"Well, you've got some time. I mean, you're . . ."

"Seventeen! Almost every guy I know has already . . . they've already had two or three girls by the time they're seventeen.

Novalee sighed and shook her head.

"What's that mean?"

"Oh, a lot happened to me when I was seventeen."

"Well, nothing's happened to me! Nothing good. Nothing bad.

Nothing period!"

"Benny, what are you talking about. You're a track star, won all those awards. You think that's nothing?"

"Look, Novalee. I know what happened to you when you came here, when you were seventeen. I know some guy ran off and left you. And I know you had Americus in Wal-Mart."

"Yeah?"

"Well, that was awful for you then, but those were real real experiences. experiences.

You know what I mean?"

"No, I don't."

"I mean, you weren't stuck in Mr. Pryor's algebra cla.s.s at eight-thirty every morning. You didn't have to suit up for basketball on Friday nights so you could sit on the bench. You haven't spent your whole life in Sequoyah pruning pear trees and mulching pines at the Where the Heart Is 343.

Goodluck Nursery. See, everything about my life is the same. Always the same."

"Benny . . ."

"I read those books you gave me, Novalee. All those stories about people going off to places like Singapore and Tibet and Madagascar.

People who race cars and hop freight trains. Go up in balloons, climb mountains. Explore places where no one else's ever been. Stories about people who write plays and make movies. People who fall in love."

"You're going to do some of those things, Benny."

"Going to? When? I'll be eighteen tomorrow-and I haven't done anything yet."

"Good! Then everything's out there in front of you, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

"Think about this, Benny. What if you'd already done it all?"

"What do you mean?"

"What would be left? What would the next thrill be? What would be the fun of waking up every morning if you'd already done it all?

Huh? What would you do?"

"I guess I'd do some of it again."

"But it wouldn't be as wonderful the second time around. Benny, we can't all go to Singapore, and some of us are never going to climb mountains or make a movie. But you run races and I take pictures and everyone looks for someone to love. And sometimes, we make it.

Sometimes, we win."

"Yeah."

"Things will look different in the fall, when you go off to school."

"Oh, Novalee. I'm afraid I'll just be doing more of the same old stuff."

344.

"No! You'll be learning new things, meeting new people. Exciting people. Lots of girls."

"That'd be nice."

"And I'll bet you'll meet some special girl. Some girl you'll want to be with all the time. Why you won't be able to sleep or eat because she'll be on your mind all the time, and-"

"Novalee, I've never kissed a girl."

"You will, Benny. You'll kiss a whole lot of girls."

"But I don't know how. I won't know what to do."

"Oh, it comes pretty naturally, I think."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Benny . . ."

"Just once. And I'll never ask again."

"I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not a girl."

"Twenty-five's not old."

"It's a lot older than seventeen."

Benny lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. "I'll be eighteen in three more minutes."

Novalee studied his face for a moment-the face of the ten-year-old boy who had leaned out of a truck and touched her . . . the face of the boy at twelve, running on a mountain ridge . . . the face of the teenager who loved rain and hawks and wild plums. Then she leaned across the arm of her chair, leaned toward Benny Goodluck and took his face in her hands and brought it to her own. As their lips met, he closed his eyes, and in the light of the moon and under the branches of the buckeye tree, they kissed. And it was the greatest adventure of his seventeenth year.

Chapter Thirty-Eight.

N OVALEE WAS CONVINCED that luck could be pa.s.sed on from parent to child just like the shape of a nose or bowlegs or a craving for chocolate. Americus did, after all, have Novalee's widow's peak, her green eyes, the same smile. So it seemed almost natural for her to inherit her mother's bad luck with sevens. OVALEE WAS CONVINCED that luck could be pa.s.sed on from parent to child just like the shape of a nose or bowlegs or a craving for chocolate. Americus did, after all, have Novalee's widow's peak, her green eyes, the same smile. So it seemed almost natural for her to inherit her mother's bad luck with sevens.

So far they had survived it, but sometimes just barely. They had lived through the seventh month of the pregnancy together. They had endured the seventh day of Americus' life and managed to make it through the seventh month. But now, they faced the greatest challenge of all-the seventh year. Americus had just had a birthday.

Novalee had kept the celebration small and quiet, as if too much attention might invite disaster. But the party had been without incident. There was no earthquake, no flood. Not a sc.r.a.ped knee or a bee sting, not even a sunburn. The weather was beautiful, the ice 346 cream didn't melt and no one spilled the Kool-Aid. An almost perfect day.

Even so, in the weeks that followed, Novalee couldn't ignore the dread she felt, dread that chilled her skin and tingled her scalp. She knew something was coming. She just didn't know what or when.

Sometimes she almost wished whatever was going to happen would come on, so she could get it over with.

She didn't have long to wait.

The newspapers had stacked up for three days while she finished developing pictures of a wedding she had shot in Keota the weekend before. She didn't get around to Monday's paper until Thursday night, just after Americus had gone to bed. She was working through them quickly because she still had to wash her hair and dry a load of clothes.

She was scanning pictures and headlines when she saw it, a short column tucked between ads on page seven.

VICTIM'S WHEELCHAIR STOLEN A legless man identified as W.J. Pickens was discovered Sunday afternoon in the men's room at a rest stop near Alva. Pickens, who lost his legs in a train accident, had been trapped since sometime late Friday night when he was robbed of his wheelchair.

According to Pickens, an unidentified male picked him up outside of Liberal, Kansas, where he was. .h.i.tchhiking. As they neared Alva, Pickens became ill and the driver pulled in and parked at the rest stop.

Pickens said he wheeled himself into the men's room, but the driver followed him inside and fled with the wheelchair.

347.

On Sunday afternoon a survey crew heard Pickens' calls for help and notified the Sheriff's Office in Alva.

Pickens, who left California two weeks ago, said he was. .h.i.tchhiking to Oklahoma to search for his child and the child's mother, whom he had not seen since 1987.

Pickens was admitted to Woods County General where he remains in guarded condition.

Novalee didn't do her laundry or her hair. She made two quick calls, then got Americus up and took her to Moses and Certain's.

After she filled her car at the Texaco, she headed for the highway.

w.i.l.l.y Jack's eyes were closed when she stepped inside the room and for a moment she thought he was dead, but then she could see the rise and fall of his chest beneath the thin hospital gown. His skin, a sickly yellow, seemed too big for his body, like he'd shrunk inside it.

She watched him sleep and wondered what pictures he saw behind his twitching eyelids. Suddenly, his body jerked, a powerful jerk that shook the bed. He twisted toward the door.

"What did you say?" He fixed her with his eyes. They were the color of bile, the skin beneath them puffy and gray. "What did you say?" he asked again, insistence at the edge of his voice.

She let him struggle to pull her image into focus. She hadn't come to help him with anything.

"Novalee?"

When he lifted his head off the pillow, she could see his scalp through the thinning hair at his temples.

"I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe you're here."

348.

He pulled himself up on his elbows and stared across the room at her. "Novalee." Then he smiled. "I was coming back to find you."

"Why?"

The question hung between them like something solid and thick.

"What were you going to do, w.i.l.l.y Jack?" Her voice was even, without heat. "Were you going to come back to the Wal-Mart where you dumped me out?"

"Novalee . . ."

"Did you think I'd still be there waiting for you?"

"I just wanted to see if you were all right."

"Really?"

"Look . . ."

"You're a little late though. About seven years."

w.i.l.l.y Jack let his head sink back into the pillow, then rubbed at his forehead. An IV needle in the back of his hand had made the skin look waxy and bloodless.

"I come back because I needed to tell you something about Americus."

Novalee stiffened. Her muscles tensed, her weight shifted. Then her eyes went flat and hard as she measured the threat of him.

"How do you know about her?"

w.i.l.l.y Jack heard something in her voice, something strong and dangerous, something he didn't know.

"How did you find out?"

"My cousin, J. Paul."

"You're telling me a lie!"

"He said the police called him a few years back. The baby was missing and they wanted to know where I was."

"w.i.l.l.y Jack . . ."

349.

"h.e.l.l, I was in prison. I never heard nothin' about it till a year ago when I saw J. Paul. But that's how I knew about her. That's how I knew where she was."

"But you didn't know if I got her back. You didn't know if she was dead or alive."