The next morning, when Eleanor got on the bus, there was a stack of comics on her seat.
She picked them up and sat down. He was already reading.
Eleanor put the comics between her books and stared at the window. For some reason, she didn’t want to read in front of him. It would be like letting him watch her eat. It would be like … admitting something.
But she thought about the comics all day, and as soon she got home, she climbed onto her bed and got them out. They were all the same title – Swamp Thing.
Eleanor ate dinner sitting cross-legged on her bed, extra careful not to spill anything on the books because every issue was in pristine condition; there wasn’t so much as a bent corner. (Stupid, perfect Asian kid.)
That night, after her brothers and sister fell asleep, Eleanor turned the light back on so she could read. They were the loudest sleepers ever. Ben talked in his sleep, and Maisie and the baby both snored. Mouse wet the bed – which didn’t make noise, but still disturbed the general peace. The light didn’t seem to bother them though.
Eleanor was only distantly conscious of Richie watching TV in the next room, and she practically fell off the bed when he jerked the bedroom door open. He looked like he expected to catch some middle-of-the-night hijinks, but when he saw that it was only Eleanor and that she was just reading, he grunted and told her to turn out the light so the little kids could sleep.
After he shut the door, Eleanor got up and turned off the light. (She could just about get out of bed without stepping on somebody now, which was lucky for them because she was the first one up every morning.)
She might have gotten away with leaving the light on, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She didn’t want to have to look at Richie again.
He looked exactly like a rat. Like the human-being version of a rat. Like the villain in a Don Bluth movie. Who knew what her mom saw in him;
Eleanor’s dad was messed-up-looking, too.
Every once in a while – when Richie managed to take a bath, put on decent clothes and stay sober all on the same day – Eleanor could sort of see why her mom might have thought he was handsome. Thank the Lord that didn’t happen very often. When it did, Eleanor felt like going to the bathroom and sticking a finger down her throat.
Anyway. Whatever. She could still read. There was enough light coming in from the window.
Park
She read stuff as fast as he could give it to her. And when she handed it back to him the next morning, she always acted as if she were handing him something fragile. Something precious. You wouldn’t even know that she touched the comics except for the smell.
Every book Park lent her came back smelling like perfume. Not like the perfume his mom wore. (Imari.) And not like the new girl; she smelled like vanilla.
But she made his comics smell like roses. A whole field of them.
She’d read all of his Alan Moore in less than three weeks. Now he was giving her X-Men comics five at a time, and he could tell that she liked them because she wrote the characters’ names on her books, in between band names and song lyrics.
They still didn’t talk on the bus, but it had become a less confrontational silence. Almost friendly. (But not quite.)
Park would have to talk to her today – to tell her that he didn’t have anything to give her. He’d overslept, then forgotten to grab the stack of comics he’d set out for her the night before. He hadn’t even had time to eat breakfast or brush his teeth, which made him self-conscious, knowing he was going to be sitting so close to her.
But when she got on the bus and handed him yesterday’s comics, all Park did was shrug. She looked away. They both looked down.
She was wearing that ugly necktie again. Today it was tied around her wrist. Her arms and wrists were scattered with freckles, layers of them in different shades of gold and pink, even on the back of her hands. Little-boy hands, his mom would call them, with short-short nails and ragged cuticles.
She stared down at the books in her lap. Maybe she thought he was mad at her. He stared at her books, too – covered in ink and Art Nouveau doodles.
‘So,’ he said, before he knew what to say next, ‘you like the Smiths?’ He was careful not to blow his morning breath on her.
She looked up, surprised. Maybe confused. He pointed at her book, where she’d written ‘How Soon Is Now?’ in tall green letters.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard them.’
‘So you just want people to think you like the Smiths?’ He couldn’t help but sound disdainful.
‘Yeah,’ she said, looking around the bus. ‘I’m trying to impress the locals.’
He didn’t know if she could help but sound like a smartass, but she sure wasn’t trying. The air soured between them. Park shifted against the wall. She looked across the aisle to stare out the window.
When he got to English, he tried to catch her eye, but she looked away. He felt like she was trying so hard to ignore him that she wouldn’t even participate in class.
Mr Stessman kept trying to draw her out – she was his new favorite target whenever things got sleepy in class. Today they were supposed to be discussing Romeo and Juliet, but nobody wanted to talk.
‘You don’t seem troubled by their deaths, Miss Douglas.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ she said. She narrowed her eyes at him.
‘It doesn’t strike you as sad?’ Mr Stessman asked. ‘Two young lovers lay dead. Never was a story of more woe. Doesn’t that get to you?’
‘I guess not,’ she said.
‘Are you so cold? So cool?’ He was standing over her desk, pretending to plead with her.
‘No …’ she said. ‘I just don’t think it’s a tragedy.’ ‘It’s the tragedy,’ Mr Stessman said.
She rolled her eyes. She was wearing two or three necklaces, old fake pearls, like Park’s grandmother wore to church, and she twisted them while she talked.
‘But he’s so obviously making fun of them,’ she said. ‘Who is?’
‘Shakespeare.’ ‘Do tell …’
She rolled her eyes again. She knew Mr Stessman’s game by now. ‘Romeo and Juliet are just two rich kids who’ve always gotten every
little thing they wanted. And now, they think they want each other.’ ‘They’re in love …’ Mr Stessman said, clutching his heart. ‘They don’t even know each other,’ she said.
‘It was love at first sight.’
‘It was “Oh my God, he’s so cute” at first sight. If Shakespeare wanted you to believe they were in love, he wouldn’t tell you in almost the very first scene that Romeo was hung up on Rosaline … It’s Shakespeare making fun of love,’ she said.
‘Then why has it survived?’
‘I don’t know, because Shakespeare is a really good writer?’
‘No!’ Mr Stessman said. ‘Someone else, someone with a heart. Mr Sheridan, what beats in your chest? Tell us, why has Romeo and Juliet survived four hundred years?’
Park hated talking in class. Eleanor frowned at him, then looked away.
He felt himself blush.
‘Because …’ he said quietly, looking at his desk, ‘because people want to remember what it’s like to be young? And in love?’
Mr Stessman leaned back against the blackboard and rubbed his beard. ‘Is that right?’ Park asked.
‘Oh, it’s definitely right,’ Mr Stessman said. ‘I don’t know if that’s why Romeo and Juliet has become the most beloved play of all time. But, yes, Mr Sheridan. Truer words never spoken.’
She didn’t acknowledge Park in history class, but she never did.
When he got on the bus that afternoon, she was already there. She got up to let him have his place by the window, and then she surprised him by talking. Quietly. Almost under her breath. But talking.
‘It’s more like a wish list,’ she said. ‘What?’
‘They’re songs I’d like to hear. Or bands I’d like to hear. Stuff that looks interesting.’
‘If you’ve never heard the Smiths, how do you even know about them?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she said defensively. ‘My friends, my old friends …
magazines. I don’t know. Around.’ ‘Why don’t you just listen to them?’
She looked at him like he was officially an idiot. ‘It’s not like they play the Smiths on Sweet 98.’
And then, when Park didn’t say anything, she rolled her inky brown eyes into the back of her head. ‘God,’ she said.
They didn’t talk anymore all the way home.
That night, while he did his homework, Park made a tape with all of his favorite Smiths songs, plus a few songs by Echo and the Bunnymen, and Joy Division.
He put the tape and five more X-Men comics into his backpack before he went to bed.
