Lone Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

say the funniest things. That girl couldn’t protect a deck of cards. I trust Mason more than I trust Hannah.”
    â€œSee?”
    â€œMore, which is to say nothing. How much is two times zero? Still zero, child.” She raised her hand before Chloe could come back with a wisecrack. “Enough. I have to slap these Linzers together and then get dinner on. Your father will be home soon.”
    â€œI’m going to be eighteen, Mom,” Chloe repeated lamely.
    â€œYes, and I’m going to be forty-seven. And your father forty-nine. I’m glad we’ve established how old we are. Now what?”
    â€œI’m old enough to make my own choices,” said Chloe, hoping her mother wouldn’t laugh at her.
    To Lang’s credit, she didn’t. “Can you choose right now to go play a musical instrument?” she said. “Piano or violin. Pick one. Practice thirty minutes.”
    â€œHannah wants to talk to me before dinner.”
    â€œWell, then, you’d better jump to it,” said Lang, her back turned, an icing-sugar shaker in her hands. “What Hannah wants, Hannah gets.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œWhat do you think it means?”

3
The Perils of College Interviews
    C HLOE RAN FROM HER HOUSE ACROSS THE FLOWER BEDS AND brush to Hannah’s next door.
    Since the divorce five years ago, Hannah’s mother had been involved with revolving boyfriends, and consequently their yard never got cleaned up. Blake and Mason offered to help, but Terri didn’t want to pay them to do it. And she didn’t want them to do it for free because that was asking men for a favor. So she lived surrounded by unkempt backwoods, in wild contrast to Chloe’s parents’ approach to their house and their rural life. Lang allocated part of every day to weeding, mowing, cleaning, planting, raking, leafing, clearing, maintaining. The birches and pines were trimmed as if giraffes had gotten to them, and all the pinecones were swept up and placed in tall ornamental wicker baskets, and even the loose pebbles were picked up and arranged around the flower beds and birdhouses and vegetable gardens. 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.
    Before Chloe knocked, she stopped at the dock and stared out at the lake, the railroad across it, at the bands of violet mackerel sky. She imagined a lover’s kiss in the Mediterranean breeze, themosaics 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 on display, no fear. Everything that here was not. Her heart aching, she knocked on Hannah’s porch door.
    Hannah’s mother was on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune .
    â€œHello, Mrs. Gramm.”
    â€œHi, honey.” Terri didn’t turn her head to Chloe. “Are you staying for dinner?”
    â€œNo, my mom—”
    â€œI know. I’m joking.”
    Hannah pulled Chloe into her bedroom and slammed the door. Chloe had spent many years with Hannah in this room trading forbidden lipstick and confidences.
    â€œSo? Did she say no?”
    â€œOf course she said no.”
    â€œBut was it no, we’ll see, or was it no like never?”
    â€œIt was no like never.”
    â€œBut then she started asking you all kinds of questions?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo it’s yes. Give her a week to think about it. She has to talk to your dad.”
    â€œWhat, you think I’ll have a better chance with him?”
    â€œNo. But he might give you money.”
    â€œFor Barcelona?”
    â€œWe’ll figure it out. We have bigger problems right