Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,76

a way no one is really comfortable with.

“Good,” Cal says, now on to another stretch. I try to catch up.

“Good,” I repeat.

“Momma says you’re coming to the team barbecue,” Cal says, folding over, his fingertips brushing the pavement. I bend over, almost vomit, and stand back up.

“Yeah, I can’t wait,” I lie. I decide then that pinwheeling my arms is probably just as good as what Cal is doing. Cal straightens back up. And stares.

“What are you doing?” he asks, placing his heel on the curb and bending back over.

“Stretching,” I say, placing my heel on the curb next to him.

“Uh-huh,” Cal says.

We are quiet.

“So do you have any friends on the team? A girlfriend maybe?” I ask as all the blood rushes back to my head. Cal switches feet and I follow. I can hear him chuckling as he bends over.

“You mean are people as mean to me as they are to you and Momma,” Cal says.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say, caught off guard.

Cal stands and I follow. He meets my gaze.

“As long as I keep playing football the way I do, people will be nice to me, but it’s not like I think it’s real or nothin’. I just want to get to UT,” Cal says. He looks down at his watch and messes with the buttons. Setting the stopwatch, probably. A stopwatch that will most certainly end in me having a coronary on some back road of North Star.

“Oh,” I say, hating that he knows this at his age, but happy that he’s able to tell the difference.

“You ready?” he asks, motioning to the open road.

“As I’ll ever be,” I say. Cal and I start to jog down the street, past the Homestead.

“Some people are nice . . . for real,” Cal says, his breath completely regulated. I, on the other hand, am going to die.

“That’s good,” I cough out. We head out of the town square and into the maze of streets that leads out of town and into the rolling hills and plots of land as far as the eye can see.

“You all right?” Cal asks, trotting along like a colt.

“Sure . . . sure,” I say, keeping stride while trying not to notice that he’s probably going at half his normal pace. We run past a more upscale neighborhood just on the outskirts of the town square. We pass several houses that have their own signs boasting a North Star Stallion in their midst. My breathing steadies and I begin to enjoy the syncopation of our steps. Within ten minutes there are no houses. I’m reminded of how isolated all of these little Texas towns are. They were built around the corresponding railroad stations of old.

“How was your first last meal?” Cal asks, looking straight ahead.

“It was weird,” I say, looking at the low white fences, the high grass, and the grazing cattle just beyond.

“What did he order?” Cal asks. Is his pace getting a bit faster?

“Fried chicken, okra, potato salad, a chess pie, and some Blue Bell ice cream,” I say, my mouth watering even now.

“Chess pie?”

“It’s old fashioned. Basically a pecan pie without the pecans.”

“That seems kinda pointless. This way now,” Cal says, merging left onto another road.

“It’s good. Real sweet, though,” I say, noticing that this new road is turning into a hill. I’m going to kill this kid.

“He was a bad guy, you know. Real bad,” Cal says, looking around to check my reaction.

“Yeah, I heard,” I say, not wanting to remember it.

“I’d think cooking for someone who deserved to die would be better than cooking for someone who didn’t, though, you know? Like someone who was innocent?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I say. I think of those damn Starburst. I push the nightmarish thought out of my mind as quickly as I can.

“Not that you like cooking for either.”

“I do, actually,” I say. I can feel a line of sweat run down my neck and along my spine. My legs are starting to burn. The hill is getting steeper. Cal’s pace is unchanged.

“You enjoy it?”

“I mean, I don’t like the whole death row aspect, but I don’t know. Cooking in that kitchen feels like home to me,” I say, too tired to lie.

“That’s weird, Aunt Queenie,” Cal says, laughing.

“I know. Trust me, I know,” I say, leaning forward just a bit as the hill gets steeper still.

We climb the hill. Although we don’t speak, my labored breathing is loud enough to be a tad distracting. Cal keeps checking on me. Past