Lone Star
Page 61
“No. Mom. What do you see?”
“I don’t know. You’re wearing a dress?”
“God! Turn it over!”
Taking off her work gloves, Lang turns it over. She reads Johnny’s words. She remains composed. She stares into her daughter’s agitated face. She pats Chloe with her mother paw. “Darling,” she says. “Do you know how much I love you?” She opens wide her arms. “This much. But really, you’re as dense as a thicket. Have you not read Blake’s award-winning novella? Who do you think the letters in the blue suitcase were for? I mean, the man wrote you a love story, how many ways does he have to keep saying it?”
“You knew this?”
“Um, everybody knew this, Chloe. Why do you think Burt stayed our friend after your uncle nearly killed him? And do you know how hard it was for us to see Burt and Janice after your brother died? It was one of the hardest things we ever had to do. All these years we kept our families together for you two. We always knew Blake was the one. I personally think he may be too good for you.” Lang smiled. “Never mind. Even the tortoise eventually gets to the finish line. Go find him. He’s at Leary’s.”
“Do you think he still …”
“I don’t know, darling. Go find him.”
“Oh my God, Mom, we parted so badly, and he’s barely emailed me, hardly stayed in touch, what do I say, what do I do?”
Lang spins her daughter around and pushes her yonder. “I’m out of answers. Go find your own.”
Before she goes, Chloe turns around and hugs her mother. “I love you,” she whispers, and bolts.
She was going to drive to him in a desperate hurry, but her hands are shaking and she can’t get behind the wheel. She walks instead, then runs, until her heart is about to give out. Slowing down, she walks, pants, and runs again.
Down the single lane dirt road on a straight stretch just before the train tracks, she hears him whistling through the firs, hears him before she sees him, as he merrily strolls toward her, carrying a rusted tire iron on his shoulder. Look who is walking down the hill for me.
He sees her from a distance, focuses on her, nods, slows down and puts his hand to his eyes, as if shielding himself from the mirage, perhaps not believing it’s her. Thank God she stopped running, though she is still gasping, panting.
“I thought that was you smoking past me like a maniac,” he calls out. “Where’s the fire?”
She wishes for a bench in the middle of the road to fall onto. She stands, fists to her chest, separated from his friendly, lightly smiling, confounded face by ten yards of Maine air. He is so familiar, so wide-shouldered, so beloved. She wants to fall to her knees and beg his forgiveness. There is no one else the world entire she is happier to see at that moment than Blake, strolling toward her, rocking on his heels, humming, smiling, long lost singers and broken hearts notwithstanding. The passion ghosts fade into the great divide that cleaves the Miramare past with the non-existent Arizona future. Blake is the present, the real, the yesterday, the tomorrow, the everything.
She wants to stick out her hand to show him the photo she clutches in her balled-up fingers. Is it true, she wants to ask. Look at it, Blake, look what Johnny has given me, is it true? But she doesn’t need to ask him anything. His face tells her it’s true. Her eyes fill with tears. He drops the tire iron, spits out his gum.
“Who’s Dani Falco?” she asks when he is almost near.
“Not you.” He stops in front of her, his eyes emotional and ablaze, muscle tee full of Blake labor, jeans ripped, brown boots muddy and large. He cups her face full into his hands and kisses her. Her head tips back, her arms drop. Suffering mingles with the sea and the sun, the day is on fire, and she is a sweet salty foreign girl, with abandon kissing a man in the woods before he tears off her dress.
“Whoa,” she whispers, mouth agape, flinging both arms around his neck. “Just whoa.” The summer, shouting things at her through the pines, is so full of promise. The whole spilling over life, trickling warm tears, hope and mad desire, sorrow and relief, and alive air, is so full of promise.
“Oh Blake,” she says. “Will you ever forgive me?”
“I have waited for you for so long, Chloe Divine,” he says, taking her into his big arms, lifting her off the ground, swinging her, spinning her, embracing her so tightly, she can hardly breathe and hardly cry. His lips kiss her exposed white throat, the palms of his hands press into her back. He holds her to his heart. “I want Mount Washington Resort,” he whispers.
“For lunch?”
“For a week.”
Chloe can’t speak. She is breathless.
“Behold, everything old is brand-new,” he says.
She wipes her face and opens her eyes. And beholds.
Do not weep, Johnny says. Life is beautiful.
The End
About the Author
Paullina Simons was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States as a child. She has lived in Italy, England, Kansas, and Texas, and now lives in New York with her husband and some of her children. She has recently published a memoir, Six Days in Leningrad, and will soon publish her second children’s book, called Poppet Gets Two Big Brothers. Lone Star is her twelfth novel.
Praise for Paullina Simons
Tully
“You’ll never look at life in the same way again. Pick up this book and prepare to have your emotions wrung so completely you’ll be sobbing your heart out one minute and laughing through your tears the next. Read it and weep—literally.”
Company
Red Leaves
“Simons handles her characters and setting with skill, slowly peeling away deceptions to reveal denial, cowardice and chilling indifference … an engrossing story.”
Publishers Weekly
Eleven Hours
“Eleven Hours is a harrowing, hair-raising story that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.”
Janet Evanovich
The Bronze Horseman
“A love story both tender and fierce” (Publishers Weekly) that “recalls Dr. Zhivago.” (People Magazine)
The Bridge to Holy Cross
“This has everything a romance glutton could wish for: a bold, talented and dashing hero [and] a heart-stopping love affair that nourishes its two protagonists even when they are separated and lost.”
Daily Mail
The Girl in Times Square
“Part mystery, part romance, part family drama … in other words, the perfect book.”
Daily Mail
The Summer Garden
“If you’re looking for a historical epic to immerse yourself in, then this is the book for you.”
Closer
Road to Paradise
“One of our most exciting writers … Paullina Simons presents the perfect mix of page-turning plot and characters.”
Woman and Home
A Song in the Daylight
“Simons shows the frailties of families and of human nature, and demonstrates that there’s so much more to life, such as honesty and loyalty.”
Good Reading
Bellagrand
“Another epic saga from Simons, full of the emotion and heartache of the original trilogy. Summer reading at its finest.”
Canberra Times
Books by Paullina Simons
FICTION
Tully
Red Leaves
Eleven Hours
The Girl in Times Square
Road to Paradise
A Song in the Daylight
The Bronze Horseman Series
The Bronze Horseman
Tatiana and Alexander
The Summer Garden
Children of Liberty
Bellagrand
NON FICTION
Tatiana’s Table
Six Days in Leningrad
Copyright
To my two stalwart brilliant sainted patient indulgent editors, Anna Valdinger for all the big stuff and for keeping my wine safe, and Denise O’Dea fo
r perfecting every line with her sharp eye, much thanks – PS
Extract from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” taken from Collected Poems
© Estate of T.S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2015
This edition published in 2015
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Paullina Simons 2015
The right of Paullina Simons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Simons, Paullina, 1963- author.
Lone star / Paullina Simons.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 9490 8 (paperback)
ISBN: 978 1 7430 9509 6 (ebook)
Love stories.
813.6
Cover design by Darren Holt and Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Woman © Patryce Bak/cultura/Corbis; Church of St.Peter and the Old Town at dusk from across the river Daugava, Riga, Latvia, Baltic States, Europe © Gary Cook/ Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis; all other images by shutterstock.com
Author photo by Christine Farmer