Hearts in Atlantis(26)

It occurred to him that she was right - he could take a little of his saved dough to spend at Savin Rock. It might take him an extra month to accumulate the price of the Schwinn, but at least spending this money would feel all right. And there was something else, as well. If he refused to take any money out of the jar, to do anything but hoard it and save it, he'd be like her.

That decided the matter. Bobby fished five dimes out of the Bike Fund, put them in his pocket, put a Kleenex on top of them to keep them from bouncing out if he ran somewhere, then finished collecting his stuff for the beach. Soon he was whistling, and Ted came downstairs to see what he was up to.

'Are you off, Captain Garfield?'

Bobby nodded. 'Savin Rock's a pretty cool place. Rides and stuff, you know?'

'Indeed I do. Have a good time, Bobby, and don't fall out of anything.'

Bobby started for the door, then looked back at Ted, who was standing on the bottom step of the stairs in his slippers. 'Why don't you come out and sit on the porch?' Bobby asked. 'It's gonna be hot in the house, I bet.'

Ted smiled. 'Perhaps. But I think I'll stay in.'

'You okay?'

'Fine, Bobby. I'm fine.'

As he crossed to the Gerbers' side of Broad Street, Bobby realized he felt sorry for Ted, hiding up in his hot room for no reason. And it had to be for no reason, didn't it? Sure it did. Even if there were low men out there, cruising around someplace (in the west, he thought, they draw west), what could they want of an old retired guy like Ted Brautigan?

At first the quarrel with his mother weighed him down a little (Mrs Gerber's pudgy, pretty friend Rionda Hewson accused him of being 'in a brown study,' whatever that was, then began tickling him up the sides and in the armpits until Bobby laughed in self-defense), but after they had been on the beach a little while he began to feel better, more himself.

Although it was still early in the season, Savin Rock was full speed ahead - the merry-go-round turning, the Wild Mouse roaring, the little kids screaming, tinny rock and roll pouring from the speakers outside the funhouse, the barkers hollering from their booths. Sully-John didn't get the teddy bear he wanted, knocking over only two of the last three milk-bottles (Rionda claimed some of them had special weights in the bottom to keep them from going over unless you whacked them just right), but the guy in the baseball-toss booth awarded him a pretty neat prize anyway - a goofy-looking anteater covered with yellow plush. S-J impulsively gave it to Carol's morn. Anita laughed and hugged him and told him he was the best kid in the world, if he was fifteen years older she'd commit bigamy and marry him. Sully-John blushed until he was purple.

Bobby tried the ringtoss and missed with all three throws. At the Shooting Gallery he had better luck, breaking two plates and winning a small stuffed bear. He gave it to Ian-the-Snot, who had actually been good for a change - hadn't thrown any tantrums, wet his pants, or tried to sock either Sully or Bobby in the nuts. Ian hugged the bear and looked at Bobby as if Bobby were God.

'It's great and he loves it,' Anita said, 'but don't you want to take it home to your mother?'

'Nah - she's not much on stuff like that. I'd like to win her a bottle of perfume, though.'

He and Sully-John dared each other to go on the Wild Mouse and finally went together, howling deliriously as their car plunged into each dip, simultaneously sure they were going to live forever and die immediately. They went on the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Krazy Kups. Down to his last fifteen cents, Bobby found himself on the Ferris wheel with Carol. Their car stopped at the top, rocking slightly, making him feel funny in his stomach. To his left the Atlantic stepped shoreward in a series of white-topped waves. The beach was just as white, the ocean an impossible shade of deep blue. Sunlight ran across it like silk. Below them was the midway. Rising up from the speakers came the sound of Freddy Cannon: she comes from Tallahassee, she's got a hi-fi chassis.

'Everything down there looks so little,' Carol said. Her voice was also little - uncharacteristically so.

'Don't be scared, we're safe as can be. The Ferris wheel would be a kiddie-ride if it didn't go so high.'

Carol was in many ways the oldest of the three of them - tough and sure of herself, as on the day she had made S-J carry her books for swearing - but now her face had almost become a baby's face again: round, a little bit pale, dominated by a pair of alarmed blue eyes. Without thinking Bobby leaned over, put his mouth on hers, and kissed her. When he drew back, her eyes were wider than ever.

'Safe as can be,' he said, and grinned.

'Do it again!' It was her first real kiss, she had gotten it at Savin Rock on the first Saturday of summer vacation, and she hadn't been paying attention. That was what she was thinking, that was why she wanted him to do it again.

'I better not,' Bobby said. Although . . . up here who was there to see and call him a sissy?

'I dare you, and don't say dares go first.'

'Will you tell?'

'No, swear to God. Go on, hurry up! Before we go down!'

So he kissed her again. Her lips were smooth and closed, hot with the sun. Then the wheel began to move and he stopped. For just a moment Carol laid her head against his chest. 'Thank you, Bobby,' she said. 'That was nice as could be.'

'I thought so, too.'

They drew apart from each other a little, and when their car stopped and the tattooed attendant swung the safety bar up, Bobby got out and ran without looking back at her to where S-J was standing. Yet he knew already that kissing Carol at the top of the Ferris wheel was going to be the best part of the day. It was his first real kiss, too, and Bobby never forgot the feel of her lips pressing on his - dry and smooth and warmed by the sun. It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting.