Lone Star

“Of course not!” She was with Mason, the cutest boy in the Academy halls.

“Then why did you say it so wistfully?”

“I’m not Isabel Archer, Mom. 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’re a pig dreaming of being a ballerina?” Lang slid a plate of pound cake in front of her daughter. “What are you doing, Chloe? 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 is that, Mom.”

“Who you are, of course.”

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

Hannah was out. Mason was at varsity. Blake was helping Mr. Leary with his concrete-buster block saw. So Chloe scribbled down some notes for a Social Studies oral essay on women’s rights as interpreted by Pearl Buck and watered the garden.

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. Until we have something to speak to you about, we are going to call truce and talk about other things. Deal?”

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

“She told me. That’s why I’m saying this now. Excuse me.” Jimmy moved Chloe out of the way. “Your mother and I are going for a walk.”

“You’re what? 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. 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 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 actually 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?

8 (#ulink_7144b674-52f0-5bf4-9ae3-1b4d4e4cb6d9)

Empty Wells and Vernal Pools (#ulink_7144b674-52f0-5bf4-9ae3-1b4d4e4cb6d9)

CHLOE ASKED TO BORROW HER MOTHER’S CAR TO DRIVE Hannah to Bangor. She made up some story about dorms and housing applications.

Lang only half-listened. “Are you ever going to tell her?” she asked.

Hannah was headed to Bangor to break up with the grandpa who loved her. He might not make it out of the afternoon alive. Did she really need Chloe adding to her woes? “Of course. But not right now.”

“You’ve been saying that since April. Tell her on the way.”

“I will. Soon.”

“Now’s the perfect time. Um, Hannah, guess what? Our trip to Bangor reminds me of something. That sort of thing. You know she’ll find out eventually.”

“Of course she’ll find out eventually, Mom.” Duh.

“Perhaps when she moves into a UMaine dorm and instead of you her roommate is a tall black chick?”

“Yes, like then. And don’t say chick, Mom. Ew.” If Chloe ground her teeth any more, she’d have no teeth left. Why couldn’t her mother be like Hannah’s mother? Terri never asked questions, never hounded, never scolded. Chloe wasn’t one hundred percent sure Terri knew where her daughter was accepted to college. She was just so chill and lax about things.

“Why won’t you tell her, child? What are you afraid of?”

Why did everybody keep asking her this! What wasn’t she afraid of. That Hannah would not forgive her. That she couldn’t explain it. When she tried to explain it to herself, she could not, so how was she going to explain it to her best friend, and to Mason?

“Have you told Mason at least?”

Chloe didn’t reply.

“Oh dear Lord. Chloe!”

“Mom! Can you please not stress me out? Am I not wound up enough? I tell you what, sign my passport application, and I’ll tell everybody everything in Barcelona.”

“Chloe, you haven’t told your boyfriend you’re leaving for San Diego?”

“Mom, he’ll find out soon enough! He’s got his last varsity game coming up. He’s been in training for three weeks. I didn’t want to bother him. And I only just decided.”

“A month ago.”

“A few weeks ago.” She stuck out her hand, trying not to shake from exasperation. “Please can I have the keys?”

“I’m telling you right now, I’m not doing it,” Lang said, opening her purse. “You’re not hopping on a plane to California and leaving me to mop up your mess.”

“Let me go to Barcelona and I’ll tell them myself.”

“Don’t threaten me, young lady, I won’t stand for it.”

“The keys. Mom. Please.”

In the car, while Hannah was angsting away about Martyn, Chloe wasn’t listening, her focus elsewhere. Had there been silence in the car, she might have attempted a confession. A pretend casual tone. No big deal, Hannah. I know you’re thinking we’re going to UMaine, but did I mention this other place I applied to, three thousand miles away from Bangor, our whole wide country away? A Spanish city with beaches, warmth, no mountains, no snow. Like Barcelona, but in the States.

“Have you applied for your passport yet?”

Chloe snapped out of it. “How can I apply? They haven’t said I can go.”