Where I Belong (4 page)

Somehow, I made it through the entire plane ride to
Dallas without murdering Tripp, but I am now certain that I won’t make it through the four-hour car ride without committing a felony. Hey, jail is an option I have yet to pursue. I am pretty sure they have cable and AC there, and anywhere’s got to be better than here. And like Martha Stewart, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Ritchie have taught us, jail totally doesn’t ruin you. In fact, it can actually up your net worth. I’ll keep this in mind in case things go even further south.

“Do you want a boost, Corrinne?” Grandpa asks. He must have seen me just standing there, staring at the cab of the truck, wondering how to climb up in wedges and a dress without flashing a paparazzi no-no.

“No, Grandpa, thanks,” I say as I maneuver into the backseat. After me, Tripp jumps in as if he were on springs.

“This is awesome, Grandpa. I have never, ever been in a truck!” Tripp exclaims, looking around like he landed on Mars. Maybe this is Mars.

“Well, Billie Jean the Second, she is a beauty,” Grandpa says. “One hundred thousand miles and she drives like she’s gone only half that.”

One hundred thousand miles: Manhattan is only thirteen miles long. Where are these people driving? And who names a truck? The only thing we call automobiles in the city is “taxi.”

“You know, Corrinne, your mother named Billie Jean
the First when she was about your age. It took her forever to think of a name. And then one day: poof, she was inspired.” In the front seat, Grandma closes her fist and opens it slowly as she says “poof” and smirks to herself.

“Now, you kids must be tired, why don’t you try to get some sleep during the drive?” Grandpa says before starting the engine and weaving into the traffic.

Thank God.
I was wondering how I could make small talk for four hours. Closing my eyes, I pinch myself to make sure this is happening and fall asleep to Grandpa chirping, “And when you wake up, we’ll be in your new home, Broken Spoke!”

Tripp snoring like Shrek jerks me out of my sleep. The kid seriously needs to get his adenoids taken out, or he’ll never get a wife. I open only one eye since I am not up for a chat. It’s gotten completely dark, and we’re traveling down a deserted highway. I think I see a cow, but it’s hard to tell since we’re doing eighty in a rattling truck, and I am using only one eye. Over Tripp’s snoring, I hear Grandma whisper “Jenny Jo” and my ears perk up. Jenny Jo was my mother’s name before she escaped from Texas and took on the moniker J.J. I know this only from looking at her driver’s license. This is a genius time to eavesdrop since my mom never talks about her time in Broken Spoke, her pre-Manhattan life. Maybe I’ll even
hear some juicy long-lost secret and be able to blackmail my mom into sending me to Kent. Luckily, I have great hearing and my grandparents aren’t exactly experts at using library voices.

“You can’t still be mad, Sandy. It was twenty years ago,” Grandpa says.

“And after fifty-two years of marriage, you can’t still be stupid enough to tell me how to feel,” Grandma whispers back.

Fifty-two years? Whoa! That’s a long marriage. Every married couple I know put together hasn’t been married that long. My parents have been married twenty years and that’s, like, way weird in Manhattan. But what happened twenty years ago? That’s the year my parents got married.

“It’s not just what happened twenty years ago. It’s what happened during the twenty years after that. Sending checks in the mail, never coming to visit, and now this? She ships off her kids and stays back in the big city herself. I swear, if it weren’t for the thirteen hours in labor, I wouldn’t think she was mine,” Grandma hisses.

“Hush, Sandy, the grandchildren are in the car. You’ll wake them. See this time as an opportunity,” Grandpa says. I see him wrap his arm around her. Grandma scoots toward him on the bench and rests her head on his shoulder.

“It’s just I don’t know what to say to people. I didn’t
know how to talk about her staying away, and I don’t know how to talk about her returning, especially not under these circumstances,” Grandma says. “It’s not as if she actually wants to come home again, it’s just that she has no other choice.”

“Don’t worry about what people say. It ain’t anyone’s business,” Grandpa responds, and squeezes Grandma close. “And it might even be fun to have a full house.”

Hold on. This is big. Something happened twenty years ago, the year that my parents got married. And Grandma, despite all her jam gifting, is apparently still fuming.

And if I heard right, she doesn’t want us here any more than I want to be here. If I play this all right, it doesn’t look like I’ll have to stay long in Texas after all.

“Wake up, Corrinne, wake up.” Tripp shakes me.

As I open both eyes, I realize this is no dream. I click my wedges three times, and think, “There’s no place like New York.” Sadly, it doesn’t work and I am still sitting next to Tripp in Billie Jean the Second.

“Welcome to Broken Spoke, Tripp and Corrinne,” Grandpa announces like an annoying game show host.

He nudges Grandma with his elbow and says, “How about we
don’t
wait until morning for the grand tour?”

“It’s late, Billy,” Grandma says, and shakes her head.

“Oops,” Grandpa says, turning his head to the backseat
to wink. “I made a wrong turn. Looks like we’ll have to do the tour.”

At the stop sign, Grandpa makes a left onto Main Street. There’s only one streetlight, but it’s bright enough to illuminate the nothingness of the small town’s strip.

“I’m Billy Bo Houston, and I’ll be your tour guide,” Grandpa says as he mimes a microphone with his right hand and steers with his left. It’s sad because he’s trying so hard. He reminds me of the dorky kids at school who try desperately to be cool, which just makes them even more unbearable.

“First on your left, you’ll see our grocery store. We used to have to drive to another town, but in 1989, we got our own fine Piggy Wiggly. For what we can’t grow in the fields or slaughter in houses, it does quite well. On Fridays, they got samples.”

I don’t want to admit it, but grocery stores have always intrigued me. In the city, we have Whole Foods and some teeny tiny, jam-packed markets. But my mom told me that in small towns sometimes you have the whole grocery aisle to yourself. I’ve never seen that before. Grocery stores in the city are war zones. That’s why I use delivery. Let someone else fight my battles. I am happy to tip three dollars for that.

“And on your right, you’ll see Chin’s Chinese Restaurant. The Chins have been here for over fifty years. At
first, no one wanted to touch the egg rolls, and there were rumors of dog meat. As time passed, people got wise, and now it’s our most popular restaurant. There’s even a lunch buffet.”

“It’s also our only sit-down restaurant,” Grandma adds.

Great, I think. Do people know how many calories are in General Tso’s chicken? It’s like a week’s worth of food.

Grandpa ignores Grandma’s comment and keeps on driving slowly down Main Street. “And here is the hardware store, Hank’s Handy Hardware. Hank and I were classmates, Broken Spoke class of 1958. Same year Grandma and I got married. ’Twas a good year.

“And please look to your right; this is where Grandma and I had our first date. Of course, it wasn’t a Sonic back then. It was called Peppermint Twist. But the concept is the same. I am sure that you both will be spending a lot of time here in the future because it’s where the young ‘Spokers’ hang out. They even have a happy hour and all the ice cream is half off!”

I look at the deserted Sonic, a fast-food/ice-cream-joint hybrid with its cheesy drive-up order stations and neon red and yellow signs. For a second, I contemplate asking Grandpa to pull over so I can vomit. I have seen Sonic commercials, but in what alternate universe did Sonic become the hub of my social life? And ice-cream happy hours? Please. What makes you happy about getting fat? This is just
fantastic.
While my friends back home are
sneaking into clubs because someone’s brother is dating the starlet of the month, I’ll be getting super-sized eating brownie Sonic Blasts by myself.

“And that concludes our tour,” Grandpa says. “We’ll save the schools for morning when you can see our football field. We even got a new scoreboard. This one’s a work of art, better than any of that fancy, shmancy stuff I saw in New York’s museums. It doesn’t just sit there looking pretty. The scoreboard has a function and it has a purpose. That’s true beauty, in my opinion.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Grandma says. “Tell that to the teachers who haven’t gotten a raise in ten years.”

“As you can tell, Grandma’s not really a Mockingbird fan. Funny, as she was a Mockingbirdette back in the day.” Grandpa laughs.

I don’t even bother to ask what a Mockingbirdette is.

“Did you play football, Grandpa?” Tripp pipes in.

Grandpa slams on the brakes, screeching to a halt before putting the car in park. “Did I play football?” Grandpa yanks a large gold ring with a red stone off his right hand and passes it back to Tripp. “Won state in 1958, the last year this town ever did that.”

Tripp’s face lights up. “Way cool, Grandpa. Our prep school’s football team is only for the kids who are too fat for lacrosse. We get killed by all the other schools.”

I forgot that football is God in Texas. That must be the other half of the social life, half football, half hanging out
at the Sonic. Because I have no desire to see any of this in person, I need to initiate my plan to get out of here ASAP. Even after a few hours, I can already feel myself turning into a loser.

After driving around and seeing lots of teeny tiny houses, more than a few of which need paint jobs, we pull into the driveway of what appears to be a cottage designed for little people.

“Home, sweet home,” Grandpa says. “I forgot that y’all have never seen the place where your mother grew up. Lots of good memories here.”

“A lot of memories, that’s true at least.” Grandma sighs. Grandma’s turning out to be a total Debby Downer, and I’m loving it.

“You two follow Grandma in, and I’ll fetch the bags,” Grandpa says.

Grandma opens the unlocked red door, and we step inside.

“I am no tour guide like your grandpa, but I’ll show you around the place so you kids feel at home.” Grandma stands in the middle of the living room, whose furniture reminds me of
The Golden Girls
minus the Floridian element. Suddenly, I see why they don’t lock the door; there’s nothing worth stealing.

She points to the right. “That’s the kitchen.”

She points to the left. “That’s the bathroom.”

She points ahead. “That’s Grandpa and my room.”

She points to the left again. “That door, that’s my sewing room. Tripp, you’ll be staying there. We got a nice daybed for you. Your grandpa insisted on the expensive one.”

And then Grandma points to the door to the right of that. “And Corrinne, you and your mother will stay here in the guest bedroom, Jenny Jo’s old room.”

Hold on: Instead of sharing a room with Waverly, I am sharing a room with my own mother! Wow. This just went even further south. And this entire house is smaller than any of my friends’ apartments. I thought people didn’t live in the city because they want space. There’s no space here. All I see is cramped, old furniture and knick-knacks and an embroidered sign that says
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
. What blessings? No wonder my mom got out of this place. I never knew how poor Grandma and Grandpa were, and now my parents foist their kids on them. How insensitive are they?

But I just smile because I need Grandma on my side if I am ever getting out of here. See, Mom? I am practicing my filter already.

“Scoot. Y’all run off to bed now. It’s way past your bedtime,” Grandma says, and I am happy to oblige because I have some serious business to attend to.

“Good night, kids,” Grandpa says, and he bear-hugs both Tripp and me at the same time. He smells like a
construction site mixed with cinnamon.

In my room I don’t bother to unpack. First of all, I can’t find a closet. There’s a tiny door with one hanging rack, but I can’t believe that’s the closet. I couldn’t fit half my suitcase into it. And why should I even bother? I’ll be out of here before I know it. I take out my phone and promptly ignore “her” texts.

Her: You make it?

Her: You find your grandparents?

Her: Call!!

Her: At least have Grandma call!!

I dial up Waverly instead.

“Did you make it?” Waverly says, answering on the first ring. “Have you seen any cowboys? Is it really true that everything—I mean
everything
—is bigger in Texas?”

“Yes, I made it. I didn’t see any cowboys, but I think I might have seen a cow. And Texas might be bigger, but it
is not
better. I have a plan though, so don’t go replacing me yet.”

“Please,” Waverly says. “I would never un-BFF you. Some people might say mean things about you, but not me. I keep telling everyone that you’re not sure about Kent and that you are still figuring things out. No worries: I am totally covering your back.”

I sigh and collapse into bed; definitely no pillow top on this baby.

“Thanks,” I mutter. What are kids saying about me? I’ve been gossip fodder before, but always for good PR like the time that I lured Octavia Johnson’s boyfriend away. Or the time that I managed to throw a Halloween party in my apartment while my parents were away in Bermuda without getting caught. My bribing the babysitter and my brother is legendary. But now, gossip and me in the same sentence doesn’t sound good. Ugh, I need to get back to New York and to Kent before this ruins me. Or I need to hire a publicist; they can spin anything. But unless publicists work pro bono, there’s no way I can afford one since my parents froze my credit cards.

“I’ve got to go, Corrinne,” Waverly says. “I’m heading to some Chinatown tea place that doesn’t card after midnight, but I am thinking of you.”

“Maybe pray for me too; thoughts might not be enough,” I say, imagining Waverly all dressed up, looking out her bedroom window at the city’s lights. She’s about to start a night and nobody knows how it’ll end. That used to be me. Now I am in a tiny, steamy room in Texas with one small crank window and am about to go to bed at midnight or eleven Central. The only thing the future promises me is misery and Sonic Blasts. But thinking about Sonic reminds me of Grandma and Grandpa’s conversation in the truck. What happened twenty years ago and how can I use it to my advantage?