Hearts In Atlantis Read Free Page B

card,” he said.
    â€œNo, but it almost is,” she said. “I thought about getting you a grownup card, but man, they are gushy.”
    â€œI know,” Bobby said.
    â€œAre you going to be a gushy adult, Bobby?”
    â€œI hope not,” he said. “Are you?”
    â€œNo. I’m going to be like my mom’s friend Rionda.”
    â€œRionda’s pretty fat,” Bobby said doubtfully.
    â€œYeah, but she’s cool. I’m going to go for the cool without the fat.”
    â€œThere’s a new guy moving into our building. Theroom on the third floor. My mom says it’s really hot up there.”
    â€œYeah? What’s he like?” She giggled. “Is he ushy-gushy?”
    â€œHe’s old,” Bobby said, then paused to think. “But he had an interesting face. My mom didn’t like him on sight because he had some of his stuff in shopping bags.”
    Sully-John joined them. “Happy birthday, you bastard,” he said, and clapped Bobby on the back. Bastard was Sully-John’s current favorite word; Carol’s was cool; Bobby was currently between favorite words, although he thought ripshit had a certain ring to it.
    â€œIf you swear, I won’t walk with you,” Carol said.
    â€œOkay,” Sully-John said companionably. Carol was a fluffy blonde who looked like a Bobbsey Twin after some growing up; John Sullivan was tall, black-haired, and green-eyed. A Joe Hardy kind of boy. Bobby Garfield walked between them, his momentary depression forgotten. It was his birthday and he was with his friends and life was good. He tucked Carol’s birthday card into his back pocket and his new library card down deep in his front pocket, where it could not fall out or be stolen. Carol started to skip. Sully-John told her to stop.
    â€œWhy?” Carol asked. “I like to skip.”
    â€œI like to say bastard , but I don’t if you ask me,” Sully-John replied reasonably.
    Carol looked at Bobby.
    â€œSkipping—at least without a rope—is a little on the baby side, Carol,” Bobby said apologetically, then shrugged. “But you can if you want. We don’t mind, do we, S-J?”
    â€œNope,” Sully-John said, and got going with the Bo-lo Bouncer again. Back to front, up to down, whap-whap-whap.
    Carol didn’t skip. She walked between them and pretended she was Bobby Garfield’s girlfriend, that Bobby had a driver’s license and a Buick and they were going to Bridgeport to see the WKBW Rock and Roll Extravaganza. She thought Bobby was extremely cool. The coolest thing about him was that he didn’t know it.
    â€¢   •   •
    Bobby got home from school at three o’clock. He could have been there sooner, but picking up returnable bottles was part of his Get-a-Bike-by-Thanksgiving campaign, and he detoured through the brushy area just off Asher Avenue looking for them. He found three Rheingolds and a Nehi. Not much, but hey, eight cents was eight cents. “It all mounts up” was another of his mom’s sayings.
    Bobby washed his hands (a couple of those bottles had been pretty scurgy), got a snack out of the icebox, read a couple of old Superman comics, got another snack out of the icebox, then watched American Bandstand . He called Carol to tell her Bobby Darin was going to be on—she thought Bobby Darin was deeply cool, especially the way he snapped his fingers when he sang “Queen of the Hop”—but she already knew. She was watching with three or four of her numbskull girlfriends; they all giggled pretty much nonstop in the background. The sound made Bobby think of birds in a petshop. On TV, Dick Clark was currently showing how much pimple-grease just one Stri-Dex Medicated Pad could sop up.
    Mom called at four o’clock. Mr. Biderman needed her to work late, she said. She was sorry, but birthday supper at the Colony was off. There was leftover beef stew in the