Nowhere but Home A Novel

26




Leftover fried cherry pie and not enough coffee in the world



I wake up early the next morning. Cal’s bumping around the house before his morning run. I flip my sheets off and walk out into the rest of the house just as the front door slams.

“Come on,” I say to a darkened house. I grab Cal’s sweatshirt by the door and run out of the house in bare feet and my pajamas pulling the sweatshirt on over my head. Cal’s still stretching just in front of the salon as I come barreling toward him.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“On my run,” he says, bending over for another stretch.

“I know yesterday was weird, but I swear—”

“This whole thing goes away when you tell me and Momma that you’re not taking that job. You get that, right?” Cal asks.

“Yeah.”

“So . . .”

“You know how when I first got here you asked me why anyone would want to leave New York City and come back to North Star?”

“Yeah.”

“And that all you can think about right now is going to UT and getting out of North Star?”

“Yeah.”

“But do you know that in-between place? Where you’re excited to go to UT, but kinda scared to leave home?”

“Yeah,” Cal says, not able to look at me.

“That’s where I am right now. I’m in that in-between place. I don’t quite know where I want to be,” I say.

“Momma wants you to stay here,” Cal says, finally taking out his earbuds.

“I know,” I say.

“Are you wearing my sweatshirt?” Cal asks, tilting his head as it dawns on him.

“Yeah . . . sorry,” I say.

“All right then. I’m going to go ahead and run. I’m not trying to leave without you, but West is waiting.”

“No, that’s all right. You go on ahead, but I’m back on tomorrow. Say hi to West for me,” I say. Cal beams. We’re both thinking it. Say hi to your brother for me.

“Yeah, all right,” he says, putting his earbuds back in and running out through the center of town. I watch him trot away through the early morning haze. I walk down the driveway and back into the house.

“What are you doing?” Merry Carole asks, standing in the kitchen.

“I was just talking to Cal,” I say.

“What were you saying to him?”

“I was just trying to explain to him where I’m at.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“What?”

“He wants you to stay. I want you to stay. You don’t get to explain away why you’re leaving again and feel good because you made it sound poetic,” Merry Carole says, switching on the coffeemaker.

“I get to figure this out. You don’t get to bully me into doing what you want me to do,” I say, walking toward her.

“Bully you?!”

“Yes!”

“Oh, that’s just fine. That’s just fine. We’re some stopover every ten years while you get your life together, and if I ask you to actually think about being a part of this family, I’m a bully.”

“You’re not a stopover,” I say.

Merry Carole dismisses me out of hand with flicked fingers and a sniff. She can barely look at me.

I continue, “You want me to pick up right where Momma left off? Is that it? I open up that shack and spend day in and day out making the Number One for the drunks in that bar, all the while being Everett’s mistress? You get your life and I get hers? That’s your plan?” I walk into the kitchen and face her.

“Of course not.”

“Then tell me what my life looks like if I stay. Because from where I’m sitting, I don’t see a future except maybe being mercifully put down by Everett’s future wife when she finds us in bed together and then I get a gravestone with my most famous recipe on it. Not that I was a mother, or that I’ll be missed. No. Our mother’s legacy is a well-made chicken fried steak,” I say.

“Queenie, I—”

“I don’t know my place here. You say I can have that land, but what am I supposed to do with it? I want to drink the coffee in front of me, Merry Carole. I want to chug it down and luxuriate in it, I swear to God. And I love being here with you and Cal more than anything in the world, but . . . I can’t stomach being the spinster aunt who pops up in the background of all of your family photos.” Tears stream down my cheeks.

“Come here,” Merry Carole says, pulling me in for a hug. I shudder as she holds me tight.

“I become her if I leave and I become her if I stay,” I say, sobbing into the crook of her neck.

“All right now . . . all right now . . . shhhhh.” Merry Carole holds me tight, rocking us back and forth as she soothes me. I sob and wail as the epiphanies and realizations squirm and infest my entire body once again. I don’t know where I belong. I never have. I’ve been a stray dog trying to find someone to take me in for as long as I can remember. I was thankful just to find a quiet corner I could call my own where the most I could ask for, as far as comfort went, was a warm bed. Acceptance and being enough is my holy grail. So my life became about begging for scraps at the back door.

“I’m so sorry,” I say as we finally break apart.

“Don’t be,” Merry Carole says, swiping my bangs out of my eyes. She kisses me on my forehead, lingering there. I close my eyes as she smooths my hair. She nods; her brow is furrowed, her lips are pursed.

“I decided to make Yvonne Chapman’s meal,” I say.

“Good. Good,” Merry Carole says, her eyes darting around the kitchen as we finally collect ourselves.

“I’m thinking that decision probably has to do with this whole crying-marathon thing,” I say.

“I expect that’s that closure thing people like talking about.”

“We don’t have to decide everything right now,” I say.

“It’s that uncertainty part that I don’t like. I like my one hundred percent odds, you know,” she says, kissing me on the cheek. She turns around and pulls two coffee mugs from the cabinet. She pours coffee into each and passes me one.

“So we just go forward,” I say, trying out my theory. I inhale the luscious coffee smell.

“Right.”

“We stop living in the past, just like you said,” I say.

“No, I gave you that advice. Remember? I like giving people advice and not taking it myself,” she says, finally allowing a laugh.

“Why don’t I help out in the salon today?” I say. Merry Carole nods with a cautious smile.

Cal bursts through the front door, pulling his earbuds out as he looks at us standing in the kitchen.

“Are you guys fighting?” Cal asks.

“No, sweetie. We’re done fighting,” Merry Carole says, smoothing her hand over my arm as she starts making breakfast.

“You need any help?” I ask.

“No, sweetie. Thank you, though,” she says.

“So we’re not mad anymore? Is Aunt Queenie staying?” Cal asks, walking into the kitchen.

“We don’t know yet, honey,” Merry Carole says, looking from me to Cal.

“Oh, okay then,” Cal says, clearly disappointed. He sits down at the table with me, not meeting my gaze.

“We don’t have to decide everything right now,” I say. Merry Carole just shakes her head.

I fill my coffee mug once more and grab a fried pie from a Tupperware container in the fridge and meet Merry Carole in the salon later that morning. Cal went off to practice with as many questions as he’d had the day before. I called Warden Dale once the house was empty and agreed to cook for Yvonne Chapman. I also told him that her meal would be my last. I have to go forward and not back. Working at Shine Prison has changed me. I was forced to face some hidden truth that I was in no rush to uncover in each of these meals. With Yvonne’s meal I’ll exhume the last of the secrets. The experiment is over. It’s time for me to leave Shine Prison.

The next step is not as clear. After looking over the Raven offer, it sounds like just what I was looking for. They have a clear (bordering on fussy) vision for their menu, as they should have, but not in all the ways I’d like. They skew toward a more organic fresh fare, which I’m a fan of, but they also pride themselves on offering a healthier alternative to today’s comfort food. This is the part I could do without. I can see the clientele now, asking to substitute for the dairy and take off the bread and does this come without the meat and on and on. I’m afraid it wouldn’t take long before I was throttling some hipster in a knit cap with a lactose sensitivity problem.

As I said, this is exactly what I was looking for. Before. Before the little experiment. As I walk up to the salon, I let that idea bounce around in my head. What am I looking for now?