Terribly naive' and unworldly, unwed 17 year old Edna Rollins firmly believes that only married girls have babies. She is devastated, bringing a child into the world the product of being raped nine months earlier. She rejects him and takes her own life two days after his birth. The infant is adopted by a childless couple who christen him Gerry and raise him in an idyllic setting in the farmland of central Ohio. Gerry's childish crush on a TV new woman becomes an overwhelming obsession as he matures. When the network moves her aside for a new face, he is overwhelmed with grief. Her celebrity quickly fades as promotional billboards, placards and posters throughout the city are scrapped except for a solitary and forgotten bus bench which bears her image. Fearful that the bench, which has become his shrine will be discovered, he maneuvers it to an obscure place enabling him to meet and communicate with the love of his life. Learning that she has married a wealthy industrialist and moved to California, he orchestrates a cross country journey to find her. The improbable characters he encounters on his journey ridicule his efforts, serving only to plunge himself deeper into finding her. An unforgettable chain of events ends in a face to face meeting. He finds her terminally ill which he blames on her husband. He formulates a swift and brutal "payback", then kidnaps her taking her back home to Ohio and his beloved bus bench.