Goodbye from Nowhere Read online

  “Uncle Dale made that a long time ago. Emily’s dad.” He’d burned the phrase into a piece of wood that hung inside, over the doorway. He had been burning shit into wood a lot that year, before he got into screen printing, and then making weird metal jewelry, and now literally knitting.

  “Is it true? Are you all best friends?”

  He held Nadia’s hand, led her toward the window at the other end of the building where they could see the pear orchard. “I mean, Emily. But I’m the only guy cousin, so there’s no cousin version of, like, Cooper or Mateo. I don’t know if I’d call those guys my best friends, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, like people you see every day and hang with. It’s weird, though, how sometimes you’re closer to the ones you only see sometimes. Like you tell those people more stuff? Because you almost have to keep a certain wall up with the ones you see every day. I don’t know . . .” She leaned on the windowsill. “This place is huge. Your grandparents did all this?”

  “Not by themselves. Them plus farm workers. The people who lived in this bunkhouse. Grandpa Navarro did a ton. He oversaw the whole thing.” He untwined his fingers from hers. “Do you keep a wall up with me?”

  “What? Oh, no, I just mean like . . . the way you can meet some random person at camp for a week and tell your whole life story and all your secrets, things you don’t tell your best friends at home because then they’d always be there to remind you.”

  An uneasy feeling crept over Kyle. What was she saying, exactly? She had secrets she hadn’t told him? She was closer to random people at some camp he didn’t know about than she was to him? It was a stupid, irrelevant thought. But he still wanted to know.

  Nadia moved away from the window, touched the wood frames of the bunks. “Weren’t you scared to sleep out here when you were little?”

  “Yes.” He watched her face. It had always seemed so open, so giving. Maybe he’d misread her eyes or her smile and really they were hiding something. “Are there any secrets you want to tell me?” He hoped he sounded playful and not insecure.

  “Everyone’s got secrets, babe.” She slid her arms around his waist.

  “But from me?”

  She pulled back slightly. “What’s wrong?”

  Nothing, nothing, he didn’t want anything to be wrong.

  “I’ve got a secret to tell you.” He took both her hands. Held them to his chest. If this were one of the old musicals from the Kyle-Emily film fest, this is when he’d sing. Spin her around. Lift her off her feet and into his arms. But he didn’t have music, and he didn’t know how to dance. All he had were words. “Nadia,” he said, “I love you.”

  The bunkhouse spun. He squeezed Nadia’s hands, then realized he was doing it too tightly, and let go.

  Eons ticked by, during which he reminded himself that she didn’t need to say it back. Whether she said it or not, it was still true that he loved her, and he wanted her to know that. He found his breath and said it again. “I love you. I’m not saying it so you’ll say it. I just . . . I’ve never said it before other than to my family and I need to, and I want to, and I mean it.”

  She smiled, the warm and open smile. “What if I want to say it back?”

  He laughed, relieved. “No one is stopping you.”

  “I love you, Kyle.”

  They kissed. Long but not hot. Deep but not frantic.

  After that, the question pushed its way into his mind: Had she ever said it to anyone before? Other than her family and best friends? He knew she had a thing with this senior last year, Jack Mesrobian, who was at college out of state now. They’d slept together. But had she told him she loved him? Or had Jack said it to her?

  It was hard sometimes to accept that she’d existed before he met her.

  Nadia sucked in her breath and prodded her belly. “Ugh. Really bad cramps. I’m sorry to not be more romantic right now, but I’m very annoyed that my period is early. Can we go back to the house so I can take something?”

  No, he wanted to stay here all day and climb up into a bunk with Nadia and hold her and smell her skin. “Okay. We should probably be offering to help my grandma with dinner stuff about now, anyway.”

  On the walk back to the house, they held hands and Kyle told her all about the film festival—how he and Emily had found a box of VHS tapes in the attic maybe five years ago and watched them out of boredom and then gotten obsessed with these cheesy old musicals and started their film fest the next year.

  “Wait, they still have one of those old videotape players? And it works?”

  “Their whole setup in the basement is exactly like it was when my uncle Mike put it together in the eighties. That TV can’t do anything but play tapes anymore.”

  One year, he told her, Grandpa Navarro brought some tapes of these ranchero musicals made in Mexico in the thirties, in Spanish with no subtitles but you could tell what was going on. And then there were a whole bunch of tapes that didn’t play anymore except in sixty-second chunks, movies you couldn’t find streaming, and it all felt like a lost treasure you couldn’t spend.

  Kyle talked and talked, practically babbling, not wanting to leave any pause in the conversation where he might ask any of the questions rebounding inside his head, things he knew he shouldn’t say. Did you love Jack? What are your secrets? Will you always love me?

  Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. There was a metric ton of food, mostly thanks to Aunt Jenny and Grandma, plus a couple of side dishes Uncle Dale wouldn’t ever let anyone else do or change: bacon-wrapped green beans and cornbread stuffing. Aunt Brenda and Uncle Mike and Kyle’s mom all had a lot of wine, and Taylor kept sneaking some and pouring it in a mug. Grandpas Baker and Navarro told farm stories. Kyle’s dad was mostly a silent observer. Martie and Nadia sat next to each other, across from Kyle, talking low all through dessert, and Kyle thought about what she’d said about meeting someone for a minute and telling them everything. On one side of him, Emily dug into a slice of pecan pie, and on the other, Aunt Brenda told a story about Uncle Mike from when they were in high school. “This one senior had a fake ID. He was taking orders for alcohol, basically. Mike asked him to get a small bottle of vodka—”

  “Michael James,” Grandma Baker said. Grandpa was smiling, though, leaning back in his chair.

  “Thanks, Brenda, you squealer.”

  “It was thirty years ago! Anyway, I guess the guy lost his nerve about buying liquor and shows up at school with four packs of wine coolers in a duffel bag and just hands it to Mike.”

  Kyle’s dad laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard this one. He brought it to school?”

  “Yes,” Uncle Mike said. “He hands me this bag in the morning and it’s all rattling around and I was too scared to try and transfer it to my locker and I carried that bag with me to every class.”

  “Should you be telling this story in front of the kids?” Grandma asked.

  “Yes,” Alex said, wide-eyed.

  “I was terrified all day that someone would ask me what was in it, or trip over it, or I’d drop it. . . .”

  “Like it was the nuclear football,” Brenda said.

  “I wish Megan was here,” Kyle said. This was the kind of story she loved. He said it quiet, to just Emily, but his mom tuned in at the sound of Megan’s name, with some kind of Mom Spidey sense.

  “Well, she was invited. She’s always invited.”

  Aunt Brenda topped off Kyle’s mom’s wineglass and said, “She’ll come back around eventually. She has to go through her shit.”

  “Excuse me,” Grandma Baker said.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Aunt Brenda said. “She has to go through her stuff. Just like I had to go through my stuff and Mike had to go through his stuff.” She leaned forward to look at Kyle’s dad at the other end of the table. “And God knows Jeff had his stuff.”

  “What stuff, Dad?” Taylor asked.

  Martie and Nadia were paying attention now. Everyone was. Because Kyle’s dad hardly ever said anything about himself or anyth
ing interesting at all, and now looked like he wanted to jump out of his chair and crash through the window to get out.

  “No stuff, guys. Normal stuff. I thought we were talking about Megan.”

  He looked at Kyle’s mom, and Kyle noticed that she glanced away. Normally when Aunt Brenda and the rest of the family went off, Kyle’s parents were in it together, communicating with looks and little gestures, eyebrows and head tilts. Now Kyle’s dad studied his pie. Something was off. Kyle shifted his eyes to Taylor to see if she’d noticed; Aunt Jenny was whispering something to her.

  “Anyway, Brenda’s right,” Kyle’s dad said. “She’ll be back. Maybe Christmas.”

  “I didn’t mean that soon,” Aunt Brenda said. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Are you in touch with her, Brenda?” Kyle’s mom asked in this tone, the one she got when she’d had enough of letting things go and decided to call you out. He bumped Emily’s leg with with his, like Here they go.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Oh.” She nodded and pushed some bits of piecrust around with her fork. “Because it sounded like you knew what you were talking about. My mistake.”

  Martie cleared her throat, then said something low to Nadia. Kyle caught Nadia’s eye and mouthed, “Sorry,” and grimaced. She shrugged and gave him a “no big deal” smile.

  “No, Karen, I’m just saying that Megan is kind of a rebel and you’re . . .” Aunt Brenda took a sip of wine. “You’re not. And maybe I get her in different ways than you do.”

  “Mom—” Emily said at the same time that Uncle Dale jumped in, cutting her off.

  “I think we all agree that whenever or wherever Megan decides to show up, we’ll be happy to see her.” He raised his glass. “To Megan!”

  “Oh, Jesus, honey,” Brenda muttered.

  “Brenda!” Grandma Baker stood up and went to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder. “Don’t say that. I’m going to start the dishes.”

  “Don’t say ‘Jesus’? I thought you liked Jesus!”

  “Brenda, knock it off, okay?” Kyle’s dad stood too. “Yes, you’re a rebel, we know. It looks an awful lot like being an asshole. I’m gonna go make sure Mom doesn’t do a single dish. Feel free to join me since I don’t remember you cooking.”

  “I set the table.”

  Kyle’s dad shot back, “What a hero!” on his way to the kitchen.

  “Cigar time,” Grandpa Navarro said, and left. Kyle could see Grandpa Baker simmering. He was a pretty easygoing guy, but when he lost it, he lost it. If they were lucky, he’d go out with Grandpa Navarro to the patio to escape, old-man style.

  Aunt Jenny reached across the table to touch Nadia’s arm and said, “We’re not usually like this.”

  Grandpa Baker slammed his glass down hard enough that it would have broken if there wasn’t a tablecloth on the table. “Oh yes you are. Last year it was the fires and you kids fighting about global warming. The year before that it was the election. Brenda, you’re never happy at a family gathering if you haven’t directed it to a big dramatic conflict like it’s one of your plays. No wonder Megan stopped coming!”

  Nadia’s chill was faltering, Kyle could tell. She’d stopped looking around at whoever was talking and kept her focus on the salt and pepper shakers between her and Kyle.

  “Um, ‘us kids’ weren’t fighting about global warming, Dad,” Uncle Mike said. “We were united, because we believe in science. You were the one fighting. Ditto the election.”

  “I never said he’d be a good president.”

  “But you said he wouldn’t be that bad!” Aunt Brenda scooted her chair back. “I’m gonna go smoke with Eliseo.”

  When Brenda was gone, Kyle’s mom said, sort of to her plate, “Actually she has no idea if I’m a rebel or not.”

  Uncle Dale pushed a pie dish toward Nadia. “Did you try the pear brown butter one? It’s my favorite.”

  “Also, you made it,” Emily said.

  “I am a fan of my own cooking, it’s true.”

  Nadia dug right into the pie dish with her fork, then looked at Uncle Dale wide-eyed. “Oh my god, that’s amazing.”

  Emily reached her fork over and took some too. Then Taylor.

  “Did you have some, Grandpa?” she asked.

  “I’m stuffed to the gills.”

  “Come on.” She nudged the dish his way until he took a small bite. “Not bad, Dale,” he said.

  United by pie.

  When they’d scraped the dish clean, Uncle Mike said, “Maybe you guys should show Nadia the bunkhouse?”

  “Oh, Kyle already showed me.” Nadia smiled at Kyle, met his eyes. Showed me. Said he loved me.

  The conversation went on, but Kyle didn’t care, didn’t hear. He forgot about the bickering. He forgot about the weird moment between his parents. All he could think about was Nadia, and her sitting there the next Thanksgiving and the next and the next. Even feeling his mom watch him stare at Nadia didn’t make him look away.

  Later, after a long good night with Nadia in her room and leaving after she fell asleep, Kyle was not tired. He went out on the patio to look at stars, but the temperature had dropped significantly since the sun went down. Back inside, he did fifty push-ups in the living room, then stretched out his shoulder.

  There was a framed picture from his parents’ wedding on the hutch—his mom and dad and the whole wedding party. His mom’s permed hair was up in a bun, with a few curls arranged around her face. His dad had a lot of hair and a lot of mustache. Aunt Brenda had been in college in her goth phase, her hair dyed black and teased, wearing about five pounds of eyeliner and black lace gloves that clashed with the pastel dress she had to wear to match the other bridesmaids.

  Kyle picked up the photo. He’d seen it a hundred times before, but now he had a different perspective on it, could actually imagine his mom and dad young and in love and excited to start a new life together. How had his parents known things would turn out okay?

  He put it down and went to the kitchen to investigate leftovers and was eating stuffing with his fingers when his dad walked in, looking basically nothing like the guy in the photo.

  “I was thinking sandwich,” he said, “but that looks quicker.”

  Kyle passed him the container of stuffing and found the mashed potatoes and a foil packet of turkey. They stood there eating for a while, then his dad said, “I hope we didn’t scare Nadia.”

  “Nah. She’s fine. I mean, every family has its weirdness.”

  “That’s one word for it.” His dad opened a plastic bag of leftover rolls that was sitting on the counter and popped one in the microwave. “You guys really get along, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Kyle said.

  They both stared at the microwave, and Kyle had this impulse to exit to upstairs like he normally would. Avoiding getting stuck in conversations with either of his parents before they got serious was his usual strategy. But he thought about the guy in the wedding photo, his mustache and light blue tux and courage.

  “It’s more than that, though,” Kyle continued. “More than getting along.”

  His dad took the roll out, stuffed some turkey into it. “I can tell. You two are into each other.”

  “I mean, she’s my girlfriend and stuff.” Kyle was not about to tell his dad he was in love, and had said the words, and was close as you could get to fully having sex. He didn’t need a repeat of the sex talk they’d had a couple of years ago. He didn’t need warnings. “Okay, Dad, if you had to give me only one piece of relationship advice ever, what would it be?”

  His dad stared a moment, then turned his back to fill a glass with water from the tap. When he faced Kyle again, he said, “People change.”

  Kyle waited. And waited. Then he said, “That’s it? That’s the advice?”

  “Well, let each other change, I guess is a better way of saying it. Look, you’re not that much younger now than I was when I met your mom. I had no idea I’d be who I am today or that your mom would be who she is. You don�
��t know who you’ll be when you’re my age. In some ways we’re all just older versions of who we were at sixteen or seventeen, but in a lot of ways we’re completely different than we were.” He smiled, looked at the floor. “We’d be strangers to our sixteen-year-old selves.”

  “Strangers?” Kyle laughed a little, because his dad sounded sad and he didn’t like it, wanted to lighten things up. “Some things don’t change, right? Look at Grandma and Grandpa. They’ve been the same as long as I’ve been alive. Nothing here at the farm has changed.”

  “You’re wrong.” His dad raised his head, still wearing that melancholy smile. “I think it’s more subtle at their age, but it’s still happening. No one is the same person they were at twenty when they’re thirty or forty or fifty. Or seventy or eighty. We’re always changing, all of us, and it’s natural to slide into ruts and into roles. But you gotta be able to stay flexible. You can’t hold someone to who they were ten years ago.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “That’s the advice. I have more, but you asked for the one thing. That’s it.”

  Kyle thought about it. Brenda’s goth hair and his mom’s perm, Uncle Mike’s million hobbies, how his mom thought she’d be a doctor and now she was a bookkeeper, even how Kyle used to think he wanted to be a pro baseball player and now he knew he didn’t care enough or want to work that hard.

  “That’s pretty good, Dad.”

  But really Kyle just wanted to know what would be happening in ten weeks, never mind ten years. If this feeling between him and Nadia would still be there, still be strong.

  When he went up to his room and got in bed, he texted Megan.

  happy thanksgiving, dude. you’re missing all the fun.

  Her reply came right away.

  haha, I heard. Taylor’s been texting me. you know what’s fun for me, Kyle? spending holidays ALONE in my PAJAMAS.

  But you didn’t get to meet Nadia

  T sent me pictures. I’m happy for you.

  It was impossible with Megan to tell if she meant that. Over text, anyway.

  Sure you don’t want to come up for the film fest tomorrow? he asked.