Nowhere but Home

  “Yes, Chef,” they say.

  “Harlan, we’re going to do the tamales. We’re going to have our own little tamalada,” I say.

  “Tamalada, ma’am?” Harlan asks.

  “Oh right. Sorry. It’s a tamale-making party. Women gather, gossip, and make tamales,” I say. Harlan and Cody just look at me. I continue, “I realize we’re doing our own very special version today.” The men can’t help but crack a smile.

  “I doubt you’d want to hear the gossip we have to tell,” Jace says from behind his paper.

  “I expect not,” I say, my voice playful. I continue, “We have to mix the masa, spread it on the banana leaves, and fill and roll them. Cody, I’m going to have you put together the ensalada de noche buena, but that won’t happen until much later. Until then, you’re going to be in charge of the cabrito dish,” I say, scanning the list.

  “Cabrito?” Cody asks.

  “Goat,” I say.

  “Goat?” Cody asks.

  “It’s actually quite good. But it can be a little tough. They don’t have much fat on them,” I say.

  The Dent boys are speechless.

  I continue, “My point being, it takes a bit to cook. So you’ll be doing the Mexican rice while the pinto beans simmer.” I walk Cody through the Mexican rice dish as Harlan checks on the pinto beans.

  “Chef, I don’t see anything about salsa here,” Harlan says, scanning the list.

  “Oh shit,” I say.

  “No problem. I can do a red and a green with the stuff you bought. We’ll be fine,” Harlan says, picking through the vegetables that I have.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I say. Harlan allows himself a small smile.

  And we’re off.

  When Jace says it’s time to break for lunch, I can’t believe hours have gone by so quickly. The Dent boys file out and I sit on one of the stools and eat my turkey sandwich. I pace around the pots and pans, stirring, tasting, and checking the time. When the Dent boys arrive back an hour later, we hit the ground running.

  I pull out the big pot with a steaming rack in it and put it on the stove. I set up the rest of the tamale assembly line on down the counter.

  I stack the banana leaves next to the stove. I put the bowl of masa in front of Harlan and set down a piece of plastic wrap and a spoon. He eyes them suspiciously. Cody is next to the pork-and-sweet-mole filling.

  “Now, watch me,” I say.

  “Yes, Chef,” the Dent boys say in unison.

  I pull a banana leaf from the stack and hold it next to an open flame. It immediately softens and becomes pliable. I walk over to the bowl of masa, take a heaping spoonful, and put it in the center of the banana leaf. I grab the plastic wrap and set it over the masa. I smooth the masa out using the plastic wrap to make it as smooth as possible. “Leave enough on the edges so we can fold these leaves over, remember,” I say. Harlan and Cody nod. Jace wanders over, enthralled with the process. I pull the plastic wrap off and show them the smooth layer of masa just beneath. I take some of the pork from the skillet on the stovetop and then some of the sweet mole and put it on top of the pork. “Always remember to not overfill. Less is more in this situation.” They all nod. Including Jace. I settle the now filled banana leaf on the counter. “Now. The folding. Y’all ready?” They nod. “Fold it toward you, just to halfway, see? The other half away from you. Now the bottom, now the top,” I say, lifting up the little green bundle of goodness for viewing.

  “Toward you is first,” Cody says.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Like an envelope,” Jace says.

  “Right, exactly. Then you put them in this big pot here where we’re going to steam them,” I say, placing my finished bundle in the pot.

  “You don’t tie ’em up with something?” Cody asks.

  “These banana leaves are big enough so that we don’t have to, but if you find it getting away from you just use strips of another leaf as twine, you know? On both ends,” I say, using my little bundle as an example.

  “But that’s only if we mess it up,” Cody says.

  “Right,” I say, with a smile.

  “So we don’t want to be doing that,” he says.

  “Right,” I say.

  “Let’s do this,” Harlan says, walking to the front of the assembly line. Harlan takes a banana leaf and holds it next to the open flame and the leaf softens. He moves to the masa, puts a heaping spoonful on the leaf, and grabs a piece of plastic wrap.

  “The only thing this stuff ever sticks to is itself,” Harlan says, fighting with the plastic wrap.

  “You made it look so easy,” Cody says. I can’t help but smile.

  “It’s like getting a linoleum bubble out, you know? Smooth it out,” Jace says, doing the motions with his hands as well. Harlan watches him and turns around and tries again.

  “There it is,” Cody says, as Harlan lifts away the plastic wrap victoriously. Harlan gives him a wide smile.

  “Now the filling,” I say, pointing to the two skillets. Harlan spoons in the right amount and pauses before he has to fold.

  “Toward you is first,” Cody says, his hands doing the motion as well. Harlan nods.

  “Toward you, away from you, bottom, then the top,” Harlan narrates his folding. He flips the little green bundle over and there it is.

  “You did it!” I say, patting him on the back.

  “Well, all right there. Look at that!” Cody says, beaming at the finished tamale.

  “Well, looka there,” Jace says.

  “Ha, well look at that,” Harlan says, flipping the little bundle over again and again.

  “Now, put it in the pot for steaming. Cody? You ready?” I ask.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Cody says, grabbing a banana leaf. Jace meanders back over to his chair and newspaper.

  Cody stumbles through his first tamale, but gets it sooner than he thought he would. We move and work, keeping pace like an old waltz. Weaving in and out we soon find that it works better to stay at one station and just pass the tamale down the line. I, of course, end up at the masa-smoothing station. In no time we’ve got our pot ready to start steaming.

  “How’s the cabrito coming?” I ask Cody as we put the lid on the tamale pot.

  “Good . . . I think. I mean, I don’t know, Chef,” Cody says, walking over to his cabrito.

  “Have you tasted it?” I ask.

  “No, Chef,” Cody says.

  Everyone’s quiet.

  “You know she’s going to make you taste it,” Jace says, from behind his paper. We all break out laughing. Cody takes a fork and spears a tiny piece of cabrito. He puts it in his mouth, wincing dramatically with his eyes closed, and chews.

  “It’s good! It just—,” Cody starts.

  “Tastes like chicken?” Harlan finishes.

  We all can’t help but laugh. I hear the kitchen door click open as our laughter subsides. Shawn walks into the kitchen.

  “Smells good in here,” he says, scanning the room.

  “Thank you,” I say, happy he’s here. Can I be here without him?

  “Y’all have a little over an hour, so I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Shawn says.

  “Good . . . good,” I say, my eyes flicking over to the clock on the wall. I can’t believe we have only an hour. I watch Harlan and Cody come to the same realization.

  “Okay, I’ll be back then,” Shawn says.

  “And I’ll have your supper ready by four fifteen,” I say.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he says. Shawn walks out of the kitchen and when the door closes we scatter immediately.

  “Cody, start on that ensalada. Harlan, how’s that salsa coming?” Cody goes over to his station and starts peeling the citrus and chopping the apples and the beets. I stir the Mexican rice and the pinto beans de olla that we made earlier today. The cabrito is ready to go and the handmade corn tortillas I found at a local market taste perfect. Harlan watches the tamales as he makes his salsa.

  I start
in on the churro dish.

  “Chef, we’ve got ten minutes,” Cody says, walking over as he finishes his salad. My churros are bubbling in the deep fryer, the Mexican hot chocolate sits steaming in a mug next to the ramekin of cajeta that Cody is eyeing. Harlan grabs the tray and a couple of plates. He sets them on the counter and walks over to us. There is a reverence to his actions. I feel the emotion begin to bubble up as the clock ticks down. I pull the churros from the deep fryer and place them in the awaiting sugar mixture. Cody rolls the churros through the sugar as I drop one after the other in. He sets the finished products on a towel-lined plate, covering up the growing pile. The churros are done. I walk over to the tray with the Mexican hot chocolate and the ramekin of cajeta. Cody follows me with the plate of steaming churros.

  The tray. Once again, we just stand around it. Harlan places a plate in the middle of it. I find myself slowing down or maybe it just feels that way. Cody brings over the skillet with the cabrito, placing a serving on the side of the plate. He dishes out some Mexican rice and the pinto beans. Harlan heats up some corn tortillas and places them on a separate plate, covered with a paper towel. He sets his salsa down next to the tray.

  “Chef?” Harlan offers his salsa up for my tasting. I take a fork and take a small bite of the salsa.

  “Oh, that’s damn good, Harlan. Damn good,” I say. Harlan gives me a quick nod, but he can’t help but let a smile sneak to Cody. Jace wanders over and I give him a quick taste. He nods his approval. Harlan puts a small bowl of the salsa next to the tortillas on the tray.

  “Cody, can you grab the orange soda in the fridge?” I ask. He obliges quickly.

  I wrap the churros in parchment paper and place them next to the Mexican hot chocolate and cajeta on the side of the tray. They’re still steaming and glistening with a dusting of sugar. I walk over to the last canvas bag and find the Starburst. All six kinds. My hand curls around them. Candy. Re-creating Christmas.

  “He’s young, isn’t he?” I ask, without looking at anyone.

  “Yes, Chef,” Harlan says.

  “I knew it,” I say, nodding. Nodding, I put the Starburst on the tray and stand back.

  “The tamales!” Cody says, running over to the stove.

  Two minutes.

  Cody pulls four steaming green bundles from the big pot and hot-potatoes them over to the plate. He has to place them on top of the cabrito and Mexican rice, as there’s no more room anywhere on the tray.

  One minute.

  I look from Harlan to Cody then to Jace. We all join hands once more.

  “Bless this food, Lord. Let it transport and remind us all of better times. Let it cleanse and purify. Let it nourish and warm. In it, let us find peace. In Jesus’ name, amen,” I say.

  “Amen,” the men say.

  The key card clicks and Shawn walks into the kitchen.

  “Queenie, it’s time.”

  21

  Merry Carole’s mac ’n’ cheese

  He didn’t eat the Starburst.

  As I sit in my car after the guards’ supper and after we cleaned up the kitchen, I can’t stop staring at the colorful assortment of candy now littering my passenger seat. Shawn thought I’d want them. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were, quite frankly, the last thing in the world I’d ever want.

  He ate the tamales, the cabrito was gone, the rice and beans peppered the tray as he made soft tacos from the handmade corn tortillas. He dipped the churros in the cajeta and, based on the stain left on the mug, it looks like he actually just drank the Mexican hot chocolate. He picked the pomegranate seeds out of the ensalada and really ate only the citrus. The orange soda cans were crushed and bent. He was angry. Scared. Who knows?

  But he didn’t eat the fucking Starburst.

  I watch the guards pace as dusk turns to darkness. This meal was harder in every way possible. I’m already over an hour late to meet Hudson and yet I don’t move. I just need to sit here in the quiet of this car and run through tonight’s events. The guards didn’t really eat as much as the last time. That could have been about the goat more than anything else, come to think of it, but I don’t think so. The Dent boys ate their supper at the table and chairs Shawn brought in for them sometime last week. Shawn stopped Jace before he took the Dent boys back inside the prison and before I escaped out the back door to the safety of Lot B.

  “We just got word that your next meal is this Friday,” Shawn said. Harlan, Cody, and I just looked at each other. We had ten days between the last two meals.

  “That’s quick,” I said.

  “The next two meals you’re going to be cooking are for convicts brought in from Huntsville,” Shawn said. Harlan and Cody were deathly quiet.

  “Is that a thing? Is that bad?” I asked.

  “They’re usually higher profile,” Shawn said, choosing his words carefully.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Here’s your next order,” Shawn said, handing me a slip of paper. I took it, but couldn’t unfold the paper.

  “Do you have the next one? The meal after this?” I asked.

  “Why don’t we take one meal at a time, Queenie,” Shawn said.

  “Oh, all right,” I said, feeling embarrassed.

  “I’m just . . . I know how focused you can be,” Shawn said.

  “Sure . . . sure, and I appreciate that,” I said, unfolding the slip of paper. Harlan and Cody crowded around.

  Inmate #8JM-31245:

  Barbecue, vegetable plate, baked beans, sweet tea, fried cherry pie, and an apple

  I’m almost catatonic as I hold the little slip of paper in my hand now. Harlan, Cody, and I didn’t need Shawn to go into what “barbecue” meant. Classic Texas barbecue is a beef brisket, sausage, and ribs. A “vegetable plate” is traditionally a potato salad, raw white onions, and pickles. Not quite what most people would call a healthy vegetable plate, but this is how we do it in Texas.

  As I roll down my window, hoping a rare summer breeze will find its way to me, I think about that damn apple. It’s the unique, individualized requests that affect me. First it was the Starburst, and now this apple. I’m already winding myself up about being the one who has to choose the last apple this person ever eats. And I can’t even bite into it. What if it’s mealy? Bruised? Why didn’t he just ask for a fried apple pie? I won’t have long to obsess about it and I certainly don’t need the time to practice or research. I could make barbecue in my sleep. And because this meal is going to take me two days to prepare, I really only have tomorrow off. This is a good thing.

  I run Shawn’s words through my head over and over again. My next two meals are for high-profile inmates transferred from Huntsville. What does that even mean? Why would they do that? Enough. Just . . . drive, Queenie. Get to the bar and have a well-earned drink. Get to the bar and see Hudson. Everything will be better.

  As I drive to Evans, I think about the night ahead. I just want to lose myself and not think about any of this. The Death House. High-profile inmates being shipped in from Huntsville. A lot of things.

  I finally pull up to the bar with my mind set. I’ll knock back a couple of bourbons and let Hudson take me away fr—

  “Hudson?” I ask, realizing I know one of the drunken twosome stumbling from the bar.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” Hudson says, straightening up. The woman he’s draped around catches the hint and gathers herself.

  “Clearly,” I say, looking from him to the woman. She is that woman. The woman you pick up in a bar one night who you couldn’t pick out of a lineup the next day. Thin, blond hair, questionable makeup, and a giant neon sign over her head that says you can take her home and never have to call her again.

  “Can you excuse us?” Hudson says to the woman, motioning for her to go back in the bar. She stumbles inside.

  “You don’t know her name, do you?” I ask.

  “I think I knew it at one time,” Hudson says. That sinking feeling about Hudson rises to the surface. We’re all litt
le plastic army men he’s moving around some battlefield on his bedroom floor. Objects. Not people. Hudson continues, “You really should have called.”

  “No, I’m actually glad I didn’t,” I say, turning back around and heading to my car. I don’t need this bullshit.

  “So that’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is this about the other night? At Delfina’s?”

  “You mean you don’t think stumbling out of a bar with another woman on the same night you’re supposed to meet me is enough of a reason for me to take off?” I ask, approaching him.

  “Well, a departure yes, but this feels a bit final.”

  “Does it?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Good. Because it is,” I say, continuing to my car. Hudson follows.

  “I’m only here for the summer, what did you think was going to happen?”

  “Shipping off to war, are we?”

  “What?”

  “You’re heading back to Austin, Hudson. To teach. You’re acting like this is your last night ashore.”

  “You being hilarious about this is really inconvenient.”

  “Then I’ll just be on my way.”

  “I think it’s about that guy—that coin-toss guy. I’m a professional, remember?”

  “How about you save your condescending, dimestore psychoanalytic bullshit for a time when you don’t have Barbie Fucksalot waiting for you.” Hudson looks over his shoulder and back at the girl by the bar.

  “It doesn’t take a fancy degree to know what’s going on with people, Queenie,” Hudson says, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Of course I didn’t know he smoked.

  “Oh, I get it now.”

  “Get what?”

  “You like to play with your food, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “When you came at me at Delfina’s the other night, I knew something was off about you.”

  “There’s nothing off about me.” He takes a drag off his cigarette.

  “Sure there is. People are interchangeable to you. I mean, look at this. I wasn’t here, you got another one. No harm, no foul.” I motion to the other woman, still by the bar.

  “That’s not—”