What Hearts

AS IF

ONE

Asa was amazed that he left first grade with so much stuff. As he ran down the winding tar path that led through the woods to the street, he took a quick inventory: his knapsack, straining at its straps, held a blank blue composition book and three unsharpened yellow pencils (for a summer journal; everyone had gotten these), a battered hardback copy of a book called The Little Prince (no one else had received this; the librarian had slipped it in secret to my best little reader), a mimeographed copy of the school handbook complete with all kinds of forms to be brought in on the first day of second grade in September (everyone, of course), six certificates stamped with foil medallions (one for completing the dumb first-grade reader with its See Spot jump! stories, one for being able to print the alphabet in upper and lower case, one for being able to sing The Star-Spangled Banner and You’re a Grand Old Flag, all of which everyone got, even Gordon Firestone, who never got the words right to the latter song and still couldn’t tell the difference between small d and b, g and q the other three were from gym class, for being able to run and jump and roll (some boys had gotten more than the three, but they were show-offs); a big, glossy black-and-white photograph of the whole class (for everyone, even the two lads who had missed school on the day the picture was taken; Asa had been sick with a bad cold himself, but his parents had ’ made him come for the picture, in which he was the only child wearing a jacket and tie); and, finally, a report card. Everyone had gotten a report card too, even Ronnie Wells, though the word was that he would have to repeat the year. Everyone had gotten one, a sky-blue cardboard report card with six boxes on it for final grades written in heavy black ink, grades for the whole year, grades summing up everything the kid had done; everything—but only Asa’s card held an A in each box, sharply drawn, lined up like six pointed missiles blasting off into a perfect future. Perfect! He was perfect, and he was the only one. Subtly, under the guise of friendly interest, he had checked: he had seen everyone else’s card except Ronnie’s (poor Ronnie could be fairly disregarded), and they all had at least one B. Rita Pennington had been closest; only her crinkly left-handed handwriting had kept her from sharing the pinnacle with Asa. He had a crush on Rita, but he was glad she had gotten a B in Penmanship. This made him ashamed, but there it was. Besides, she had won the lottery for the class hamster, so no one should feel too sorry for her.

In addition to the treasures in his pack Asa clutched one more in his right hand: a bunch of fresh, hand-planted, hand-watered, hand-weeded, hand-picked radishes. He looked at them quickly; they were not believable. Nothing could become that color underground. Such a red had to be made by craft; surely it would take scientists, geniuses, to design the proper chemical sequence! Asa had chosen to plant radishes in the class garden when the first graders had pored over seed packets in February, simply because he did not believe they would come true. Today, just this morning, everyone had been allowed to undo all the work that had gone into keeping the vegetables hidden in the ground: they ripped their things out, shook the brown clods off them, and almost cried with revelation. Really: everyone, not just Asa, almost cried. The long orange carrots had been a hit, but the radishes stole the show. No one else had wanted to plant them, because they had all been thinking about eating what they grew. Asa had been thinking about growing what he grew, as an end in itself. But tonight he and his dad and his mom would all eat this wonderful redness. He was triumphant.

As he approached the crosswalk, he worked one of his thirty-one radishes free from the tangle of greens and knobs, so that he could give it to Nadine, the policewoman whom he had seen twice a day through kindergarten and first grade, who had given him his first nickname (Well hey, Ace—how you this morning?), who allowed him his first joke of pretend mockery (Fine, Captain—you caught any criminals yet?). He stepped into the crosswalk.

Before Nadine could greet him, he held out a radish to her. She drew her chin back to focus on it and shook her head. No, I don’t love a radish. Thank you all the same, Ace. She looked beyond him, wheeling her arm at a slowpoke. Asa was perplexed by the idea of not loving a radish, but he went on as he walked, turning backward so he could face her: "I got straight A’s, Captain. For the year."

You have a nice summer, she said, and went to help a kindergartner who was about to cry pick up a splaying fan of papers he had dropped. Asa hesitated, then turned back around toward home and kept walking.

Well, maybe Bobby Levy would be more interested in what Asa had to share. In two minutes he would pass beneath the balcony on which Bobby always perched, only two feet off the uphill-slanting sidewalk but high enough to look down from. Bobby’s private school dismissed a half hour earlier than the public school, and Bobby spent that extra time watching TV. He made a point of waiting for Asa every afternoon with the blue-silver rectangle of a television set shining deep in the dark room behind him, implying pointedly the thirty minutes of fun Asa had missed by being so unwisely unprivate. During the thirty seconds in which Asa, walking resignedly uphill, was within the range of Bobby’s voice, Bobby, glib as a squirrel, always managed to chatter out a snappy summary of the rerun of I Love Lucy or The Real McCoys just for him. The summaries were remarkably clear, and Asa silently admired them even as he reminded himself that he disliked television comedies.

In fact, Asa never spoke to Bobby at all. It was not part of the relationship. Bobby had something to say, and Asa was the listener; he received, and passed by. Once, in the fall, he had tried to turn the TV report into a conversation, but Bobby had glared at him, cranky and affronted; in the middle of Asa’s second sentence he snapped, "Father Knows Best is on right now!" and huffed through the sliding glass doors, pulling the curtains closed behind him. But today would be different. Asa had something to talk about, today. A radish, but more, too: those triangular black-ink A’s were poised tensely in his awareness like the heads of arrows on a bowstring, and he might have to let them fly.

He looked ahead. Bobby, perched alertly on his balcony, was ready with his clipped, slightly bored tone, to begin: So, Fred and Ethel win a trip to Cuba in a contest, but they entered under Ricky’s name because they thought it would help them… or something like that. Asa’s heartbeats got quick. He knew he had to time this just right. If he let Bobby start his monologue, he would never be able to break in. He watched Bobby’s rabbity top teeth against his lower lip, and he walked, closer and closer. When he was within ten feet, the top teeth lifted. Asa shouted, Bobby, I grew some radishes. And I got a book, about a prince, and I got straight A’s! He came to a stop beneath the balcony, and motioned that he wanted to toss Bobby the radish Nadine had refused.

Bobby stared down at him. He made no move to receive the offered radish. At last, after lifting his teeth a couple of times, he frowned and said, "I’m afraid there will be no more afternoon TV for you in the fall. You see, I’m starting piano. I am sorry for you." Then he turned and went inside. This time he did not bother with the curtains.

Asa stood for a moment. He held up his right hand and looked at the radishes. It was true that the greens were wilting pretty severely. But the red was fine. So were the grades in his knapsack; so was the prince in his book. He shrugged his shoulders in case Bobby was looking, and turned toward home. He knew his mother was there. She was waiting for him. But—just imagine!—she had no idea about all this that was coming. It was as if the marvels he held right here in his hand and knapsack were not already certain—but they were, they were. She was in for some surprises, she and his father—especially his father: there was a guy who would know how to appreciate a radish. Asa stepped up his pace for home, full of the generous superiority of knowing exactly what you were about to give.

TWO

His mother was wearing a coat. This he could see, as he turned the corner and glanced ahead down the narrow sidewalk that ran in front of the apartments. She was sitting on something on the small stoop, looking straight ahead into the patios of the apartments across the green. Why wasn’t she looking in the direction she knew he would be coming from? Why was she wearing a coat? It was cool under the dense leaves of the high trees, but a coat was not right, not in Maryland in June. A coat was not right. As if to protest, Asa shivered. And as he closed in on her, he recognized the object she was sitting on. It was a large suitcase of black pebbled imitation leather. It looked new.

She heard him and turned her head. He met her eyes. She stood up, her hands squeezed together in front of her. He looked at the suitcase briefly, then watched as she stared down at it and moved a step away, as if she expected something to open it from within now, and climb out.

Asa, she said, looking up. I have something to tell you. She was shaking her hands up and down, clenched together. He would not have been surprised if she had suddenly opened them on a downstroke and dice had shot out and rolled onto the sidewalk. She often rolled off the board at games, because she threw too hard, as if serious effort would turn up better numbers.

Asa, she said, son. Her face was moving in pieces; as he watched, the mouth twisted with one hard emotion, the eyes bulged with another that was softer, and the forehead twitched away from all these feelings. Listen, she said.

But he did