that Terri and Lang lived next door to each other for almost twenty years and yet didn’t know each other’s birthdays. Lang never said a thing, and kept Jimmy from saying anything, but Chloe could tell by her father’s critical expression when he spoke of “that family” that he looked forward to the day Hannah might become a friend of the past. There are two kinds of people in the world, Jimmy Devine said. Those who try to make everything they come in contact with more beautiful—and then there is Terri Gramm.
Before Chloe knocked, she stopped by the dock and stared out onto the lake, the railroad across it, the bands of violet mackerel sky. She imagined a lover’s kiss in the Mediterranean breeze, the mosaics of streets, parades down the boulevards, music, ancient stones, and evening meals. Beaches, heat, flamenco, bagpipes. Passion, life, noise. Everything that here was not. She imagined herself, fire, flowing dresses, abundant cleavage, no fear. Everything that here she was not. Her heart aching, she knocked on Hannah’s porch door.
Hannah’s mother was on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune.
“Hello, Mrs. Gramm.”
“Hi, honey.” Terri didn’t turn her head to Chloe. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“No, my mom—”
“I’m joking. We got nothing anyway.”
Hannah pulled Chloe into her bedroom and slammed the door.
“Did she say no?”
“Of course she said no.”
“But was it no, we’ll see, or was it no like never?”
“It was no like never.”
“But then she started asking you all kinds of questions?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s yes. They never ask anything unless it’ll be yes eventually. Give her a week to think about it. She has to talk to your dad.”
“You think I’ll have a better chance with him?”
“No. But he might give you money.”
“For Barcelona?”
“We’ll figure it out. We have bigger problems right now.”
“Bigger than my mom saying no?”
“Yes.” Hannah was biting her nails. Perfect Hannah with her perfect teeth was biting to the nubs her ugly nails at the end of her perfect long fingers. “How likely is it, do you think, that Blake and Mason are actually going to go?”
“A hundred percent.” Chloe pulled her friend’s twitchy hand out of her mouth. “Stop doing that. Don’t you know what Blake is like?”
Hannah didn’t reply. She was too busy bloodying the tips of her fingers.
Chloe plopped down on Hannah’s lavender bed. The girl turned up her music which was already plenty loud. She did it so her mother couldn’t hear her, but the result was that Chloe couldn’t hear her either. Hannah had a barely audible soprano, like a low hum, and over the high treble strands of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” she was nearly impossible to make out.
She lay on her bed next to Chloe. “Chloe-bear, I’m in trouble.”
“What?”
“I have to break up with him and I don’t know how to do it.”
“With Blake?” Chloe sat up. She was horrified.
“No, with Martyn.”
“Who?”
“Stop it. Be serious.”
Chloe stopped it. How to tell Hannah that she was serious? Who the heck was Martyn? She hoped her pitiable ignorance didn’t show on her face. She scrunched it up knowingly, trussed her eyebrows, nodded. “Why, um, do you have to break up with him?”
“He was going to give me money to go to Barcelona, because he knows I don’t have enough, but if Blake is going, he won’t give me any money.”
Chloe blindly navigated the maze before her, hands out in front. “So don’t tell him Blake is going.” Who the hell was Martyn?!
“Except … he was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days.”
Chloe weighed her words. “Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona for a few days?” As if repetition would make Hannah’s words make sense.
“I didn’t want him to, Chloe, believe me, but I don’t have enough money to go, and I thought, what’s a couple of days, when we’re going to be there two weeks, right?”
“Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.”
“Don’t be mad. I was going to tell you he was coming. I was just waiting for the right time. Please don’t be mad.” Hannah briefly leaned her head into Chloe’s head, and then clapped her hands business-like. “No, that’s it. I’m going to end it. It’s for the best,” she said. “He is getting too serious, anyway. We need to break up, not go on vacation.”
“Martyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.” Chloe couldn’t get past this one point.
“He doesn’t want me to go without him. He’s afraid I’m going to meet someone, have a fling. He is intensely jealous.”
“Martyn is jealous.”
“Yes, so jealous.”
“Um, does Martyn know you have a boyfriend? Maybe he can be jealous of him.” Poor Blake.
“He’s not worried about him.”
“Well, you’re not, why should he be? So this Martyn is afraid you’ll have a fling in Europe with someone other than your boyfriend?” Chloe opened her hands. “What kind of girl does he think you are?”
“Can you please, please be serious? I know I need to break up with him. But then where do I get the money to go?” She wrung her hands, twisted her sore and bitten fingers. The usually unruffled Hannah looked ruffled.
Chloe was afraid to ask the follow-up question. There were so many questions, she couldn’t sort out their order of priority. She was thinking of Barcelona. But she was also thinking about Blake. “Hannah, if you have someone else, why do you string Blake along? Why don’t you break it off with him, and do what you want?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Chloe,” Hannah said. “Did you not hear me just now when I said I was going to end it with Martyn?”
Chloe heard all right. “Do you even still want to go to Barcelona?”
“More than anything.”
“With Blake?”
“I’d prefer to go with just you.” Hannah pulled Chloe in for a hug. “Like we planned. Do you think we can talk Blake out of going?”
Chloe
