The Shells Of Chanticleer (15 page)

He awakened feelings in me that seemed to spring from deep within my memory. I saw actual details flash before me: a farm, a dusty country road, a grey weathered gate. I felt as if he was the long lost soldier I had seen off to war and then died waiting for. It felt as if a hundred years of separation were melting away in a single second … but at the same time the setting felt off; wrong bodies, wrong century, wrong world.

The whole sensation unnerved me, and I had to quickly remind myself that Chanticleer was an odd place where mind games were not uncommon. This was probably one of them. I’d figure out soon enough where I’d seen him before; I was sure of it.

Sebastian looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “What are you staring at?”

“Oh, ah, nothing,” I stammered, and drank down the warm caramel sugar to hide my confused expression. I emptied the flute quickly then put it down and, with only a little shyness, looked back at him. What else could I do? I felt as if some taut, invisible wire that had held my heart safely in place for sixteen years had snapped involuntarily.

How odd. How overwhelming. How embarrassing. His eyes were on me, watching my face as I processed that development. I had to not act like a fool with him. I felt the warm caramel sugar dripping down inside of me and took courage from it.
Go with this,
I told myself.

I remember standing there, staring at him for what seemed like a long time, but it couldn’t really have been more than a few seconds. All of a sudden everything had changed.
In a good way,
I decided.
I think.
Maybe Chanticleer wasn’t quite as bad as I had thought it was.

“Well, I lost my friend, too,” I said, to break the silence.

“Too bad for her,” Sebastian joked, obviously still as merry as could be. No heart-snapping revelations seemed to be weighing his spirit down at that moment, I observed, as he chattered on.

“You’re stuck with me now. Gosh I’m hot,” he said, wiping the back of his neck. “Let’s go outside. We can save our seats for the presentation. Do you know a lot of people here yet?”

“No, not really.” I mentioned Zooey and Violet.

“I can introduce you to some of us who have been here a while. Oh, here is Nic,” he said, as his buddy from the dance hall reappeared next to us.

“Greetings!” Nic grabbed my hand and shook it hard.

“Hello!” I said, “It’s very nice to meet you. You were dancing with my friend Zooey. Do you know where she went?”

Nic laughed. “No, she scrammed as soon as the music stopped and shot out of the room like a bullet. Should I have taken offense?”

He had a good natured, relaxed way about him, just like Sebastian.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t you she was trying to get away from. She’s like a whirling dervish, on a hunt for our friend Violet, but I was missing the festival running all over looking for her.”

Glancing at his watch, Nic suggested we go outside and find seats.

“It gets crowded.”

We grabbed crisp paper cones of fragrant roasted almonds and went out onto the grounds. Sebastian led the way and staked out an empty space on a short stone ledge for us to sit on. The lawn in front of us was filling up around a sound stage complete with lighting and a large projection screen. Once settled, Sebastian sent Nic back in to get more food. My gown was heavy and it was a relief to sit on the ledge in the cool night. We sat easily together, our shoulders barely touching, and I mostly listened as he talked, any trace of my earlier awkwardness on the dance floor completely gone. He wanted to know all about me.

“When did you get here? What have you done?”

When I said I went to the Prime Minister’s and fell off the bridge in the Fir Forest, he knew all about it. “I cross the bridge all the time for fun,” he said. “So cool. Do you like it here?”

“Sometimes.”

“Summer Hall is so pretty inside, isn’t it?”

“It is nice, I like it.”

“What’s your favorite food, so far?”

“Those chocolate toffee soldiers.”

“What are you good at?”

“I like to run.”

“I bet they picked out that dress for you because it matches your eyes.”

“Maybe.”

“I like your hair, it’s so shiny.”

“It is?”

And on he went. I was helpless to resist his attention. In return I found myself wanting to take in everything I could about him, from how his clothes fit so well to how his shoulder-length hair fell in a perfect swoop across his face. My father would never have let my brothers get away with hair that length. It was too unconventional. I followed where his gaze went in the crowd and delighted when it fell back on me and held there. Sebastian was easy to talk to and I listened carefully to hear if there was anything unkind about him. It didn’t take long before I felt we had been friends forever, not just for the past hour.

Then I thought about the past week, all the days and nights I had slept in Chanticleer and how often I had felt vulnerable and alone. I remembered specifically that it was there, in the middle of that carnival night, when I began to feel the first twinge of happiness return to my weary heart. And I guess I just gave in to Chanticleer. When the lights dimmed and the presentation started, I cheered along with the others as the Chanticleer success stories were projected onto a large screen. I didn’t know those people on the screen, nor would I ever. They had all tipped back. It was a way to remember them and honor their success, Sebastian explained. That was fine with me; I was happy for myself right then so I could be happy for them. I knew they had escaped becoming shells of Chanticleer; I hoped one day I could do the same.

When the presentation ended, fireworks rocked the air. Burst after thunderous burst exploded over our heads. We clapped and exclaimed and screamed at how pretty or how low to the ground, or look, the colors! When the last tail of the last explosion softly fizzled and then disappeared, I was deeper into that world than I ever imagined I could be. I didn’t care if they were putting something into all that warm caramel sugar they made us drink to make me feel that way. I wanted to hold onto it.

No,
I realized. There was someone there I actually wanted to hold onto, who was suddenly making me happy to be alive. Unconsciously, and totally unlike me, I reached out to Sebastian and grabbed his hand. Without hesitation, he clasped his hand to mine and held tight, surprising me with the intent in which he reciprocated.

The festival broke up after the fireworks.

“I will walk you back to Summer Hall,” Sebastian volunteered as we stood up and stretched our legs. He didn’t let go of my hand as we made our way through the crowds toward the front of the hall, as he nodded to friends passing by, or as he used his back to prop open a door for an elderly lady dressed as a milkmaid. Our exit was slow; one could only move as fast as the crowd. Amidst the din I heard my name.

It was Zooey, reunited with Violet and, not surprisingly, Bing. Bing had his arms around both of them, his shirt unbuttoned, his silk necktie stripped off and tied around his head like a headband, holding back his thick, sweaty bangs. Violet’s silver tiara, crushed and missing its stones, sat askew on her head.

“Bing stepped on it,” she laughed.

“Then he dropkicked it,” added Zooey.

I was suddenly self-conscious that Bing would see Sebastian and I together and I unclenched my hand from his. I had forgotten about the night’s earlier drama of Zooey trying to find Violet. From the way Zooey had her finger curled inside Bing’s belt loop, I got the impression that she was his convert now too.

“I didn’t see you at all tonight,” Bing whined, pouting at me with puppy dog eyes. Then noticing Sebastian, his tone sobered. “Who do we have here?”

“Come on, Bing.” Sebastian was annoyed. “Go away.”

Bing shot Sebastian a dirty look that surprised me. Then he purposely pulled his arms away from the girls and, sidling up behind me, placed his flushed cheek next to mine. He paused for a moment to make sure Sebastian was watching, then he whispered hotly in my ear, “Good night Cinderella. Don’t forget we had the Best Day Ever!”

I laughed and jerked my head away. Bing was weird sometimes but really funny. Zooey rolled her eyes at his naughtiness and wound her finger back into his belt loop, pulling him back. Violet threw her arm around Bing and murmured a few words in his ear. She waved sweetly as they pushed ahead.

“I think there are goodie bags inside. We’ve got to find them before they are all gone,” she cried as she pushed her little group toward the manor.

Nic and Sebastian looked at each other and hooted. Sebastian reached for my hand again and squeezed it tight. I was glad that he forgave me for dropping it.

“Does he always whisper in your ear like that?” Sebastian asked.

“Uh, no,” I said, still laughing. “He’s my shadow. I know him.”

Sebastian was quiet and didn’t respond. When he spoke again he changed the subject.

“Chanticleer loves its traditions. Although I have to be honest, I didn’t care for tonight’s costumes. Too hot, too uncomfortable. The last festival was Polynesian. We wore surfer shorts and roasted a pig. You should have been here.”

I looked at him, well built and blond, and imagined him in surfer shorts. I wished I hadn’t missed it.

Aloud, I wondered, “Are you from California?”

“No,” he said, “Rhode Island. I’m from Providence. How about you?”

Hearing that I realized I couldn’t have met him before. “I live just outside Chicago. Have you ever been there?”

“No,” he replied, and went on, “What did you think of your first festival? Didn’t you think it was spectacular?”

It was, I agreed. I surveyed the crowd and my eyes fell upon a familiar head of white hair tied in a ponytail. Crispin Sinclair was shuffling out directly in front of us, just off to my right. My timing was horrible. He glanced backwards precisely at the moment I noticed him, and our eyes met. He smiled as if I amused him. I immediately averted my glance, suddenly overtaken by an inescapable need to look only at my feet; a knee-jerk reaction I knew was obvious. Yet I couldn’t meet his gaze full on.

I hated how that old toad looked at me, knowing what he could do to me in that tank room. I felt he was watching me, expecting me to fail. When I did he would be waiting for me. Ready to see how my hair floated off into the water, delighted to put the finishing touches on my dead-eyed image, dress me up, posing me this way or that, crisp and captured in his twisted museum.

The crowd surged and Sebastian and I were jolted into the people ahead of us. Sebastian grabbed my elbow to steady me, and when I regained my balance I had lost sight of Sinclair in the crowd.

It was not until we got to the door of Summer Hall that Sebastian finally let go of my hand.

“That was good,” he said. “It was wonderful meeting you.”

“Me too,” I agreed.

“I’ll come find you again. We can hang out, or whatever, on a day when we don’t have to do coursework,” he suggested. “I can show you the ropes around here.”

“That would be nice,” I said, honestly, imagining what the security of his friendship would mean to me.

Then, out of the blue, he issued a warning. “Don’t let that Bing talk you into anything,” he said.

“No, of course not,” I said without thinking. Bing couldn’t talk me in or out of anything. Did I look gullible? I shot him a quizzical look. He stared back at me gravely and then shook off his dark mood.

“Sleep tight,” he said, flashing his perfect smile and fixing his deep-set eyes on me for a few extra moments.

“You too,” I echoed, thinking that he wouldn’t necessarily know how hard sleeping was for me. Suddenly I felt let down that the night was over. I stood in the doorway with the guileless butterflies hovering around me and watched him stop to greet a group of girls as they strolled up the incline to Summer Hall. Elise, a busty blonde who lived above me, and whose chest was spilling out of her low cut gown, was making no effort to hide her interest in him. A wave of possessiveness flowed out of my every pore. I wanted to shout at her to stay away from him, that he was mine and that we had just found each other again. But I didn’t, of course.

Uncertainty enveloped me. Well, if he wanted someone who looked like that I could not compete. I turned away into the brightly lit foyer and headed upstairs to bed.

When I got back to my room, there was a note under the door from Paolo.

Macy, stop by tomorrow so we can talk about our Best Day Ever! Bing kept saying that to me all night…. Did he say it to you too? I’m in room 203. Paolo.

I chuckled at the thought of Bing teasing Paolo tonight at the festival. I wriggled out of that gown and left it in a crumpled heap on the floor, pulled on my pajamas and jumped under the cool covers. So much had happened that day, I wanted to go over it minute by minute in my mind and relive it. Especially the minutes with Sebastian. But I made myself begin earlier in the day, when I met Paolo, so I thought about that and about our long walk to the Fir Forest and that’s as far as I got before I fell fast asleep. No bad dreams possessed me that night, a first since I had been to the shell museum, and I slept blissfully and straight through to the dawn.

In the morning I crept down the hall, anxious to gossip about the previous night with Violet and Zooey, but their doors were shut, no ribbons of light underneath. They were still sleeping and I decided not to knock. Instead I decided to go see Paolo. We had missed each other at the festival but I was eager to reconnect. I hoped it wasn’t too early for him either.

I crossed through the town center and made my way over to the boys’ home, easily finding Paolo’s name on the register. I pressed the button for his room but a boy was opening the door and motioned me in, so I followed. I hurried up the flight of stairs to the second floor, looking for 203. His door was open and I peeked in. The room was bare, the blankets and comforter gone, the drawers in his dresser pulled open and empty. As I stood there gawking, one of the maids arrived holding a spray bottle and a rag.

She said, “Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?”