Lone Star (54 page)

The staff at the Tarcento Pensione all know Johnny. The nurses squeal as they rush to embrace him. They ask a flurry of questions in a gorgeous rolling Romance tongue about his well-being, or perhaps about how long it has been since he was here last, or perhaps about the splendid hardness of his naked body. Chloe doesn't know for certain they're actual nurses. They're dressed a little wantonly for Chloe's taste, in tight white dresses that some might call uniforms. These so-called nurses to the one, even the really old one, suddenly acquire shiny lips and flushed cheeks. Chloe stands back disapprovingly, watching them effuse all over her Johnny. He leans back into her with a toothy grin. “Did you hear, by the way, how they keep calling me Johnny?”

“Oh, I'm hearing many things,” she says.

He agrees with a cheerful squeeze. “Italians are a very friendly people.”

“Clearly. And they said Yanni, or Anni. Could be anyone.”

Even one of the doctors on duty comes out to shake Johnny's hand. The doctor, because he's a male, nods to Chloe, but the female staff eye her as if she is a vagrant who's wandered in.

Finally Johnny is released from their clutches. “Wow,” she says as they walk down the short corridor past the reception counter.

“Are you saying wow because you're impressed with the facilities?” he asks, swinging his arm around her.

“That too.”

The house is a glorified bed-and-breakfast, spacious, cozy, homey, rustic, Italian, soft lighting, beautifully furnished, classical music playing. The only difference between an inn and
this place is the doctors on standby waiting to dispense the meds and the pretend nurses doing whatever the heck it is they do.

“My mother is outside,” he says. “She is taking her lunch in the garden. They asked me if we wanted some food. I'm kind of starved, are you? They said they had some speck from Cividale.” He smiles. “At least we'll get some of my favorite thing in the world.”

“Really, favorite,” Chloe says in a grumble.

“Okay, like fourth or fifth favorite.” He nuzzles her cheek as they descend the veranda steps in the back. The landscaped lawn leading to the river is enormous and wooded. Secluded foliaged spots are everywhere, with little tables under the gazebos set on the grass or on stone patios. There are comfortable reading chairs, a hammock, a bench swing. It is beautiful and comforting. Only one or two people are out in the garden, including a print-clad female shape in the far distance, facing the river, her back to the house.

“How can your mom afford to live in a place like this?” she asks him as they cross the wide lawn. “This is very lux.”

“My grandparents help pay for it,” Johnny says. At the edge of the grass he stops walking and takes her by the shoulders. After lightly kissing her lips, he shows her to an Adirondack chair nearby. “My mom is just over there.” The motionless print-clad shape is now but a bush away. “Can you sit here for a few minutes while I go talk to her?” he says quietly. “I don't want her to think I came late and not alone. Do you mind?”

She nods as she half frowns. “But you did come late and, um, not alone.”

“Well, I know. I just need a few minutes with her. To make sure she's okay. Then I'll introduce you.”

“Of course,” she says, perching down in the wooden chair. “I'll be right here.” Right here, where I can hear everything. She leans back. The place is so tranquil, the sound of the river like white noise, set on extra loud, and she hasn't had any sleep in two nights. She might pass out in the stillness. She doesn't want
to miss a word, but she fears that any moment life is going to stop making sense. She pinches her arms to stay awake.

Chloe can't see Johnny's mother well from where she is sitting. Ingrid's back is to her and she is partly obscured by a blooming rhododendron. She looks full-bodied. She gets up when Johnny approaches, exclaims, “My son!” and maternally embraces him. She is quite heavy, and she wears a loose long geometric-print kaftan that makes her look twice as large. “You're finally here,” she says. “Sit down, sit down, no, wait, let me look at you. I haven't seen you in so long.” The mother examines the son, palpates his unshaven face, caresses his head, tugs disapprovingly on his ponytail, judges his black jacket. “I don't know
what
your father is going on about. My God, did he go on for days about how terrible you looked in Trieste. You don't look so bad.” She pats his cheek, a little roughly, almost like a half slap. “I've seen you look a lot worse than this.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

They sit, she back in her chaise longue, he in an upright straight-back lawn chair. He places the guitar on one side of him, the duffel on the other. She takes hold of his hand, kisses it, won't let go of it. “I'm so happy to see you,” she says. “How've you been?”

“Good, Mom. You?”

“You talk to your sisters? Your brother?”

“I haven't had the chance. Thought I'd do it when I'm back stateside. Dad said everybody is good.”

She waves her hand. “Your sister is annoying me.”

“Which one?”

“Take your pick. One wants to go to graduate school for, get this, business! Like she's not even my daughter. And the other one wants to get married immediately. God. Both of them are just going to wreck their lives.”

“They'll be fine. Dad said Tomboy is good.”

“How good can he possibly be? He's staying with your grandparents for the summer. Your grandmother will ruin him.
She could never say no to you, and look at you now in your alligator boots. Now she's hooked her claws into my baby boy. He'll be a disaster by the time I come back.”

“When are you coming back? Dad said maybe soon?”

“Your father doesn't know anything. I'm not well. I can't just up and go. We'll see. I'm still recuperating.”

Johnny chews his lip. “I brought you some biscotti,” he says, handing her a white paper bag.

She takes it indifferently. “That's not what I want. What about . . . are you having lunch with me? Because you know what Churchill says. There's no celebration without wine.”

Johnny rubs his bristly face. “First of all, that's not how the quote goes. It's, there's no celebration without
food
. And Churchill didn't say it. Either one.”

“Oh, Churchill would say it about the wine, if I know my political leaders.”

Johnny stays quiet.

“Well? Did you bring it, or didn't you?”

“Bring what?”

She points to the duffel. “That little flask you carry with you everywhere you go. That's gotta have something good in it.”

Intensely he presses his hands together. “Mom, no. They'll throw me out.”

“They don't have to see.” She reaches for his bag between their chairs. With a deft foot he pushes it behind him.

“Can we not start immediately?” he says. “Can we not begin like this?”

She backs off, stares at him coldly. “What's gotten into you?”

“Nothing.”

“So why didn't you come with your father like you were supposed to?”

“I was busy.”

“Exactly. Don't make excuses.”

“No excuses. I was busy.”

“Did you catch a ride?” Ingrid asks knowingly, as if the expression doesn't mean what Chloe thinks it means but something else more sinister. “You don't have to make excuses with
me,
of all people,” she continues. “
I
know what's going on. I've made them all myself—better than you.”

“Well, you
have
had more practice.”

Chloe sucks in her breath. Yeesh! Didn't he tell her their job was not to speak but to listen? He blew that one in five seconds. It hurts her to hear him get so instantly hostile with his mother. It's too familiar. What is it about parents and children, Chloe thinks.

Ingrid also sucks in her breath.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” says Johnny. “I'm here for such a short time. I want to have a nice visit. I don't want to fight again. Please.”

“Who's fighting? I made a polite request . . .”

“And I said no. Just because you ask politely doesn't mean the answer will be yes. That's what you and Dad taught me, isn't it?”

She harrumphs. “You can't ask your father anything, polite or not. You know that better than anyone.”

“Yes. How was his visit?”

“Excellent. Better than this. He stayed for two days. We had a wonderful time. Just like the old days, first he was his charming old self and then poof, he vanished.” Ingrid's voice is not operatic but throaty and ragged, as if scorched by too many cigarettes or too much screaming, or by other things, perhaps, in hidden flasks.

“Why do you sound so hoarse, Mom?”

“I had some large polyps removed,” she replies. “I'm fine, nothing to even talk about. Enough about me. How have
you
been is the question.”

“I told you, good.”

“When did you get out?”

“Uh, about a week ago, I guess.”

Ingrid lowers her voice. Fully awake, Chloe strains to hear.
And she thought she could have a nap! “How did they treat you in Kurosta?” she asks. “I can't tell you how upset I was—”

“It's all fine,” Johnny cuts her off. “Look at me. Not a hair harmed on my head. In fact, they let me keep my hair. And Dad's guitar, and I had all the books I wanted. How bad could it be? I read a lot. The time flew by.”

“Yeah, sure,” she says. “I want you to know, I was
very
upset with your father. I couldn't believe he let you rot there for a whole fucking year.”

“What are you talking about? He didn't
let
me. It's only because of him that I'm out. I would've gotten five to ten mandatory if it wasn't for his connections. And five years not in a halfway house, a juvy derelict place, but up a very real river.”

“You mean like this?” She waves her dismissive arm to the splendor around her.

He takes a breath. “You can leave any time you want. You don't want to.”

“I came to Italy only to keep an eye on you,” she says. “I didn't do very well, did I?”

“We all could use someone to watch over us, don't you think?”

Ingrid sighs deeply. She has not let go of Johnny's hand the entire time they've been speaking. “Are you still singing?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Your father says you sound pretty good.”

“How would he know?”

“He heard you in Trieste. You didn't want to come with him to see me, but you were working the street. He said you were good.”

Johnny shrugs.

“He is very worried about you,” Ingrid says. “Because, son, you don't know this, and we don't want to, but I'm going to tell you something about dead children.”

“I don't want to know.”

Chloe sits up. Or sinks down.

“You're never okay after. You never get over it.”

Chloe stays sunk. Diminished, you learn to live with it, Chloe wants to say.

“I'm fine, Mom,” Johnny says. “There's nothing to worry about anymore.”

“So I asked your father,” Ingrid continued, “if he was trying to save you any which way he could, then why in hell was he sending you to Afghanistan?”

“Boy, sounds like you two had quite a time together.”

“Oh, we did. We brawled like we did back in Washington. Remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“Exactly. I told him he was making a huge mistake forcing you into the army. I told him you'd sort yourself out in other ways. And do you know what he said?”

“I can't imagine.”

“He said, what, like you sorted
your
self out?” Ingrid sneers. “Didn't take him long to get back to his old insults. But I told him the army is not the place for you. You aren't cut out for it the way he was. You're too gentle a boy. You're too sensitive, feel things too much. You know, son, in
my
family we weren't fighters. Not my brothers or my uncles. That's your father's side, the damn pugilists. But you're still half mine, aren't you?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Letting go of him, she wrings her hands, slightly histrionically. It passes, fades, but Chloe is jarred by it. It seems so desperate. “Why,” says Ingrid, “why did you have to inherit the very worst from your father, and all the worst from me?”

“I didn't inherit the worst from you, Mom,” says Johnny, hanging his head.

“No?”

“No.”

Mother and son don't look at each other. They both stare
down into the grass. Ingrid leans into Johnny. Their heads touch. “My life is an unimaginable nightmare,” she breathes out wrenchingly. “If you only knew.”

“I know.”

She separates from him, eventually brightens.

“Are they bringing you lunch? Ring the bell. They're so slow. I don't know what the hell they're doing. Not making you lunch, that's for fucking sure. Ring the bell!”

She grabs a small silver bell beside her chair and rings it like a fire alarm, nonstop. Johnny holds his hand over it to stop it from trilling. “They said a few minutes.”

“How long can you stay?”

Johnny hesitates to answer. “Didn't Dad tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I have to be on the plane back to Washington at eight tomorrow morning. I report for training at six
P.M.
the day after.”

Ingrid emits a throaty groan of disappointment and pain. She falls silent. For a long time they don't speak. Without something to concentrate on, Chloe starts to fade away in the rustling of leaves, in the roll of the river.

Then Ingrid speaks. “You've always been this way,” she says. Her voice is cold. “Pushing every single thing in your life until the last possible second, and then another minute past that. After not visiting me for over a year, you're only staying for one day?”