He gave her the same once-over he’d given the couch. Her lips were swollen, and her eyes seemed wilder than usual. But Eleanor’s sweaters were always stretched out, and her hair always looked tangled.
‘You look fine,’ he said. ‘What about me?’
She looked at him, and then smiled. ‘Good
…’ she said. ‘Just really, really good.’
He held out his hand to her, and pulled her onto the couch. Smoothly, this time.
She sat next to him and looked down at her lap.
Park leaned against her. ‘It’s not going to be weird now,’ he said, softly, ‘is it?’
She shook her head and laughed. ‘No,’ she said, and then, ‘only for a minute, only a little.’
He’d never seen her face so open. Her brows weren’t pulled together, her nose wasn’t scrunched. He put his arm around her, and she laid her head on his chest without any prompting.
‘Oh, look,’ she said, ‘ The Young Ones.’
‘Yeah … Hey. You still haven’t told me –
what was going on yesterday? When I saw you?
What was wrong?’
She sighed. ‘I was on my way to Mrs Dunne’s office because somebody in gym took my clothes.’
‘Tina?’
‘I don’t know, probably.’
‘Jesus …’ he said, ‘that’s terrible.’
‘It’s okay.’ She actually sounded like it was.
‘Did you find them? Your clothes?’
‘Yeah … I really, really don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
Eleanor pressed her cheek into his chest, and Park hugged her. He wished that they could go through life like this. That he could physically put himself between Eleanor and the world.
Maybe Tina really was a monster.
‘Park?’ Eleanor said. ‘Just one more thing. I mean, can I ask you something?’
‘You know you can ask me anything. We’ve got a deal.’
She set her hand over his heart. ‘Did … the way you acted today have something to do with seeing me yesterday?’
He almost didn’t want to answer. Yesterday’s confusing lust felt even more inappropriate now that he knew the upsetting backstory. ‘Yeah,’ he said quietly.
Eleanor didn’t say anything for a minute or so. And then …
‘Tina would be so pissed.’
Eleanor
When Park’s parents got home, they seemed genuinely glad to see Eleanor. His dad had bought a new hunting rifle at the boat show, and he tried to show her how it worked.
‘You can buy guns at a boat show?’ Eleanor asked.
‘You can buy anything at a boat show,’ his dad said. ‘Anything worth having.’
‘Books?’ she asked.
‘Books about guns and boats.’
She stayed late because it was Saturday, and on the way home she and Park stopped at his grandparents’ driveway, as usual.
But tonight Park didn’t lean over and kiss her. Instead, he held her tight.
‘Do you think we’ll ever be alone like that again?’ she asked. She felt the tears in her eyes.
‘Ever? Yes. Soon? I don’t know …’
She hugged him as hard as she could, and then she walked home alone.
Richie was home and awake and watching Saturday Night Live. Ben was asleep on the floor, and Maisie was sleeping next to Richie on the couch.
Eleanor would have gone straight to bed, but she had to go to the bathroom. Which meant walking between him and the TV. Twice.
When she got to the bathroom, she pulled her hair back tight and washed her face again. She hurried back past the TV without looking up.
‘Where have you been?’ Richie asked.
‘Where do you go all the time?’
‘To my friend’s house,’ Eleanor said. She kept walking.
‘What friend?’
‘Tina,’ Eleanor said. She put her hand on the bedroom door.
‘Tina,’ Richie said. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and he was holding a can of Old Mil-waukee. ‘Tina’s house must be f**king Disney-land, huh? You can’t get enough.’
She waited.
‘Eleanor?’ she heard her mom calling from the bedroom. She sounded half asleep.
‘So, what’d you spend your Christmas money on?’ Richie asked. ‘I told you to buy yourself something nice.’
The bedroom door opened, and her mother came out. She was wearing Richie’s bathrobe –
one of those Asian souvenir robes, red satin, with a big gaudy tiger.
‘Eleanor,’ her mom said, ‘go to bed.’
‘I was just asking Eleanor what she bought with her Christmas money,’ Richie said.
If Eleanor made something up now, he’d want to see whatever it was. If she said she hadn’t spent the money, he might want it back.
‘A necklace,’ she said.
‘A necklace,’ he repeated. He looked at her blearily, like he was trying to come up with something awful to say, but he just took another drink and leaned back in his chair.
‘Good night, Eleanor,’ her mom said.
CHAPTER 43
Park
Park’s parents almost never fought, and when they did, it was always about him or Josh.
His parents had been arguing in their bedroom for more than an hour, and when it was time to leave for Sunday dinner, their mom came out and told the boys to go ahead without them.
‘Tell Grandma I have headache.’
‘What did you do?’ Josh asked Park as they cut through the front lawn.
‘Nothing,’ Park said. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. It’s you. When I went to the bathroom, I heard mom say your name.’
But Park hadn’t done anything. Not since the eyeliner – which he knew wasn’t dead, but it seemed in remission. Maybe his parents knew somehow about yesterday …
Even if they did, Park hadn’t done anything with Eleanor that he’d ever been explicitly told not to do. His mom never talked to him about that kind of thing. And his dad hadn’t said anything more than ‘Don’t get anybody pregnant’
since he told Park about sex in the fifth grade.
(He’d told Josh at the same time, which was insulting.)
Anyway, they hadn’t gone that far. He hadn’t touched her anywhere that you couldn’t show on television. Even though he’d wanted to.
He wished now that he had. It might be months before they were alone again.
Eleanor
She went to Mrs Dunne’s office Monday morning before class, and Mrs Dunne gave her a brand new combination lock. It was hot pink.
‘We talked to some of the girls in your class,’
Mrs Dunne said, ‘but they all played dumb.
We’re still going to get to the bottom of this, I promise.’
There is no bottom, Eleanor thought. There’s just Tina.
It’s okay,’ she told Mrs Dunne. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Tina had watched Eleanor get on the bus that morning with her tongue on her top lip, like she was waiting for Eleanor to spaz out – or like she was trying to see whether Eleanor was wearing any toilet clothes. But Park was right there, practically pulling Eleanor into his lap – so it was easy to ignore Tina and everybody else. He looked so cute this morning. Instead of his usual scary black band T-shirt, he was wearing a green shirt that said ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish.’
He walked with her to the counselors’ office, and told her that if anybody stole her clothes today, she was to find him, immediately.
Nobody did.
Beebi and DeNice had already heard about what happened from somebody in another class –
which meant that the whole school knew. They said they were never going to let Eleanor walk alone to lunch again, Macho Nachos be damned.
‘Those skanks need to know you have friends,’ DeNice said.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Beebi agreed.
Park