Free Tenderness by Robert Cormier Page B

too sweet, anyway, and I was outgrowing sweet stuff, having a taste lately for cheese and redskin peanuts and potato chips instead of chocolate, which I used to crave all the time. So, at twelve, I should not have been sad about not having a cake, and as far as a birthday present goes, my mother would suddenly remember and be full of regret and shame and would buy me something spectacular on payday.
    We were living that summer in a small town in New York State and I hadn’t made friends withanyone because my mother said her job at a resort restaurant was temporary and we’d be moving again soon. As I walked on the rails, balancing myself precariously, I looked up and saw a guy and girl walking beside the tracks, ahead of me. They were holding hands. They stopped once and he kissed her, gathering her into his arms. Then they disappeared into the woods.
    I followed the tracks all the way into town and passed time wandering a strip mall of discount stores and places to buy fishing gear. On the way back, I paused at an abandoned railroad shack and suddenly he was there, the guy who’d been with the girl, and he was looking at me, one hand in his pocket and the other smoothing out his blond hair.
    He was a neat dresser, not sloppy like the usual kids with their baggy clothes. I kept walking on the rail, getting closer to him, and he smiled as if admiring my skill at balancing. Which was silly, of course, but I loved his smile, which made his eyes seem like they were dancing. His eyes were blue like the surface of a pond with the sun shining on it.
    “Hi,” he said, in a careless voice like he was throwing the word away.
    I didn’t reply but smiled back at him, my smile matching his, as if we were suddenly connected.
    “What’s your name, miss?”
    Miss
. Not
kid
.
    “Lori.”
    “Nice name.” A funny expression on his face now, studying me, as if trying to memorize my features.
    “How old are you, Lori?”
    “Twelve. I was eleven years old only two days ago.”
    “Happy birthday.”
    Still smiling but his eyes inspecting me now, from top to bottom and top again.
    “Did you get a lot of presents?” As if he was not really interested but only being polite.
    “All kinds of stuff,” I said. “My mother is a nut about birthdays. She always goes overboard. A big cake and candles to blow out. One year she hired a clown to perform at my party, another we celebrated at McDonald’s with all the kids in the neighborhood.”
    I was talking fast because I was lying, of course. If you talk fast, it’s easier to lie. And I always liked lying because you can let your imagination go and don’t have to stick with the facts.
    His smile changed, became softer, with a kind of sadness in it.
    “Didn’t you get any presents at all? Didn’t you have a cake at least?” His voice gentle, tender.
    At that moment, I thought,
He knows me, hecan see right into my soul
, and I felt as if we had been friends for a long time.
    “I don’t need a cake, anyway,” I said. “That’s for little kids. I used to like cakes once but not anymore. I’d just as soon have a bag of peanuts.”
    He just kept looking at me.
    “My mother is very nice,” I said. “She loves me very much. She just gets forgetful once in a while.”
    He shrugged my words away, lifting his shoulders, and a lock of blond hair fell across his forehead. He pushed it back in place with long, beautiful fingers.
    “You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself,” he said. “What are you doing here, anyway?” As if suddenly angry with my presence.
    “It’s a shortcut.”
    I almost told him I was wandering lonely as a cloud, thinking that he might understand. Instead, I said, “What are
you
doing here?”
    I was about to ask him about the girl when the roar of motorcycle engines burst through the air, coming at us as if we were under attack, dust kicking up, brakes screeching.
    Five or six bikes pulled up and surrounded us, the riders with leather jackets and brass