Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,9
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