Nowhere but Home

by Liza Palmer

  I walk through the lobby of the McCormick one last time. Sassy Keryn is not working today. Too bad. I go out the revolving door to where the car is parked with its hazards on.

  “Checking out?” the doorman asks. I’ve worked with this man for six months.

  “I used to work here,” I say, opening the hatch and lifting in one of my bags.

  “Oh, oh. You need help?” he asks, lifting the other bag in and closing the hatch.

  “Oh, thanks,” I say, now awkward. Do I tip him?

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says, watching me fumble around in my jeans pockets for any loose change.

  “Thanks again.”

  “No problem. Good luck then.” I nod and smile.

  I walk over to the driver’s-side door and climb inside. The doorman walks around and shuts the door behind me. He scans the busy street and gives me a tap on the roof of my car when it’s safe to go. I give him a wave and pull out from the curb.

  The leaving is always so painless. One minute I’m in New York and the next I’m hurtling through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and then crossing into Virginia. I have officially left. But leaving one place means I’m going somewhere else, right? On to the next. I turn up the radio and sip the tea I bought just outside Roanoke.

  After driving for sixteen hours the day before, I finally crashed at a motel just outside Birmingham, Alabama. The drive from New York to North Star is just over twenty-four hours and I completed a little more than half of it. Twelve hours to go. I called Merry Carole and let her know I’d be getting to North Star that night around dinnertime. She said she hadn’t told Cal yet that I was coming. She did that not because she wanted to surprise him, but because she doesn’t trust me. I’ve said I’m coming home a thousand times, then called with regrets from some new place.

  In that scratchy bed, with the seemingly unending scan of headlights hitting my motel room window, I couldn’t sleep. Guilt. Going home to Merry Carole and Cal made me feel apologetic and heavy. Did I abandon them? Or was it better for Merry Carole not having me in town? I wanted to believe my absence made it better. Merry Carole was always way more palatable without me around—well, me and my temper anyway. As I gathered my things early that morning, I knew the answer. I’d been selfish. I guess I just didn’t know what else to do.

  Despite promises several times to come home, I’ve only been back once. I put everything I had into getting into the University of Texas. When I did, I’d never been more proud of myself. No Wake had ever gone to college—Merry Carole chose cosmetology school and had worked up to owning her own hair salon by twenty-four. We are a family whose bad reputations are earned. Our ancestry is lousy with convicts, murderers, and drug addicts, and that’s just the women. We come from a long line of beer-joint broads and low-life criminals. We have a pedigree of bastard children and their inconvenienced parents. This has always been our place in North Star, despite Merry Carole’s tireless efforts to change the legend. Having a mother like Brandi-Jaques Wake only solidified our lineage. And there was never a father in sight. We were the babies trotted out to blackmail the men in neighboring towns. The men who’d had a good time with our mother and now regretted ever laying eyes on her. We had this man’s nose, that man’s eyes, and this other man’s hair color . . . whenever it was time to pay the rent. Merry Carole counted up at least fifteen men who thought they were our father. This was not a happy revelation for them. We still don’t know if we’re true or half sisters. What we do know is we’re the only family we’ve got.

  It seems apt that I would pull into North Star under the cover of darkness. I sit at the blinking red light on the edge of town, just off the highway. I remember sitting at this light when I decided to leave Texas for good. I’d gone to college, worked in restaurants in and around Austin, and had gone home to North Star for a couple of fateful weeks. I sat at this very light and knew I was destined for greatness . . . anywhere but in North Star. I was going to take on the world. I was going to show them.

  The red light blinks. Welcoming me home. What’s the exact opposite of a blaze of glory? I look around at my dusty Subaru, cut-off jeans, and think: me. This. This is what the exact opposite of a blaze of glory looks like.

  I’m close to tears as I drive through the intersection and into the main square. The multicolored, exposed brick storefronts invite you to come on in! Air-conditioning! I pass the Homestead. The diner where you go to see and be seen. Old men talk about World War II and teenagers gather after football games. The Old West–style sign is still gnarled and just as tacky as I remember it. The church at the center of the town square is alive and welcoming. I roll down my window to hear the cicada song that so defined my childhood. Each storefront boasts its own rearing black stallion out front. North Star’s Stallion Batallion: the booster club for the high school football team.

  No denying it. I’m back.

  I slow down in front of Merry Carole’s salon, which is just on the outside of the town square, two large windows with “Too Hot to Handle” written in blue-and-red script as pretty and feminine as my sister. It’s a beautiful aged brick building with red doors and trailing ivy. A rearing black stallion statue is proudly in front. This one, unlike the others, is emblazoned with a gold number 5—Cal’s number. I pull down the long driveway to Merry Carole’s house, just behind her salon, and turn off the car. I am hot immediately. I step out into the humid North Star air for the first time in years and it’s as if I never left. It’s been waiting.

  “Aunt Queenie?” a man’s deep and drawling voice asks.

  “Cal, honey?!” I say, unable to control the emotion. He hurls a garbage bag into a bin just behind Merry Carole’s salon and looks at me, his head tilted and curious. He still has the same blond hair he had as a toddler. But now it falls across his clear blue eyes with an ease I could never muster as a teenager. As he walks over to me, I notice he has that Wake swagger, which, now that I see it on him, is nothing to be ashamed of.

  “What are you doing here?” Cal asks, lunging in for a hug. I am engulfed in pure power. If he squeezes me any harder, I’ll break in two.

  “You need to stop hugging me so I can see how truly giant you’ve gotten, sweetheart,” I say, holding him away from me. He’s wearing low-slung cargo shorts and a white tank top.

  “What are you doing here?” Cal asks again. He continues, “Does Momma know you’re here?” Cal looks into the warmly lit house just behind us.

  “She sure does. I think she wanted to surprise you. That and she didn’t believe me when I said I was coming on home for real this time,” I say, reaching up to swipe the bangs out of his eyes.

  “I don’t know why you’d want to,” Cal says, with a sidelong glance and rolled eyes.

  “Want to what?”

  “Come back to North Star,” Cal says.

  “Well, despite the time apart, it appears we are definitely related,” I say, laughing.

  “Last I heard you were in New York.”

  “Yep.”

  “I can’t believe you’d want to leave a place like that.”

  “It’s just not what it’s cracked up to be, sweetie. At least it wasn’t for me,” I say, lacing my arm through his and walking up the manicured pathway flanked by gold marigolds and white perennials (the North Star Stallion colors) to Merry Carole’s crisp red front door.

  “I’d like to put that statement into the column of things people say who haven’t been cooped up in North Star their whole lives.”

  I can’t help but smile.

  Cal opens the front door and I am met with . . . a home. I haven’t been inside a house, a real house, in years. I worked at this one restaurant in Las Vegas during the holidays and I got to attend the boss’s Christmas party—meaning, I was on the catering team who worked the affair. Merry Carole decorates in that way I’ve always appreciated: not hip enough to be someone you’re friends with but inviting enough to be like the friend’s mom’s house you coveted when you were a kid. There’s abundant usage of the
Lone Star flag, bits and bobs of Christmas whimsy (after her birthday and name), and the occasional black stallion; Merry Carole’s house defies designer labels. I let it wash over me and breathe in the familiar smell of her cooking. I crane my neck past Cal and am now itching to see her. How have I been away for so long?

  “Don’t tell me! Now, don’t you even tell me that that is my baby sister you brought in with you, Calvin Jaques Wake!” Merry Carole comes out of the kitchen, unlacing her Lone Star apron and poufing up her hair.

  “He found me outside,” I say, bringing Merry Carole in for a tight hug. The smell of her rose-water perfume mixed with Aqua Net tickles my nose just as it always has.

  “I can’t believe the surprise is ruined,” she says, slapping Cal on the arm and then quickly smoothing it over to “make it better.” He smiles, wrapping his arm around her.

  “The surprise isn’t ruined, Momma. It just happened outside,” Cal says.

  “Just . . . just look at you,” Merry Carole says, her voice catching.

  “You look just the same,” I say, taking her in, my smile wide. Blond Texas hair as high as she can get it and the tightest wardrobe only she, and her Jayne Mansfield–like curves, could pull off.

  The room falls silent as Merry Carole remains quiet, her face haunted and unable to hide that I, unlike her, do not look just the same. Cal, sensing her mood, rubs her back and tugs her closer. Great. It seems Merry Carole must be consoled by her only son to soldier on in the face of my gaunt appearance. My face flushes as my smile fades. The once welcoming living room now feels tight around me.

  “You just look thin and tired, sweetheart. The drive must have really taken it out of you . . . I, uh . . . you need to eat and get out of those clothes. Then I’m gonna burn everything you brought with you. Oh, speaking of, Cal dear—can you go get Queenie’s bags?”

  “You don’t have to . . . really,” I say, trying to gather myself.

  Merry Carole just looks at me. I dig my keys out of my pocket and flip them to Cal. He immediately heads outside.

  Once Cal is outside, Merry Carole walks over to me, her eyes welling up, black mascara rimming them. Her hand is clutched at her breasts, a silver cross suffocating in their depths. I can’t help but feel ashamed as she looks at me. What have I let happen to myself? Who have I become? Why didn’t I notice how bad I’d gotten? How much of myself did I erase?

  “It can’t be all that bad?” I ask.

  “You’re home now,” Merry Carole says.

  “It’s like you’ve seen a ghost,” I say.

  “No, no . . . time just goes by so fast is all,” Merry Carole equivocates.

  I see her studying me. This is not good. While I’ve always viewed Merry Carole as the only family I’ve got, Merry Carole has always treated me as her very own life-size doll. My entire childhood consisted of her dressing me up, doing my hair, and slathering me in makeup. She would hold entire beauty pageants in our backyard. I’d come out in different looks, her commentary peppering my walk down the plywood runway until she tearfully put a tinfoil tiara atop my perfect hair.

  Merry Carole flips my lank brown hair over my shoulder, letting my split ends trail through her long fingers.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I say.

  “It’s just . . . there’s no body, no height at all. Are you using any products? Any products to speak of?”

  “Yes, Merry Carole. I’m using a can of hair spray every day and this is the end result.” I can feel my smile coming back. Having Merry Carole step back in as my constant caretaker makes me feel safer than I have in years. She and my split ends will be dueling in the town square at high noon.

  “I don’t even understand what you’re talking about right now. And you’re not wearing any makeup, not even lip gloss. I can’t—” Merry Carole is beside herself. She wouldn’t dream of going to the mailbox without her face on. I have visions of her house catching on fire and she takes a quick second to check her face in the mirror before fleeing.

  “I showered this morning.”

  “A shower is just the . . . I can’t deal with this right now,” Merry Carole says, waving her hand over all of me to indicate that I am the offending this. The front door opens and slams shut.

  “You’ve only got two bags?” Cal asks, carrying my two pieces of luggage.

  “I travel light,” I say. Merry Carole rolls her eyes at my clichéd answer.

  “Where do you want ’em?” Cal asks.

  “Oh, I, uh . . .”

  “Not you, Queenie. Momma, where do you want ’em?” Cal says, laughing. As if I would know.

  “Can you put them in the guest room, sweetheart?” Merry Carole says, turning for the kitchen.

  Cal heads toward the back of the house with my two bags. Merry Carole motions for me to sit down at the dining table.

  “Can I help with anything?” I ask.

  “Not tonight. Tonight you are the guest of honor,” Merry Carole says, bringing plate after plate of food from the kitchen. There are barbecued ribs, biscuits, corn on the cob, and on and on. My mouth is watering just looking at it. Cal emerges from the guest room, waits for Merry Carole to sit, and then seats himself. She slaps my hand as I reach out for the plate of ribs.

  “We’re saying grace, Queen Elizabeth,” Merry Carole says, her eyes narrowed.

  “All right then, Jesus,” I say then quickly correct myself. “Sorry.”

  Cal laughs.

  Merry Carole takes my hand and Cal the other. We close our eyes.

  “Thank you, Lord, for the feast you have provided us with and for your continued love and guidance. Thank you for blessing me with a strong, healthy boy who any mom would be proud of. But on this night I want to thank you for bringing my baby sister home safe and sound to us, oh Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.” Merry Carole finishes, her eyes fluttering open as mascara streams down her face. She has yet to let go of my hand.

  “Amen,” I say, squeezing her hand and smiling as I try to swallow a wave of tears.

  “Amen,” Cal says, watching us like a tennis match.

  “Now dig in so we can get to burning them clothes of yours,” Merry Carole says with a wink.

  4

  Crow

  (and two eggs over medium, wheat toast, house potatoes, and a cup of coffee)

  I sleep like the dead. I remember starting to think about New York and being back in North Star and where I was going to go next and then the sun cracks through the red, white, and blue window treatments, letting me know it’s morning. I dreamed of nothing, and looking at the deep indentation I made in the little twin bed, I didn’t move all night.

  “Good morning.” I yawn, walking into the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” Merry Carole says, turning around from the kitchen counter.

  “Cal still asleep?” I say, pulling a stool up to the breakfast bar.

  “Football practice starts at six AM. He should be home soon, actually.”

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “That’s just the first practice. His second one is tonight when the sun goes down.”

  “So, where can I get a cup of coffee around here?” I ask.

  “Right there in the coffeemaker,” Merry Carole says, now leaning against the kitchen counter.

  “No, I mean like buy a cup of coffee. Is there a Starbucks here yet?” I ask.

  “You can go to the Homestead,” Merry Carole says.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

  “Well, I heard there’s a new coffee place called Around the Corner. It’s fifteen miles outside of town,” Merry Carole says, taking a seat at the table with her steaming mug of coffee.

  “Maybe I’ll try that,” I say.

  “Or you could just have a cup at home from that coffeemaker right there, you know—for free.” She sips.

  “I think I’m looking for stuff to do, you know? A plan,” I say, hopping down off my stool and walking toward the coffeemaker. I pour myself a cup.

  “Th
e creamer is in the fridge.” Merry Carole guides.

  “Thanks.” I pull open the refrigerator and am way too excited about the assortment of International Delight creamers that line the door. I choose the French Vanilla and pour it reverently into my mug. I breathe it in.

  “You’re welcome to help me out in the salon anytime you want. I know Fawn and Dee are dying to see you.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Really?” Merry Carole is caught off guard.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking forward to telling and retelling the tale of the string of epic failures that have led to me returning to a town I basically gave the finger to lo those many years ago.” I sit down at the dining room table and take a sip of coffee.

  “Sure.”

  Merry Carole and I fall silent.

  “Cal’s a great kid,” I finally say.

  “Isn’t he?”

  “And he looooves you.”

  “He’s all I’ve had through all—” Merry Carole stops herself. That guilt that settled on me in that motel room in Birmingham becomes heavier. Did Merry Carole want to go with me all those years ago? No. She loves North Star. Why don’t I? With my single-minded kitchen life in all those cities, I didn’t have time to ask these inconvenient questions. Finally. Something positive that came out of all those years. Merry Carole speaks quickly. “I don’t mean to make you feel bad. I just . . .”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too.”

  We are quiet.

  “But you’re thinking about the next city already, right?” Merry Carole asks, her voice clear, her eyes focused.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is North Star that bad?”

  “For me? Yes.”

  “That’s just ridiculous.”

  “Are you trying to tell me they’ve gotten better?” I say, motioning to the world just outside Merry Carole’s sanctuary of a home.

  “Are you trying to tell me that whatever life you had in New York or Los Angeles or whatever that place was with all the turquoise—”

  “Taos.”