I turned away from the mirror. Dawn was still not answering me and it was really starting to bug me out. She was the one who told me I needed Dante, but when that failed, I was hoping she’d have another suggestion. Now she wanted to go and disappear – why couldn’t little girl ghosts just stay in one mirror instead of gallivanting all around only God only knew where.
I mean really, where did she have to be? What could be so urgent that it took precedence over my own problems?
I was so busy chewing out Dawn in my head that I practically jumped out of my skin when a shrill sound startled me half to death. Trying to catch my breath, it came again.
Hold up. I knew that sound. It took me a second to work it out, but when the sound came for a third time it hit me.
It was a telephone!
Holy crap! A real phone! I hadn’t heard one or talked on one for so long I even forgot what they actually sounded like. How messed up was that?
I ran to the counter where Aunt Celeste kept her register. It took me a bit, but I found the old black dinosaur on one of the counter’s lower shelves. I couldn’t believe it! It was black and heavy and looked like it was a first generation phone if ever there was one. Seeing as how Aunt Celeste was older than dirt, I didn’t put it past her to actually own the very first telephone ever made. I picked up the heavy black receiver, which weighed more than my last math book, and brought to my ear.
“Hello, Celeste’s Gift Emporium,” I said tentatively. I wasn’t sure who it could be considering I’d never even heard the phone ring even once since I’d arrived, but I figured it probably wasn’t Aunt Celeste or Dante. I’d never seen either one of them use a phone now that I thought about it.
"Hey…hi, Eliza.” It was Chase. He sounded a little nervous but I was happy to hear from him.
“Chase? Are you okay?” I asked lamely, closing my eyes in self disgust.
Brilliant. I didn’t exactly know how to ask the cute boy I sort of liked if he was back to his normal, boy-next-door self, instead of the raging psychopath I’d last seen? Well, as normal as any boy his age could be anyway. It wasn’t like I had a whole lot of experience with the species as a whole, so I wasn’t a particularly good judge of what was normal or not.
“Yeah. I’m good. Really good. I…uh, called to say I was sorry. You know, for what I said and how I acted before,” he started. He sounded so sincere I just let him continue without interrupting, which was like a minor miracle for me. “It’s just that I was really pumped to see you and I got a little ahead of myself. I guess I saw Dante and just kinda lost it. He doesn’t really bring out the best in me, you know?”
He didn’t have to explain that last part to me. Dante could even make those unsmiling British guards in the funny hats lose their cool. He was such a jerk; a really stubborn, unyielding, really unhelpful pain in the…
“I’m really sorry, Eliza,” Chase repeated, breaking into my grumbling thoughts on Dante. Dammit. He could even annoy me when he wasn’t around to distract me.
I switched the phone from my right hand to my left, since my poor right needed a break. “Don’t worry about it. I was just worried about you.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I really meant them. It was the reason I was so mad at Dante in the first place. Something was happening to Chase and I wanted to help him if I could. Dante knew more than he was telling, and it was driving me crazy.
"Thanks, Eliza. Do you…do you think we could hang out later then? You know, after you get off tonight?” he asked.
I could almost see his face. He sounded so eager, but I wasn’t sure. Part of me wanted to make sure he was really okay, but part of me also wanted to do some more digging around here. Aunt Celeste had done something, and I really wanted to find out what it was. Dante wasn’t going to be much help that much was clear. Dawn was MIA, so it was up to me to go all Nancy Drew. I had to figure the big mystery on my own, and that meant I had to stick around here.
“Chase…I’m not sure,” I answered, trying to figure out how to say no without hurting his feelings. I didn’t want to think that I was mad at him for how he’d acted, but I had to find out what the deal was. “I can’t, not tonight. There’s some stuff I have to…”
But he didn’t give me a chance to finish my lame excuse. “Please, Eliza. Just for a little while. Just so I know we’re still okay. I won’t go back to the store if you don’t want me to. Maybe we can just grab a shake or something…there’s a Cold Stone just over in Marshall. We can be there and back in about an hour. C’mon, it’s my treat.”
I did love all things Cold Stone Creamery. They were now mixing Girl Scout cookies in with their phenomenal sundae concoctions, which was like mad scientist genius of them. I mean really, the guilty pleasure of millions of Girl Scout supporters plus the deliciousness of premium ice-cream? I didn’t think there’d been a better match up in the history of the world since peanut butter met jelly, or since they found a way to inject layer thin wafers inside a kit-kat bar.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Bribe me with your delicious frozen dairy goodness why don’t you?”
“Awesome!” I could practically hear his grin over the phone line, it was so obvious. “I’ll pick you up at six then.”
“Better make it seven, just in case there’s any last minute work that gets dumped on me.” I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen, but at least it gave me another hour to do some snooping around.
“Okay. Sure. Seven it is. See you then.”
“’K. Bye.” I went to hang up the phone but stopped when I heard Chase say my name. I put the receiver back to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Thanks. You know, for being so cool about everything.”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He sounded like the Chase I’d met at the hardware store. The nice guy who’d taken me for gas station pizza and had his dad make me the best root beer float in Central Missouri. “Sure. No problem.”
“No, really. I really mean it. I actually picked you up something earlier. I can’t wait to see your face when you open it.”
“What? Chase what did…” I started to ask but he cut me off again before I could get the full sentence out.
“No way. I’ll show you tonight so be ready by seven. Bye.” And just like that he hung up on me.
I stared at the phone for a minute, trying to figure out what all that had been about. Not the whole apology and ice-cream date make-up, but the whole picking me up something portion of the call. I really hadn’t known him all that long, surely not long enough to warrant any kind of gift yet. Then again, here I was trying to make sure he wasn’t being driven crazy but my highly suspicious aunt and her diabolically sexy stock boy, so maybe I did know him well enough.
“I don’t think you’ll be making that hot date tonight, Eliza Rain.”
I turned. Aunt Celeste was standing at the bottom of the stairs staring at me like I’d just pee’d in her pool or something equally terrible. There was a look of such utter contempt on her face that I actually took a few steps back. When she smiled, a little voice inside me told me it wasn’t nearly enough.
~~ ~
Chase stared at the phone for a few seconds, overjoyed by the fact that he was meeting up with Eliza later. If he was being honest with himself, he’d been a little nervous as he dialed the number to the Gift Emporium. He was hoping Eliza wasn’t too annoyed at his earlier behavior, even though it had really been her fault. It was nice to know she wasn’t holding her own mistakes against him – girls could be funny like that sometimes.
Turning around he looked over where Sheriff Sutter stood talking to his dad. He couldn’t help but wonder what had gotten into Kara that she’d gone to the sheriff and reported him for trying to attack her at her job. That was just nuts. Why would he attack her? She was Brady’s girlfriend and he’d never mess around with his best friend’s girl. Plus Eliza was the only girl for him.
Everyone knew that.
He watched as the two men he’d known all his life shook their heads over the whole situation, even laughing about how lucky they were they didn’t have any teenage girls of their own.
When they’d seen the cruiser pull up to the shop, they’d just assumed the Sheriff was dropping by to visit a while. It was pretty common for him to stop by and shoot the breeze with Justin at least twice a week. When he’d come and said he was there on business, neither one of them could believe it. When he’d explained what Kara McAllister was saying he’d done over at the Land and Sea, you could’ve knocked them both over.
Chased explained to both men that he had been over there before work, which was why he’d been late in the first place. He’d gone looking for a gift to surprise Eliza and Kara had offered to help him. She’d even offered to model a few swimsuits for him. Chase didn’t think it would be gentlemanly of him to tell them she’d offered to model bikinis. It was obvious the girl had issues. She was seeking some kind of attention, and he wasn’t exactly sure why she'd decided to get him involved in her dramatics.
The sheriff said that pretty much matched up with what Kara was saying, except she said he’d gone crazy in the back dressing room.
“Son, did you do anything to that girl?” his dad had asked him. His face had been so serious as he’d studied him. Chase had never been able to lie to his dad, not once.
"No, sir,” he shook his head, honestly amazed at what Kara was telling people he’d done. Did Brady even know what kind of girl Kara really was? He looked at both men and told them everything, “She took me to the back dressing room, sure, but then she never came back. She just left me there. I waited a while, but then decided to just buy the one I’d already picked out. When I left the back, she wasn’t anywhere in the store. I left the tag and money for the suit right on the counter. I swear to God dad, Sheriff, I never touched Kara.”
Sheriff Sutter had sighed and said he figured as much. Pete’s dad had been his pee-wee football coach until he’d entered middle school. He knew Chase wasn’t that kind of guy. On the field he was determined and precise – he never lost his cool. It was one of the reasons he’d been made a starter his freshman year.
He was just like his dad that way.
Sheriff Sutter shook hands with his dad now. “I’ll see you around, Justin. Sorry for bothering you like this, but I had to do by due diligence and all.”
Justin just nodded like he understood. “Don’t worry about it, Sheriff. We understand. Just sorry to hear Gayle’s daughter seems to be having some trouble. I can’t imagine what would possess her, but you can rest assured that Chase would never harm a woman.”
The Sheriff nodded. “I know it. I’ve never had trouble from any of you Crawfords.”
Justin laughed. “And you won’t neither. Not so long as I can still wield this size thirteen shoe against my son’s backside. Don’t you worry.”
Everyone laughed then, the tension easing out of the hardware store just like that. Sheriff Sutter turned to leave and as he put his hand on the door to exit, he looked back once. “Will you boys holler at me if you see Pete around? His mama’s worried about him. Said he hasn’t been home since yesterday and she’s got an earful to share with him, I’m sure.”
Chase and his dad nodded and assured the sheriff they’d call him the second they saw Pete. When the sheriff got inside his cruiser and pulled away, Justin gave his son one last look. “Are you sure nothing happened with Kara over there?”
“I swear, dad. I don’t know why she’s saying any of that stuff. You know I’d never do anything like that,” Chase said.
Justin nodded once and turned back to finish stocking the new shipment of weed killer he’d been setting out before the sheriff’s arrival. “Sure seems odd. Why would she blame you of all people?”
“Not sure. But I hope Brady knows what kind of girl Kara is.” Chase shook his head, hoping his best friend didn’t get too tangled up with that kind of girl. He walked over and helped his dad finish the new display as all thoughts of Kara and her lies fled, leaving only thoughts of Eliza in its wake.
Tonight was going to be awesome.