Lone Star (48 page)

“I could've, of course. I should've. I'm sorry.” What could Chloe say? I didn't tell you because I was afraid you wouldn't come with me to Treblinka?

And yet Mason had known, and said nothing. Nothing! How was that possible? Chloe was so piercingly baffled by that, she couldn't cope with the injuries forming into an avalanche inside her.

“Oh my God!” Hannah wiped her blotchy face. “Your mother must be beside herself. How could you do this to her?”

The pierogi, the potato latkes, Blake's
zurek
lay unfinished on the table. Only Mason had polished off the last crumb of his pizza slice and was now picking off the doughy edges of Blake's fried pierogi.

“My mother is the one who suggested it,” said Chloe. That must be how Mason found out. Her mother had told his mother over a Friday ShopRite spree and then swore her to secrecy. Some secrecy!

What was more shocking? That she was leaving, or that Lang approved? By Hannah's face, Chloe knew the answer. Lang's approval was the worst of all.

“San Diego's just a better fit for me, Hannah. I'm sorry.”

Hannah waved her off, waved Blake off. She had to sit down.

Rainy Bangor, cold Bangor, Arctic Bangor, mosquitoes, fog, damp, snowshoes. L.L.Bean coats and ski pants. Ice skating under the moonlight on their frozen lake, the eight lake houses
with their Christmas lights on, strands of rainbows flickering on the blue ice. Who was she on the ice with? Everyone or just Blake? Chloe couldn't remember. She had skated into his arms and they both fell. It must have been Blake.

“What a traitor you are,” Hannah said. “What an unbelievable traitor. I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend.”

“You were never my friend.”

“I was always your friend,” Chloe said. “I love you. I'd do anything for you.”

“Except go to school with me, like we planned our whole lives, like we dreamed our whole lives.”

Chloe swallowed miserably. “Are you
my
friend, Hannah?”

“Obviously not.”

“Okay. But if you were my friend, wouldn't you wish for me what I want for myself?” When there was no answer from a sniffling Hannah, Chloe continued. “Let me go to the place that's perfect for me. Please. Be happy I'm happy.”

“Why should I be? You're happy that I'm unhappy.”

“What? No,” said Chloe. “I'm very unhappy you've been unhappy.”

“You're unhappy, Hannah?” Blake asked. “Why?”

“Real friends don't do this,” Hannah said. “Real friends talk to each other.”

What about real boyfriends? Chloe thought fleetingly. Do real boyfriends talk to their girlfriends? “I tried to talk to you,” she said to Hannah. “You didn't listen. All you wanted to talk about was yourself and your problems.”

“What problems, Hannah?” asked Blake.

“I got me some new problems now, don't I?” Hannah snapped. “Rooming with a complete stranger. Great, just great, Chloe.”

“Great, just great.” Chloe mimicked Hannah, losing a bit of her temper, her heart freshly wounded by Mason. Any second now, the avalanche would break off the mountain and take them
all down. “Can you for a second get off that high stallion you're riding? You were just telling me how you might not even go to UMaine, or did you forget that? You were telling me this just yesterday. You'd leave me there by myself in a second. For all I know, you're about to. For all I know, you're not even going, and this is nothing but bullshit.” Well done, Chloe. Best defense is offense, right?

“Wait,” said Blake. Now he turned fully to Hannah, looking raw. “Why would you not go to UMaine? What problems?”

Hannah wouldn't say.

“Answer me,” said Blake.

Hannah wouldn't answer. Her head was down, but when she raised it, her angry red gaze was at Mason. She pointed at him, stabbing the air with her shaking finger. “You are
such
a fucking asshole,” she said. “This is all your goddamn fault.”

“Whoa,” Mason said. “Hang on just a sec—”

“You kept your stupid lying cheating mouth shut for this long, why couldn't you keep it shut for a few days longer? She would've told me herself. When we came back, she would've definitely told me, I'm almost sure. You are
so
screwed up, Mason.” Hannah was loud. “Why are you pissed off all the time? You have it so good. Why didn't you just let it be? It's not her fault you forgot your idiot statue and let her go with Johnny on the train. It's not Johnny's fault you lost the statue. You cart around that thing with you like porn, ready at any moment to jerk off to it. Maybe it's fucking karma, did you think of that, huh? I bet you didn't. And it's not Chloe's fault either. If you're all about truth, and paying your pretend piety at the Riga cathedrals, why don't you tell Chloe where you got that two-dollar item from? Who gave it to you, Mason? Go ahead. I can't
wait
to hear this one.” Hannah folded her trembling arms around her chest and panted.

“You know, Mason,” said Chloe, “I can't wait to hear this one either.”

She continued to stand, but her thighs felt weak, as if the
muscles in them had liquefied. Fake-casually, Chloe leaned forward and rested her palm—and therefore all her weight—on the picnic table. Something had to support her when she listened to Mason's answer.

But Mason, like Hannah, refused to answer. “Don't turn this around to me,” he said. “Chloe's leaving has nothing to do with me.”

“Is that
so
?” Hannah said with a sneer.

“Maybe if you were a better friend to her, she'd be going with you to UMaine instead of across the country.”

“Maybe if you were a better boyfriend, you mean! Or even any kind of a boyfriend, anything at all, really. Maybe if you were more than a passing acquaintance!”

“Who gave you the statue, Mason?” said Chloe.

“All right, everyone.” That was Blake, spitting into the hot wind. “This isn't worth it, let's calm down . . .”

“Who gave you the statue, Mason?” Chloe repeated.

“
Please,
it's not worth it, Chloe,” said Blake.

Mason jumped away from the table. “I'm not going to do this,” he said. “Blake, let's go. The girls need to cool off.”

“Come on, tell her, Mase,” Hannah said, mocking him. “Or should
I
tell her?”

“Somebody tell me,” said Chloe.

“I'm not going to talk about it!” Mason's blue eyes were desperate and blazing.

“Hannah, why are you causing trouble?” Blake said. He didn't look at Chloe, or at his brother, or at Hannah when he said it.

Mason and Chloe, standing, faced each other.

“Mason Haul,” Chloe said, her voice nearly failing her. “Are you refusing to answer my direct question? For the fourth time,
who
gave you the statue?”

Before Chloe was Mason's averted face, his fallen countenance, his bent head. “It was Mackenzie, Chloe,” he said at last. “I'm real sorry.”

Chloe tried to take a breath, but her lungs had deflated. She
put one palm out to stop him from saying another word, while the other calmed her anguished chest.

“You did this deliberately,” she gasped out. “You engineered this so we'd all have to go home.”

“No, I didn't! That's crazy.”

Blake stared at Chloe with deep pity. “Look what you did, Hannah,” he said to his girlfriend. “Are you happy now?”

“Hey, don't look at me,” Hannah said. “I'm just the messenger.”

“Go to hell!” Mason furiously swiped the unopened soda can off the table. It popped, hissing out oozing Coke.

“Oh, worry not, I'm already there,” said Hannah.

“What does
that
mean?” Panting and flummoxed like Chloe, Blake took Hannah by the shoulders and turned her to him. “Why are you saying these things?”

Mason, Mason, Chloe thought. All the fun you had with girls who weren't me. All the afternoons and nights you spent with the cheer squad at their dances and cancer walks, at their parties and charades. I've always been bad at charades. Perhaps that was why I was never invited.

All those afternoons away, the mornings you couldn't come with me to Lupe's, the offended nights when I took clever jabs at your fan club. Your flushed face each time you came to bat and they cheered your name, Mason, Mason. Your relentless desire for postcards in every town we visited, your quest for a pen, for a stamp, for a mailbox, you just
had
to send those postcards back home, no matter how out of the way, no matter how inconvenient. It wasn't the postcards that were inconvenient. It was me.

All of it, all at once, in a big O.

The
other
big O. The one I never had with you.

The O of, oh, I finally get it now. I was, finally, the last to know.

Oh.

Congratulations, Chloe.

Chloe stood and condemned Mason with a look and then
without saying another word to him spun toward Hannah. “You cannot be trusted,” Chloe said. Not to Mason. To Hannah! “You're
such
a fraud. All you do is keep secrets. If you suspected this about him, why didn't you tell me? Don't you know that's what friends do? But you wouldn't know that, would you?”

Hannah shrugged. Satisfaction was on her face. “I thought you knew. Everybody
else
knew.”

“For fuck's sake, Hannah!” Mason yelled. “Blake, I
swear
to God . . . shut her up. In a second, I'm going to say things I won't be able to take back.” But it was too late. He clenched his fists. “You're a fucking vampire. Why can't you leave us alone? Haven't you sucked enough blood?”

“Oh, she
definitely
has,” said Chloe.

“Mason!” Blake said. “Stop! You're out of line.”

“
I'm
out of line? Did you hear Chloe?”

“She doesn't answer to me. But yes, Chloe, you too.”

“I don't answer to you either, bro,” Mason said. “Control your girl, or somebody will have to.”

“She's done nothing wrong!” Blake yelled, putting his arm around Hannah, as if to protect her from them. “You control
your
self or somebody will have to.”

Chloe laughed and took a taunting half bow in Hannah's direction. “Well played, Hannah! Nicely done. You got Blake defending your honor now. Wow. What a scam.”

“Ahh!” Blake pulled his angry arm off Hannah's shoulder. “Will somebody
please
fucking tell me what you're talking about.”

How hostile, how frozen the unforgiving ground. It was a theft of the blue sky. All the lilies in the field were choked in gasoline.

“Well, Hannah,” said Chloe, her slender empty body shaking. “Here it is. The moment I know you've been waiting for. Your turn for a reckoning. Do
you
want to tell him?” A smile balefully stretched across Chloe's white lips. “Or should
I
tell him?”

“Tell me what?” said Blake.

“Tell him what?” Mason said quickly, sounding relieved they were off the subject of him and Mackenzie.

Hannah fixed on Chloe. “I can't be
lieve
you're doing this to me,” she said with hatred, and took two short steps away from Blake. They were all standing now, the flies fighting over the unbroken bread between them.

“Doing what?” Blake said. “What's Chloe doing?”

“I'm not doing
anything,
” Chloe said, opening her hands. “I'm just the messenger.”

Gasoline immolating all the lilies in the field.

“Blake, it's over between us,” Hannah blurted. “It's been over between us for months. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but that's just how it is. There is someone else. You must have suspected. I'm sorry,” she added, as if it was the last thing she meant.

“What?” he said. He almost smiled. He thought she was joking.

“
That's
what you're telling him?” Chloe cried. “Shame on you.”

“You mean there's something she
isn't
telling me?” Blake said tonelessly, as if he finally understood that Hannah wasn't joking. To steady himself, he grabbed the wooden table.

“Holy shit, you're a piece of work, aren't you?” Mason said to Hannah, walking around the table to his brother's side and placing a supportive arm around Blake. “Dude, I kept telling you she was trouble. You wouldn't listen.”

“How can we be over?” Blake said to Hannah. “We're here right now. Together.”

“He makes a good point, Hannah,” Chloe said, all pitiless bitterness. “Since it's been over for months, you might as well go ahead and tell him the rest of it.”

“Stop it!” Hannah cried. “Stop it, stop it! Stop it!” She slammed her palms against her ears.

Chloe raised her eyes to Mason. “You know how sometimes there's the rest of it?”

Mason hung his head. “I'm so sorry, Chloe,” he whispered.

Gasping for air, Chloe sank down.

Across the table Blake stood—judging
her
! Not his wayward girlfriend, not Mason, but Chloe! “Dying by the sword is such a bitch,” he said to her quietly.

“Talking to the wrong person is a bitch,” Chloe retorted. “Talk to your brother. Your words are meant for him.”

Blake faced Hannah, this time unsupported by the table, or by Mason. “Tell me the rest of it. What else is there?”

“Nothing, Blakie. Don't listen to her.” She reached for him.

“You kept this a secret from me last night in bed,” Blake said, moving away from her extended hands. “And the night before. And for months and months. You went to the prom with me. Did other things with me. And to me. You'd think you might have mentioned that we were over. So I wouldn't waste any more of my fucking time.”

“Why?” Hannah said. “Mason didn't mention it to Chloe. And yet they're over.”