Lone Star (5 page)

E
VERYONE HAD A MOTTO.
H
ER GRANDMOTHER
M
OODY'S WAS,
“How I envy the handicapped who can push themselves around in their wheelchairs. They don't know how lucky they are.”

Chloe's mother's was, “Cast your bread upon the water.”

And Chloe's? Once, to go miniature golfing, Courtney and Crystal arrived at Chloe's green cabin wearing slinky hot pink dresses and clangy bangles. Lang took one squinted glimpse at the two and stage-whispered to Chloe, “Where are they going to, a parade at a bordello?”

That became Chloe's motto for a while: to avoid at all costs such an assessment being made of her by, God forbid, a boy. A lifetime of meds wouldn't be able to erase the trauma for Chloe if she thought boys talked about her that way.

Okay, no, that wasn't Chloe's motto. That was her wish. You know what Chloe's motto was?

On the blank canvas of your life with bold colors paint.

Maybe not so much a motto as an unattainable goal.

Chloe just wanted to know who she was. Not who she wanted to be. Who she actually was.

Was she her mother's daughter, half-Chinese, her father's daughter, half-police, Mason's girl, Hannah's friend, straight-A student, studious, kempt, tutor of others, herself always in hand. Was she all these things or none of them? Who was she?

Up in the loft attic open to the living room, Chloe lay on her
bed with the ballerina-pink fluffy down quilt and soft pillows, clutching a tattered 1998
National Geographic
to her chest, the one with the precious Barcelona article in it. When Polly, the old wizened woman who owned the Shell gas station in Fryeburg, decided to go into the used book–selling business, running it out of her garage, Blake, out with his dad one afternoon, picked up a worn copy of the magazine. He paid two dollars of his allowance to buy it for Chloe when she was eleven and he was twelve. Reading about Barcelona burst her heart into a flame.

She'd read the article so many times since then, she had it practically committed to memory.
Redeeming touch of madness. Millionaires on motorbikes, witches caked in charcoal dust, pimps and uncrowned kings. Miro, Picasso, Dali, firebombed girls in whorehouses.
Just think about that.
Firebombed girls in whorehouses.
Barcelona has been inventing herself for a thousand years. With her parents talking below her in their tiny bedroom next to the front door, Chloe caressed the cover of the magazine pressed to her breasts, kneaded it like a rosary, prayed to God, please, please, please, and strained to hear the snippets of their parenting. From up here, it was just rising and falling pitch, up-down, questions, quiet replies, voices, tempers, tides. For some reason her father's voice was muffled, unclear. Her mother's alto rose through the rafters.

Jimmy yelling suddenly and Lang yelling back. The walk down that long dirt road from the school bus is responsible for Barcelona, she says, and Jimmy yells, are you crazy, Mother?

“Better she go with the boys, Jimmy. Blake keeps everybody safe. He'll keep her safe.”

She can't hear her father's response. Only Lang's voice is clearly heard.

“I don't want her to go, either, husband.”

“You know she's leaving, Jimmy. You know that, right? In three months she's leaving home. For good.”

“Don't be sick with worry, Jimmy. She'll be fine. Disaster won't fall on us twice.”

Now Chloe hears her father's voice. “Not on
us,
” he says. “On
her
.”

Chloe crept on her hands and knees to the railing to hear more, even though there was no more; how could there be after that? They didn't want her to go. She expected nothing less. Her parents weren't Terri Gramm. They were never going to say, oh, sure, honey, Barcelona with the Spanish boys and your two horny boyfriends and topless beaches and incorrigible Hannah. And you, our only child, who's never been anywhere without us, not a problem, you go, girl.

Her ear was wedged between the slats, listening for a possible sea change.

What else could Chloe say to persuade them? Mom! she wanted to cry. I want to be the girl who later in life when she is old can say, yes, when I was young I traveled by myself on a train through Spain. I don't want to be the girl who will tell her kid, no, I've never been anywhere, except North Dakota where I was born, and Maine where I married your father, and Kilkenny one time when somebody died, somebody who with his wanton recklessness ended up nearly wrecking my careful life.

But Chloe couldn't say that, just as she couldn't say that maybe in Barcelona away from backseats and parental eyes she would finally have sex with her boyfriend. Or that she might sunbathe topless on the man-made beach, built just in time for her Olympian topless body.

As she sat with her ear to the empty air below, she cupped her hands under her full breasts and bounced them up and down. She wanted to sunbathe topless in front of Hannah, so that in this one way, she could come out slightly ahead, because Hannah bested her in almost everything else. Not in academics, but nobody cared about that. In high school being beautiful was much more fly than being smart. Probably not just in high school, but Chloe didn't want to think about that. Hannah was always playing a game of one-upmanship. Why couldn't Chloe play her way just once? Hannah was passive-aggressive, not a smiler, an
inveterate shopper who made Chloe spend more of her allowance than she ever wanted to, to try to keep up with blouses, skirts, dresses, the latest boots and gloves. The size-2 girl who was always dieting, who told everyone she was fat, the long-limbed girl, aristocratically mouthed, and small pointy breasted. What other city could offer Chloe this particular intangible? Bathing topless on the beach in front of their two boyfriends, in front of a city full of strangers, so she could win. How small. How stupid. And yet how completely essential. How could Chloe's noblest desires fly side by side with her soaring pettiness?

Look at Hannah. Everything on that girl was assembled as if handpicked. Tall, lithe, lean, eyes mouth hair nose all the right size, not too big, not too small, while Chloe spent her life hiding under minimizer bras and one-size-too-big shirts. She was afraid no one would take her seriously if they thought of her as a body instead of a person. Who'd ever listen to her explanations about the movements of the stars or migrations of mitochondria or beheadings in a revolution if they thought she was just a pair of breasts with legs. Too heavy breasted to be a ballerina and too short to be a bombshell.

Chloe wondered why it was that Hannah was loved through and through by Blake and still it wasn't enough. What she would give to just once be loved like that.

She fell asleep on the floor, her head pressed into the railing. She was woken up at one in the morning by her mother, prodding her, caressing her, helping her into bed.

Please, Mom, she whispered half-asleep, reaching out to touch her mother's face, or maybe she only thought she whispered. You wanted to be a dancer once. Let me do this one thing for me, but also for you. Let me live what you never lived, far away in whirling dancing noise and nights of magic flowers until the world blows up.

C
HLOE DIDN'T KNOW HOW
B
LAKE HAD MANAGED IT, BUT BY
the time her mother dropped her off in front of the Academy bus circle the next morning, every single person she met on the way to homeroom knew about their impending Catalonian Bacchanalian sexcapade. That must have been how Blake painted it, judging from the arched eyebrows and the innuendo smiles.

Her friends Taylor, Courtney, Regan, Matthew, his sister Miranda, and four girls on the cheer squad—who for some reason were hypnotized into believing Chloe did not despise them—cornered her between her locker and the door of the physics lab.

“When are you going?”

“Did you already buy your plane tickets?”

“Can I see your passport?”

“Can you bring it to school tomorrow?”

“What's the weather like in Barcelona?”

“Do you think your Spanish is good enough?”

“Does anyone speak English over there? Because frankly, Chloe, your Spanish isn't that good.”

“And Mason doesn't speak Spanish at all,” bubbled up Mackenzie O'Shea. There wasn't a girl in six counties Chloe hated more than Mackenzie, with her twisty body and twisty pigtails and mouth full of Bubblicious gum. One time in Science she popped the huge bubble wad in her mouth, and the gum
burst from her cheeks to her chin and she got gum in her hair. In front of everyone. That was an excellent day.

“Where are you staying?”

“I can't believe your dad is letting you go. My dad would never, and he's not even the chief of police.” That was Mackenzie.

“Are you allowed to drink over there?”

“Really, you shouldn't drink. You're not used to it. You'll vomit. Like that other time.” Still Mackenzie.

“Don't they drive on the wrong side of the road?”

“I thought the capital of Spain was Madrid. Are you sure it's not Madrid you're going to? Because I don't think Madrid is on the beach. Blake tells us you're going to an Olympic beach. He's wrong, isn't he?”

“My aunt's second cousin went to Madrid. She said it was dusty.”

“It wasn't Madrid, genius. It was Mexico City.”

“Same difference. Very dusty. And crowded.”

“Is there skiing there?”

“Do they take American dollars?”

“How would you even change dollars into pesos? Or are they on the euro now?”

“What's a euro?”

“Blake and Mason are not going to like it. They get sunburned. Mason especially.” Still fucking Mackenzie.

“You must be thrilled,” Taylor said as they took their seats in Physics. “To travel through Europe with Mason. It's a dream.”

Chloe heard Mackenzie's high-strung voice from behind her. “Mason is not a city guy. He's a ballplayer. A skier. He's not gonna like it.”

“Don't be a fool, Mackenzie,” said Taylor, sparing Chloe a crackling response. “You think varsity players don't like traveling?”

“Not Mason. He doesn't like empanadas or that weird Spanish food they have over there. Tapas or some shit. He likes burgers. Steak.”

“I swear, I'm going to deck her,” Taylor whispered.

“Get in line,” Chloe whispered back, and in Health said to Blake as they took their seats, “Why'd you have to go tell everybody, dumblehead?” She was churlish. “You and your big mouth. What if my parents say no?”

“Haiku, you funny.” Blake patted her arm as he flipped open his spiral notebook. “You didn't think your mother would just buy you a plane ticket to Spain, did you? The woman didn't let you take the school bus until your senior year and even now still drives you in the morning. She was hardly going to run to Liberty Travel in North Conway. They need to think it over.”

“Yes. And then say no.”

“They loves you. Why would they say no to the one they loves?”

Blake knew nothing. Lang was definitely gearing up to say no. She was making heavenly lemon pound cake when Chloe got home from school, a consolation dessert if ever there was one.

“What are you doing, Chloe?” Lang slid a plate of pound cake in front of her daughter. “Are you placing all your hopes on what may lie just around the next bend in the river? You think you can drift on the train from Spain to France not knowing where your next stop will be in the fervent hope that you'll come closer to an answer to that most profound of human questions?”

“And what question would that be, Mom.” That wasn't a question.

“Who you are, of course.”

Was there ever a mother more infuriatingly on point than her mother?

“You know who I am? Olivia, the dancing pig. She has a painting of Degas's ballerinas on her wall, but she's never going to be either Degas or a ballerina, is she?”

“So now you think you're a pig dreaming of being a dancer?”
Her mother looked skeptical and amused. “Have some more cake,” she said. “And play the piano.”

“Like I'm saying.”

To her surprise, her father came home early.

“Chloe-bear,” Jimmy said. “Your mother and I are not going to talk to you about Barcelona anymore. You know how we feel. We know how you feel. We have to talk about it and think about it. We'll let you know soon what we decide. I know you're on the clock. For now, we are going to call a truce and talk about other things. Deal?”

“You should've told that to Mom,” Chloe said. “Because she's been going on about Huck Finn all afternoon.”

“She told me. Excuse me.” Jimmy moved Chloe out of the way. “Your mother and I are going for a walk.”

“You are? Why?”

“Isn't it obvious?” her father said. “Because we need privacy to talk about you, and at home you're always eavesdropping.”

No words more frightening could have been spoken mildly by a gruffly amiable man, who placed his badge and his service weapon on the hall table and donned his spring parka. Lang put on her suede shoes and a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap she had bought at a garage sale even though she'd never heard of the Pirates and thought they were a football team. Off they went, arm in arm, her mother stout, her father expansive, into the hills around the lake.

They were gone an hour.

At dinner they talked of television shows, movies, her graduation party, college. Should she ship her heavier items like a television ahead of time, or should they buy a TV on the other side? And what about a car? She'd definitely need one. How did she feel about a used VW Beetle? Perhaps red? Not a word about Spain was spoken.

The next afternoon, the pattern was the same. Lang made oatmeal-raisin cookies, Jimmy came home early, and they vanished through the birches. The third day Chloe began to
doubt everything she thought she wanted. How important was Barcelona anyway? Why did she have to be so obstinate?

Where could she go that might be more acceptable to her parents? She had read about Innsbruck, the heart of the Alps, white with fresh snow. Picturesque gardens, musical chambers, Roman marvels, Bavarian creams. Her clothes, down coat and all, always on, even in bed.

Ugh.

She'd spent her entire life living in snowed-in valleys surrounded by mountains. She skied, snowboarded, sledded. She skated right on her lake. She played wild, nearly violent games of ice hockey with her friends. Every four years she and Mason pretended they were Olympic skaters, spinning and salchowing over the thick ice. But Chloe and Blake were actual speed skaters and every winter when they weren't ice fishing, they spent from sunup to sundown in racing abandon. Chloe owned more parkas than jean jackets. She knew what to do for frostbite. She had read Jack London's terrifying “To Build a Fire.” More than once.

Why would she go anywhere else but Barcelona? Why would she ever want to?