Lone Star

by Paullina Simons

  “This doesn’t bother you?”

  “What?”

  “That.”

  I shrugged. It didn’t really bother me. I could see that Blake thought it should. But Blake and I are different people, and we feel different things. I’m not going to apologize for the way I am. I don’t expect him to apologize for the way he is.

  “Don’t get so bent out of shape, man,” I said to him. “It’s not a big deal. We’re going to be together for the next couple of days. People are going to talk to each other. What do you want me to do? Knock out somebody’s teeth every time Chloe says hello to them?”

  “Not somebody’s,” Blake said. “His.”

  Hannah

  Oh my goodness, but does Blake ever have a bug up his butt over a nice guy who’s doing us all a big favor. The rest of us don’t know how to thank him, while Blake walks around as if he’s planning to kill him in his sleep. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I’ve never seen him act like this. He is normally the most affable guy. Too affable. Nothing bothers him. He’s super chill all the time. Suddenly he’s Genghis Khan. It must be an alpha male thing. I don’t get it, but I hear that happens sometimes.

  The thing is, Johnny is so friendly, so polite, so non-confrontational, so sixties about the whole life thing, that it makes Blake seem like an asshole, and though we all know he’s not, he sure seems like one today, all stomping and cranky and sniping, making comments, huffing, rolling his eyes. Chloe is right: Johnny sings like he has a host of angels in his throat while Blake mutters obscenities under his breath. (I didn’t make that line up about the angels, Chloe came up with that one, I’m just using it here, because she so rarely comes up with something clever, I want to give her credit when it’s due.) I swear, Blake liked him less after he heard him sing and realized he was a freaking prodigy. We on the other hand all fell in love with him a little, hearing his fly voice raise Roxy Music from rock to opera. I didn’t think it was possible, to take that rough and tumble song and sing it like they do at Lincoln Center, but Johnny did it. Love is the drug indeed. Yet my Blake is deaf to it.

  Somehow Chloe got Blake to agree to travel to Poland with Johnny, I don’t know how. I didn’t think he’d budge. When he’s being unreasonable and pigheaded, he usually doesn’t, and the more unreasonable he’s being, the less he budges. But she got Blake to do it. I meant to ask what she said to him but I forgot.

  The only thing that bothers me a tiny little bit, and I hate to even put pen to paper and admit it, is every once in a while when I look at Johnny, or hear him talk, or watch him when he doesn’t think I’m watching him, I find him staring at or talking to Chloe. I mean, it’s polite and casual, but I do wonder what’s behind his crazy melted eyes. A little thought flashes by. Could he like her? I know she hated him at first. She’s impressed with his singing now, but that’s not enough to turn someone’s opinion around. Just look at Blake. What troubles me a little is not that Chloe might like Johnny, because other than Blake, who doesn’t? But that Johnny might like Chloe.

  Like earlier on the train when we were coming back to Varda’s, he somehow finagled a seat next to her. Blake glared at Mason as if to say, you gonna stand for that? But Mason, calm as all that, just planted himself right across from Chloe and ignored Blake. Or later, at the cramped dining room table, once again Johnny managed to squeeze into the seat next to her. Mason on one side of her, Johnny on the other. It’s probably a coincidence, and they didn’t look at each other much during dinner, or talk to each other, but every time Chloe spoke, Johnny, no matter whom he was talking to, stopped, turned, listened, and reacted only to her. When she spoke, he never ignored her.

  I’m sure it’s nothing.

  When we told Carmen and Varda that Johnny was a singer, they got so excited. Sabine said her husband Guntis fancied himself a singer too, and maybe they could do a duet. I smirked. After dinner, Johnny took out his guitar and played them a song. Varda and Carmen cried. But no one cried harder than Otto.

  Guntis said nothing, but he sure didn’t ask Johnny to harmonize after that.

  I don’t know what song it was. Johnny sang in another language. I assumed it was Latvian, but when I asked him about it later in the yard, he said it was an old Russian war song called “Varshavyanka” or something like that. “I’ve learned that people around these parts like not just the Beatles but war hymns too,” he told me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The foreigners sure liked Led Zeppelin earlier.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Zeppelin is definitely a crowd pleaser.”

  “Why is the old man still weeping? It’s been a half-hour since you sang.”

  “Because he used to sing that song on the Dvina with his squadron as they marched downriver to fight the Germans in the Battle of the Baltic,” Johnny replied.

  I persisted. “But how would you possibly know a song in Russian? Especially a war song?”

  “Most Russian songs are war songs.” He laughed.

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  Before he answered me—though I was the one who stood in front of him—his eyes sought out Chloe, who sat on a bench nearby. He wanted to make sure she was listening! Or was that my imagination? I should be a writer. Johnny said, “I know a bunch of songs. I know Italian and French songs, and even Spanish songs. I can sing you ‘Barcelona,’ if you like.”

  “But Russian war songs?” That was Chloe. I knew it! I knew she was eavesdropping.

  He took a step in her direction, even though it had been our conversation, and talked to her instead of me, as if it was theirs, not ours. “Even Russian war songs,” he said, gazing down at her. “I learn them phonetically.”

  We glanced over at Otto. He was still sniffling. Johnny left us and walked over to his chair. Crouching next to the old man, he put his arm around him and talked to him quietly, every once in a while patting Otto, squeezing him, nodding. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but since I know Otto doesn’t speak English, I had to assume that he and Johnny were speaking Latvian. Latvian that Johnny had insisted to the fat lady on the train he did not speak. What a mystery he is, what a puzzle of contradictions.

  “Carmen, why is your grandfather crying like that?” I asked the girl when she came down the porch steps into the yard.

  “Grandfather said he hadn’t heard that song since 1944 when he lost most of men he fought with. He said Johnny broke his heart.”

  “Oh. What language did your grandfather talk to Johnny in?”

  “Russian,” Carmen replied. “Johnny doesn’t speak very good Latvian.”

  But he spoke good enough Russian?

  “He told grandfather his own grandfather taught him song when he was little boy and he never forgot.”

  “His grandfather was Russian?”

  “No. He said he was American.”

  As we packed up, I went outside to get my ballet flats, which I’d put out there to dry, and found Otto still sitting in his lawn chair, hands on the armrests, staring into the blackness, singing the refrain of the “Varshavyanka” over and over under his breath. I listened for a few moments and then left quietly, feeling I was intruding on something I didn’t understand. Like Johnny.

  22

  All Things Are Numbers

  Chloe

  Chloe woke before the rest, when it was still blue out, right before dawn, cleaned herself, scrubbed herself, put on makeup, fresh clothes, obsessively brushed her hair, to make it smooth, make it shine. She left it loose and down and fake-casual, pinched her cheeks for color, bit her lips for tint. She put on a dress, but then decided she was overdressed for the train and changed into snug jeans. Also black Doc Marten boots, and a soft fitted T-shirt with a scoop neckline that fell just above the swell of her breasts. The T-shirt was deep blue with white flowers on it, and the Doc Martens were brand-new, never worn. The mascara clumped but also popped her eyes, like it was nighttime and she was going dancing. She hummed a few bars of “Love is the Drug” as she got ready and when sh
e peeked out of the tiny bathroom window, Johnny was already outside, dressed, having a cigarette, his black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, his stubble dark against his young pale face. He was gamine, maybe gaunt, and his lack of a tan, despite his travels in the European summer sun, slightly unsettled Chloe. Something about it was off, and she couldn’t pinpoint why. But she forgot about the paleness of his face when she walked outside. He was so friendly, and his face colored, became animated when he saw her.

  “You’re up early,” he said.

  “Not as early as you are.”

  “I don’t sleep much. A few hours is enough for me.”

  “Is that how you’ve always been?”

  “According to my mother,” he said. “I drove her nuts. Would never nap. Always wanted to be out and about, running, playing. Never sat still.”

  “Your sisters too?”

  “Nah. Not even my brother. Tomboy is as placid as a sloth. Mom and Dad concluded it was just me.” He smiled. Clearly he liked being this way and not the other, controllable, way.

  Chloe stood awkwardly, trying to figure out what to do while he smoked. Even Otto wasn’t up yet. It was humid, slightly muggy, not quite warm. “So how are you going to make it in the army, if you can’t sit still?” she asked.

  “Why do you have to sit still in the army?”

  “Don’t you? Don’t they make you stand at attention while they inspect your bed or something?”

  He nodded cheerfully. “They also make you do twenty-mile obstacle courses. Clemente sure did. I’m hoping to be so tired from the running that I’ll be relieved to stand still. Besides,” he added, “I travel a lot by train. I better know how to sit still on one of those, no?”

  Chloe didn’t know if that was a yes or a no. The first time they were on a train together from Liepaja, he got up twenty times to her and Hannah’s once. The second time they were on a train together, coming back to Carnikava last night, in a forty-minute ride he must’ve gotten up six times, vanishing and reappearing.

  Now Blake appeared in the dewy, post-dawn garden, bleary but already hostile. A hostile Blake was such a paradox. “Are you ready?” he said to Chloe, barely acknowledging Johnny. “Our train is in an hour.”

  “Yeah, but no one else is even up yet,” she said.

  “Everyone is up and dressed and ready to go, while you’re lollygagging. Hannah cleaned the whole kitchen for Varda.” Blake said this accusingly, as though it was Chloe’s job to clean the kitchen.

  “Hannah cleaned the kitchen?” Chloe cast Johnny a guilty glance and started inside. “That’s new.”

  It also wasn’t true. Hannah had wiped down the area next to the sink. Everything else in the kitchen was being scrubbed down by Carmen and Varda.

  The women fussed and bickered, getting sandwiches ready for the American kids to take on the road. Carmen wouldn’t leave Johnny’s side. “Don’t forget to say goodbye to Grandfather,” she said to him. “He upset if you leave without saying goodbye. He outside now, making you picture frame.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of leaving without shaking that man’s hand,” said Johnny.

  “Grandfather wants to know who you knew in the war,” Carmen said. “He said you can’t sing that song like you do without knowing someone in war.”

  “My grandfather fought in the war too,” Johnny said. “Didn’t everyone’s grandfather?”

  Chloe’s grandfathers didn’t. Lochlan Devine was born blind in one eye and thusly avoided the draft, though he did work the desk at the Boston headquarters of the Army Corps. Her mother’s father, Hulin Thia, whom she had never met, was too young for one war in 1941 and too old for another in 1950. No one in her family had fought in Vietnam. Her father served in the National Guard. In North Dakota, where he had been stationed and where he had met her young mother, no one marched along undammed rivers singing “Varshavyanka.”

  At 4:57 a.m., as they were collecting the last of their stuff and giving Varda a goodbye hug before racing out the door to catch their 5:30 train—the train they absolutely had to catch—Hannah fainted.

  She had been hurrying around the kitchen looking for her lost ballet flat under the table and banged her ankle on the leg of a chair. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, putting her head down on the table, and the next thing you know—she was on the floor and Chloe was yelling for Blake.

  There was a gray commotion.

  Johnny stared at his watch.

  “We have to go,” he said. “We’ll miss the train.”

  “We can’t go without Hannah,” Blake said, crouching by his girlfriend’s supine body.

  “Let me put it another way,” Johnny said. “I have to go. Whatever happens, I can’t miss the train.”

  “We’ll catch the next one.”

  “There is no next one. I told you. There’s no next train, no next bus. I have to be in Warsaw tonight. I thought I explained it.”

  “Maybe Papa can drive you,” Carmen said. “He’s got his truck.”

  Papa Guntis did have his truck, but neither he nor the truck was home. “He can come back,” Carmen said.

  “How will you get in touch with him?”

  “He comes back for lunch sometimes,” the girl happily replied.

  Johnny stared at Chloe, also crouching by Hannah’s side, at Carmen smiling eagerly as if hoping none of the guests would leave, at Blake’s back, at Mason standing by, and said, “Is anyone in this entire house listening to me?”

  Hannah came to. Sickly white, she kept repeating she was fine and just needed a glass of water. Three people lunged for the sink. Her hands shook as she took it. Johnny, fidgeting, making calculations, made a joke of it; he said his hands shook all the time too when he needed a drink and yet he never fainted.

  “Blake,” Mason said. “Johnny’s right. We gotta go, man.”

  Blake shot his brother a look to say, what do you want me to do about it? My girlfriend is still on the floor.

  “Mason, Chloe, let’s the three of us run ahead,” Johnny said. “We’ll hurry, they’ll follow. That way we can hold the train. Carmen, quick, call a taxi for Blake and Hannah.”

  “How?” Carmen said. “I never called taxi.”

  “Do you have a Yellow Pages?”

  “Yellow Pages?”

  “I give up.” Johnny waved it all away and motioned to Chloe and Mason. “Come, it’s our only chance.”

  Blake straightened out. “What?” He had slept on his wet hair and it was crazy curly this morning.

  “He’s right, bro,” Mason said. “Otherwise, we’ll miss it for sure. I’ll take your suitcase. You just help Hannah with hers.”

  Blake leveled a killer look at his brother. “We’re going to split up?”

  “For twenty minutes, yes,” Johnny said. “Come on, Mason.”

  “Let’s wait just one damn minute,” Blake said. “She’ll be ready to go soon. We’ll catch the next train. There’s one an hour later.”

  Johnny smirked. “When we’re on the train—if we ever get to the train—remind me to explain chaos theory to you,” he said. “But until then, I have to make the 5:30. You might not have anywhere to be, but I have to pick up the tour bus in Warsaw, Poland, first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You think five minutes right now is going to make you miss your bus tomorrow?”

  “Chaos theory, dude,” Johnny called back as he motioned for Chloe and Mason. “One day maybe I’ll introduce you to my grandmother. She’ll tell you that all things are numbers. Guys, you ready?”

  Varda got Hannah some more water while Blake stood paralyzed and watched Johnny with his duffel and Chloe with her wheeled suitcase and Mason with two suitcases spirit out of the house.

  Chloe hurried down the shrubbery walk, out the gate and walked as fast as she could down the road. She was torn. She didn’t want to look at Blake’s face, which was full of injustice and blame, or at Hannah’s sloped back over the table. She felt guilty about Blake and angry at Hannah, but mostly what she felt was t
hat if they let Johnny get on that train without them, they would never see him again. And so she denied what was behind her and followed only what was in front of her, which was army boots, and jeans, and a gray tee, a cased guitar, a green duffel and thick black hair tied back, smiling coffee eyes, full lips, and communion with breathless darkness.

  They walked too quickly to chat, to discuss Hannah, to say anything. They panted as they struggled down the road with their bags.

  They were more than halfway to the train station. It was 5:16. Mason suddenly stopped, pulled off his rucksack and started frantically rummaging through it, muttering.

  “Mase, what’s wrong?” Chloe said, slowing down. “What’d you forget?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not important,” Johnny said, barely even glancing back. “Gotta keep moving.”

  “It’s very important,” Mason said. He closed his eyes and deeply deeply sighed. When he stood up, his head was hung low. He didn’t look at Chloe.

  “What, Mason? What is it?”

  “I’m really sorry, Chloe,” Mason said. “I have to go back.”

  Johnny and Chloe stopped walking.

  “Mason! What’d you forget?”

  “I can’t go without it.”

  “Mason, what in the world could you have forgotten?” she whispered.

  “I, uh, I forgot my passport.”

  Johnny appraised him. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Too busy looking for it.”

  “You take your passport out of your backpack?”

  “Not usually. But I must’ve last night. I’m such an idiot. I left it on the table by my chair.”

  “Blake will get it,” Chloe said.