Lone Star

by Paullina Simons

  Love,

  Chloe

  P.S. I’m glad little Ray likes Maine. It’s so different from Liepaja. Give him a hug from me. How long is he staying? If you come in the summer, you should bring him. He’ll love San Diego.

  P.P.S. Please please forward me all my mail, even what you think is junk.

  Fort Benning

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Lieutenant Commander Scott here.

  Chloe: Oh, hello. Um …

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: How can I help you?

  Chloe: Um, yes, I’m calling because I’m looking for a soldier who enlisted in your officer program last summer.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Did he enlist or did he join the officer candidate school?

  Chloe: Um, yes, he enlisted in the officer school.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott (after a pause): Is this some kind of a joke?

  Chloe: I’m terribly sorry. He said he might be joining the Park Rangers …

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Do you mean the 75th Ranger Regiment?

  Chloe: Yes, that’s what I meant.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott (with a sigh): His name, miss?

  Chloe: He told me his name was Johnny Rainbow. But …

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Johnny Rainbow?

  Chloe: I don’t think …

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Yeah. We don’t have anyone here by that name.

  Chloe: Right. But what I was saying was …

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Can I help you with something else?

  Chloe: He has a Lone Star tattoo on his chest.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: I don’t know what that is.

  Chloe: Like the star of Texas. On his chest.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Young lady, my men are dressed when they come here, and they are dressed when they train. I don’t keep track of my men’s tattoos.

  Chloe: Right. Of course. But I think his father might be someone important. Someone who has pull or … influence or something.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: I don’t know anyone like that. I don’t know anyone with a tattoo or a father like that or anyone named Rainbow. The name is not in our rolls.

  Chloe: I think his name was Junior. That’s why they called him Johnny. Johnny, Junior. Something like that. Which means he had his father’s name. Who, I think, may have been a four-star general.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Was he a four-lonestar general, miss?

  (Silence from Chloe.)

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: So let’s see if I have the facts straight. You’re looking for a soldier who may have either enlisted or joined the OCS, or gone into the Rangers, you’re not sure, a soldier with a tattoo of a star on his chest who answers to the name John, but also Junior, and whose father may or may not be a high-ranking commander?

  Chloe: He has long black hair! Tied in a ponytail.

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Certainly not in Fort Benning. Our men have no hair.

  Chloe: He sings. He has the most amazing voice. You wouldn’t forget it if you heard—

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Did he come here to be a soldier or is he going to music and dance camp down the road?

  (Silence from Chloe.)

  Lieutenant Commander Scott: Will there be anything else?

  Chloe: There is nothing else.

  37

  Sophomore Summer

  San Diego University Sophomore Course Load

  FALL SEMESTER:

  Judo Multi-level

  Hiking/camping

  Prophetic Traditions of Israel

  Ethics of War and Peace

  Studies in Modern European Philosophy

  Romanticism

  Introduction to Horticulture and Green Design

  SPRING SEMESTER:

  Aikido Multi-level

  Topics in Russian and Eastern European History

  Studies in World Literature

  Plant Diversity

  Landscape Design

  Continental Philosophy

  Legal Reasoning

  Yesterday’s Café

  Chloe got up her nerve (plus her mother forced her) and walked up the road, past Hannah’s old place, to Blake and Mason’s. Hannah’s mother had married the manager of L.L.Bean, sold her house, and moved with him to a small bungalow on the enormous Conway Lake. A black Ford F-150 was parked outside the Hauls’ pebbled drive. Janice’s Subaru wasn’t there. Chloe knocked quickly, thinking—or hoping?—that no one was home, despite the noise of a nail gun from the back. She’d just as soon leave the small gift and a note by the door and hightail it out.

  She heard pine needles crunching under work boots. Blake came around the stilts of the back deck, tool belt on, nail gun in his hands. His mouth had nails in it. He spit them out before he spoke.

  “Ah,” he said, coming forward but stopping a good distance away. “You’re back.” He was reserved, almost formal. “Hey.”

  “Yeah.” She failed in spoken word. Mental note to oneself: take damn interpersonal communications next semester. “Hey. How’s everything? Whatcha doing?”

  “Fixing the ramp to the lake for my dad. What’s going on with you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, oh, excellent.”

  “Your mother gives my mother periodic reports on you,” he said.

  “She does?” Mental note to oneself: talk to mother about blabbing! Intensely discomfited, she chewed her lip and stared at her flip-flops and his work boots. He had cut off his hair. It was short, streaked with blond. His face still had a week or two of growth on it. His unshaven face was so familiar, it felt wrong to be this awkward. “I brought you something from San Diego,” she said. She couldn’t look directly at him.

  “Is it a fridge magnet? I’ve always wanted one of those.”

  She pulled the bottle from behind her. “It’s a local beer,” she said. “Called Ruination.”

  “Yes, I see that.” He took it from her hands and read the label. “San Diego’s liquid poem to the glory of the hop.” He smiled. There. That was better. “Nice. Thanks. Do you want to share it?” His sand-color eyes softened.

  She stepped back. “No. I’m late for work. I just wanted to stop by, say hi.” She was already halfway down the drive.

  “Where’d you find a job?”

  “My friend Taylor, remember her, got me rehired at the Waterpark in North Conway.”

  “Sure, I remember her,” Blake said. “Her squeeze Joey and I are bowling partners.”

  “That’s great. Say hello to your mom and dad—”

  “Not Mason?”

  “Oh, him too, of course, yeah, sure, absolutely, uh, I’ll see you.”

  She turned and walked speedily down the road, trying not to kick up too much dust or run or trip over her discomfort.

  She saw Blake standing by the edge of the shallow receiving pool where she was wading waist deep in water holding a long red flotation bar, waiting for the next writhing body to eject from the flume slide.

  He wore navy swim trunks and a T-shirt. She wore her lifeguard red.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Came to pick you up. When are you off?”

  “Not for another two hours.”

  He looked at his watch, then took off his T-shirt and jumped into the shallow pool with her.

  “Don’t distract me,” she said, after a short stare, keeping her gaze on the water-slide exit. That was literally her entire job. She couldn’t look away. She was there to catch the kids as they exited the ride. Blake had lost weight. No more happy Blake pie weight around the middle. Is it because he was less happy or ate fewer pies? He got narrower at the waist, wider through the chest and shoulders. He was tanned as if he worked shirtless outside all day. “My mother said she was coming to pick me up.”

  “I know. I told her I’d do it.”

  “Oh. And she was okay with that?”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  Chloe changed the subject. “Have you met the little guy yet? Ray.�
��

  “Um, have you met the little guy yet? He’s been living with your parents since last year. Where’ve you been?”

  She stammered. Thank God for the slippery kids. She returned to her duties. He stood in the water by her side.

  “So you like San Diego, then?”

  “It doesn’t feel like home, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied. “But I love it there, yes. Weather is fantastic. Seventy-five all year round. Never rains. Even the Pacific is almost warm that far south. Lots of beaches.”

  “You always liked the beach.” His mouth twisted. Hers too.

  Kids came down, one, two, three, seven. He stood back and to the side, rowing his hands through the water. It was a beautiful, sunny June day.

  “How’s everyone?” she asked. Vague enough.

  “Who do you mean?”

  She got flustered.

  He took pity on her and volunteered about Mason. He was working as a manager for one of the White Mountains ski resorts, up in Crawford Notch.

  “Is he still living at home?”

  Blake hesitated.

  “Just tell it to me straight,” she said, her red bar out to catch the kids. “I’m fine.” This is not what heartbreak is.

  “They’re living up there.”

  “They?”

  “He and—”

  Chloe busied herself helping a boy to the stairs. She was fine, but she didn’t want to hear about it. Could Blake see her condemning expression?

  “When did you get so fit?” he asked. “Though you’re still not tanned, I see.”

  She shrugged it off. “Can’t lose the Irish.” The fit came from all the self-defense classes she was taking. She didn’t mention his weight loss or his increased brawniness or his brown chest. She didn’t want him to think she noticed.

  “Is it true you never made it to Barcelona?” he asked.

  “It’s true,” said Chloe. “I never did.”

  “So where’d you go then, after you split?”

  “Italy.”

  They fell quiet.

  “I’ll get out,” he said. “Dry off.”

  “I’ll be another hour.”

  “That’s fine.”

  In an hour, she climbed out of the pool, toweled off, punched out, threw a white terry cover-up over her wet red bathing suit, and met him waiting for her by the bench near the exit.

  They walked to his black truck. He opened the door for her.

  “Is it new? It’s swanky.” Lang had told Chloe a little bit about Blake doing well.

  “Not new, but swanky. I have drinks in the cooler. Want a Coke?”

  She was impressed by his attention to amenities. Gladly she took a Coke. “Did you get the truck with your prize money? Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thank you. But I didn’t get the dumb money yet. Soon, I hope.” He grinned. “You surprised I won?”

  “Pretty stunned, actually, yeah.”

  “That I wrote it in the first place?”

  “That too.” It had taken him an extra year, but he had done it. She should’ve known he’d eventually write it. He had said he would. “So when do I get a copy?”

  “Oh, not until it’s properly published. That won’t be till next summer.”

  “No! I don’t want to wait that long. You must have a manuscript lying around?”

  “Uh-uh. You won’t like the bad guy in it. Wait for the book.” He had been driving for a few minutes when Chloe noticed he was going north on 16 instead of south. “Yes, I know,” he said. “You don’t want to drive up to Crawford, to visit Mason?”

  She whirled to face him. “Stop kidding.” She watched the road, waiting for him to make a U-turn. “Why is he all the way up in Crawford Notch? I thought you and he were going to be the Haul Brothers together.”

  “We’re still Haul brothers,” Blake said. “We’re just not the Haul Brothers.” He sighed with resigned disappointment. “Truth is, Mason wanted to do something else. He loves the skiing, the winter sports. Likes managing the slopes.” He continued to drive in the wrong direction.

  “Blake, turn around. I’m not going to visit him. Ain’t gonna happen.”

  “I know,” he said, one hand coolly on the wheel. “But I thought you might want to say hi to your friend Hannah.”

  Only slightly less aghast. “Where—in Bangor?”

  “Oh no,” Blake said, “our dear Hannah is not in Bangor anymore. She’s in Jackson.”

  “Jackson, where Lupe lives? Why? It’s got like fifty people in it.”

  “Fifty-three with her, the baby and young Zhenya.”

  “What are you talking about? Stop playing mind games! You’re freaking me out. What Zhenya?”

  “Why is your voice so high?”

  “Because you’re confusing me. Can you stop driving for a second?”

  “No can do.” He pointed to the narrow road. “No shoulder.”

  Chloe knew that Hannah had gone to Bangor, but little beyond that. Despite one or two half-hearted attempts, she had not spoken to her friend in nearly two years. Since Krakow. As they drove toward Jackson, Blake filled her in. After they had come back from Poland (“Of course we flew back right away. What else were we going to do?”), he had offered to pay for Hannah’s abortion. Hannah opted for door number two and decided to approach Martyn, to let him know it was happening. “The least she could do is how she put it,” Blake told Chloe. Martyn used his formidable powers of hypnotic persuasion to convince Hannah that there was no reason to terminate the pregnancy, that if she stayed with him, he would take care of her schooling, the baby, everything. He even offered to help sponsor Zhenya from Liepaja to come stay with them in Bangor. The only thing he asked of Hannah was that they get married. He didn’t want his baby to be illegitimate. How old school of him, how quaint, Blake and Chloe clucked. So Hannah and Martyn got married, after some doing Zhenya was shipped to Bangor, baby Hayley was born, and …

  “It sounds like they lived happily ever after,” said Chloe. “Don’t tell me she got sick of him already.”

  “She didn’t get a chance to. The dude croaked.”

  Chloe coughed up her Coke. “What?”

  “He was like a hundred years old,” Blake said. “That parrot became an ex-parrot eight months ago. Heart attack.”

  “No!”

  Blake continued driving, palming the gear shift in the console. “Our Hannah thought that as his widow she would come into his money, but during probate she discovered that the place they were living in was university housing. It wasn’t his. And his debt was in the hundreds of thousands. Apparently, Martyn had quite the gambling problem. Stock market options. Kept it well hidden. Bottom line, negative red. He may have paid a few grand to sponsor Zhenya, but that was about all. So now she has nowhere to live, his massive debt to sort through, and a baby and a Latvian to feed.”

  “Blake …” Chloe didn’t know what to say. “That’s awful. What’s in Jackson?”

  “Yesterday’s Café.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where she works. She’s a waitress at Yesterday’s Café.”

  “But where’s she living?”

  “Back with her mother and her new stepdad in their cottage, barely bigger than Lupe’s garage.”

  “Crap.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  He made a right into Jackson. Shaking her head, Chloe reached for the wheel.

  “Blake, no.”

  “Just go say hello.”

  “With you? We’re just going to waltz in there? Arm in arm?”

  “No, I’m not going. I’ll wait in the truck.”

  “Have you visited her even once?”

  “She invited me and Mason to her wedding. She wanted me to give her away.”

  “Did you go?” She gasped out the question.

  “Let go of my wheel. Do I look like the kind of guy who’d go?”

  Chloe didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Of course I didn’t fucking go,” he said. “W
hat kind of a chump do you think I am?”

  She sighed with relief. “So when did you see her?”

  “Recently. She stopped by the house to congratulate me on the success of my Spring Fair. Cried. Pretty hard. Apologized. Up, down, left, right. Said she treated me real bad and I didn’t deserve it. Maybe she thought I’d argue with her.”

  “Did you?”

  “I told her she was right, I didn’t deserve it.”

  Chloe studied him, trying to discern how he felt. He was still the same Blake, almost. Friendly, transparent about the little things, inscrutable about the big. Except there was a hardness to his eyes that wasn’t there before, a small unsmiling disillusionment with mankind. Maybe Hannah had hoped little Hayley would bring the sunshine back? “Did she bring the baby with her?”

  “She wanted to. I told her to leave the girl with her mom.”

  “Wow.”

  “What, too tough? I gave her some money. She protested. Not too hard. I think what she really wanted was for us to get back together. She told me she was saving up, and then she and her girls were moving, either to New York or New Orleans, one of the New cities. I wasn’t really paying attention. Maybe she was hoping I’d ask her to stay.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope.” He made an L with his left hand and placed it to his forehead. “I sent a buddy of mine to check on her a few weeks ago. Orville. Nice guy, unfortunate name.”