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 paper-back. 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 con-traband 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 oblig-atory 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.
CHAPTER 39
Eleanor
Thursday night after dinner, Park’s grandma came over to have her hair set, and his mom disappeared into the garage. His dad was messing with the plumbing under the sink, replacing the garbage disposal. Park was trying to tell Eleanor about a tape he’d bought. Elvis Costello. He couldn’t shut up about it.
‘There are a couple songs you might like, ball-lady stuff. But the rest is really fast.’
‘Like punk?’ She wrinkled her nose. She could stand a few Dead Milkmen songs, but other than that, she hated Park’s punk music. ‘I feel like they’re yelling at me,’ she’d say when he tried to put punk on her mix tapes. ‘Stop yelling at me, Glenn Danzig!’
‘That’s Henry Rollins.’
‘They all sound the same when they’re yelling at me.’
Lately, Park was really into New Wave music. Or post-punk or something. He went through bands like Eleanor went through books.
‘No,’ he said, ‘Elvis Costello is more music-al. Gentler. I’ll dub you a copy.’
‘Or you could just play it for me. Now.’
Park tilted his head. ‘That would involve going into my room.’
‘Okay,’ she said, not quite casually.
‘Okay?’ he asked. ‘Months of no, and now, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re always saying that your mom doesn’t care …’
‘My mom doesn’t care.’
‘So?’
Park stood up jerkily, grinning, and pulled her up. He stopped at the kitchen. ‘We’re going to listen to music in my room.’
‘Fine,’ his dad said from under the sink. ‘Just don’t get anybody pregnant.’
That should have been embarrassing, but Park’s dad had a way of cutting past embarrassing. Eleanor wished he wasn’t ignoring them all the time.
Park’s mom probably let him have girls in his room because you could practically see into his room from the living room, and you had to walk by to get to the bathroom.
But, to Eleanor, it still felt incredibly private.
She couldn’t get over the fact that Park spent most of his time in this room horizontal. (It was only a ninety-degree difference, but imagining him that way blew all her fuses.) Also, he changed his clothes in here.
There was no place to sit but on his bed, which Eleanor wouldn’t consider. So they sat between his bed and his stereo, where there was just enough room to sit with their legs bent.
As soon as they sat down, Park started fast-forwarding through the Elvis Costello tape. He had stacks and stacks of tapes, and Eleanor pulled a few out to look at them.
‘Ah …’ Park said, pained.
‘What?’
‘Those’re alphabetized.’
‘It’s okay. I know the alphabet.’
‘Right.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry.
Whenever Call comes over, he always messes them up. Okay, this is the song I wanted you to hear. Listen.’
‘Call comes over?’
‘Yeah, sometimes.’ Park turned up the volume. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Because now I just come over …’