Excerpt from Where The Heart Is by Billy Letts, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She tried to stand, but her legs were twisted sinew and shards of bone. The train had severed her feet.

The scream started deep in her belly, then roared through her lungs.

"What the hell's the matter with you, Novalee?" Willy Jack yelled.

Yanking herself from sleep, Novalee was terrified to feel the rush of hot air coming through the floorboard. She knew without looking that the TV tray was gone.

She turned to look out the back window, dreading what she would see--her feet, mangled like road kill, torn and bloody in the middle of the highway.

But what she saw were her red sandals, empty of feet, skidding and bouncing down the road.

"What are you smiling about?" Willy Jack asked.

"Just a dream I had."

She didn't want to tell him about the shoes. It was the only pair she had and she knew he'd gripe about the money another pair would cost. Besides, they were on a real highway coming into a real town and Novalee didn't want to get him mad again or she'd never get to a bathroom.

"Oh, look. There's a Wal-Mart. Let's stop there."

"Thought you had to pee."

"They have bathrooms in Wal-Mart, you know."

Willy Jack swerved across two lanes and onto the access road while Novalee tried to figure her way around a problem. She didn't have more than a dollar in her beach bag. Willy Jack had all the cash.

"Hon, I'm gonna need some money."

"They gonna charge you to pee?"

He drove across the parking lot like he was making a pit stop and whipped the big Plymouth into the handicapped parking space nearest the entrance.

"Five dollars will be enough."

"What for?"

"I'm gonna buy some houseshoes."

"Houseshoes? Why? We're in a car."

"My feet are swollen. I can't get my sandals back on."

"Jesus Christ, Novalee. We're going clear across the country and you're gonna be wearing houseshoes?"

"Who's gonna see?"

"You mean ever time we stop, you're gonna be traipsing around in houseshoes?"

"Well, we don't stop very much, do we?"

"Okay. Get some houseshoes. Get some polky dot houseshoes. Some green polky dot houseshoes so everyone will be sure to notice you."

"I don't want polka dot houseshoes."

"Get you some with elephants on them then. Yeah! An elephant in elephant houseshoes."

"That's mean, Willy Jack. That's real mean."

"Goddamn, Novalee."

"I have to buy some kind of shoes."

She hoped that would be enough of an explanation, but she knew it wouldn't. And though he didn't actually say "Why," his face said it.

"My sandals fell through the floor."

She smiled at him then, a tentative smile, an invitation to see the humor in what had happened, but he declined the offer. He stared at her long enough to melt her smile, then he turned, spit out the window and shook his head in disgust. Finally, digging in the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a handful of crumpled bills. His movements, exaggerated and quick, were designed to show her he was right on the edge. He pitched a ten at her, then crammed the rest back in his pocket.

"I won't be long," she told him as she climbed out of the car.

"Yeah."

"Don't you want to come in. Stretch your legs?"

"No. I don't."

"Want me to bring you some popcorn?"

"Just go on, Novalee."

She could feel his eyes on her as she walked away. She tried to move her body as she had when they first met, when he was unable to keep his hands away from her, when her breasts and belly and thighs were tight and smooth. But she knew what he was seeing now. She knew how she looked.

From Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts. © 1997 by Billie Letts, used by permission of the publisher Little Brown