“When are you going?”
“Did you already buy your plane tickets?”
“Can I see your passport?”
“Can you bring it to school tomorrow?”
“What’s the weather like in Barcelona?”
“Do you think your Spanish is good enough?”
“Does anyone speak English over there? Because frankly, Chloe, your Spanish isn’t that good.”
“And Mason doesn’t speak Spanish at all,” bubbled up Mackenzie O’Shea. There wasn’t a girl in six counties Chloe hated more than Mackenzie with her twisty body and twisty pigtails and mouth full of Bubblicious gum. One time in Science she popped the huge bubble wad in her mouth, and the gum burst from her cheeks to her chin and she got gum in her hair. In front of everyone. That was an excellent day.
“Where are you going to stay?”
“I can’t believe your dad is letting you go. My dad would never, and he’s not even the chief of police.” That was Mackenzie.
“Are you allowed to drink over there?”
“Really, you shouldn’t drink. You’re not used to it. You’ll vomit. Like that other time.” Still Mackenzie.
“Don’t they drive on the wrong side of the road?”
“I thought the capital of Spain was Madrid. Are you sure it’s not Madrid you’re going to? Because I don’t think Madrid is on the beach. Blake tells us you’re going to an Olympic beach. He’s wrong, isn’t he?”
“My aunt’s second cousin went to Madrid. She said it was dusty.”
“It wasn’t Madrid, genius. It was Mexico City.”
“Same difference. Very dusty. And crowded.”
“Is there skiing there?”
“Do they take American dollars?”
“How would you even change dollars into pesos? Or are they on the euro now?”
“What’s a euro?”
“Blake and Mason are not going to like it. They get very sunburned. Mason especially.” Still fucking Mackenzie.
Not a word was required of Chloe, or even desired.
“You must be thrilled,” Taylor said as they took their seats in Physics. “To travel through Europe with Mason. It’s a dream.”
Chloe heard Mackenzie’s high-strung voice from behind her. “Mason is not a city guy. He’s a ballplayer. A skier. He’s not gonna like it.”
“Don’t be a fool, Mackenzie,” said Taylor, sparing Chloe a crackling response. “You think varsity players don’t like traveling?”
“Not Mason. He doesn’t like empanadas or that weird Spanish food they have over there. Tapas or some shit. He likes burgers. Steak.”
“I swear, I’m going to deck her,” Taylor whispered.
“Get in line,” Chloe whispered back, and after class implored Mason to control his brother who couldn’t keep his big mouth shut about anything.
“Like I can control him,” Mason said, kissing her and running off.
“Are you so psyched?” was the first thing Blake said to her as they took their seats in Health.
“About what?”
“Barcelona, dumblehead.”
“Do I seem excited to you? Did you tell your parents?”
“Of course. They couldn’t be happier. They can’t believe you girls were thinking of going on your own. Dad said Chief Devine would never allow it.”
Chloe mumbled unintelligibly.
“Mom said she wants us to protect you from the big bad Europeans.” Blake laughed.
“Why’d you have to go tell everybody?” Chloe was churlish. “You and your big mouth. What if my parents say no?”
“Haiku, you funny.” Blake patted her arm as he flipped open his spiral notebook. “You didn’t think your mother would just buy you a plane ticket to Spain, did you? The woman didn’t let you take the school bus until your senior year and even now still drives you in the morning. She was hardly going to run to Liberty Travel in North Conway. They need to think it over.”
“Yes. And then say no.”
“They loves you. Why would they say no to the one they loves?”
Blake knew nothing. Lang was gearing up to say no. She was making heavenly lemon pound cake when Chloe got home from school, a consolation dessert if ever there was one.
“For your information, Mom,” Chloe said, having fortified herself with a shallow knowledge of Henry James’s monumental novel and worked on her riposte all day, “Isabel Archer came into a fortune. That will hardly be me. Are you afraid some broke European is going to sweep me off my feet because he is angling for my five hundred bucks?”
“Is that your fantasy?” Lang asked. “To be desired by dangerous men for your meager dollars?”
“Of course not!” She was with Mason, the cutest boy in the Academy halls.
“Then why did you say it so wistfully?”
“I’m not Isabel Archer, Mom. You know who I am? Olivia, the dancing pig. She has a painting of Degas’s ballerinas on her wall, but she’s never going to be either Degas or a ballerina, is she?”
“So now you’re a pig dreaming of being a ballerina?” Lang slid a plate of pound cake in front of her daughter. “What are you doing, Chloe? Are you placing all your hopes on what may lie just around the next bend in the river? You think you can drift on the train from Spain to France not knowing where your next stop will be in the fervent hope that you’ll come closer to an answer to that most profound of human questions?”
“And what question is that, Mom.”
“Who you are, of course.”
Was there ever a mother more infuriatingly on point than her mother!
Hannah was out. Mason was at varsity. Blake was helping Mr. Leary with his concrete-buster block saw. So Chloe scribbled down some notes for a Social Studies oral essay on women’s rights as interpreted by Pearl Buck and watered the garden.
To her surprise, her father came home early.
“Chloe-bear,” Jimmy said. “Your mother and I are not going to talk to you about Barcelona anymore. You know how we feel. We know how you feel. Until we have something to speak to you about, we are going to call truce and talk about other things. Deal?”
“You should’ve told that to Mom,” Chloe said. “Because she’s been going on about Henry James and Huck Finn all afternoon.”
“She told me. That’s why I’m saying this now. Excuse me.” Jimmy moved Chloe out of the way. “Your mother and I are going for a walk.”
“You’re what? Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” her father said. “Because we need privacy to talk about you, and at home you’re always eavesdropping.”
No words more frightening could have been spoken mildly by a gruffly amiable man, who placed his badge and his service weapon on the hall table and donned his spring parka. Lang put on her suede shoes and a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap she had bought at a garage sale even though she’d never heard of the Pirates and thought they were a football team. Off they went, arm in