Part 36 (2/2)
”Maybe when the police find Roger Briscoe, when they get him in jail, maybe then you and the kids can . . .”
”We'll never be the same, Novalee. Never.”
290.
Lexie pulled herself up from the table and padded across the kitchen. For a second, Novalee thought she was going back to her room, but then she stopped, turned.
”How did a man like Roger Briscoe find me? How did he find me and know he could do such a thing to me? To my kids?”
”What do you mean?”
”He had to be looking for women like me, women with children, women alone. Women who were stupid.”
”Oh, Lexie . . .”
”But the others, those other women, they saw through him, didn't they? They could tell he was evil. But I didn't see it. I didn't know.
And now, I've got to live with that, but I don't know how. I don't know if I can.”
”You can! You can, Lexie! This isn't the first time you've been hurt. It's not the only time you-”
”But this time it's not just me. It's my kids, G.o.ddammit. It's my kids.”
”That's right! And they're in pain. Maybe the worst pain they'll ever feel in their lives because they've lost something they can't get back, something they'll never have again. That's gone, Lexie. Roger Briscoe took that!”
”That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
”Yes, he is. But you've survived others. Every time one of them left you pregnant, walked away from you and your baby, he hurt you both. And I know that kind of pain. But look what they left behind.”
”Yeah. Dirty underwear, hot checks, s.h.i.+tty toilets.”
”They left us with these little people who celebrate the wrong holidays all year long . . . who get roseola and ringworm . . . bleed on our blouses and pee on our skirts, lose our keys, drag home dogs with mange and cats with worms . . .”
291.
”Spill nail polish on our best pair of shoes,” Lexie said, ”and drop our favorite earrings down the garbage disposal.”
”Flush our only good bra, wear a velvet hat with a veil . . .”
”But Novalee, what am I going to say to Brummett and Pauline when they ask me why this happened to them? What will I say?”
”Tell them that our lives can change with every breath we take.
Lord, we both know that. Tell them to let go of what's gone because men like Roger Briscoe never win. And tell them to hold on like h.e.l.l to what they've got-each other, and a mother who would die for them, and almost did.”
Novalee went to the kitchen window and pushed the curtain aside.
”Then tell them we've all got meanness in us . . .”
She could see Brummett asleep on his cot, one arm dangling over the side, his face dappled by moonlight s.h.i.+ning through the buckeye tree.
”But tell them that we have some good in us, too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That's why we've got to make sure we pa.s.s it on.”
Chapter Thirty-One.
N OVALEE HAD NEVER BEEN on a college campus before and she was sure everyone who saw her knew it. She tried to look like she belonged there, but she didn't figure she was fooling anyone. Most of the people she pa.s.sed had backpacks or armloads of thick text-books. She had a camera and a thin spiral notebook with a picture of Garfield on the cover, a gift from Americus and Forney. OVALEE HAD NEVER BEEN on a college campus before and she was sure everyone who saw her knew it. She tried to look like she belonged there, but she didn't figure she was fooling anyone. Most of the people she pa.s.sed had backpacks or armloads of thick text-books. She had a camera and a thin spiral notebook with a picture of Garfield on the cover, a gift from Americus and Forney.
She wasn't even sure where she was going. She stopped outside a red-brick building and dug in her purse for the brochure the college had sent her a few days earlier.
When the hateful little man at the camera shop had shoved the flier in her face, she never dreamed it would lead to this. She hadn't even intended to keep the flier, but she had carried it in her purse for three months until she finally made the call. Two weeks later, Novalee had become a college student.
293.
She was there for a photography seminar-four Sat.u.r.days at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, to study printing techniques-for seventy-five dollars. And she would earn one hour of college credit.
She had been sure she wouldn't be accepted, certain she couldn't be enrolled as a student because she hadn't even finished the tenth grade. But her enrollment papers had been processed and she had a copy in her purse in case anyone wanted to see it.
According to a campus map in the brochure, she was in the right place. Regents Hall, a majestic three-story building draped with ivy, just the way she had imagined it. She found the seminar room on the second floor.
She was the first to arrive so she slipped inside, afraid someone might hear her, call out and ask to see identification. Demand proof that she had a reason to be in such a place.
She had expected desks and blackboards, but the room looked more like an auditorium than a cla.s.sroom. Tiers of theater seats were arranged in a semicircle with a stage in the center.
She took a seat in the first row, but she felt like a kid at the movies, so she got up and moved to the back.
A steady stream of people entered, nearly two dozen, and they all sat near the front. Just as Novalee made up her mind to switch seats again, a thin, deeply tanned woman took the stage.
”Good morning,” she said, then pulled a pair of gla.s.ses from one pocket and a folded piece of paper from the other.
Novalee would never have imagined her to be the teacher. She carried no books or briefcase, and she looked more like a construction worker than a college professor. She wore a baseball cap, work boots, slacks and a canvas jacket.
294.
”I'm Jean Putnam,” she said. ”You don't need to bother with the 'Doctor.' Just call me Jean.”
She counted heads then and when she came to Novalee, she smiled and said, ”Why don't you come down front with the rest of us.”
Everyone turned to stare as Novalee made her way down the aisle.
She turned her notebook so they couldn't see Garfield and wished like h.e.l.l she had worn her jeans.
She knew she was dressed all wrong, had known it as she watched the others file in. She was wearing a skirt and blouse, hose and a brand-new pair of navy pumps. She had dressed the way she supposed college students dressed. But the ones in this cla.s.s were wearing pants, sweats.h.i.+rts and tennis shoes.
Novalee slid into a seat in the second row and tried her best to disappear.
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