Eleanor & Park

Eleanor heard the police tramping through the house. She heard Richie shouting. The bedroom door flew open, and their mom came in like Mr Rochester’s wife, in a long, torn, white nightgown.

‘Did you call them?’ she asked Eleanor.

Eleanor nodded. ‘I heard gunshots,’ she said.

‘Shhhh,’ her mother said, rushing to the bed and pressing her hand too hard over Eleanor’s mouth. ‘Don’t say anything more,’ she hissed. ‘If they ask, say it was a mistake. This was all a mistake.’

The door opened, and her mother moved her hand away. Two flashlights shot around the room. Her siblings were all awake and crying.

Their eyes flashed like cats’.

‘They’re just scared,’ her mother said. ‘They don’t know what’s happening.’

‘There’s nobody here,’ the cop said to Eleanor, shining his light in her direction. ‘We checked the yard and the basement.’

It was more of an accusation than an assurance.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I heard something …’

The lights went out, and Eleanor heard all three men talking in the living room. She heard the police officers on the porch, with their heavy boots, and she heard them drive away. The window was still open.

Richie came into the room then – he never came into their room. Eleanor felt a new flood of adrenaline.

‘What were you thinking?’ he asked softly.

She didn’t say anything. Her mother held her hand, and Eleanor locked her jaw shut.

‘Richie, she didn’t know,’ her mom said.

‘She just heard the gun.’

‘What the fuck,’ he said, slamming his fist in-to the door. The veneer splintered.

‘She thought she was protecting us, it was a mistake.’

‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ he shouted.

‘Did you think you could get rid of me?’

Eleanor hid her face in her mother’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a protection. It was like hiding behind the thing in the room he was most likely to hit.

‘It was a mistake,’ her mother said gently.

‘She was trying to help.’

‘You never call them here,’ he said to Eleanor, his voice dying, his eyes wild. ‘Never again.’

And then, shouting, ‘I can get rid of all of you.’ He slammed the door behind him.

‘Back to bed,’ her mother said. ‘Everybody

…’

‘But, Mom …’ Eleanor whispered.

‘In bed,’ her mom said, helping Eleanor up the ladder to her bunk. Then her mom leaned in close, her mouth touching Eleanor’s ear. ‘It was Richie,’ she whispered. ‘There were kids playing basketball in the park, being loud … He was just trying to scare them. But he doesn’t have a license, and there are other things in the house – he could have been arrested. No more tonight. Not a breath.’

She knelt down with the boys for a minute, petting and hushing, then floated out of the room.

Eleanor could swear she heard five hearts racing. Every one of them was stifling a sob. Crying inside out. She climbed out of her bed and in-to Maisie’s.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered to the room. ‘It’s okay now.’

CHAPTER 25 Park

Eleanor seemed off that morning. She didn’t say anything while they waited for the bus. When they got on, she dropped onto their seat and leaned against the wall.

Park pulled on her sleeve, and she not-even-half smiled.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

She glanced up at him. ‘Now,’ she said.

He didn’t believe her. He pulled on her sleeve again.

She fell against him and hid her face in his shoulder.

Park laid his face in her hair and closed his eyes.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

‘Almost,’ she said.

She pulled away when the bus stopped. She never let him hold her hand once they were off the bus. She wouldn’t touch him in the hallways.

‘People will look at us,’ she always said.

He couldn’t believe that still mattered to her.

Girls who don’t want to be looked at don’t tie curtain tassels in their hair. They don’t wear men’s golf shoes with the spikes still attached.

So today he stood by her locker and only thought about touching her. He wanted to tell her his news – but she seemed so far away, he wasn’t sure she’d hear him. Eleanor

Where would she go this time?

Back to the Hickmans’?

‘Hey, remember that time when my mom asked if I could stay with you guys for a few days, and then she didn’t come back for a year? I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t turn me into Child Protective Services. That was very Christian of you. Do you still have that foldout couch?’

Fuck.

Before Richie moved in, Eleanor only knew that word from books and bathroom walls. Fucking woman. Fucking kids. Fuck you, you little bitch – who the fuck touched my stereo?

Eleanor hadn’t seen it coming the last time.

When Richie kicked her out.

She couldn’t have seen it coming because she never thought it could happen. She never thought he’d try – and she never, ever thought her mom would go along with it. (Richie must have recognized before Eleanor did that her mother’s allegiances had shifted.)

It was embarrassing to think about the day that it happened – embarrassing, on top of everything else – because it really was Eleanor’s fault. She really was asking for it.

She was in her room, typing song lyrics on an old manual typewriter that her mom had brought home from the Goodwill. It needed new ribbon (Eleanor had a box full of cartridges that didn’t fit), but it still worked. She loved everything about that typewriter, the way the keys felt, the sticky, crunchy noise they made. She even liked the way it smelled, like metal and shoe polish.

She was bored that day, the day it happened.

It was too hot to do anything but lie around or read or watch TV. Richie was in the living room.

He hadn’t gotten out of bed until 2:00 or 3:00, and everybody could tell he was in a bad mood.

Her mom was walking around the house in nervous circles, offering Richie lemonade and sandwiches and aspirin. Eleanor hated it when her mom acted like that. Relentlessly submissive.

It was humiliating to be in the same room.

So Eleanor was upstairs typing song lyrics.

‘Scarborough Fair.’

She heard Richie complaining.

‘What the fuck is that noise?’ And, ‘Fuck, Sabrina, can’t you shut her up?’

Her mom tiptoed up the stairs and ducked her head into Eleanor’s room. ‘Richie isn’t feeling well,’ she said. ‘Can you put that away?’ She looked pale and nervous. Eleanor hated that look.

She waited for her mother to get back downstairs. Then, without really thinking about why, Eleanor deliberately pressed a key.

A

Crunch-lap.

Her fingertips trembled over the keyboard.

RE

Crch-crch-lap-tap.

Nothing happened. No one stirred. The house was hot and stiff and as quiet as a library in hell.

Eleanor closed her eyes and jerked her chin into the air.

YOU GOING TO SCRABOROUGH FAIR

PARSLEY

SAAGE

ROSEMAYRY

AND

THYME

Richie came up the stairs so fast, in Eleanor’s head he was flying. In Eleanor’s head, he burst open the door by hurling a ball of fire at it.

He was on her before she could brace herself, tearing the typewriter from her hands and throwing it into the wall so hard it broke through the plaster and hung for a moment in the lath.

Eleanor was too shocked to make out what he was shouting at her. FAT and FUCK and BITCH.

He’d never come this close to her before. Her fear of him crushed her back. She didn’t want him to see it in her eyes, so she pressed her face into her hands in her pillow.

FAT and FUCK and BITCH. And I WARNED YOU, SABRINA.

‘I hate you,’ Eleanor whispered into the pillow. She could hear things slamming. She could hear her mother in the doorway, talking softly, like she was trying to put a baby back to sleep.

FAT and FUCK and BITCH and BEGGING

FOR IT, JUST FUCKING BEGGING FOR IT.

‘I hate you,’ Eleanor said louder. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’