Where I Belong (2 page)

“Corrinne, is something wrong with your phone again? Why didn’t you answer when I called twice? You know I don’t like texting,” my mom says as she stirs the chicken steeped in red wine. She stops churning to take a sip out of a very full glass of white wine.

“Why are you cooking, Mom? And where’d you get that apron? Is Maria okay?” I say, looking around for our fifty-something Mexican housekeeper, who’s always at the apartment until at least eight at night. She’s worked for our family for years and helps to keep our lives out of madness.

“Maria’s fine. She took the train back to Coney Island this afternoon. And I’ve cooked before, Corrinne. Just not in a while. Besides, I thought it would be nice to have some real food for our meeting.”

“Whatever; I have a dinner date at seven thirty, so let’s make it quick.”

“Corrinne, this is important. Your father’s home, um,
he’s home early for it,” my mom says, and turns back to the stove.

This must be a big deal because my dad and I usually only exchange glances on Saturday mornings.

“Corrinne, one more thing: Set the table.”

I give my mother a look like she must not have taken her meds. Yes, we have a kitchen table. And a dining room table. But we don’t set them, and we don’t eat at them. My mom picks at carrots out of the fridge. I order in miso soup and sit at the counter with my computer. And my little brother, Tripp, uses an end table to eat the grease he’s had delivered from the diner while he watches terrible TV. It’s what we do, and it works.

But my mother’s face goes all desperate in a way I’ve never seen before, so I put out four plates, silverware, and three wineglasses: hopefully, my parents will at least give me a little vino for doing chores.

“Thanks, Corrinne,” my mother says, pushing the hair out of her face. “Go get your brother, please,” she adds.

I walk to the hallway.

“Tripp,” I say as I approach his door. No answer, so I knock slowly. Tripp’s twelve, and ever since the day I found a Miley Cyrus poster in his desk drawer, I no longer enter this room.

Ninety-five pounds of sandy blond hair and blue eyes hop out of the room.

“Do you know anything about this meeting?” he asks. He raises his eyebrows, his blue eyes sparkle a little bit (why are mine brown?), and I get mad all over again that he never let me enter him into modeling contests. I could’ve made a lot of money. He’s way cuter than any Disney teenybopper.

“No, it’s weird. Who has family meetings?” I say. “I hope they’re not getting divorced or having a baby.” It’s bad enough that I have to share everything with Tripp; I don’t feel like getting my inheritance divided into thirds.

Tripp’s eyes widen and his mouth hangs open. He looks like he’s only eight years old. “You think they’re having a baby?” Tripp says slowly.

I feel kind of bad because Tripp is definitely the baby and the favorite, so this would kill him. “Of course not, why would they have another one after what happened with you? It’s an experiment gone seriously wrong.”

“You’re mean, Corrinne.” Tripp sticks his tongue out and pushes me aside. “Do you want to hear about my chess game?”

“No.” I shake my head. “And in five years, you are going to wish you picked a cooler hobby than chess. Girls don’t really dig guys who spend all their time playing with figurines.”

Tripp squints his eyes at me. “They aren’t figurines; they are kings, queens, knights, bishops, rooks, and pawns.
And I am not taking love advice from someone who is in high school and doesn’t even have a boyfriend.”

Beelining for the dining room, I don’t look back at Tripp or bother to explain to him that being single is a personal choice. Why would I get a boyfriend before boarding school? That’d totally hurt my chances with upperclassmen, who have both cars and muscles, unlike my current classmates.

Tripp and I approach the table at the same time that my father and mother do. It’s awkward because none of us knows where to sit. We just stand and wait for someone to make a move even though it shouldn’t really matter since it’s a large circular table. Finally, Tripp sits down, I sit next to him, and Mom and Dad follow.

We pass around the food on the previously unused lazy Susan. Although I have seen family scenes like this on TV, it feels strangely intimate in real life. All those public service announcements about eating with your children and how it does them good. Wrong. It’s actually just awkward. And my wineglass is filled with water. Awesome. If I am late to my girls’ dinner because my parents want to pretend we’re one of those TV families that sit around a table and ask how everyone’s day went, I am going to be ticked off.

“So what’s the big announcement?” Tripp implores. “A puppy?”

“How old are you?” I ask. “Do me a favor; don’t tell
people we’re related.” If I had any say in my birth order, I would’ve chosen an older brother with hot friends. But since I wasn’t consulted, I got stuck with Tripp.

“Corrinne, use your filter,” my mom says. This is a common phrase in our household. Apparently, my parents aren’t aware of the whole freedom of speech deal.

Dad breaks in, “Kids, this isn’t easy, but we’ve got some big changes coming up in the future.”

“Not a baby!” Tripp cries.

“Not a baby,” Mom answers, and she almost breaks a smile.

“Last week the bank made its final round of layoffs,” Dad starts.

I suddenly realize that my fifty-something father, who’s already ten years older than my mother, looks about ten years older than the last time I saw him. His gray speckled hair doesn’t look classy; it just looks gray in an elderly way. I make a mental note to tell my mom that her hair guy Ricardo should fix this. And Dad’s suit is wrinkled. I hope he’s not sick.

“…And so we’re going to need to make some changes…” My mom trails off as she pushes her chicken around her plate.

My parents just stare at me and appear to be waiting for me to respond. I must’ve missed something during that whole gray-hair train of thought.

“Sorry, guys, I am way too discombobulated. Can we do a rewind?” I say, checking my watch.

“Honey, I said that I got laid off, and we lost a significant chunk of savings with a bad investment, a Madoff-type situation,” my dad says.

“What? Who is Madoff?” I ask. This is getting more
Twilight Zone
by the second.

“What have I been paying your school tuition for?” My mom puts down her fork, grabs her head, and gazes at the table.

“Madoff is a man who said he invested money when he did not. Amazingly, it’s happened again,” my dad says very slowly as if he is processing it himself. “And it’s happened to us. A person I considered a dear friend of mine had a firm where we invested our entire savings. Except he didn’t actually invest our money; he embezzled it. We lost nearly every dime, including the cash that we just invested from the sale of the Nantucket cottage, the money we were supposed to use for the new Nantucket house.” And my dad swallows hard as if he had just eaten a jawbreaker whole.

“What are the changes for us?” Tripp asks before picking up a leg of chicken and ingesting it almost whole. He’s a caveman, but a small one like Bam-Bam from
The Flintstones.
Of course, he got the great metabolism, too.

“Luckily, one of your granddad’s old associates who heard about my job situation offered me a job in
Dubai—that’s in the Middle East—and it will help us start earning again, but it doesn’t pay nearly as much as my old job. We have to make a lot of sacrifices. First thing is that we’ll need to sell the apartment,” says Dad.

Mom reaches over and puts her hand on my dad’s shoulder.

She opens her mouth, pauses, and then starts again. “Kids, we need to save money wherever we can to cover ourselves. I’m sorry, Corrinne, but you won’t be going to Kent in the fall, and the three of us…” My mom trails off again.

Taking a deep breath, she continues, “The three of us are going to Broken Spoke to move in with my parents. We’re doing this because we can’t afford to live in the apartment or in New York City in general. It’s way too expensive. Plus, we owe a lot of money for the new Nantucket house construction. We have to try to sell the apartment quickly to cover these debts. And we are going to be lucky if we don’t have to declare bankruptcy.”

At this, I am pretty sure I caught asthma. I can’t breathe. I’m not going to KENT!!! How can this be? If we did get to be roommates, Waverly and I had decided we would do coral and turquoise as our color palette. (Fuchsia and lime is way overdone.) Smith Cunnington, the hottest senior at Kent, has already requested my Facebook friendship,
and
the equestrian coach told me that I was
varsity material after she saw me ride Sweetbread in my last competition.

“It’s a recession, kids,” my dad says. “We’ll overcome it, but it takes time. I am lucky to get another job at all. Unemployment is over thirteen percent.”

Tripp plays with his food a bit and then smiles. “Don’t worry, Dad. Texas will be okay. I’ll miss you, but I am definitely excited to get cowboy boots.”

Wait, cowboy boots? Why are we talking about appropriate footwear for Texas? Holy Holly Golightly! Not only am I not going to Kent, but I am also moving to Texas. This must be an April Fools’ joke, except it’s August and my parents don’t do funny. And Tripp’s excited? Why can’t he be a normal kid like everyone else and throw tantrums at the appropriate times?

“Tripp, you’ve never even been to Texas,” I argue. “And we barely know your parents, Mom. It’s messed up that we’re not even allowed to talk to anyone on the subway, and all of a sudden it’s okay to live with near strangers in the middle of nowhere.”

Fact: We’ve met Mom’s parents on only three occasions, and each time they visited us in New York. Each trip, my mom went nuts trying to convince her parents that they didn’t want to do the double-decker bus tour
again
or eat at the Olive Garden in Times Square
again.
Grandma and Grandpa are nice and all, but the only instance that I
see the words
Broken Spoke
is when I write thank-you letters for Grandma’s homemade blackberry jam.

Mom picks up her fork, goes to eat, and puts it down again. “Well, this will give you an opportunity to get to know them and the town I grew up in,” she says.

The town she grew up in? The words
Broken Spoke
never pass my mother’s collagen-infused lips. When people ask my mom where she is from, she says, “The Dallas area.” I know from getting bored in geography class that Broken Spoke is only in the Dallas area if that area is 175 miles wide and extends to Bumble Fricking Nowhere.

Mom gulps down the rest of her wine and gently puts her hand over my dad’s.

“And kids, one more thing: School starts in two weeks in Texas, so we need to begin packing,” she adds.

“OMG. This better be a joke. I didn’t have a PSAT tutor as a freshmen to get into the best boarding school so I could end up in a small-town school in Texas. Please don’t tell me it’s a public school. And what about Sweetbread? Won’t it be hot in Texas for her? She’s used to Connecticut weather. I am going to count down from ten, and before I get to one you guys will let me know that this is a joke.”

I push my chair out, and it makes a loud screeching noise. Tripp plugs his ears.

“Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…” I count, then pause for a long
time. My parents’ faces haven’t changed except they are now looking at me with raised eyebrows and tired eyes. I don’t even bother saying “one.” This isn’t a joke. This is a nightmare.

“Corrinne, Sweetbread’s going to stay at the riding club in Connecticut. I called them. They were nice enough to cut us a deal and we won’t have to sell her,” Dad says. “We worked hard to let you keep her.”

“Not that there’s a good market for overpriced thoroughbreds anyway,” my mom says softly but loud enough for me to hear.

“Sweetbread’s a Trakehner horse, Mom. They are rare purebreds, not that you’ve ever really paid attention to my riding. I am out of here. Wait, any more bad news, anyone? Is the world ending tomorrow? Actually, that would be great news right about now.”

Leaving my uneaten food, I storm to my room and text Waverly.

Corrinne: SOS. Coming to you. Don’t drink all the wine. I need it for inspiration to figure out how 2 save my life.

Outside the apartment, I temporarily debate taking the subway since we are apparently now almost bankrupt, but I don’t have the energy. I flag down a cab, get in, rest my head against the window, and cry.

Chapter 2

National Sweetbread

I
NSTEAD OF CONSTRUCTING A PLAN
to somehow still attend Kent, I drowned my sorrows with wine and sobbed at the table. And in the following days, I’ve gotten no closer to constructing a plan. So now it’s two days before the day of doom—the move to Texas—and I’ve decided to launch one last desperate plea. If I am really going to Texas, Sweetbread is coming with me. I walk into the living room determined to convince my parents of this.

“Dad,” I start, “I’ve seen you do business, and I know that sometimes in business you have to pull the ultimatum card. So here it is: I am not going to Texas without Sweetbread.”

My parents exchange quick glances with each other and then look at me with this-is-not-up-for-discussion faces.

“Corrinne,” my dad starts, “you should try being more grateful.”

Grateful for what? My misery? But I keep these thoughts to myself. The one who talks the most in negotiations always loses. Or at least I think that’s the rule.

“It could be so much worse, Corrinne,” my mom says as she pats my back. “You don’t have to sell Sweetbread. Or at least not right now.”

And then I lose it: I start bawling. I can’t even speak, much less negotiate. If I could talk, I would tell my parents that I would sell Tripp on the black market before I even considered selling Sweetbread. My only worry is that there’s not a good market for useless little brothers. According to the news, there’s not a good market for anything right now.

“You should go say good-bye to her tomorrow,” my mom says, coming over to wrap her arms around me. I don’t hug her back. “You’ll feel better when you talk to Sweetbread. And you’ll see her again soon, Corrinne. Bad times don’t last forever.”