Authors: Paullina Simons

Lone Star (68 page)

By the time she reaches Kentucky she is numb, drained of tears. She has pecan pie, and the most delicious bacon hash, so delicious that she stays an extra half day so she can get hungry in Louisville and have it again. She calls her mother, and can
barely get the words out about what happened before she has to hang up.

She eats her second helping of heavenly bacon hash as a tearful tribute to him.

In West Virginia, Chloe brutally grasps that she has wasted four years of her life obsessing over a phantom. The spear of grief turns into wobbling self-pity.

In Maryland, looking for answers and comfort, she drives extra slowly, reading all the white signs posted on the green lawns of churches. Maryland is brimful of Appalachian houses of worship with signs out front, each pithier than the next, each giving a kernel of old wisdom to live by. One finally does it for her. I
T'S NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN
. It is too late for Johnny. But not too late for Chloe. When he played in Warsaw, Johnny had written out this exact George Eliot quote on a Post-it note and stuck it on the inside of his guitar case so when the passersby bent to throw him some money, they could read those eleven words and walk away maybe a little straighter than before.

That is what happens to Chloe. Faster and straighter, Chloe drives her red VW bug home to Maine. She comes to understand why she has been driving like Jimmy Dean ever since she left Gallup, tearing up the pavement. Because she is terrified. Terrified that while she was being so disastrously dull-witted, Blake has found someone else. He has been through every girl within a six-town radius. Looking for someone other than her? Anyone but her, as he would say. What if one of the floozies has ingratiated herself permanently into his biblical life? Didn't Taylor write there would be some announcement soon from Dani and Blake? What if it is too late? Chloe can't endure the thought of it. She wishes she could fly.

Johnny's days have not been squandered. He left a permanent mark on all who loved him. Afflicted Johnny has nonetheless managed to find a way to fill Chloe's finite life with infinite meaning. He left Chloe Blake. He filled her cup to
overflowing with himself and when it was bone empty, he left her for the one who loved her most. No wonder Johnny never fought back even when Blake was being impossible. Johnny knew why. He knew everything from the beginning.

All her education didn't make her heart smart enough to see bliss. Pining away after the lost gold of Pima when the mansion of kings was three houses up from her green cabin.

A cloud of dust rises up around the red bug as she flies downhill and screeches into the clearing in front of her house. The screen door slams as she storms in. “Mom?” She runs through the empty house.

Lang is by the lake with her begonias. There is a kiss, a deep hug, a constricted I'm sorry, a comment about Chloe looking awful, as if she has driven three thousand sleepless miles. Chloe interrupts with the only question resonating through her body. “Mom, where's Blake?”

“I don't know. He went out earlier.”

“Where? With who?”

“I don't know. To the store? He was walking.”

“Walking to the store? It's six miles away.”

“Well, maybe not to the store, then, but to Leary's. How did you miss him when you drove by?” Lang squints, wipes her sweaty head with gardening gloves, leaving long dirt streaks on her forehead. “What's the fuss anyway?”

Carefully holding it by the edges, Chloe thrusts the discolored Riga photograph into her mother's face. Lang studies itârather calmly, a panting Chloe thinks. “You. Blake. Mason. Hannah. So?”

“No. Mom. What do you
see
?”

“I don't know. You're wearing a dress?”

“God! Turn it over!”

Taking off her work gloves, Lang turns it over. She reads Johnny's words. She remains composed. She stares into her
daughter's agitated face. She pats Chloe with her mother paw. “Darling,” she says. “Do you know how much I love you?” She opens wide her arms. “This much. But really, you're as dense as a thicket. Have you not read Blake's award-winning novella? Who do you think the letters in the blue suitcase were for? I mean, the man wrote you a love story, how many ways does he have to keep saying it?”

“You knew this?”

“Um, everybody knew this, Chloe. Why do you think Burt stayed our friend after your uncle nearly killed him? And do you know how hard it was for us to see Burt and Janice after your brother died? It was one of the hardest things we ever had to do. All these years we kept our families together for you two. We always knew Blake was the one. I personally think he may be too good for you.” Lang smiled. “Never mind. Even the tortoise eventually gets to the finish line. Go find him. He's at Leary's.”

“Do you think he still . . .”

“I don't know, darling. Go find him.”

“Oh my God, Mom, we parted so badly, and he's barely emailed me, hardly stayed in touch, what do I say, what do I do?”

Lang spins her daughter around and pushes her yonder. “I'm out of answers. Go find your own.”

Before she goes, Chloe turns around and hugs her mother. “I love you,” she whispers, and bolts.

She was going to drive to him in a desperate hurry, but her hands are shaking and she can't get behind the wheel. She walks instead, then runs, until her heart is about to give out. Slowing down, she walks, pants, and runs again.

Down the single-lane dirt road on a straight stretch just before the train tracks, she hears him whistling through the firs, hears him before she sees him, as he merrily strolls toward her, carrying a rusted tire iron on his shoulder. Look who is walking down the hill for me.

He sees her from a distance, focuses on her, nods, slows down, and puts his hand to his eyes, as if shielding himself
from the mirage, perhaps not believing it's her. Thank God she stopped running, though she is still gasping, panting.

“I thought that was you smoking past me like a maniac,” he calls out. “Where's the fire?”

She wishes for a bench in the middle of the road to fall onto. She stands, fists to her chest, separated from his friendly, lightly smiling, confounded face by ten yards of Maine air. He is so familiar, so wide shouldered, so beloved. She wants to fall to her knees and beg his forgiveness. There is no one else the world entire she is happier to see at that moment than Blake, strolling toward her, rocking on his heels, humming, smiling, long-lost singers and broken hearts notwithstanding. The passion ghosts fade into the great divide that cleaves the Miramare past with the nonexistent Arizona future. Blake is the present, the real, the yesterday, the tomorrow, the everything.

She wants to stick out her hand to show him the photo she clutches in her balled-up fingers. Is it true, she wants to ask. Look at it, Blake, look at what Johnny has given me, is it true? But she doesn't need to ask him anything. His face tells her it's true. Her eyes fill with tears. He drops the tire iron, spits out his gum.

“Who's Dani Falco?” she asks when he is almost near.

“Not you.” He stops in front of her, his eyes emotional and ablaze, muscle T full of Blake labor, jeans ripped, brown boots muddy and large. He cups her face into his hands and kisses her. Her head tips back, her arms drop. Suffering mingles with the sea and the sun, the day is on fire, and she is a sweet salty foreign girl, with abandon kissing a man in the woods before he tears off her dress.

“Whoa,” she whispers, mouth agape, flinging both arms around his neck. “Just whoa.” The summer, shouting things at her through the pines, is so full of promise. The whole spilling over life, trickling warm tears, hope and mad desire, sorrow and relief, and alive air, is so full of promise.

“Oh, Blake,” she says. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“I have waited for you for so long, Chloe Divine,” he says, taking her into his big arms, lifting her off the ground, swinging her, spinning her, embracing her so tightly, she can hardly breathe and hardly cry. His lips kiss her exposed white throat, the palms of his hands press into her back. He holds her to his heart. “I want Mount Washington Resort,” he whispers.

“For lunch?”

“For a week.”

Chloe can't speak. She is breathless.

“Behold, everything old is brand new,” he says.

She wipes her face and opens her eyes. And beholds.

Do not weep, Johnny says. Life is beautiful.

The End

Acknowledgments

To my two stalwart, brilliant, sainted, patient, indulgent editors, Anna Valdinger for all the big stuff and for keeping my wine safe, and Denise O'Dea for perfecting every line with her sharp eye, much thanks.

Zofia, my friend, I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you for dragging your author and her three giant suitcases on a Polish train instead of a comfy town car and changing my life. I promise to complain slightly less next time I come.

âPS

About the Author

PAULLINA SIMONS
is the author of
Tully
and
The Bronze Horseman,
as well as of ten other beloved novels, a memoir, a cookbook, and two children's books. Born in Leningrad, Paullina immigrated to the United States when she was ten, and now lives in New York with her husband and an alarming number of her once-independent children.

www.paullinasimons.com

www.facebook.com/PaullinaSimonsAuthor