Hearts in Atlantis(44)

'He came in here to play pool?'

'Nah. Said he wasn't much of a stick. He'd drink a beer. Also sometimes . . . ' She made a quick gesture then - dealing from an invisible deck. It made Bobby think of McQuown.

'Yeah,' Bobby said. 'He never met an inside straight he didn't like, that's what I heard.'

'I don't know about that, but he was a nice guy. He could come in here on a Monday night, when the place is always like a grave, and in half an hour or so he'd have everybody laughing. He'd play that song by Jo Stafford, I can't remember the name, and make Lennie turn up the jukebox. A real sweetie, kid, that's mostly why I remember him; a sweetie with red hair is a rare commodity. He wouldn't buy a drunk a drink, he had a thing about that, but otherwise he'd give you the shirt right off his back. All you had to do was ask.'

'But he lost a lot of money, I guess,' Bobby said. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation - that he had met someone who had known his father. Yet he supposed a lot of finding out happened like this, completely by accident. You were just going along, minding your own business, and all at once the past sideswiped you.

'Randy?' She looked surprised. 'Nah. He'd come in for a drink maybe three times a week - you know, if he happened to be in the neighborhood. He was in real estate or insurance or selling or some one of those - '

'Real estate,' Bobby said. 'It was real estate.'

' - and there was an office down here he'd visit. For the industrial properties, I guess, if it was real estate. You sure it wasn't medical supplies?'

'No, real estate.'

'Funny how your memory works,' she said. 'Some things stay clear, but mostly time goes by and green turns blue. All of the suit-n-tie businesses are gone down here now, anyway.' She shook her head sadly.

Bobby wasn't interested in how the neighborhood had gone to blazes. 'But when he did play, he lost. He was always trying to fill inside straights and stuff.'

'Did your mother tell you that?'

Bobby was silent.

Alanna shrugged. Interesting things happened all up and down her front when she did. 'Well, that's between you and her . . . and hey, maybe your dad threw his dough around in other places. All I know is that in here he'd just sit in once or twice a month with guys he knew, play until maybe midnight, then go home. If he left a big winner or a big loser, I'd probably remember. I don't, so he probably broke even most nights he played. Which, by the way, makes him a pretty good poker-player. Better than most back there.' She rolled her eyes in the direction Ted and her brother had gone.

Bobby looked at her with growing confusion. Your father didn't exactly leave us well off, his mother liked to say. There was the lapsed life insurance policy, the stack of unpaid bills; Little did I know, his mother had said just this spring, and Bobby was beginning to think that fit him, as well: Little did I know.

'He was such a good-looking guy, your dad,' Alanna said, 'Bob Hope nose and all. I'd guess you got that to look forward to - you favor him. Got a girlfriend?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

Were the unpaid bills a fiction? Was that possible? Had the life insurance policy actually been cashed and socked away, maybe in a bank account instead of between the pages of the Sears catalogue? It was a horrible thought, somehow. Bobby couldn't imagine why his mother would want him to think his dad was

(a low man, a low man with red hair]

a bad guy if he really wasn't, but there was something about the idea that felt . . . true. She could get mad, that was the thing about his mother. She could get so mad. And then she might say anything. It was possible that his father - who his mother had never once in Bobby's memory called 'Randy' - had given too many people too many shirts right off his back, and consequently made Liz Garfield mad. Liz Garfield didn't give away shirts, not off her back or from anywhere else. You had to save your shirts in this world, because life wasn't fair.

'What's her name?'

'Liz.' He felt dazed, the way he'd felt coming out of the dark theater into the bright light.

'Like Liz Taylor.' Alanna looked pleased. 'That's a nice name for a girlfriend.'

Bobby laughed, a little embarrassed. 'No, my mother's Liz. My girlfriend's name is Carol.'

'She pretty?'

'A real hosty-tosty,' he said, grinning and wiggling one hand from side to side. He was delighted when Alanna roared with laughter. She reached over the desk, the flesh of her upper arm hanging like some fantastic wad of dough, and pinched his cheek. It hurt a little but he liked it.

'Cute kid! Can I tell you something?'

'Sure, what?'

'Just because a man likes to play a little cards, that doesn't make him Attila the Hun. You know that, don't you?'

Bobby nodded hesitantly, then more firmly.

'Your ma's your ma, I don't say nothing against anybody's ma because I loved my own, but not everybody's ma approves of cards or pool or ... places like this. It's a point of view, but that's all it is. Get the picture?'

'Yes,' Bobby said. He did. He got the picture. He felt very strange, like laughing and crying at the same time. My dad was here, he thought. This seemed, at least for the time being, much more important than any lies his mother might have told about him. My dad was here, he might have stood right where I'm standing now. 'I'm glad I look like him,' he blurted.