Where the Heart Is (35 page)

“Willy Jack . . .”

He held up one hand, a gesture for a little more time. “Now that don’t make me good. That won’t change anything, won’t right all the wrongs I done or help the people I hurt. It’s only two things, Novalee, but it means I wasn’t all bad. It means it wasn’t all a waste.”

Novalee didn’t want to feel what she was feeling, didn’t want to believe what she’d heard. She had been hanging on to the Willy Jack she knew for such a long time, the one who didn’t care, the Willy Jack she had taught herself to hate. She knew she could handle him, but this Willy Jack was throwing her off balance. And she knew the worst thing she could do was to lose her balance.

“Willy Jack, you said you came back here to tell me something about Americus.”

“Yeah.” He scooted around in the bed and grimaced with the effort. “You remember the last day? The last day we was together?”

Novalee nodded.

“You asked me if I wanted to feel the baby and you put my hand on your belly, but I said I didn’t feel nothing. You said that if I tried, I could feel the heart.”

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

“I said I couldn’t and tried to pull my hand back, but you wouldn’t let me.”

Feel right there.

“Your voice was so soft, just a whisper, but I heard what you said.”

That’s where the heart is.

Willy Jack’s face was streaked with tears, but he didn’t wipe them away. “I lied, Novalee. I lied to you.” His voice sounded heavy and tired. “I said I couldn’t feel it, but I did. I felt that baby’s heartbeat. I felt it as sure as I could feel my own. But I lied.”

“Why?”

“Lord, I don’t know. Why does anyone lie? ’Cause we’re scared or crazy, maybe just ’cause we’re mean. I guess there’s a million reasons to lie, and I might’ve told that many . . . but none like that. I guess there’s always that one lie we never get over.”

“What?”

“Oh, maybe you don’t know about it yet. Maybe you never told a lie so big it can eat away a part of you.

“But if you ever do . . . and if you get lucky . . . you might get a chance to set it right. Just one chance to change it.

“Then it’s gone. And it never comes again.”

“Deposit two dollars and seventy-five cents.”

Novalee fumbled eleven quarters into the slot, then pressed the receiver to her ear as the phone began to ring.

“Oh, please be there,” she whispered after she had counted three rings.

one lie we never get over

On the fourth ring, she closed her eyes and ran her hand through her hair.

just one chance to change it

She twisted the phone cord so tightly around her hand that by the fifth ring, her fingers had turned white.

then it’s gone . . .

After the sixth ring, she felt weak and leaned against the phone booth door.

and it never comes again

Then she got lucky. He answered on the seventh ring.

“Chaucer’s.”

When she heard his voice, her throat tightened, choking off breath, choking off sound.

“Chaucer’s Book Store.”

She tried to say his name, but something hard knotted and swelled in the hollow below her throat.

Then he said, “Hello?”

She remembered dreams, bad dreams in which she would try to call for help, but the words would be tangled and trapped inside her.

“Well . . .” he said and she knew he was going to hang up.

She squeezed out a sound, more like a whimper than a word, but he heard it.

“I’m sorry. Can you speak up?”

Then something broke loose and his name tumbled out as she swallowed air and began to cry without sound.

“Novalee?”

“I . . . I called be . . . cause . . .” Her voice, broken with sobs, cracked the words in two.

“What’s wrong, Novalee? What is it?”

“Forney . . .”

“Is it Americus? Is she all right?”

Snuffling breath, Novalee managed to say, “She’s fine,” though the words sounded pinched and bent.

“Then what’s the matter?”

Novalee could feel her heart quicken. Then, squeezed between convulsions of air, the words exploded from her lips.

“I lied, Forney.”

Seconds turned into lifetimes while Novalee strained to hear some sound . . . a whisper of voice, an embrace of breath.

“Oh, don’t let it be too late, Forney. Please don’t let it be too late.”

She prayed he was still on the line, prayed they were still connected.

“I lied to you . . . and I’m sorry.”

Then she heard him draw a deep ragged breath.

“I thought you wanted something else—a different life. I thought you wanted to go back to Maine . . . go back to school . . . become a teacher. And I was afraid if I tried to keep you here with me . . .”

“Novalee . . .”

“So when you asked me if I loved you, I said . . .”

“You said, ‘No. Not in the way you need to be loved. Not in that way.’”

“But it wasn’t true, Forney. I do love you.”

“Then . . .”

“I lied because I thought you deserved something better.

“Something better than you?” His voice was husky and thick.

“Novalee, there isn’t anything better than you.”

“It’s not too late, is it, Forney? We still have time. We still have . . .”

Novalee’s voice was smothered beneath the siren of an ambulance pulling into the emergency entrance beside the phone booth.

“Can you hear me?” she yelled into the phone.

“Novalee, where are you?”

“Outside a hospital in Alva.”

“Alva? What are you doing there?”

“I’m getting ready to leave. I’m going to Tellico Plains.”

“No.” Forney sounded stunned. “You can’t go back.”

“Oh, not to stay, Forney. Not to stay.” Novalee turned so she could see her car parked at the curb. Willy Jack was in the back, his head cradled on the pillows she had stacked in the seat.

“I’m just taking someone to Tellico Plains,” she said. “Someone who’s trying to get back home.”

“Novalee, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how you found me here. I don’t know why you’re there. I don’t know if I understand any of this. But if it’s a dream, if I’ve just been dreaming . . .”

“You’re not dreaming, Forney. This is you and this is me—and it’s real.”

A light rain had started falling while Novalee was still inside the phone booth. By the time she ran back to the car and slid under the wheel, the wind was slapping drops the size of quarters against the windows.

Willy Jack was in a deep sleep, the result, she supposed, of the pain shot he’d been given just before they’d loaded him into the car.

While Novalee was fishing her keys out of her purse, the wind picked up enough to set the Chevy rocking and to make her decide to wait it out and stay put until the storm passed.

As she watched the drops spilling down the window, she saw another night, another rainstorm and a girl . . . a girl seventeen, pregnant, alone . . . a girl turning, spinning, waiting—waiting for the Where the Heart Is

ones who would step from the darkness, their voices calling to her from the shadows . . .

a little woman with blue hair and a wide smile, holding open the door of a trailer house, a woman who would teach her the meaning of home home is the place that’ll catch you when you fall and we all fall

a man with black skin who would put a camera in her hands and teach her a new way to look at the world

you don’t need to be scared . . . remember, you know about taking pictures from the heart

a brown-skinned boy with a soft voice and a tree full of magic it’s lucky, lets you find things you need . . .

helps you find your way home if you get lost a woman too full of life to say no who would teach her about friendship

look at all you’ve done, Novalee . . .

look at all you’ve done for yourself a man in a stocking cap who would teach her about love what I want, Novalee, is to be with you . . .

to be with you and Americus

and a child named Americus who would teach her to trust happiness when the kitten opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is her mother

The girl knew there would be others with new voices calling to her from places she couldn’t see, so—still whirling—she waited.

Novalee smiled then at her seventeen-year-old self turning on the other side of the rain-streaked glass and she tried to hold her there.

But the girl spun away into the light, the place where her history began.

A Q&A with Billie Letts

Q. You use some strange names, including Native American names. How did you come up with them?

A. We have some wonderful names in Oklahoma, names that carry their own images, their own rhythms—Whitecotton, Nation, Goodluck, Husband. I didn’t have to work hard to find them. Even the name Americus is connected to Oklahoma. It was once a small community here but it’s gone now, disappeared.

Q. Why did you settle on Wal-Mart as such an important part of your book?

A. Many small towns in our part of the country have central meeting places, the social centers of the towns—churches, high school gyms, football fields, and, increasingly so, the Wal-Mart store, which has changed not only business on Main Street, but the very rhythms and movements of these communities. So, for my story, the Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, was the most likely place for Novalee to en-counter Sister Husband, a white woman, Moses Whitecotton, a black man, and Benny Goodluck, a Native American boy.

Q. Your book includes characters from a variety of cultures.

How did that come about?

A. We hear so much about America’s urban areas and the various ethnic communities in them—the great melting pot.

I suspect that the common perception on the coasts is still that the great middle is populated by Anglo ranchers and wheat farmers. And they do live here. But our ethnic diversity would surprise most people. Do you know that Oklahoma almost came into the union as a black state? That at one time Oklahoma had a multitude of black towns? And of course the various Native American tribes were in place on their lands even before statehood. But the limits and boundaries of the black towns and Indian communities have largely dissolved to contribute to a cultural diversity in the state.

Q. Why is Novalee, an uneducated, pregnant, seventeen-year-old, your main character?

A. Oklahoma has a high rate of teenage pregnancy. As a result, we have many single mothers, either recently divorced or never married. I’ve known many of these young women—students in my college classes. They often hold marginal jobs as waitresses, motel maids, nursing home workers. They are poor and uneducated, often victims of Where the Heart Is

alcoholic, redneck, small town he-men. But these are Ma Joad’s children—they keep coming, keep trying. And Novalee Nation is among the best of them.

Q. How did you settle on Sister Husband and Moses Whitecotton and Forney Hull as Novalee’s mentors? How is Where the Heart Is an “Oklahoma story”?

A. Some people have described Sister Husband as “wacky.”

Let’s see. She’s loving, giving, accepting, and nurturing.

Maybe in late-twentieth-century America that’s wacky. If it is, I’ve had a grandmother, aunts, cousins, and friends who are, according to that definition, wacky. Come to my house and I’ll invite a houseful of Sister Husbands of a variety of ages, sizes, and inclinations. Sister is as much a part of me as Saturday night family musicals and Sunday morning church.

Moses Whitecotton is based on a real man—Claude Adams—a friend who died several years ago. He moved from a difficult time and place in this society to help hundreds of people better their lives. You’ve never heard of him, but anyone who ever knew him will never forget what he gave to each of us.

And Forney Hull? America has a tradition of anti-intellectualism and so does Oklahoma. Intellectuals, or simply anyone who listens to a variety of music or who goes to a play or who reads too many books, are suspect. But they are here. And, as in any society, they are our soul.

How did I come up with these characters? Hell, they’re people I know.

Q. Several of your characters’ names are changed or miscalled during the course of the book. When Sister Husband first meets Novalee, she calls her “Ruth Ann.” Moses Whitecotton is called “Mose” by the manager at the Wal-Mart even though he’s dealt with Moses several times.

Lexie Coop’s children are never called by their real names until late in the story. And Willy Jack’s name is changed to

“Billy Shadow.” I’m curious about your reasons for doing that.

A. If these characters were lawyers, bankers, corporate ex-ecutives, or celebrities, there’s little chance people would take the liberty of changing their names. But the characters you’ve mentioned are poor, uneducated—without A. power. When I was teaching, I often used Maya Angelou’s work in my classes, in particular, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ms. Angelou relates an incident in which a white woman she works for decides to change her name, Marguerite, to “Mary.” Can you imagine how that must feel? That someone with the power of social status and wealth could, on a whim, decide to change your name?

Q. Many of your characters are disfigured in some way.

Novalee has a scar that runs from her wrist to her elbow; Jolene, the teenaged girl Willy Jack meets in Santa Rosa, is missing her two front teeth, and Willy Jack himself has teeth marred by cavities “the size of raisins.” Claire Hudson has so many cuts and scrapes that it seems her entire body is covered by Band-Aids, and Lexie Coop’s eyelid is ruined. You obviously wanted readers to “see” these disfigurements, didn’t you?

A. Yes, I did. Think about how these people live and what happens to them as a result. Novalee’s scar came from a woman in a bar where Novalee worked, a woman crazy and Where the Heart Is

drunk. Jolene and Willy Jack are trying to survive in whatever way they can. People like that can’t be overly concerned with oral hygiene. Claire Hudson covers herself with Band-Aids less because of visible wounds than because she is trying to hide, to protect herself from pain.

Lexie is the victim of a man who preys on vulnerable women and children. Now I’m not suggesting that people with money and power can avoid crazy people with knives or dangerous degenerates or even bad teeth, but I believe people like the characters in my book have far fewer re-sources with which to deal with their disfigurements, both figuratively and literally.