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minutes.”
    “You’ve only been home for supper once in the past week,” he said.
    “I know, Skipper, and I’m sorry about that. But I’m trying hard to build a future for us, for me and you. You understand that, don’t you?”
    “I guess so.”
    “It’s a tough world, baby.”
    “I’m not hungry anyway,” Colin said. “I can wait until you get home after the gallery closes.”
    “Well, baby, I won’t be coming straight home. Mark Thornberg asked me to share a late dinner with him.”
    “Who’s Mark Thomberg?”
    “An artist,” she said. “We opened a show of his work yesterday. In fact, about a third of what we’re selling is his stuff. I want to persuade him to let us be his sole representatives.”
    “Where’s he taking you to dinner?”
    “We’re going to Little Italy, I think.”
    “Boy, that’s a neat place!” Colin said, leaning forward on the sofa. “Can I come? I won’t be any bother. You wouldn’t even have to stop back here to pick me up. I can ride my bike and meet you there.”
    She frowned and avoided his eyes. “Sorry, Skipper. This is strictly for grown-ups. We’ll be talking a lot of business.”
    “I won’t mind.”
    “Perhaps not, but we would. Listen, why don’t you go to Charlie’s Cafe and have one of those big cheeseburgers you like so much? And one of those extra-thick milkshakes that you have to eat with a spoon.”
    He settled back against the sofa as if he were a balloon that had rapidly deflated.
    “Don’t pout,” she said. “It doesn’t become you. Pouting’s for little babies.”
    “I’m not pouting,” he said. “It’s okay.”
    “Charlie’s Cafe?” she prompted.
    “I guess so. Sure.”
    She finished her martini and picked up her handbag. “I’ll give you some money.”
    “I’ve got money.”
    “So I’ll give you some more. I’m now a successful businesswoman. I can afford it.”
    She brought him a five-dollar bill, and he said, “It’s too much.”
    “Blow the rest of it on comic books.”
    She bent down, kissed his forehead, and left to freshen up and change clothes.
    For several minutes he sat in silence, staring at the five-dollar bill. At last he sighed and stood and took out his wallet and put the money away.

6

    Mr. and Mrs. Borden gave Roy permission to have supper with Colin. The boys ate at the counter at Charlie’s Cafe, basking in the incomparably wonderful aroma of bubbling grease and onions. Colin paid the check.
    From the diner they went to the Pinball Pit, an amusement arcade that was one of the chief gathering places for young people in Santa Leona. It was a Friday night, and the Pit was crowded with kids feeding coins to pinball machines and a wide variety of electronic games.
    Half the customers knew Roy. They called to him, and he called back. “Ho, Roy!” “Ho, Pete!” “Hi there, Roy!” “What ya say, Walt?” “Roy!” “Roy!” “Here, Roy!” They wanted to challenge him to games or tell him jokes or just talk. He stopped here and there for a minute or two at a time, but he didn’t want to play with anyone but Colin.
    They competed in a two-player pinball game that was decorated with paintings of big-breasted, long-legged girls in skimpy bikinis. Roy chose that machine rather than one with pirates, monsters, or spacemen; and Colin tried not to blush.
    Colin usually disliked cheap thrill palaces like the Pit and avoided them. The few times he’d ever ventured into one, he’d found the din unbearable. The sounds of computer scorekeepers and robot adversaries — beep -beep -beep, pong-pong-pong, bomp-bompada - bomp, whoop - whoop - whooooooooop-mixed with laughter and girls’ happy screams and half-shouted conversations. Assaulted by continuous, thunderous noise, he became claustrophobic. He always felt like an alien, a being from a distant world, trapped on a primitive planet, caught in a mob of hostile, screeching, gibbering, barbaric, loathsome natives.
    But he didn’t feel that way tonight.