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.
