man, I’m joking. Instead of looking for my jewelry, you should find yourself a sense of humor. It would come in more handy.”
“Um, yes, ma’am.”
“Where’s your brother today?”
“At practice.”
“Blake is Hannah’s boyfriend,” Chloe said.
“Who? Oh, Hannah.” The old woman studied Blake intently as she ate. The fork trembled in her shaking hands.
Blake smiled. “I know. She’s too good for me, Lupe.”
“That’s not quite what I was thinking.”
Chloe pulled on Blake’s denim sleeve, and the two of them perched on a nearby bench and kept the woman company while she finished her lunch.
“Has your mother agreed yet to let you go?” Lupe asked.
Chloe shook her head, keeping mum on Moody’s imminent visit.
“She will, though, don’t you think?” Blake said. “I keep telling her.”
Lupe shrugged. “The odds are about even. Don’t count on it, but don’t discount it. I’ve met mothers before. I was one myself until my sons got too wise for my help. Mothers can be an unpredictable bunch.” She took a swig of her ice tea, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Let me ask you something,” she said to Blake after he had scintillated her with stories of his story, even offering her a peek at his journal. “You say you want to go to Barcelona for research.”
“That’s right, ma’am.” And to Chloe, out of the corner of his mouth, added, “And for other things.”
“Call me Lupe. But can’t the answer you’re looking for be found right here in New Hampshire and Maine?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Sure it can. Answers are found everywhere. And in anything. You just have to know where to look.”
“Barcelona will make for a far more interesting story, don’t you agree? Rather than writing about boring old North Conway.” North Conway, the biggest town in two counties was a two-mile stretch of a straight rural highway. Fifteen traffic lights and Applebee’s dueling it out with Burger King. Pizza Hut against KFC, Baskin-Robbins against Carvel. There were one or two antique shops, an outlet mall, an L.L.Bean, and gas stations. That was the town. And China Chef, of course, purveyor of hot and sour soup that Hannah supposedly placed on people’s tables. How do you find the answer in a town like that?
Lupe insisted. “You can. You can find answers anywhere.”
“I’d like to find them in Barcelona,” Blake said, and Chloe was proud of him for not being too intimidated by a ninety-something woman. Forgetting herself for a second, Chloe almost made a joke. Leaning to Blake, opening her mouth, she almost, almost said—we should introduce Lupe to Martyn, don’t you think? They’re about the same age—before slamming her hand against her mouth. What was wrong with her!
Blake must have liked Lupe because he talked to her for longer than any of the others. And she must have liked him because she kept asking him to do small chores for her. She pointed out that her chopped wood was too far from the fire pit. It was all the way in the back, near the river. Chloe and Blake carried the chopped wood and the iron rack to the front of her yellow house. They set it up near the fire pit, stacked the wood on the rack, covered it with a blue tarp. Lupe looked pleased by their efforts, especially Blake’s. She asked him to build her a fire. She’s my last one, Chloe told Blake, as they collected some branches for kindling. She always keeps me here. She’s lonely, he said, and she likes the company. I don’t mind. “Lupe,” he called to her, “do you know that your fire pit is eroding on one side? The stones have broken off.”
“I know,” she said. “Who’s going to fix it, me? Or my children in California?”
Blake motioned toward the mansion-like house. “Who lives there?”
Lupe shrugged. “A family. They don’t help me. They got their own problems. The husband is sick. He just don’t know it yet. Or don’t want to admit it.”
“How do you know?”
“Can you tell the difference between a healthy man and a sick one? They’re like two different species.”
To this, Blake bowed his head without reply. He knew the difference well. His own father had been a Hercules before the disaster that almost claimed him, and now was a husk.
“Maybe I can help you fix it,” Blake said to Lupe. “I’ll go to the quarry, pick up some stones.”
The woman shook her head. “Why don’t you come by after school next Thursday? I have a doctor’s appointment and no way to get to it. Usually I call for a taxi. Maybe you can drive me. I’ll pay you for your time, and then we can go to the quarry together. Pick out the stones. I’ll pay for them too.”
“You’re going to go to the quarry?”
“I’m ninety-two,” she said. “I’m not dead.”
On the way home Blake rained on Chloe with questions that at first sounded like research but perhaps weren’t. How long had she been visiting Lupe? When did the husband die? Why did she go to these twelve homes and not others? Why did she stay for five minutes in one home, but forty minutes with Lupe? What happened if she saw something suspicious? What if the people behaved erratically? What if they hurt her?
He had been slightly concerned about Mr. Gibson, a blind man with long scraggly gray hair who had grabbed Chloe’s hand and wouldn’t let go, not letting her leave or feed him. Blake gently, but not too gently, pried Mr. Gibson’s dinosaur fingers off Chloe’s white wrist.
“He’s fine,” Chloe said. “He’s just lonely. Like Lupe.”
Blake was off again about Chloe and her pants vanishing.
“Give it a rest, Blake. I’m not your project, I’m not your story.”
“But if you disappeared,” he went on, speeding invincible in her father’s siren-less off-duty truck, “that would be quite a story, wouldn’t it?”
“No! It’s only a story if there’s a reason why I disappeared.” She paused. “Also what does my disappearance have to do with your blue suitcase?”
“Maybe everything,” he said.
“You leave me out of your lunacy, Blake Haul.”
“It’s fiction,” Blake said. “In fiction, you can have everything to do with my lunacy. Isn’t that what you told me? I can use my imagination and have it all turn out exactly how I need, how I want.” Fiendishly he rubbed his hands together while driving with his knees. His expression was for once both serious and remote, as if he was thinking about something else entirely.
Covering her face, Chloe groaned.
It was a good afternoon.
