An Island Summer – Chapter 6
Chloe woke up the morning after Chris had let her go and stood on her lanai when the phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and felt a large smile creep across her face. "Good morning," she welcomed.
"Good morning to you too beautiful. I had a few minutes before a meeting and thought I would take your advice and call you." Lex threw his feet up on the ultra expensive glass desk and slunk back into the leather chair. "Hang on," he put the phone down. "Can you open those curtains on the window over there?"
The servant looked at his employer in strange dismay and stopped momentarily before doing as he asked. Squinting slightly as more sun made it's way into the main office at the mansion, Lex took a deep breath. "Lex?"
"Sorry, I need some more light."
"You light?? Since when did you come over to the good side?"
"Sunlight, and that's not funny. So, how are you?" Lex was curious about the end result with Chris and couldn't give away how much that he knew. He had watched Chris and his partner get on a plane in St. Thomas that morning via cell phone. He noticed a long pause and could hear her start to sigh. It wasn't a true love he thought to himself; the boy was supposed to simply have her fall in love and then leave her. A crush, an infatuation. Rolling his eyes, he squeezed his temples realizing he had made a mistake.
"I'm fine," she casually threw out. She honestly felt sick; she had gone to Don's with Safina and talked about her feelings and her problems with love. "I just went out and…"
"Hangover bad?"
Chloe tried to laugh on the other end but ended up grabbing her head and lurching forward. "Lex Luthor, are you spying on me? What am I saying; you are. Yeah, I got a little drunk last night. But the man dumped me – he just up and left for a job. What is my problem?" Chloe didn't want a lecture from of all people a womanizer, but her hangover continued to invite unwanted opinions just as the night before.
Lex laughed to himself about her ironic statement, "Chloe, he left you for a job? Was it a good job?" Yes, it was the best offer possible, he thought. "Think seriously Chloe; if someone offered you a position at the Daily Planet or New York Times, wouldn't you drop everything and move?"
Chloe sat in silence and thought about it. She looked out over the garden that her little porch covered and tried to picture leaving the place. "Honestly, I don't know anymore."
A smile crept across Lex's face picturing her on the beach and her sunburned shoulders. "They'll be plenty of cabana boys, sailing instructors Chloe. You just have to trust that if they leave you, it's their mistake regardless of the reasons."
Chloe's upset scowl softened at the last sentence. "You know for you hopping from marriage to marriage and literally suite to suite, you really have some interesting insights. Too bad you never use your own advice." Lex laughed at loud as Chloe held the phone away from her pounding headache.
"Hangover," she reminded him.
"Sorry, take some aspirin and get some rest. You work today?"
"Tonight at the bar." Lex could tell from her short answers that her body and mind were moth fading back to a much needed sleep. He would be happy to carry her to the bed and cover her up if he could.
"I'm going to let you go. The helicopter will be here in a few and you need some rest. Go back to bed and get a good sleep."
"Yes doctor." Chloe grabbed her head and lied back down on the bed in her small room. "Thanks Lex." She couldn't exactly make out the last words before she closed the phone. On the other end, Lex stared at his phone and tried to remember the last time someone went to sleep while they were on the phone with him.
*******
Chloe looked at her watch as she flew out of the house and to the ferry. She was going to be soooo late. She heard horn from the ferry blow its final warning call before she leapt on the end of it. Looking back in the direction of her little place, she wondered when Jules' flight was.
She had taken a page out of Lex's handbook for relationships and tried the love and leave method. She now had an increased understanding for the have fun and then let it go attitude. Jules was a young blonde guy from England. He came in with his family reunion but apparently had a wild streak in him that caused him to duck as many events as possible.
She had met him on the beach as he double fisted beers and walked away from the hotel where he said his 80 year old grandmother was going to kill herself with diabetic shock from the size of the cake. He was funny. He reminded her of Clark, living on a sheep ranch in the country. Remembering the first time she had heard that, she pictured Clark trying to herd sheep. It was her first thought of either Lana or Clark in a couple of months.
Now, Jules was on his way back to England in the afternoon. She never actually thought she would have ever learned anything from Lex Luthor, but he was a decent teacher. Her lack of attachment had become an easy endeavor, except for Chris.
For almost two months, she and Lex talked either by email or phone everyday until he left for India. That had been a week ago. She sat on the stool behind the jewelry counter and stared out the front of the store and watched a bald man walk by. The man was dressed in a pair of light blue shorts and a floral shirt that didn't nearly match. She giggled thinking what in the world Lex Luthor would do on a beach.
**************
"Hey, are you ready?" Safina hollered into the back of the jewelry store at Chloe. The last few weeks Chloe had tried her hand at the craft and learned that it calmed her even more than she was already.
"Yeah, but I can't get this tied," Chloe walked out of the back and handed the two ends to Safina.
"This is really nice, but why all the dark colors honey?" Chloe's piece had glass beads in shade of violet and blue.
"I don't know; I like these color together." Safina handed the necklace back to Chloe and she put it over her head, tucking the end of it into the top of her tubetop dress. "Anyway, there are only so many shades of pink, beige, and light blue that can be mixed together. It's variety."
The two joined the rest of the merchants on the beach for a Thank You party in between cruise ship landings. Safina explained that the cruise ships dumped a lot of people in a short amount of time into St. Thomas and let people go send their money. That was their livelihood. Winter birds never bought trinkets like those that only stayed for a few hours or at most a day before moving on. But in between the rush of visitors, they gathered for their own sanity and to discuss business.
Chloe threw a chair down on the other side of two women. The surf was just coming in and would barely run along her toes buried in the white sand. Safina came up and sat down beside her. "Hey, Safina how's the shop?"
"Fine now that my wonderful employee has rearranged all my books for me. I never knew how out of whack my money was." Safina leaned over and hugged Chloe.
"Speaking of money," another woman chimed in, "I heard the place up in the estates on the other side of your island got purchased. Umm, Belia quit her job at the hotel to become the house mom for it. Says people have been in and out rewiring some of the rooms. There's speculation that the government is purchasing it for some covert operation." The woman nodded convincingly.
"Oh hush," Safina dropped, nodding her head. "I heard that was nothing – someone just bought it and is just preparing to move in." Another woman countered saying the latest celebrity couple had purchased it and was getting it wired to have an at home birth. Chloe watched the women continue to bicker about the new owners of the Water Island home until she couldn't take it.
"So, what is so big about this house that it warrants that kind of attention?"
"Because even normal snow birds don't usually pay cash for four million dollar homes." Chloe stopped and tried to swallow the amount of money that they were talking about. She got up from her chair and started down the beach.
"Honey?" Chloe smiled and motioned for the women to keep talking. She had to get air. She walked along the beach and watched as the sun went down. The sky radiated with various colors of blues and pinks just like the jewelry in the store.
Chloe sat down on the sand up from the new tide line and watched the waves run into each other as if they were fighting for space. The water was so blue she could see the last little reflections of the sun off the small fish swimming in the surf. It was truly beautiful every night. She felt lucky that she could end each day in the same way. Everyone should have the same opportunity. Still, she looked up the beach and back down, noticing that people had started packing up their beach chairs and putting out the fire at the party. They all had to be up for the next ship early tomorrow.
She pulled her phone out her pocket and flipped it open. No calls. It had been a week without not even a text message. She hadn't read anything in the news about his whereabouts or any deals in India. She silently resigned herself to him simply being out of touch and unavailable. She still missed him. Even with the view in front of her, there was something missing. She flipped the phone open again and tried to remember who called who last.
"Screw it," she said to herself as she dialed. "Hey, it's me. I know you're probably busy, but I just wanted to say hi and," she paused, "that's it." She hung up the phone and beat it against her head. Stupid, she thought. He probably thinks I'm an idiot; I sound like a damn schoolgirl crush. She shoved her phone back in her pocket and ran back down the beach for the ferry back to the island.
*********
It was dark in the islands without electricity powering everything she thought to herself as she slapped the flashlight. The talk about that damn mansion had gotten the best of Chloe's investigative bug. It was the largest piece of intrigue that had hit the island since she had been here. "Shit," she cussed catching her knee on a rock as she climbed up to the top of the property line. There was no fence, at least not a dangerous or armored one. She swung one leg over the side of the fence and pulled herself up.
She stared at the front entrance with the two pillars for decoration. It wasn't very overstated. It was dark, but she was pretty sure that the size and the view were the reasons for the price, and definitely not the security. She stayed off the main paths and followed the driveway in the trees up to the main house entrance. Trying the door, it was obviously locked as she flashed the light inside the glass. The place was immaculate, with the finest furniture that she had ever seen in a beach house.
Walking around to the other side of the house, she noticed the slatted doors that she guessed went from the lanai she was into the kitchen. Sticking a small file from her purse in between the doors, she felt the lock drop and popped open the door. "Great security; could be government."
She slid her hand across the counter as she eyed the contents of the cabinets. Most were staple food that looked like it had been bought recently. She continued into the living room and saw the original ad for the place and the asking price. Throwing the sheet back on the table, she continued down the hall, looking for some clue as to what or who was going to be the new occupants. "Probably just a really rich stuck up nobody."
She pushed open a door and found a room with several shelves of book and eyed the titles. Seascapes, Drawing the Ocean, Creating Your Own Inner Peace, Island Development. "Interesting mix," she commented as she flipped through the last one on real estate development. "Obviously the wife and husband have different reasons to be here." She didn't know who was going to be there, but no one could possibly want to get their Zen on while trying to sell real estate in hurricane alley.
She closed the books and walked back out into the hallway and saw another flash. Tiptoeing away from the flash, she cracked the door to what looked like a pool just as an alarm screamed out, "Zone 3."
Seeing flashlights behind her, she suddenly had flashbacks of running from plants and other secure buildings and cursed herself repeatedly to stop poking her nose in other people's affairs. She jumped over the side of the railing of the pool desk and landed on her butt and continued rolling. She saw the lights continue to follow her as she sprinted through the thick tropical brush toward what she could see was the property line. The light in front of her stopped her. "Come on," the older man with a Jamaican accent said as he grabbed her by her jacket.
She sat down on one of the couches in the living room that she had just broken into. "I just wanted to see the inside." The man motioned for her to stop talking and she rolled her eyes. They had taken her purse, her bag, and her flashlight. Dumping her off the cliff in front of the house would be a definite good end to the evening.
"Sir, we have an intruder." The Jamaican man turned around and pointed the camera end of it at her. He waited while watching Chloe still eyeing the rest of the house as much as she could now with the lights on. Still no hints of who or what was moving in. She glanced back over to the man who was obviously waiting for an answer of what part of the island they should bury the body.
In Metropolis, Lex stared at the screen on his computer and couldn't help but laugh at her. Trying seriously to bite his tongue and give serious instructions to his security, he waited until he composed himself. The man on the other end of the line could wait; he was paid well.
"Give her back her keys, purse, wallet, but keep her phone and computer as a precaution." He thought about his requirements. It would kill both of them not to be able to talk to each other, especially after so many days of not speaking. "Drop her at the end of the Estates Property and make her walk home." Poor Chloe, just counldn't go a summer vacation without having to work.
"Very well." The man hung up the phone and turned toward Chloe. "Ok, here." He handed her the same items as he was told and pulled her up by the collar of her jacket.
"What about?"
"Owner says no."
"Who is the owner?" The man looked down at her like she was a little girl and lifted an eyebrow.
"Move." He walked her back to the front of the entire estates development and pushed her on the other side of the fence. "Now, go." Chloe watched the man turn and start back down the road into the estates. He looked back and saw her still standing there, pondering another move. Drawing his gun, he knew his instructions were very strict to only point at the nearest tree to her if it came to it. She was not to be harmed. "Go!" Chloe heard the gun cock in the dark and started running down the street the other way.
************
"So, did you find out anything on your little trip up the island last night?" Magnil asked Chloe at breakfast.
Chloe's head popped up at the statement, "I didn't know…"
"I couldn't sleep and saw you coming up the drive. Are you ok?" Magnil saw the disappointment in Chloe's face. She had disappointed herself. She was there to get past all the things that always got her in trouble, Clark, investigations, and yet in her recent boredom, she had fallen back into old patterns. Magnil rubbed her hand along Chloe's arm, "Why don't you call him again."
Chloe glanced over at Magnil in surprise. She hadn't spoken about Lex to her from what she could remember. "I called him last. I don't want to seem…"
"Needy? Infatuated? In love?"
Chloe shot Magnil a look and tried to contain herself. "I'm not in love with the man; he's my friend."
"Of course," she got up and walked out of the kitchen and left Chloe with a cell phone sitting on the table next to her.
**********
Another month passed and without her phone or computer, she couldn't talk to Lex or even follow what he was doing. Money was tight, and she didn't want to take advantage of others. She walked the beach almost every night and stared at the moon wondering if the color was the same from Smallville. For the first time she was depressed.
She sat in the bar waiting for the lunch crowd to start and wiped down the same place on the bar. "You know darlin, of you keep rubbing that place, we'll have a cupholder for the next patron in that seat." Chloe lifted the rag and noticed she had rubbed the finish off the old plackboard bar.
"Sorry," she smiled. Don had even tried to cheer her up, asking her to a birthday party for his nephew that Chloe had previously mentioned was cute, but she wasn't interested. She walked over to another table and shifted some of the condiment bottles around before sitting down again, feeling too tired to work.
"Hey!" Chloe looked up and saw Safina appear at the front door of the bar. She had finally taken Chloe's advice and closed on Mondays when cruise ships weren't at port. Safina worried when she would lose her best and only employee she ever had, but she was confident it was pretty soon. No one that wasn't truly dedicated to this life could stay forever. She sat down at one of the tables facing the street and stared at the people getting out of cars in the parking lot. "Don, what do you make of this guy? Think he got on the wrong plane?"
Don walked over and sat at the table with Safina and glared at the man in the light blue sweater, black slacks, and sunglasses. "Does he know that it's summer?" Don rubbed his bald scalp and cringed, "Dude, buy a hat. You have to some see this guy Cherise." She ignored Don and sat at the end of the bar with her head down, watching the waves knock little kids down.
The man continued into the bar as Don and Safina both walked back toward the bar. He walked up to the end of the bar as Don laid a glass out and poured. "Welcome to the islands," Don tried to say with a straight face as he put the glass of light rum in front of the man.
Pulling his sunglasses off, the man looked at the other end of the bar before putting back the small glass of alcohol. "I'm looking for a Chloe Sullivan." Hearing her name, she turned.
TBC