Where the Heart Is (7 page)

Novalee pressed herself tightly against the wall.

“It goes between The Dream Garden Encyclopedia and The Dream Kitchen Encyclopedia, ” he said. “If you’re not going to take the time to put books back where they go, then . . .”

Suddenly, he was standing right in front of her.

“. . . don’t pull them out.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as she began to edge toward the front door.

“You don’t have to leave.” He sounded a little less angry. “Just be more careful.”

“No, I think I’ll just come back when the librarian’s here to help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“Find a book.” She reached for the front door. “A book about trees.”

“I hear my echo in the echoing wood . . . A lord of nature weeping to a tree. ”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s that mean?”

The man studied her face briefly, then wheeled and bolted toward a cabinet of small drawers against the back wall.

“Trees!” he yelled, striding across the floor. “Trees! Forestry?

Environment . . . agriculture? Botany. What do you want to know about trees?”

“I want to know about buckeye trees,” she said, falling in behind him.

“Buckeye! The horse chestnut! Belonging to the genus Aesculus of the family Hippocastanaceae. ”

“What? I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

While he opened one of the drawers in the cabinet and began flipping through cards, he seemed to forget that Novalee was there.

His blazing black eyes narrowed in concentration and his lips moved as if he were speaking to the cards flying under his fingers.

She moved a step closer, close enough to know he smelled of mint and sweet alyssum, which she had seen in clay pots beside the front door, close enough to hear his starched denim shirt crinkle when he shifted his weight and slammed the drawer.

“Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening, ” he shouted, as he raced to a shelf of books where he darted and swayed, his fingers playing across titles. Suddenly he zipped down the aisle like a child looking for a cherished toy. Novalee had to run to stay up with him.

Then he dipped and pulled a book from the shelf. “Now. What do you want to know about buckeyes?”

“Mine’s sick. I think it’s dying.”

He dashed to the nearest table, pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down. Then he slammed the book down in front of her, opening it to the index.

She ran her finger down the page mouthing “buckeye.”

“It’s not here.”

He moved in beside her, scanned the page for a moment, then pointed to a word.

“What? I can’t say that.”

“Yes, you can. Hip-po-cas-ta-na-cea-e.”

Novalee pulled the book closer and began to read.

She had not been aware of his bringing her more books, but when she looked up, she was amazed to find the table littered with them—

encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, agricultural tracts, government pamphlets. And she had read from everything he had placed before her.

She leaned back. He was sitting across from her watching her face.

“Well?” he asked.

“My tree has leaf rot from overwatering.”

He nodded. “More.”

“It may have root damage, too.”

“Go on,” he said as he began to rock back and forth in his chair.

“Go on!”

“It has nematode symptoms.”

He rocked faster and faster.

“Traces of powdery mildew.”

“Yes.”

“Possible nitrogen deficiency.”

“Yes!” He slapped the table. “Yes!” he shouted, then shot out of his chair, tumbling it backward and skidding it across the floor. “The words!”

“Well, I know what’s wrong with it . . .”

“You’ve found the words!”

“. . . but I don’t know if it’s gonna make it.”

He shook his head, then leaned across the table to Novalee, his Where the Heart Is

voice dipping to a whisper. “The tree has no leaves and may never have them again. We must wait till some months hence in the spring to know. But if it is destined never again to grow, it can blame this limitless trait in the heart of men. ”

Novalee watched his lips shape the words . . . the sounds, like whispered secrets, hanging in the air.

NOVALEE HOPED he wasn’t watching her through the library window when she lifted the buckeye from behind some evergreens, but she felt sure he was. She carried the tree to the end of the block, then stopped to dig the city map out of her beach bag. She was going to the last house on Evergreen Street, the house where Sister Husband lived.

As she walked the first few blocks, her mind was on the strange man she had met in the library. She kept going over what he had said, trying to make sense of it, but she wasn’t even sure she knew what he was talking about. She hoped the book in her bag, the one he had checked out for her, would help her understand.

The trip to Sister Husband’s took her to a part of the town she hadn’t seen before. Usually, when she left the Wal-Mart, she stayed fairly close or walked to the north side where wide streets were lined Where the Heart Is

with elms and sycamores and deep lawns were edged with geraniums, snapdragons, and moss roses. She had rested in pretty parks where children waded in blue pools while their mothers waited in the shade of broad, flowering mimosas.

But this part of town, Sister Husband’s part of town, looked like the places where Novalee had lived in Tellico Plains, neighborhoods the color of cold gravy. The streets were lined by shallow ditches filled with brackish water, and the parks, where swings dangled from broken chains and merry-go-rounds leaned drunkenly on their sides, were empty except for skinny dogs and old men.

The houses, their roofs patched like scrap quilts, sat crookedly in yards littered with rusted cars on concrete blocks. And at the end of them all, at the end of the street, was Sister Husband’s home: a house trailer on wheels.

A porch of raw lumber leaned against the front of the trailer and coffee cans of flowering kale and cockscomb lined the steps. The grass, recently mowed, had been trimmed around a granite birdbath and two tires that protected small bushes of hollyhock. A pecan tree bonneted by bagworms provided shade for a bald spot in the yard that served as driveway for the Toyota Welcome Wagon.

Novalee carried the buckeye to the door with her, but then changed her mind and left it at the edge of the steps. She brushed her hair back from her face and mentally rehearsed her lines, then she knocked, louder than she had intended.

From inside, she heard bare feet slapping the floor, doors slamming, water running. After a few minutes, she began to feel uncomfortable.

She didn’t know whether she should knock again or just leave, but before she could decide, the door suddenly opened.

Sister Husband, her hair a soft shade of blue, smiled at Novalee through the screen.

“Sister Husband, I don’t know if you remember me. Well, you probably don’t, but we met one day at Wal-Mart and you gave me a Welcome Wagon basket and I took your picture which I’ve got right here in this bag and you called me Ruth Ann, but I’m not. My name is Novalee Nation and I—”

“Why, how awful of me to make such a mistake. Of course, now that I see you in a different light there is not the slightest similarity between you and Ruth Ann. Well, it’s just wonderful to see you again, darlin’. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you.”

Novalee stepped into a room of yellow—yellow lamp shades and flowers, yellow curtains and throw rugs, and the yellow shirt of a small bald man standing just inside the door.

“Darlin’, I’d like you to meet my gentleman, Mr. Sprock. Jack Sprock.”

“How do you do,” he said as he took Novalee’s hand in both of his own.

Jack Sprock smelled of baby powder and cinnamon and when he smiled, his teeth gleamed like they had been painted with white enamel.

“We were just getting ready to have some cold buttermilk and cornbread. Of course, you’ll join us.”

“Oh, no. I just came by to ask—”

“You just came by because I asked you to. Invited you to come to my house and be my guest. And here you are and I can’t think of what would make me any happier than this. To have you and your child and my lovely Mr. Sprock here with me this beautiful afternoon.”

“Beautiful afternoon,” Mr. Sprock added.

Then Sister Husband smiled and led Novalee to a chair at the kitchen table. Mr. Sprock sat beside her while Sister Husband brought tall yellow glasses to the table and filled them with buttermilk from a Where the Heart Is

yellow pitcher. She put a plate of cornbread, sliced like pie on a yellow platter, in the middle of the table, then she sat down and took Mr. Sprock’s hand in one of hers and Novalee’s in the other. Mr.

Sprock fumbled for Novalee’s other hand and they were joined, the three of them, when Sister Husband bowed her head and began to pray.

“Dear Lord, we are thankful for this communion of souls here today. We pray, Lord, for the safe delivery and a healthy child for this sweet darlin’ who graces our table this day. And we ask forgiveness, Lord, for the fornication that Mr. Sprock and me have committed again. Now, we pray that you will bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies. Amen.”

Mr. Sprock said amen, then smiled at Novalee as he passed her the plate of cornbread.

“So, what do you think of our town, darlin’? Are you getting acquainted?”

“Yes,” Novalee said as she wiped buttermilk from the corners of her mouth.

“Oh good. I think that’s good.”

“I met someone new just today. At the library.”

“That would be Forney Hull,” Sister Husband said.

“Yep, Forney Hull,” Mr. Sprock seconded.

“Oh, he’s a brilliant man. Just brilliant. If he’d of had a chance to finish his schooling, why there’s no telling what he’d be.”

“Nope. No telling what he’d be,” Mr. Sprock said.

“You see, darlin’, Forney’s sister’s the librarian, but she’s never in the library. She’s an alcoholic. Stays upstairs all the time. Never leaves her room. So, Forney takes her place downstairs in the library.”

“Oh, he didn’t say nothing about that.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t want you to think bad about his sister, God love her. More cornbread?”

Novalee had two glasses of buttermilk with four slices of cornbread, Sister Husband smiling at every bite she took. Finally, Novalee decided it was time.

“Sister Husband, I have a favor to ask of you, but it’s okay if you say no. I’ll understand.”

“Why whatever is it? You just go ahead and ask.”

“Just go ahead and ask,” Mr. Sprock said.

“Well, this is gonna sound pretty strange, but I have a tree I’m needing to plant.”

“Then we’ll help you.”

“No, that’s not it. See, the place where I’m living right now . . . well, they won’t let me put a tree there.”

“Oh, isn’t that mean.”

“Mean.” Mr. Sprock shook his head and sighed.

“So, what I was wondering is . . . do you think I could plant it here?

Just till I settle someplace permanent. Then I’ll come and take it up.”

“Plant it in my yard?”

“Yes, ma’am, but just temporary like.”

“I can’t—”

“And I’ll take care of it, too. While it’s here. It’s not too pretty right now, but I’m gonna doctor it and maybe it’ll be okay.”

We must wait till some months hence in the spring to know.

“Darlin’, I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to have you plant your tree in front of my home.”

And with that, Mr. Sprock was up from the table and out the door.

Novalee and Sister Husband hurried behind as Mr. Sprock took a shovel from Sister Husband’s shed; then Novalee had to decide where to plant the buckeye. From her reading in the library, she had learned that she should plant the tree on a slight rise for drainage, so she chose the highest point in Sister Husband’s yard, a spot nearly in the center.

“Right here,” she said. “This is it.”

Mr. Sprock nodded, then started to dig, but Novalee stopped him.

“No, thank you, Mr. Sprock. I’ll do it.”

“But darlin’,” Sister Husband said, “that’s heavy work. Do you really think it’ll be good for you?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’ll be good for me.”

By the time Novalee had the hole deep enough, she had blisters on her hands, and a pain in her lower back that would not rub away.

She loosened the burlap, then very gently lowered the tree into the hole, being careful not to disturb the roots. She had guessed right. The hole was twice as wide as the tree’s root ball and plenty deep enough.

She was so tired before she finished filling the hole that Sister Husband and Mr. Sprock used their shoes to scrape dirt over the roots when they thought Novalee wasn’t looking.

When she finished, Sister Husband and Mr. Sprock took her hands once again and they circled the tree while Sister Husband sang “A Fig Tree in Galilee,” a song Novalee had never heard.

Then, Sister Husband said, “Now, I quote from the Good Book, Mark 8:24. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up and said, I see man as trees, walking. ”

By the time Novalee crossed the parking lot, bedraggled and grimy, it was nearly dark. She had specks of dried buttermilk on her blouse and grass stains on the knees of her pants. Her fingernails were caked with dirt and she had a dark smudge across her cheek, but she was too exhausted to care.

She was too tired to enjoy the beauty of the sun setting behind the hills west of town, too tired to welcome the cool evening breeze, relief from the early spring heat. And she was far too tired to notice the man in the brown stocking cap standing across the street . . . the man watching her as she slipped inside the back door of the Wal-Mart.

FORNEY TOLD NOVALEE if she was late for her own birthday dinner, he’d feed her grasshopper stew. She made sure she wasn’t late. In fact, she got to the library twenty minutes early. But Forney had made such a fuss about being on time, she figured he might be as upset about her arriving early as he would about her coming late. So instead of going inside, she waited on a bench near the iron gate while she tried to brush some of the frizz from her still-damp hair.