Hearts in Atlantis(67)

'Then try to be your mother's friend. For my sake if not your own. Stay with her and help this hurt of hers to heal. And every now and then I'll send you a postcard.'

They were walking back into the living room again. Bobby was starting to feel a little bit better, but he wished Ted could have put his arm around him. He wished that more than anything.

The bathroom door opened. Carol came out first, looking down at her own feet with uncharacteristic shyness. Her hair had been wetted, combed back, and rubber-banded into a ponytail. She was wearing one of Bobby's mother's old blouses; it was so big it came almost down to her knees, like a dress. You couldn't see her red shorts at all.

'Go out on the porch and wait,' Liz said.

'Okay.'

'You won't go walking home without me, will you?'

'No!' Carol said, and her downcast face filled with alarm.

'Good. Stand right by my suitcases.'

Carol started out to the foyer, then turned back. 'Thanks for fixing my arm, Ted. I hope you don't get in trouble for it. I didn't want - '

'Go out on the damned porch,' Liz snapped.

' - anyone to get in trouble,' Carol finished in a tiny voice, almost the whisper of a mouse in a cartoon. Then she went out, Liz's blouse flapping around her in a way that would have been comical on another day. Liz turned to Bobby and when he got a good look at her, his heart sank. Her fury had been refreshed. A bright red flush had spread over her bruised face and down her neck.

Oh cripes, what now? Bobby thought. Then she held up the green keyfob, and he knew.

'Where did you get this, Bobby-O?'

'I . . . it . . . ' But he could think of nothing to say: no fib, no outright lie, not even the truth. Suddenly Bobby felt very tired. The only thing in the world he wanted to do was creep into his bedroom and hide under the covers of his bed and go to sleep.

'I gave it to him,' Ted said mildly. 'Yesterday.'

'You took my son to a bookie joint in Bridgeport? A poker-parlor in Bridgeport?'

It doesn't say bookie joint on the keyfob, Bobby thought. It doesn't say poker-parlor, either . . . became those things are against the law. She knows what goes on there because my father went there. And like father like son. That's what they say, like father like son.

'I took him to a movie,' Ted said. 'Village of the Damned, at the Criterion. While he was watching, I went to The Corner Pocket to do an errand.'

'What sort of errand?'

'I placed a bet on a prizefight.' For a moment Bobby's heart sank even lower and he thought, What's wrong with you? Why didn't you lie? If you knew how she felt about stuff like that -

But he did know. Of course he did.

'A bet on a prizefight.' She nodded. 'Uh-huh. You left my son alone in a Bridgeport movie theater so you could go make a bet on a prizefight.' She laughed wildly. 'Oh well, I suppose I should be grateful, shouldn't I? You brought him such a nice souvenir. If he decides to ever make a bet himself, or lose his money playing poker like his father did, he'll know where to go.'

'I left him for two hours in a movie theater,' Ted said. 'You left him with me. He seems to have survived both, hasn't he?'

Liz looked for a moment as if she had been slapped, then for a moment as if she would cry. Then her face smoothed out and became expressionless. She curled her fist around the green keyfob and slipped it into her dress pocket. Bobby knew he would never see it again. He didn't mind. He didn't want to see it again.

'Bobby, go in your room,' she said.

'No.'

'Bobby, go in your room!'

'No! I won't!'

Standing in a bar of sunlight on the welcome mat by Liz Garfield's suitcases, floating in Liz Garfield's old blouse, Carol began to cry at the sound of the raised voices.

'Go in your room, Bobby,' Ted said quietly. 'I have enjoyed meeting you and knowing you.'

'Knowing you,' Bobby's mom said in an angry, insinuating voice, but Bobby didn't understand her and Ted took no notice of her.

'Go in your room,' he repeated.

'Will you be all right? You know what I mean.'

'Yes.' Ted smiled, kissed his fingers, and blew the kiss toward Bobby. Bobby caught it and made a fist around it, holding it tight. 'I'm going to be just fine.'

Bobby walked slowly toward his bedroom door, his head down and his eyes on the toes of his sneakers. He was almost there when he thought I can't do this, I can't let him go like this.

He ran to Ted, threw his arms around him, and covered his face with kisses - forehead, cheeks, chin, lips, the thin and silky lids of his eyes. 'Ted, I love you!'

Ted gave up and hugged him tight. Bobby could smell a ghost of the lather he shaved with, and the stronger aroma of his Chesterfield cigarettes. They were smells he would carry with him a long time, as he would the memories of Ted's big hands touching him, stroking his back, cupping the curve of his skull. 'Bobby, I love you too,' he said.

'Oh for Christ's sake!' Liz nearly screamed. Bobby turned toward her and what he saw was Don Biderman pushing her into a corner. Somewhere the Benny Goodman Orchestra was playing 'One O'Clock Jump' on a hi-fi turned all the way up. Mr Biderman had his hand out as if to slap. Mr Biderman was asking her if she wanted a little more, was that the way she liked it, she could have a little more if that was the way she liked it. Bobby could almost taste her horrified understanding.