Eleanor pushed her curls out of her face one by one, like she was gathering her wits by hand. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
She was making more sense now, and more eye contact, but Park still felt like someone had turned the world upside down and was shaking it.
‘You could talk to your mom tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Everything might look different in the morning.’
‘You saw what he wrote on my books,’ she said evenly. ‘Would you want me to stay there?’
‘I … I just don’t want you to leave,’ he said. ‘Where would you go? To your dad’s house?’
‘No, he doesn’t want me.’ ‘But if you explained …’ ‘He doesn’t want me.’ ‘Then … where?’
‘I don’t know.’ She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. ‘My uncle said I could spend the summer with him. Maybe he’ll let me come up to St Paul early.’
‘St Paul, Minnesota.’ She nodded.
‘But …’ Park looked in Eleanor’s eyes, and her hands fell to the table. ‘I know,’ she sobbed, slumping forward. ‘I know …’
There was no room to sit at the table next to her, so he dropped to his knees and pulled her onto the dusty linoleum floor.
Eleanor
‘When are you leaving?’ he asked. He pushed her hair out of her face and held it behind her head.
‘Tonight,’ she said, ‘I can’t go home.’
‘How are you going to get there? Have you called your uncle?’ ‘No. I don’t know. I thought I’d take the bus.’
She was going to hitchhike.
She figured she could walk as far as the Interstate, then she’d stick out her thumb for station wagons and minivans. Family cars. If she hadn’t been raped or murdered – or sold into white slavery – by Des Moines, she’d call her uncle collect. He’d come to get her, even if it was just to bring her home.
‘You can’t take the bus by yourself,’ Park said. ‘I don’t have a better plan.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ he said. ‘To the bus station?’ ‘To Minnesota.’
‘Park, no, your parents will never let you.’ ‘So I won’t ask.’
‘But your dad will kill you.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘he’ll ground me.’ ‘For life.’
‘Do you think I even care about that right now?’ He held her face in his hands. ‘Do you think I care about anything but you?’
