“No. By the way, I got you the pens you wanted.” Lang produced three packages of blue pens, gel, ballpoint, and fountain, and laid them in front of Chloe.
“I also took the liberty of getting you a notebook. Several different kinds to choose from. I thought you might need one if you’re going to write a story that’s going to win first prize. The Moleskine is very good. Has soft paper. But you try them all.”
Chloe stared at the pens, at the four notebooks. Had she actually mentioned that she needed a pen? One blue pen!
“Mom, listen to me.”
Lang sat down, elbows on the table, staring at Chloe with complete attention. She looked so pleased to be told to do what she had already been doing.
“I want to write something, I do. I just don’t think I have … look, here’s what we were thinking.”
“Who’s we?”
“The four of us.”
“The four of you were thinking all at once?”
“Well, discussing.”
“That’s better. It’s always good to be precise if you’re thinking of becoming a writer.”
“Which I’m not, so.”
“What are you four up to now? Let’s hear it.”
“We’re thinking of going to Europe.”
Lang stayed neutral. She didn’t blanch, she barely blinked. No, she did blink. Slowly, steadily, as if she was about to say …
“Are you crazy?”
There it was. “First listen, then judge. Can you do that?”
“No.”
“Mom. You just said you wanted me to write.”
“You have to go to Europe to write? Did Flannery O’Connor go to Europe? Did Eudora Welty? Did Truman Capote?”
“Actually, he did, yes.”
“When he wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms, his first novel, he’d been to Europe?”
“I don’t know. We’re getting off topic, Mom.”
“Au contraire. We are very much on topic.”
“Mason and Blake need to do research.”
“So they’re going to Europe?”
Chloe made a real effort not to facepalm, a real, true, Herculean, McDonald’s supersize-sandwich effort not to facepalm, because there were few things her mother hated more than this brazen gesture of exasperation and frustration.
“Hannah and I have been talking about the trip for a while.”
“I thought you just said you wanted to go for Blake and Mason? Make up your mind, child. Either you thought of it on the railroad tracks, or you’ve been planning it for years.”
“How do you know we were on the tracks?”
“I saw you.” Lang pointed out the window. “Right across the lake.”
Both things were true. Chloe and Hannah had been dreaming of going for years, but Blake and Mason just thought of it today. Lang sat and watched her daughter like a bird watching the world. One never knew what the Langbird was thinking until she sang.
“Isn’t going away to college enough for you?” Lang said quietly.
Chloe clasped her hands. She didn’t want to look into her mother’s face. She knew how hard it must have been for her parents to let her go away to school. “I’ve been dreaming of Europe since I was little,” she said, almost whispered. “Way before college.”
“Sometimes circumstances change, and we have to dream a different dream,” said Lang. There was only a breath after that, and no change in expression to reflect the colossal wreck from which life had had to be recomposed, rebuilt from the ashes, Capezio shoe by Linzer tart. “College away is a big step, not to mention an enormous expense, even with the scholarship they’re giving you.”
“I know, Mom. Exactly. And then work and study and more work and study, and when else could I ever do it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see, how about—four years from now? Or never. Either way is good with me.”
“That’s what I want for my graduation present,” Chloe declared boldly. “A trip to Europe. You went to Europe.”
“It was for a funeral!”
“So what.”
“Graduation present. Really. I thought you wanted a laptop.”
“I’ll use our old one. I’ll take the desktop.”
“You certainly will not. All my family-tree files are on it.”
“I thought you were baking now? Oh, and yes, the files are permanently embedded in that one desktop computer. You’re right. They can never be moved.”
“Do you know what happens after you make a choice to be sarcastic to the woman who gave you life?”
Chloe softened her tone. She knew that talking to her parents about anything was a fifteen-part process that would begin with an idea being promptly rejected and then followed up by a string of days during which her mother enumerated in Tolstoyan prose why whatever it was Chloe wanted was the worst idea. After a War and Peace-length volume on why they couldn’t get a dog, or a tattoo, or a third earring, or go to Europe, the real decision would be handed down. She didn’t get a tattoo. Or a dog. Or a third earring. What was happening here was just preface. The real meat of her mother’s argument was still to come.
But this time Chloe wanted a different resolution. This time she wanted her way, not Lang’s way. “Mom, what’s the big deal? I’ll be eighteen when we go.” When, not if. What a clever play on words! What a clever girl.
“Yes, because that solves all the problems. And don’t use the word when with me, young lady.”
Ahh! “What problems? There are no problems. We want to go to Europe for a few weeks. We’ll walk around, visit beautiful churches, eat delicious food, go to the beach, experience things we’ve never experienced before—”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“And then come home,” Chloe continued, “and Blake will write a beautiful story that will win first prize.”
“The boy has many skills. Do you think writing is one of them?”
“He thinks he does and that’s all that matters.” Chloe was defiant, but she didn’t have the answers. To her friends, she was usually the person her mother was being to her right now. The devil’s advocate, the sucker of joy. There were a thousand reasons why everything Blake and Mason wanted to do was a terrible idea. Oh God. Had Chloe already turned into her mother at seventeen? Facepalm!
“And by the way,” Lang said, “Europe is a big place. It’s not Rhode Island. Or Acadia National Park. Where in Europe were you four thinking of visiting? You mentioned church and beach. That could be anywhere.”
“Barcelona.”
Her mother groaned. “Barcelona. Really. That’s your idea. Of all the places, that’s where you want to go?”
“We’ve never been to Spain. And it’s on the water.”
“So is Maine. And you’ve never been to Belgium either.”
“Who wants to go to Belgium? What kind of story can one possibly write about Belgium? Or Maine?”
Lang shook her head. “There is so much you don’t know.”
“That’s