Hearts in Atlantis(33)

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

CHAPTER 7

'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?'

'Next week. The four of us leave early Tuesday morning and get back Thursday night around eight o'clock. All the meetings are at the Warwick Hotel, and that's where we'll be staying - Don's booked the rooms. I haven't stayed in a hotel room for twelve years, I guess. I'm a little nervous.'

Did nervous make you cry? Bobby wondered. Maybe so, if you were a grownup - especially a female grownup.

'I want you to ask S-J if you can stay with him Tuesday and Wednesday night. I'm sure Mrs Sullivan - '

Bobby shook his head. 'That won't work.'

'Whyever not?' Liz bent a fierce look at him. 'Mrs Sullivan hasn't ever minded you staying over before. You haven't gotten into her bad books somehow, have you?'

'No, Mom. It's just that S-J won a week at Camp Winnie.' The sound of all those W's coming out of his mouth made him feel like smiling, but he held it in. His mother was still looking at him in that fierce way . . . and wasn't there a kind of panic in that look? Panic or something like it?

'What's Camp Winnie? What are you talking about?'

Bobby explained about S-J winning the free week at Camp Winiwinaia and how Mrs Sullivan was going to visit her parents in Wisconsin at the same time - plans which had now been finalized, Big Gray Dog and all.

'Damn it, that's just my luck,' his mom said. She almost never swore, said that cursing and what she called 'dirty talk' was the language of the ignorant. Now she made a fist and struck the arm of the glider. 'God damn it!'

She sat for a moment, thinking. Bobby thought, as well. His only other close friend on the street was Carol, and he doubted his mom would call Anita Gerber and ask if he could stay over there. Carol was a girl, and somehow that made a difference when it came to sleepovers. One of his mother's friends? The thing was she didn't really have any . . . except for Don Biderman (and maybe the other two that were going to the seminar in Providence). Plenty of acquaintances, people she said hi to if they were walking back from the supermarket or going to a Friday-night movie downtown, but no one she could call up and ask to keep her eleven-year-old son for a couple of nights; no relatives, either, at least none that Bobby knew of.

Like people travelling on converging roads, Bobby and his mother gradually drew toward the same point. Bobby got there first, if only by a second or two.

'What about Ted?' he asked, then almost clapped his hand over his mouth. It actually rose out of his lap a little.

His mother watched the hand settle back with a return of her old cynical half-smile, the one she wore when dispensing sayings like You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die and Two men looked out through prison bars, one saw the mud and one saw the stars and of course that all-time favorite, Life's not fair.

'You think I don't know you call him Ted when the two of you are together?' she asked. 'You must think I've been taking stupid-pills, Bobby-O.' She sat and looked out at the street. A Chrysler New Yorker slid slowly past - finny, fenderskirted, and highlighted with chrome. Bobby watched it go by. The man behind the wheel was elderly and white-haired and wearing a blue jacket. Bobby thought he was probably all right. Old but not low.

'Maybe it'd work,' Liz said at last. She spoke musingly, more to herself than to her son. 'Let's go talk to Brautigan and see.'

Following her up the stairs to the third floor, Bobby wondered how long she had known how to say Ted's name correctly. A week? A month?

From the start, Dumbo, he thought. From the very first day.

Bobby's initial idea was that Ted could stay in his own room on the third floor while Bobby stayed in the apartment on the first floor; they'd both keep their doors open, and if either of them needed anything, they could call.