Lone Star

by Paullina Simons

  “You think he got tired of waiting and left?”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said.

  “He ought to be fired for doing that!”

  “Yes, I’ll be sure never to hire him again,” said Johnny. “But in the meantime, we really should go. Come on, Hannah.”

  “Wait,” Denise said, as if she just remembered the important part. “What about our things?”

  Johnny’s back was to her. “What things?”

  “What do you mean, what things, Johnny?” Denise was shrill. “Like, our everything!”

  “Denise is right,” Dennis said. “We left our backpacks, our cameras on the bus.”

  Now Blake spoke in a dull voice. “Backpacks with our journals.”

  “Backpacks with all my money!” That was Hannah. She struggled up. The initial shock was wearing off for everyone. Even Mason had turned white. His mouth clamped together. “He’ll be right back, Johnny, right?” Mason said. “We have to get our backpacks. We simply have to.”

  “Money? Forget money.” That was Yvette. The handwringing had started. The quicksilver fury was only a breath away. “He has our passports!”

  Chloe thought Mason seemed oddly quiet. He didn’t even nod in agreement. He still looked white.

  “Yes,” Artie said. “Our passports. Which means we won’t be able to leave Warsaw, travel anywhere, leave the hotel, exchange money, go home.”

  Now, suddenly, Hannah wasn’t the only one crying. Yvette and Denise joined in.

  “We have cash in our bag!” Denise said. “Seventy-seven dollars.”

  Dennis comforted her with his arm. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The passports are more important.”

  “Seventy-seven dollars?” said Chloe. “I had Moody’s fifteen hundred dollars in my backpack.” In panic she stared at Mason, at Blake.

  “I had all of my own money in mine,” Hannah said. “Two hundred dollars.”

  The boys didn’t say how much of their own spending cash they had brought. Mason spoke in a shaky voice. “He’ll come back. Right, Johnny? Any minute he’ll be back.”

  Blake glared at his brother, at Chloe—and at Johnny, and said nothing.

  The girls and boys had left all their valuables in their backpacks on the bus. Johnny had specifically told them there was no museum shop and nothing to buy. He’d been right about that. So they left everything. Their passports, their Eurail tickets, their money, Chloe’s makeup, the favorite Dior lipstick she got as a birthday gift, Rock-n-Roll red, her favorite green cashmere cardigan, their journals. The daily recollections of the things that mattered most, all in their packs, all in Emil’s vanished van.

  It was about three seconds, maybe four, before seven of the nine people turned on Johnny. Hannah just sat, staring vacantly down the highway, her stone face like the concrete road. And Chloe couldn’t find a place in her heart to turn on Johnny. Give her time, maybe, but time with him was one thing she didn’t have.

  “Who is this Emil, Johnny?”

  “Did he take off with our stuff?”

  “Is he a thief?”

  “What did you do to us?”

  “We trusted you completely. What’s happening? Tell us!”

  And then from Blake: “How come your backpack is on your back, Johnny? Why didn’t you leave yours on the bus, too, like us?”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sang the Greek chorus.

  Johnny didn’t step away from their furious accusations. He faced them head on as he had faced the homeless man in Sestokai. He barely even blinked. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “I promise you. But we need to get back to Warsaw. Emil is an airport shuttle driver, and he probably got an emergency call. So don’t worry. I know where he lives. I’ll get your things back. It’s just a misunderstanding. But we must catch the train.”

  “Why would he take our things?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t take them. He ran to another job.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Blake said.

  “Reasonably sure,” replied Johnny, gesturing to Hannah to get up. “We have to hurry.”

  “Why? If your friend’s just on an airport run and it’s all a big mix-up, why the urgency to rush back to Warsaw?”

  “Do you want to get your things back sooner rather than later?”

  Everyone but Blake agreed that sooner was best.

  “Then let’s go. Blake, get your girlfriend up.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Blake muttered, stretching out his hand to Hannah.

  “Johnny, is this some kind of a hustle job?” Yvette asked. “Were we robbed? Tell us. Is he going to sell our passports and cameras on the black market?”

  “You give him too much credit. He’s a lummox, not a fox.”

  Johnny started walking. Doggedly they followed him. He was almost jogging. No one could keep up, not the men, not the women. He was five hundred paces ahead of them on a road with no shoulder, occasional cars whizzing by, while they trailed behind, too out of breath to even gossip about him. Perhaps that was the point.

  But Mason did tell Chloe some things he had overheard earlier that morning, an exchange between Johnny and Emil about money, that now seemed a lot more important.

  They barely made the train. Johnny had to hold the doors open, buy everyone’s tickets, slip the conductor some money to wait. “So he still has money,” Blake said under his breath.

  There was a drunken party (of course) in the compartment next to theirs, making it difficult to talk, or think, or figure anything out. The train was lurchy, stopped every kilometer at a new station, took forever to pull out, moved slowly and was unbearably hot.

  On the train, the suppositions, the phenomenal conjectures, the wild imaginings about Emil’s character, purpose and nefarious connection to Johnny kept them all jarred on adrenaline.

  Nine of them fit into one compartment. Hannah sat on Blake’s lap. Johnny, the tenth, went elsewhere. I’ll find another seat, he said, and vanished. I’ll see you on the other side. Did he say that or did Chloe wish he had said that?

  After an hour of heavy gossip—with Mason and Chloe not volunteering what Mason had heard about Johnny’s financial straits—Blake said there was a good chance they’d never see Johnny again. “Who’s to say they both weren’t in on it? One tells us to leave all our stuff behind. The other one runs off. Johnny jumps off the train, they meet up and split the loot. We’ll never see him again, I guarantee it.” Blake spoke with corrosive glee, as if the loss of their money and prized possessions and passports, the ruination of their entire trip, would be worth it if they never saw that boy again. And this was after his taking them through the fields of Treblinka—as if this most astounding thing had meant nothing. Chloe would rather spend a night in the blackout of Malkinia Gorna than have what Blake said be true.

  “Do you really think it could be true?” Denise asked.

  “It’s the most likely scenario.”

  “Blake, don’t say that. Please.” A frightened Chloe. “You don’t really think he could’ve robbed us. Wise up, will you.” She shot up. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Mason, go with her,” Blake said. “There are drunks on the train.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mase,” said Chloe. “Stay. I’ll go the other way from the drunks.” But she would walk toward the drunks and into a tar pit of moonshine until she found him. Blake couldn’t be right about him. He simply couldn’t. Churning with anxiety, balancing through the narrow corridor, holding the rails, pitching from side to side, she walked and peered into every compartment.

  She found him in the food lounge. He was smoking, drinking a beer, staring out the window. He looked worried and forlorn. All Chloe felt was deep relief. Nothing else mattered. He was here. Blake was wrong.

  “Johnny.”

  “Chloe,” he said. “Sit. So, what are they saying?”

  She sat down, heavy-hearted, full-hearted. As if Johnny’s mess was Chloe’s mess too, and not on the receiving end, but on the Bonnie and Clyde end. T
his is how perfectly lawful women dived into lawlessness, Chloe thought without regret. They were ambushed in the middle of Poland, and were glad for it.

  “Come back to our compartment, Johnny,” she said. “Everyone’s afraid you ditched us. Please come back. Set their minds at ease.”

  “Who’s everyone? Blake?” Johnny smirked. “First, I’m the odd guy out. No room for me. But also, I don’t want to sit in the compartment with you when I know you need to trashtalk me. Blake needs to cool off. Or he’s bound to say something we’ll all regret, and then where will we be? Trapped in a tiny compartment, and no way out.” He shook his head.

  “Is there a way out?” Chloe herself didn’t see it.

  “Depends on what you’re talking about.”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  “No,” he said. Sliding his hand across the table, he took hold of her balled-up hand.

  They sat for a few minutes in silence, struggling through their labored breathing.

  Chloe told him about what Mason had caught of Johnny’s conversation with Emil. “Does this have anything to do with that?”

  “I don’t know.” Johnny sighed.

  “You told us to leave our stuff behind, and it all got pinched.”

  “It looks bad, I agree.”

  “Does it look bad because it is bad, or does it just look bad?”

  He released his gentle hold on her fist. “It is bad,” said Johnny.

  She fought the impulse to throw her hands to her face. All her life with her mother she fought the impulse to facepalm and she fought it off successfully now, thanks to all that practice.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make it right.”

  How could what Blake said be true? That this unfathomable stranger with crazy eyes, a boy with a wild voice, a teenager just like them, could have colluded with a toughened con artist to steal their passports and money and then split the treasure? Lowering her voice, her agitation and suspicion waging a war inside her embattled heart, Chloe pressed on. “Were you and Emil in on it together? Did you tell us to leave our stuff behind, knowing he was going to take everything?”

  “No, that’s not what happened. Tell Blake to go write his books and leave me out of it. I’m a real person, not an invented character in his head. That’s not what happened.”

  “I didn’t say it was Blake.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What happened, Chloe,” Johnny said, “is that I do owe Emil some long-standing dough.”

  “What for?”

  “Just stuff he and I were working on a while back. It’s not relevant. Clearly he was afraid he wasn’t going to get paid. So he took matters into his own hands. But I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “I just will, that’s how. I need to get to Warsaw ASAP, and then I’ll take care of it.”

  “You know your tour friends want to call the police as soon as we get there.”

  “No.” Johnny shook his head emphatically. He slipped out of his seat and went across to sit next to Chloe. He took her by the arms, turned her to him. In another life, it would be the gesture of a man about to lean in and kiss a woman, a woman for whom he felt raw desire, and who felt a raw desire for him. But this wasn’t another life. And in this life, his eyes blazing, lips parted, skin flushed, Johnny didn’t kiss Chloe. He squeezed her and said, “Please. Please go and convince them not to call the cops. Tell them to give me a night and a day to get your stuff back. If you go to the consulate or get the police involved, I won’t be able to do a thing, I won’t be able to help you, do you understand?”

  She didn’t understand.

  “I’ll have to disappear. Emil is most certainly off the grid by now. The cops won’t find him. He’s got fake IDs, fake passports. He’ll be gone by tomorrow morning if he thinks the police are looking for him.”

  “But we need our passports and money back, Johnny!” she exclaimed, as if by shouting she could make him understand.

  “The cops might pick him up but they’ll never find the goods. And if the cops pick me up, there goes my whole future, my army commission, my Ranger training. I just need a day. If I don’t get your passports back by tomorrow, you can go to the police and the consulate.”

  “Passports and money.”

  “Passports and money,” Johnny echoed, less certainly. He got up. “Let’s go. We’ll be in Warsaw soon. Let’s go talk to them.”

  She walked in front of him, wobbling down the narrow train corridor. Behind her she heard him say, “What about you and me, Chloe Divine?”

  One disaster at a time, she wanted to say to him.

  “Is there a you and me?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer him. They were at their compartment.

  The boy with the silver tongue persuaded the mob to give him a day before the lynching. Then he stepped outside between the train cars to smoke his last cigarette.

  “Why is he so sure he can get it back?” Blake asked Chloe.

  “He doesn’t seem that sure,” Chloe said.

  “Why doesn’t he want the police involved?”

  “How should I know? He didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask? You were gone long enough. I figured you must have asked him some things.”

  Chloe resisted the temptation to give Blake a dirty look. “It took me a while to find him.”

  “It’s all so sketchy,” Blake said. “So suspicious, so not right.”

  “So write about it,” said Hannah. “You wanted to come to Europe to find your story. Here it is. Write it down.”

  “Oh, I would, Hannah,” Blake said, “but unfortunately all my journals, including my story notebooks, got stolen by a real thief—so I can’t.”

  Johnny didn’t stay with them. There was no room for him. There was barely any room for two beds, although this was supposedly a family-sized room. But even if there had been room, as they got off the train and onto the platform, Blake said—to no one in particular, but Chloe knew it was meant for her, “I hope he doesn’t think for a second he can spend the night with us.” Chloe wanted to protest, but couldn’t find the words. Did she think Johnny might be able to? Just a few short days ago, a lifetime ago, in Carnikava, he was able to. So many things weren’t possible anymore. Could Johnny sleep on the floor while she and Mason lay down in the bed that a night earlier she and Johnny had hallowed (or was it dishonored?) with their syrupy exertions? Or was it lying down with Mason that would dishonor Johnny? Chloe didn’t know anything. She wanted him to stay despite all reason.

  Fortunately and achingly, Johnny preempted trouble. He said he wasn’t staying, he just needed to go back to the room to get his duffel.

  “That’s peculiar,” Blake said. “Why didn’t you take your duffel with you? You never go anywhere without it.”

  “I left it in the hotel,” Johnny said, his tone nonconfrontational. “It’s too heavy for me to cart around.” He paused, confrontationally? “Besides, why would I take it? You didn’t take your suitcases.”

  “We took our backpacks.”

  “I took my backpack.”

  “You told us to leave ours on the bus.”

  “Mine had maps of Treblinka, and I was your tour guide. It had my train schedule, which I never go anywhere without. That came in handy, didn’t it?”

  “You know what would’ve come in handy?” said Blake. “Not getting robbed.”

  Johnny left, promising he would return tomorrow morning with their passports. She couldn’t wave to him, or run to him, or beg him not to go.

  If paying for the room at Castle Inn was difficult to reconcile before Treblinka, imagine how it felt now when almost all their money was gone. Chloe had secreted away a small amount in a pocket of her suitcase, but she had been afraid to keep all her cash at a hotel. Nothing seemed safe. Now look where all that caution got her. She didn’t want to think about it, what would happen if Johnny didn’t return with Moody’s money. When Hannah
asked how much money she had squirreled away, Chloe didn’t want to say. She was afraid everyone, including her, would burst into tears. After Johnny left, Hannah insisted that they count the meager dollars they had hidden. Together they counted and recounted. Four hundred dollars left. Two thousand dollars was missing in total from their communal coffers. “We have to call Moody,” Hannah said. “We have to call her immediately and tell her we were robbed.”

  “How is that any of her business?” said Chloe. “What is she going to do?” The boys had dispersed into chairs. They were staying out of it.

  “Give us more money.”

  Chloe laughed.

  “Well, what are we going to do, Chloe? Four hundred is not enough for Barcelona! I told you we should’ve gotten a credit card.”

  “What bank would give us one? I’m barely eighteen, and we have no regular jobs and make no money.” Chloe was hostile and fed-up. “And even if we did manage to get one from some sucker bank that gives credit to jobless students, it would’ve been stolen along with everything else. What part of ‘robbed’ don’t you understand?”

  “Ah, you’re right,” Hannah said, waving her off, shoulders slumping. She sounded defeated. “Maybe we should just go home.”

  “The trouble is, Hannah,” said Blake, no longer staying out of it, “that we can’t do anything, go anywhere, even home, without our passports. If he doesn’t get them back, we’re screwed. We are completely dependent on a guy who caused all our current trouble to begin with. The consulate can issue new documents, but that takes five days, a week maybe. Where would we stay? And on what?”

  “It’s not his fault,” Chloe said. Mason, Blake, and Hannah remained silent.

  It was nine at night. Famished and exhausted, they splurged a few zloty at Pizza Hut around the corner, where not twelve hours earlier they had been standing waiting for the longest day to begin. They ate ravenously, without talking. Afterward no one wanted to walk around on the lit-up nighttime cobblestones. And Chloe had already walked them, a night ago. She couldn’t lift her eyes at anyone. How could her night with him have been only a day away from this moment? It was both too vivid and too far away.

  They went back to the hotel, Hannah complaining about why Chloe and Mason would get the biggest bed when she and Blake were taller and larger. How inappropriately quickly Chloe agreed to relinquish the big bed! Though Blake wasn’t nearly as pleased as Hannah to climb into the spacious sheets. Chloe and Mason crawled into the glorified twin and everyone was asleep in seconds.