Eleanor & Park

‘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 fucking 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 di

‘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 Du

‘We talked to some of the girls in your class,’

Mrs Du

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 Du

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

His mom was waiting in the Impala Monday afternoon when Park and Eleanor got off the bus.

She rolled down the window.

‘Hi, Eleanor, sorry, but Park has errand to run. We see you tomorrow, okay?’

Sure,’ Eleanor said. She looked at him, and he reached out to squeeze her hand as she walked away.

He got into the car. ‘Come on, come on,’ his mom said, ‘why you do everything so slow?

Here.’ She handed him a brochure. State of Nebraska Driver’s Manual. ‘Practice test at end,’

she said, ‘now buckle up.’

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘To get your driving license, dummy.’

‘Does Dad know?’

His mom sat on a pillow when she drove and hung forward on the steering wheel. ‘He knows, but you don’t have to talk to him about it, okay?

This is our business right now, you and me. Now, look at test. Not hard. I pass on first try.’

Park flipped to the back of the book and looked at the practice exam. He’d studied the whole manual when he turned fifteen and got his learner’s permit.

‘Is Dad going to be mad at me?’ he asked.

‘Whose business is this right now?’

‘Ours,’ he said.

‘You and me,’ she said.

Park passed the test on his first try. He even parallel parked the Impala, which was like parallel parking a Star Destroyer. His mom wiped his eyelids with a Kleenex before he had his picture taken.

She let him drive home. ‘So, if we don’t tell Dad,’ Park asked, ‘does that mean I can’t ever drive?’ He wanted to drive Eleanor somewhere.

Anywhere.

‘I work on it,’ his mom said. ‘Meantime, you have your license if you need it. For emergency.’

That seemed like a pretty weak excuse to get his license. Park had gone sixteen years without a driving emergency.

The next morning on the bus, Eleanor asked him what his big secret errand was, and he handed her his license.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Look at you, look at this!’

She didn’t want to give it back.

‘I don’t have any pictures of you,’ she said.

‘I’ll get you another one,’ he said.

‘You will? Really?’

‘You can have one of my school pictures. My mom has tons.’

‘You have to write something on the back,’

she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like, “Hey, Eleanor, KIT, LYLAS, stay sweet, Park.”’

‘But I don’t ll-Y like an S,’ he said. ‘And you’re not sweet.’

‘I’m sweet,’ she said, affronted, holding back his license.

‘No … you’re other good things,’ he said, snatching it from her, ‘but not sweet.’

‘Is this where you tell me that I’m a scoundrel, and I say that I think you like me because I’m a scoundrel? Because we’ve already covered this, I’m the Han Solo.’

‘I’m going to write, “For Eleanor, I love you.

Park.”’

‘God, don’t write that, my mom might find it.’

Eleanor

Park gave her a school picture. It was from October, but he already looked so different now.

Older. In the end, Eleanor hadn’t let him write anything on the back because she didn’t want him to ruin it.

They hung out in his bedroom after di