Paullina Simons - Lone Star

“Do you know what happens after you make a choice to be sarcastic to the woman who gave you life?”

Chloe softened her tone. She knew that talking to her parents about anything was a fifteen-part process that would begin with an idea being promptly rejected and then followed up by a string of days during which her mother enumerated in Tolstoyan prose why whatever it was Chloe wanted was the worst idea. After a War and Peace -length volume on why they couldn’t get a dog, or a tattoo, or a third earring, or go to Europe, the real decision would be handed down. She didn’t get a tattoo. Or a dog. Or a third earring. What was happening here was just preface. The real meat of her mother’s argument was still to come.

But this time Chloe wanted a different resolution. This time she wanted her way, not Lang’s way. “Mom, what’s the big deal? I’ll be eighteen when we go.” When , not if. What a clever play on words! What a clever girl.

“Yes, because that solves all the problems. And don’t use the word when with me, young lady.”

Ahh! “What problems? There are no problems. We want to go to Europe for a few weeks. We’ll walk around, visit beautiful churches, eat delicious food, go to the beach, experience things we’ve never experienced before—”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“And then come home,” Chloe continued, “and Blake will write a beautiful story that will win first prize.”

“The boy has many skills. Do you think writing is one of them?”

“He thinks he does and that’s all that matters.” Chloe was defiant, but she didn’t have the answers. To her friends, she was usually the person her mother was being to her right now. The devil’s advocate, the sucker of joy. There were a thousand reasons why everything Blake and Mason wanted to do was a terrible idea. Oh God. Had Chloe already turned into her mother at seventeen? Facepalm!

“And by the way,” Lang said, “Europe is a big place. It’s not Rhode Island. Or Acadia National Park. Where in Europe were you four thinking of visiting? You mentioned church and beach. That could be anywhere.”

“Barcelona.”

Her mother groaned. “Barcelona. Really. That’s your idea. Of all the places, that’s where you want to go?”

“We’ve never been to Spain. And it’s on the water.”

“So is Maine. And you’ve never been to Belgium either.”

“Who wants to go to Belgium? What kind of story can one possibly write about Belgium? Or Maine?”

Lang shook her head. “There is so much you don’t know.”

“That’s why I want to go to Europe. So I can find out.”

“You’re going to learn about life lying on a filthy beach? Okay, riddle me this,” Lang said. “Where do you plan to sleep?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I not being clear? You’re planning to go with your boyfriend, your best friend and her boyfriend. Where are the four of you going to sleep in this Barcelona?”

Chloe tried not to stammer. “We haven’t thought about it.”

“Haven’t you.” It was not a question.

“Probably a youth hostel or somewhere like that.”

“So in a dorm with fifty strangers all using the same bathroom facilities, if there are any?”

“We don’t care about that. We are young, Mom. We’re not like you. We don’t care about creature comforts. Where we sleep. What we eat. What we wear. It’s all fine. So it’s not the Four Seasons. So what? We’ll be in Europe. We’ll buy a student Eurail pass for a few hundred bucks, sleep on trains if we have to, to save money.”

“Why would you need to do that?” Lang’s already narrow dark eyes narrowed and darkened further. “You just said you were going to Barcelona. Why would you need to sleep on trains?”

“In case we wanted to see Madrid. Or maybe Paris.” That was Hannah’s idea. Hannah, the Toulouse-Lautrec artiste.

“Paris.”

“Yes, Paris. Isn’t France next to Spain?”

Her mother folded her hands together. “Chloe, I tell you what. Go away and think carefully about all the questions I’m going to ask you next time you sit down and say, Mom, I want to go to Barcelona. Everything I’m going to ask you, ask yourself, find an answer, and come prepared.”

“Like what?”

“Nope. That’s not how it works. You figure out the solutions to the problems. Oh, and by the way, one of those problems is telling your father. Let’s see how you surmount that.”

Chloe became deflated. “I thought maybe you could tell him.”

“That’s likely.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Mom.”

“I’m not being sarcastic. I’m being snide. You know I’m actually going to tell him as soon as he walks in the door.”

“Perhaps he’ll be more reasonable than you,” Chloe said. “Maybe Dad remembers what it’s like to be young. Oh, wait, I forgot, you can’t remember, because you were born old. Born knowing you’d have a kid someday whose dreams you’d spend your entire life harpooning.”

“I’m harpooning your dream of going to Barcelona?” said Lang. “The dream I didn’t know you had until five minutes ago?” She raised her hand before Chloe could protest, defend, explain, justify. “Where are you going to sleep, Chloe? Why don’t you first work on giving your father the answer to that pesky question. Because it’ll be the first thing he’ll ask. Then worry about everything else.”

Her parents didn’t yell, they didn’t punish. They were simply hyperaware of every single thing Chloe said and did. She got a new ribbon at the high school book fair? They knew. She once almost failed a biology test? They knew. She wore black eyeliner? Oh, they knew. She and Mason danced too close at one Friday night canteen? How they knew. They had no life except to live vicariously through hers. And the only thing that was expected of her, aside from not flunking out of school, was not to let down half a billion Chinese mothers by going to a Barcelona beach to have unfettered sex with her boyfriend.

“Going to Barcelona is also an education, Mom,” Chloe muttered. She really didn’t want to face her dad’s questions. What was she supposed to say? We’re going to get two rooms, and the girls will stay in one room, and the boys in the other? What kind of naïve fool for a parent would believe that?

“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.”