CHAPTER 36
Park
Park told Eleanor not to come over after school. He figured he was grounded. He washed his face as soon as he got home and sent himself to his room.
His mom came in to check on him.
‘Am I grounded?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good day at school?’
Meaning, did anyone try to flush his face down the toilet?
‘It was fine,’ he said.
A couple of kids had called Park names in the halls, but it didn’t hurt like he thought it might. Lots of other people said he looked cool.
His mom sat on his bed. She looked like she’d had a long day. You could see her lipliner.
She stared at a jumble of Star Wars action figures piled up on the shelf over his bed. He hadn’t touched them for years.
‘Park,’ she said, ‘do you … want to look like girl? Is that what this about? Eleanor dress like boy. You look like girl?’
‘No …’ Park said. ‘I just like it. I like the way it feels.’
‘Like girl?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Like myself.’
‘Your dad …’
‘I don’t want to talk about him.’
His mother sat for another minute, then left.
Park stayed in his room until Josh came to get him for dinner. His dad didn’t look up when Park sat down.
‘Where’s Eleanor?’ his dad asked.
‘I thought I was grounded.’
‘You’re not grounded,’ his dad said, concentrating on his meat loaf.
Park looked around the table. Only Josh would look back at him. ‘Are you going to talk to me about this morning?’ Park asked.
His dad took another bite, chewed it carefully, then swallowed. ‘No, Park, at the moment I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to say to you.’
CHAPTER 37
Eleanor
Park was right. They were never alone.
She thought about sneaking out again, but the risk was incomprehensible, and it was so effing cold out she’d probably lose an ear to frostbite. Which her mom would definitely notice.
She’d already noticed the mascara. (Even though it was brown and said ‘Subtle, Natural Look’ right on the package.)
‘Tina gave it to me,’ Eleanor said. ‘Her mom’s an Avon lady.’
If she just changed Park’s name to ‘Tina’ every time she lied, it only felt like one big lie instead of a million small ones.
It was kind of funny to think about hanging out at Tina’s house every day, doing each other’s nails, trying on lip gloss …
It would be awful if her mom actually met Tina somewhere, but that didn’t seem likely – her mom never talked to anybody in the neighborhood. If you weren’t born in the Flats (if your family didn’t go back ten generations, if your parents didn’t have the same great-great-grandparents), you were an outsider.
Park always said that was why people left him alone, even though he was weird and Asian. Because his family had owned their land back when the neighborhood was still cornfields.
Park. Eleanor blushed whenever she thought about him. She’d probably always done that, but now it was worse. Because he was cute and cool before, but lately he seemed so much more of both.
Even DeNice and Beebi thought so.
‘He looks like a rock star,’ DeNice said.
‘He looks like El DeBarge,’ Beebi agreed.
He looked like himself, Eleanor thought, but bolder. Like Park with the volume turned way up.
Park
They were never alone.
They tried to make the walk from the bus to Park’s house last forever, and sometimes, they’d hang out on his front steps a while … until his mom opened the door and told them to come in from the cold.
Maybe it would be better this summer. They could go outside. Maybe they could take walks. Maybe he’d get his driver’s license after all …
No. His dad hadn’t even spoken to him since the day they fought.
‘What’s up with your dad?’ Eleanor asked him. She was standing one step below him on his front stoop.
‘He’s mad at me.’
‘For what?’
‘For not being like him.’
Eleanor looked dubious. ‘Has he been mad at you for the last sixteen years?’
‘Basically.’
‘But it always seemed like you got along …’ she said.
‘No,’ Park said, ‘never. I mean, we were kind of getting along for a while, because I finally got in a fight, and because he thought my mom was being too hard on you.’
‘I knew she didn’t like me!’ Eleanor poked Park’s arm.
‘Well, now she likes you,’ he said, ‘so now my dad is back to not liking me.’
‘Your dad loves you,’ she said. It seemed to really matter to her.
Park shook his head. ‘Only because he has to. He’s disappointed in me.’
Eleanor laid her hand on his chest, and his mom opened the door.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said. ‘Too cold.’
Eleanor
‘Your hair looks nice, Eleanor,’ Park’s mom said.
‘Thank you.’
Eleanor wasn’t diffusing, but she was using the conditioner Park’s mom had given her. And she’d actually found a satin pillowcase in the stack of towels and stuff in her bedroom closet, which was practically a sign from God that He wanted Eleanor to take better care of her hair.
Park’s mom really did seem to like her better now. Eleanor hadn’t consented to another full-on makeover, but Park’s mom was always trying new eyeshadows on her or messing with her hair while she sat at the kitchen table with Park.
‘I should have had girl,’ his mom said.
I should have had a family like this, Eleanor thought. And it only sometimes made her feel like a traitor to think so.
CHAPTER 38
Eleanor
Wednesday nights were the worst.
Park had taekwando, so Eleanor went straight home after school, took a bath, then tried to hide in her room all night, reading.
It was way too cold to play outside, so the little kids were crawling up the walls. When Richie came home, there was no place for anybody to hide.
Ben was so afraid that Richie would send him to the basement early that he was sitting in the bedroom closet, playing with his cars.
When Richie turned on Mike Hammer their mom shooed Maisie into the bedroom, too, even though Richie said she could stay.
Maisie paced the room, bored and irritable. She walked over to the bunk bed.
‘Can I come up?’
‘No.’
‘Please …’
Their beds were junior-sized, smaller than a twin, just barely big enough for Eleanor. And Maisie wasn’t one of those stringy, weightless nine-year-olds …
‘Fine,’ Eleanor groaned.
She scooted over carefully, like she was on thin ice, and pushed her grapefruit box behind her into the corner.
Maisie climbed up and sat on Eleanor’s pillow. ‘What’re you reading?’
‘Watership Down.’
Maisie wasn’t paying attention. She folded her arms and leaned toward Eleanor. ‘We know you have a boyfriend,’ she whispered.
Eleanor’s heart stopped. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said blankly – and immediately.
‘We already know,’ Maisie said.
Eleanor looked over at Ben, sitting in the closet. He stared at her without giving up a thing. Thanks to Richie, they were all experts in the blank-face department. They should find some family poker tournament …
‘Bobbie told us,’ Maisie said. ‘Her big sister goes with Josh Sheridan, and Josh says you’re his brother’s girlfriend. Ben said you weren’t, and Bobbie laughed at him.’
Ben didn’t flinch.
‘Are you going to tell Mom?’ Eleanor asked. May as well cut to the chase.
‘We haven’t told her yet,’ Maisie said.
‘Are you going to?’ Eleanor resisted the urge to shove Maisie off the bed. Maisie would go nuclear.
‘He’ll make me leave, you know,’ Eleanor said fiercely. ‘If I’m lucky, that’s the worst that’ll happen.’
‘We’re not going to tell,’ Ben whispered.
‘But it’s not fair,’ Maisie said, slumping against the wall.
‘What?’ Eleanor said.
‘It’s not fair that you get to leave all the time,’ Maisie said.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Eleanor asked. They both stared at her, desperate and almost … almost hopeful.
Everything anybody ever said in this house was desperate.
Desperate was white noise, as far as Eleanor was concerned – it was the hope that pulled at her heart with dirty little fingers.
She was pretty sure she was wired wrong somewhere, that her plugs were switched, because instead of softening toward them – instead of tenderness – she felt herself go cold and mean. ‘I can’t take you with me,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Why not?’ Ben said. ‘We’ll just hang out with the other kids.’
‘There are no other kids,’ Eleanor said, ‘it’s not like that.’
‘You don’t care about us,’ Maisie said.
‘I do care,’ Eleanor hissed. ‘I just can’t … help you.’
The door opened, and Mouse wandered in. ‘Ben, Ben, Ben, where’s my car, Ben? Where’s my car? Ben?’ He jumped on Ben for no reason. Sometimes you didn’t know until after Mouse jumped on you whether he was hugging you or trying to kill you.
Ben tried to push Mouse off as quietly as he could. Eleanor threw a book at him. (A paperback. God.)
Mouse ran out of the room, and Eleanor leaned out of her bed to close the door. She could practically open her dresser without getting out of bed.
‘I can’t help you,’ she said. It felt like letting go of them in deep water. ‘I can’t even help myself.’
Maisie’s face was hard.
‘Please don’t tell,’ Eleanor said.
Maisie and Ben exchanged looks again, then Maisie, still hard and gray, turned to Eleanor.
‘Will you let us use your stuff?’
‘What stuff?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Your comics,’ Ben said.
‘They’re not mine.’
‘Your makeup,’ Maisie said.
They’d probably catalogued her whole freaking bed. Her grapefruit box was packed with contraband these days, all of it from Park … They were already into everything, she was sure.
‘You have to put it away when you’re done,’ Eleanor said. ‘And the comics aren’t mine, Ben, they’re borrowed. You have to keep them nice …
‘And if you get caught,’ she turned to Maisie, ‘Mom will take it all away. Especially the makeup. None of us will have it then.’
They both nodded.
‘I would have let you use some, anyway,’ she said to Maisie. ‘You just had to ask.’
‘Liar,’ Maisie said.
And she was right.
Park
Wednesdays were the worst.
No Eleanor. And his dad ignored him all through dinner and taekwando.
Park wondered if it was just the eyeliner that had done it – or if the eyeliner had been the pencil that broke the camel’s back. Like Park had spent sixteen years acting weak and weird and girlie, and his dad had borne it on his massive shoulders. And then one day, Park put on makeup, and that was it, his dad just shrugged him off.
Your dad loves you, Eleanor said. And she was right. But it didn’t matter. That was table stakes. His dad loved him in a completely obligatory way, like Park loved Josh.
His dad couldn’t stand the sight of him.
Park kept wearing eyeliner to school. And he kept washing it off when he got home. And his dad kept acting like he wasn’t there.
Eleanor
It was just a matter of time now. If Maisie and Ben knew, their mom would find out. Either the kids would tell her, or she’d find some clue Eleanor had overlooked, or something … It would be something.
Eleanor didn’t have anywhere to hide her secrets. In a box, on her bed. At Park’s house, a block away.
She was running out of time with him.
CHAPTER 39
Eleanor
Thursday night after dinner, Park’s grandma came over to have her hair set, and his mom disappeared into the garage. His dad was messing with the plumbing under the sink, replacing the garbage disposal. Park was trying to tell Eleanor about a tape he’d bought. Elvis Costello. He couldn’t shut up about it.
‘There are a couple songs you might like, ballady stuff. But the rest is really fast.’
‘Like punk?’ She wrinkled her nose. She could stand a few Dead Milkmen songs, but other than that, she hated Park’s punk music. ‘I feel like they’re yelling at me,’ she’d say when he tried to put punk on her mix tapes. ‘Stop yelling at me, Glenn Danzig!’
‘That’s Henry Rollins.’
‘They all sound the same when they’re yelling at me.’
Lately, Park was really into New Wave music. Or post-punk or something. He went through bands like Eleanor went through books.
‘No,’ he said, ‘Elvis Costello is more musical. Gentler. I’ll dub you a copy.’
‘Or you could just play it for me. Now.’
Park tilted his head. ‘That would involve going into my room.’
‘Okay,’ she said, not quite casually.
‘Okay?’ he asked. ‘Months of no, and now, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re always saying that your mom doesn’t care …’
‘My mom doesn’t care.’
‘So?’
Park stood up jerkily, grinning, and pulled her up. He stopped at the kitchen. ‘We’re going to listen to music in my room.’
‘Fine,’ his dad said from under the sink. ‘Just don’t get anybody pregnant.’
That should have been embarrassing, but Park’s dad had a way of cutting past embarrassing. Eleanor wished he wasn’t ignoring them all the time.
Park’s mom probably let him have girls in his room because you could practically see into his room from the living room, and you had to walk by to get to the bathroom.
But, to Eleanor, it still felt incredibly private.
She couldn’t get over the fact that Park spent most of his time in this room horizontal. (It was only a ninety-degree difference, but imagining him that way blew all her fuses.) Also, he changed his clothes in here.
There was no place to sit but on his bed, which Eleanor wouldn’t consider. So they sat between his bed and his stereo, where there was just enough room to sit with their legs bent.
As soon as they sat down, Park started fast-forwarding through the Elvis Costello tape. He had stacks and stacks of tapes, and Eleanor pulled a few out to look at them.
‘Ah …’ Park said, pained.
‘What?’
‘Those’re alphabetized.’
‘It’s okay. I know the alphabet.’
‘Right.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Whenever Cal comes over, he always messes them up. Okay, this is the song I wanted you to hear. Listen.’
‘Cal comes over?’
‘Yeah, sometimes.’ Park turned up the volume. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Because now I just come over …’
‘Which is okay with me because I like you a lot more.’
‘But don’t you miss your other friends?’ she asked.
‘You’re not listening,’ he said.
‘Neither are you.’
He paused the tape, like he didn’t want to waste this song as background music. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about whether I miss Cal? I eat lunch with him almost every day.’
‘And he doesn’t mind that you spend the rest of your time with me now? None of your friends mind?’
Park ran his hand through his hair. ‘I still see them all at school … I don’t know, I don’t really miss them, I’ve never really missed anybody but you.’
‘But you don’t miss me now,’ she said. ‘We’re together all the time.’
‘Are you kidding? I miss you constantly.’
Even though Park washed his face as soon as he got home, the black around his eyes didn’t come off completely. It made everything he did lately seem more dramatic.
‘That’s crazy,’ she said.
Park started laughing. ‘I know …’
She wanted to tell him about Maisie and Ben and their days being numbered, etc., but he wouldn’t understand, and what did she expect him to do?
Park pushed play.
‘What’s this song called?’ she asked.
“‘Alison.”’
Park
Park played Elvis Costello for her – and Joe Jackson, and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
She teased him because it was all so pretty and melodic, and ‘in the same phylum as Hall & Oates,’ and he threatened to evict her from his room.
When his mom came to check on them, they were sitting with a hundred cassette tapes between them, and as soon as she walked away, Park leaned over and kissed Eleanor. It seemed like the best time not to get caught.
She was a little too far away, so he put his hand on her back and pulled her toward him. He tried to do it like it was something he did all the time, as if touching her someplace new wasn’t like discovering the Northwest Passage.
Eleanor came closer. She put her hands on the floor between them and leaned into him, which was so encouraging that he put his other hand on her waist. And then it was too much to be almost-but-not-really holding her. Park rocked forward onto his knees and pulled her tighter.
Half a dozen cassette tapes cracked under their weight. Eleanor fell back, and Park fell forward.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh, God … look, what we did to Meat is Murder.’
Park sat back and looked at the tapes. He wanted to sweep them out of the way. ‘It’s mostly just the cases, I think,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He started picking up the broken plastic.
‘The Smiths and the Smithereens …’ she said. ‘We even broke them in alphabetical order.’
He tried to smile at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I think it’s almost eight, anyway.’
‘Oh. Okay, I’ll walk you.’
She stood up and Park followed her. They walked outside and down the walk, and when they got to his grandparents’ driveway, Eleanor didn’t stop.
Eleanor
Maisie smelled like an Avon lady, and she was made up like the whore of Babylon. They were definitely going to get caught. Talk about a house of effing cards. Jee. Zus.
And Eleanor couldn’t even think strategy, because all she could think about was Park’s hands on her waist and her back and her stomach – which all must feel like nothing he’d ever encountered. Everyone in Park’s family was skinny enough to be in a Special K commercial. Even his grandma.
Eleanor could only be in that scene where the actress pinches an inch, then looks at the camera like the world is going to end.
Actually, she’d have to lose weight to be in that scene. You could pinch an inch – or two, or three – all over Eleanor’s body. You could probably pinch an inch on her forehead.
Holding hands was fine. Her hands weren’t a complete embarrassment. And kissing seemed safe because fat lips are okay – and because Park usually closed his eyes.
But there was no safe place on Eleanor’s torso. There was no place from her neck to her knees where she had any discernible infrastructure.
As soon as Park touched her waist, she’d sucked in her stomach and pitched forward. Which led to all the collateral damage … which made her feel like Godzilla. (But even Godzilla wasn’t fat. He was just ginormous.)
The maddening part was, Eleanor wanted Park to touch her again. She wanted him to touch her constantly. Even if it led to Park deciding that she was way too much like a walrus to remain his girlfriend … That’s how good it felt. She was like one of those dogs who’ve tasted human blood and can’t stop biting. A walrus who’s tasted human blood