Read Online Lone Star by Paullina Simons - Free Book Online Page A

have over there. Tapas or some shit. He likes burgers. Steak.”
    â€œI swear, I’m going to deck her,” Taylor whispered.
    â€œGet in line,” Chloe whispered back, and in Health said to Blake as they took their seats, “Why’d you have to go tell everybody, dumblehead?” She was churlish. “You and your big mouth. What if my parents say no?”
    â€œHaiku, 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.”
    â€œYes. And then say no.”
    â€œThey loves you. Why would they say no to the one they loves?”

    Blake knew nothing. Lang was definitely 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.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Chloe?” Lang slid a plate of pound cake in front of her daughter. “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?”
    â€œAnd what question would that be, Mom.” That wasn’t a question.
    â€œWho you are, of course.”
    Was there ever a mother more infuriatingly on point than her mother?
    â€œYou 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?”
    â€œSo now you think you’re a pig dreaming of being a dancer?”Her mother looked skeptical and amused. “Have some more cake,” she said. “And play the piano.”
    â€œLike I’m saying.”
    To her surprise, her father came home early.
    â€œChloe-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. We have to talk about it and think about it. We’ll let you know soon what we decide. I know you’re on the clock. For now, we are going to call a truce and talk about other things. Deal?”
    â€œYou should’ve told that to Mom,” Chloe said. “Because she’s been going on about Huck Finn all afternoon.”
    â€œShe told me. Excuse me.” Jimmy moved Chloe out of the way. “Your mother and I are going for a walk.”
    â€œYou are? Why?”
    â€œIsn’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 arm, her mother stout, her father expansive, into the hills around the lake.
    They were gone an hour.
    At dinner they talked of television shows, movies, her graduation party, college. Should she ship her heavier items like a television ahead of time, or should they buy a TV on the other side? And what about a car? She’d definitely need one. How did she feel about a used VW Beetle? Perhaps red? Not a word about Spain was spoken.
    The next afternoon, the pattern was the same. Lang made oatmeal-raisin cookies, Jimmy came home early, and they vanished through the birches. The third day Chloe began todoubt everything she thought she wanted. How important was Barcelona anyway? Why