Hearts In Atlantis (14 page)

“It's okay, Mom.”

She touched his cheek and shook her head. “That fair skin of yours! You'll never tan, Bobby-O. Not you. Come on in and I'll put some Baby Oil on that sunburn.”

He followed her inside, took off his shirt, and stood in front of her as she sat on the couch and smeared the fragrant Baby Oil on his back and arms and neck—even on his cheeks. It felt good, and he thought again how much he loved her, how much he loved to be touched by her. He wondered what she would think if she knew he had kissed Carol on the Ferris wheel. Would she smile? Bobby didn't think she would smile. And if she knew about McQuown and the cards—

“I haven't seen your pal from upstairs,” she said, recapping the Baby Oil bottle. “I know he's up there because I can hear the Yankees game on his radio, but wouldn't you think he'd go out on the porch where it's cool?”

“I guess he doesn't feel like it,” Bobby said. “Mom, are you okay?”

She looked at him, startled. “Fine, Bobby.” She smiled and Bobby smiled back. It took an effort,
because he didn't think his mom was fine at all. In fact he was pretty sure she wasn't.

He just had a winkle.

•   •   •

That night Bobby lay on his back with his heels spread to the corners of the bed, eyes open and looking up at the ceiling. His window was open, too, the curtains drifting back and forth in a breath of a breeze, and from some other open window came the sound of The Platters: “Here, in the afterglow of day, We keep our rendezvous, beneath the blue.” Farther away was the drone of an airplane, the honk of a horn.

Rionda's dad had called it a winkle, and once he'd hit the daily number for fifty dollars. Bobby had agreed with her—
a winkle, sure, I had a winkle
—but he couldn't have picked a lottery number to save his soul. The thing was  . . .

The thing was Mr. McQuown knew where the queen ended up every time, and so
I
knew
.

Once Bobby realized that, other things fell into place. Obvious stuff, really, but he'd been having fun, and . . . well . . . you didn't question what you knew, did you? You might question a winkle—a feeling that came to you right out of the blue—but you didn't question
knowing
.

Except how did he
know
his mother was taping money into the underwear pages of the Sears catalogue on the top shelf of her closet? How did he even know the catalogue was up there? She'd never told him about it. She'd never told him about the blue pitcher where she put her quarters, either, but of course he had known about that for years, he wasn't blind even though he had an idea she sometimes
thought he was. But the catalogue? The quarters rolled and changed into bills, the bills then taped into the catalogue? There was no way he could know about a thing like that, but as he lay here in his bed, listening while “Earth Angel” replaced “Twilight Time,” he knew that the catalogue was there. He knew because
she
knew, and it had crossed the front part of her mind. And on the Ferris wheel he had known Carol wanted him to kiss her again because it had been her first real kiss from a boy and she hadn't been paying enough attention; it had been over before she was completely aware it was happening. But knowing that wasn't knowing the future.

“No, it's just reading minds,” he whispered, and then shivered all over as if his sunburn had turned to ice.

Watch out, Bobby-O—if you don't watch out you'll wind up as nuts as Ted with his low men
.

Far off, in the town square, the clock began bonging the hour of ten. Bobby turned his head and looked at the alarm clock on his desk. Big Ben claimed it was only nine-fifty-two.

All right, so the clock downtown is a little fast or mine is a little slow. Big deal, McNeal. Go to sleep
.

He didn't think he could do that for at least awhile, but it had been quite a day—arguments with mothers, money won from three-card monte dealers, kisses at the top of the Ferris wheel—and he began to drift in a pleasant fashion.

Maybe she
is
my girlfriend
, Bobby thought.
Maybe she's my girlfriend after all
.

With the last premature bong of the town square clock still fading in the air, Bobby fell asleep.

On Monday, after his mom had gone to work, Bobby went upstairs to read Ted the paper (although his eyes were actually good enough to do it himself, Ted said he had come to enjoy the sound of Bobby's voice and the luxury of being read to while he shaved). Ted stood in his little bathroom with the door open, scraping foam from his face, while Bobby tried him on various headlines from the various sections.

“
VIET SKIRMISHES INTENSIFY?
”

“Before breakfast? Thanks but no thanks.”

“
CARTS CORRALLED, LOCAL MAN ARRESTED?
”

“First paragraph, Bobby.”

“ ‘When police showed up at his Pond Lane residence late yesterday, John T. Anderson of Harwich told them all about his hobby, which he claims is collecting supermarket shopping carts. “He was very interesting on the subject,” said Officer Kirby Malloy of the Harwich P.D., “but we weren't entirely satisfied that he'd come by some of the carts in his collection honestly.” Turns out Malloy was “right with Eversharp.” Of the more than fifty shopping carts in Mr. Anderson's back yard, at least twenty had been stolen from the Harwich A&P and Total Grocery. There were even a few carts from the IGA market in Stansbury.' ”

“Enough,” Ted said, rinsing his razor under hot water and then raising the blade to his lathered neck.
“Galumphing small-town humor in response to pathetic acts of compulsive larceny.”

“I don't understand you.”

“Mr. Anderson sounds like a man suffering from a neurosis—a mental problem, in other words. Do you think mental problems are funny?”

“Gee, no. I feel bad for people with loose screws.”

“I'm glad to hear you say so. I've known people whose screws were not just loose but entirely missing. A good many such people, in fact. They are often pathetic, sometimes awe-inspiring, and occasionally terrifying, but they are not funny.
CARTS CORRALLED
, indeed. What else is there?”

“
STARLET KILLED IN EUROPEAN ROAD ACCIDENT?
”

“Ugh, no.”

“
YANKEES ACQUIRE INFIELDER IN TRADE WITH SENATORS?
”

“Nothing the Yankees do with the Senators interests me.”

“
ALBINI RELISHES UNDERDOG ROLE?
”

“Yes, please read that.”

Ted listened closely as he painstakingly shaved his throat. Bobby himself found the story less than riveting—it wasn't about Floyd Patterson or Ingemar Johansson, after all (Sully called the Swedish heavyweight “Ingie-Baby”)—but he read it carefully, nevertheless. The twelve-rounder between Tommy “Hurricane” Haywood and Eddie Albini was scheduled for Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night of the following week. Both fighters had good records, but age was considered an important, perhaps telling factor: Haywood, twenty-three to Eddie Albini's thirty-six, and a heavy favorite. The winner
might get a shot at the heavyweight title in the fall, probably around the time Richard Nixon won the Presidency (Bobby's mom said that was sure to happen, and a good thing—never mind that Kennedy was a Catholic, he was just too young, and apt to be a hothead).

In the article Albini said he could understand why he was the underdog—he was getting up in years a little and some folks thought he was past it because he'd lost by a TKO to Sugar Boy Masters in his last fight. And sure, he knew that Haywood outreached him and was supposed to be mighty savvy for a younger fellow. But he'd been training hard, Albini said, skipping a lot of rope and sparring with a guy who moved and jabbed like Haywood. The article was full of words like
game
and
determined;
Albini was described as being “full of grit.” Bobby could tell the writer thought Albini was going to get the stuffing knocked out of him and felt sorry for him. Hurricane Haywood hadn't been available to talk to the reporter, but his manager, a fellow named I. Kleindienst (Ted told Bobby how to pronounce the name), said it was likely to be Eddie Albini's last fight. “He had his day, but his day is over,” I. Kleindienst said. “If Eddie goes six, I'm going to send my boy to bed without his supper.”

“Irving Kleindienst's a
ka-mai
,” Ted said.

“A what?”

“A fool.” Ted was looking out the window toward the sound of Mrs. O'Hara's dog. Not totally blank the way he sometimes went blank, but distant.

“You know him?” Bobby asked.

“No, no,” Ted said. He seemed first startled by the idea, then amused. “Know
of
him.”

“It sounds to me like this guy Albini's gonna get creamed.”

“You never know. That's what makes it interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Go to the comics, Bobby. I want Flash Gordon. And be sure to tell me what Dale Arden's wearing.”

“Why?”

“Because I think she's a real hotsy-totsy,” Ted said, and Bobby burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. Sometimes Ted was a real card.

•   •   •

A day later, on his way back from Sterling House, where he had just filled out the rest of his forms for summer baseball, Bobby came upon a carefully printed poster thumbtacked to an elm in Commonwealth Park.

PLEASE HELP US FIND PHIL!

PHIL
is our
WELSH CORGI!

PHIL
is 7
YRS. OLD!

PHIL
is
BROWN
, with a
WHITE BIB!

His
EYES
are
BRIGHT
&
INTELLIGENT!

The
TIPS OF HIS EARS
are
BLACK!

Will bring you a
BALL
if you say
HURRY UP PHIL!

CALL HO
usitonic 5-8337!

(
OR
)

BRING
to 745 Highgate Avenue!

Home of
THE SAGAMORE FAMILY
!

There was no picture of Phil.

Bobby stood looking at the poster for a fair length of time. Part of him wanted to run home and tell
Ted—not only about this but about the star and crescent moon he'd seen chalked beside the hopscotch grid. Another part pointed out that there was all sorts of stuff posted in the park—he could see a sign advertising a concert in the town square posted on another elm right across from where he was standing—and he would be
nuts
to get Ted going about this. These two thoughts contended with each other until they felt like two sticks rubbing together and his brain in danger of catching on fire.

I won't think about it
, he told himself, stepping back from the poster. And when a voice from deep within his mind—a dangerously
adult
voice—protested that he was being
paid
to think about stuff like this, to
tell
about stuff like this, Bobby told the voice to just shut up. And the voice did.

When he got home, his mother was sitting on the porch glider again, this time mending the sleeve of a housedress. She looked up and Bobby saw the puffy skin beneath her eyes, the reddened lids. She had a Kleenex folded into one hand.

“Mom—?”

What's wrong?
was how the thought finished . . . but finishing it would be unwise. Would likely cause trouble. Bobby had had no recurrence of his brilliant insights on the day of the trip to Savin Rock, but he
knew
her—the way she looked at him when she was upset, the way the hand with the Kleenex in it tensed, almost becoming a fist, the way she drew in breath and sat up straighter, ready to give you a fight if you wanted to go against her.

“What?” she asked him. “Got something on your mind besides your hair?”

“No,” he said. His voice sounded awkward and oddly shy to his own ears. “I was at Sterling House. The lists are up for baseball. I'm a Wolf again this summer.”

She nodded and relaxed a little. “I'm sure you'll make the Lions next year.” She moved her sewing basket from the glider to the porch floor, then patted the empty place. “Sit down here beside me a minute, Bobby. I've got something to tell you.”

Bobby sat with a feeling of trepidation—she'd been crying, after all, and she sounded quite grave—but it turned out not to be a big deal, at least as far as he could see.

“Mr. Biderman—Don—has invited me to go with him and Mr. Cushman and Mr. Dean to a seminar in Providence. It's a big chance for me.”

“What's a seminar?”

“A sort of conference—people get together to learn about a subject and discuss it. This one is Real Estate in the Sixties. I was very surprised that Don would invite me. Bill Cushman and Curtis Dean, of course I knew
they'd
be going, they're agents. But for Don to ask
me
 . . .” She trailed off for a moment, then turned to Bobby and smiled. He thought it was a genuine smile, but it went oddly with her reddened lids. “I've wanted to become an agent myself for the longest time, and now this, right out of the blue . . . it's a big chance for me, Bobby, and it could mean a big change for us.”

Bobby knew his mom wanted to sell real estate. She had books on the subject and read a little out of them almost every night, often underlining parts. But if it was such a big chance, why had it made her cry?

“Well, that's good,” he said. “The ginchiest. I hope you learn a lot. When is it?”