‘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.’
‘Honey, I wish you would,’ their dad said, throwing a throw pillow at her.
‘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.’