Lone Star (36 page)

“Like what?”

“I don't know, do I? Wasn't he supposed to go on tour today? She probably went with his group. Maybe they had to stay overnight somewhere.”

“Like where?”

“Another city. He didn't want to leave her alone here. It's not safe. I wouldn't. You wouldn't. He did the right thing. You'll see. Everything will be clear when we meet up with them.”

“If.”

“If what?”

I waved Mason away. Nothing felt right. The place was a dump. I can't believe we fell for the pretty pictures. Oh, look, close to town. Oh, look, close to the parks and the churches and the museums. Everything at our fingertips and the place is clean, and painted, and for a small increase we can get a room for the four of us, instead of sharing a dorm room with twenty others. A room with a sink!

The corridor floors were buckling, and it smelled bad, of piss and drink, and also like maybe something had died in the walls and was still busily decomposing. I knew that smell. We have all kinds of rodents, squirrels, raccoons, foxes die in the woods near our house. The smell is how we find them.

We were all too tired, frankly, after days on trains to be too bothered. Hannah changed into her sleeping shorts, and I put on a clean T-shirt and sweatpants. Mason took the bed where Chloe had possibly slept, and Hannah the one she had just made up. I lay on the bed that already had sheets on. I didn't know what was worse. To lie down in the made bed he had been in, or to lie down in the made bed he might not have been in.

I stared at the ceiling and out the half-open window overlooking the courtyard where they threw out the trash and the dead animals, overlooking other windows with cats and drying towels in them. I listened for the noise of the city, which had quietened down at two in the morning. I still couldn't sleep.

What was troubling me?

What
wasn't
troubling me? Missing Chloe. Not writing notes for my story. Hating Johnny. Worrying about Hannah. On the train she'd been so withdrawn. Blowing through Lithuania without seeing a half hour of Vilnius. Our train had been monstrously delayed. We were supposed to get into Vilnius at eight in the morning, but didn't get in until 11:05, with the train to Warsaw leaving at 11:20. I mean, my God, we were in Lithuania, and we didn't even get to walk through the Gates of Dawn! Why even come to the Baltics?

On the train, in the cabins next to us, every single person was deafeningly drunk. They bellowed in blurred voices and called it singing. They laughed like hyenas but then, with their next breath, fought like carrion crows over God knows what, shrieking and screeching. They yelled for the conductor, ran up and down the aisles, got into a shoving match that was going to get out of hand in about five seconds, and then did. A fist flew
out, someone's hair got pulled, there was caterwauling, and blood. The women rushed out into the corridor, to calm down the men, we thought, but no. They joined in the m
êlée
. A whole suitcase got thrown out the window! A suitcase went flying, in the middle of the day. It wasn't even lunchtime yet, and they were this drunk. The conductor said, “They got drunk last night. They stayed drunk.”

It went on for hours. No one stopped them, no one even complained. In Kaunas, I asked the helpful, English-speaking conductor why no one did anything about it, and he confessed sheepishly that it was because everyone was afraid of them. Great.

But then it
was
great. We had to change trains in Kaunas, and the rabble-rousers forgot to get back on! We saw them from our windows running down the platform and waving madly. I think the engineer actually sped up when he saw them trying to flag his train down. That was pretty awesome.

The ride from Kaunas to Sestokai was quieter but also less entertaining and therefore interminable. Hannah slept, Mason too. They're like bears, the both of them. They can sleep anywhere. Actually, Hannah can't. Her sleeping surprised me. I tried to work a little bit, write in my back journal, think about my story, but I couldn't. I was too busy staring out the window and thinking about dumb things.

Lithuania is beautiful. For hours I gazed at the pine forests and the rivers and regretted we hadn't stopped in Vilnius. Our Lady at the Gate of Dawn is the only city gate of the original nine still standing, through all the wars and destruction. The icon of the Mother of God is supposed to have healing powers. People come to it from all over the world to pray. I would have liked to pray for a few things. For my dad's back. To win the truck so Mase and I could start our business. To write this novella about mysteries and stolen treasures and suitcases full of magic things with healing powers. Instead, nothing.

I guess I forgot to pray that we'd find Chloe again because she's not here. Maybe Mason is right, and she left because this
place was horrible. But how could she have forgotten to tell us or the robed hostel keeper where she was going? That wasn't like her. Or was it? Was she really that reckless? What if we don't find her again? I can't even say this to Mason or Hannah; they'd ridicule me, if they weren't snoring. They slept nearly the whole time on the trains, and they're asleep now. Not a care in the world for those two.

Mason

At four in the morning someone was trying to pry open the door. Four in the morning! Blake jumped up and pressed against the door, but the key was turning and a voice, not too loud, but a voice I recognized, whispered, “Dudes, let me in, dudes . . .”

It was Johnny.

“It's only Johnny, Blake,” I said, relieved, falling back to bed. “Open the door.”

It took Blake a few moments to back away, almost as if he didn't want to.

“Where's Chloe?” was the first thing he said; not even a hello.

“She moved to another place because this one sucks ass. She was supposed to come back and leave a note with the address, but she forgot.”

“So did she wake up in the middle of the night because she remembered?”

“I guess so. That's why I'm here.”

“Why didn't you wait till morning?”

“That's what I told her,” Johnny said. “You think I wanted to walk at this hour? She insisted. She said you'd all be frantic.” Johnny cast a glance at sleeping Hannah and at me, barely awake, lying in bed, covered up with a blanket. Only Blake, standing up, tense, angry, looked to be remotely frantic.

He was stiff, agitated. I could see this even half-conscious. “Blake, bro, it's all right,” I muttered. I don't know why he was so upset. Chloe wasn't lost. I knew she wouldn't be. I thought
Blake would be relieved, like I was, but he took a step toward Johnny. That's when I knew I'd better shake myself awake, try to talk some sense into my brother. He can be so hair-trigger sometimes.

“Why were you and Chloe up at four in the morning?” Blake asked.

“I wasn't,” Johnny said. “I was sleeping. But then she woke me up.”

Blake, fists clenched, glared at me from across the room and then at Johnny. It was dark; the dim light from the tall window was blue. Johnny raised his hands. “Whoa, dude, what's up?”

“We had no idea what happened to her.”

“If you listen, I'll tell you. You see this place, right? She didn't want to go on tour with me, and I didn't think it was safe for her to stay here by herself. Don't you agree? I found her a nice joint. She was supposed to come and leave the address for you.”

“Why didn't she?”

“You'll have to ask her,” Johnny said. “I'm not Chloe's keeper.”

“Why didn't you ask her when you came back from your tour?”

“It slipped my mind,” Johnny said. “It's not my responsibility to remind her to notify her friends, is it?”

Johnny and Blake stood at an impasse for a few moments.

“So now what?” Blake said.

“I don't know. Now what?”

I didn't understand what was happening. My eyes kept closing, and their conversation was fuzzy like my eyeballs. I kept losing the thread. Now what? Now we go to sleep. Was there something I was missing?

Next thing I knew it was morning, and I was being shaken awake. I opened my eyes. It was Johnny. “Come on, dude, wake up,” he said. “We gotta go if you want to come with me to Treblinka.”

I wasn't so sure I did. It took me a little while to get my head clear. Hannah wasn't in the room. Neither was Blake. The sun was coming through the courtyard window in streaks. It was stifling, the air thick and dense.

“Where's Hannah?”

“In the bathroom,” Johnny replied. “Throwing up, from the sounds of it.”

I assumed Blake was with her down the hall. I needed a shower, and a change of clothes, and a big breakfast. Then I could figure out all the right questions to ask. Hannah came back. But she came back by herself.

“Where's Blake?”

“I don't know,” she said.

“Blake,” said Johnny, “is with Chloe.”

Now I was fully awake.

“What?”

“I think your brother had a problem with me going back to Castle Inn and staying with her. You were dead asleep, and he didn't want to leave her alone. So I gave him the address, the directions, and he left. I slept here.”

I absorbed this. “Why didn't he wake me?”

“He tried, I think. You were out.”

I absorbed this, too.

I'm not saying I wasn't unconscious. But I'll give you an example of what was troubling even untroubled me. Two summers ago when Blake's German Shepherd died, it died in the middle of the night. Blake needed me because he couldn't deal with it alone. I was asleep, possibly as deep as I was last night, and do you know what Blake did? He shook me and shoved me, and yelled at me, and woke me. He woke me so that I could stay by his side while his dog died.

That's all I'm saying. He found a way to rouse me. Then, I mean. Not now, obviously.

Hannah

How am I going to get dressed? How am I going to get on a tour bus? How am I going to leave this gross bathroom? How am I going to eat, talk, be normal? How am I going to go on a tour of anything, especially Treblinka? Chloe came to Poland for Treblinka. This is what her grandmother gave us money for. What am I going to do? Eventually Chloe and Blake and even oblivious Mason are going to notice that I'm still throwing up in the vilest bathrooms all over Europe, where my vomit is probably the most pleasant thing to happen in them. Eventually they will ask why, and also why I'm not eating, why I've stopped eating, and why I look as if I've emerged from the Dead Sea.

What am I going to tell them?

I need to talk to Chloe, is what I need to do. Right now, at length, and desperately. When I raced out to the bathroom this morning, Johnny was already awake, sitting up in bed, looking at maps or I don't know what. The small lamp by the round table was on. He might have been smoking.

He said to me, “Need the bathroom? It's down the hall.”

“I know where it is,” I said.

“I'm sure you do,” he said.

And when I was in there, I wondered what he meant by that.

I'm so scared right now. I'm so scared. I don't know what's happening to me. And why was Johnny in the room? I didn't even ask. And where was Blake? I didn't ask that either. I can't even be bothered with the important questions. I want to tell Mason and Johnny that I don't think I can go to Treblinka with them today, but I don't know how to say it. I have to go so that I don't have to explain it. But I can't stay here by myself while they're off gallivanting around Poland, having fun at Dachau or whatever. There are zombies in the corridor waiting for the bathroom. Who are these people? They're like cadavers. I hope that's not what I look like to them. I can't stay here. They'll suck the blood right out of my veins. Perhaps that's exactly what I deserve.

Please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no please no.

Please.

No.

Chloe

Chloe opened her eyes, for a moment unsure of where she was. It was morning. The ceiling was painted blue, trayed, high above her. She was quite familiar with the design of the ceiling. A sheet covered her body. She touched her hair, still damp from the shower she had taken late last night after Johnny left to run to the hostel to salvage what remained of her European adventure.

It had taken all her will to force him to get dressed and stop sitting mute by her knees, to go into the night and rush to the hostel to tell them about the Royal Castle and the adjacent inn with the geometrically odd rooms, and Chloe lying in bed in one of them, overlooking the flowing Vistula. He didn't want to leave. And she didn't want him to. He went anyway. After all, this was
Roman Holiday
not
Nightmare on Elm Street.