When she woke up that morning, she felt like it was her birthday – like she used to feel on her birthday, back when there was a shot in hell of ice cream.
Maybe her dad would have ice cream … If he did, he’d probably throw it away before Eleanor got there. He was always dropping hints about her weight. Well, he used to, anyway. Maybe when he stopped caring about her altogether, he’d stopped caring about that, too.
Eleanor put on an old striped men’s shirt and had her mom tie one of her ties – like knot it, for real – around her neck.
Her mom actually kissed Eleanor goodbye at the door and told her to have fun, and to call the neighbors if things got weird with her dad.
Right, Eleanor thought, I’ll be sure to call you if Dad’s fiancée calls me a bitch and then makes me use a bathroom without a door. Oh wait …
She was a little nervous. It had been a year, at least, since she’d seen her dad, and a while before that. He hadn’t called at all when she lived with the Hickmans. Maybe he didn’t know she was there. She never told him.
When Richie first started coming around, Ben used to get really angry and say he was going to move in with their dad – which was an empty effing promise, and everyone knew it. Even Mouse, who was just a toddler.
Their dad couldn’t stand having them even for a few days. He used to pick them up from their mom’s house, then drop them off at his mom’s house while he went off and did whatever it was that he did on the weekend. (Presumably, lots and lots of marijuana.)
Park cracked up when he saw Eleanor’s tie. That was even better than making him smile.
‘I didn’t know we were getting dressed up,’ he said when she sat down next to him.
‘I’m expecting you to take me someplace nice,’ she said softly.
‘I will …’ he said. He took the tie in both hands and straightened it. ‘Someday.’
He was a lot more likely to say stuff like that on the way to school than he was on the way home. Sometimes she wondered if he was fully awake.
He turned practically sideways in his seat. ‘So you’re leaving right after school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’ll call me as soon as you get there …’
‘No, I’ll call you as soon as the kid settles down. I really do have to babysit.’
‘I’m going to ask you a lot of personal questions,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘I have a list.’
‘I’m not afraid of your list.’
‘It’s extremely long,’ he said, ‘and extremely personal.’ ‘I hope you’re not expecting answers …’
He sat back in the seat and looked over at her. ‘I wish you’d go away,’ he whispered, ‘so that we could finally talk.’
Eleanor stood on the front steps after school. She’d hoped to catch Park before he got on the bus, but she must have missed him.
She wasn’t sure what kind of car to watch for; her dad was always buying classic cars, then selling them when money got tight.
She was starting to worry that he wasn’t coming at all – he could’ve gone to the wrong high school or changed his mind – when he honked for her.
He pulled up in an old Karmann Ghia convertible. It looked like the car James Dean died in. Her dad’s arm was hanging over the door, holding a cigarette. ‘Eleanor!’ he shouted.
She walked to the car and got in. There weren’t any seat belts. ‘Is that all you brought?’ he asked, looking at her school bag. ‘It’s just one night.’ She shrugged.
‘All right,’ he said, backing out of the parking space too fast. She’d forgotten what a crappy driver he was. He did everything too fast and one- handed.
Eleanor braced herself on the dashboard. It was cold out, and once they were driving, it got colder. ‘Can we put the top up?’ she shouted.
‘Haven’t fixed it yet,’ her dad said, and laughed.
He still lived in the same duplex he’d lived in since her parents split up. It was solid and brick, and about a ten-minute drive from Eleanor’s school.
When they got inside, he took a better look at her.
‘Is that what all the cool kids are wearing these days?’ he asked. She looked down at her giant white shirt, her fat paisley tie and her half-dead purple corduroys.
‘Yup,’ she said flatly. ‘This is pretty much our uniform.’
Her dad’s girlfriend – fiancée – Donna, didn’t get off work until five, and after that she had to pick her kid up from daycare. In the meantime, Eleanor and her dad sat on the couch and watched ESPN.
He smoked cigarette after cigarette, and sipped Scotch out of a short glass. Every once in a while the phone would ring, and he’d have a long, laughy conversation with somebody about a car or a deal or a bet. You’d think that every single person who called was his best friend in the whole world. Her dad had baby blond hair and a round, boyish face. When he smiled, which was constantly, his whole face lit up like a billboard. If Eleanor paid too much attention, she hated him.
His duplex had changed since the last time she’d been here, and it was more than just the box of Fisher Price toys in the living room and the makeup in the bathroom.
When they’d first started visiting him here – after the divorce, but before Richie – their dad’s duplex had been a bare-bones bachelor pad. He didn’t even have enough bowls for them all to have soup. He’d served Eleanor clam chowder once in a highball glass. And he only had two towels. ‘One wet,’ he’d said, ‘one dry.’
Now Eleanor fixated on all the small luxuries strewn and tucked around the house. Packs of cigarettes, newspapers, magazines … Brand-name cereal and quilted toilet paper. His refrigerator was full of things you tossed into the cart without thinking about it just because they sounded good. Custard-style yogurt. Grapefruit juice. Little round cheeses individually wrapped in red wax.
She couldn’t wait for her dad to leave so that she could start eating everything. There were stacks of Coca-Cola cans in the pantry. She was going to drink Coke like water all night, she might even wash her face with it. And she was going to order a pizza. Unless the pizza came out of her babysitting money. (That would be just like her dad. He’d take you to the cleaners with fine print.) Eleanor didn’t care if eating all his food pissed
him off or if it freaked out Donna. She might never see either of them again anyway.
Now she wished she had brought an overnight bag. She could have snuck home cans of Chef Boyardee and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup for the little kids. She would have felt like Santa Claus when she came home …
She didn’t want to think about the little kids right now. Or Christmas.
She tried to turn the station to MTV, but her dad frowned at her. He was on the phone again.
‘Can I listen to records?’ she whispered. He nodded.
She had an old mix tape in her pocket, and she was going to dub over it to make a tape for Park. But there was a whole packet of empty Maxell tapes sitting on her dad’s stereo. Eleanor held a cassette up to her dad, and he nodded, flicking his cigarette into an ashtray shaped like a naked African woman.
Eleanor sat down in front of the crates full of record albums.
These used to be both of her parents’ records, not just his. Her mom must not have wanted any of them. Or maybe her dad just took them without asking.
Her mom had loved this Bonnie Raitt album. Eleanor wondered if her dad ever listened to it.
She felt seven years old, flipping through their records.
Before she was allowed to take the albums out of their sleeves, Eleanor used to lay them out on the floor and stare at the artwork. When she was old enough, her dad taught her how to dust the records with a wood-handled velvet brush.
She could remember her mother lighting incense and putting on her favorite records – Judee Sill and Judy Collins and Crosby, Stills and Nash – while she cleaned the house.
She could remember her dad putting on records – Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple and Jethro Tull – when his friends came over and stayed late into the night.
Eleanor could remember lying on her stomach on an old Persian rug, drinking grape juice out of a jelly jar, being extra quiet because her baby brother was asleep in the next room – and studying each record, one by one.
Turning their names over and over in her mouth. Cream. Vanilla Fudge. Canned Heat.
The records smelled exactly like they always had. Like her dad’s bedroom. Like Richie’s coat. Like pot, Eleanor realized. Duh. She flipped through the records more matter-of-factly now, on a mission. Looking for Rubber Soul and Revolver.
Sometimes it seemed as if she would never be able to give Park anything like what he’d given her. It was like he dumped all this treasure on her every morning without even thinking about it, without any sense of what it was worth.
She couldn’t repay him. She couldn’t even appropriately thank him. How can you thank someone for The Cure? Or the X-Men? Sometimes it felt like she’d always be in his debt.
And then she realized that Park didn’t know about the Beatles.
Park
Park went to the playground to play basketball after school. Just to kill time. But he couldn’t focus on the game – he kept looking up at the back of Eleanor’s house.
When he got home, he called out to his mom. ‘Mom! I’m home!’ ‘Park,’ she called. ‘Out here! In the garage.’
He grabbed a cherry Popsicle out of the freezer and headed out there. He could smell the permanent-wave solution as soon as he opened the door. Park’s dad had converted their garage into a salon when Josh started kindergarten and their mom went to beauty school. She even had a little
sign hanging by the side door. ‘Mindy’s Hair & Nails.’ ‘Min-Dae,’ it said on her driver’s license.
Everyone in the neighborhood who could afford a hair stylist came to Park’s mom. On homecoming and prom weekends, she’d spend all day in the garage. Both Park and Josh were recruited from time to time to hold hot curling irons.
Today, his mom had Tina sitting in her chair. Tina’s hair was wound tight in rollers, and Park’s mom was squeezing something onto them with a plastic bottle. The smell burned his eyes.
‘Hey, Mom,’ he said. ‘Hey, Tina.’
‘Hey, honey,’ his mom said. She pronounced it with two ‘n’s.
Tina smiled broadly at him. ‘Close eyes, Ti-na,’ his mom said. ‘Stay close.’
‘Hey, Mrs Sheridan,’ Tina said, holding a white washcloth over her eyes, ‘have you met Park’s girlfriend yet?’
His mom didn’t look up from Tina’s head. ‘Nooo,’ she said, clucking her tongue. ‘No girlfriend. Not Park.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Tina said. ‘Tell her, Park – her name is Eleanor, and she’s new this year. We can’t keep them apart on the bus.’
Park stared at Tina. Shocked that she’d sell him out like this. Startled by her rosy take on bus life. Surprised that she was even paying attention to him, and to Eleanor. His mom looked over at Park, but not for long; Tina’s hair was at a critical stage.
‘I don’t know about any girlfriend,’ his mom said.
‘I’ll bet you’ve seen her in the neighborhood,’ Tina said, assuring. ‘She has really pretty, red hair. Naturally curly.’
‘Is that right?’ his mom said.
‘No,’ Park said, anger and everything else curdling in his stomach. ‘You’re such a guy, Park,’ Tina said from behind the washcloth. ‘I’m
sure it’s natural.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘she’s not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend,’ he said to his mom.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Too much girl talk for you. Too much girl talk, Ti-na. You go check on dinner now,’ she said to Park.
He backed out of the garage, still wanting to argue, feeling more denial twitching in his throat. He slammed the door, then went into the kitchen and slammed as much as he could in there. The oven. The cabinets. The trash.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ his dad said, walking into the kitchen.
Park froze. He could not get into trouble tonight. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Jesus, Park, take it out on the bag …’ There was an old-school punching bag in the garage, hanging way out of Park’s reach.
‘Mindy!’ his dad shouted. ‘Out here!’
Eleanor didn’t call during dinner, which was good. That got on his dad’s nerves.
But she didn’t call after dinner either. Park walked around the house, picking things up randomly, then setting them down. Even though it didn’t make sense, he worried that Eleanor wasn’t calling because he’d betrayed her. That she knew somehow, that she’d sensed a disturbance in the Force.
The phone rang at 7:15, and his mom answered it. He could tell right away that it was his grandma.
Park tapped his fingers on a bookshelf. Why didn’t his parents want call waiting? Everyone had call waiting. His grandparents had call waiting. And why couldn’t his grandma just come over, if she wanted to talk? They lived right next door.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ his mother said. ‘Sixty Minutes always on Sunday
… Maybe you think of Twenty-Twenty? No? … John Stos-sel? No? … Geraldo Rivera? Di-anne Sawyer?’
Park gently banged his head against the living room wall.
‘God damn it, Park,’ his dad snapped, ‘what is wrong with you?’ His dad and Josh were trying to watch The A-Team.
‘Nothing,’ Park said, ‘nothing. I’m sorry. I’m just waiting for a phone call.’
‘Is your girlfriend calling?’ Josh asked. ‘Park’s dating Big Red.’
‘She’s not—’ Park caught himself shouting and clenched his fists. ‘If I ever hear you call her that again, I’ll kill you. I’ll literally kill you. I’ll go to jail for the rest of my life, and it’ll break Mom’s heart, but I will. Kill. You.’
His dad looked at Park like he always did, like he was trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with him.
‘Park has a girlfriend?’ he asked Josh. ‘Why do they call her Big Red?’ ‘I think it’s because she has red hair and giant tits,’ Josh said.
‘No way, dirty mouth,’ their mother said. She held her hand over the phone. ‘You’ – she pointed at Josh – ‘in your room. Now.’
‘But, Mom, The A-Team is on.’
‘You heard your mother,’ their dad said. ‘You don’t get to talk like that in this house.’
‘You talk like that,’ Josh said, dragging himself off the couch.
‘I’m thirty-nine years old,’ their dad said, ‘and a decorated veteran. I’ll say whatever the hell I want.’
Their mother jabbed a long fingernail at his dad and covered the phone again. ‘I’ll send you to your room, too.’
her.
‘Honey, I wish you would,’ their dad said, throwing a throw pillow at
‘Hugh Downs?’ Park’s mom said into the phone. The pillow fell on the
floor and she picked it up. ‘No? … Okay, I’ll keep thinking. Okay. Love you. Okay, bye-bye.’
As soon as she hung up, the phone rang. Park sprung away from the wall. His dad grinned at him. His mom answered the phone.
‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Yes, one moment please.’ She looked at Park. ‘Telephone.’
‘Can I take it in my room?’
His mom nodded. His dad mouthed, ‘Big Red.’
Park ran into his room, then stopped to catch his breath before he picked up the phone. He couldn’t. He picked it up anyway.
‘I got it, Mom, thanks.’
He waited for the click. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi,’ Eleanor said. He felt all of the tension rush out of him. Without it, he could hardly stand up.
‘Hi,’ he breathed. She giggled. ‘What?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Hi.’
‘I didn’t think you were going to call.’ ‘It’s not even 7:30.’
‘Yeah, well … is your brother asleep?’
‘He’s not my brother,’ she said. ‘I mean, not yet. I guess my dad’s engaged to his mom. But, no, he’s not asleep. He’s watching Fraggle Rock.’ Park carefully picked up the phone and carried it to his bed. He sat down gently. He didn’t want her to hear anything. He didn’t want her to
know he had a twin-sized waterbed and a phone shaped like a Ferrari. ‘What time is your dad coming home?’ he asked.
‘Late, I hope. They said they almost never get a babysitter.’ ‘Cool.’
She giggled again. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I feel like you’re whispering in my ear.’
‘I’m always whispering in your ear,’ he said, lying back on his pillows.
‘Yeah, but it’s usually about, like, Magneto or something.’ Her voice was higher on the phone, and richer, like he was listening to it on headphones.
‘I’m not going to say anything tonight that I could say on the bus or during English class,’ he said.
‘And I’m not going to say anything that I can’t say in front of a three- year-old.’
‘Nice.’
‘I’m just kidding. He’s in the other room, and he’s totally ignoring me.’ ‘So …’ Park said.
‘So …’ she said, ‘… things we can’t say on the bus.’ ‘Things we can’t say on the bus – go.’
‘I hate those people,’ she said.
He laughed, then thought of Tina and was glad that Eleanor couldn’t see his face. ‘Me, too, sometimes. I mean, I guess I’m used to them. I’ve known most of them my whole life. Steve’s my next-door neighbor.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I mean, you don’t seem like you’re from there …’ ‘Because I’m Korean?’
‘You’re Korean?’ ‘Half.’
‘I guess I don’t really know what that means.’ ‘Me neither,’ he said.
‘What do you mean? Are you adopted?’
‘No. My mom’s from Korea. She just doesn’t talk about it very much.’ ‘How did she end up in the Flats?’
‘My dad. He served in Korea, they fell in love, and he brought her back.’
‘Wow, really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s pretty romantic.’
Eleanor didn’t know the half of it; his parents were probably making out right now. ‘I guess so,’ he said.
‘That’s not what I meant though. I meant … that you’re different from the other people in the neighborhood, you know?’
Of course he knew. They’d all been telling him so his whole life. When Tina liked Park instead of Steve in grade school, Steve had said, ‘I think she feels safe with you because you’re like half girl.’ Park hated football. He cried when his dad took him pheasant hunting. Nobody in the neighborhood could ever tell who he was dressed as on Halloween. (‘I’m Doctor Who.’ ‘I’m Harpo Marx.’ ‘I’m Count Floyd.’) And he kind of wanted his mom to give him blond highlights. Park knew he was different.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You …’ she said, ‘you’re so … cool.’
Eleanor
‘Cool?’ he said.
God. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. Talk about uncool. Like the opposite of cool. Like, if you looked up ‘cool’ in the dictionary, there’d be a photo of some cool person there saying, ‘What the eff is wrong with you, Eleanor?’
‘I’m not cool,’ he said. ‘You’re cool.’
‘Ha,’ she said. ‘I wish I were drinking milk, and I wish you were here, so that you could watch it shoot out my nose in response to that.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ he said. ‘You’re Dirty Harry.’ ‘I’m dirty hairy?’
‘Like Clint Eastwood, you know?’ ‘No.’
‘You don’t care what anyone thinks about you,’ he said.
‘That’s crazy,’ she said. ‘I care what everyone thinks about me.’
‘I can’t tell,’ he said. ‘You just seem like yourself, no matter what’s happening around you. My grandmother would say you’re comfortable in your own skin.’
‘Why would she say that?’ ‘Because that’s how she talks.’
‘I’m stuck in my own skin,’ Eleanor said. ‘And why are we even talking about me? We were talking about you.’
‘I’d rather talk about you,’ he said. His voice dropped a little. It was nice to hear just his voice and nothing else. (Nothing besides Fraggle Rock in the next room.) His voice was deeper than she’d ever realized, but sort of
warm in the middle. He kind of reminded her of Peter Gabriel. Not singing, obviously. And not with a British accent.
‘Where did you come from?’ he asked. ‘The future.’
Park
Eleanor had an answer for everything – but she still managed to evade most of Park’s questions.
She wouldn’t talk about her family or her house. She wouldn’t talk about anything that happened before she moved to the neighborhood or anything that happened after she got off the bus.
When her sort-of stepbrother fell asleep around nine, she asked Park to call her back in fifteen minutes, so she could put the kid to bed.
Park hurried to the bathroom and hoped that he wouldn’t run into either of his parents. So far they were leaving him alone.
He got back to his room. He checked the clock … eight more minutes.
He put a tape in his stereo. He changed into pajama pants and a T-shirt.
He called her back.
‘It so hasn’t been fifteen minutes,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t wait. Do you want me to call you back?’ ‘No.’ Her voice was even softer now.
‘Did he stay asleep?’ ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Where are you now?’
‘Like, where in the house?’ ‘Yeah, where.’
‘Why?’ she asked, with something just gentler than disdain. ‘Because I’m thinking about you,’ he said, exasperated. ‘So?’
‘Because I want to feel like I’m with you,’ he said. ‘Why do you make everything so hard?’
‘Probably because I’m so cool …’ she said. ‘Ha.’
‘I’m lying on the floor in the living room,’ she said faintly. ‘In front of the stereo.’
‘In the dark? It sounds dark.’
‘In the dark, yeah.’
He lay back on his bed again and covered his eyes with his arm. He could see her. In his head. He imagined green lights on a stereo. Street lights through a window. He imagined her face glowing, the coolest light in the room.
‘Is that U2?’ he asked. He could hear ‘Bad’ in the background.
‘Yeah, I think it’s my favorite song right now. I keep rewinding it, and playing it over and over again. It’s nice not to have to worry about batteries.’
‘What’s your favorite part?’ ‘Of the song?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All of it,’ she said, ‘especially the chorus – I mean, I guess it’s the chorus.’
‘I’m wide awake,’ he half sang. ‘Yeah …’ she said, softly.
He kept singing then. Because he wasn’t sure what to say next.
Eleanor
‘Eleanor?’ Park said. She didn’t answer. ‘Are you there?’
She was so out of it, she actually nodded her head. ‘Yes,’ she said out loud, catching herself.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking – I’m – I’m not thinking.’
‘Not thinking in a good way? Or a bad way?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. She rolled over onto her stomach, and pressed her face into the carpet. ‘Both.’
He was quiet. She listened to him breathe. She wanted to ask him to hold the phone closer to his mouth.
‘I miss you,’ she said. ‘I’m right here.’
‘I wish you were here. Or that I was there. I wish that there was some chance of talking like this after tonight, or seeing each other. Like, really seeing each other. Of being alone, together.’
‘Why can’t there be?’ he asked.
She laughed. That’s when she realized she was crying. ‘Eleanor …’
‘Stop. Don’t say my name like that. It only makes it worse.’ ‘Makes what worse?’
‘Everything,’ she said. He was quiet.
She sat up and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘Do you have a nickname?’ he asked. That was one of his tricks, whenever she was put off or irritated – changing the subject in the sweetest way possible.
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘Eleanor.’
‘Not Nora? Or Ella? Or … Lena, you could be Lena. Or Lenny or Elle
…’
‘Are you trying to give me a nickname?’
‘No, I love your name. I don’t want to cheat myself out of a single
syllable.’
‘You’re such a dork.’ She wiped her eyes.
‘Eleanor …’ he said, ‘why can’t we see each other?’ ‘God,’ she said, ‘don’t. I’d almost stopped crying.’ ‘Tell me. Talk to me.’
‘Because,’ she said, ‘because my stepdad would kill me.’ ‘Why does he care?’
‘He doesn’t care. He just wants to kill me.’ ‘Why?’
‘Stop asking that,’ she said angrily. There was no stopping the tears now. ‘You always ask that. Why. Like there’s an answer for everything. Not everybody has your life, you know, or your family. In your life, things happen for reasons. People make sense. But that’s not my life. Nobody in my life makes sense …’
‘Not even me?’ he asked. ‘Ha. Especially not you.’
‘Why would you say that?’ He sounded hurt. What did he have to be hurt about?
‘Why, why, why …’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘why. Why are you always so mad at me?’ ‘I’m never mad at you.’ It came out a sob. He was so stupid.
‘You are,’ he said. ‘You’re mad at me right now. You always turn on me, just when we start to get somewhere.’
‘Get where?’
‘Somewhere,’ he said. ‘With each other. Like, a few minutes ago, you said you missed me. And for maybe the first time ever, you didn’t sound sarcastic or defensive or like you think I’m an idiot. And now you’re yelling at me.’
‘I’m not yelling.’
‘You’re mad,’ he said. ‘Why are you mad?’
She didn’t want him to hear her cry. She held her breath. That made it worse.
‘Eleanor …’ he said. Even worse.
‘Stop saying that.’
‘What can I say then? You can ask me why, you know. I promise I’ll have answers.’
He sounded frustrated with her, but not angry. She could remember him sounding angry with her only once. The first day she got on the bus.
‘You can ask me why,’ he said again. ‘Yeah?’ She sniffed.
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay.’ She looked down at the turntable, at her own reflection in the tinted acrylic lid. She looked like a fat-faced ghost. She closed her eyes.
‘Why do you even like me?’
Park
He opened his eyes.
He sat up, stood up, started pacing around his small room. He went to stand by the window – the one that faced her house, even though it was a block away and she wasn’t home – holding the base of the car phone against his stomach.
She’d asked him to explain something he couldn’t even explain to himself.
‘I don’t like you,’ he said. ‘I need you.’
He waited for her to cut him down. To say ‘Ha’ or ‘God’ or ‘You sound like a Bread song.’
But she was quiet.
He crawled back onto the bed, not caring whether she heard it swish. ‘You can ask me why I need you,’ he whispered. He didn’t even have to whisper. On the phone, in the dark, he just had to move his lips and breathe. ‘But I don’t know. I just know that I do …
‘I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being …
‘But I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft … and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake.’
He waited for her to say something. She didn’t. Someone knocked softly on his door.
‘Just a second,’ he whispered into the phone. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
His mom opened his door, just enough to push her head through. ‘Not too late,’ she said.
‘Not too late,’ he said. She smiled and shut the door. ‘I’m back,’ he said. ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ Eleanor said. ‘Say something.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say something, so that I don’t feel so stupid.’ ‘Don’t feel stupid, Park,’ she said.
‘Nice.’
They were both quiet.
‘Ask me why I like you,’ she finally said.
He felt himself smile. He felt like something warm had spilled in his chest.
‘Eleanor,’ he said, just because he liked saying it, ‘why do you like me?’
‘I don’t like you.’
He waited. And waited …
Then he started to laugh. ‘You’re kind of mean,’ he said. ‘Don’t laugh. It just encourages me.’
He could hear that she was smiling, too. He could picture her. Smiling.
‘I don’t like you, Park,’ she said again. ‘I …’ She stopped. ‘I can’t do this.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s embarrassing.’ ‘So far, just for me.’
‘I’m afraid I’ll say too much,’ she said. ‘You can’t.’
‘I’m afraid I’ll tell you the truth.’ ‘Eleanor …’
‘Park.’
‘You don’t like me …’ he said, leading her, pressing the base of the phone into his lowest rib.
‘I don’t like you, Park,’ she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. ‘I …’ – her voice nearly disappeared – ‘sometimes I think I live for you.’
He closed his eyes and arched his head back into his pillow.
‘I don’t think I even breathe when we’re not together,’ she whispered. ‘Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it’s been like sixty hours since I’ve taken a breath. That’s probably why I’m so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we’re apart is think about you, and all I do when we’re together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I’m so out of control, I can’t help myself. I’m not even mine anymore, I’m yours, and what if you decide that you don’t want me? How could you want me like I want you?’
He was quiet. He wanted everything she’d just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with ‘I want you’ in his ears.
‘God,’ she said. ‘I told you I shouldn’t talk. I didn’t even answer your question.’
Eleanor
She hadn’t even said anything nice about him. She hadn’t told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan.
And that’s exactly why she hadn’t said it. Because all her feelings for him – hot and beautiful in her heart – turned to gobbledygook in her mouth.
She flipped the tape and pressed play, and waited for Robert Smith to start singing before she climbed up onto her dad’s brown leather couch.
‘Why can’t I see you?’ Park asked. His voice sounded raw and pure.
Like something just hatched. ‘Because my stepfather is crazy.’ ‘Does he have to know?’
‘My mom will tell him.’ ‘Does she have to know?’
‘Eleanor ran her fingers along the edge of the glass coffee table. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know what I mean. I just know that I need to see you. Like this.’
‘I’m not even allowed to talk to boys.’ ‘Until when?’
‘I don’t know, never. This is one of those things that doesn’t make sense. My mom doesn’t want to do anything that could possibly irritate my stepfather. And my stepfather gets off on being mean. Especially to me. He hates me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I hate him.’ ‘Why?’
She wanted, badly, to change the subject, but she didn’t.
‘Because he’s a bad person. Just … trust me. He’s the kind of bad that tries to kill anything good. If he knew about you, he’d do whatever he could to take you away from me.’
‘He can’t take me away from you,’ Park said.
Sure he can, she thought. ‘He can take me away from you,’ she said. ‘The last time he got really mad at me, he kicked me out and didn’t let me come home for a year.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘Just don’t tempt him.’ ‘We could meet at the playground.’
‘My siblings would turn me in.’ ‘We could meet somewhere else.’ ‘Where?’
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You could come here.’ ‘What would your parents say?’
‘It’s nice to meet you, Eleanor, would you like to stay for dinner?’
She laughed. She wanted to say it wouldn’t work, but maybe it would.
Maybe.
‘Are you sure you want them to meet me?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.’
He kept making her feel like it was safe to smile. ‘I don’t want to embarrass you …’ she said.
‘You couldn’t.’
Headlights shot across the living room.
‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I think my dad’s home.’ She got up and looked out the window. Her dad and Donna were getting out of the Karmann Ghia. Donna’s hair was a mess.
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ she said. ‘I never said why I like you, and now I have to go.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said.
‘It’s because you’re kind,’ she said. ‘And because you get all my jokes
…’
‘Okay,’ he laughed.
‘And you’re smarter than I am.’ ‘I am not.’
‘And you look like a protagonist.’ She was talking as fast as she could
think. ‘You look like the person who wins in the end. You’re so pretty, and so good. You have magic eyes,’ she whispered. ‘And you make me feel like a cannibal.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I have to go.’ She leaned over so the receiver was close to the base. ‘Eleanor – wait,’ Park said. She could hear her dad in the kitchen and
her heartbeat everywhere. ‘Eleanor – wait – I love you.’
‘Eleanor?’ her dad was standing in the doorway. He was being quiet, in case she was asleep. She hung up the phone and pretended that she was.
