Consent
It's that tree again. Chloe has been avoiding that tree: the stained glass door that keeps the world out... and the Ambers in. A shield for the fakers and the actors in the house. Chloe imagines it's hard for the DA to live in a glass house the way he does without some sort of protection. It must be hard for someone like Rachel to have to keep things to herself, though. Sure, she says she doesn't like to talk about her personal life, but Chloe knows that's as much of a lie as everything else the princess has said. All she's done is talk about her personal life. All she's done is show Chloe her most naked truth and then deny it as hard as she possibly can. And Chloe knows the show is only just beginning the minute she walks through the front door of The Amber House.
The golden brown interior is sterile in ways Chloe didn't think possible for wood, but there is a glint to the china cabinets and vast oil paintings that makes everything appear trapped under a thick coat of laquer. Warm, golden honey clinging to the wooden floors, the brightly-colored windows—not a single one without stained glass panes or a drawn shade—the yellow-tinted tables and chairs… Chloe feels much the way some prehistoric bug might feel if it were to be trapped in a cocoon of Amber.
"My room's this way," Rachel says as she starts to head upstairs.
Chloe realizes she's just been standing there in the front hallway staring at the family portrait by the coat rack. Paris. And they looked happy there. Who wouldn't look happy in Paris though? If it had to be anyone, Chloe can only imagine it would be James pooping on the Paris party, but there he is… smiling, his arms around his wife and daughter. He looks a bit stiff, but that might just be the suit. It reminds her of Principal Wells and his baggy gray sport coat and flat pink shirt. In the summer he can be caught with sweat stains under his arms most of the time, and a yellowing collar. People like James Amber wouldn't be caught dead looking disheveled in Paris of all places. No, stiff is more his look. Stiff looks good on James Amber.
"Chloe?" Rachel says.
"Sorry, I'm coming."
Chloe doesn't hold onto the railing on her way up the stairs because she's afraid to get her fingerprints all over the shiny surface. That's the last thing she needs right now: to be the dull spot on the perfect surface of something that belongs to Rachel. Rachel doesn't seem to mind getting her fingerprints on the railing, but maybe she's the one who polishes everything to a mirror finish in the first place. Maybe she knows about futile work and doing it anyway. Maybe she knows all about not being good enough, but still trying to be regardless of the fact that there will never be enough "try" in the world to polish a turd.
But Chloe doesn't think Rachel is a turd.
Manipulative, shady, and selfish maybe, but not a turd.
Rachel pushes open the door at the end of the hallway and holds it for Chloe.
"After you," she says.
And then Chloe has the most unforgivable thought.
Upon stepping into Rachel's room… upon seeing the purple and blue striped walls and the childish underbelly of this girl's life… the simple white furniture and the glowing star stickers above the headboard… Chloe feels like she's stepped into something so sad and innocent that it can't be touched even gently with the foul thoughts she's dredging through.
"Welcome to Chateau Rachel," she tells Chloe, closing the door quietly behind the two of them.
A flannel-covered lamp casts an orange glow over the nearby bulletin board that outlines what appears to be Rachel's interest in stars and… her various patrons. Well-wishers' cards line her dresser, congratulating her on her performances and celebrating her birthdays over the years. Chloe wonders what sort of person keeps a birthday card with a "2005" scrawled across the top corner. She must've been no more than ten. What ten-year-old keeps their birthday cards once they've taken out the crisp twenty-dollar bill?
"It's…" Chloe doesn't know where to go from there. She knows she should compliment Rachel's taste in thrasher posters or even say something nice about how organized things seem… or even anything kind and measured about the way she really feels the presence of someone hopeful here… but she just can't find the words.
"Not what you were expecting?" Rachel asks, leaning against the door with her arms crossed.
"Honestly, no."
"What was Chloe Price expecting then?" Rachel asks.
"I guess… more of… you."
"Which is…?"
"More volatile than pastels and star charts," Chloe says.
Shit. That's not an amused look Rachel's shooting Chloe anymore. That's… that's an offended look.
"I didn't mean that you're—it's not…" Chloe starts.
"Is that what you think of me?" Rachel asks, a deep frown creasing her face.
"Honestly, yeah."
"Maybe I don't like you being so honest," Rachel mutters, brushing past Chloe to sit on the bed. She does it moodily, in a way Chloe never imagined a person could sit with attitude. How can someone so calm and forgiving be such a child?
Ah. Now Chloe gets the purple stripes.
"Nevermind," Chloe says. "This actually makes a lot of sense."
"I'm not sure which is worse," Rachel grumbles.
"You can't be mad at me about both," Chloe says. "Besides… you asked. I didn't volunteer."
"Your initial silence was volunteering."
"And your following 'what were you expecting' was encouragement," Chloe says. "You can't ask me what I think and then be mad when I tell you the truth. That's bogus."
"So now I'm the bad guy."
"You're joking…" Chloe says.
Rachel's phone starts buzzing in her pocket. She rips it out and tosses it to the corner of the room.
"What the fuck is wrong with you and that damn phone?" Chloe asks.
"Nothing!" Rachel snaps. "Just… go take a fucking shower. You stink."
"If I take a shower, am I gonna come back to a crazy person? Or are you gonna chill the fuck out and stop asking me so many questions you don't want answers to?"
"This is why you don't have friends—you can't talk to people like that!" Rachel says.
"Jesus, it's like playing operation with you! Except everything is the buzzing metal shit and you can't touch anything!"
"Maybe you shouldn't want to touch anything, did that ever occur to you?"
"Who said I wanted to touch you?" Chloe shoots back.
"You did!" Rachel says. "When you talked about Taming of the Shrew and stared at my ass and—"
"What are you talking about?" Chloe asks.
Oh shit. Rachel tries to quickly reel it back in.
"I see the way you look at me, Chloe Price. I know what goes on in your twisted little mind," Rachel says.
"You're literally an insane person…" Chloe says. "You definitely know that, right?"
"Even now you're thinking about it, aren't you!" Rachel says.
Good. Yes, blow it way up and over the top and maybe Chloe will forget about the Taming of the Shrew comment and the fact that Rachel just referenced a time that she rewound and banished from Chloe's memory because it was too embarrassing to actually live.
"I'm not thinking about that at all!" Chloe says. Where is this coming from? What kind of trap is Rachel laying out?
"That? That?!" Rachel says.
"Y-yeah… I'm not—"
"Give it up, Chloe. I'm not stupid—everyone wants to fuck me. I'm the forbidden fruit."
Chloe's jaw drops.
"What?!" Chloe manages to say before Rachel starts rummaging through her drawers and throwing shirts at Chloe. She can't tell if Rachel is attacking or not… but there are sharper-looking objects she could be using if that were the case…
Rachel throws together an outfit piece by piece and tosses it at Chloe.
"Take a fucking shower, you kid-fucking pervert. And come talk to me when you're done defiling me with your mind," Rachel says.
Chloe just stares at her with an armful of clothes, mouth still agape, eyes wide with terror. Rachel called her a what now?!
"Oh, and give me those," Rachel says, pointing to Chloe's jeans. "I'll throw them in the wash. I don't think mine are long enough for you."
"What, like right now?" Chloe says.
"Ohw, are you shy?" Rachel asks mockingly. "You sure weren't shy the other day when you poked your grubby little head into my dressing room, were you."
"You asked me to bring you the belt!"
"I didn't expect such personal delivery…" Rachel says with that mischievous smirk.
Chloe is astounded. What kind of mood is this? How can someone go from being such a complete mental case to flirting in five minutes? How on earth is this even humanly possible? And why isn't Chloe mad about it?
She holds the pile of clothes in one arm and uses the other to fumble with the zipper of her pants.
"Do you seriously need help right now?" Rachel asks with a heavy sigh. She slides a drawer closed and moseys over to Chloe.
"No, no. I got it," Chloe insists, but Rachel's deft fingers are already upon her, and it's like the zipper was never there.
Rachel watches Chloe turn red, and she hopes to God it's not from anger. She lets go of Chloe's pants and takes a small step backwards.
"I'm sure you can handle the rest," she says, but Chloe doesn't move right away. She stands there frozen for a second with her pants halfway off her hips… staring at Rachel like a deer in headlights.
"Today, princess. I've got lives to save and nails to file over here," Rachel says.
Chloe snaps out of it and manages to kick off her pants without too much trouble. Rachel scoops them off the floor and points a demanding finger towards the bathroom.
"Towels are in the linen closet on the left. Use whatever shampoo you want," she tells Chloe, who doesn't protest.
As Chloe disappears into the bathroom, Rachel chuckles a little to herself. Maybe she meant for that to be uncomfortable. Maybe she meant for it to catch Chloe off guard. Either way, it definitely took focus away from her earlier slip-up. But maybe too much attention. Or rather… attention of the wrong kind…
She hears her phone buzz and heaves a sigh.
Wait.
That's not Rachel's phone…
It's coming from Chloe's pants…
Rachel waits until she hears the water start running in the bathroom and then digs through Chloe's pockets to find her flip phone.
She reads "UNAVAILABLE" on the front screen and rolls her eyes. Of course it's a spam message. Nothing juicy here. Just a—
Rachel's phone buzzes from across the room. She sets Chloe's phone on the dresser and goes to retrieve her own. A pile of messages from Nathan has formed, each one of them more frantic and cryptic than the last. He must be tripping on some serious shit if he thinks Rachel is going to listen to him after that car battery thing.
She scrolls down the list, catching the highlights from the diner… don't bring up the fire… don't talk about David… don't order the turkey bacon… blah blah blah…
DON'T READ THE TEXT.
Rachel stops.
The text?
She looks over at Chloe's phone on the dresser.
UNAVAILABLE waiting to be read…
Don't read the text…
She looks back at the name scrawled across the top of her own screen.
UNAVAILABLE.
Is Nathan texting Chloe?
Rachel goes back to investigate and her phone starts blowing up with new messages. She ignores all of them, flipping open Chloe's phone and hitting the button that will take her to messages. She scrolls through Chloe's contacts… the various unread texts from Joyce and a few from someone named Eliot. Wait, is that nerd Eliot? Eliot with the hideously large feet and forgettable features? Probably.
Justin asking about a hookup… something from a few months ago from someone named Max…
There is is.
UNAVAILABLE.
She opens the text:
DON'T LEAVE YOUR PHONE WITH RACHEL.
She can feel the hair on the back of her neck slowly start to stand on end. A heat washes through her face as she feels an uncomfortable surge of fear rush through her. She looks around the room. What the absolute hell is going on?
She looks back at some of the other texts:
YOU NEED TO GO TO THE AMBER HOUSE.
What?
Rachel's phone stops buzzing on the floor.
A deep silence fills the space between water droplets falling in the shower, and Rachel's forehead is coated in sweat before she even reads Chloe's response:
no i dont.
She doesn't even notice Chloe come back into the room.
"What are you doing with my phone?" Chloe asks casually.
Rachel doesn't respond.
"Hello? Earth to drama queen? Hang on—you're not talking to my Mom, are you?"
Rachel doesn't look up at Chloe, just hands her the phone with the UNAVAILABLE message open.
"Yeah, I have no idea who the hell that is," Chloe says. "I figured it was just some sort of practical joker being a dick."
Rachel points to her own phone on the floor.
"What is this, charades?" Chloe asks, fetching the phone.
But then she looks at the word flashing on the front screen:
UNAVAILABLE.
"Wait… what the hell?" Chloe says, opening Rachel's phone and scrolling through the messages. "These are about the diner… and the junkyard… and—"
"I thought it was Nathan until I saw yours," Rachel says. "Now I'm not so sure."
"So somebody's watching you and you don't think that's weird?" Chloe asks.
"Everyone's always watching me," Rachel mutters. "But I blocked the number this morning. I don't know how I keep getting the messages."
"Well if it's not Nathan, then who the hell is it?" Chloe asks.
"I don't know," Rachel says. "And I'm not sure I want to."
Chloe sits down on the bed next to Rachel.
"What are we supposed to do now?" Chloe asks.
"We get through dinner with my Dad," she says. "And then we figure out what the fuck is happening to us."
"Okay," Chloe says, but it's not. It's not okay that she's terrified of the unknown and what it might mean. It's not okay that she's wearing Rachel Amber's clothes, sitting on Rachel Amber's bed, rubbing Rachel Amber's back and not feeling any of it. And it's definitely not okay that something dangerous might be going on without either of them doing it, and without either of their consent.