Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,80
meaning it.
“Good. I saw you up at Paragon this morning,” Everett says.
“I went running with Cal.”
“I was wondering why he was a little late today. Now I know.”
“I wasn’t that slow.”
A moment passes.
“Did you know everyone knew about us? Like everyone?” I blurt out, the sun hitting my eyes as I look up at him. The question comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I’m just as shocked as Everett.
“What?”
“Yeah. Piggy Peggy enlightened me in the Homestead the other day. Told me they all knew, Laurel . . . everyone,” I say, my voice robotic and calm.
“She did what?” Everett’s eyes flare and his entire body stiffens.
“Yeah, she laid it all out for me. It was actually a pretty stirring tale of how I ruined the great Everett Coburn. Or at least that’s what people say,” I say, placing my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun.
“Right. Peggy can never just say something on her own. God forbid she has an original thought.”
“That’s what I told her.”
Everett is quiet.
“Queenie, I’m sorry,” Everett finally says.
“I know. Me, too,” I say. The truth. I stare over to where Merry Carole and Cal are standing with Fawn and Dee. Everett stops me.
“Do you want to talk about it? We could meet up later.”
“We’ve been talking about this for going on twenty years, I just—”
“I waited for years for you to come back. I can’t believe we’re already over,” he says. It’s not a mournful statement, Everett’s pissed.
“We never started,” I say.
“Queenie—”
I interrupt him. “No. Enough. Enough. I saw you walking with Arrow this morning and never knew you did that. I pride myself on thinking I know everything about you, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t. I know what a mistress knows. I’ve never even been inside your house.”
“You can come over tonight.”
“I just—after Cal and I ran this morning, I was brushing my teeth and there was this moth just circling, circling, circling the light. She just kept pounding herself against it over and over. Senseless. No thought for her own safety or mortality. She was dying—she was killing herself. So I turned around and shut off the light. And just like that, she flew away.”
“And in your mind you’re the moth in this scenario,” Everett says.
“Of course,” I say.
“Of course,” Everett repeats, with a bitter laugh. He continues, “Let me tell you what happens when you turn off that light. The moth waits. In darkness. With nothing to live for. And when the light returns, he can’t wait to hurl himself at it once more regardless of imminent death. It’s worth it.”
“How dare you,” I say, tears welling in my eyes.
“How dare I what?” Everett’s brow is furrowed and confused as he leans in closer.
“How dare you act like I had any choice in us being apart,” I say, wiping away a rogue tear. I continue, “Look around. These are your people, Everett. Not mine. No one stopped you in the Homestead, warning you about ruining poor Queenie Wake. No one ever casts you as the bad guy.”
“You remember when I grew my hair out? In . . . what was it?”
“Eleventh grade,” I say. We both smile.
“I got such a talking-to about that hair that I finally had to cut it. ‘No son of mine is going to be walking around this town looking like a roughneck.’ ”
“You never told me that.”
“Sometimes it’s just as hard always being cast as the good guy.”
“I’ve never thought about it like that.”
“You think it’s hard being a Wake, try being a Coburn.”
“I would love nothing more than to pick right back up where we left off, but we can’t. Piggy Peggy was right.”
“Piggy Peggy is an idiot,” Everett says, his eyes flaring.
“Which makes it all the more annoying that she was right. You love your parents. I had a complicated relationship with mine—”
“To say the least.”
“Right,” I say, laughing. I continue, “But we’re not them. We have to take what we want from our family and leave the rest behind. I’m not my mom—”
“No, you’re not. I’ve always told you that.”
“I know. I know you have,” I say, tears now streaming down my face. Everett hands me his handkerchief and I take it. His face is flushed and those green-pinwheel eyes are now rimmed in red.
I continue, “But you don’t see people as cut and dried, as your parents do. You saw me. You loved me despite my last name. Even Arrow, for crissakes. You