Hearts in Atlantis(11)

'I bet it was education,' she said meditatively. 'He talks like someone who used to be a teacher. Doesn't he?'

'Sort of, yeah.'

'Does he have hobbies?'

'I don't know.' There was reading, of course; two of the three bags which had so offended his mother were full of paperback books, most of which looked very hard.

The fact that Bobby knew nothing of the new man's pastimes for some reason seemed to ease her mind. She shrugged, and when she spoke again it seemed to be to herself rather than to Bobby. 'Shoot, it's only a book. And a paperback, at that.'

'He said he might have a job for me, but so far he hasn't come up with anything.'

She turned around fast. 'Any job he offers you, any chores he asks you to do, you talk to me about it first. Got that?'

'Sure, got it.' Her intensity surprised him and made him a little uneasy.

'Promise.'

'I promise.'

'Big promise, Bobby.'

He dutifully crossed his heart and said, 'I promise my mother in the name of God.'

That usually finished things, but this time she didn't look satisfied.

'Has he ever . . . does he ever . . . ' There she stopped, looking uncharacteristically flustered. Kids sometimes looked that way when Mrs Bramwell sent them to the blackboard to pick the nouns and verbs out of a sentence and they couldn't.

'Has he ever what, Mom?'

'Never mind!' she said crossly. 'Get out of here, Bobby, go to the park or Sterling House, I'm tired of looking at you.'

Why'd you come in, then? he thought (but of course did not say). I wasn't bothering you, Mom. I wasn't bothering you.

Bobby tucked Lord of the Flies into his back pocket and headed for the door. He turned back when he got there. She was still at the window, but now she was watching him again. He never surprised love on her face at such moments; at best he might see a kind of speculation, sometimes (but not always) affectionate.

'Hey, Mom?' He was thinking of asking for fifty cents - half a rock. With that he could buy a soda and two hotdogs at the Colony Diner. He loved the Colony's hotdogs, which came in toasted buns with potato chips and pickle slices on the side.

Her mouth did its tightening trick, and he knew this wasn't his day for hotdogs. 'Don't ask, Bobby, don't even think about it.' Don't even think about it - one of her all-time faves. 'I have a ton of bills this week, so get those dollar-signs out of your eyes.'

She didn't have a ton of bills, though, that was the thing. Not this week she didn't. Bobby had seen both the electric bill and the check for the rent in its envelope marked Mr Monteleone last Wednesday. And she couldn't claim he would soon need clothes because this was the end of the school-year, not the beginning. The only dough he'd asked for lately was five bucks for Sterling House - quarterly dues - and she had even been chintzy about that, although she knew it covered swimming and Wolves and Lions Baseball, plus the insurance. If it had been anyone but his mom, he would have thought of this as cheapskate behavior. He couldn't say anything about it to her, though; talking to her about money almost always turned into an argument, and disputing any part of her view on money matters, even in the most tiny particulars, was apt to send her into ranting hysterics. When she got like that she was scary.

Bobby smiled. 'It's okay, Mom.'

She smiled back and then nodded to the jar marked Bike Fund. 'Borrow a little from there, why don't you? Treat yourself. I'll never tell, and you can always put it back later.'

He held onto his smile, but only with an effort. How easily she said that, never thinking of how furious she'd be if Bobby suggested she borrow a little from the electric money, or the phone money, or what she set aside to buy her 'business clothes,' just so he could get a couple of hotdogs and maybe a pie a la mode at the Colony. If he told her breezily that he'd never tell and she could always put it back later. Yeah, sure, and get his face smacked.

By the time he got to Commonwealth Park, Bobby's resentment had faded and the word cheapskate had left his brain. It was a beautiful day and he had a terrific book to finish; how could you be resentful and pissed off with stuff like that going for you? He found a secluded bench and reopened Lord of the Flies. He had to finish it today, had to find out what happened.

CHAPTER 3

The last forty pages took him an hour, and during that time he was oblivious to everything around him. When he finally closed the book, he saw he had a lapful of little white flowers. His hair was full of them, too - he'd been sitting unaware in a storm of apple-blossoms.

He brushed them away, looking toward the playground as he did. Kids were teetertottering and swinging and batting the tetherball around its pole. Laughing, chasing each other, rolling in the grass. Could kids like that ever wind up going naked and worshipping a rotting pig's head? It was tempting to dismiss such ideas as the imaginings of a grownup who didn't like kids (there were lots who didn't, Bobby knew), but then Bobby glanced into the sandbox and saw a little boy sitting there and wailing as if his heart would break while another, bigger kid sat beside him, unconcernedly playing with the Tonka truck he had yanked out of his friend's hands.

And the book's ending - happy or not? Crazy as such a thing would have seemed a month ago, Bobby couldn't really tell. Never in his life had he read a book where he didn't know if the ending was good or bad, happy or sad. Ted would know, though. He would ask Ted.