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not go on vacation.”
    â€œMartyn was going to meet us in Barcelona.” Chloe couldn’t get past this one point.
    â€œHe doesn’t want me to go without him. He’s afraid I’m going to meet someone, have a fling. He is very jealous.”
    â€œMartyn. Jealous.”
    â€œSo jealous.”
    â€œUm, does Martyn know you have a boyfriend? Maybe he can be jealous of him.” Poor Blake.
    â€œHe’s not worried about him.”
    â€œWell, you’re not, why should he be? So this Martyn is afraid you’ll have a fling in Europe with someone other than your boyfriend?” Chloe opened her hands. “What kind of girl does he think you are?”
    â€œFor once can you please be serious? I know I need to break up with him. But then where do I get the money to go?” She wrung her hands, twisted her sore and bitten fingers. The usually unruffled Hannah looked ruffled.
    Chloe was afraid to ask the follow-up question. There were so many questions, she couldn’t sort out their order of priority. She was thinking of Barcelona. But she was also thinking about Blake. “Hannah, if you’ve met someone else, why do you string Blake along? Why don’t you break up with him, and do what you want?”
    â€œDon’t talk nonsense, Chloe. Did you not hear me just now when I said I was breaking up with Martyn?”
    Chloe heard all right. “Do you even want to go to Barcelona?”
    â€œMore than anything.”
    â€œWith Blake?”
    â€œI’d prefer to go just the two of us.” Hannah pulled Chloe in for a hug. “Like we planned. Can we talk Blake out of going?”
    Chloe shrugged. “Perhaps you can talk him out of it by telling him if he goes, then your secret lover won’t give you any money for Europe.”
    Hannah turned her back to Chloe.
    â€œI thought you had money,” Chloe said after a silence. “I thought we were both saving.”
    â€œWe were. We are. But Chloe, I’m not you. I can’t walk around in the same extra-large T-shirt. I need spring clothes, I need summer clothes.”
    â€œWhat do you want, a new skirt or Barcelona?”
    â€œBoth.”
    â€œYou don’t have money for both. Pick.”
    â€œBoth!” Hannah’s back curved into a ball.
    Chloe sighed, kneading her comforting palm between Hannah’s shoulder blades. “Who’s this Martyn anyway?”
    â€œStop joking!”
    â€œI mean”—Chloe cleared her throat—“how come he has money to burn?”
    â€œHe’s a professor. He’s got plenty of money.”
    Martyn, Martyn, Martyn. Chloe tried to remember the first names of their teachers at the Academy. In any case, Hannah said professor, not teacher. Jumping up, Hannah started to pace and talk, began to tell Chloe things she couldn’t hear. It occurred to her that perhaps this was the reason she didn’t know about Martyn. Hannah had told her, but Metallica was playing and through the strands of living life their way, Chloe missed it.
    Hannah grabbed Chloe’s hands. “What am I going to do? It’ll crush him.”
    â€œDo you want to break up with him?”
    â€œI have to. He’s become way too emotionally involved with me.”
    â€œWhat about Blake?”
    â€œWill you forget Blake? I have a real problem and you bringing him up every five seconds is not helping me.”
    Chloe tried to regroup, find something else to say. “So . . . how long has this Martyn thing been going on?”
    â€œOctober.”
    â€œ Last October?”
    â€œYes, since my college interview. Chloe, why are you being so obtuse? Is this on purpose? You’re making it hard to talk to you.”
    Now Chloe remembered. She had driven Hannah to Bangor for her University of Maine admission interview. Chloe had been accepted without an interview so she waited outside while Hannah went in. Hannah walked out with a man, who shook