"Oh." w.i.l.l.y Jack looked around the library. "What'd you spill?"

Claire's gaze wandered from the pictures to w.i.l.l.y Jack's face, then back again. "It's in the eyes." She touched a finger to the face in the picture. "The lips, too. One time a girl drew his picture on a napkin when he played at a club in Tuc.u.mcari. She gave it to him with a note that said he had beautiful lips." Claire smiled her sad smile.

127.

w.i.l.l.y Jack moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. Somebody had told him once that wet lips were s.e.xy.

"This was his last picture," Claire said, nodding at the one with the trophy. "He was killed two months later." She looked up at w.i.l.l.y Jack then as if she expected him to say something, but he didn't. "He was. .h.i.t by a drunk driver on his way home from a dance hall in Carlsbad."

"Well," w.i.l.l.y Jack said, "that's too bad."

"Twenty-two years ago. About the time you were born, I'd guess."

Claire put both pictures back on her desk. "But I just can't get over it, how much you look like Finny. You've even got the same build . . .

about the same size."

"How tall was he?"

"Five eight."

w.i.l.l.y Jack pulled himself to his full height and then some. "Yeah.

That's about right."

He hated the prison shoes he was wearing. The only thing he'd found to stuff them with was toilet paper, but it kept working its way up the back of his heel.

"He had the sweetest voice. Everyone said so."

w.i.l.l.y Jack watched a tear wash down Claire Hudson's cheek, spill across a Band-Aid near her upper lip, then drop onto another taped to her wrist.

"This is all pretty strange," he said. "See . . . I'm a musician, too."

Claire's hand lifted to her mouth.

"Guitar." w.i.l.l.y Jack nodded, a big gesture designed to communicate the full irony of the situation. "And . . . singer."

"Musician," Claire said softly, reverence in her voice.

"Well, I mean I was was a musician." a musician."

128.

"But . . ."

"Seeing where I am right now, I don't figure I'm gonna be playing no music."

"Oh, but you can."

"No, my guitar . . ." w.i.l.l.y Jack let his voice trail off as if what he were about to say was too painful.

"What? What is it?"

"It's just . . . well, my guitar." His voice broke then. "I sure do miss it."

"But you can have your guitar in your cell. Didn't you know that?"

"No, ma'am. I didn't."

"You just tell me where it is and I'll have it sent here for you."

"Well, you see, there was a fire. My grandma's house burned . . ."

He struggled to go on. "Lost everything-my house, my music. It's all gone." w.i.l.l.y Jack took a few moments to create a kicked-puppy look, then brightened-as much as possible. "But I'm glad you told me about your son. It almost makes me and your Finny sound like brothers, don't it?"

Claire Hudson smiled then, her eyes once more filling with tears.

And w.i.l.l.y Jack knew right then he was going to get a guitar, maybe even the Martin he had seen in the pictures, if it had survived.

He knew he was going to get not only a guitar, but almost anything else he wanted while he was in prison. And he was right.

The next day, Claire Hudson showed up with Finny's guitar, the Martin, and by that night, w.i.l.l.y Jack had taught himself three chords.

A week later he was playing a couple of John Cougar Mellencamp songs, and within three months he would write a song called "The Where the Heart Is 129.

Beat of a Heart," a song that would soar to the top of the country charts and that would, within three years, sell over a million copies.

PART TWO.

Chapter Thirteen.

W HEN NOVALEE took the job waiting for her at Wal-Mart, the other employees ran wild with rumors. Sam Walton was the father of her child; Novalee was blackmailing him with the threat of a paternity suit; Americus was going to inherit the Walton millions. But by the time Novalee collected her first paycheck, gossip had already shifted to an affair between a forty-year-old married woman who managed sporting goods and her nineteen-year-old first cousin, a bushy-haired boy called Petey who worked in customer service. HEN NOVALEE took the job waiting for her at Wal-Mart, the other employees ran wild with rumors. Sam Walton was the father of her child; Novalee was blackmailing him with the threat of a paternity suit; Americus was going to inherit the Walton millions. But by the time Novalee collected her first paycheck, gossip had already shifted to an affair between a forty-year-old married woman who managed sporting goods and her nineteen-year-old first cousin, a bushy-haired boy called Petey who worked in customer service.

But if they had been paying attention, they could have added a new rumor to the mill on that payday when Novalee took Sister Husband's Toyota in to have the brakes fixed.

She parked in front of the automotive center at the side of the store at nine-thirty. Just as she cut the motor, the big overhead door swung open and twenty-six-year-old Troy Moffatt, slim-hipped and golden-haired, stood squinting against the sun.

134.

"Hey!" he yelled. "You can't park there. We ain't open yet."

"I know that, but I've got to get to work."

"Well, that ain't my problem. My problem is keepin' this door clear."

"But I'm bringing it in to have it worked on."

"Then bring it in at ten o'clock."

"I can't."

"And you can't leave it there."

"Let me leave the keys with you and-"

"Lady, you're gonna have to move your Toyota."

Novalee started the pickup, then revved the engine to show him how mad she was . . . until it died. She tried to start it again, giving it more gas as the engine kept grinding, but it wouldn't turn over.

"Okay. Okay!" Troy yelled as he stomped to the side of the truck and jerked open the driver's door. "Scoot over."

"Forget it!"

"Scoot over. I'll drive you to work, bring your truck back here."

"No, I'll . . ."

By then, he was sliding under the wheel, his body pushing hers across the seat. She hoped the truck wouldn't start, but it did. The first try.

"Okay," he said. "Let's make this quick. Where to?" He backed out smoothly, then turned up the lane that ran parallel to the store.

"Go around the corner, left . . . toward the street."

After he negotiated the turn, she said, "Stop right here."

"What for?"

"You said you were going to drive me to work."

"Yeah?"

"Well, this is where I work." She jabbed her thumb toward the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

135.

"Oh h.e.l.l," he said. "Why didn't you say so?" His face reddened.

"I'm sorry." He smiled at her then and for the first time, she noticed that his eyes were the color of brown sugar.

"It's the brakes," she said. "That sc.r.a.ping noise." She opened the door and slid out. "The name's Nation and I'll pick it up at six." She slammed the door and marched away, feeling his eyes on the curve of her hips-pleased, for some reason, that he was watching her.

As soon as Novalee got her lunch break, she headed for the snack bar to meet Lexie Coop, the only girlfriend she'd had since Rhonda Talley was sent to reform school back in the seventh grade.

Lexie brought her children to Wal-Mart two or three times a week, cheaper entertainment, she declared, than miniature golf or the video arcade. At Wal-Mart, she could load them into a shopping cart, then wander the aisles for as long as she wanted. They never demanded toy guns or Barbie dolls, never cried to get out of the cart or whined because they felt crowded. Their bodies, soft and sticky, malleable as warm cookie dough, pillowed together free of sharp elbows and bony knees.

Lexie always packed a sack of treats . . . jelly sandwiches or cinnamon rolls, banana bread, sugar cookies. The children shared their food and licked their fingers, then yawned and smiled while Lexie browsed the aisles in search of yarn or sequins or pastel cotton b.a.l.l.s-materials for their holiday crafts. They produced Santa dolls and leprechauns, Easter baskets and Valentines, but they were little concerned with calendars or time. They might dye eggs in January and make witch costumes in July, but there was never a question of being early or late. Not one of them cared.

They were already crowded into a booth waiting for their order when Novalee arrived.

136.

"Hi, n.o.bbalee," they said in unison.

Novalee kissed them all, then wiped at a sticky spot on her nose.

The children were wedged together like Gummi Bears . . . bits of sugar and cinnamon stuck to their cheeks and chins, their fingers glazed with jelly and something green.

"I went ahead and ordered for you," Lexie said.

"Good. I didn't have time for breakfast and I'm about to starve."

"Oversleep?"

"No. Sister is working at the IGA today, so Mrs. Ortiz is keeping Americus. By the time I got all her things together and made three or four trips next door, it was almost nine."

"You're lucky to have good sitters."

"And they all want to keep her. Dixie Mullins, Henry and Leona. I think they're glad when Sister has to go to work."

At some unspoken signal, all of Lexie's children slid out of the booth together, as if they were permanently joined. They brought back trays of food that covered the table: hot dogs, french fries, nachos and onion rings. Then Lexie reached into her purse and pulled out a bundle of chopsticks held together by a rubber band. The children waited quietly as Lexie handed a pair to each of them.

"It may look strange, Novalee, but I have this theory. People who eat with chopsticks are thin. You know why?"

"Well . . ."

"You think it's because they eat rice and vegetables, but that's not it. It's because you can't eat fast with these things."

Lexie's chopsticks clacked like knitting needles as she piled jalapeno peppers on a stack of nachos, then scooped up a glob of cheese.

"I've already lost eight pounds."

137.

Her chopsticks cut a swath through the fries, then scissored a hot dog in half.

The two older children, Brownie and Praline, were as adept with the sticks as their mother. The twins, Cherry and Baby Ruth, whose motor skills were not as finely tuned, were, nevertheless, managing just fine. None of them complained or got angry, but each ate quietly and cooperatively, pa.s.sing food, sharing drinks and, from time to time, sighing with contentment.

Lexie didn't speak again until she had finished eating and put her chopsticks aside.

"I met someone, Novalee."

"You mean . . ."