Without Chase (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jamie

If she ever wrote a book about modeling, Jamie thought, she would have to include a chapter titled, “Life under the microscope”. Several times a month she found herself reclining in a spa chair as someone with a magnifying glass on their head pinched, plucked and poked at her skin, or her hair, or her face.

When she first started in the industry the facials, mani/pedis and hair treatments provided before photo shoots were a nice perk. Then, after an over zealous facialist caused a skin reaction, her agent, Liz Everett put a stop to having her get treatments from god-only knows-who-the-fuck-these-people-are. Instead, Jamie was given a list of pre-approved specialists, along with instructions to see them on a regular basis as part of her ‘maintenance’.

As she became more in demand, the list of things she had to do grew even longer. She had eyebrow groomers, facialists, waxing specialists (including painful Brazilians every six weeks), hair stylists, colorists, makeup artists, and one person whose only job was to dye her eyelashes darker than natural, and another whose only job was to dye her eyebrows lighter.

The scheduling of these visits required the logistics of a space launch and the assertiveness of shopping at a designer sample sale. Despite charging three figure prices, the specialists had waiting lists. You grabbed what was available.

So it was no surprise that when her agency called and told her they had an appointment with a celebrity colorist, it was Liz Everett herself who picked up the line to tell her. “Lucien never takes new clients,” Liz announced. “But one of his regulars moved back to Paris, and he knew I had been after him to work with you, so you are now one of his girls. Here’s the number to schedule---”

Even though she knew it was hopeless, Jamie protested, “but I have a colorist in LA...who you recommended, by the way.”

“Yeah, yeah, Daniel is good, especially with actresses.” Liz said dismissively. “But Lucien is fantastic, and he is a genius with natural blondes. So take this number down---”

Jamie did as she was told. It was a strange business she was in, when other people knew some of her features better than she did. Liz was one of them, which was why Jamie was successful.

A day later, a last-minute cancellation landed Jamie in Lucien’s private rooms. It was part of a bigger salon bearing his name, but while everyone else was worked on by his assistants, the ‘real’ clients had their own spacious rooms with a private entrance. After she was changed into his signature gown, and provided with a cup of Japanese white tea, Jamie settled in to wait.

The door opened softly. She looked up. A pretty blonde socialite with her hair in foils entered, and Jamie calculated that Lucien that she would be next while this woman’s hair was being professed. She gave her a polite smile before turning back to her magazine.

A split second later, Jamie realized who it was. As she held her breath, hoping the woman wouldn’t know who she was, Jamie felt a slight touch on her arm.

“Are you Jamie?” the woman asked tentatively.

Jamie looked up, the smile frozen on her face. “Hi.”

“Hi---sorry, you don’t know me! I’m Shelby Betancourt. My husband and I are good friends of Chase.” She extended her hand, and Jamie shook it.

“Oh. Hi, nice to meet you.” Now Jamie was confused. Was this woman married?

“We met Chase here in New York, but when he went to Spain to play basketball, we got to know him better. We’re very fond of him,” she said, her voice and diction perfect. “And our son Liam adores him.” Shelby’s face lit up at the thought of her son. “But anyway, Chase mentioned you quite a bit, and of course, he had pictures of you on his phone and laptop. So when I saw you here, I felt as if I knew you already.”

“Oh.” Jamie was mortified. This was the woman she had spent months being envious of and hating, all because she thought Chase was in love with her, when all along she had just been his friend. And now that she met Shelby in person, she was embarrassed at having been so wrong. This elegant woman, who clearly was not in the habit of introducing herself to people she didn’t know, was doing this because she wanted to help Chase. No words could come out. Please let me say something than ‘oh’, Jamie thought.

Fortunately, Shelby mistook her guilt for confusion. “I know that you and Chase had… broken up when he was in Spain,” she said diplomatically. “But you were very much on his mind.” Shelby looked at her. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”

“No, I… I didn’t know.”

The door opened again, and the receptionist walked in. “Lucien is ready for you, Jamie.”

Jamie turned to Shelby. “It was so nice meeting you,” she said sincerely. “Thank you… for telling me.”

Shelby gave her a warm smile. “It was really nice meeting you too. I hope we run into each other again.”

Jamie called Jenna as soon as she could. “I was wrong,” she told her old roommate.

Jenna knew immediately what she was talking about. “I knew it! That wasn’t his girlfriend?”

“No, and you’re not going to believe what happened…” Jamie told her the story, then supplemented it with what she had recently learned from googling Shelby’s name. “She was so low-key, Jenna! All she said was, ‘we get to know Chase when he played in Spain’.”

“Uhh, yeah, when he played for her father-in-law’s TEAM,” Jenna said sarcastically then added, “but that’s kind of sweet, isn’t it? That Chase had, like, a real friendship with a woman?”

Jamie thought about it. “Yeah. It is.”

“So have you forgiven him?”

“You know, I thought about that, and it really doesn’t change anything.” she answered.

Jenna was surprised. “Really? I thought that was why you didn’t want to talk to him when he called.”

“I mean, ok, he’s not in a serious relationship. But I see things differently now since I’ve been with Adam. Adam and I are a part of each other’s lives---past, present and future. With Chase, all I had was the present.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jenna argued. “You’ve known Chase longer, so you have the past, too.”

“No, Chase and I have a history together,” Jamie explained. She thought of what Adam had told her about his faith. “But I know very little about what made him who he is. That’s what I mean by past. And I’m not saying Adam and I are going to get married, but I just feel like no matter what, we’re going to be in each other’s future too. Fifty years from now kind of future. With Chase, next year was long term.”

“Wow.” Jenna drew the word out, then wrapped up the conversation in her ever efficient manner. “I guess everything happens for a reason, then. If Chase hadn’t walked out on you, you wouldn’t have met Adam.”

“You’re right. I guess everything works out for the best in the end.”

Jenna didn’t answer that and they hung up with the question still in the air.

Chapter Thirty

Jamie

Jamie had heard that Chase was coming back to LA, back to the house he loved so much. In the back of her mind, she wondered if he would start running on the beach like he used to, but shrugged it off as unlikely. Judging from his social media followers, Chase was a celebrity now, and he probably wouldn’t just go out in public anymore.

Then a few days after she heard the news, she saw his unmistakable form coming towards her. “God, I’m an idiot,” she mumbled to herself. She couldn’t turn around now---the beach was nearly empty this early in the morning, and someone doing a complete turnaround in the middle of the path would have been too obvious. She saw that Chase had spotted her when he stopped several hundred yards ahead of her, waiting.

As she drew closer, Jamie stopped jogging and just walked until she was standing in front of him.

“Hi Jamie, how’re you doing?” Chase pulled his ear buds down.

“Hey. I heard you were moving back.”

“Yeah. About a week ago.”

“Ok. Well---” she made a move to go.

“God damn it, Jamie!” Chase’s voice was filled with frustration.

Jamie turned to face him directly. “What?”

“That’s it? I mean, I know you’re with someone else now, but are you ever going to talk to me again?”

“You left me, Chase. Remember? That means you don’t get to be my friend anymore.”

“Stop saying I left you. I told you what happened. And whatever happened to, ‘I’ll wait for you?’”

Despite herself, Jamie found herself bursting into tears. “Fuck you, Chase! You have no idea what I went through!”

“---and you don’t think I went through the same thing? You think not seeing you was easy?”

“Well it must have been easy enough because you did it!” she shot back. “I didn’t get to choose! You decided…” Jamie calmed herself. “YOU decided,” she said again. “what was going to be best for both of us, because YOU didn’t trust me.”

Chase’s jaw dropped. “You have no idea what happened, do you? I was trying to protect you.”

Jamie took a deep breath. “Maybe that’s what you tell yourself, and it’s a good enough story that my brother and even my parents believe you. But I was with you the day,
the hour
, it happened, Chase. And the truth is, you ran. You panicked, and you ran to New York so Steve Green could make it all better. You didn’t think about me, you didn’t think about us. You thought about you.”

“Jamie.” she saw from his anguished look of realization that she had hit home.

“I get what you did, and even why you did it,” she continued even as she felt herself crying again. “But now I’m with someone who doesn’t just tell me he loves me---” Chase flinched. “He shows me by letting me into his life. By trusting me enough to show me all the places he’s vulnerable.”

Chase shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want to hear about your boyfriend.”

She stopped and wiped the tears from her face angrily. “This has nothing to do with anyone else. Don’t you understand? We keep breaking up because you don’t trust me. The first time, you let me believe the worst about you because it was easier than trusting me not to leave you. Then this time, you left because you didn’t trust me enough to stand by you. So whatever it is we had couldn’t have been that real if you never really let me in. Could it?”

Jamie took a step back and began to turn. As Chase made a move to stop her from leaving, she shook her head. “Just let me go, OK? You know I’m right. You know I loved you so fucking much. But maybe you loved yourself and your career more. I don’t know. I just know I can’t keep… being destroyed like this.” She touched his arm. “Just let me go now, OK, Chase?”

When he said nothing, Jamie turned and began to run home. After a quarter mile, she heard footsteps closing behind her. It was Chase, catching up to her. She stopped. “What?” she yelled at him. “What do you want from me?!”

Chase put his palms up. “I’ll leave you alone after this,” he began. “But I couldn’t let you go without saying I’m sorry.” He stopped and looked her in the eyes. “You’re right, I probably don’t know what it means to trust someone. I wish I did, but it’s kinda tough, especially when you come from a world where your own mother would sell you out in a minute.” His voice broke. “Anyway, I just want to tell you that I was a lucky man to have had your love. Because even when you weren’t with me, you made me better. And I wish I hadn’t fucked it up, but now I know I did, and I don’t blame you for moving on.”

He took one last look at her before turning around and walking away.

Chapter Thirty-One

Chase

As Chase went home after seeing Jamie, he was glad that we wasn’t walking into an empty house. Augusta had arrived for the day and was unpacking groceries when he walked in. Officially, she was the housekeeper and cook, but pretty much did everything around the house.

“Hello Mr. Chase,” Augusta greeted him. She looked at his puffy eyes and tried to help the only way she knew how. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“Yeah, that would be great.” He looked at the grocery bags. “Did you go shopping this morning?” He could still feel his heart thumping in his chest.

“Yes, you finished the milk I bought yesterday. I think I’m forgetting how much food you eat.”

Chase switched to Spanish, which he was now nearly fluent in. “But you don’t have a car. How did you get to the store?”

“The bus, Mr. Chase.”

“You took two bags of grocery on the bus? Including this?” He held up the gallon of milk.

“It’s OK.”

Another thought occurred to him. It was 8:00 in the morning. “What time did you leave your house this morning, Augusta?” he asked her.

“5:30am, Mr. Chase.”

Chase shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. You can give me a list, Augusta. I’ll go to the store.”

Augusta shook her head vigorously. “No. It’s my job.”

He supposed she was worried he wouldn’t need her anymore. A thought occurred to him. “Do you have a driver’s license? Can you drive?”

“Yes, a little bit. But I have no car.”

“I know.” He nodded as if he had just solved a problem. “How about if I buy a car, and you can use it when you’re here? That way you can get whatever I need for the house. Without the bus.”

Augusta looked dubious. “Not a big truck---” she was referring to Chase’s SUV. “Or fancy car like Miss Jamie.” Chase laughed. Jamie had a late model convertible, but it wasn’t any nicer than what a typical Beverly Hills teenager would drive. “How about something old and small, then?” he asked jokingly.

“Yes, I can drive an old and small car,” she answered in all seriousness.

“OK, I think we can find that.” Then, when Augusta had gone back to the groceries. “I’m going to take a shower now.”

“I will have your breakfast when you come out.”

As he let the water wash over him, Chase felt better. It felt good to think about using his money this way. He would get the car, let Augusta drive it for a while, and then eventually just give it to her. But not yet; she wouldn’t accept it if he just gave it as a gift.

After his shower, he checked his phone. Shelby had texted him earlier, “can you vid chat with me and the little one?”

“Give me 15 min” he texted back, then set up his breakfast and laptop on his patio.

When his computer powered on, Liam’s forehead took up half the screen. He was looking into the camera as if Chase was inside the computer.

“Hey, buddy! How’re you doing?!” It surprised him how much he missed Liam and his parents.

Liam shrieked at hearing his voice. “Hi Chase! Can you see me?”

“Yeah, dude! What’d you do today?”

Shelby appeared in the background. “Hi Chase! Sorry, we don’t have much time to talk. My parents are going to be here any minute to take Liam to the park, so we’ll just let him talk to you until then.”

Liam pouted. “How come you didn’t call us back right away? I was waiting and waiting.”

“Because I just got back from running on the beach. But let’s talk now, ok?”

Chase talked to him until Shelby’s parents appeared in the room. They said hello to him, and Chase watched as they ushered Liam out, their voices warm and soothing. He felt a twinge of sadness thinking that his children would not be as lucky to have grandparents like that.

Shelby faced the camera. “Well!” she started. “How’s your day going?”

“It didn’t start off so great.” He told her about what happened with Jamie.

“That sounds intense.” She paused. “What do you think about what she said?”

“I mean, I can see why she would say I have” he made the air quotes sign “’trust issues’, but it’s like me asking Liam to dunk, you know? He knows what it looks like, he can want to do it more than anything, but if his little body can’t do it, then it can’t, and I can’t take it personally.”

Shelby looked away from the camera and said, “I ran into her, you know.”

“Ran into who?” he asked.

“Jamie.” Shelby looked guilty.

“Nooo.” A feeling of dread swept over him. “Where? What did you say?”

“I think we get our hair done at the same place. I saw her there and introduced myself. I just said we were good friends of yours, and I recognized her by the pictures you had of her.” Shelby sniffed. “It’s not as if I broke any confidences, Chase, but I wanted to tell her,” and she raised her voice for emphasis, “without embarrassing you---what was going on with you while the two of you were apart.”

He shrugged. “Well, I guess it didn’t make a difference judging from how she reacted to seeing me today.”

“I think she’s stuck seeing her side of things, and you’re stuck seeing your side.” Shelby said sympathetically. “And the thing is, you’re both right. I think if you had talked to her beforehand---”

“Shelby, you knew I couldn’t.”

Shelby pressed her lips slightly. “I think you could have told her what you were about to do and why, without compromising her, Chase. Just so she would know how much it was going to hurt you. But if you really did just leave one day, and didn’t talk to her for nearly a year, then yeah…”

“I knew what I had to do was hard, and I guess I just didn’t want to make it harder by hearing her cry, or asking me to stay.”

As gently as she could, Shelby told him, “so I guess she has a point. About just thinking about yourself.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, then Shelby said, “but you also have a point. You reacted in the only way you knew how, and it’s disappointing that she wouldn’t understand that.” A second later, she asked, “you know she’s with someone else now, Chase. And you know she cares about him. What do you want to do?”

He looked in the camera sullenly. “What can I do?”

“Exactly. There’s nothing you can do.”

Chase said nothing as he thought about what that meant. He looked around his house, which still felt like the house they had shared. He thought about the history they had, that went back to before anyone knew who he was. Finally, he shook his head. “I just can’t let go, Shelby. Not yet.”

On the other side of the screen, Shelby put her hands over her heart. “Oh, that is so romantic, Chase!” She grew serious. “But don’t get weird or stalkerish or anything.”

Chase grinned. “No, I’m not going to DO anything. I’ll just wait and see if she changes her mind about me.”