Where the Heart Is (15 page)

“Do you remember me?” Novalee asked, suddenly afraid that he might not. “You gave me—”

“A baby book,” he said, “and you took my picture.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “I remember you very well,” Moses Whitecotton said. “You like porch swings and Life Savers.”

“I knew I was going to see you again someday,” she said, surprised that her throat tightened, the way it did sometimes when she was trying not to cry.

For several moments after he released her hand, she left it hanging in midair, as if she hadn’t wanted to break the connection.

“I’ve thought of you many times,” he said.

“You have?”

“Many times.”

“That day,” Novalee said, “all the things you talked about . . . I think about that. And I remember everything you said.”

“Oh, maybe sometimes I talk too much.” He turned his hands out, palms open, the self-conscious gesture of a man owning up to a weakness.

“No, you were right. What you said about time and names and . . .”

“Yes, we talked a lot about names. But you know what? You never told me yours.”

“It’s Novalee. Novalee Nation.” She pulled back the edge of her sweater so he could see her name tag. “I work here now.”

“Well, Novalee Nation, seems to me it’s time for you to do the talking. Time for you to tell me about your baby.”

“You didn’t hear about me?”

“No. I didn’t.”

She could tell he wasn’t the kind of man who would pretend. He wasn’t like that at all.

“I had a girl.”

“A girl.” He nodded. “I wondered, you know.”

“She’s . . . she’s just . . .” Novalee laughed then, language for a word unspoken.

“Oh, nothing sweeter than a baby girl.” He shifted his weight in a way that made him seem expectant—wanting to know, but not wanting to ask.

“She has a strong name,” Novalee said.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“It’s a name that’s gonna withstand a lot of bad times.”

“And they’ll come,” he said, shaking his head at the inevitability of it.

“Her name is Americus.”

Moses stared, unblinking. “Americus,” he said. He looked away then, giving the sound some time . . . some distance. Finally he looked again at Novalee. “Americus Nation,” he repeated. “It’ll do. It surely will do.”

They were silent for several moments, but it was a comfortable silence . . . broken, finally, when a voice on the intercom called for additional checkers at the front.

“That’s me,” Novalee said.

“I’ll be working here tomorrow. Taking pictures.”

Novalee smiled. “I know.”

“You’ll be here, then?”

“It’s my day off, but I’ll be here.”

“With Americus?”

“We’ll both be here.”

Reggie Lewis, the young blond manager, walked up to customer service. “Hi, Mose. Good to see you.”

Moses reached for his briefcase on the counter behind him.

“Moses,” he said, his voice steady and strong. “Moses Whitecotton.”

That night, Novalee dressed Americus in every outfit she had.

The yellow jumper from Dixie Mullins, the baseball uniform from Henry and Leona, the white dress Sister had made and the bonnet from Mrs. Ortiz. When she finished, the baby was worn out and Novalee was no closer to deciding than when she had started. Finally, it was Forney and Mr. Sprock who voted for the dress and bonnet.

The next morning Novalee got up early to get everything ready.

She rinsed out the white dress and hung it on the line to dry. After she mended a bit of torn lace on a pair of diaper pants, she trimmed loose threads from inside the bonnet. She picked invisible lint from a Where the Heart Is

pair of white booties and polished their tiny pearl buttons with the hem of her gown. Finally, she ironed the dress carefully, fussing over each ribbon and ruffle and bow.

With Americus fresh from her bath, Novalee brushed her hair into delicate waves and tight ringlets, then tied the top back with a narrow silk ribbon. She dressed her with the care and precision of a backstage mother . . . patting, polishing, smoothing, stroking . . . determined to make Americus perfect.

By the time they arrived at Wal-Mart, two dozen women and children were already in line, waiting for Moses Whitecotton to take their pictures. The aisle was littered with toys, diaper bags and abandoned strollers. Fussy babies howled in the arms of impatient mothers; angry toddlers strained to twist from the grasp of adult fingers. A half-dozen preschoolers cartwheeled and tumbled like a tangle of wild kittens.

As Moses settled a sobbing baby into the lap of its older brother, he saw Novalee and flashed her a quick smile. He said something then to a young woman working beside him and moments later she walked to the back of the line where she placed a standing sign behind Novalee, a sign that said, “The photographer will not resume shooting until . . .” and beneath that was a dial with the hands set at one o’clock.

Moses seemed unhurried, even when an inquisitive child discovered the snaps on his briefcase or a young mother insisted on a pose that would produce, Moses explained, a headless photograph of her child. His voice, when Novalee could hear it beneath the hooting, howling children and scolding, threatening parents, was even and calm.

She watched him coax laughter, persuade silence and gentle anger

. . . taking time with each shot, adjusting the lighting, readjusting the pose, working for the right expression.

The line moved slowly and Americus, in spite of the care Novalee took to avoid it, was wilting. Her hair had frizzed around her face and a crease up the side of her bonnet gave her a dented look. Her dress was wrinkled and limp, the collar damp with drool. One of the pearl buttons from her booties had popped off and Novalee was still searching for it when she looked up to discover they were next.

“So this is Americus Nation,” Moses said.

Americus, her eyes Raggedy Ann wide, fixed Moses with an open-mouthed stare, a silver strand of saliva spinning its way from her bottom lip to the perfectly ironed ruffle around her perfectly ironed dress. She was, for several moments, motionless—frozen in fear or fascination as she struggled to take him in, her eyes darting from his face to his hands to his hair. Suddenly, her decision made, a smile nudged itself into a corner of her mouth, pushed across her lips and up over her cheeks. She held out her arms, reaching out to Moses Whitecotton, her fingers curling into her palms in a “take me” gesture.

When he lifted her out of Novalee’s arms, Americus exploded with excitement, her knees pumping against his chest, arms windmilling the air, a gargle of laughter catching at her breath.

“Nothing sweeter than a baby girl,” he said.

“Well, she looked a little sweeter before she tried to eat her dress.”

Novalee wet her finger, then rubbed at a smudge on the baby’s arm.

“Looks like she’s been cooking mud pies.”

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with what’s here. Nothing to do with what we’re looking for.”

“What do you mean?”

“If that’s all it was, making them look good, it would be easy. Just scrub ’em up good, put on new clothes, press the shutter release.

Bingo. You’ve got a nice baby picture.”

Novalee nodded her head to show that a nice baby picture was certainly the last thing she wanted.

“No, those pictures are about the trappings,” Moses said. “The costumes.”

Novalee was tempted to snatch the bonnet off Americus’ head.

“But it’s not that simple,” he added. “This child is Americus Nation.

Now, how do we get a picture that’ll measure up to that ?”

Moses lifted the baby, as if to offer proof of her presence, then turned and put her on the table. “Step over here, Novalee, while I get set up, make sure she doesn’t tumble off.”

Moses pulled down a new background, a soft blue. He reset the lights, gauging the effects of every change by the reflection on Americus’ skin. Finally, he covered the camera he had been using, then moved it and the tripod around behind the background.

“Company camera,” he explained. “It takes nice studio pictures—

studio portraits, they like us to say—but that’s not what you want.”

Moses pulled a scuffed and battered leather satchel from beneath the table and unbuckled the flaps.

“This is mine,” he said.

Then he took out a strange-looking camera, not at all like the Nikons and Minoltas Novalee had stocked in the electronics department. Those were glossy, streamlined cameras in hard plastic cases, cameras that fit in the palm of her hand. But this one, Moses’

camera, looked heavy, clumsy, hard to manage.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A Rollei. Best ever made.”

He removed the lens cover to reveal two identical lenses on the front, one above the other.

“I’ve never seen a camera like that.”

“No, not many of them left. Not like this one.”

Then Moses pressed a button and the top of the camera popped up, making Novalee think of poorly tinted photographs in dark oval frames . . . men and women posed in stiff collars, their yam-colored faces set with grim-lipped smiles.

He held the camera in front of him, at his waist, looking down into it to find his shot.

“Okay, Miss Americus,” he said, watching her through the eyepiece, “let’s get started.” He moved in, closer to the table. “Now I’ll do all the work. You just do whatever seems right.”

What seemed right to Americus was to rake her arms across the side of her head, dislodge her bonnet and pull it halfway down her face. As she tried to peek from under it, Moses pressed the shutter release, then turned a crank on the side of the camera.

“That’s it, baby,” he said without looking up. “Don’t hold anything back.”

He kept shooting as she worked the bonnet off, then sailed it to the floor . . . shot again as she leaned forward to peer over the edge of the table, her face screwed up with concern.

By the time Americus lost interest in the fallen bonnet, she hardly heard the clicks of the camera as Moses continued to shoot. Her attention strayed to more important matters—a hair caught between her fingers, a drop of drool spilling across her knee, the tight drum of her belly discovered beneath the ruffles of her dress.

Moses was not taking the pictures Novalee had imagined—

Americus posed with teddy bears and parasols, beaming angelic smiles and flaunting dimpled cheeks. Instead, he was snapping pictures as her fingers delighted at the pucker of her navel . . . while she puzzled over an empty sock still wearing the shape of her heel . . .

as she pondered the miracle of toes and the magic of a finger that points.

Moses’ motions were like a dancer’s . . . sliding, circling, turning—

his movement finding balance and his eye finding voice . . . a bark of delight when he saw the true shot, a rasp of laughter as he found the right angle, the click of his tongue when he snapped the perfect picture.

And the camera, which Novalee had thought old-fashioned and unwieldly, looked small and delicate in Moses’ hands, hands that moved in magical ways, fingers that found their own rhythm and knew, without knowing, when it was right.

AFTER HER SECOND DATE with Troy, Novalee started taking birth control pills. She wasn’t sure she would sleep with him, but she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t.

The first time they went out, Troy took her to a bar called Bone’s Place where they ate ribs and played shuffleboard. When he took her home, he kissed her twice, then tried to unbutton her jeans, but she slipped out of the car and hurried inside.

On their second date, they went to a dance at the VFW, then to the city park where they drank wine coolers at a picnic table. When Troy tried to talk her into going to his apartment, she said no. But she liked the way she felt when his breath passed across her ear. And that was when she decided to get on the pill.

Three days and three pills later, she stopped saying no and went to his apartment where she let him take off her clothes and lay her back on his bed, a thin mattress on the floor. When he began, she Where the Heart Is

closed her eyes, held tightly to his shoulders and hoped he wouldn’t see the stretch marks that cut across her belly.

He hadn’t said anything about protection—hadn’t offered, hadn’t asked. She was glad she had made her own decision about birth control, glad she had, for once, used her head, glad she had started taking

pills . . . the pills . . . tiny pills . . . smaller than aspirin . . .

thinner than vitamins . . . and she had taken three . . . only three . . .

Suddenly, she knew, knew with certainty, that three pills couldn’t protect her. It would take days and days of pills, weeks of pills before she could be truly safe. Why, she wondered, had she been so stupid? Why had she taken such a chance? And why was she on a mattress that smelled like cottage cheese with a man who didn’t care if she got pregnant or not?

By then, all she could do was to will Troy Moffatt to hurry, to get it over with. It didn’t take long.

When he finished, she dressed quickly, then hurried away.

Back at the trailer, she cleaned herself again and again, scrubbed at her body with hot water and soap, as if that might erase ten minutes spent on a mattress the color of putty. She remembered then the foolish precautions she had taken when she started sleeping with Willy Jack . . . drinking Coke and aspirin, taking vinegar baths—

contraceptive practices whispered in seventh-grade gym classes by girls who had gotten “the curse.”

When Novalee finally crawled between the covers of her bed, she had to fight off the urge to wake Sister, to ask her to say a prayer. But she supposed God had more to do than direct the traffic of Troy Moffatt’s sperm.

Novalee called Lexie early the next morning to catch her before she left for work.

“Are you okay?” Lexie asked. “You sound funny.”

“I’m fine. I just wondered if you were coming to the store today. I thought we’d have lunch.”

“No, I switched shifts. I’m working the three to eleven.”

“How come?”

“Praline and Brownie have roseola, so I can’t take them to day care, but my neighbor said she’d keep them tonight.”