are you calling from Mike’s phone?”
“Dropped mine in the trough.”
“Again?” I perched on the edge of Chase’s large clawfoot tub, cuddling the phone to my face. “You have to stop putting your phone in your front shirt pocket. Use your jeans. ”
“And give Mrs. Rudd another excuse to eyeball my goodies? I don’t think so.”
“Or in your ba?—”
“Back pocket? Not on your life, Bucket. Remember that time Noddy slipped when he had his phone in his back pocket? Sue said the shards in his bum looked just like the mosaic on our garden path. But enough about Noddy’s ass. How’re things with you?”
“Good, Dad. How are you?”
“Fine, Bucket, fine.” I could hear the espresso machine in Café Levitate in the background. Then, too casually, he asked, “Have you heard from Mike lately?”
“He’s called a few times, but I’ve missed him. I was going to call him back today.”
“Right, well, don’t panic?—”
Of course, panic immediately set in.
It’s the money. The rent. Oh no, the insurance! Gerard’s gone back on our deal because Chase found out and he’s somehow found a way to freeze the money, that little rodent ? —
“Mike was going to update you about my knees,” Dad said. “He probably forwarded you the details. I just thought I’d call and tell you not to worry.”
I put Dad on speaker and tapped through to my email. Nine emails from Mike. I hadn’t opened them because the subject lines were just ‘FWD:’ and nothing else, so I assumed they were pictures of his chickens, like usual. Mike didn’t like using social media, so he emailed his ‘chick pics’ to me.
The payments to the bank were all fine. Gerard hadn’t flipped. But one of Mike’s emails had a heap of medical documents attached.
“Caroline?” Dad said. “Bucket, are you still there? Like I told Mike, this is not a big deal.”
The documents I was reading included the words, light duties. Walker. Cane.
And, twelve-week recovery .
“I’m here, Dad. I’m just reading Mike’s emails.”
“Ah, yes. His spelling shocks me into silence too. Did I tell you he emailed our butcher last week and forgot the G in Angus ? Imagine what Charlie thought when he saw the subject line: ‘ My Anus Beef. ’”
“That’s great Dad.”
“Not for Charlie. He thought Mike was finally propositioning him. Hell of a disappointment for him when he realized Mike was talking about the grass fed. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about me. Noddy and Sue’s girl is nearly fourteen and she says she’ll be OK on the coffee machine.”
“Dad…” I said slowly.
“I’ll be fine, Bucket! I’m looking forward to being a bionic man.”
I laughed like he’d intended, and as he updated me on all the goings-on of our regular customers, I booked flights home for his surgery date. I told him the club I worked at was on break—which was a multitiered lie, because clubs didn’t have breaks (it wasn’t college), and I didn’t work at a club. I didn’t work anywhere, but I didn’t want him to worry about me. Classic Holliday behavior.
“Will you be traveling home alone, Bucket? Because we have space if you want to bring a friend.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
I could almost hear Lyssa’s outrage. But that wasn’t the kind of friend Dad meant.
With a seasoned performer’s timing, Chase knocked on the door. “Caroline? Is everything OK?”
“Fine!” I called, covering the mouthpiece. “Be out in a second.”
My dad made a knowing sound in my ear. “I’m no gossiping Noddy, but that sounds like a friend. Or more . I’ll remind you, Caroline, anyone you want to bring home is welcome here.”
“Noted.”
“Let us know what time your final flight gets to Wellington and Mike will come down and get you. He still has the Welcome Home Shrimp sign he made for you when your Christmas trip that didn’t pan out?—”
I’d canceled that trip because I got a gig as a server for a winter wonderland cabaret, which the booker promised would become a stage spot. Then right before the end of my shift a customer grabbed my ass and I got fired. (Yes, I got fired.)
“—and he’s keen to pull it out again. To be honest, it’s a shit sign, but he was pleased with himself.”
I groaned. Mike and poster board were the last things anyone wanted to be greeted with at an airport.
People always assumed I was the shameless extrovert of the family given that I twirled nipple pasties for a living, but my brother put me in the shade. One year, Mike took part in a fundraiser auction in Woodville and one of the prizes was coffee with him at Levitate. Mike didn’t think the bidding was going well enough so he stripped to his jocks and danced to Santa Baby , and it was ten times more graphic than any routine I’ve ever done. To this day, Josie Everitt still can’t look him in the eye, but Mike was thrilled because he made the front page of the local paper.
I’d never made the front page of the Tararua Times , and I took my clothes off all the time.
“Just text Mike and tell him what day to pick you up,” Dad said. “It’ll do him good to take a day off working with Hodges. Your brother really hates that guy.”
“Mike exaggerates. Remember when he said that watching my roommate Lyssa’s videos made him want to poke his eyes out and use them to plug his ears? That was mean. Lyssa was very angry about that.”
“Well, you didn’t need to tell her that he said it, Bucket.”
“I was making a point!”
“And what was that?”
“That the people who criticize her—like Mike, like people in her comments section—are all silly losers and she should ignore them! Plus, when I first moved in, Lyssa saw a photo of Mike and called him a hottie. She needed to know he’s an assclown.”
“He’s watched quite a few of her videos,” Dad said thoughtfully.
“Because he knows it will annoy me.”
“Hmm.”
After we said our goodbyes, I fired off an email to Mike with my dates and a draft roster to cover Dad’s absence at the café. If we had a good plan in place before Mr. Ryman, our banker, asked, everything would be OK. Ryman wasn’t as much of a dick as Mike thought, and his daughter and I were friends, so he’d trust me if I could show him we were prepared. None of us could cook like Dad, but we could make a few clever menu changes. At home right now it was autumn going into winter—so we could freeze a whole lot of stews and serve paninis and toasties—anything with bread. Twelve weeks wasn’t so bad. Twelve weeks was nothing.
The pit of dread in my belly grew anyway.
I’d seen plenty of my friends move back home after setting off for bigger things. They always said it was temporary: they’d just hit a small speed bump and needed to regroup at home with their mother’s cooking and their dad’s fixing their cars or whatever. But they always got stuck.
I didn’t want to get stuck. I didn’t want to be a barista in the country. I wanted to be a showgirl in the big city. Tucking tips into my knickers, flirting and being the center of attention, getting home at four a.m. to a cozy apartment and wrapping my body around a sleeping blond man whose round glasses sat on the bedside table…
I had no idea how the Fonda, Jane I was going to cope back in Woodville. There was no club culture, no gigs, no burlesque. The only nightlife was one pub, where farmers who didn’t want to go home sat and drank tap beer until closing time. At best I could self-produce one show a month in the closest city, but that was a long drive on a dangerous road, and I’d only be performing to friends buying pity tickets .
This whole thing with Gerard hadn’t just been for nothing, it was worse than nothing, because in the course of this failed scam, I’d stumbled across everything I’d never dared to dream of—a regular gig in the city, Chase —only to have it ripped away.
Hopelessness settled around me, as heavy and unpleasant as a wet fur coat.
But the worst was yet to come.
I still had to tell Chase.
CHASE
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
She was standing in the kitchen wearing the sweater she’d pulled on to take her phone call. It was, of course, mine, because she never put on something of hers when she could wear something of mine. The hem stopped at the tops of her luscious thighs.
I was in the kitchen making a cup of tea, using the stove to heat the water and wishing I’d bought electric kettles for all my places that morning she left my apartment in Chelsea. On our first day here in this apartment, Caroline had pulled a box of tea out of her handbag. I don’t know when she’d bought it—at some point during our trip shopping for eyeglasses. Tea was as important to her as long-distance vision was to me.
“It’s time for me to move home, Chase.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed and the sound was bone weary. “I made the deal with Gerard because I needed money. I told you that.”
“Yes. For Café Levitate.”
It was much more than a sandwich shop, I knew now. It was where she’d learned to walk, where she’d had her first kiss. The art her mom— mum —had picked out hung on its walls.
“Now my dad needs a knee replacement,” she said.
I pushed the cup of tea across the counter to her, trying to stay calm. “And the operation is expensive?”
“Not exactly. New Zealand’s medical system isn’t like America’s. Dad’s treatment is covered by the public system. He’s scheduled in, both for the op and recovery. That part is all OK. It’s keeping the café going while Dad’s out of action and that’s the problem.” She took a polite sip of tea. “Mike has three jobs, one of which he hates with a burning passion, and there’s not really anyone else who can help. Neighbors and friends will for a while, but they have their own stuff, their own schedules. No one wants to open a café at the first crow of Mike’s rooster. That’s five a.m., in case you were wondering.”
“This doesn’t sound like your scene,” I said carefully.
“It’s not.”
I felt almost giddy with relief. When she told me that she had to go home, my blood had chilled. I thought she was going to say she was finished with me, or she missed home too much, or that something had gone terribly wrong. This? Needing money, needing to hire more café workers? This was an easy fix.
“Caroline,” I said soothingly, “I can easily resolve this for you. I’ll arrange for someone to cover the café and help your family.” I was so pleased about how easy it all was, I spoke without thinking. “It’s just money, it doesn’t matter—” I broke off when she scoffed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that?—”
“Oh, no, you did.”
She was right. I did. But the bitterness in her tone surprised me. Why on Earth would she be annoyed that I was able to fix this, and was offering to?
“Well, to me, it is just money,” I reasoned. “I have it and you need it, so what exactly is your issue? I thought what had happened here, with us”—I indicated in the direction of the bedroom, where our sheets were still mussed—“would have changed something for you.”
Eyes blazing, she snapped, “I’ve spent most of my career explaining that I do not fuck for cash. There is absolutely nothing wrong with fucking for cash, but there’s a lot wrong with people assuming that must be what I do. Especially you.”
Hurt pierced my chest. I hadn’t meant that at all. Surely she knew me better than to think that’s what I meant.
I’d fallen for Caroline. I wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear those words yet and having them rebuffed would have devastated me, but the fact remained. I’d do anything for her, give her anything, move anywhere. When a Sanford fell for someone, we fell hard. I could admit that I was like my brother and my dad in that regard—although I was going to stick, unlike them. I had staying power.
It riled me that Caroline was acting like I was some fling, like I was trying to buy her, when instead I was trying to give myself to her.
A tiny, wounded corner of my mind wondered if I had misread things between us.
I pushed it away.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said stiffly. “You’re being defensive. I just meant I thought things had changed between us. I assumed you’d come back to New York with me. Don’t worry about money, or about Gerry. I can fix all that.” She made a noise of protest, and I held up a hand. “I have heaps of money. Fucking hell, the last thing I care about is money. This is a non-issue. I can fly you back to New Zealand to be with your dad, but you don’t have to move back there for good. It’s clear you don’t like living in Woodville, so come back to me when you can. And move into my apartment, you don’t need to share silly bunk beds in a street level place.”
“No, Chase. You don’t get it. I’ve been away from New Zealand for ten years. I’ve worked so many amazing venues, done so many amazing shows in that time, but I still make below minimum wage. I scrimp, and I get the most out of the least, but I can’t keep pretending my family doesn’t need me. And”—her voice wavered—“I miss them. I don’t visit home often enough because I can’t bear the questions about how my career’s going. I want to be able to tell my dad about landing an amazing residency and performing gigs that would make him proud. And I want to send money back in amounts that make a difference. When it was clear things in New York weren’t working out, I should have gone home. But I didn’t. Because I’m selfish. I kept chasing my dreams at the expense of everyone else. I can’t keep deluding myself. I failed. It’s time to call it and go home.”
“You’re not selfish, Floss. You’re human.” I reached for her hands, but she moved them away. “And stubborn.” I straightened. “Will you just stay? And let me help you? You took money from Gerry, why won’t you take money from me?” The urgency of trying to get her to understand made me crude as I added, “I’m very rich!”
Caroline cringed, but I couldn’t take it back. It was true.
“It’s because of how I feel for you that I won’t take money from you, Chase. I don’t want to be a kept woman. Great lifestyle, mad respect, but it’s not for me. I don’t want to feel like your dirty little secret, tucked in a nice town house somewhere. I want to be loud. I want to be visible. Ideally, loud and visible onstage at a sold-out club, while my boyfriend gazes adoringly at me from the audience. But it’s time to accept that’s not going to happen for me. Some dreams always stay in the cupboard. I’m not that bitch .”
“Right.” I started loading the dishwasher for something to do, somewhere else to look. The plates rattled as I stacked them haphazardly. “Right.” I repeated. “At least let me settle whatever amount that is outstanding on your dad’s café, and hire some more hospitality staff to keep the place running. Don’t let your pride stand in the way of lessening that burden for your family. You’re smart, Caroline; be smart. Think of it as an investment in Woodville’s economy.” She started to say something but I ignored her. “No strings. You don’t need to worry about being kept, since the idea of permanence is so abhorrent to you. Send me the details and I’ll get my accountant to sort it today.” The dishwasher wouldn’t shut, so I pushed it harder. “I’d also like to hire someone to be on hand to help your dad as he recovers. You’re not a nurse, and taking on that responsibility will be too much for you.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I can do it.”
I ignored her. She’d had plenty of time to open up to me about her fears and pressures earlier, when she could have had a say in the solution. Now, I didn’t have the time or the willingness to walk her through the plan slowly, to talk her into it. Before, in bed, she’d said she’d needed me, now here I was, able to fix the shit she needed fixed. It would be easy for me to make this terrible situation slightly easier on her and on her family. She didn’t have to give up on her dreams.
But she did need to stop arguing and do what I told her. For once.
“You should also know that I’ve already engaged my lawyers on the matter of Gerry. They’re confident they can make an intended embezzlement charge stick without naming you—approaching you is unlikely to be the first tactic he tried.” I gave the dishwasher door a final shove and ignored the sound of something breaking inside as it finally closed. “There’s no way I’m letting Gerry get away with trying to screw Joe out of his inheritance, the snake. I’ve engaged security for Joe, just as a precaution in case Gerry tries anything more drastic. I’d also like to put some security measures around you in Woodville. I doubt Gerry will attempt to contact you again, but I’d feel better if I could ensure your place and the café were secure. I can call someone out to your father’s house and have an initial assessment done in the next forty-eight hours?—”
“Chase, have you lost your mind?” she demanded.
She was so damn stubborn. I felt like a puppy, desperately trying to hold onto their favorite toy, while someone towed me around the room by it, laughing.
Not that Caroline was a toy. But she was mine. She’d said as much.
But thinking back: she hadn’t actually. She’d said, ‘ in bed like this, I’m yours .’ Standing in the kitchen, arguing with her, I realized now what I hadn’t at the time.
She meant while we were naked. When we were fucking.
Coolness stole over me.
“Chase—”
“I know it’ll be annoying,” I said, avoiding her eyes and pressing something to set off the dishwasher. Or at least, hoping that was what I did. I’d never used this dishwasher before. “It’s only until this thing with my stepbrother is resolved. I’d also like to get some good PR people involved. I have a contact with Cara Younger at Younger and Sons, she’s very good.”
“Chase—”
“No, Caroline. I know what needs to be done. When this fraud comes to light, some of Teddy’s friends are going to be angry and embarrassed. You’ve duped people who are unused to being made to look like fools, people who matter. I will intervene on your behalf, but you need to do as I say?—”
“ People who matter ?”
“In New York,” I stressed. “I’m talking about people you scammed in New York who will take this personally and have the power to make things difficult. Don’t be like that, Caroline. You knew what I meant.”
“Are you worried about what will happen to me, or worried about your reputation when people find out you knew I was a fraud and fucked me anyway?”
I stared at her. “Are you kidding me? I’m helping you.”
“It feels like you’re trying to help you . Just stop. Stop helping. I don’t want security or maids or to go on some kind of personal apology tour.”
“But—”
She threw up her palms. “I don’t need you to fix this, Chase.”
There were more words in that sentence, but all I heard was I don’t need you .
Don’t. Need. You.
She might have wanted me at some stage .
But she’d never need me. Not for anything more than sex.
When she’d professed to need me that one time, she was naked underneath me, about to take me inside her—I should have realised the statement was conditional, only applicable under those exact circumstances.
Instead, I’d heard what I wanted to hear. Now, I could have kicked myself. I knew my deal, I knew how people viewed me. I’d been able to convince Caroline that I was worth her time to repeatedly fuck, but I was still Chase Sanford, and therefore not worthy of anything with longevity. She’d meant for this thing between us to be temporary, because of course.
No one ever stayed.
I shoved my hurt down, because my fucked up sense of honor dictated that I try one more time to get through to her. For her father’s sake, if not hers.
“You should listen to me,” I said dully.
“You mean I should do what you say,” she retorted sharply. Then she sighed. “Chase, you’re always trying to orchestrate things so people are dependent on you. You think you can guarantee love by making yourself necessary. You try to obligate people to you so they’ll stick around.” Caroline reached over the counter and grabbed my face between her hands. “That’s why I can’t let you step in and take over. That’s why I can’t accept your help. Don’t you get that?”
“Oh, I get it,” I rasped, my throat tight. “Definitely.”
Her eyes softened. “I want?—”
Her phone rang, interrupting what was probably going to be a pretty platitude, the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head.
Her expression when she saw the caller was indescribable. She tapped the screen and declined the call.
“Is that him?” I asked, unable to hide my instant fury. “Is that Gerry?”
I imagined punching my stepbrother’s teeth through the back of his throat. I’d never felt rage like this before and I hoped I never would again .
“No. My friend Jessica. I met her at Gerry’s party. A slot opened up in a show she’s headlining here tonight—the place I took you to with the broken elevator? She wanted to know if I would fill it.”
I studied her face. “You want to.”
“I can’t. I have to pack.”
“So you’re going to go back to a place you hate and give up something you love”— burlesque. Not me. She’s made that clear —“for a life you don’t want. That doesn’t make any sense, Caroline.”
Caroline tilted her head, and the sympathy in her eyes made my gut roll. I knew that look—I’d grown up receiving that look—but I especially hated getting it from her.
“It’s not about sense , Chase. I make my decisions based on feelings. It would just feel wrong to stay like this.” She slid off the stool and disappeared into the bedroom. When she came out, she was dragging her pink wheeled bag behind her, running shoes on her feet.
She hesitated, as if she wanted to kiss me goodbye, but then thought better of it. Instead, she pressed her fingers to her lips and waved the hand towards me instead. It was a paltry substitute for affection, and thus, an excellent metaphor.
“Goodbye, Chase.”
When the door closed behind her, it was with finality.
I listened to see if I could hear her shoes as she walked to the elevator, but they didn’t make a sound.
As loudly as Caroline had arrived in my life, she disappeared in silence.