Eight: Puget Fugit

The coaster had the image of an hourglass, sand trickling from the top bulb into the bottom, and, written large in red block letters across the top, Puget Fugit. Chloe scowled at it. "I officially nominate Puget Fugit for worst bar name in Seattle."

Max, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tent, winced. "It's punny. I thought you'd like it."

"Dude, bars are for beer, not puns."

A Smile flickered over Max's features, but she couldn't dislodge the unsettled feeling that had dogged her all day. When she thought about the news that Nathan's body was missing... Somehow, knowing his corpse was out there somewhere made it harder not to think of Rachel, of the smell when they'd found her, Chloe heaving and sobbing at the same time. Maybe Chloe had been right and returning to Arcadia Bay had been a mistake. Too many bad memories. Too many ghosts and monsters.

"Maximus?"

"Huh?" Chloe was looking at her expectantly. "Sorry, I guess I spaced out." Max felt Chloe's fingers come to rest on her knee. Her blue nail polish was chipped from all the work she'd been doing and she hadn't bothered to reapply it. But the merest touch of those slender fingers made Max shiver.

"You sure you're up for this?"

Max intertwined her fingers with Chloe's and looked up into those pale blue eyes. "I am if you are."

Chloe held the coaster out to her. Max reached for it.

#

Max drew in a breath of smoky air and immediately began to cough, drawing the attention of several men in leather jackets who were seated at the bar.

"Easy there." Chloe rose and leaned over the bar to grab Max's elbow. And then, under her breath, "You are too straight edge for your own good, Maxaroni."

Taking a slow, shallow breath, Max wiped her eyes. Her throat felt raw from the cigarette smoke that wafted like mist through the bar. The room was long and poorly lit, making the figures hunched over the low tables little more than leather-clad silhouettes. Glancing over her shoulder she could see rows of bottles–amber coloured rum and whiskey, clear bottles of gin and vodka, a few lonely wine bottles, piss-coloured tequila, and things with labels she'd have to squint at to read in the dim light.

Over the din of people talking, laughing, and cussing, some blues-y guitar strings twanged through the speakers, one of those songs Max had heard before but always sort of shuffled off as older music.

Soy un perdedor. I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me?

As Chloe sat back down, Max took a good look at her friend's latest retro ensemble. A bulky gray and red flannel shirt was heaped over a black T-shirt with an upside down frowny face, its eyes X-ed out. Her blue hair poked out from under a black snapback, the brim sloping down over neck. A silver skull grinned at her as it dangled from a black cord around Chloe's throat.

Max tried to imagine Susan's features in those clothes: the pink-streaked blond hair, the thorny vines of her tats poking out beneath the wide collar of her tee, the mossy coloured eyes, the dark lipstick. But it was hard to see anything but Chloe's beautiful blue eyes and hair, her full lips... and the eyebrow quirked as Chloe's gaze moved from Max's face to something south of that. Glancing down, Max realized she was wearing a tee with a dramatically low neckline. And though she suspected Michelle filled it out rather better than she did, it was still enough to put an impish grin on Chloe's lips.

Hurriedly glancing away, Max was glad that low lighting disguised the flush of her face. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her server's half apron, but found only change, a wad of bills, and a notepad and pen. When she looked up, Chloe was inspecting the glass of dark liquid on the counter in front of her. She raised it to her nose, sniffed, and then took a sip. "Apparently Susan's a rum and Coke kind of girl."

"So Michelle worked here," Max said, "but why are you here too?"

Chloe didn't answer. She was busy emptying the pockets of her jeans. A wallet was followed by a pocket knife, a dozen quarters, two tissues (used), a familiar set of car keys, and pepper spray. "I'm gonna take a guess that I'm your chauffeur."

"You think Susan was just waiting for Michelle to finish her shift?"

"I bet they can only afford one piece of shit car between them."

"Why not just give Michelle the car for the night? Or just pick her up at the door?"

Chloe fingered the pepper spray. "It's probably in a sketchy neighbourhood."

They both turned as a door behind the counter opened and a woman wearing a tee that was cut even lower than Max's stalked towards them. Her arms were crossed over her well-displayed cleavage as she glared from Chloe to Max. "You brought your 'roommate' again tonight?" She hooked her fingers into airquotes at the word "roommate".

Chloe held up her glass and jiggled it so the ice cubes clinked. "Hey legitimate customer here."

"Can't you do a single shift without needing a bodyguard? It's the '90s. Grow a pair, Michelle."

Leaping off the bar stool, Chloe stared down at the girl, towering a head higher than her. "What did you say?"

The girl's lips curled into a sneer. "I get it, you're the man, right?"

Chloe grimaced. "Dude, there's no man. That's the point of being a lesbian. Google it."

She looked confuse. "What?"

"Oh right. '90s. People don't speak interweb yet."

Shaking her head, Max sighed. Even here Chloe was still Chloe, ready to rumble with anyone who looked at her the wrong way. Diplomat was definitely off the checklist for Chloe's future career options. "Did you need something?" Max said in her best no-nonsense tone, a tone she'd only recently started using.

"Yeah. Billy just called it. He won't be able to make it in so you'll have close tonight."

Chloe crossed her plaid-draped arms. "Fuck that. Closing is what? Two or three a.m.? In this neighbourhood? No fucking way."

"Well I can't do it. The last bus is in fifteen minutes and it's the only way I can get back home." She rattled off the reasons why two other employees couldn't close, but Max's attention was focussed on Chloe, the deep lines of her frown, the tension in her shoulders. None of this was real but she was just as angry as if it were. She wanted to come around the bar and just wrap her arms around Chloe's waist and press her face into those tense shoulders.

But they needed to figure this out, figure out how it all fit together. What really puzzled her was why this moment? If the coaster was from a bar where Michelle had worked, she must have spent many nights here. Why was this one important?

Chloe was shaking her head. "That's bullshit. What if she gets jumped at three in the morning when she leaves? Huh?"

"Jesus just take a self defence class or something."

They were starting to draw attention from the other patrons in the bar. Men in ratty jeans and concert T-shirts, cigarettes drooping from their mouths, glanced at them. There were a couple of wolf-whistles. A guy from a table on which rested several empty beer pitchers raised his glass. "Cat fight! Ten bucks says the punk takes her down."

Without even glancing their way, Chloe held up her middle finger.

Max wanted out. She desperately wanted out of this dingy place with its acrid smoke and drunken rude patrons. The idea of working here, dealing with bitchy coworkers and men as interested her cleavage as their drinks... But Michelle must have needed the money to endure this place. Or maybe she'd had thicker skin. From the pictures, she looked way more hardcore, more like Rachel than Max.

The bitchy waitress spun on Max. "If you don't want this job then fine, just leave. Mr. Morrison will hear all about this in the morning."

It wasn't real. It wasn't real... but it still felt real.

The soundtrack had shifted to something guitar-heavy with indistinct lyrics–which almost certainly meant Nirvana. Hey! Wait! I got a... Mumble, mumble. Forever in debt to... something, something.

Chloe turned to Max. "What do you want to do?"

What did she want to do? She wanted to run away from here. Maybe even from Arcadia Bay. She wanted to run from the nightmare that hounded her footsteps, her every action. She wanted to stop feeling like every decision she made could bring down the heavens.

But she couldn't say any of that. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to get it together.

"Fuck it," Chloe said, and put her fist on the bar. "Rock-paper-scissors."

"What?"

"I win, we go, you win, we stay. Ready?"

"Wait, wh–"

But Chloe was already thumping her fist on the bartop. One, two... Max's hand shot out. Three. Her index and middle finger scissored the air. Chloe's hand was still balled into a fist. She grinned at Max. "I rock," she announced, shaking her fist, just in case Max didn't get it. "Come on, let's go."

For a moment Max hesitated. But Chloe was right–fuck it. She came around the bar and took Chloe's hand. Ignoring bitchy waitress and the cat calls of drunken men, they headed to the exit.

#

Relief washed over Max as she drew in a deep breath of cool and stuffy tent air. Raindrops pattered the roof of their tent, a welcome change from the music and raucous laughter of a few moments before. No more drunken men, staring at her cleavage, or angry waitresses threatening her job. She was alone with Chloe. Her Chloe.

"That was a shithole." Chloe tossed the coaster back into the box with the other mementos. "I've been to some dive bars but nothing that nasty."

"I think I'll stick to books from Powell's." Max hugged her knees. Thank God she and Chloe hadn't had to run off like that; they'd probably have ended up as waitresses or store clerks to make ends meet, maybe even needing to hold down two jobs. It was hard to call living in a tent lucky, but it was temporary and her family would help them out. Unlike Michelle's and Susan's. "I guess Michelle was older since she was working at a bar."

"Yeah we're seeing stuff from different years I guess."

"You didn't have to throw down with that waitresses you know. It wasn't really real."

Chloe huffed, hands balled. "It pissed me off. Besides, I always said I was going to be your bodyguard, didn't I?"

A giddy happiness gushed through Max's veins and spread through her chest, putting a dopey grin on her face. "You remember that!"

"Of course I remember. It was the first time you told me you wanted to be a photographer."

I need a bodyguard for our adventures... Maybe take pictures of our adventures. I would love to be a photographer...

The day she'd reunited with Chloe, she'd wandered into the Price backward to indulge in a few minutes of nostalgia. Sitting on the swings, she'd thought about that conversation.

"Haven't been dong my job right," Chloe said, rubbing the back of her neck, "since you're the one who keeps saving my ass."

"Well," Max said, mischievous, "I do have a vested interest in it."

Chloe grinned. And then she jerked her head up towards the tent's ceiling. "Enemy sniper! Get down!" Before Max could utter a word, Chloe pushed her down onto the floor of the tent, lying almost on top of her.

Their faces inches apart, Max raised an eyebrow and peered up at Chloe. "Snipers, huh?"

"Definitely a sniper." Her eyes were locked on Max's, but one of her hands was sneaking under Max's jacket and under the hem of her shirt. She shivered as Chloe's fingers tickled over her stomach, over her ribs.

"What are you doing?"

Her grin was cheekier than ever as she replied. "Checking you for bullet wounds. All part of the bodyguarding gig. Has to be a very thorough examination of course."

"It's supposed to be guarding, not groping."

"Isn't that one of the perks?"

As Chloe shifted her weight, Max could feel something jabbing into her back. "Ow! Chloe, could you get off?"

She did. Immediately. "Whoa, if you weren't a groping mood you just had to say so."

"It's not that," Max said rolling over and shoving her hand into the tangle of blankets and sleeping bags. Her fingers closed around something made of stiff plastic and she tugged it out of the bedding. "I found my headset."

Sighing, Chloe scanned the circular interior of their lime-green home, littered with backpacks, bedding, clothes, and electronics. "Guess we're going to have to clean up this place if I'm ever going to have a shot at getting some action."

"Chloe?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you tell me about Nathan?"

She rubbed the back of her neck the way she always did when she was feeling a bit awkward. It wasn't something she'd done when they were kids, but a habit she'd developed in the intervening years. "I figured you had a enough shit to deal with already."

Reaching across the tent, Max touched Chloe's knee. When she looked up, Max offered a tiny smile. "Thanks for looking out for me."

"It's all part of the service, ma'am," she said with a mock salute.

"Dork."

The thought of Nathan's corpse, buried somewhere, still gnawed at her, though. Hopefully he wouldn't appear as a ghostly animal (perhaps a translucent weasel?) leading her to his grave. She'd had enough of visions and mysteries even before returning to Arcadia Bay. Maybe it really had been a mistake. But Nathan... If the police didn't find him that meant Jefferson might go free. And that couldn't happen. It absolutely couldn't. Which meant...

"Chloe... We need to find Nathan's body."