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

The single stall in the bathroom was taken. Novalee pressed her legs together and tried to hold her breath. When she heard the toilet flush, she was sure she was going to make it, but when the door didn't open, she was sure she wasn't.

"I'm sorry," she said as she tapped on the door, "but I've got to get in there now."

A little girl, still struggling with buttons, opened the door, then jumped out of the way as Novalee rushed by.

Once inside, Novalee didn't take time to lock the door or cover the seat with paper. She didn't even check to make sure there was paper on the roll. She just peed and peed, then laughed out loud, her eyes flooded with tears at the joy of release. Novalee took pleasure in small victories.

As she washed at the sink, she studied herself in the mirror, then wished she hadn't. Her skin, though unblemished and smooth, looked sallow, and her eyes, a light shade of green, were ringed with dark circles. Her hickory-colored hair, long and thick, had pulled loose from the clip at her neck and was frizzed into thin tight ringlets.

She splashed cold water on her face, smoothed her hair with wet hands, then dug in her beach bag for lipstick, but couldn't find any. Finally, she pinched her cheeks for color and decided not to look in any more mirrors until she could expect a better picture.

She went directly to the shoe department, knowing she had already taken too much time. The cheapest houseshoes she could find had little polka dots, so she settled quickly for a pair of rubber thongs.

At the checkout stand, she fidgeted impatiently while the man in front of her wrote out a check. By the time the checker dragged the thongs across the scanner, Novalee was caught up in the headlines of the National Examiner. She handed the checker the ten-dollar-bill while she puzzled over the picture of a newborn who was two thousand years old.

"Ma'am. Here's your change."

"Oh, sorry." Novalee held out her hand.

"Seven dollars and seventy-seven cents."

Novalee tried to jerk her hand back, but before she could, the coins dropped onto her palm.

"No," she shouted as she flung the money across the floor. "No." Dizzy, she staggered as she turned and started running.

She knew he was gone, knew before she reached the door. She could see it all, see it as if she were watching a movie. She could see herself running, calling his name--the parking space empty, the Plymouth gone.

He was going to California and he had left her behind ... left her with her magazine dreams of old quilts and blue china and family pictures in gold frames.

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