They stepped away from the ticket booth; a small line moved into the theater past them. Candy continued to hold her pubic hair tightly, and Homer would not let her hand go-he would not let her open her hand to examine what she held; there was no need for that. Candy knew what she held in her hand; she knew it as much from {436} Homer's expression as from the clump of pubic hair itself.

'I'd like to take a walk,' she whispered.

'Right,' said Homer Wells, not letting go of her hand. They turned away from the theater and walked downhill to the Kennebec. Candy faced the river and leaned against Homer Wells.

'Perhaps you're a collector,' she said, as quietly as she could speak and still be heard over the river. 'Perhaps you're a pubic hair collector,' she said. 'You certainly were in a position to be.'

'No,'he said.

'This is pubic hair,' she said, wriggling her tightly clenched fist in his hand. 'And it's mine, right?'

'Right,' said Homer Wells.

'Only mine?' Candy asked. 'You kept only mine?'

'Right,' Homer said.

'Why?' Candy asked. 'Don't lie.'

He had never said the words: I am in love with you. He was unprepared for the struggle involved in saying them. No doubt he misunderstood the unfamiliar weight he felt upon his heart-he must have associated the constriction of that big muscle in his chest with Dr. Larch's recent news; what he felt was only love, but what he thought he felt was his pulmonary valve stenosis. He let go of Candy's hand and put both his hands to his chest. He had seen the sternum shears at work-he knew the autopsy procedure-but never had it been so hard and painful to breathe.

When Candy turned to him and saw his face, she couldn't help it-both her hands opened and grasped his hands, the blond wisp of pubic hair flying free; a current of rough air carried it out over the river and into the darkness.

'Is it your heart?' Candy asked him. 'Oh God, you don't have to say anything-please don't even think about it!'

'My heart,' he said. 'You know about my heart?'

'You know?' she asked. 'Don't worry!' she added fiercely. {437}

'I love you,' Homer Wells croaked, as if he were saying his last words.

'Yes, I know-don't think about it,' Candy said. 'Don't worry about anything. I love you, too.'

'You do?' he asked.

'Yes, yes, and Wally too,' she said. 'I love you and I love Wally-don't worry about it, don't even think about it.'

'How do you know about my heart?' asked Homer Wells.

'We all know about it,' Candy said. 'Olive knows, and Wally knows.'

Hearing this was more convincing to Homer Wells than even the offhand remarks in Dr. Larch's letter; he felt his heart race out of control again.

'Don't think about your heart, Homer!' Candy said, hugging him tightly. 'Don't worry about me, or Wally- or any of it,'

'What am I supposed to think about?' asked Homer Wells.

'Only good things,' Candy told him. When she looked into his eyes, she said suddenly, 'I can't believe that you kept my hair!' But when she saw the intensity of his frown, she said, 'I mean, it's okay-I understand, guess. Don't worry about it, either. It may be peculiar, but it's certainly romantic.'

'Romantic,' said Homer Wells, holding the girl of his dreams-but only holding her. To touch her more must surely be forbidden-by all the rules-and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of a normal life. This is a normal life, he tried to think, holding Candy as both the night fog off the river and the darkness reached over them.

It was not a night that put them in the mood for a musical.

'We can see Fred Astaire dance another time,' Candy said philosophically. {438}

The safety of the familiar drew them toward Raymond Kendall's dock-when they got cold, sitting out there, they could always have some tea with Ray. They drove the van back to Heart's Haven; nobody who knew them saw them come or go.

In the Fred Astaire movie, Mary Agnes Cork ate too much popcorn; her foster family thought that the poor girl was simply overstimulated by her first movie; she could not sit still. She watched the audience more than she watched the dancing; she searched every face in the flickering darkness. It was that pretty girl and that pretty boy she was looking for-and maybe Homer Wells. And so she was unprepared to spot the face in the crowd of the one person she missed most in her narrow world; the sight of that dark, heavy countenance shot such a stab of pain through her old collarbone injury that the popcorn container flew from her hands.

Melony loomed over the sassy blond girl named Lorna -hulking in her seat with the authority of a chronic and cynical moviegoer, looking like a sour critic born to be displeased, although this was her first movie. Even in the projector's gray light, Mary Agnes Cork could not fail to recognize her old brutalizer, the ex-queen and former hit-woman of the girls' division.

'I think you've had enough of that popcorn, sweetheart,' Patty Callahan told Mary Agnes, who appeared to have a kernel of the stuff caught in her throat. And for the rest of the evening's frivolous entertainment, Mary Agnes could not keep her eyes off that most dominant member of the audience; in Mary Agnes Cork's opinion, Melony could have wiped up a dance floor with Fred Astaire, she could have broken every bone in Fred's slender body-she could have paralyzed him after just one waltz.

'Do you see someone you know, dear?' Ted Callahan asked Mary Agnes. He thought the poor girl was so stuffed with popcorn that she couldn't talk.

In the lobby, in the sickly neon light, Mary Agnes {439} walked up to Melony as if a dream led her feet-as if she were captured in the old, violent trance of Melony's authority.

'Hi,'she said.

'You talking to me, kid?' Lorna asked, but Mary Agnes was smiling just at Melony.

'Hi, it's me!' Mary Agnes said.

'So you got out?' Melony said.

'I've been adopted!' said Mary Agnes Cork. Ted and Patty stood a little nervously near her, not wanting to intrude but not wanting to let her very far from their sight, either. This is Ted and Patty,' Mary Agnes said. 'This is rny friend, Melony.'

Melony appeared not to know what to make of the hands extended to her. The tough little broad named Lorna batted her eyes-some of her mascara sticking one of her eyelids in a frozen-open position.

'This is my friend, Lorna,' Melony said awkwardly.

Everyone said Hi! and then stood around. What does the little creep want? Melony was thinking.

And that was when Mary Agnes said, 'Where's Homer?'

'What?' Melony said.

'Homer Wells,' said Mary Agnes. 'Isn't he with you?'

'Why?' Melony asked.

'Those pretty people with the car…' Mary Agnes

began.

'What car?' Melony asked.

'Well, it wasn't the same car, it wasn't the pretty car, but there was the apple on the door-I'll never forget that apple,' Mary Agnes said.

Melony put her big hands heavily on Mary Agnes's shoulders; Mary Agnes felt the weight pressing her into the floor. 'What are you talking about?' Melony asked.

'I saw an old car, but it had that apple on it,' Mary Agnes said. 'I thought they was at the movie, those pretty people-and Homer, too. And when I saw you, I thought he would be here for sure.' {440}

'Where was the car?' Melony asked, her strong thumbs bearing down on both of Mary Agnes's collarbones. 'Show me the car!'

'Is something wrong?' Ted Callahan asked.

'Mind your own business,' Melony said.

But the van was gone. In the damp cold, on the slushy sidewalk, staring at the empty curbstone, Melony said, 'Are you sure it was that apple? It had a double W, and it said Ocean View.'

'That's it,' Mary Agnes said. 'It just wasn't the same car, it was an old van, but I'd know that apple anywhere. You don't forget a thing like that.'