Hearts In Atlantis

“No . . .”

Her eyes on his. His fingers on her arm, going down and rising. Going down . . . and rising. His pupils like a slow heartbeat. Bobby could see Carol relaxing in the chair. She was still holding the belt, and when Ted stopped his finger-stroking long enough to touch the back of her hand, she lifted it toward her face with no protest.

“Oh yes,” he said, “pain rises from its source to the brain. When I put your shoulder back in its socket, there will be a lot of pain—but you’ll catch most of it in your mouth as it rises toward your brain. You will bite it with your teeth and hold it against Bobby’s belt so that only a little of it can get into your head, which is where things hurt the most. Do you understand me, Carol?”

“Yes . . .” Her voice had grown distant. She looked very small sit-ting there in the straight-backed chair, wearing only her shorts and her sneakers. The pupils of Ted’s eyes, Bobby noticed, had grown steady again.

“Put the belt in your mouth.”

She put it between her lips.

“Bite when it hurts.”

“When it hurts.”

“Catch the pain.”

“I’ll catch it.”

Ted gave a final stroke of his big forefinger from her elbow to her wrist, then looked at Bobby. “Wish me luck,” he said.

“Luck,” Bobby replied fervently.

Distant, dreaming, Carol Gerber said: “Bobby threw a duck at a man.”

“Did he?” Ted asked. Very, very gently he closed his left hand around Carol’s left wrist.

“Bobby thought the man was a low man.”

Ted glanced at Bobby.

“Not that kind of low man,” Bobby said. “Just . . . oh, never mind.”

“All the same,” Ted said, “they are very close. T he town clock, the town whistle—”

“I heard,” Bobby said grimly.

“I’m not going to wait until your mother comes back tonight—I don’t dare. I’ll spend the day in a movie or a park or somewhere else. If all else fails, there are flophouses in Bridgeport. Carol, are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“When the pain rises, what will you do?”

“Catch it. Bite it into Bobby’s belt.”

“Good girl. Ten seconds and you are going to feel a lot better.”

Ted drew in a deep breath. T hen he reached out with his right hand until it hovered just above the lilac-colored bulge in Carol’s shoulder. “Here comes the pain, darling. Be brave.”

It wasn’t ten seconds; not even five. To Bobby it seemed to happen in an instant. The heel of Ted’s right hand pressed directly against that knob rising out of Carol’s stretched flesh. At the same time he pulled sharply on her wrist. Carol’s jaws flexed as she clamped down on Bobby’s belt. Bobby heard a brief creaking sound, like the one his neck sometimes made when it was stiff and he turned his head. And then the bulge in Carol’s arm was gone.

“Bingo!” Ted cried. “Looks good! Carol?”

She opened her mouth. Bobby’s belt fell out of it and onto her lap. Bobby saw a line of tiny points embedded in the leather; she had bit-ten nearly all the way through.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said wonderingly. She ran her right hand up to where the skin was now turning a darker purple, touched the bruise, winced.

“That’ll be sore for a week or so,” Ted warned her. “And you must-n’t throw or lift with that arm for at least two weeks. If you do, it may pop out again.”

“I’ll be careful.” Now Carol could look at her arm. She kept touch-ing the bruise with light, testing fingers.

“How much of the pain did you catch?” Ted asked her, and although his face was still grave, Bobby thought he could hear a little smile in his voice.

“Most of it,” she said. “It hardly hurt at all.” As soon as these words were out, however, she slumped back in the chair. Her eyes were open but unfocused. Carol had fainted for the second time.

Ted told Bobby to wet a cloth and bring it to him. “Cold water,” he said. “Wring it out, but not too much.”

Bobby ran into the bathroom, got a facecloth from the shelf by the tub, and wet it in cold water. The bottom half of the bathroom win-dow was frosted glass, but if he had looked out the top half he would have seen his mother’s taxi pulling up out front. Bobby didn’t look; he was concentrating on his chore. He never thought of the green keyfob, either, although it was lying on the shelf right in front of his eyes.

When Bobby came back into the living room, Ted was sitting in the straight-backed chair with Carol in his lap again. Bobby noticed how tanned her arms had already become compared to the rest of her skin, which was a pure, smooth white (except for where the bruises stood out). She looks like she’s wearing nylon stockings on her arms, he thought, a little amused. Her eyes had begun to clear and they tracked Bobby when he moved toward her, but Carol still didn’t look exactly great—her hair was mussed, her face was all sweaty, and there was that drying trickle of blood between her nostril and the corner of her mouth.

Ted took the cloth and began to wipe her cheeks and forehead with it. Bobby knelt by the arm of the chair. Carol sat up a little, rais-ing her face gratefully against the cool and the wet. Ted wiped away the blood under her