Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,23
Carole’s computer, and access my e-mail. I print out another résumé, type up another cover letter, put on something presentable, and walk into town.
The humidity soaks me through within ten steps. But the more horrifying realization is, I’ve just ambled out in public. Disheveled and with no time to put up walls, I am ripe for the picking. I keep my head down and make my way to the post office—where the one public fax machine in town resides.
As I walk through the town square, I notice the decorations for tomorrow’s Fourth of July festivities going up. Red, white, and blue swaths of fabric hang from every balcony and windowsill. People have already lined up folding chairs along the parade route. If they couldn’t find folding chairs, they’ve staked out their territory with masking tape, crime-scene tape, and lengths of rope. North Star’s Fourth of July parade involves the entire town. If you’re not in the parade, you’re expected to be watching it from the sidelines. I hurry to the post office trying not to crumple my résumé and cover letter.
I arrive at the post office and wait in line. It’s just ten AM, so the old men of North Star are gathered in the post office. They all have breakfast at the Homestead, travel over to the post office where they spend the afternoon talking to the workers about politics and the state of things. Later, they’ll end the day at “the Mexican restaurant” and begin the entire tour again first thing tomorrow. I notice Felix Coburn, with his white shock of hair, in their ranks: he stands a head taller than the other men. His rangy frame is proof he’s a man who works the land. His black cowboy hat rests in his mitt of a hand as his velvety voice intones through the historic building.
Felix is usually not one to while away the hours, choosing rather to run his family’s 2,800-acre Paragon quarter horse farm. The Coburns have been breeding the finest Texas quarter horses since the early days, before there was even a registry. Augustus, their foundation sire, was a rodeo cutting champion; his line has produced winners in the rodeos ever since. In the 1950s, Paragon started a line of thoroughbreds with their foundation sire, Titus. Titus’s line now boasts one Preakness winner, while other descendants have placed in all the Triple Crown events. A Paragon-bred horse is the stuff of Texas legend. And Felix is leaving it all—2,800 acres, two hundred horses, and the Paragon name—to his eldest son, Everett.
As I wait in line I try not to make eye contact with the man who made it quite clear to Everett that no son of his would take up with “one of those grubby Wakes.” We were eleven years old and Everett had the wild idea that he could talk his father into changing his mind about my family. He wanted to be my boyfriend, he told me one day during recess as he presented me with a handmade card and a flower. I was beside myself. I’d loved Everett Coburn since the first day of kindergarten. I knew he felt the same, even then. We were just made for each other in that cheesy way people always claim to be in their marriage vows. He was my touchstone. Where I felt safe. I could survive every nightmarish night at home, just so I could return to school and see him and know that I wouldn’t have to say a thing. He would just know how to comfort me. He shielded me from bullies, but knew enough to let me fight my own battles. We also knew, even then, that whatever we felt during those early years was something we had to keep secret. The Wakes and the Coburns were the alpha and omega of North Star. We knew this even before we could write our own names.
So when Everett announced to his father that he wanted to take Queenie Wake to the Saturday-night dance, all hell broke loose. He was never to see me again. The Wake women were evil, Felix warned. I would ruin him, Felix told his eleven-year-old son. Everett never let Felix see him cry, but when he got to me his green eyes were rimmed in red and his face was wet from tears.
He shook as he told me he couldn’t see me anymore, and I remember looking at him and thinking, this is my love. This is my