Hearts in Atlantis(35)

'That's hard to explain,' Ted replied, and then asked Bobby to read him his horoscope.

Thinking about Ted's trances was distracting. Not talking about the things Ted was paying him to look for was even more distracting. As a result, Bobby - ordinarily a pretty good hitter - struck out four times in an afternoon game for the Wolves at Sterling House. He also lost four straight Battleship games to Sully at S-J's house on Friday, when it rained.

'What the heck's wrong with you?' Sully asked. 'That's the third time you called out squares you already called out before. Also, I have to practically holler in your ear before you answer me. What's up?'

'Nothing.' That was what he said. Everything. That was what he felt.

Carol also asked Bobby a couple of times that week if he was okay; Mrs Gerber asked if he was 'off his feed'; Yvonne Loving wanted to know if he had mono, and then giggled until she seemed in danger of exploding.

The only person who didn't notice Bobby's odd behavior was his mom. Liz Garfield was increasingly preoccupied with her trip to Providence, talking on the phone in the evenings with Mr Biderman or one of the other two who were going (Bill Cushman was one of them; Bobby couldn't exactly remember the name of the other guy), laying clothes out on her bed until the spread was almost covered, then shaking her head over them angrily and returning them to the closet, making an appointment to get her hair done and then calling the lady back and asking if she could add a manicure. Bobby wasn't even sure what a manicure was. He had to ask Ted.

She seemed excited by her preparations, but there was also a kind of grimness to her. She was like a soldier about to storm an enemy beach, or a paratrooper who would soon be jumping out of a plane and landing behind enemy lines. One of her evening telephone conversations seemed to be a whispered argument - Bobby had an idea it was with Mr Biderman, but he wasn't sure. On Saturday, Bobby came into her bedroom and saw her looking at two new dresses - dressy dresses, one with thin little shoulder straps and one with no straps at all, just a top like a bathing suit. The boxes they had come in lay tumbled on the floor with tissue paper foaming out of them. His mom was standing over the dresses, looking down at them with an expression Bobby had never seen before: big eyes, drawn-together brows, taut white cheeks which flared with spots of rouge. One hand was at her mouth, and he could hear bonelike clittering sounds as she bit at her nails. A Kool smoldered in an ashtray on the bureau, apparently forgotten. Her big eyes shuttled back and forth between the two dresses.

'Mom?' Bobby asked, and she jumped literally jumped into the air. Then she whirled on him, her mouth drawn down in a grimace.

'Jesus Christ!' she almost snarled. 'Don you knock?' I'm sorry,' he said, and began to back out of the room. His mother had never said anything about knocking before. 'Mom, are you all right?'

'Fine!' She spied the cigarette, grabbed it, smoked furiously. She exhaled with such force that Bobby almost expected to see smoke come from her ears as well as her nose and mouth. Td be finer if I could find a cocktail dress that didn't make me look like Elsie the Cow. Once I was a size six, do you know that? Before I married your father I was a size six. Now look at me! Elsie the Cow! Moby-damn-Dick!'

'Mom, you're not big. In fact just lately you look - '

'Get out, Bobby. Please let Mother alone. I have a headache.' That night he heard her crying again. The following day he saw her carefully packing one of the dresses into her luggage - the one with the thin straps. The other went back into its store-box: GOWNS BY LUCIE OF BRIDGEPORT was written across the front in elegant maroon script.

On Monday night, Liz invited Ted Brautigan down to have dinner with them. Bobby loved his mother's meatloaf and usually asked for seconds, but on this occasion he had to work hard to stuff down a single piece. He was terrified that Ted would trance out and his mother would pitch a fit over it.

His fear proved groundless. Ted spoke pleasantly of his childhood in New Jersey and, when Bobby's mom asked him, of his job in Hartford. To Bobby he seemed less comfortable talking about accounting than he did reminiscing about sleighing as a kid, but his mom didn't appear to notice. Ted did ask for a second slice of meatloaf.

When the meal was over and the table cleared, Liz gave Ted a list of telephone numbers, including those of Dr Gordon, the Sterling House Summer Rec office, and the Warwick Hotel. 'If there are any problems, I want to hear from you. Okay?'

Ted nodded. 'Okay.'

'Bobby? No big worries?' She put her hand briefly on his forehead, the way she used to do when he complained of feeling feverish.

'Nope. We'll have a blast. Won't we, Mr Brautigan?'

'Oh, call him Ted,' Liz almost snapped. 'If he's going to be sleeping in our living room, I guess I better call him Ted, too. May I?'

'Indeed you may. Let it be Ted from this moment on.'

He smiled. Bobby thought it was a sweet smile, open and friendly. He didn't understand how anyone could resist it. But his mother could and did. Even now, while she was returning Ted's smile, he saw the hand with the Kleenex in it tightening and loosening in its old familiar gesture of anxious displeasure. One of her absolute favorite sayings now came to Bobby's mind: I'd trust him (or her) as far as I could sling a piano.

'And from now on I'm Liz.' She held out a hand across the table and they shook like people meeting for the first time . . . except Bobby knew his mother's mind was already made up on the subject of Ted Brautigan. If her back hadn't been against the wall, she never would have trusted Bobby with him. Not in a million years.