Hearts in Atlantis(100)

'Lonely Struggles, or A Scholarship Boy's Life,' Carol said. 'A heartbreaking novel by Charles Dickens. You'll weep as plucky Peter Riley throws himself into the river after finding that the Financial Aid Office has revoked his grant package.'

I laughed. She was very sharp.

'I'm in the same boat, you know. If we screw up, maybe we can make it a double suicide. Into the Penobscot with us. Goodbye, cruel world.'

'What's a Connecticut girl doing at the University of Maine, anyway?' I asked.

'That's a little complicated. And if you ever plan on asking me out again, you should know you're robbing the cradle. I won't actually be eighteen until November. I skipped the seventh grade. That was the year my parents got divorced, and I was miserable. It was either study all the time or turn into one of the Harwich Junior High corner girls. They're the ones who major in French-kissing and usually wind up pregnant at sixteen. You know the kind I mean?'

'Sure.' In Gates you saw them in giggling little groups outside Frank's Fountain or the Dairy Delish, waiting for the boys to come by in their dropped Fords and Plymouth hemis, fast cars with the fenderskirts and the decals saying FRAM and QUAKER STATE in the back windows. You could see those girls as women down at the other end of Main Street, ten years older and forty pounds heavier, drinking beers and shots in Chucky's Tavern.

'I turned into a study-grind. My father was in the Navy. He got out on a disability and moved here to Maine . . . Damariscotta, down on the coast?'

I nodded, thinking of Diane Renee's steady boy, the one who said ship ahoy and joined the Nay-yay-vee.

'I was living in Connecticut with my mother and going to Harwich High. I applied to sixteen different schools and got accepted by all but three . . . but . . . '

'But they expected you to pay your own way and you couldn't.'

She nodded. 'I think I missed the plum scholarships by maybe twenty SAT-points. An extra-curricular activity or two probably wouldn't have hurt, either, but I was too busy grinding away at the books. And by then I was pretty hot and heavy with Sully-John . . . '

'The boyfriend, right?'

She nodded, but not as though this Sully-John interested her. 'The only two schools offering realistic financial aid packages were Maine and UConn. I decided on Maine because by then I wasn't getting along very well with my mother. Lots of fights.'

'You get along better with your father?'

'Hardly ever see him,' she said in a dry, businesslike tone. 'He lives with this woman who . . . well, they drink a lot and fight a lot, let's leave it at that. But he's a resident of the state, I'm his daughter, and this is a land-grant college. I didn't get everything I needed - UConn offered the better deal, frankly - but I'm not afraid of a little work. It's worth it, just to get away.'

She took a deep breath of the night air and let it out, faintly white. We were almost back to Franklin. Inside the lobby I could see guys sitting in the hard plastic contour chairs, waiting for their girls to come down from upstairs. It looked like quite a rogue's gallery. Worth it just to get away, she had said. Did that mean the mother, the town, and the high school, or was the boyfriend included?

When we got to the wide double doors at the front of her dorm, I put my arms around her and bent to kiss her again. She put her hands on my chest, stopping me. Not pulling back, just stopping me. She looked up into my face, smiling that little smile of hers. I could get to love that smile, I thought - it was the kind of smile you might wake up thinking of in the middle of the night. The blue eyes and the blond hair too, but mostly the smile. The lips only curved a little, but the corners of the mouth deepened to dimples all the same.

'My boyfriend's real name is John Sullivan,' she said. 'Like the fighter. Now tell me the name of your girlfriend.'

'Annmarie,' I said, not much caring for the sound of it as it came out of my mouth. 'Annmarie Soucie. She's a senior at Gates Falls High this year.' I let Carol go. When I did, she took her hands off my chest and grabbed mine.

'This is information,' she said. 'Information, that's all. Still want to kiss me?'

I nodded. I wanted to more than ever.

'Okay.' She tilted her face up, closed her eyes, opened her lips a little. She looked like a kid waiting at the foot of the stairs for her goodnight kiss from Papa. It was so cute I almost laughed. Instead I bent and kissed her. She kissed back with pleasure and enthusiasm. There were no tongues touching, but it was a thorough, searching kiss just the same. When she drew back, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. 'Goodnight. Thanks for the movie.'

'Want to do it again?'

'I have to think about that,' she said. She was smiling but her eyes were serious. I suppose her boyfriend was on her mind; I know that Annmarie was on mine. 'Maybe you better, too. I'll see you on the dishline Monday. What do you have?'

'Lunch and dinner.'

'I have breakfast and lunch. So I'll see you at lunch.'

'Eat more Maine beans,' I said. That made her laugh. She went inside. I watched her go, standing outside with my collar turned up and my hands in my pockets and a cigarette between my lips, feeling like Bogie. I watched her say something to the girl on the reception desk and then hurry upstairs, still laughing.

I walked back to Chamberlain in the moonlight, determined to get serious about the geosyncline.