Part 43 (1/2)
”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.