Lone Star (8 page)

Holding Chloe's hand, Mason shook his head. “No can do, bro. End-of-year varsity barbecue tomorrow. Sorry. But the three of you go. Have a blast.”

Twisting her mouth this way and that, Chloe looked out the window. How does she tell Blake that Hannah hasn't gone to Meals on Wheels with her in months?

H
ANNAH'S WHEREABOUTS ON
S
ATURDAY AFTERNOONS WERE
explained by none other than Hannah herself who, as soon as they came pounding on her door to tell her about tomorrow, said, Chloe, what are you talking about, I haven't been doing Wheels with you in months. You know I've been working the lunch shift at China Chef, trying to save up for our trip.

Blake's kinetic gaze slowed down to take in Hannah, and then Chloe for a puzzled moment longer. “Why wouldn't you just tell me that?” he asked.

“I haven't done it for a while myself, I forgot,” stammered Chloe, throwing Hannah a rebuke dagger with her eyes.

“What's the matter with you?” Hannah whispered, dragging her inside the house. “You know I've been working most Saturdays.”

“Do I?” Chloe said, pulling her arm away from Hannah and walking back outside. “I thought you were working on Tuesdays, too. Shows you what I know.”

At nine the next morning, Blake knocked on her door.

“Good morning, Mrs. Devine. Good morning, Chief.”

“Good morning, Blake,” Jimmy said from the breakfast
table, hands around a coffee cup. “How have you been? Looking forward to graduation?”

“Oh, absolutely, sir. Thank you. Very exciting. Yes.” Blake always talked to her father as if about to be arrested.

Lang pulled her into
the vestibule;
that is, the very same short hall Blake had taken over with his broad flannel-clad frame. “You two have fun,” Lang said, “but come back before six.”

“Okay,” Chloe drew out. “Wheels is from eleven to one, and you know that, so.” She broke off. “That's well before six. What's up?”

“Moody is coming tonight for dinner,” Lang said reverentially, as if announcing the arrival of Queen Victoria. “I hope you don't have any prior engagements.”

No, why would she? It was only Memorial Day weekend, when the kids from six towns would be gathering for the fireworks in North Conway, staying out late by the outlet shops, miniature golfing, eating ices, listening to the free bands in the old town square, making out, maybe other things. “Prior engagements? Who talks like that, Mom?” was all Chloe could muster. Moody was coming to dinner! Blake pretended to study the picture of Castlecomer on the wall.

“I just want to make sure you'll be home.”

“So you talk like Edith Wharton? Why do
I
need to be home? Why is she coming?”

“She wants you to drive her to the cemetery to visit Uncle Kenny.”

“Ugh, no!”

“Yes. Plus she wants to talk to you.”

There it was. Chloe's teeth set against each other as if in battle. Her antennae shot up, spring-loaded. “About what?”

“Am I Moody? How do I know?”

“I can tell you know.”

“Go. Just be back.”

“Mom! Is it about Barcelona?”

“Maybe. Go!”

This was a futile conversation, and the fact that Lang allowed it as long as she did only spoke to Lang's own anxiety about her mother-in-law's upcoming visit. It was the first time in three years that Chloe's grandmother would be coming to their house. Chloe glanced over at her dad, to gauge his reaction to his mother's arrival, but he was head down, buried in the newspaper.

“Ready, Blake?” Chloe wanted to storm out of the house.

“It was nice to see you, Mrs. Devine. Have a great day. Chief.”

“Wait,” Jimmy said and got up. He handed Blake the keys to the Durango. “Take my truck. It's easier to get in and out of than your mom's Subaru.”

“Yes, it is, thank you very much, sir.”

“Dad, you're giving Blake your truck?”

“Hardly giving.”

“You don't lend it to Mason!”

“When Mason takes you to deliver food to the infirm instead of parking with you behind Subway, he can have my truck.”

“Thank you, sir. I won't let you down in that regard, or any other.”

“I know, son.”

“One quick thing—where do you keep the siren lights? Somewhere in the truck?”

“Get out of here, Blake, before I change my mind.”

“Yes, sir.”

Six cold meals and six hot meals were delivered to St. Elizabeth's on Main Street, the Devines' parish church, by Petey, the Meals on Wheels delivery boy, who did not like to be kept waiting. Wheels didn't usually deliver on Saturdays, but a dozen homes depended on Chloe, and that was the only day she could work.

“I'm surprised you still want to go,” Chloe said to Blake as
he opened the Durango door for her. She was in a dismal mood. Moody was coming!

“I told you I would. I must meet this Lupe.”

“I don't even know if she's on the schedule today. Petey gives me a list. We should hurry. Sometimes she cancels. She doesn't want me to go all the way out there just for her. Blake, what are you doing, what are you looking for?”

Blake was searching through Jimmy's truck. “Looking for those damn siren lights. I want to slap them on when we get on the highway. You said we should hurry. Turn the suckers on. Scare the shit out of the cars in front of us.”

“No! You can't use them, Dad will throw you in jail for sure.”

“It'll be worth it.”

On the way to the church, Chloe wanted to tell Blake she was happy for his company but didn't know how to phrase it without sounding like an idiot, so she didn't. She liked it when Hannah used to come with her. Chloe drove, Hannah navigated, though she was awful with directions, but they had some laughs getting lost. And the old people enjoyed seeing the girls. Chloe got dressed up a little, wore jeans without holes.

But today Blake was driving her. It was better. Until he said, “So why didn't you tell me Hannah doesn't come with you anymore?”

Chloe fake-studied the map. “You know, you should teach Hannah how to drive.”

“
You
should teach Hannah how to drive. I tried.”

“So did I.”

The two of them chuckled. “Let's just agree she's a reluctant learner,” Blake said. “But it's in
your
best interest to teach her, not mine.”

“It's in
your
best interest to teach her, not mine.”

“What are you, four? Stop mimicking me. Do you want to be driving her around Bangor when you two start college, the way I drive her around here?”

Chloe was very, very busy with the map. “Maybe she'll get a car and I won't have to.”

“Where's she going to get a car from?” Blake said. “If she has any money saved up, it'll be spent on empanadas in the Ramblas.”

So he was reading up on Barcelona, too. That made Chloe smile, until she recalled Moody coming for dinner and, oh God, going to the cemetery. Chloe tightened her spine, squeezed shut her lips, and revealed to Blake nothing about her turmoil: their lack of funds, her lack of permission, passport, passion, the lack, the lack, the lack.

When she praised him for his impressive navigation skills, he replied by asking why she was dressed so nicely. She pretended she wasn't dressed especially nicely; how to explain that the old people enjoyed looking at her? But the thing that was great about Blake was that no question lingered in his hyperactive brain for long, and often, when the answer was a few seconds in coming, he would make up his own reply, which was what he did now.

“The young girl,” he said in a dramatic voice, “who got all dolled up to feed the elderly vanished one Saturday afternoon. Where did she go? Perhaps her ironed jeans were found in the pond nearby?”

“Blake! Why would I lose my jeans in the pond?”

“That's what I'm trying to get to the
bottom
of, Haiku,” he said, and guffawed.

He was so silly.

“What does
my
denim have to do with
your
story?”

“I don't know yet,” he replied. “I'm merely collecting information.”

“So I'm not even the
end
of your story, just a random detail?”

“Nicely punned. I said I don't know. Look in my notebook—no, not that section, the one in the back that says ‘descriptions.' See if there's anything you like.”

He had written out fifty pages of notes on lakes, junk he had
found, birds building nests during spring—and the garden by her house! He was incredibly prolific. Every minute observation was in his spiral.

“Why is my garden here?” In his random musings, he had written about her wine-red tulips, the coral knockabout roses, the orange nasturtium, and the hot pink azaleas blooming outside her windows.

“Never know what I might need.”

“Before I vanish,” Chloe said, closing his notebook, “you might want to have me do something amazing or idiotic.”

“Losing your pants is both, don't you think?” He poked her in the arm as he drove. “Why are you all freaked out about Moody? She's your grandmother, not Freddy Krueger.”

“That's what you think.” Chloe sighed. Everyone in the large Devine family lived in fear of Moody. She could not be argued with, or negotiated with. She could not be reasoned with. She believed what she believed, said what she said, commanded what she commanded. I've seen too much to bother arguing with the likes of you, was Moody's standard reply to anyone in her family who dared raise a squawk in opposition. Only Chloe's father had spoken out against her, and as a result, mother and son had been on the outs for the last seven years, since Uncle Kenny died.

The old people became notably enthusiastic when they saw that a tidied-up Chloe did not come alone. “Who is the young man?” Mrs. Van Mirren said with a meaningful smile.

This is Blake, Hannah's boyfriend, Chloe would say to Mrs. Van Mirren, Ms. Rivers, Mr. Mann, and Mr. Warner. They asked where Hannah was. They asked about Mason. They asked when the prom was, and when Europe was. They gave her money. Five dollars, two dollars, seventy-five cents. They would not take no for an answer. This is for your trip, they said. Take pictures. Write things down. Don't forget. Life is long. You won't remember if you don't write things down or take pictures. Are you excited
about college? We'll miss you when you go. We love you. Blake, we love this girl. Take another dollar.

Lupe was last, because she lived the farthest, in New Hampshire, in a mountain hamlet called Jackson. Outside a yellow painted storage shed, she sat in a wooden chair planted next to her front door. In the window box under her one white window bloomed purple nasturtiums. “I planted those for her,” Chloe said. Lupe, shriveled like a bald bird in water, gummed a smile and waved. She was white from top to bottom, white hair, white shirt, white bracelets, white pants, white socks, white shoes. As usual, she wore most of her jewelry. If not all her jewelry. Three necklaces, a cross, a dozen jangling bracelets on each wrist, and rings on every finger. When she waved to Chloe and Blake, she trilled like a wind chime.

“And who izh thish?” she said, as if she didn't have her dentures in.

“It's Mason's brother, Blake, Lupe.”

While Lupe was vigorously shaking Blake's hand and appraising him, Chloe pulled out Lupe's lunch, the last one in the hot box, and stepped inside the woman's one-room
house
to get a tray and some silverware. Though who was Chloe to tease Lupe about the size of her habitat?

“Blake came with me because he's entering a story contest.” She set the food on a tray in the old woman's lap. “The Acadia Award for Short Fiction. I told him about your box of jewelry.” Chloe poured Lupe some ice tea and put a napkin near her elbow.

“And what, he wants it?”

“No, no.” Blake looked mortified. How amusing!

“Young man, I'm joking. Instead of looking for my jewelry, you should find yourself a sense of humor. It would come in more handy.”

“Um, yes, ma'am.”

“Where's your brother today?”

“At practice.”

“Blake is Hannah's boyfriend,” Chloe said.