Goodbye from Nowhere Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Part I: Thanksgiving

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II: Spring

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part III: Summer, Nowhere Farm

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part IV: Coach Kyle

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Sara Zarr

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part I

  Thanksgiving

  1

  KYLE ADJUSTED the rearview mirror and watched the freeway unspool behind him for a few seconds, keeping a safe distance from the other cars, driving at the speed of traffic. He loved being in motion. A glance at Nadia, shotgun, then back at the road.

  “I’m excited for you to meet my family,” he said.

  “Do you think they’ll like me?” Nadia asked.

  He laughed. That open smile, how good she was at listening, how smart she was, her sweet voice . . . no way every last member of the Baker family would not love her.

  “Yeah. They’ll like you.”

  He rested his hand on her leg. The hand-on-the-leg-while-driving thing was one of the many unexpectedly comforting aspects of being in an actual relationship. He remembered making this same trip to his grandparents’ house as a kid for summers and holidays, wedged in the back seat of the car—Taylor on one side and Megan on the other—with a clear view of everything that went on between their mom and dad. Her hand on his leg, his hand on hers. The little touches on the arms and shoulders. How his mom sometimes got in a yoga pose in the passenger seat to relieve her back, one bare foot pressing against the outside of his dad’s thigh while he drove. They were barely two separate bodies.

  “I like you too, by the way,” Kyle added.

  “That’s one thing I’m not worried about, babe.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “I’m not worried worried. Just . . . there’s going to be a lot of them and only one of me.” She tapped his fingers with hers. “What if I don’t like them? And then I’m stuck there, six hours from home.”

  “Seven with traffic. At least.”

  “My point.”

  “Okay, my grandpa can sometimes come off like he thinks no one but him knows anything. And Aunt Brenda gets really extra after a few drinks, and you’ve met my dad—”

  “Aw, I like your dad.”

  “He’s hardly ever around enough for you to know if you like him.”

  “He’s nice, though.”

  “Yeah, he’s nice.” Nice and busy. Nice and stressed. Nice and quiet. “Anyway, worst case scenario, everyone drives you crazy, and you just hang with me and Emily.”

  “She’s the one I’m most worried about.”

  “Why?”

  Nadia laughed. “Really?”

  Emily was Kyle’s closest cousin, only a few months apart in age, so they’d always defaulted to each other at every holiday, every cousin camp at the farm, every Baker family get-together. And ever since they had both gotten phones around ninth grade, they texted all the time.

  “You’ll love Emily. She’s the coolest.”

  “Cool and pretty.”

  “I guess.” Kyle had to take his hand off her leg to get across two lanes of traffic to their exit. They were going to stop in San Jose for ramen before driving the last couple hours up to the farm.

  Nadia stayed quiet.

  “She’ll like you,” he assured her. “You’ll like her. It’ll be great. She’s not how you probably think. She’s not like a popular mean girl or something.”

  “I’ve seen pictures.”

  “She’s kind of a nerd, though. I don’t even think she has that many friends.”

  “It’s okay, Kyle,” Nadia said. “You don’t have to make her sound like a loser so I can feel better.” She gripped his thigh. “I’m excited to eat. Thanks for making the reservation.”

  It had been literally the first time he’d ever made a restaurant reservation, and he felt super grown-up about it. And about driving to a family thing in his own car—his provisional license restrictions lifted a few weeks ago—with his own girlfriend and no parents or sisters, and as he circled the streets around the restaurant, he saw it would also be the first time he’d use a valet, because a parking spot was not in the plan. He even had some cash in his pocket to take care of it. From his dad, but still.

  He helped Nadia out of the car while the valet got behind the wheel. “Milady,” Kyle said as she took his extended hand.

  She gave him a quick kiss and his head spun slightly and he imagined them together for a long time. Driving to the farm every Thanksgiving. Reminiscing about this one: the ramen place, the first time Nadia met his whole family. Becoming a real couple, like Aunt Brenda and Uncle Dale, like Aunt Jenny and Uncle Mike. Like his mom and dad.

  “I have to pee so bad,” Nadia said.

  “We’re almost there.”

  “You’ve been saying that for half an hour.”

  Kyle could tell she wasn’t mad, though. They’d been getting along so good. Cooper had acted like this trip was the worst idea ever. “Six hours in the car, dude, each way. Plus all the time with your family? Who does that unless you’re, like, engaged?” Kyle brushed him off but had also worried, a little, ever since that conversation. Like Nadia would turn into a different person or something. She didn’t, though. She was just herself.

  “You can’t tell in the dark, but it’s really pretty up here. You’ll see tomorrow.”

  When you lived in or near the cities, it was easy forget California was mostly agricultural land. Up where Kyle’s grandparents lived, the sprawl of Silicon Valley and San Francisco gave way to fields and hills and vineyards, grazing cows and horses, trees and the bald patches where fires had burned. Before you knew it, you were in the country.

  They drove for a while, quiet and holding hands. Then he pointed out the first sign to Nadia.

  Nowhere Farm

  Pears, Apples, Grapes, Olives, and More

  Hanging under that was the part of the sign that changed a few times a year:

  U-Pick CLOSED for Season

  THANK YOU!!!

  Nadia took her foot off the dashboard. “Nowhere Farm. That’s them? I love that.”

  “I guess when my grandparents bought it, right after they got married, my grandma’s mom freaked out on her, told she was going to ruin her life, moving to the middle of nowhere with a nobody like my grandpa.” They’d grown apples, grapes—wine and table—some olives, and also silage crops they could sell to ranchers to feed livestock. Now they only did a little of the farming themselves, leasing out various parts of the farm to other people who actually did the work and got most of the profits, but no one could say they’d even come close to ruining their lives.

  “Harsh. So naming it Nowhere was kind of a screw-you to her mother?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “It’s hardly nowhere, though,” Nadia said. “People come here for expensive vacations and stuff. It’s definitely a
somewhere.”

  “Irony.”

  They got to the second sign: Nowhere Farm 1 Mi. He turned down the long drive, his excitement building. He pointed ahead. “Up there is the swing set my dad and Uncle Mike built after Megan was born.” Megan, Kyle’s sister and the oldest of all the cousins, wasn’t even coming this year because she wasn’t speaking to their parents. Again.

  Nadia clutched her stomach. “I’m nervous, Kyle. And I super have to pee. Like right away.”

  “Good news, the house has bathrooms.”

  It had gotten pretty dark out, but the lights in the huge kitchen were on and the front and back patio lights were also on, giving the whole place a kind of warm glow that made Kyle happy and proud to show Nadia. Yeah, Megan was always in some fight with their parents, and there was friction between various other family and in-laws, but that’s everyone’s family, basically.

  And there was Emily, getting up from a patio chair, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. They hadn’t seen each other since summer, and he couldn’t help the exhilarated surge in his chest at the sight of her.

  She walked over, grinning, while Kyle parked behind his mom’s car.

  “That’s Emily,” he said to Nadia.

  “Yeah, I recognized her.”

  As soon as his car was stopped, Nadia bolted out. “Hey, Emily! Nice to meet you! I have to pee! Sorry!”

  “I’ll take you in,” Emily said.

  Nadia glanced back at Kyle as Emily led her into the house. He couldn’t quite read her face in the low light. He watched through the windshield as they disappeared for a second, then reappeared in the kitchen window, and Kyle saw his grandmother try to hug Nadia, but Emily was already pushing her into the little half bath off the kitchen.

  Emily, he saw, waited for her. She was too good a person to leave Nadia to come out of the bathroom to meet a bunch of strangers by herself.

  Kyle got out and unloaded their bags, the night around him a contended sigh.

  “Don’t worry,” Aunt Brenda said, with her arm around Nadia. “We don’t expect you to remember all our names. Not on your first visit.”

  “Kyle’s actually been quizzing me for a week. He drew me a family tree.”

  They were all in the kitchen, and it was too many people for the space. Kyle hugged everyone. He wanted to get to talk to Emily without abandoning Nadia, and the day of driving was catching up with him. But Aunt Brenda tended to prolong things when her switch was flipped to on, as it clearly was now.

  “Is the tree he drew you annotated, though?” Brenda asked. “With who is the favorite aunt, for example?”

  “Bren,” Kyle’s dad said, “don’t drag her into it.”

  “She should have all the facts, is all. Kyle’s never brought a girl here. I want her to know everything so she can feel like one of us.”

  “She” is standing right here, Kyle wanted to say, but Uncle Mike had already taken over, freeing Nadia from Brenda’s arm and pointing around the room.

  “I think Brenda will be satisfied if I just give you a quick refresher on who’s who, then we’ll let you unpack.” He pointed to each: “Aunt Jenny goes with me, and Martie is our kid. She’s turning fifteen in March, and you’ll probably be invited to her quinceañera. Eliseo, aka Grandpa Navarro, aka Jenny’s dad, aka my father-in-law. With me so far?”

  Grandpa Navarro had been a worker on the farm when he first came up from Oaxaca, then a foreman, and eventually Grandpa Baker’s right-hand man. Then his daughter, Jenny, fell in love with Uncle Mike when they were teenagers, and later on they had Martie.

  “Yep,” said Nadia. “All on the tree. Hola,” she said to Grandpa Navarro. “Mucho gusto.”

  Grandpa Navarro laughed, lifted his Dodgers cap to scratch his still-full head of still-black hair. He squinted at her. “High school Spanish?”

  Nadia blushed and said yes. “My dad’s grandmother was Peruvian, but I grew up with only English.”

  Kyle picked up the intros: Uncle Dale and Alex—Emily’s dad and little sister—were standing next to Aunt Brenda. Nadia already knew Kyle’s parents and his sister Taylor, a freshman at USC. That left Grandma and Grandpa Baker, the ones who had started everything.

  “And Great-Aunt Gina isn’t here,” Alex said.

  “Getting a new hip, right?” Nadia asked.

  Kyle saw his grandparents exchange a look. They loved Nadia already, just for remembering that one detail.

  But then it got quiet, and the Bakers were never that quiet, not when they were in a group, and Kyle hoped they wouldn’t be acting formal around Nadia the whole weekend. She touched her wrist to Kyle’s; he grabbed her pinkie. Martie jumped in. “I like your sweater,” she told Nadia.

  Kyle felt Nadia relax a little next to him.

  Grandma Baker said, “Okay, show’s over. Everybody get out of my kitchen. Except you.” She grabbed Grandpa Baker’s shirttail as he pretended to try to get away. “I need you and one of my sons to go get the turkey from the garage. It’s a thirty pounder.” Then she crooked her finger at Kyle and Nadia. “Nadia, since Gina’s not here, you can have the room she usually stays in all to yourself. I thought you’d prefer that to sharing with Emily and Alex. Unless you think you’ll mind being so close to the noise in the kitchen?”

  “No, that’s perfect,” Nadia said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. It’ll be nice to have your own space to retreat to every once in a while. All these lunatics you don’t even know.”

  “Thank you,” Nadia repeated.

  Kyle led her down the little hall off the kitchen to the only bedroom on the main floor, always reserved for Great-Aunt Gina so she didn’t have to climb stairs. “Your grandma’s a saint,” Nadia whispered. “I am not used to sharing.”

  “What if you could share with me?” He put her bags on the bed and pulled her to him, leaning his back against the closed door. She fit perfectly with his body. Her hips on his hips, her toes overlapping his, her head in the crook of his neck. Like they were made for each other. He lifted her hair, whispered in her ear. “I want to share everything with you.”

  “Me too,” she murmured.

  She kissed his jaw and crept her hands under his shirt, feeling his belly, his chest, gliding a finger over the scar from his shoulder surgery last season. Kyle gripped her waist and pulled her closer, even closer, touching the skin at the small of her back, gently pinching flesh, aching for every millimeter of her to be a part of him. He’d never felt that with a girl, not emotionally, not beyond the immediate urge to get off. With Nadia it wasn’t just that he wanted her. With Nadia he wanted to become something new and better, more him than he was without her.

  Her fingers went to the button on his jeans and she kissed him deeply, laughed through her nose, at how wild it was to be fooling around in his grandparents’ house.

  There was a giant thud right outside the door, and she pulled back her hand like she’d been caught about to steal something. Kyle caught her eyes—brown and bright and joyful.

  “Goddamnit, Jeff!” Jeff was Kyle’s dad, and that was Grandpa yelling at him. “I told you I didn’t have a grip on it!”

  “I think my dad dropped the turkey,” Kyle whispered.

  Nadia stood a few feet away from him, her hand pressed to her heart. “That scared me!”

  They heard scrambling in the hall. “Slippery son of a bitch,” Grandpa said.

  “Dad, let go,” Kyle’s dad said. “I’ve got it. This is not a two-person job. I’ve got it!”

  “You don’t have to be so precious,” Grandma called. “It’s wrapped in three layers of plastic. Just kick it down the hall!”

  Nadia slapped her hand over her mouth and bent forward, trying to suppress laughter.

  Grandma continued: “I only sent you both to get it so you’d talk to each other.”

  “Very subtle, Mom,” Kyle’s dad said, his voice fading a little.

  “Come back,” Kyle said, reaching for Nadia.

  “I can’t. I c
an’t.” She fanned her face. “Unless that door has a lock, I’m not touching you again the rest of this trip.”

  Kyle turned and checked the door. No lock. “There are other rooms.”

  “Come back tonight,” she said. “When everyone’s asleep.” She hugged him from behind. “Now let me get settled. I know you want to go see Emily.”

  2

  KYLE TOOK his stuff up to his usual room before finding Emily, in need of some alone time after being with Nadia. His fingertips were still alive with the warmth of her skin.

  Maybe he was in love. How did people know? If they were in love or not?

  He threw his duffel bag on the twin bed. This had been Uncle Mike’s room he was a kid. The bed against the wall and under a window, a small closet, a chest of drawers. Kyle knew from seeing the old pictures in one of his grandma’s photo albums that Uncle Mike used to have the walls plastered with band posters. Van Halen and Mötley Crüe when he was younger and just going along with whatever Kyle’s dad thought was cool, because Kyle’s dad was the big brother. Then Uncle Mike got into his own thing. General Public and the English Beat and the Pretenders and Echo and the Bunnymen. Kyle’s dad and Uncle Mike had basically stopped talking for two years back then. Over rock versus New Wave.

  Now the walls were bare except for some framed photos of Kyle and his cousins, and a random painting of flowers.

  He got out his phone and texted Emily.

  looking right now at that pic of you and me and the pumpkin

  They were maybe three or four years old, sitting on the ground in Grandma’s kitchen garden, Kyle in a striped T-shirt and Emily wearing only a pair of shorts. Both of them hugging this giant pumpkin.

  Aw. Where are you??

  Upstairs, unpacked. Meet on swings?

  She sent back a thumbs-up and a zany face.

  There was a bite in the air special to this place that they didn’t get down in Southern California. Kyle huffed out breaths to see if it would form visible condensation. Not quite. Not that he could see in the dark, anyway.

  Emily waved from where she sat on one of the swings, her feet dragging through the pine straw. Everything since he and Nadia got there had been kind of a blur, with Kyle tuned in to Nadia and her nervousness during the introductions and then to her body, alone in her room. He’d barely said hi to any of his family, because their attention had been on Nadia too. He felt like it had gone well, but most of the Bakers were pretty good at being nice and friendly no matter what they really thought. It wasn’t like they were going to boo Nadia off the stage, even if they hated her.