Where the Heart Is (4 page)

She didn’t know how long she had been in the bathroom. She had been too weak to move, too sick to care.

Her clothes were damp and sticky, her skin clammy. Her head felt disconnected from her body. When she was finally able to stand, she felt like she was seeing everything from some great height.

She got to the sink and held on while she splashed her face and rinsed her mouth. Her head throbbed and she ached all over, but she washed up as well as she could, then recovered her beach bag and eased out the door.

The building was dark and quiet. A weak light came from the front, but she knew the place was empty . . . knew she was alone.

She moved soundlessly through the store, toward the light, and found her possessions by the bench where she’d left them—the Welcome Wagon basket, her baby book, the buckeye tree. She gathered them up, as if she were preparing to leave, as if she were going home.

Then she began to wander, like people do who have come from no place and have no place to go—like Crazy Man Dan, in Tellico Plains, who walked the streets at night carrying bits and pieces of other people’s lives.

She moved aimlessly from one side of the store to the other, past rows of televisions without pictures, racks of toys without children.

She shuffled past stacks of sheets, boxes of candy and shelves of 3 dishes. She walked some aisles many times, some not at all, but it didn’t matter.

And then she saw a table, a round, glass-topped table beneath a red and white striped umbrella . . . a place where she could sit with the baby and drink chocolate milk and watch the sun go down. She ran her hand across the smooth glass top, swiping at dust, cleaning a place for the book and the basket. Nearby, she found some thin white trellises and moved two of them to the side of the table, then placed the tree between them.

She eased into one of the chairs, opened her beach bag and took out the pictures of Sister Husband, Moses Whitecotton and Benny Goodluck, then propped them up against the basket. She moved the book nearer the center of the table, then pushed it back to where it had been. Finally . . . finished . . . she sat still for a long time, so long that it seemed she might never move.

Much later, when she did get up, she walked to the front window and looked outside. A light rain was beginning to fall and a hard wind scattered drops against the glass. Hazy neon yellows and reds, tiny darts of color, were caught in the trickles spilling down the pane. And suddenly, a memory, long-buried, came rushing back to her.

She was very little and she couldn’t remember why or how, but she was left behind at a skating rink, locked in, alone. At first, she was terrified . . . screaming, pounding on locked doors, clawing toward high windows.

Then, she stretched to a switch on the wall, flipped it up, and a huge silver ball in the middle of the rink started to turn, sending a shower of silver and blue across the floor, up the walls, around the ceiling—around and around.

Her fear broke apart then, shattered like splintered glass, and five-year-old Novalee Nation walked into that shower of light and let the Where the Heart Is

bright diamonds of color dance around her body. Then, she began to turn. Under the magic silver ball, her stockinged feet gliding, sliding on the polished wood, she turned . . . faster and faster . . . arms floating free in space . . . spinning . . . whirling . . . free.

Novalee smiled at her five-year-old self, all elbows and knees, and she tried to hold her there, but the child spun away, into the shadows.

Then, Novalee Nation, seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight, slipped off her thongs and there, in the middle of the Wal-Mart, she began to turn . . . faster and faster . . .

spinning and whirling . . . free . . . waiting for her history to begin.

WILLY JACK RAN out of money in Tucumcari; the Plymouth ran out of gas eighty miles later. When the needle on the gas gauge crawled over the E, he dug in his pockets to count his change, ninety-four cents. He regretted giving Novalee the ten, which would have gotten him closer to California, but he quickly shrugged that off. Willy Jack was not one to linger on regret.

He was able to let the car coast to a grove of pines, well off the shoulder of the road. He locked his cardboard suitcase in the trunk, then pulled out the seats, front and back, searching for lost coins.

He found two quarters, a dime, three pennies and his roach clip.

He hadn’t walked far before he realized he had left his dark glasses on the dash. More than the heat, he was bothered by the glare of the sun, which produced a finger of pain jabbing at his eyes.

He tried to hitch a ride, but the truckers, having gotten up speed coming off the Pecos Mesa, roared past, creating small whirlwinds of dust and grit, leaving him grinding sand between his teeth.

Few other vehicles were on the road. Pickups with whole families crowded into the cabs. RVs, their windows plastered with bumper stickers that said SENIOR CITIZENS ON BOARD. Not the kind of drivers to stop for hitchhikers.

Once, a banged-up little VW full of teenagers slowed and pulled even with Willy Jack. A redhead with crooked teeth leaned out the window and smiled.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but would you have any Grey Poupon?”

“What? Grey what?”

But the car had already started to speed away, the sounds of laughter spilling out behind it.

“Cocksuckers,” Willy Jack shouted.

The redhead leaned out the window and blew Willy Jack a kiss; Willy Jack gave him the finger.

“Cocksuckers,” he yelled again, but they were far down the highway by then.

The heat was beginning to bother him; his mouth was dry, his head pounding. At the top of a rise he spotted a pond, but it was a mile or so back from the highway.

He didn’t have a plan for getting gas or money, but when he saw a sign that said SANTA ROSA—THREE MILES, he figured that was a better option than walking to Bakersfield.

Just before the exit, another sign announced GAS, FOOD AND

LODGING AHEAD, but Willy Jack never made it to any of the three.

He never made it past a bar called Tom Pony’s, a squat concrete building painted the color of weak coffee.

Willy Jack was afraid the place might be closed. An old pickup parked in front was missing the two rear tires and had been there for 3 a while. The neon signs on the building were unlit and it looked dark behind the windows, but he could hear the sounds of music playing inside, a steel guitar sliding along the edges of a song. He tried the door, but it was locked. Then he went to the window, rubbed away a circle of grime, cupped his hands around his eyes and peered inside.

In a few seconds his vision adjusted enough for him to realize he was staring into another pair of eyes on the other side of the glass.

“Jesus,” he yelled as he jumped back.

He heard someone inside laughing. A moment later a lock clicked and the door opened, but just inches. He moved to it, tentatively, then leaned in a little closer. That’s when the door flew open and a hand reached out, grabbed Willy Jack and pulled him inside.

“What the hell you think you’re doing peeking in my window?”

A girl who looked to be twelve or thirteen had hold of him. She had short cropped hair, a beak of a nose, a thin, sharp face dotted with pimples. Willy Jack almost laughed at how ugly she was, lean and stringy. She reminded him of pictures he had seen on television, pictures of starving people in Africa, except this girl was white. And strong.

“You can get shot doing that, you know.”

“Look,” he said, brushing her hand off his arm. “It’s not like I was peeking in your bedroom or anything. This isn’t a house.”

“How do you know it’s not, Mr. Smarty Pants.”

“Well, is it?”

“What does it look like?”

Willy Jack scanned the room, but without interest. He had spent a thousand nights in such places, but never saw in them more than he saw in this one: jukebox, pool table, bar, girl. He never saw the cracked plastic or the splattered walls or the torn Naugahyde or the yellowed Where the Heart Is

pictures of Indians, haggard and beaten. He couldn’t see the gleam and shine of things still new already dulled and scarred—like the girl.

“So, is this place open or not?” he asked.

“If we were closed, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

“All I want—what I’m after is just a cold beer.”

“Well, that’s what we sell.”

She went behind the bar, drew a beer, then slid it across the counter to him. He drank most of it in one swallow.

“So, where you from?” she asked.

“Nashville.”

“Tennessee?”

“I don’t know of but one Nashville. And it’s in Tennessee.”

“You’re a smartass, ain’t you?”

Willy Jack grinned.

From somewhere in the back, in a room behind the bar, Willy Jack heard a toilet flush.

“You know who you look like when you smile?” she said. “John Cougar Mellencamp. Anyone ever told you that before?”

“Sure. Lots of people. You know why? ’Cause he’s my brother.”

“Bullshit. He ain’t your brother.”

“That right? My momma thinks he is.”

“You’re not.”

Willy Jack finished the beer and held the empty glass out to her.

“Show me your driver’s license.”

“Why? You a cop?”

She laughed then, and Willy Jack saw that she was missing her two front teeth. Her gums, where the teeth should have been, were deep red, like she’d put lipstick in that place. Willy Jack was surprised to feel the beginning of an erection.

She filled his glass and handed it back to him.

“Come on. Prove you’re who you say.”

“Wish I could.”

“I knew that was bullshit.”

“Some son of a bitch stole my wallet last night. Right out of my hotel room. Money, credit cards. The works.”

“You mean you don’t have no money? How you gonna pay me for them two beers?”

“Oh, I got a little change.” Willy Jack acted like he was going for his pocket.

“That’s okay. They’re on the house.”

“Jolene?” The voice from the back room, a woman’s, was husky, flat.

The girl squinched up her eyes and made a face like she’d gotten a mouthful of raw egg.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You filled the salt shakers?”

“Yes, I did.”

The girl grabbed a sack of Morton Salt from a shelf behind her, then twisted the tops off a couple of chunky plastic shakers on the bar. She upended the salt and waved the sack back and forth above the shakers.

“Jolene,” the woman called again.

The girl grinned at Willy Jack as the salt spilled over the shakers and onto the counter. She held the sack until it was empty, the shakers buried beneath a pound of salt.

“Jolene.” The voice was more insistent now.

“What?”

“Put the rest of the Coors and Millers into the case,” the woman yelled.

“Okay.”

The girl walked into a curtained area at one end of the bar and returned with two cases of beer, one on top of the other. She handled the cases easily, without strain. Willy Jack watched as she opened the cold case behind the bar and began loading the hot beer into it.

Her jeans pulled up tight into her crotch each time she bent forward, but that wasn’t what excited him. It was that space in her mouth where she had lost her front teeth.

“You a musician, too?” she asked.

“Yeah. Got a gig in Las Vegas if I can get there by tomorrow night.”

“Why it ain’t but eight hours. And that’s doing the speed limit.”

“Hell, I ain’t good at speed limits, but I—”

“Jolene?”

The girl held her finger to her lips, a signal to Willy Jack to be quiet, but he didn’t need a signal. He could hear the impatience in the woman’s voice.

“You talking to someone out there?”

“No.” Jolene rolled her eyes in disgust. “I’m just singing.”

“You can make it easy in eight hours,” the girl whispered to Willy Jack.

“But my car’s out on the highway, out of gas. And I don’t have any cash . . . no credit cards.”

“Why don’t you call your brother?”

“That’s the problem. He’s in London. On tour.”

“Then call your wife.”

“Don’t have one.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Naw, that’s over. I dumped her.”

“You could hitchhike. Unless you think you’re too good.”

“I done my share of it. But I can’t leave my car.”

“Well, maybe I can help you out.”

“How’s that?”

“I got some money.”

“I sure would—”

“What the hell’s going on?” The voice from the back room belonged to the heavy woman standing in the door. She was wearing a man’s undershirt, black lace underpants and pink Reeboks.

“You open up, Jolene?”

“No, ma’am, but he—”

“You the one decides when we open? Huh? You setting the hours now?”

The woman crossed to the bar, got right in the girl’s face.

“You running the place now?”

“This guy—”

Then the woman turned to Willy Jack. “We’re closed.”

“That right?” he said.

She reached across the bar and grabbed the beer from in front of him.

“You pay for this?”

“I was going to, but—”

“I gave it to him,” the girl said.

“Oh. You open up and you give away beer. My, oh my. I don’t know how I ever run this place without you. Yes sir, the day you . . .”

The girl scooted around the woman and across to the front door.

“He’s just leaving.” Jolene motioned to Willy Jack. “Go on. Get out.”

Willy Jack pushed back from the bar, then slid off the stool and headed for the door, but he didn’t rush . . . didn’t hurry.

“You damned right he’s leaving. And so are you if you don’t shape up.”

As he stepped through the door, the girl slammed it behind him.

He could still hear the woman’s voice, even when he reached the road. She was yelling about salt.

On his way into town, he passed several trailer houses set back on treeless lots, a roadside fruit stand, abandoned, and a burned barn in a field thick with sagebrush. He crossed over railroad tracks that ran beside a boarded-up filling station—the place where the girl was waiting. She was standing on the concrete island beside the pumps.