by Ginger Scott
At least it smells good in here. That’s the last thought I have before I open the door to find a downright gleeful Eleanor Trombley waiting on the other side. She’s holding her own portable griddle in both hands and a variety of plastic containers are balanced on top, each containing actual ingredients. No mix in sight. Her hair is twisted into sloppy ponytails on either side of her head, and she’s wearing a huge yellow sweatshirt that’s several sizes too big so it fits her more like a dress over her black leggings and fuzzy black boots.
“It smells amazing in here!” she announces upon entry. I exhale the breath I’ve been holding because at least I got the aroma right.
“Here, let me get that,” I say, taking the griddle from her.
“Thanks,” she says, a closed-mouth grin following up. Before I close the door after her entry, I survey the house she just came from. Nothing has changed from the way it’s looked over there for the past few days. The windows are all still drawn shut, cars unmoved, and everything about the house feels either sleepy or vacant. Yet somehow, Eleanor just walked out that front door wearing sunshine yellow, and nobody over there seems to care enough to object.
“Welcome, Eleanor. Thanks for joining us.” My mom clearly has the pancake situation handled; I see three cakes already going on our griddle behind her. She also found the perfect tone and words to welcome Eleanor. I think the Trombley girls have been in this house twice in my lifetime, and both instances were while selling us Girl Scout cookies. Eleanor seems at ease in here, though, as if she’s been coming over here to hang out for years. It’s odd but also comforting. I like it—her wanting to come here—even if I don’t fully understand it.
I set her griddle down next to spot where my fraudulent pancakes are sizzling and she moves in to begin sorting out her ingredients.
“Well, a girl can’t back down from a full-on pancake challenge, can she?” she says over her shoulder.
My mom’s eyes scan to meet mine behind Eleanor’s back and I mouth Please while holding up prayer hands.
“I see, well, you look pretty serious,” my mom says, poking at a box of something Eleanor has just sat on the counter. “Jonah, you may be outmatched.”
I blow out hard and laugh.
“I’m really all talk anyhow,” I admit, sort of.
“Mmm, yes, you are,” my mom says as she passes me and presses a soft hand to my cheek.
Too hungry to wait, Grandpa Hank takes the three cakes my mom finished making for himself, and I finish up the batter, pouring out two more while Eleanor hums next to me as she eyes the levels of everything she measures.
“Where’d you learn all this?” I tilt my head toward her mixing bowl.
“Oh, culinary. At school. Did you take it?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“I mean, if I’m too busy for shop class . . .”
Her head shakes with a soft laugh at my joke.
“Right. Well, you missed out,” she says, dotting my nose with the tip of her finger. I watch it come at me and get cross-eyed. “Miss Dupont was a pastry chef in New Orleans before she moved here, so we made a lot of cookies and croissants.”
“That sounds delicious,” my mom says, settling into one of the chairs at the table behind us.
“But I can solve for the derivative, and if I had not doubled up on advanced college math classes, where would you be?” I say to my mom, holding my palms out to my sides in jest.
“I suppose I’d have to live . . . derivativeless,” she punches back.
Because Grandpa Hank loves it when Mom goes after me instead of him, he lets out a full-mouthed belly laugh.
“Shut up and eat your pancakes, old man,” I fire back.
With his plate only half finished, he slides it away from him and takes a napkin to his mouth.
“I think I’ll hold out for the superior pancakes, if you don’t mind,” he says, winking at Eleanor, who stirs things in her bowl as she takes in our regular morning routine.
“Hey, I made those pancakes!” my mom announces, play-slapping Grandpa on the arm as she completely blows my cover.
“Jonah!” I get a similar arm slap from Eleanor, leaving me with no choice but to come completely clean.
“Fine! I’m a fraud! Oh, my God, it feels so much better to have that out in the open.” I sink back into the counter’s edge and roll my neck while everyone laughs at my expense.
After a few longs seconds, the kitchen gets quiet again, enough that we all zone out to the whir of Eleanor’s mixing. She turns her back to us, probably because we’re all staring at her. In my case, my complete attention is focused on how hard I think she must be working to seem normal. It has to be exhausting.
“Are you guys like this every morning?” she asks, finally snapping us out of our silence.
“Oh, every day’s a little different, but yeah, for the most part,” Grandpa coughs out.
He excuses himself from the table to head to the powder room for his first coughing round of the day. When Eleanor swivels her head to look at me with worry, I shake it off.
“He’s okay. I mean, classic chronic respiratory disease for sure, but nothing that seems to keep him from smoking cigars on Thursdays.” I shrug with a smile to give her added reassurance. Honestly, though, I don’t love how cavalier my grandpa is about his health. I don’t think my mom does either, but he’s stubborn as hell, so we pick our battles.
Eleanor’s first round of cakes are ready in minutes, and Grandpa Hank makes sure he’s back to the table in time to take the first few for himself. Eleanor turns her attention back to the griddle to make another round while the three of us dive in and agree through glances that these are, in fact, the best pancakes we have ever eaten.
“Do you cook for your family often, Eleanor?”
I drop my fork at my mom’s question. Every conversation topic feels rife with danger. I clear my throat and apologize quietly while I toss my sullied fork in the sink and get myself a new one. I fear my worry about my mother’s question is right given the long pause before Eleanor responds, but when she finally does, it doesn’t seem as if talking to us about her family is hard for her at all. And she doesn’t dance around the hard truth.
“I used to, last year. I’ve been so busy this year, though, with all of the senior-year stuff.” She lifts one shoulder casually as her back remains to us. She flips the cakes over one at a time, this round made up of smaller ones so more fit on the cooking surface. “I actually miss it. I tried making dinner a few times this week. I was just trying to help out, but my parents aren’t, well, they aren’t so good.”
I rejoin my family at the table and meet their heavy gazes.
“We’re so very sorry,” my mom says.
There it is again. Sorry.
“Thank you,” Eleanor responds, still keeping her hands busy by sliding the cakes around. “It’s been hard. And I can’t really talk to them about things because they just aren’t . . . good.” She nods slowly with her words.
“I bet it’s nice having your sister there to help,” my mom adds.
Eleanor’s laughed response is unexpected and quick.
“I guess. She’s taken over making decisions, which is good because I don’t know what to say when the police give us updates and offer suggestions. Morgan has always been better at that stuff.”
“What stuff?” I ask, biting my tongue the moment I speak. It felt natural, though.
“Oh, like, being in charge, I guess.” Eleanor laughs. Scooping up the remaining cakes, she brings the piled flapjacks over to the table and sets them in the middle. My mom stands to get her an extra plate, but Eleanor shakes my mom’s offer off.
“Thanks, but I’m not very hungry,” she says.
My mom pauses and Grandpa and I immediately look down at our food. No matter how normal Eleanor tries to make us believe things are, she’s not strong enough to fake it all away.
“Well . . .” Mom clears her throat and returns to her seat, catching me with a quick glanc
e as I look up. “Thank you for treating us. And for celebrating Jonah’s day.”
“I’d give you a card or something but I already bought you a car,” Grandpa mumbles. “So happy freaking birthday, kiddo.”
His brashness breaks up the building uneasiness, and I relax back into my natural ways a little more.
“I’m pretty sure we already owned the Bronco, and to be technical, you didn’t buy me any parts yet. I met Dale yesterday, and he says you’re even now.” I roll my eyes jokingly and glance to my side to make sure Eleanor is amused too. She’s smiling.
“You’re seriously calling in poker favors for car parts?” My mom glares across the table at my grandpa with her palms flat on the tabletop on either side of her plate. Both Eleanor and I cover our mouths to laugh.
“And you called my poker nights nothing but debauchery. Pfft,” Grandpa Hank says, waving his hand in dismissal.
My mom glares at him hard until he must feel it because he lifts his gaze to meet her waiting stare and immediately lets out a laugh.
“So how does one get an invite to this poker game,” Eleanor slips in. My mom turns her focus to our guest and hangs her mouth open.
“You all are useless. I’m running an underground casino in the garage and you all just . . . let it happen.” Mom slices through the air with her hand before standing to take her empty plate to the sink.
“Eleanor, you are welcome here anytime. Thank you for breakfast, and if he doesn’t let you sit in on that boys club he has in our garage . . .” My mom pauses to emphasize her next words by pointing at my grandpa. “You let me know. I have ways of making him understand.”
“Ha ha!” Grandpa tilts back in his seat to laugh. My mom pauses behind him on her way out the door and leans down to kiss the top of his head before calling him an old fool.
When Jake turned eighteen, his teammates kidnapped him at midnight and took him to a strip club. Me, I lost a pancake showdown and displayed my weird-ass family dynamic in front of the girl who, until lately, I haven’t been able to utter a full sentence to. I honestly think I come out ahead.
“I love your family,” Eleanor says, leaning toward me and taking my fork off my plate, stealing a taste of my breakfast for herself. I push it closer to her without saying a word, and she finishes every last bite.
Eight
Grandpa takes over cleaning up after we all finish eating and mom’s off to her weekend job. He says he’s doing me a favor for my birthday, but I know better—he’s sending me off to spend time with Eleanor on my own. True to form, he adds a waggle of his thick eyebrows when she leaves the kitchen, just to make me sweat.
I sent her up to my room without me to get her away from Grandpa, but now that I’m standing in the hallway watching through the cracked opening of my door while she inspects every element of my room, I regret giving her free rein.
I doubt she’ll notice it, but I have a picture of her amid the collage of random things I think are cool that I taped to my wall right next to my night stand. Even more pathetic? It’s a picture from last year’s yearbook that I photocopied at my mom’s office. It’s blurry and pixelated, but it’s the only photo of her I have. There is no way I will come across as anything other than a sad obsessed puppy dog if she sees that.
My nerves grow as she gets closer to that area of my room. I decide to head off trouble and burst into my room with enough fanfare to bring her attention to me completely.
“Sorry, I was talking to my grandpa for a few minutes,” I give as my excuse.
“I was just scoping out your library.” She points over her shoulder at the makeshift bookcase I built with cinderblocks and two-by-six boards. Just one more impressive display of how I spend my Friday and Saturday nights.
“Notice the dearth of cooking books on the shelf.” My joke earns a quick laugh.
“I was looking at the Bradbury. You have a lot of his,” she says, moving closer to the books and running her fingertips across the spines. “I thought Green Town was a real place for the longest time.”
She’s referencing Something Wicked This Way Comes. This little slice of a shared experience sinks into my chest. I smile because of it, mouth stretched wide enough that I can feel the heat on my cheeks, a blush put there because I’m excited.
“I tried to find it once. Seriously, I totally wanted to go to that carnival and investigate.” My words come out like those of an excited child, and my mood shifts to being embarrassed. I look down at my feet as I stuff my hands in my pockets and kick at the thick pile of my carpet. I end up in my desk chair, partly to draw her attention this direction, away from her picture, and also to give my nervous body some shelter. It does very little to slow the drumming in my chest, though, especially when Eleanor sits on the end of my bed, folding her legs up to make herself comfortable.
“I would have gone with you. I mean, it would be easier with the Bronco, but we so could have walked there.” Her eyes animate as she leans forward and rests her chin in her palms, elbows propped on her legs. I’m puzzled by how one person could be that flexible, but even more, how she can make an expression so dreamy that I’m practically able to see her imagination at work.
I cross my leg and lean back, threading my fingers behind my neck as I spin slowly in the chair.
“Where do you think Green Town would be?” I muse. I try to appear as relaxed as her. The difference between us is I’m completely faking it.
“Definitely south of the city. Way south. Somewhere with lots of woods, and really old homes and narrow streets.” I can tell by the wondering way she describes her version of a Ray Bradbury setting that she’s a legitimate fan and I grin at the ceiling, nerding out.
“You know, he based Green Town on his hometown, which is north and closer to Chicago,” I say, showing off my trivia knowledge. I drop my chin and meet her waiting steely eyes that pin me and cause me to shift and look at her sideways with caution.
“Yeah, well he was wrong. That’s not how it looks in my head. It looks like woods, and big trees and lots of fog. A suburb, ya know?”
She isn’t wrong. That’s exactly how I imagine it, too.
“Yeah,” I muse, leaning back again, and dropping both feet to the floor as I stretch my body in the chair. “You’re right.”
“Can I have your phone? Just for a sec.” She holds both palms out toward me when I lower my chin to look at her.
“Uh, okay?” I lean to one side and pull my phone from my front pocket and toss it on the bed in front of her. If she asked for my wallet next, I’d probably give her that too. And then my keys, and then she may as well steal my identity.
“Passcode?” She’s cradling my phone, thumbs poised to type as I spill out the numbers for my birth date. She must realize it because she laughs and whispers, “Cute” as she unlocks my phone. She could be doing anything right now, and I’m letting her. Of course I am.
After a few seconds of typing she sets the lock screen back on my phone and holds it out for me to take. I give her a squinting stare as I take back my phone, curious what that was all about. Before I can ask, the sound of my bed springs squeaking with her movement draws my focus back to her, and I completely forget about my phone.
“We should really make this trip, Jonah.” She’s shifted to lay sideways on my bed, her comfort growing as evidenced by my pillow she stuffed under the crook of her neck.
I swallow down the instant lump in my throat and croak out, “Yeah?”
“For sure. I mean, not to Green Town; it’s not real. But to the Blue Ridge Mountains, like you said? I looked at pictures online after you mentioned it, and it looks beautiful. I bet you can actually breathe there. Gah! What I wouldn’t give to just . . . breathe.” She rolls to her back, letting her arms flop out at her sides so she covers the expanse of my mattress.
My throat lump is back. It came back fast, and this time it’s a little too big to swallow.
“You need water?” I rise but one of the buttons on my shirt snags on a wooden groove
from my desk, jerking my shirt and my entire left shoulder down as I stand. I cough out as it chokes me and Eleanor smiles out a soft laugh at my performance. I do my best to regain some balance as I move to my door, hoping like hell my suddenly numb legs don’t drop me to my knees in front of her.
“I’m good. Thanks, though,” she says, her head falling to the side, flat on my bed . . . where I sleep. Her eyes land on me as she tugs on the bands around her hair, and I excuse myself before I see her waves and curls spread out on my blanket.
My feet hit the stairs and only pick up speed with each step until I sound like a cattle stampede heading for my Grandpa. He’s settled into his daily paper read at the kitchen table, but thanks to my crash-bang entry, he flattens the paper to the table and meets me with wide eyes and his thick eyebrows pushed up to where his hair probably should be, when he had more of it.
His mouth closes into a wry smile as I pass him by and head straight to the cabinet for a glass. I’m gulping down water a second later.
“What the ever-loving hell, Jonah. Please say you aren’t running away from a bug or a spider. That’s not going to impress the girl.”
I refill my glass for one more round before turning to face him. I’ve never really had anyone to talk to about these kinds of things. Jake listens in his own way, but he doesn’t get what it’s like to be me. If he had a girl he was into on his bed, he’d be next to her in seconds, probably seducing her a minute later. But this is Eleanor, and she’s special beyond words. She’s also not in the kind of place emotionally for anyone to be making moves or whatever.
I lick the moisture from my lips while I think, eventually setting my glass on the table and taking the chair next to my grandpa.
“What do I do?” I stare at him with the most serious expression I can muster, eyebrows up a tick and mouth pulled in tight. He studies me for a few seconds, squinting, and I make sure he knows that I need real advice. “I mean it. You know that Eleanor has always been the girl. But this is not how I wanted to really get to know her. Nothing is normal about any of this, and I am probably just a convenient friend for her right now. But she’s also Eleanor, and honestly . . .”