Lone Star by Paullina Simons Page A

another dollar.
    Lupe was last, because she lived the farthest, in New Hampshire, in a mountain hamlet called Jackson. Outside a yellow painted storage shed, she sat in a wooden chair planted next to her front door. In the window box under her one white window bloomed purple nasturtiums. “I planted those for her,” Chloe said. Lupe, shriveled like a bald bird in water, gummed a smile and waved. She was white from top to bottom, white hair, white shirt, white bracelets, white pants, white socks, white shoes. As usual, she wore most of her jewelry. If not all her jewelry. Three necklaces, a cross, a dozen jangling bracelets on each wrist, and rings on every finger. When she waved to Chloe and Blake, she trilled like a wind chime.
    â€œAnd who izh thish?” she said, as if she didn’t have her dentures in.
    â€œIt’s Mason’s brother, Blake, Lupe.”
    While Lupe was vigorously shaking Blake’s hand and appraising him, Chloe pulled out Lupe’s lunch, the last one in the hot box, and stepped inside the woman’s one-room house to get a tray and some silverware. Though who was Chloe to tease Lupe about the size of her habitat?
    â€œBlake came with me because he’s entering a story contest.” She set the food on a tray in the old woman’s lap. “The Acadia Award for Short Fiction. I told him about your box of jewelry.” Chloe poured Lupe some ice tea and put a napkin near her elbow.
    â€œAnd what, he wants it?”
    â€œNo, no.” Blake looked mortified. How amusing!
    â€œYoung man, I’m joking. Instead of looking for my jewelry, you should find yourself a sense of humor. It would come in more handy.”
    â€œUm, yes, ma’am.”
    â€œWhere’s your brother today?”
    â€œAt practice.”
    â€œBlake is Hannah’s boyfriend,” Chloe said.
    The old woman studied Blake intently as she ate. The fork trembled in her shaking hands.
    Blake smiled. “I know. She’s too good for me, Lupe.”
    â€œThat’s not quite what I was thinking.”
    Chloe pulled on Blake’s denim sleeve, and the two of them perched on a nearby bench and kept the woman company while she finished her lunch.
    â€œHas your mother agreed to let you go yet?” Lupe asked.
    Chloe shook her head, keeping mum on Moody’s imminent visit.
    â€œShe will, though, don’t you think?” Blake said. “I keep telling her.”
    Lupe shrugged. “The odds are about even. Don’t count on it, but don’t discount it. I’ve met mothers before. I was one myself until my sons got too wise for my help. Mothers can be an unpredictable bunch.” She took a swig of her ice tea, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Let me ask you,” she said to Blake after he offered her a peek at his journal. “You say you want to go to Barcelona for research.”
    â€œThat’s right, ma’am.” And to Chloe, out of the corner of his mouth, added, “And for other things.”
    â€œCall me Lupe. But can’t the answer you’re looking for be found right here in New Hampshire and Maine?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œSure it can. Answers are found everywhere. And in anything. You just have to know where to look.”
    â€œBarcelona will make for a far more interesting story, don’t you agree? Rather than writing about boring old North Conway.” North Conway, the biggest town in two counties, was a two-mile stretch of a straight rural highway. Fifteen traffic lights and Applebee’s dueling it out with Burger King. Pizza Hut against KFC, Baskin-Robbins against Carvel. There were one or two antiques shops, an outlet mall, an L.L.Bean, and gas stations. That was the town. And China Chef, of course,purveyor of hot-and-sour soup that Hannah supposedly placed on people’s tables. How do you find the answer in a town like that?
    Lupe insisted. “You can. I’m telling you.