Where I Belong (24 page)

Getting out my phone, I text Kitsy.

Corrinne: Is Sonic open for brother-sister bonding?

Kitsy: Sure. Hurry.

I go to Tripp’s room and wake him up. He’s in pajamas emblazoned with cartoon characters. I figure I can give the fashion lesson another time.

“Is everything okay?” Tripp asks as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

“Everything’s great,” I say. “We’re just doing something we should have done earlier. Tiptoe.”

We both quietly sneak into the living room.

Now, I know heroes aren’t supposed to break laws, but sometimes they do. Think about Robin Hood. So when I grab Billie Jean’s keys, I know it’s for a greater cause.

Opening the door slowly, I am relieved it doesn’t squeak.

“No way,” Tripp says as I open the truck door for him.

“Hey,” I say, “aren’t brothers and sisters supposed to have secrets? This will be ours.”

“Way cool,” Tripp says, buckling up. “This is better
than the time you paid me five dollars not to tell Mom and Dad about your party.”

“And we’re not done yet,” I say as I put the car into reverse. For once, Billie Jean doesn’t sputter. She takes off without a sound.

“Where are we going?” Tripp asks as he peers out the window.

“You’ll see,” I say with my eyes on the road. This would almost be worth the arrest except my hair looks funky from my swim in the lake.

When we pull into the Sonic parking lot, Kitsy is cleaning off tables inside.

Glancing at her watch, she says, “I’m fixin’ to close. Well, I was supposed to close four minutes ago. But y’all are worth it. Let’s make it quick, though.”

Kitsy goes into the kitchen and puts her Sonic cap back on.

“Next,” she yells from behind the counter.

Tripp bounces up as if we were at the Pearly Gates.

“What’ll you have?” Kitsy asks.

“Reese’s Sonic Blast,” he says, looking up at the menu again. “And French fries,” he adds.

“And I’ll have a chocolate milk shake,” I say, and pull out my wallet.

“It’s the recession special,” Kitsy says. “Free.”

Kitsy works on our ice-cream treats and Tripp and I
sit in a booth. We’re the only customers left in the whole place.

“So, Tripp,” I say as I pull out napkins from the dispenser. “How’s everything going?”

Tripp grins. “This has been the best weekend ever.”

Reflecting back on Hurricane Waverly, I am not sure I can agree. But there’ve certainly been a lot of memorable moments.

Balancing the food on a tray, Kitsy walks over to set it down at our booth.

“We’ll actually take it to go,” I say, and hand Tripp his goods. “We’ve got to get Billie Jean back before anyone notices she’s disappeared. And we need some time to talk too.”

Tripp heads out the door, but I linger with Kitsy for a second.

“Kitsy,” I start, “thanks for everything this weekend. I can’t apologize for Waverly, but I know she just acts like that because she’s jealous of our friendship. Please forgive me for bringing all my northern drama south.”

“No worries,” Kitsy says. “Broken Spoke can use some Manhattan drama; it was pretty boring around here before you New Yorkers came and stirred it up. Anyways, she’s big hat, no cattle.”

Tripp and I exchange confused glances. We still aren’t fluent in Texan.

“She’s all talk, no action,” Kitsy translates. “Don’t worry about it at all.”

Well, that’s certainly true in any language, even Texan.

As I push open the door into the darkness, I look back at Kitsy, who is already wiping off our table.

“Thanks,” I say before shutting it again. As hard as it is to now remember life pre-recession, it’s even harder to remember life without Kitsy.

Pulling into the driveway after talking about sixth grade politics and the thirty-two reasons why the school needs a chess club, I decide I need to fess up.

“Hey, Tripp,” I say, “it was totally sweet that you wrote about me being a hero. But here’s the thing: I am not a good choice for a role model. I am moody, conniving, and selfish. There are better inspirational figures out there.”

“Corrinne,” Tripp says, unbuckling his seat belt, “you are all those things, but you have some good qualities too. And I just wrote that essay to practice my creative writing. No offense or anything. But after tonight, you are my hero. We just broke like fifteen laws. Sweet.”

Way to a twelve-year-old’s heart: lawbreaking. Lesson learned. I’ll remember that every time I feel like a bad sister.

Shutting our doors carefully, we sneak back into the house and into the living room without incident. I slurp
down my milk shake, bury it deep in the trash, kiss Tripp on the forehead, and get back in bed with my mom.

“Mmm,” she says, rolling over. “Smells like fried food.”

“You must be dreaming,” I say, and close my eyes.

Chapter 16

New York, New York

T
HE MONTH FOLLOWING
W
AVERLY’S VISIT PASSES QUICKLY
.

Via FedEx, Waverly sends me Magnolia cupcakes on dry ice as a thank-you gift. Her note says, “Bringing a little bit of the city to my favorite country girl.” A totally sweet thought, but honestly they aren’t as good as Grandma’s Mockingbird cupcakes, which have been in high demand since the football team is still undefeated.

Before her visit I could barely get Waverly on the phone, and now she constantly floods my inbox with texts.

Waverly: OMG. Smith made out with Vladlena.

Waverly: How do you make yourself exotic? Do you think I could learn Russian?

Waverly: Can I come back to the Spoke? The boys are hotter there. How’s that loser Rider?

I text back:

Corrinne: You were right. Rider just wanted music contacts. No more rock stars for me.

I don’t add how could I never trust him when he goes on tour when I can’t even trust him with my best friend in Broken Spoke. His band wound up placing second in the Dallas Battle of the Bands, so now as Kitsy puts it, “He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.” (Yankee translation: He’s got an ego problem.)

For Thanksgiving, Mom, Tripp, and I are going to New York to meet up with my dad. We invited Grandma and Grandpa, but they said that we should have time for just our family. Thinking about it, I actually really miss my dad, and I can’t believe it’s been three months since I’ve seen him. He’ll be happy that I am getting all A’s and never followed through on my plans to run away from Texas. Of course, it’s going to be weird because we are staying in a Midtown hotel and eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza. I’ll almost be a tourist in my own city—except I will never wear one of those I Heart NY shirts. Talk about tacky.

Plus, I get to see my baby: Sweetbread. Shakespeare was right: distance does make the heart grow fonder.

In Spanish class while we are supposed to be independently filling out verb sheets, Bubby leans over and asks if I am coming to Houston to see the State Championship
game at the big dome.

“Corrinne,” he whispers, “you are my good luck charm. We haven’t lost since you’ve been here. So if you don’t come and we blow it, I am going to have everyone blame you, not me. We’ll call it the Curse of Corrinne.”

Blushing, I whisper back, “I can’t come because I’m going to New York for Turkey Day. Aliens have to return to their mother planet at some point, you know.”

“Sucks,” he says. “And no, some aliens decide to stay. My planet does football a lot better than your planet. And you are missing the biggest thing that’s happened here in fifty-two years.”

Kitsy turns from her front-row seat and says, “Tell me about it. The game’s even going to be on local TV, and you aren’t going to see the boys play or me cheer. What if I get on the JumboTron? I want to wave to you.”

“I’ll be there in spirit,” I say. “And Kitsy, Waverly emailed; she said you were right about the blue eye shadow thing.”

Kitsy rolls her eyes. “Ah, Waverly.”

“What blue eye shadow thing?” Bubby asks.

“Girl talk,” I answer.

Señor Luis claps his hands and points at the three of us.

“Hola!”
he says. “Back to conjugating verbs. Corrinne, if you are going to flirt, do it in Spanish and practice your
español
.”

Flirt with Bubby? Get serious. Although he is definitely looking cuter and I did accept his Facebook friendship. But flirt? Please, I am not going native again, especially not after the Rider fiasco.

Flying over Manhattan at night reminds me exactly why I miss it. The city looks like a jewel box that’s all lit up. Who knew that steel and electricity could be so beautiful? A pain shoots through my chest, and I feel genuinely homesick for the first time in a while. It’s harder to be happy about Broken Spoke when I see the city again. My mom peers over me to look out the window. She squeezes my hand. Sharing a bed has made us a lot closer, apparently.

“You’ve really missed it?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, anticipating the smell of chestnuts on the street and Barneys holiday windows. Shopping won’t be nearly as much fun without a credit card, but I am looking forward to just being out in the crowds and seeing more trends than just Western.

“Thank you,” my mom says.

“For what?” I say.

“For being a good sport this fall,” Mom says, looking away from the window and at me. “You impressed me. You helped me get through all this. I know the high road isn’t always the paved one, but you found it nevertheless. Something I haven’t always been good at myself.”

I stare at my mom as I realize that Broken Spoke’s been really good for our relationship. Even I have to admit that. I bet she’ll even be nice and let me borrow her clothes—and they will actually fit now, since all the shoveling shrunk me to her size.

We take a taxi instead of a limo from the airport. Waiting in the long taxi line, I wear my winter coat for the first time in months. At first it feels good to be cold, and then it just gets annoying. It’s almost hard to remember why people live in the North.

When we get to our hotel, my dad’s waiting in the lobby. Tripp runs at him with the speed of a barrel racer.

Mom and I quickly follow and join the group hug. Taking in my dad’s cologne reminds me of all the Thanksgivings I spent on his shoulders watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

“Corrinne,” he says, looking down at my jeans and sweater, “you look so old and so, so casual.” Checking myself out, I nod. Texas has done a lot for my comfort level.

After dinner at our old neighborhood’s bistro, I meet Waverly and all of her boarding school friends at her apartment. Since she made the effort—however drama inducing it was—to get to know my life, I figure I should do the same. Vladlena’s visiting for the holiday since Russia
doesn’t exactly celebrate Thanksgiving. Apparently Smith moved on from her, and Waverly forgave her for the whole ordeal. Vladlena turns out to be super nice and keeps asking about Broken Spoke and the rodeo. After she saw Waverly’s pictures, she decided she must make it to Texas soon, so she can meet a real-life cowboy too. Ah, people and their Texan stereotypes.

All the kids sip cocktails, and I have a beer. It feels strange to drink anywhere but the field. After a while, everyone heads out to a karaoke place, but I decide to call it a night since tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and I’m seeing Sweetbread in the morning. Plus, my dad told us that he has big news. Three months later, I’m still recovering from his last piece of big news, so I decide to get my beauty sleep.

Even though both my mother and Waverly, the horse-hater, volunteered to come with me to visit Sweetbread, I decide to take a town car alone a) because I think Waverly’s just trying to make nice after that near kiss with Rider and b) because it’s really my and Sweetbread’s time to see each other.

I hope Sweetbread hasn’t forgotten me. Last night Waverly told me horror stories about her boarding school friends’ dogs not recognizing them. “Just trying to prepare you, Corrinne. Animals are not as smart as humans,”
Waverly said. “They don’t have long-term memories.”

But when I duck into Sweetbread’s stable, she neighs, like, eight times and pushes her head into my chest. Just like I thought, nobody could forget Corrinne Corcoran.

My trainer is away for the holiday, so I can’t ride Sweetbread because of, like, four thousand insurance laws. But I am happy just to talk: I am not sure why anyone pays for therapy when there are horses. Although therapists’ couches are probably a lot more comfortable than a barrel of hay and their offices probably don’t reek of manure either. But other than that, Sweetbread is as good a therapist as Sigmund Freud.

Brushing out Sweetbread’s hair, I confess my secret: “So there was this horse named Smudge, and I was riding him for work, not pleasure. And then there was this boy—okay, not just any boy. A rocker. And then I ended up in the hospital. So basically I learned that I shouldn’t jump on the back of just any horse that’ll have me. It’s dangerous.”

Talking with Sweetbread, I wonder if that’s what love is: the ability to go away and to come back again as if nothing has changed, even though everything has changed.

After telling Sweetbread about Kitsy, Sonic, and everything Broken Spoke–related, I say to her:

“Okay, here’s the deal. I am not exactly sure about the future. I did mention to Ginger about you coming there.
And she said we could work something out, which means I’ll be shoveling a lot of manure. But I’d do it for you. Hell, I did it for Rider. Big mistake. But Ginger’s barn is a bit different from here. A little less country club, a bit more country. When you come, I’ll introduce you to all your crazy, rodeo Texan cousins, even Smudge. Hey, maybe we can even start a dressage program down there.”

Sweetbread neighs again. Waverly was so wrong, animals are smart.

“I have to go, Sweetbread, but thanks for not forgetting me. I’ll be back.”

Kissing Sweetbread between the eyes like I always did, I head back to the city for Thanksgiving with the family.