Eleanor sitting next to him on the couch made Park feel like someone had opened a window in the middle of the room. Like someone had replaced all the air in the room with brand new, im-proved air (now with twice the freshness).
Eleanor made him feel like something was happening. Even when they were just sitting on the couch.
She wouldn’t let him hold her hand, not in his house, and she wouldn’t stay for dinner. But she agreed to come back tomorrow – if his parents said it was okay, which they did.
His mom was being perfectly nice so far. She wasn’t turning on the charm, like she did for her clients and the neighbors, but she wasn’t being rude either. And if she wanted to hide in the kitchen every time Eleanor came over, Park thought, that was her prerogative.
Eleanor came over again on Thursday afternoon and Friday. And on Saturday, while they were playing Nintendo with Josh, his dad asked her to stay for dinner.
Park couldn’t believe it when she said yes.
His dad put the leaf into the dining room table, and Eleanor sat right next to Park. She was nervous, he could tell. She barely touched her sloppy joe, and after a while her smile started to go all grimacey around the edges.
After dinner, they all watched Back to the Future on HBO, and his mom made popcorn. Eleanor sat with Park on the floor, leaning against the couch, and when he surreptitiously took her hand, she didn’t pull away. He rubbed the inside of her palm because he knew she liked it. It made her eyelids dip like she was going to fall asleep.
When the movie was over, Park’s dad insisted that Park walk Eleanor home.
‘Thanks for having me, Mr Sheridan,’ she said. ‘And thank you for dinner, Mrs Sheridan. It was delicious, I had a great time.’ She didn’t even sound like she was being sarcastic.
When they got to the door, she called back,
‘Good night!’
Park closed the door behind them. You could almost see all the nervous niceness draining out of Eleanor. He wanted to hug her, to help wring it out.
‘You can’t walk me home,’ she said with her usual edge, ‘you know that, right?’
‘I know. But I can walk you partway.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s dark. No one will see us.’
‘Okay,’ she said, but she put her hands in her pockets. They both walked slowly.
‘Your family is really great,’ she said after a minute. ‘Really.’
He took her arm. ‘Hey, I want to show you something.’ He pulled her into the next driveway, between a pine tree and an RV.
‘Park, this is trespassing.’
‘It’s not. My grandparents live here.’
‘What do you want to show me?’
‘Nothing, really, I just want to be alone with you for a minute.’
He pulled her to the back of the driveway, where they were almost completely hidden by a line of trees and the RV and the garage.
‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘That was so lame.’
‘I know,’ he said, turning to her. ‘Next time, I’ll just say, “Eleanor, follow me down this dark alley, I want to kiss you.”’
She didn’t roll her eyes. She took a breath, then closed her mouth. He was learning how to catch her off guard.
She pushed her hands deeper in her pockets, so he put his hands on her elbows instead. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘I’ll just say, “Eleanor, duck behind these bushes with me, I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t kiss you.”’
She didn’t move, so he thought it was probably okay to touch her face. Her skin was as soft as it looked, white and smooth as freckled porcelain.
‘I’ll just say, “Eleanor, follow me down this rabbit hole …”’
He laid his thumb on her lips to see if she’d pull away. She didn’t. He leaned closer. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn’t trust her not to leave him standing there.
When his lips were almost touching hers, she shook her head. Her nose rubbed against his.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said.
‘S’okay,’ he said.
‘It’s not, it’s going to be terrible.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not.’
She shook her head a little more. Just a little.
‘You’re going to regret this,’ she said.
That made him laugh, so he had to wait a second before he kissed her.
It wasn’t terrible. Eleanor’s lips were soft and warm, and he could feel her pulse in her cheek. It was good that she was so nervous – because it forced him not to be. It steadied him to feel her trembling.
He pulled away before he wanted to. He hadn’t done this enough to know how to breathe.
When he pulled away, her eyes were mostly closed. His grandparents had a light on, on their front porch, and Eleanor’s face caught every bit of it. She looked like she should be married to the man in the moon.
Her face dropped after a second, and he let his hand fall to her shoulder.
‘Okay?’ he whispered.
She nodded. He pulled her closer and kissed the top her head. He tried to find her ear under all that hair.
‘Come here,’ he said, ‘I want to show you something.’
She laughed. He lifted her chin.
The second time was even less terrible.
Eleanor
They walked together from his grandparents’
driveway to the alley, then Park waited there in the shadows and watched Eleanor walk home alone.
She told herself not to look back.
Richie was home, and everybody except her mom was watching TV. It wasn’t that late; Eleanor tried to act like there was nothing strange about her coming home in the dark.
‘Where have you been?’ Richie said.
‘At a friend’s house.’
‘What friend?’
‘I told you, honey,’ her mom said, stepping into the room, drying a pan. ‘Eleanor has a girlfriend in the neighborhood. Lisa.’
‘Tina,’ Eleanor said.
‘Girlfriend, huh?’ Richie said. ‘Giving up on men already?’ He thought that was pretty funny.
Eleanor went into the bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t turn on the light. She climbed into bed in her street clothes, opened the curtains and wiped the condensation off the window. She couldn’t see the alley or anything moving outside.
The window fogged over again. Eleanor closed her eyes and laid her forehead against the glass.
CHAPTER 29
Eleanor
When she saw Park standing at the bus stop on Monday morning, she started giggling. Seriously, giggling like a cartoon character … when their cheeks get all red, and little hearts start popping out of their ears …
It was ridiculous.
Park
When he saw Eleanor walking toward him on Monday morning, Park wanted to run to her and sweep her up in his arms. Like some guy in the soap operas his mom watched. He hung onto his backpack to hold himself back …
It was kind of wonderful.
Eleanor
Park was just her height, but he seemed taller.
Park
Eleanor’s eyelashes were the same color as her freckles.
Eleanor
They talked about The White Album on the way to school, but just as an excuse to stare at each other’s mouths. You’d think they were lip-reading.
Maybe that’s why Park kept laughing, even when they were talking about ‘Helter Skelter’ –
which wasn’t the Beatles’ funniest song, even before Charles Manson got a hold of it.
CHAPTER 30
Park
‘Hey,’ Call said, taking a bite out of his Rib-aQue sandwich. ‘You should come to the basketball game with us Thursday. And don’t even try to tell me you don’t like basketball, Spud.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Kim’s going to be there.’
Park groaned. ‘Call …’
‘Sitting next to me,’ Call said. ‘Because we’re totally going out.’
‘Wait, seriously?’ Park covered his mouth to keep a chunk of sandwich from flying out. ‘Are we talking about the same Kim?’
‘Is that so hard to believe?’ Call opened his carton of milk completely and drank out of it like a cup. ‘She wasn’t even into you, you know. She was just bored, and she thought you were mysterious and quiet – like, “still waters run deep.” I told her that sometimes still waters just run still.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But she’s totally into me now, so you can hang out with us if you want. The basketball games are a blast. They sell nachos and everything.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Park said.
He wasn’t going to think about it. He wasn’t going anywhere without Eleanor. And she didn’t seem like the basketball game type.
Eleanor
‘Hey, girl,’ DeNice said after gym class. They were in the locker room, changing back into their street clothes. ‘So I’ve been thinking, you’ve got to go to Sprite Nite with us this week. Jonesy’s got his car fixed, and he’s got this Thursday off.
We are going to do it right, right, right, all through the night, night, night.’
‘You know I’m not allowed to go out,’ Eleanor said.
‘I know that you’re not allowed to go to your boyfriend’s house either,’ DeNice said.
‘I heard that,’ Beebi said.
Eleanor should never have told them about Park’s house, but she’d been dying to tell somebody. (This was how people ended up in jail after committing the perfect crime.) ‘Keep it down,’
she said. ‘God.’
‘You should come,’ Beebi said. Her face was perfectly round, with dimples so deep that when she smiled she looked tufted, like a cushion. ‘We have so much fun. I’ll bet you’ve never even been dancing before.’
‘I don’t know …’ Eleanor said.
‘Is this about your man?’ DeNice asked. ‘Because he can come, too. He don’t take up much space.’
Beebi giggled, so Eleanor giggled, too. She couldn’t imagine Park dancing. He’d probably be really good at it, if all the Top 40 music didn’t make his ears bleed. He was good at everything.
Still … She couldn’t imagine the two of them going out with DeNice or Beebi. Or anybody.
Thinking about going out with Park, in public, was kind of like thinking about taking your hel-met off in space.
Park
His mom said that if they were going to hang out every night after school, which they definitely were, they had to start doing homework.
‘She’s probably right,’ Eleanor said on the bus. ‘I’ve been faking it in English all week.’
‘You were faking it today? Seriously? It didn’t sound like it.’
‘We did Shakespeare last year at my old school … But I can’t fake it in math. I can’t even
… what’s the opposite of faking it?’
‘I can help you with your math, you know.
I’m already through algebra.’
‘Gosh, Wally, that’d be dreamy.’
‘Or not,’ he said. ‘I could not help you with your math.’
Even her mean, smirky smile made him crazy.
They tried to study in the living room, but Josh wanted to watch TV, so they took their stuff into the kitchen.
His mom said it was okay; then said she had stuff to do in the garage. Whatever.
Eleanor moved her lips when she read …
Park kicked her gently under the table, and threw crumpled-up pieces of paper into her hair.
They were almost never alone, and now that they almost-practically were, he felt kind of frantic for her attention.
He flipped her algebra book closed with his pen.
‘Seriously?’ She tried to open it again.
‘No,’ he said, pulling it toward him.
‘I thought we were studying.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I just … we’re alone.’
‘Sort of …’
‘So we should be doing alone things.’
‘You sound so creepy right now …’
‘I meant talking.’ He wasn’t sure what he meant. He looked down at the table. Eleanor’s algebra book was covered with her handwriting, the lyrics to one song wrapped and coiled around the title of another. He saw his name written in tiny cursive letters – your own name always stands out – and hidden in the chorus of a Smiths song.
He felt himself grin.
‘What?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘What.’
He looked back at the book. He was going to think about this later, after she went home. He was going to think about Eleanor sitting in class, thinking about him, carefully writing his name someplace she thought only she would see.
And then he noticed something else. Written just as small, just as carefully, in all lowercase letters. ‘i know your a slut you smell like cum.’
‘ What,’ Eleanor said, trying to pull the book away. Park held onto it. He felt the Bruce Banner blood rushing to his face.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that this was still happening?’
‘That what was still happening?’
He didn’t want to say it, he didn’t want to point to it. He didn’t want their eyes on those words together.
‘This,’ he said, waving his hand over the words.
She looked – and immediately started scrubbing the bad writing out with her pen. Her face was skim milk, and her neck went red and blotchy.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he said.
‘I didn’t know it was there.’
‘I thought this had stopped.’
‘Why would you think that?’
Why had he thought that? Because she was with him now?
‘I just … why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘Why would I tell you?’ she asked. ‘It’s gross and embarrassing.’
She was still scribbling. He put his hand over her wrist. ‘Maybe I could help.’