Triple Threat
10. Don't Speak Too Soon, For the Wheel's Still in Spin
One of the wonderful things about Toby Young was that he rarely ever got angry. At Castanet High, where explosions of teenaged rage were as routine as the bell schedule (this week's hot news: Julius accosting Candace in the middle of the quad and asking her very loudly to go to prom with him. There were flowers and a boombox involved. The whole thing ended in uproar when Candace turned bright red and fled for the library without replying, nearly in tears from embarrassment, and Luna kicked Julius in the crotch for upsetting her sister), Toby was something of a anomaly. The best word to describe him was simply chill. While other people ranted and raged about their own lives, Toby would sit and listen, offering the voice of quiet reason. It was nearly impossible to be angry around Toby – he was simply too calm.
Which made it all the more hilarious in those moments when he did freak out.
"I'm going to kill Luke Kimura," was the first thing he said when he sat down to lunch. Renee and Beth exchanged amused glances.
"How was crit today?" Renee asked, her tone deliberately bland. Toby scowled and stabbed at his tuna roll with uncharacteristic force, spearing it upon his chopstick.
"Awful." He shoved the roll into his mouth, chewed angrily, and swallowed before bursting out, "I couldn't get a word in edgewise! Does he ever stop talking?"
Beth glanced at a spot two tables away, where Luke was entertaining his friends with a story, gesticulating wildly and talking despite his large and very visible mouthful of pizza. She winced. "Not even when he's eating."
"Exactly." Toby groaned and slumped over the table. "This semester of art class is going to be awful."
Renee patted her boyfriend's arm sympathetically, lips twitching as she tried desperately not to burst into laughter. "Well…were the portraits alright, at least?"
"Oh, yeah, they were fine," Toby said, voice slightly muffled. "Which made it even worse. I couldn't find too much bad to say about his, but he kept going on and on about how my portrait didn't seem quite 'dynamic' or 'colorful' enough." He made a strangled noise. "It was a pencil sketch! It's not supposed to be colorful!"
"There, there," Renee said, her voice suspiciously strained from holding in her giggles. "It can only get better, right?"
"No! The worst thing was that Ms. Saunders agreed with him! She said it was a good first effort, but for my next portrait I should try to capture Luke's vitality and not dull down his aura so much." Toby raised his head and looked around, wild-eyed. "His aura," he repeated, with the same disgust one would use when saying "his oozing pus-filled sores." "The only way I could capture that aura is if I filled every painting with bright obnoxious orange!"
"Luke's aura is orange?" Beth asked.
"Or some other eyesore of a color, I don't know! And that still wouldn't convey how incredibly loud he is all the time! He's even loud when he's drawing – I never knew anyone who drew loudly! I didn't know it was possible!"
Renee had to excuse herself to the bathroom – she ran, shaking with laughter, out of the cafeteria, as Beth tried to placate Toby.
"It'll be okay," she said soothingly. "Just…sing a song to yourself inside your head when he's talking."
"It doesn't work," Toby groaned. "He sings too. And it's always 'Kung-Fu Fighting.'"
Beth sighed. "Well…I'm sorry, Toby. Hopefully Luke'll calm down as the project goes on?"
"He won't." Toby sighed, then seemed to remember something. His expression brightened marginally. "It wasn't quite as bad as it could have been, though. You should have heard Chase and Gill's critique."
Beth looked sharply at him. "What?"
Toby's lips twitched. "I might be exaggerating a little bit. It's actually funny, now that I think about it."
"What happened?"
"Well…we weren't allowed to see each other's sketches before the critique, so none of us had any idea what to expect. So the entire class was caught completely off-guard when they saw Chase and Gill's sketches." He chuckled at the memory, and Beth pressed her lips together.
"And?"
"The…the expressions that they drew." Toby grinned. "Gill drew Chase looking incredibly angry, and Chase drew Gill looking super snotty and stuck up. Then they both tried to justify it by saying 'that's just how he looked while we were sketching.' Ms. Saunders wasn't happy. She tried to get them to reenact their first conversation, but there wasn't anything too out of the ordinary." He gave Beth a questioning look. "Does Chase really not like Gill, or something?"
"Um…" Beth sighed. "He doesn't, but I'm not completely sure why. I mean, they barely know each other." She frowned. "But if I know Chase, then he probably was making that face at Gill."
"His expression had a little bit of a 'get off my turf' to it," Toby mused. "Gill is a really good artist," he explained, when Beth raised her eyebrows. "Ms. Saunders went on this ramble about how alpha dogs size each other up before they decide whether or not to fight over territory – yeah, I know, it didn't make much sense to me either."
"What about alpha dogs?" This came from Renee, who had returned from the bathroom looking much calmer. She sat next to Toby and he wound an arm around her shoulders.
"It's the way Ms. Saunders described Chase's expression in Gill's portrait."
To everyone's surprise, Renee nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Yeah. I've seen that face before."
"You have?" Beth and Toby said at the same time. Renee looked from one shocked face to another, and grinned at their clueless expressions.
"You guys are so hilarious. Haven't you ever seen Chase jealous?"
"Jealous?" Beth's jaw dropped. "What for?"
"Oh, Beth. That boy has been so possessive of you since elementary school – he absolutely hates it when you make friends with anyone else. He practically bit my head off when we became friends in fifth grade," Renee said, very matter-of-factly. "Honestly, I think he need to expand his friend group a bit more; might make his outlook a little healthier."
"Chase is…" Beth wanted to contradict Renee's words, but the retort stuck in her throat. That certainly would explain a lot of Chase's recent comments about Gill. She frowned. "That's not fair. I shouldn't have to clear it with him before I make friends."
"I never said it was reasonable. But it does explain a lot." Renee looked sidelong at Beth. "Isn't that going to make this weekend sort of awkward?"
"Yeah…" Beth sighed. "I still haven't asked Gill yet. Do you guys think it would be a bad idea?"
Renee shrugged. "Well, Chase is going to have to get used to Gill eventually. Maybe this'll help him get over his friendship insecurities. Don't tell him I said that, by the way – it might damage his ego."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Nope." Renee nudged Toby, who had lapsed into his characteristic thoughtful silence. "What do you think?"
"Well…the more the merrier, I guess. Just – I don't want to sit next to them in the movie theater, okay?"
Beth sighed.
A memory.
Chase remembered fifth grade very clearly as The Year When He Nearly Lost Beth.
It wasn't through any fault of his own – he loved his best friend unconditionally, even if he didn't know how to show it, and he had latched onto her so completely ever since kindergarten that he couldn't imagine life without her. Despite the teasing that went with having a girl for a best friend ("You're gonna catch cooties…"), Chase never abandoned Beth. He followed her everywhere like her skinny, pale shadow, sat next to her during lunch, and worked with her on every class project.
No, the problem wasn't him. It was Beth. Or, more accurately, the way Beth was. Is. Whatever.
Beth didn't love Chase the way he loved her. That certainly didn't mean that she didn't care about him – oh, no. Beth loved him wholeheartedly, the way she loved everyone else. And that was the problem. Whereas Chase could only focus his affection on one person at a time, Beth seemed capable of loving the entire world. With every new friend that Beth made, Chase could practically see the love that she had for him breaking into smaller and smaller pieces as she shared it with the other people in her life.
He didn't want her to keep sharing her love with other people. It meant that there would be less and less for him, until one day he might wake up and discover that she no longer cared about him.
In fifth grade, two students from Flute Fields Primary School transferred to Harmonica Elementary. Beth saw them as potential new friends, and wanted to get to know them. Chase, however, saw the new students as threats to his and Beth's friendship, and sought to keep them away.
Their names were Renee Hasselbach and Toby Young.
Beth took to Renee almost immediately. They were both free-spirited and cheerful, and they had the same taste in literature, which Beth's book (no pun intended) immediately put Renee several points ahead of everyone else in the class. They even looked alike; when they stood side by side, people could have mistaken them for sisters.
Moreover, Renee was a girl, and that was something that Chase could never hope to compete with. Beth loved her best friend, but there were some things that a girl can only talk to another girl about. Chase would often go looking for Beth at recess, only to find her sitting on the grass with Renee, giggling about something or another. And when he asked what was so funny, Beth would only smile and say, "Oh, nothing."
Chase could feel his friend slowly slipping away from him, toward this…this intruder. He cornered Renee in the library one day. "Stay away from Beth," he said, trying to be as threatening as an underweight ten-year-old can be.
Renee didn't look scared of him. "Why?"
He was shocked that she even needed to ask. "Because," he seethed, through gritted teeth, "she's my friend."
"She's my friend too."
"She was my friend first!"
Renee rolled her eyes. "We can both be her friends," she said, calmly and reasonably. "Didn't you ever learn to share?"
He had. It was one of those life lessons that everyone, even the most selfish of toddlers, had to learn at some point. But sharing crayons and basketballs and Goldfish crackers was very, very different from sharing a friend.
Renee must have sensed his consternation. "Beth still likes you," she told him matter-of-factly. "Just because she's my friend doesn't mean she won't be yours. I could be your friend too, if you weren't so mean all the time."
And with that, she sidestepped him and went to go check out her armful of library books. Chase stood between the shelves for a long moment afterwards, scowling at the rows of books without really seeing them. He only snapped out of it when Beth came looking for him.
"Chase?" she said, large eyes questioning. "Why are you here? I thought we were going to eat lunch together."
He looked at her. "Do you like Renee more?"
She tilted her head questioningly. "More than what?"
"…More than me."
Her brow furrowed. "No." Spotting Chase's deepening frown, she elaborated. "I like you both equally," she said, "even though you're different. Renee's my best girl friend, but you're my best boy friend." She smiled and grabbed his hand. "Come on, let's go eat lunch."
He learned to be okay with Renee. She was Beth's best girl friend and he was Beth's best boy friend, so she could no more usurp his position than he could hers. Maybe Renee was the one who could braid Beth's hair and talk to her about boys, but Chase was the one who didn't care if her hair was a mess and the one who would laugh if she told him a gross joke. They would always be on equal footing, hold equal portions of her love. Eventually, Chase stopped worrying about Renee taking Beth away from him.
Toby Young, however, was a different story.
Chase didn't think much of the other boy at first. He was sort of a goofy-looking kid, with ears that stuck out and eyes that were always squinted like he was smiling. He also never seemed to wear sneakers, even on P.E. days, and had this weird obsession with fishing that Chase, who had never been fishing in his life, couldn't even begin to fathom. Most of the time he tended to ignore Toby, which was easy – Toby mostly stuck by Renee anyway, since they had both come from the same school.
He only started to take notice of Toby when Beth began acting weird around him. Whenever Toby was around, Beth would turn red and her usual flow of constant chatter would cease. She'd half-hide behind Chase and smile and giggle a lot.
Chase had no idea what to make of it.
"Why do you act stupid around Toby?" he asked Beth one day as they sat in the shade, sharing their lunches. Beth's eyes went wide and she colored.
"I – I don't – "
Chase squinted at her. Beth was squirming with embarrassment, but a wide smile was spreading across her face as though she couldn't control it. "Um," she said, "promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Tell anyone what?"
"What I'm going to tell you. It's a secret."
"…Okay."
Beaming, Beth leaned and whispered in Chase's ear. "I like Toby."
She immediately scrambled back, cheeks flushed, while Chase stared. "Like like?" he said, repeating the term that he'd heard thrown around the playground. Beth nodded and hid her face in her hands.
"Don't tell!" she squeaked.
He couldn't stop staring at her with shock and horror all through lunch.
What did people who like liked each other do? Chase pondered this as he walked back to the orphanage that day, sneakers scuffing at the sidewalk. They kissed, he supposed, and then got married – the thought made him freeze in his tracks.
Married. What if Beth married Toby? She might go and live with him on that stupid boat Toby was always talking about, and spend her days fishing! He'd never see her again! Irrational panic seized him. No, no, no. This was…this was terrible.
"Can't you like like someone else?" he asked Beth desperately the next day. She shushed him hurriedly.
"Shh, not so loud!" She glanced around, then said, "You can only like like one person at a time, silly. You can't force yourself to like someone else just by thinking it."
"You can't like Toby!"
"Shh!" Beth looked about ready to strangle him. "Chase!"
"You can't like him, because…because…" He cast wildly about for an excuse. "Because Renee likes him!"
Beth looked at him with wide eyes. "She…she does?"
Sensing his advantage, Chase seized the lie and ran with it. "Yeah! She – she says that she's going to marry him someday! And then they're going to live on a boat and fish every single day!" Well, wasn't that what any wife of Toby's would end up doing? "So – so you can't like him!"
Beth stared at him. "I…" She pressed her lips together and looked away, her eyes suspiciously wet.
It was very, very fortunate for Chase that his lie turned out to be true, because that could have been the end of all of his friendships in one fell swoop, if he'd been exposed. As it was, the little drama ended almost as soon as it had begun; Beth gave up on Toby for Renee, and the two really did begin dating in middle school. Chase, meanwhile, gave a sigh of relief. His relationship with Beth was safe, so long as she never like liked anyone else. Ever.
He would make sure of it.
Beth looked a little bit shifty when Gill met her in the parking lot after school. "Hey," she said, and looked hard at his face. He blinked.
"Um…hi." He was tempted to ask why she was staring at him so intently, but these days that question seemed to be more trouble than it was worth, so he let it go. "How was your day?"
"It was fine." She was still peering at him. "I…hear you had an interesting critique session in art class today."
His eyebrows rose. "Who did you hear that from?"
"It wasn't from Chase, if that's what you think," she said quickly, as though reading his mind. "But – I want to apologize."
Gill wondered if he looked as bewildered as he felt. "Why?"
"Well, Chase is my friend, and I feel kind of responsible when he does stupid stuff like this."
"But you weren't involved."
Beth looked away. "Um…no," she said evasively. "But…" She shuffled awkwardly. "Er…"
He waited patiently for her to stop fidgeting and stammering. Her face flushing slightly, Beth muttered in a quick rush, "IdunthinkChasewantsustbefrie nds."
"…Sorry, what?"
She took a breath. "I don't think Chase wants us to be friends."
Part of Gill wasn't surprised at all. "Is it his business?"
"It isn't!" Beth looked annoyed. "Look, I'll talk to him – I don't know why he's acting so stupid. I mean, even if he doesn't li – er, doesn't get along with you, that doesn't mean that I don't…um…"
"Get along with me?" Gill finished her sentence, slightly amused. Beth threw her hands in the air, looking exasperated and embarrassed.
"God, why is this so awkward?"
"Because you really don't need to apologize," he said. "Any conflict between me and Chase, we can work out on our own time."
Beth muttered something under her breath that sounded like "fat chance." Gill pretended not to hear her.
"We're just partners on an art project," he went on. "It's fine if he doesn't like me."
The girl sighed and tugged on a stray lock of hair. "I want us to all be friends. It makes life kind of awkward if I'm friends with two guys who don't get along – especially since I was planning on inviting you both to the movies this Saturday."
There was a full five seconds of silence as Gill looked at Beth, and Beth stared deliberately at Ms. Saunders pedaling off on her bike at the other side of the parking lot.
"…Oh."
"There'll be other people there too," Beth said, eyes still following Ms. Saunders as she wobbled along. "Probably some Student Council people. I really hope you can come."
"Are you sure?"
"Chase said he'd be civil," she muttered. She looked at Gill just as Ms. Saunders ran into the curb and flew off her bike, landing in a heap and swearing loudly. "Come on. Don't you want to be a degenerate teenage rebel?"
"I hardly think going to the movies counts as being a rebel."
"It does if you sneak your own food in."
"Beth O'Keefe, Snack Smuggler," Gill deadpanned, and Beth giggled, the sound light and lilting against the backdrop of Ms. Saunders' cussing.
"It has a nice ring to it." She looked at him, still smiling. "So you'll come?"
"I'll think about it."
I'm hoping this is moving at a proper pace! I wanted to delve a little bit into why Chase is getting mad about Gill. Meanwhile Gill is just sort of going along at his own pace, drawing what he sees. Oh, Chase. Jealousy is not attractive in a man.
Two chapters in two days. Don't expect this to become a regular thing, people – but enjoy it while you can.
Chapter title is from "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan. And for Chase, they certainly are.