Nowhere but Home A Novel

2




Croque monsieur on country white bread, potato leek soup, a giant glass of cold water, and an old-fashioned doughnut



I’ve seen the movies: Small-town Girl with her “head in the clouds” moves to the Big City. There’s a makeover montage. There’s a tiny apartment with white twinkle lights; a lovably nosy landlord; and a brand-new group of quirky, irreverent friends. And the pièce de résistance: a scruffy-haired boy (usually named Logan) who adores Small-town Girl because she’s different and not like those “Big City girls.”

I counted on this mythology when I left North Star, Texas (population: 2,000), at eighteen years of age. I knew the lore. The movies. The books. I couldn’t wait to leave everything behind so I, too, could gaze into a Tiffany’s window in oversize sunglasses and opera gloves.

I was certain as I stumbled about New York that I’d soon be welcomed into the ever quickening fold. I’d invite my impossibly beautiful and stylish friends over for dinner parties that would last late into the night. My tiny, twinkle-lighted apartment would be a gathering place with me at its center offering another plate of braised pork or “down-home whatever.”

Still clad in my dark blue chef’s coat from the kitchen where I’d just been fired, I stand outside of Brad’s headquarters and grip my backpack straps. Tighter. Tighter. I know, without even having to look, that I am an unmitigated disaster to behold. I let the streams of people bob and weave past me on the sidewalk, choosing for once to just stop.

I can’t be the only one faking it. I’m not the only lonely small-town girl drowning in this big city. I’m not the only refugee feeling invisible and alone. I’m not the only one who wants to scream, “NOTICE ME! I MATTER!” Maybe everyone is faking it. Maybe they’re just better at it than I am. People walk around me on the street as if I’m not even there. It’s quite something. I left North Star because I was tired of every move I made being tracked and judged by a cabal of gossiping ladies. I oftentimes wished I could go unnoticed as I moved through my life in that tiny town and now here I am. Utterly invisible.

Dreams do come true, kids.

I walk toward Twelfth Street and duck into DiFiore Marquet Cafe. Maybe I’ll find momentary comfort in one of my favorite eateries. A place, by the way, I feel better about going to since I learned it’s just called Marquet. Yes, I’d like a table for one by the window. I pass clutches of studying kids, hushed couples leaning toward each other across wooden tables, and late-lunching New Yorkers stealing away for a moment’s solace. I order a croque monsieur, their potato leek soup, and the biggest glass of cold water they’ve got. I have one more paycheck coming and . . . I can’t think about money right now. I just want to sit and gaze out this window. Of New York, but not in New York.

My sandwich and soup arrive quickly and I dive in. My mind goes blank as the tastes and flavors slide over my tongue, comforting me and bringing pleasure, however transitory.

What am I going to do after I finish this sandwich? I’ve got no job and no place to stay. I bring the spoon to my mouth and try to let the soup soothe me again. Did I really come all the way to New York to work at a Dunkin’ Donuts in the Rockefeller Center subway station? Maybe this is an opportunity? I could take this as a call to adventure! A new city! A new life! A new shot at my elusive dream of belonging somewhere. A new chance at meeting that scruffy-haired boy named Logan. The sandwich begins to turn in my stomach. I take a long drink of my water.

I’ve worked in New York for two years. At four hotels, two restaurants, and one Starbucks. Before that I was in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Taos, Branson, Aspen, Dallas, and Austin, where I was during and right out of college at the University of Texas. I don’t have to stay in the U.S. What about Dublin? I could get a job at a hotel somewhere; they’re nuts for comfort food, aren’t they? “Down-home whatever” as Brad put it. Food that’s good, but not great enough to tolerate someone being “kind of a bitch” is surely sweeping the Irish culinary world. I push away my plate and let my head fall into my hands. I rub my eyes and push my hair out of my face.

“Can I get you something else? Is the sandwich okay?” the waitress says, noticing my dramatic rejection of the food.

“The sandwich was great. Thank you.”

“So just the check then?”

“Sure. Thank you,” I say; the girl tears off my check from her pad of paper and begins to set it facedown on my table. I continue, “Hey, are you guys hiring by any chance? I can do anything. I’m trained as a chef, but I can work behind the counter, wash dishes, whatever you . . . whatever you need,” I say.

“Oh, uh . . . we’re not hiring. For any positions.” She slides the check across my table and can’t look at me. She mutters a quick “Thank you,” and leaves.

“I’ve been here before,” I whisper to myself. I sneak a peek at the two girls next to me as they cautiously look away. To them, I’m now someone who mumbles to herself just after begging for a job. I feel wave after wave of nausea begin to roil. I quickly pay my check and hit the sidewalk at a pretty good clip. I need to be somewhere quiet and private. I’m on the verge of a meltdown of epic proportions and I can’t let anyone here see me lose my cool. As I wind and dart through the streets of the West Village, I realize I’ve never said the word “home.” Not even to myself. The place I’m looking for isn’t here. I want to feel safe right now. I have no idea where to go to feel that.

My breathing quickens. The nausea continues to come in waves as my face flushes, alternating wildly between hot and cold. I’m on the verge of vomiting in public. I launch myself down the stairs into the subway, push myself through the turnstile, and try to regain control of myself as I wait for the train. The rush of air, the platform shifts forward, and we all board as a herd. I close my eyes, gripping the metal bar as we shift and jostle back toward Midtown. I probably wouldn’t be the first person to vomit on this train. Hell, I wouldn’t be the first person to vomit on this train in the last hour. No one here knows me.

No one here knows me.

I open my eyes. It’s Friday night and everyone is getting off work. This train is alive with life and freedom. A man holding a bouquet of flowers sits next to a woman who carries a small present in a gold gift bag. An accordion player hops on at one stop, his wife holding out a hat for spare change. A young woman reads a book and tunes out the world.

It’s not as if this city can’t be home. It was just never my home. Actually, none of the cities I’ve passed through in the last decade has felt right. I can’t remember the last time I felt at home.

I think of North Star. I’ve been back only once since I left at eighteen to go to college. The last time I saw Cal, my nephew, he was in diapers and now I hear he’s going to be North Star’s starting quarterback at just fifteen. My sister, Merry Carole, has made sure I’ve been kept up to date on the town gossip. She’ll smile and be polite because she not only needs the business at her hair salon, but it’s always been important for Merry Carole to fit in. Which is exactly why the people of North Star love keeping her out. I’m actually curious as to how they’re dealing with Cal’s prowess on the football field. However you praise the Lord, be it Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic, the true religion in Texas is football. So for a Wake to be the star quarterback? To be doing something good? Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute.

The train bumps and throws me off balance. I clutch at the back of one of the seats and am met with an annoyed gaze. Unrepentant, I lean once more against the back of the car.

I get off at my stop and ramble through Rockefeller Center’s subway station, letting the sights and sounds wash over me. I stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts, buy a bottle of water, ask if they’re hiring, am rejected again, and then order an old-fashioned doughnut that I eat far too quickly. I climb the stairs as the old-fashioned doughnut only heightens my nausea and am thankful to finally be in the fresh air. I walk toward the hotel in a haze, trying to settle my stomach, the glaze from the doughnut still flaked to my cheek.

I stop in front of a department store display window. The scene is one of home and family. Faceless mannequins mix and mingle in an elegantly decorated room. Umbrella-festooned cocktails, tank tops, and summertime fun are on display for those willing to think they can buy it. Emblazoned in the window in big gold type it says, THIS IS YOU. THIS IS NOW. I read the words, my eyes losing focus. Then I see my own reflection in the window. My hollow blue-eyed stare is set off by my blotchy red-faced complexion. I look exhausted. My fine brown hair is matted to my neck and forehead. A lone bobby pin clings to eight hairs as the bangs I’ve been trying to grow out fly every which way. I clutch a bottle of water in one hand and a greasy doughnut wrapper in the other.

I am officially the Anti–Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I snap out of my haunted reverie and shuffle back to the hotel. I toss my now empty bottle of water and the doughnut wrapper into a trash can and begin the spiraling about money and jobs and shelter and and and. Lofty, philosophical reasons aside, the stark reality is that without this job and the hotel room that came with it, I simply can’t afford to stay in New York. Sure, I can find another room for rent, with its communal, filthy bathroom at the end of a long, unlit hallway. I can put up another ad for roommates only to find myself spending less and less time at home and then watch as I devolve into only talking about “my annoying roommates” to anyone who will listen. I can crash in hotel lobbies for a while just like I did when I first got to New York. The bigger the hotel, the more nooks and crannies. And if someone found me, a simple lie about being locked out or getting in a fight with my boyfriend made everything better. But to what end? I’ve been on the run for going on ten years. I’m tired.

I push through the revolving door and into the hotel.

“Queenie?” A voice. I look up. It’s Sassy Keryn. Great, now she knows my name.

“Yeah?” I ask, slowing my pace.

“Brad told me to give this to you?” She ends the sentence as if it were a question.

I walk over to the concierge desk and take the envelope in Keryn’s hand.

“It’s your last paycheck,” Keryn says.

“Yep. Thanks,” I say, turning my back on her.

“So . . . ,” Keryn leads. I turn back around. She continues, “Brad also wanted me to let you know that your key card will be deactivated in three days.”

Several thoughts crowd my brain as I stand in front of Sassy Keryn. First and foremost: I hate Keryn with a fiery passion. I have to focus the energy of the Big Bang not to haul off and punch her square in the face. I hate Keryn’s faux-apologetic tone, letting the poor hick off easy after she got canned. She’s a saint!

I can’t believe Brad has given me only three days. Three days to find a new job and a new place to live in New York City in the middle of a recession. But most of all I hate that there was a tiny, fleeting moment where I let Keryn see those other emotions wash over me. I collect myself.

“Hey, thanks . . . I’m sorry, what was your name again?” I ask, folding my paycheck and putting it into the back pocket of my chef’s pants.

“Keryn,” she says, deflating.

“That’s right. Hey, thanks, Keryn,” I say. She attempts a smile.

As I walk to the bank of elevators, I realize that New York has taught me one thing: hatred is not the opposite of love—indifference is. Being forgettable is way worse.

Trust me.

The elevator moans upward as I let the short-lived bliss of putting Sassy Keryn in her place linger for as long as possible.

I slide my key card in and out of the slot as the red light beeps green. Three days until that light no longer turns green. Does today count? Or is it two more days counting this one? I was too busy being a bitch to Keryn to ask. I slip the key card in my back pocket, as I’ve done for the last six months. I sit down on the bench at the end of my bed and watch as New York begins to twinkle just outside my window. It looks so beautiful from here—safe and sound inside. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket, heave a long weary sigh, and dial.

“Too Hot to Handle, this is Fawn.” The breathy voice on the other end is my sister Merry Carole’s longtime business partner and one of the only friends Mom ever had. Rumor has it that Fawn keeps the rhinestone industry in the black.

“Hey, Fawn, it’s Queenie,” I say, kicking off my shoes.

“Hey there, sweetheart. You okay?” Fawn asks, I hear the receiver being muffled and unmuffled as she tucks the phone into the crook of her shoulder, no doubt so she can continue to cut hair.

“Oh, you know. Is Merry Carole busy?”

“She’s always busy, honey. I’ll get her for you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Don’t mention it, sweetie pie. Merry Carole! It’s Queenie, for you. I don’t know. She doesn’t sound upset. I don’t know! What does . . . I don’t even know what that word means. Why don’t you . . . come on over here and talk to her your own damn self then. I know. I told you I . . . I don’t know. You can . . . sure, I’ll take over, but I gotta finish with Mrs. Beauchamp’s color. No, I . . . she’s got twenty minutes on . . . see right there? Just put her under the dryer then—”

“You all right?” Merry Carole’s voice bursts through the phone, but is muffled as she continues, “I don’t want to hear it, Fawn. You can . . . there’s a dictionary right there, why don’t you look it up yourself? Well, it’s not my fault you don’t know how to spell it. Lord almighty. Queenie? Well, are you okay?”

“I got fired.”

“Again? Heaven sakes, Queenie, you don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain sometimes.” Merry Carole muffles the phone again and continues, “She got fired! I know. She seems fine about it, I guess. What was this one? Six months, right? Some hotel. I don’t even know—honey, how are you about it?”

“It’s fine, you know. Same ol’, same ol’.”

Merry Carole is quiet.

I continue, “I know what you’re thinking, but—”

“Don’t you say this wasn’t your fault, Queen Elizabeth. Don’t you even think it.”

“This jerk-off asked for ketchup and he was going to slather his eggs with it. What was I supposed to do?”

Merry Carole muffles the phone and continues to talk to Fawn. “Some poor man had the nerve to put ketchup on his eggs! Yes, ma’am! Right in front of her! It’s like he didn’t know who he was dealin’ with! I know! Hahahahahahahahahaha!” Merry Carole says through the muffled receiver and the peals of laughter begin.

“It’s not funny!” I say to no one.

“So what are you going to do now? Are you going to stay in New York or are you on to the next city?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“How long you got?”

“They’ve given me three days.” I look around the room. Open suitcases with clothes strewn from them like blood spatter at a crime scene. I realize I haven’t washed my hair with anything but a fun-size bottle of hotel shampoo in years.

“That’s not a lot of time.”

“I know.” I think about maybe going to Philadelphia. Or Chicago? Maybe I could start fresh. Find something, shit . . . anything. Even in the abstract, I’m having a hard time giving up my dream of being in New York. I’ve wanted to be here my entire life. “New York, New York! If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere.” Well, what if you can’t make it here? What happens then?

“It’s not the end of the world, but you can definitely see it from there. You’ve seen worse,” Merry Carole says.

“I know.” I tuck my legs underneath me as my mind darts around its darker recesses. As Merry Carole muffles the phone and directs Fawn through Mrs. Beauchamp’s color, I hate that it’s always about enduring and surviving. Crawling through and out of some muck to get to the other side.

Yes, I’ll survive this. Merry Carole’s right. I’ve seen worse. Much worse. But just once I’d like to simply . . . have something. Just . . . be. Get a job somewhere where someone isn’t “taking a chance on me.” I’m now officially pouting. My hangdog expression reflects back at me in the window. I look absolutely pathetic.

“I’m going to throw something out there and I need you to just think about it. Will you do that for me?” Merry Carole asks.

“Sure.”

“As you know, the big Fourth of July festival is next weekend.”

“Sure,” I say. North Star’s summer season is bookended by two big events: the Fourth of July festival starts it out with a literal bang and the North Star Stallions opening football game finishes it.

“Well, they’re going to announce that Cal will be the quarterback for the North Star Stallions. We’ll get our sign for the front yard and he’s going to be presented with his varsity jersey in front of God and everybody. I know he’d love it if you could come back to see him.”

“Next weekend?”

“That’s right.”

I look up and am met, once again, with my own reflection in the window. I stare back at myself.

THIS IS YOU. THIS IS NOW.

I don’t know how else to cut it. I’m a shadow of who I once was. I hang my head. It’s not as if anyone is going to mourn my departure. I never bonded with anyone in the kitchen—turns out people didn’t really take to a bossy know-it-all who hammered them with cooking tips and tricks while they tried to dice that day’s onion allotment. If I did hit it off with someone, it was still well within the boundaries of “work friend.” Even walking out of the kitchen after work turned labored when there wasn’t something cooking oriented we could talk about. It became clear that, unlike the other people in the kitchen, all I had was cooking. No family in the city. No history I cared to share. No hobbies. As long as I’ve been away from North Star I’ve been a cipher. And while I treasured the anonymity and the clean slate, it never dawned on me that I’d erased everything about me: good and bad.

I can’t stomach quitting, never could. This will be temporary until I plan my next move. I’ll recharge my batteries and really plan where to go—not just make another lateral move. I am also thirty-one years old and no longer believe the world begins and ends with North Star, Texas. I should be able to return without falling victim to the perception that I’m something to be hunted with torches and pitchforks. I will go back on my terms. It will not have the same power over me this time. I am older now. Smarter, I’d hope. Stronger.

“I think I can do that. It’d just be for a few weeks. Until I find a new job.”

“Oh, he’ll love it!”

“I can’t wait to see him. I can’t imagine how big he’s gotten.”

“He’s not in diapers anymore, that’s for sure.”

“Okay, well, I’ll settle things here and be there in a couple of days.”

“Oh Queenie . . . this is just . . . I love that you’re coming on home.” Merry Carole muffles the phone and continues, “I KNOW! She’s coming home! Can you believe it!? Well, where else has she got to go, though, bless her heart? Hahahahahahahaha . . . Who are you telling?! Yeah, she’s coming back to see Cal get his jersey! I know! That’s what I said, Fawn, aren’t you hearing me over here! Queenie, honey?”

“Yes?”

“You be sure to call when you’re on your way.”

“I will.”

“I just couldn’t be happier. I’ll see you soon then! Don’t you just love saying that?”

“I’ll see you soon. Bye,” I say.

“Bye-bye now,” Merry Carole signs off.

I beep my cell phone off and let it fall onto the bench. My haunted gaze stares back at me.

THIS IS YOU. THIS IS NOW.

I’m lost. I’m alone. I’ve got nowhere to go.

Nowhere but home.