Where the Heart Is (2 page)

“No.”

“Can’t you feel that tiny little bomp . . . bomp . . . bomp?”

“I don’t feel nothin’.”

Willy Jack tried to pull his hand back, but she held it and moved it lower, pressing his fingers into the curve just above her pelvis.

“Feel right there.” Her voice was soft, no more than a whisper.

“That’s where the heart is.” She held his hand there a moment, then he jerked it away.

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” he said as he reached for a cigarette.

Novalee felt like she might cry then, but she didn’t exactly know why. It was the way she felt sometimes at night when she heard a train whistle in the distance . . . a feeling she couldn’t explain, not even to herself.

She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, trying to find a way to make time pass faster. She mentally began to decorate the nursery. She put the oak crib beneath the window and a rocker in the corner beside the changing table. She folded the small quilt with cows jumping over the moon and put it beside the stuffed animals . . .

As she drifted into sleep, she saw herself thin again, wearing her skinny denim dress and holding a baby, her baby, its face covered with a soft white blanket. Filled with joy and expectation, she gently peeled the blanket back, but discovered another blanket beneath it.

She folded that back only to find another . . . and another.

Then, she heard a train whistle, faint, but growing louder. She looked up to see a locomotive speeding toward her and the baby. She stood frozen between the rails as the train bore down on them.

She tried to jump clear, to run, but her body was heavy, weighted, and the ground beneath, spongy and sticky, sucked at her feet. She 1 fell then, and from her knees and with all her energy, she lifted the baby over the rail and pushed it away from the tracks, away from danger.

Then, the blast of the whistle split the air. She tried to drag herself across the rail, but she moved like a giant slug, inching her way across the hot curve of metal. A hiss of steam and rush of scalding air brushed her legs when, in one desperate lunge, she was across. She was free.

She tried to stand, but her legs were twisted sinew and shards of bone. The train had severed her feet.

The scream started deep in her belly, then roared through her lungs.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Novalee?” Willy Jack yelled.

Yanking herself from sleep, Novalee was terrified to feel the rush of hot air coming through the floorboard. She knew without looking that the TV tray was gone.

She turned to look out the back window, dreading what she would see—her feet, mangled like road kill, torn and bloody in the middle of the highway.

But what she saw were her red sandals, empty of feet, skidding and bouncing down the road.

“What are you smiling about?” Willy Jack asked.

“Just a dream I had.”

She didn’t want to tell him about the shoes. It was the only pair she had and she knew he’d gripe about the money another pair would cost. Besides, they were on a real highway coming into a real town and Novalee didn’t want to get him mad again or she’d never get to a bathroom.

“Oh, look. There’s a Wal-Mart. Let’s stop there.”

“Thought you had to pee.”

“They have bathrooms in Wal-Mart, you know.”

Willy Jack swerved across two lanes and onto the access road while Novalee tried to figure her way around a problem. She didn’t have more than a dollar in her beach bag. Willy Jack had all the cash.

“Hon, I’m gonna need some money.”

“They gonna charge you to pee?”

He drove across the parking lot like he was making a pit stop and whipped the big Plymouth into the handicapped parking space nearest the entrance.

“Five dollars will be enough.”

“What for?”

“I’m gonna buy some houseshoes.”

“Houseshoes? Why? We’re in a car.”

“My feet are swollen. I can’t get my sandals back on.”

“Jesus Christ, Novalee. We’re going clear across the country and you’re gonna be wearing houseshoes?”

“Who’s gonna see?”

“You mean ever time we stop, you’re gonna be traipsing around in houseshoes?”

“Well, we don’t stop very much, do we?”

“Okay. Get some houseshoes. Get some polky dot houseshoes.

Some green polky dot houseshoes so everyone will be sure to notice you.”

“I don’t want polka dot houseshoes.”

“Get you some with elephants on them then. Yeah! An elephant in elephant houseshoes.”

“That’s mean, Willy Jack. That’s real mean.”

“Goddamn, Novalee.”

“I have to buy some kind of shoes.”

She hoped that would be enough of an explanation, but she knew 1 it wouldn’t. And though he didn’t actually say “Why,” his face said it.

“My sandals fell through the floor.”

She smiled at him then, a tentative smile, an invitation to see the humor in what had happened, but he declined the offer. He stared at her long enough to melt her smile, then he turned, spit out the window and shook his head in disgust. Finally, digging in the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a handful of crumpled bills. His movements, exaggerated and quick, were designed to show her he was right on the edge. He pitched a ten at her, then crammed the rest back in his pocket.

“I won’t be long,” she told him as she climbed out of the car.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you want to come in. Stretch your legs?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Want me to bring you some popcorn?”

“Just go on, Novalee.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she walked away. She tried to move her body as she had when they first met, when he was unable to keep his hands away from her, when her breasts and belly and thighs were tight and smooth. But she knew what he was seeing now.

She knew how she looked.

The single stall in the bathroom was taken. Novalee pressed her legs together and tried to hold her breath. When she heard the toilet flush, she was sure she was going to make it, but when the door didn’t open, she was sure she wasn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she tapped on the door, “but I’ve got to get in there now.”

A little girl, still struggling with buttons, opened the door, then jumped out of the way as Novalee rushed by.

Once inside, Novalee didn’t take time to lock the door or cover the seat with paper. She didn’t even check to make sure there was paper on the roll. She just peed and peed, then laughed out loud, her eyes flooded with tears at the joy of release. Novalee took pleasure in small victories.

As she washed at the sink, she studied herself in the mirror, then wished she hadn’t. Her skin, though unblemished and smooth, looked sallow, and her eyes, a light shade of green, were ringed with dark circles. Her hickory-colored hair, long and thick, had pulled loose from the clip at her neck and was frizzed into thin tight ringlets.

She splashed cold water on her face, smoothed her hair with wet hands, then dug in her beach bag for lipstick, but couldn’t find any.

Finally, she pinched her cheeks for color and decided not to look in any more mirrors until she could expect a better picture.

She went directly to the shoe department, knowing she had already taken too much time. The cheapest houseshoes she could find had little polka dots, so she settled quickly for a pair of rubber thongs.

At the checkout stand, she fidgeted impatiently while the man in front of her wrote out a check. By the time the checker dragged the thongs across the scanner, Novalee was caught up in the headlines of the National Examiner. She handed the checker the ten-dollar-bill while she puzzled over the picture of a newborn who was two thousand years old.

“Ma’am. Here’s your change.”

“Oh, sorry.” Novalee held out her hand.

“Seven dollars and seventy-seven cents.”

Novalee tried to jerk her hand back, but before she could, the coins dropped onto her palm.

“No,” she shouted as she flung the money across the floor. “No.”

Dizzy, she staggered as she turned and started running.

She knew he was gone, knew before she reached the door. She could see it all, see it as if she were watching a movie. She could see herself running, calling his name—the parking space empty, the Plymouth gone.

He was going to California and he had left her behind . . . left her with her magazine dreams of old quilts and blue china and family pictures in gold frames.

SHE WOULDN’T REMEMBER it all, even later. She wouldn’t remember the man who found her camera in the handicapped parking space. She wouldn’t remember the clerk pressing the money into her hand or the manager leading her to the bench just inside the door.

But she did remember someone wanting to call an ambulance and she did remember saying she was all right, telling them her boyfriend had gone to get the car fixed and would pick her up later.

And little by little, as they went to lunch . . . sneaked a smoke . . .

stocked more shelves, as clerks and stock boys and managers drifted by, they forgot the pregnant girl on the bench by the door, sitting under a red, white and blue banner that said MADE IN AMERICA.

By two o’clock she was hungry. She ate popcorn and drank Cokes from tall plastic cups. She had two Paydays and went to the bathroom twice. She tried to think of what she should do, but thinking about it 1 made her tired and caused her head to throb, so she ate another Payday and went to the bathroom again.

Just before three, a bony little woman with blue hair and no eyebrows rushed up and smiled into Novalee’s face.

“Ruth Ann? Ruth Ann Mott! Well, I declare. Little Ruth Ann. Why honey, I haven’t seen you since your momma passed. What’s that been? Twelve, fourteen years?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not Ruth Ann.”

“Don’t you remember me, honey? I’m Sister Husband. You remember me. Thelma Husband. Course, that’s not what you called me back then. You called me ‘Telma’ because you couldn’t say

‘Thelma.’ But everyone calls me Sister Husband now.”

“But my name isn’t—”

“Last time I saw you, you wasn’t more’n a baby. And here you are about to have a baby. Don’t that beat all? Where do you live now, Ruth Ann?”

“Well, I’ve been living in Tennessee, but—”

“Tennessee. I had a cousin lived in Tennessee. School teacher.

But when she was in her midlife, she had an operation.”

Sister Husband lowered her voice and leaned closer to Novalee.

“Hysterectomy, it was. And you know after that, she couldn’t spell anymore. Couldn’t spell ‘cat,’ so they said. She had to give up her school teaching, of course. But that was a shame, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. It was.”

“Tennessee. So, you just moving back, honey? Coming back home now?”

“Well, not exactly. But it looks like I might be here awhile.”

“Oh, that’s good, Ruthie. I think that’s good. ’Cause home gives you something no other place can. You know what that is?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Your history, Ruthie. Home is where your history begins.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The late Brother Husband said, ‘Home is the place that’ll catch you when you fall. And we all fall.’ That’s what the late Brother Husband used to say.”

“Was he your husband?”

“No. He was my brother. A real man of God. You go to church, Ruthie? You go regular to church?”

“Not regular.”

“Well, that’s good. I think that’s good. Sunday School . . . Bible study . . . prayer meetings. Now that’s just too much church. Ain’t nobody so full a sin they need that much church.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“No reason to work so hard at it. Me? I just have one job to do now. Just one job. You know what that is?”

“I guess it’s to save souls.”

“Oh, no, Ruth Ann. The Lord saves souls. I save wheat pennies.

No, my one job is to give away Bibles. That’s what the Lord wants me to do. Do you read the Bible, Ruth Ann?”

“Well, not much.”

“That’s good. I think that’s good. Folks read too much of it, they get confused. Read a little and you’re just a little confused. Read a lot and you’re a lot confused. And that’s why I just give out a chapter at a time. That way, folks can deal with their confusion as it comes. You understand what I’m saying, Ruth Ann?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think I do.” Novalee touched the scar on her arm in remembrance of Gladys.

“Wish I had a Bible chapter to give you, honey, but I went by the 2 bus station and gave away my last Deuteronomy and two Lamentations. Met a woman going to New Orleans. Any woman on her way to New Orleans can’t have too many Lamentations. But I don’t have a chapter left. I feel real bad about that.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“I’ll get some more run off tomorrow. I’ll print you out an Obadiah.

Obadiah won’t confuse you much. But I’m not going to leave you empty-handed now, honey. Come with me.”

Sister Husband wheeled and started for the door, then turned and motioned to Novalee.

“Come on, Ruth Ann.”

Novalee wasn’t quite sure why she followed the blue-haired woman out the door and across the parking lot, but she figured it couldn’t bring her much more trouble than she already had. Sister Husband marched her way to a banged-up blue Toyota pickup rigged to resemble a Conestoga wagon with a canvas cover over the bed. But the canvas was torn and the wire arches supporting it were bent, leaving the top drooping in the middle. On the side of the truck was a sign in white lettering: THE WELCOME WAGON.

Sister Husband opened the door and pulled out a straw basket with a red bow tied to the handle. She held the basket in front of her and pulled herself up tall and straight, like a soldier at attention.

“Let me be among the first to welcome you home,” she said with the cadence and inflection of a bad public speaker. “And on behalf of the city, I would like to present you with this basket of gifts from the merchants and bankers to make this, your homecoming, as pleasant as possible.”

“Thank you.” Novalee took the basket.

“Look here, Ruth Ann. It’s got matches, a phone book, emery Where the Heart Is

boards. Here’s some discount coupons and a map of the city. There’s just one thing though. See this appointment book?”