Kitabı oku: «Lone Star», sayfa 3

“Yes, an education in boys,” said Lang. “What are you going to tell us, that you’ll get two rooms and you and Hannah will stay in one and the boys in the other?”

There you go. Didn’t even have to say a word.

“Your plan,” Lang continued, “is to rove around Europe for a month with your boyfriend on your hard-earned college savings. This is something you’re seriously proposing to your father and me?”

Dad is not here, Chloe wanted to say. She didn’t know of whom she was more afraid. Dad never really liked Mason, that gentle kid. She didn’t know why. Everyone loved him. “We could go to Belgium, too, if you want.”

“Are you weak in the head? Why would I want this?”

“You mentioned Belgium. I could bring you back some chocolates.”

“Your father gets me a Whitman’s Sampler every Valentine’s Day. That’s enough for me.”

“Belgium is safe.”

“Is Mason safe?”

“Hannah will be with me. She’s nearly a year older. She’ll protect me.”

“Chloe,” said her mother, “sometimes you say the funniest things. That girl couldn’t protect a squirrel. She can’t protect herself. I trust Mason more than I trust Hannah.”

“See?”

“More, which is to say nothing. How much is two times zero? Still zero, child.” She raised her hand before Chloe could come back with a wisecrack. “Enough. I have to slap these Linzers together and then get dinner on. Your father will be home soon. Go to the music room and practice.”

“I’m going to be eighteen, Mom,” Chloe repeated lamely.

“Yes, and I’m going to be forty-seven. And your father forty-nine. I’m glad we established how old we are. Now what?”

“I’m old enough to make my own choices,” said Chloe, hoping her mother wouldn’t laugh at her.

To Lang’s credit, she didn’t. “Can you choose right now to go play a musical instrument,” she said. “Piano or violin. Pick one. Practice thirty minutes.”

“Hannah wants to talk to me before dinner.”

“Well, then, you’d better jump to it,” said Lang, her back turned, an icing sugar shaker in her hands. “What Hannah wants, Hannah gets.”

3
The Perils of College Interviews

CHLOE SPRINTED FROM HER HOUSE ACROSS THE FLOWERBEDS and brush to Hannah’s next door.

Since the divorce five years ago, Hannah’s mother had been involved with revolving boyfriends, and consequently their yard never got cleaned up. “Why can’t she do it herself?” Lang would demand. Blake and Mason offered every month to help, but Terri didn’t want to pay them to do it. And she didn’t want them to do it for free because that was asking men for a favor. So she lived surrounded by unkempt backwoods, in wild contrast to Chloe’s parents’ approach to their house and their rural life. Lang allocated part of every day to weeding, mowing, cleaning, planting, raking, leafing, clearing, maintaining. The birches and pines were trimmed as if giraffes had gotten to them, and all the pine cones were swept up and placed in tall ornamental wicker baskets, and even the loose pebbles were picked up and arranged around the flowerbeds and bird houses and vegetable gardens. It was quite telling that Terri and Lang lived next door to each other for almost twenty years and yet didn’t know each other’s birthdays. Lang never said a thing, and kept Jimmy from saying anything, but Chloe could tell by her father’s critical expression when he spoke of “that family” that he looked forward to the day Hannah might become a friend of the past. There are two kinds of people in the world, Jimmy Devine said. Those who try to make everything they come in contact with more beautiful—and then there is Terri Gramm.

Before Chloe knocked, she stopped by the dock and stared out onto the lake, the railroad across it, the bands of violet mackerel sky. She imagined a lover’s kiss in the Mediterranean breeze, the mosaics of streets, parades down the boulevards, music, ancient stones, and evening meals. Beaches, heat, flamenco, bagpipes. Passion, life, noise. Everything that here was not. She imagined herself, fire, flowing dresses, abundant cleavage, no fear. Everything that here she was not. Her heart aching, she knocked on Hannah’s porch door.

Hannah’s mother was on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune.

“Hello, Mrs. Gramm.”

“Hi, honey.” Terri didn’t turn her head to Chloe. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“No, my mom—”

“I’m joking. We got nothing anyway.”

Hannah pulled Chloe into her bedroom and slammed the door.

“Did she say no?”

“Of course she said no.”

“But was it no, we’ll see, or was it no like never?”

“It was no like never.”

“But then she started asking you all kinds of questions?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s yes. They never ask anything unless it’ll be yes eventually. Give her a week to think about it. She has to talk to your dad.”

“You think I’ll have a better chance with him?”

“No. But he might give you money.”

“For Barcelona?”

“We’ll figure it out. We have bigger problems right now.”

“Bigger than my mom saying no?”

“Yes.” Hannah was biting her nails. Perfect Hannah with her perfect teeth was biting to the nubs her ugly nails at the end of her perfect long fingers. “How likely is it, do you think, that Blake and Mason are actually going to go?”

“A hundred percent.” Chloe pulled her friend’s twitchy hand out of her mouth. “Stop doing that. Don’t you know what Blake is like?”

Hannah didn’t reply. She was too busy bloodying the tips of her fingers.

Chloe plopped down on Hannah’s lavender bed. The girl turned up her music which was already plenty loud. She did it so her mother couldn’t hear her, but the result was that Chloe couldn’t hear her either. Hannah had a barely audible soprano, like a low hum, and over the high treble strands of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” she was nearly impossible to make out.

She lay on her bed next to Chloe. “Chloe-bear, I’m in trouble.”

“What?”

“I have to break up with him and I don’t know how to do it.”

“With Blake?” Chloe sat up. She was horrified.

“No, with Martyn.”

“Who?”

“Stop it. Be serious.”

Chloe stopped it. How to tell Hannah that she was serious? Who the heck was Martyn? She hoped her pitiable ignorance didn’t show on her face. She scrunched it up knowingly, trussed her eyebrows, nodded. “Why, um, do you have to break up with him?”

“He was going to give me money to go to Barcelona, because he knows I don’t have enough, but if Blake is going, he won’t give me any money.”

Chloe blindly navigated the maze before her, hands out in front. “So don’t tell him Blake is going.” Who the hell was Martyn?!

“Except … he was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days.”

Chloe weighed her words. “Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days?” As if repetition would make Hannah’s words make sense.

“I didn’t want him to, Chloe, believe me, but I don’t have enough money to go, and I thought, what’s a couple of days, when we’re going to be there two weeks, right?”

“Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.”

“Don’t be mad. I was going to tell you he was coming. I was just waiting for the right time. Please don’t be mad.” Hannah briefly leaned her head into Chloe’s head, and then clapped her hands business-like. “No, that’s it. I’m going to end it. It’s for the best,” she said. “He is getting too serious, anyway. We need to break up, not go on vacation.”

“Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.” Chloe couldn’t get past this one point.

“He doesn’t want me to go without him. He’s afraid I’m going to meet someone, have a fling. He is intensely jealous.”

“Martyn is jealous.”

“Yes, so jealous.”

“Um, does Martyn know you have a boyfriend? Maybe he can be jealous of him.” Poor Blake.

“He’s not worried about him.”

“Well, you’re not, why should he be? So this Martyn is afraid you’ll have a fling in Europe with someone other than your boyfriend?” Chloe opened her hands. “What kind of girl does he think you are?”

“Can you please, please be serious? I know I need to break up with him. But then where do I get the money to go?” She wrung her hands, twisted her sore and bitten fingers. The usually unruffled Hannah looked ruffled.

Chloe was afraid to ask the follow-up question. There were so many questions, she couldn’t sort out their order of priority. She was thinking of Barcelona. But she was also thinking about Blake. “Hannah, if you have someone else, why do you string Blake along? Why don’t you break it off with him, and do what you want?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Chloe,” Hannah said. “Did you not hear me just now when I said I was going to end it with Martyn?”

Chloe heard all right. “Do you even still want to go to Barcelona?”

“More than anything.”

“With Blake?”

“I’d prefer to go with just you.” Hannah pulled Chloe in for a hug. “Like we planned. Do you think we can talk Blake out of going?”

Chloe shrugged. “Perhaps you can dissuade him by telling him if he goes, then your secret lover won’t give you any money for Europe.”

In a humph Hannah turned her back to Chloe.

“I thought you had money,” Chloe said quietly. “I thought we were both saving.”

“We were. We are. But Chloe, I’m not you. I can’t walk around in the same extra-large T-shirt. I need spring clothes, I need summer clothes.”

“What do you want, a new skirt or Barcelona?”

“Both.”

“You don’t have money for both. Pick.”

“Both!”

Hannah’s back curved into a ball.

Chloe sighed, kneading her comforting palm between Hannah’s shoulder blades. “Who’s this Martyn anyway?”

“Don’t joke.”

“I mean”—Chloe cleared her throat—“how come he has money to burn?”

“He’s a professor. He’s got plenty of money.”

Martyn, Martyn, Martyn. Chloe tried to remember the first names of their teachers at the Academy. In any case, Hannah said professor, not teacher. Jumping up, Hannah started to pace and talk, began to tell Chloe things she couldn’t hear. It occurred to her that perhaps this was the reason she didn’t know about Martyn. Hannah told her, but Metallica was playing and through the strands of living life their way, Chloe had missed it.

Hannah grabbed Chloe’s hands. “What am I going to do? It’ll crush him.”

“Do you want to break up with him?”

“I have to. He’s become way too emotionally involved with me.”

“What about Blake?”

“Will you forget Blake! I have a real problem and you bringing him up every five seconds is not helping me.”

Chloe tried to regroup, find something else to say that sounded less hectory. “Um, how long has the Martyn thing been going on?”

“October.”

“Last October?”

“Yes, since my college interview. Chloe, why are you being so obtuse? Is this deliberate? Is this your way of judging me? You’re making it hard to talk to you.”

Now Chloe remembered. She had driven Hannah to Bangor for her University of Maine admission interview. Chloe had been accepted without an interview so she waited outside while Hannah went in. Hannah walked out with a man, who shook her hand or, rather, took her hand and held it. Hannah introduced Chloe to a very tall, grandfatherly gentleman, soft spoken and modest in manner. Surely that wasn’t Martyn?

Chloe thought no more about it, except in January when Hannah asked to be driven to Bangor again because the admissions office needed to go over a couple of things.

That couldn’t be the man Hannah needed to break up with. Chloe had it wrong. It couldn’t be him because he was …

“Hannah, I’m sorry, but how old is Martyn?”

Hannah studied the lilac bedspread as if the answer was written on her sheets like a cheat sheet. “Sixty-two,” she said.

Chloe jumped off the bed.

“Sit down. What are you getting all riled up about?”

“Hannah!” Chloe couldn’t sit. She could barely focus on Hannah’s aggrieved face. “Please tell me you’re not involved with a man forty years older than you. Please.” Was Chloe the only one who thought this was gross?

“Okay,” Hannah said. Metallica segued into Nirvana. Come as you are. As a friend. “Forty-four years,” she corrected Chloe.

Come as you are.

Chloe didn’t know why she should feel so affected by this. Hannah on the other hand was flushed, blinking rapidly, breathing through her mouth, as if she was catching the strands of the plot on her tongue and was about to jump on her computer and write a story for the ages. “He’s very much in love with me,” she said musically. “I didn’t realize he would fall so deep. He’s a widower and has been very lonely. At first he told me it was just for company. He knew we couldn’t last. He’s the one who told me it wouldn’t last!”

“But you’ve only seen him the few times I’ve driven you to Bangor,” Chloe said dumbly. “Right? I mean …”

“Don’t be naïve. We’ve been meeting every Tuesday at the Silver Pines Motor Court. And some Saturdays. He finishes teaching early on Tuesdays.”

Chloe’s expression must have been a sight.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Hannah said. “I didn’t want to be judged, and I was afraid you’d spill the beans to Mason, and then Blake would find out.”

Where had Chloe been that she hadn’t noticed Hannah’s twice-weekly disappearance? What did Hannah tell Blake about her regularly scheduled absence from their already convoluted life? How could he not know? Chloe had been busy squirreling away her own secrets from Hannah, and perhaps was grateful for a few days a week when she didn’t have to look away every time Hannah waxed about the University of Maine they would both be attending in the fall. But what was Blake’s excuse?

Tonight Chloe had nothing to say about Hannah’s dilemma. She remained stuck on the geezer’s age. He was thirteen years older than her father! Yet Hannah seemed unconcerned with this most startling detail: that she was sleeping with Cain and Abel’s uncle. Hannah sighed as if in a romance novel. “It’s extremely flattering to be loved like that,” she said. “So intensely. Oh Chloe! Do you know what it’s like to be loved so intensely?”

“Oh, sure.” Chloe stared into her hands as if they loved her intensely. “Quite a situation you’ve gotten yourself into, girlfriend,” she said.

“Don’t you think I know that?” For a moment, Hannah looked ready to cry. Yet Chloe knew that to be false, for Hannah didn’t cry. She only appeared to look to be ready to cry.

“I gotta go,” Chloe said, rising. “Hey, look on the bright side. My parents probably won’t let me go anyway.”

“How is that the bright side?” said Hannah. “We’ve been dreaming of Barcelona since we were eleven.”

4
Paleo Flood at Red River

IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE AND HER FATHER’S BLACK DODGE Durango was parked in the open clearing by the time Chloe left Hannah’s and made her way through the brambles between the two properties.

It was a warm evening. Through the open window she could hear her mother’s soft voice and her father’s booming one. Chloe slowed down. Treading quietly over the pine needles that crunched under her feet, she inched up to the screened-in window in the living room.

“It’s out of the question.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why would she want to go there?”

“She says because she hasn’t been.”

“What kind of a reason is that?”

“She says because we went to Ireland without her.”

“If I hear one more word about Ireland!”

“Shh. I know.”

“I hope you were forceful, Mother. I hope you said no.”

“I was forceful. I said no.”

“But what?”

“But nothing.”

“No, I can see by your face it’s something. What?”

“She’s insisting.”

“So? We’re going to allow the child to make the decisions?”

“She said something about turning eighteen.”

“Oh, so she’s going to play that card!”

“That’s what I said.”

“Why does she really want to go?”

“I don’t know, Jimmy.”

“What’s in Barcelona?”

“Nothing. It’s not Fryeburg, not Brownfield, not Maine.”

“So why doesn’t she go to Canada? We’ll drive her to Montreal. It’s only a few hours away. In another country. We’ll leave her and Hannah there, then pick them up a few days later.”

“Yeah. Well. I haven’t told you the half of it.”

There was rustling, cooing, small giggles. “You haven’t heard my half of it, sweet potato. It’ll give you and me a chance to stay in a hotel. Like newlyweds.”

“Jimmy, don’t be bad.”

More rustling. Even some grunting.

“Jimmy, come on …”

Sweet God. Chloe couldn’t even eavesdrop on her parents’ conversation about her without it becoming a study in her own mortification.

“But seriously,” her father said. The cooing had stopped, thank God. “We can’t let her go.”

“I agree. How do we stop her?”

“We’ll just tell her she can’t go.”

“I look forward to our spicy pork chops tonight over which you tell her.”

“I’ve never liked that Hannah. Why couldn’t that no-good father of hers have gotten custody instead?”

“I think the answer is built into your very question.”

“That Terri is a piece of work. Doesn’t she know what’s going on with her own kids? I hear Jason is always in trouble up in Portland. By the way, the raccoons got to her garbage again.”

“I saw. I smelled.”

“Did you talk to her about cleaning it up? Or am I going to have to?”

“She told me this morning the animals have to eat, too.”

“I’m going to shoot them next time I hear them near her cans. They’re a rabid nuisance.”

“Jimmy, carry the potatoes. She better come home soon. Dinner is ready.”

“Should I go get her? Did you drive her?”

“No, I didn’t drive her to Hannah’s house. It’s forty yards away.”

There was silence. “I didn’t drive her, Jimmy. She’s fine. She’s next door.” Chloe heard the pot being placed on the table.

“So what are we going to do?”

“Talk some sense into her. She listens to you. You’re her father.”

“If she listened to me, she’d never ask for something so stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Jimmy, it’s just kids being kids.”

“I never did nothing like that.”

“Okay. We did some stuff too.”

“Not like that.”

“Worse. We were young, too.”

“Hmm.”

“You remember Pembina? The paleo flood in the Red River in ’77? All right, Mr. Comedian. I know you remember. We were so bad. We didn’t need to go to Barcelona.”

“We never needed to go anywhere, sweet potato.”

“Get the drinks. I’ll go get her.”

Pembina was where Lang was from. Pembina, North Dakota, less than two miles south of the Canadian border. The Red River is slow and small. It doesn’t have the energy to cut a gorge. It meanders through the silty bottomlands. Yet every few years it floods catastrophically through the marsh at its delta. It causes immense destruction. In 1977, the river flooded, and the National Guard was called in to help the locals cope. Jimmy Devine, National Guard, met Lang Thia, whose father was a prominent local businessman who made hearing aids.

Her mother didn’t need a hearing aid. She came to the window near which Chloe was hiding and said into the screen, “Chloe, come to the table. Dinner is served.”

With a great sigh, Chloe peeled away from the wood shingles and walked, head hung, to the door.

5
The Irish Inquisition

LANG TURNED ON THE LIGHT ABOVE THE SMALL RECTANGULAR table. They sat silently, their hands folded. They blessed their food. Jimmy said amen. Chloe asked him to pass the potatoes. Jimmy poured Lang a jasmine ice tea. Lang poured Jimmy a beer. They cut into their pork chops. The silence lasted two or three minutes. Jimmy had to get some strength before he began, though he looked pretty strong already. He was a big Irish guy, blond-haired once, now gray, blue-eyed, direct, no nonsense. He was funny, he was easy, but he also had a temper, and he never forgot anything, neither a favor nor a slight. It was almost his undoing, the merciless blade of his memory. Sometimes he had to dull it with whiskey. Sometimes he had to dull many things with whiskey. Tonight Lang eased him into Chloe’s summer plans by letting him eat for a few minutes in peace while she grilled Chloe on irrelevant matters.

“Did you do your homework?”

“I didn’t have any. It’s senior year, Mom. No one gives homework anymore.”

“Then what do they give you a fourth quarter grade for?”

“Showing up mostly.”

“So no tests, no quizzes, no overdue projects, no missing labs, no oral presentations, no incomplete class assignments?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

“Enough nonsense,” said Jimmy, having fortified himself on meat. “What’s this your mother tells me about Barcelona?”

Her father looked straight at her, and Chloe had no choice but to stare back. “Did my mother tell you that she wants me to enter into a story contest? Ten thousand dollar prize.”

“She mentioned something about that, yes. I don’t see how the two are related.”

“I have nothing to write about.”

“Come to work with me for a day or two. You’ll get three books out of it.” Jimmy Devine was the Fryeburg chief of police, like his father and grandfather before him. Fryeburg, Maine. Pop. 3500. Settled in 1763 by General Joseph Frye and incorporated in 1777, exactly two hundred years before the bad luck of the paleo floods two thousand miles away, and now Chloe sat impaled on the stake of parental disapproval.

“Really,” she said, irritated. “Books on what, breaking up domestic arguments and littering?”

“Nice. So now even my work, not just your mother’s, is denigrated?”

Chloe regrouped. “I’m not denigrating, Dad. But our hearts are set on Spain. Hannah and I have been talking about it for years.”

“You told your mother you thought of going just today. So which is it? An impulse or a lifelong dream?”

Chloe didn’t reply. They were denigrating her!

“How in the world can Hannah afford Barcelona?” Jimmy asked. “Her mother is at the bank every other day asking for an overdraft increase. And your friend, who abandoned you to do Meals on Wheels by yourself on Saturdays because she claims she has a job, often skips out on the one lousy four-hour shift she has at China Chef. So where’s her half of the money going to come from?”

Chloe hated that her dad knew everything about everybody’s business. It was terrifying. She stopped eating and stared at her father, the last bite of pork chop lodged in her dry throat. Did he know why Hannah was skipping out on China Chef? Oh God, please, no. A demoralized Chloe couldn’t withstand even two minutes of modest interrogation.

“Why do you want to go so much? Tell your mother and me.”

Chloe said nothing. Her entrails in knots, she felt like a scoundrel.

“Is it because we went without you that time to Kilkenny?” Jimmy said. “You’re lucky you didn’t go. Funerals are not for kids.”

And just like that the three of them were swallowed up by silent oceans. Jimmy awkwardly picked up his fork only to drop it. Lang nursed her jasmine tea. Sickened by the ghastly turn of the already difficult conversation, Chloe tried to right the course.

“It’s not about that. It’s not about funerals,” Chloe said. “It’s not about anything. It’s just awesome Spain. Why do you think I’ve been taking Spanish these last six years? I’m the only senior still taking a language. That’s why. Dad, I’m not a child anymore.”

“If you’re such an adult,” said Jimmy, “then what are you talking to us for?”

“I need your help with the passport.”

“Oh, now she needs us,” Jimmy said. “Just a signature. No help, no advice. No money. You have everything now, big girl. You’ve got it all figured out.”

“I don’t, but … it’s just a few weeks in Europe, Dad. Lots of kids do it.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” Chloe stumbled. “Lots of kids.” No one from her school.

“It’s the worst place, by the way, to have a vacation,” Lang cut in.

“Why is it the worst place? It’s the best place! Have you been there, Mom?”

“I don’t need to go to Calcutta to know I don’t want to go to Calcutta.”

“Calcutta? Can we calm down? It’s Barcelona! It’s on the sea. It’s nice. It’s fun. It’s full of young people.”

“Did I hear your mother correctly?” Jimmy asked. “The two junkyard wildings down the road want to go with you?”

Well, at least it was out there. The pit in her stomach couldn’t get any bigger. “Why wildings? It’s Blake and Mason. You like them.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth or feelings into my heart.”

“You do like them. Mr. Haul is still your friend. Despite everything.” Chloe took a breath. “You help him out with money, you lend him your truck, you barbecue with him. You exchange Christmas presents. Mom gives them tomatoes.”

“What does that prove? Your mother gives tomatoes to everyone, even the Harrisons who tried to kill Blake’s dog. And in my line of work, I’m forced to talk to a lot of unsavory characters.”

“Mr. Haul is not one of them. And Mom and Mrs. Haul are friends.”

“Don’t get carried away,” said Lang. “I drive to ShopRite with her. She is not the executor of my will. So don’t hyperbolize.”

After a pause, Chloe said, “Now who’s hyperbolizing?”

“I don’t know why anyone, especially my daughter, would want to go to Spain of all places,” Jimmy said, getting up from the table, as if done with the conversation he was himself continuing. “Do you think there’s any place more beautiful than coastal Maine? Than the White Mountains of New Hampshire?” He snorted as he scraped the remains of his dinner into the trash. “You have staggering beauty outside your own door.”

“That’s what I told her, Jimmy.”

“Would that I had a chance to compare,” said Chloe.

“I’m telling you how it is.”

“So I have to take your word for it? I want to see for myself, Dad!”

“Where did this crazy idea even come from? Lang, did you know about this?”

“Jimmy,” said Lang, “she doesn’t know anything about Barcelona. If she did, she wouldn’t want to go. Believe me.”

How did one not raise one’s voice when confronted by a mother such as Chloe’s mother? “Mom,” Chloe said slowly, which was her equivalent of a raised voice. The slower the speech, the more she wanted to shout. At the moment, she was positively hollering. “I know you think I might not know anything about Barcelona. But what in the world do you possibly know about Barcelona?”

“Chloe! Be respectful to your mother.”

“That wasn’t respectful?” If only her parents could hear how Hannah talked to her mother.

Lang raised her hand. She was still at the table, across from Chloe. “No, no. Chloe makes a valid point. Clearly she thinks Barcelona has virtues Maine doesn’t.”

“I think it because it’s true,” Chloe said. “It has stunning architecture. Art. History. Culture.”

“You think we don’t have architecture?” Jimmy bellowed.

“Houses are not the same as architecture, Dad!”

“Don’t shout! Since when do you care about architecture? It’s the first time in my life I’ve heard you use that word. Now you want to go halfway around the globe to learn more about house design?”

Chloe found it difficult to speak through a clenched mouth. “Art. Culture. History.”

“So go visit Boston,” Lang said, pushing away from the table. “There’s a big city for you. It has Art. Culture. History. It has architecture.”

“Maine has history too.” Jimmy tried not to sound defensive about his home state. “What about the Red Paint People?”

“Dad, okay, history is not why I want to go to Spain.”

“Why then?”

“I bet it’s to lie on the beach all day,” said Lang.

“And what’s wrong with the beach?”

“You can lie on a beach in Maine!” Jimmy yelled.

“Chloe! Look what you did. You’ve upset your father. Jimmy, shh.” Walking over, Lang put a quieting hand on her husband.

Taking hold of Lang’s hand, Jimmy continued. They both stood a few feet away from Chloe, near the sink, united in their flummoxed anxiety. Chloe continued to sit and stare into her cold, half-eaten chop. “What about York Beach?” he said. “We’ve got five hundred miles of spectacular sandy coastline. How many miles does Barcelona have?”

“Is it warm?” said Chloe. “Is it beachy? Is it Mediterranean?”

“Do you see?” Lang said. “She doesn’t even know where Barcelona is. It’s on the Balearic Sea, for your information.”

Chloe couldn’t help herself. She groaned. Clearly, in between grilling swine and sugar-dusting Linzer tarts, her mother had opened an encyclopedia and was now using some arcane knowledge to … Chloe didn’t know what.

“Mom,” Chloe said, so slowly it came out as mommmmmmmmm. A raw grunt left her throat. “The Balearic Sea is part of the Mediterranean. Look at the map. Don’t do this.”

Undeterred, her mother continued. “They didn’t even have any beaches fifteen years ago. They built them for the Olympic Games. That’s your history right there. Don’t pretend you’re all about the Barcelona sand. Maine has had beaches for five hundred years.”

Chloe blinked at her mother. Lang blinked back defiantly. “Mom, so what? What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with me going or not going?”

“Don’t raise your voice to us,” Jimmy said. “So if it’s not for the beach, why do you want to go? Do you want to prove something?”

“I don’t want to prove anything. To anybody,” Chloe said through closed teeth. “I. Just. Want. To. Go. That’s it. You want to know why Barcelona and not Rome or Athens or some other place? Okay, I’ll tell you. Because while you were gallivanting through the glens of Kilkenny and I stayed with Hannah and her mom, Blake bought me a magazine.”

“Oh, well, if Blake bought you a magazine …”

“A National Geographic,” Chloe continued through the sarcasm. “There was an article on Barcelona in it. It sounded nice. So Hannah and I said to each other we’d go when we graduated.”

“So you want to go to Barcelona to punish us, is that it?”