“Sure there is,” said Valka.
And then she said the one word that would make me turn right around and head back home.
Part Three
20.
I had never been on a plane before. My life was all about firsts now. I was learning to accept that. There I was, circling Omaha, clutching the armrest on one side, and Valka’s wrist on the other. It had snowed every day since I had left my hometown, though the air was clear at the moment. The pilot told us the landing strip was iced over and we had not been cleared to land yet. That was an hour ago. They were talking about rerouting us to Iowa City. I did not mind the delay so much because I suddenly did not want to go home, but I did not want to die in a plane crash either. Either way, I could go up in flames. I pictured my head a singed mess, my blond hair dust in the air behind me.
“I’m going to be sick,” I said. The air in the plane reminded me of the air in the casinos. I felt myself drying up inside.
“Eat some nuts,” said Valka. She tossed a bag in my lap. She flipped a page of her magazine to the Fashion Don’ts, Rio DeCarlo front and center in a leopard-skin dress, her hands waving high toward someone far away in the distance. Maybe an imaginary friend. “The other thing that works is putting your head between your legs and counting to ten.” She pointed at the picture of Rio. “See, I think that would look good on me. She’s just wearing the wrong shoes. And makeup.” She peered closer. “And nose.”
I looked out the window. All I could see was white everywhere, all over Omaha, all over Nebraska, all over America. We could run out of gas at any minute, I thought. Maybe we should turn around.
“There’s nothing down there but snow,” I said.
“It’s pretty,” said Valka.
“It’s scary,” I said.
“Don’t be a baby,” she said. “You’re just afraid to go home.”
“I am not,” I said.
How could I explain to her that I was still just a mess of parts of myself? She thought I was going to be brave and strong like her but I was not so sure I had it together yet. It was like I was a giant balloon and someone had stuck something sharp in me and I had just exploded everywhere. And what can you do with what is left behind? Throw it away? Put it back together? It will not work anything like it did before. Something new had to be made out of it. I just did not know what that something new was yet.
“This is your reality.” She patted my hand and then scratched her fingernails along my arm. “But I know you can handle it.”
The loudspeaker crackled and the pilot spoke. “Ladies and gentleman, I am happy to report that it looks like we’ve been cleared for landing.” All around the plane people applauded, and then laughed.
This is my reality, I thought. It starts in the air, way up high. It starts right now.
AFTER LANDING WE RACED through the airport. We were in a hurry to be saviors, I guess. I had nothing but a backpack full of dirty clothes and my suitcase full of money. Valka walked faster than everyone else. That woman shocked me with her energy. How she had been through so much and yet still had so much to give. Her legs pumped as she walked, like she was a stallion racing in the morning, and her arms swung, too, one fist clenching her carry-on bag. I picked up the pace. I did not want to face my hometown but I did not want to be left behind either.
Valka gawked as we walked. Mostly there were businessmen, the ones from the big companies that had taken over downtown Omaha and turned it into something bigger and brighter than the rest of the state. She had no use for them. Businessmen she knew. But she loved the occasional farmer in the mix, those people who were really my people, and she did not hide her stares. The cowboy hats and the flannel shirts on the older men, packs of chewing tobacco in their pockets. They walked gingerly with their gray-haired wives. The bustle of their winter coats. I hoped they were returning from somewhere warm. Valka stared at the young bucks, too, in their tight jeans and flat, shiny hair.
“Yee-haw,” she whispered to me, as we stood at the car rental counter.
“You’re man-hungry,” I said.
“No,” she said. “My heart belongs to a Beatle.”
Jealousy struck me. Right behind it was old Mr. Misery. They both took turns slapping me upside the head.
“My heart belongs to no one,” I said.
“Your heart belongs to you,” she said.