Part 45 (1/2)

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.

356.

”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. w.i.l.l.y 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.

w.i.l.l.y 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed.

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 357.

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 home is the place that'll catch you when you fall and we all 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 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 . . . 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 friends.h.i.+p a woman too full of life to say no who would teach her about friends.h.i.+p 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 a man in a stocking cap who would teach her about love what I want, Novalee, is to be with you . . . what I want, Novalee, is to be with you . . .

to be with you and Americus 358.

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 when the kitten opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is her mother 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 gla.s.s and she tried to hold her there.

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

Reading Group Guide 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 362 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 mult.i.tude 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 cla.s.ses. They often hold marginal jobs as waitresses, motel maids, nursing home workers. They are poor and uneducated, often victims of Where the Heart Is 363.

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 Where the Heart Is an ”Oklahoma story”? 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 Sat.u.r.day 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.