It was a forty-minute walk.
When they got to the grocery store, her mom bought them each a day-old cream horn and a cup of twenty-five-cent coffee. Eleanor dumped Coffee-Mate and Sweet’N Low in hers, and followed her mom to the bargain bin. Her mom had this thing about being the first person to go through all the smashed cereal boxes and dented cans …
Afterward, they walked to the Goodwill, and Eleanor found a stack of old Analog magazines and settled in on the least disgusting couch in the furniture section.
When it was time to go, her mom came up from behind her with an incredibly ugly stocking cap and pulled it over her head.
‘Great,’ Eleanor said, ‘now I have lice.’
She felt better on the way home. (Which was probably the point of this whole field trip.) It was still cold, but the sun was shining, and her mom was humming that Joni Mitchell song about clouds and circuses.
Eleanor almost told her everything.
About Park and Tina and the bus and the fight, about the place between his grandparents’ house and the RV.
She felt it all right at the back of her throat, like a bomb – or a tiger – sitting on the base of her tongue. Keeping it in made her eyes water.
The plastic shopping bags were cutting into her palms. Eleanor shook her head and swallowed.
Park
Park rode his bike by her house over and over one day until her stepdad’s truck was gone and one of the other kids came outside to play in the snow.
It was the older boy, Park couldn’t remember his name. The kid scuttled up the steps nervously when Park stopped in front of the house.
‘Hey, wait,’ Park said, ‘please, hey … is your sister home?’
‘Maisie?’
‘No, Eleanor …’
‘I’m not telling you,’ the boy said, running into the house.
Park jerked his bike forward and pedaled away.
CHAPTER 32
Eleanor
The box of pineapple arrived on Christmas Eve. You’d have thought Santa Claus had shown up in person with a bag of toys for each of them.
Maisie and Ben were already fighting over the box. Maisie wanted it for her Barbies. Ben didn’t have anything to put in it, but Eleanor still hoped he’d win.
Ben had just turned twelve, and Richie said he was too old to share a room with girls and babies. Richie had brought home a mattress and put it in the basement, and now Ben had to sleep down there with the dog and Richie’s free weights.
In their old house, Ben wouldn’t even go down to the basement to put clothes in the wash – and that basement had at least been dry and mostly finished. Ben was scared of mice and bats and spiders and anything that started moving when the lights went out. Richie had already yelled at him, twice, for trying to sleep at the top of the stairs.
The pineapple came with a letter from their uncle and his wife. Eleanor’s mom read it first, and it made her get all teary. ‘Oh, Eleanor,’ she said excitedly, ‘Geoff wants you to come up for the summer. He says there’s a program at his university, a camp for gifted high school students …’
Before Eleanor could even think about what that meant – St Paul, a camp where nobody knew her, where nobody was Park – Richie was shooting it down.
‘You can’t send her up to Minnesota by herself.’
‘My brother’s there.’
‘What does he know about teenage girls?’
‘You know I lived with him in high school.’
‘Yeah, and he let you get pregnant …’
Ben was lying solidly on top of the pineapple box, and Maisie was kicking him in the back. They were both shouting.
‘It’s just a fucking box,’ Richie yelled. ‘If I knew that you wanted boxes for Christmas, I would have saved myself some money.’
That silenced everyone. Nobody had expected Richie to buy Christmas presents. ‘I should make you wait until Christmas morning,’ he said, ‘but I’m sick of watching this.’
He put his cigarette in his mouth and put his boots on. They heard the truck door open, and then Richie was back with a big ShopKo bag. He started throwing boxes onto the floor.
‘Mouse,’ he said. A remote-control monster truck.
‘Ben.’ A big racetrack.
‘Maisie … cause you like to sing.’ Richie pulled out a keyboard, an actual electronic keyboard. It was probably some off-brand, but still. He didn’t drop it on the floor. He handed it to Maisie.
‘And Little Richie … where’s Little Richie?’
‘He’s taking a nap,’ their mom said.
Richie shrugged and threw a teddy bear onto the floor. The bag was empty, and Eleanor felt cold with relief.
Then Richie took out his wallet and pulled out a bill.
‘Here, Eleanor, come get it. Buy yourself some normal clothes.’
She looked at her mother, standing blank-faced in the kitchen doorway, then walked over to take the money. It was a fifty.
‘Thank you.’ Eleanor said it as flatly as possible. Then she went to sit on the couch. The little kids were all opening their presents.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Mouse kept saying. ‘Oh man, thanks, Dad!’
‘Yeah,’ Richie said, ‘you’re welcome. You’re welcome. That’s a real Christmas.’
Richie stayed home all day to watch the little kids play with their toys. Maybe the Broken Rail wasn’t open on Christmas Eve. Eleanor went to her bedroom to get away from him. (And to get away from Maisie’s new keyboard.)
She was tired of missing Park. She just wanted to see him. Even if he did think she was a perverted psychopath who wrote herself badly punctuated threats. Even if he had spent his formative years tongue-kissing Tina. None of it was vile enough to make Eleanor stop wanting him. (How vile would that have to be? she wondered.)
Maybe she should just go over to his house right now and pretend that nothing had happened. Maybe she would, if it wasn’t Christmas Eve. Why didn’t Jesus ever work with her?
Later, her mom came in to say they were going to the store to buy groceries for Christmas dinner.
‘I’ll come out and watch the kids,’ Eleanor said.
‘Richie wants us all to go,’ her mom said, smiling, ‘as a family.’
‘But, Mom …’
‘None of this, Eleanor,’ she said softly, ‘we’re having a good day.’
‘Mom, come on – he’s been drinking all day.’
Her mom shook her head. ‘Richie’s fine, he never has a problem with driving.’
‘I don’t think the fact that he drinks and drives all the time is a very good argument.’
‘You just can’t stand this, can you?’ her mom said quietly, angrily, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind her.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know that you’re going through …’ She looked at Eleanor, then shook her head again. ‘Something. But everyone else in this house is having a great day. Everyone else in this house deserves a great day.
‘We’re a family, Eleanor. All of us. Richie, too. And I’m sorry that makes you so unhappy. I’m sorry that things aren’t perfect here all the time for you … But this is our life now. You can’t keep throwing tantrums about it, you can’t keep trying to undermine this family – I won’t let you.’
Eleanor clenched her jaw.
‘I have to think of everyone,’ her mom said. ‘Do you understand? I have to think of myself. In a few years, you’ll be on your own, but Richie is my husband.’
She almost sounded sane, Eleanor thought. If you didn’t know that she was acting rational on the far side of crazy.
‘Get up,’ her mother said, ‘and put on your coat.’
Eleanor put on her coat and her new hat and followed her brothers and sisters into the back of the Isuzu.
When they got to Food 4 Less, Richie waited in the truck while everybody else went in. As soon as they were inside, Eleanor put the wadded-up fifty in her mother’s hand.
Her mother didn’t thank her.
Park
They were shopping for Christmas dinner, and it was taking forever because it always made Park’s mom nervous to cook for his grandmother.
‘What kind of stuffing Grandma like?’ his mom asked.
‘Pepperidge Farm,’ Park said, standing on the back of the cart and popping a wheelie.
‘Pepperidge Farm original? Or Pepperidge Farm cornbread?’
‘I don’t know, original.’
‘If you don’t know, don’t tell me … Look,’ she said, looking over his shoulder. ‘There’s your Eleanor.’
El-la-no.
Park whipped around and saw Eleanor standing by the meat case with all four of her red-headed brothers and sisters. (Except none of them had red hair standing next to Eleanor. Nobody did.)
A woman walked up to the cart and set down a turkey.
That must be Eleanor’s mom, Park thought, she looked just like her. But sharper and with more shadows. Like Eleanor, but taller. Like Eleanor, but tired. Like Eleanor, after the fall.
Park’s mom was staring at them, too.
‘Mom, come on,’ Park whispered.
‘Aren’t you going to say hi?’ she asked.
Park shook his head, but didn’t turn away. He didn’t think Eleanor would want him to, and even if she did, he didn’t want to get her in trouble. What if her stepdad was here, too?
Eleanor looked different, drabber than usual. There was nothing hanging from her hair or magpie-tied to her wrists …
She still looked beautiful. His eyes missed her as much as the rest of him. He wanted to run to her and tell her – tell her how sorry he was and how much he needed her.
She didn’t see him.
‘Mom,’ he whispered again, ‘come on.’
Park thought his mom might say something more about it in the car, but she was quiet. When they got home, she said she was tired. She asked Park to bring in the groceries, then she spent the rest of the afternoon in her room with the door closed.
His dad went in to check on her at dinner time, and an hour later, when they both came out, his dad said they were going to Pizza Hut for dinner. ‘On Christmas Eve?’ Josh said. They always had waffles and watched movies on Christmas Eve. They’d already rented Billy Jack. ‘Get in the car,’ his dad said. Park’s mom’s eyes were red, and she didn’t bother reapplying her eye makeup before they left.
When they got home, Park went straight to his room. He just wanted to be alone to think about seeing Eleanor – but his mom came in a few minutes later. She sat on his bed without making a single wave.
She held out a Christmas present. ‘This … is for your Eleanor,’ she said. ‘From me.’
Park looked at the gift. He took it, but shook his head.
‘I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to give it to her.’
‘Your Eleanor,’ she said, ‘she come from big family.’
Park shook the present gently.
‘I come from big family,’ his mom said. ‘Three little sisters. Three little brothers.’ She held out her hand, as if she were patting six heads.
She’d had a wine cooler with dinner, and you could tell. She almost never talked about Korea.
‘What were their names?’ Park asked.
His mom’s hand settled gently in her lap.
‘In big family,’ she said, ‘everything … everybody spread so thin. Thin like paper, you know?’ She made a tearing gesture. ‘You know?’
Maybe two wine coolers.
‘I’m not sure,’ Park said.
‘Nobody gets enough,’ she said. ‘Nobody gets what they need. When you always hungry, you get hungry in your head.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘You know?’
Park wasn’t sure what to say.
‘You don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t want you to know … I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry for how I welcomed your Eleanor.’
‘Mom, it’s okay. This isn’t your fault.’
‘I don’t think I say this right …’
‘It’s okay, Mindy,’ Park’s dad said softly from the doorway. ‘Come to bed, honey.’ He walked over to the bed and helped Park’s mom up, then stood with his arm wrapped protectively around her. ‘Your mom just wants you to be happy,’ he said to Park. ‘Don’t puss out on our account.’
His mother frowned, like she wasn’t sure whether that counted as a dirty word.
Park waited until the TV was off in his parents’ room. Then he waited a half-hour after that. Then he grabbed his coat and slipped out the back door, on the far side of the house.
He ran until he got to the end of the alley.
Eleanor was so close.
Her stepdad’s truck was in the driveway. Maybe that was good; Park wouldn’t want him coming home while Park was standing there on the front porch. All the lights were off, as far as Park could tell, and there was no sign of the dog …
He climbed the steps as quietly as possible.
He knew which room was Eleanor’s. She’d told him once that she slept by the window, and he knew she had the top bunk. He stood to the side of the window, so he wouldn’t cast a shadow. He was going to tap softly, and if anyone but Eleanor looked out, he was going to run for his life.
Park tapped the top of the glass. Nothing happened. The curtain, or the sheet or whatever it was, didn’t move.
She was probably sleeping. He tapped a little harder and got ready to run. The side of the sheet opened just a sliver, but he couldn’t see in.
Should he run? Should he hide?
He stepped in front of the window. The sheet opened wider. He could see Eleanor’s face, she looked terrified.
‘Go,’ she mouthed.
He shook his head.
‘Go,’ she mouthed again. Then she pointed away. ‘School,’ she said. At least that’s what he thought she said. Park ran away.
Eleanor
All Eleanor could think was that if somebody were breaking in through this window, how was she supposed to escape and call 911?
Not that the police would even come after last time. But at least she could wake that bastard Gil up and eat his goddamn brownies.
Park was the last person she expected to see standing there.
Her heart leapt out to him before she could stop it. He was going to get them both killed. Shots had been fired for less.
As soon as he disappeared from the window, she slipped off the bed like that stupid cat and put her bra and shoes on in the dark. She was wearing a great big T-shirt and a pair of her dad’s old flannel pajama pants. Her coat was in the living room, so she put on a sweater.
Maisie had fallen asleep watching TV, so it was relatively easy to climb over her empty bed and out the window.
He’ll kick me out for real this time, Eleanor thought, tiptoeing across the porch. That would be his best Christmas ever.
Park was waiting on the school steps. Where they’d sat and read Watchmen. As soon as he saw her, he stood up and ran to her. Like, actually ran.
He ran to her – and took her face in both of his hands. And then he was kissing her before she could say no. And she was kissing him back before she could remind herself that she wasn’t ever going to kiss anybody again, especially not him, because look how miserable it had made her.
She was crying, and so was Park. When she put her hands on his cheeks, they were wet.
And warm. He was so warm.
She bent her neck back and kissed him like she never had before. Like she wasn’t scared of doing it wrong.
He pulled away to say he was sorry, and she shook her head no, because even though she really did want him to be sorry, she wanted to kiss him more.
‘I’m sorry, Eleanor.’ He held her face against his. ‘I was wrong about everything. Everything.’
‘I’m sorry, too,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For acting mad at you all the time.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘sometimes I like i
t.’
‘But not always.’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t even know why I do it,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’m not sorry about getting mad about Tina.’
He pressed his forehead against hers until it hurt. ‘Don’t even say her name,’ he said. ‘She’s nothing and you’re … everything. You’re everything, Eleanor.’
He kissed her again, and she opened her mouth.
They stayed outside until Park couldn’t rub any warmth back into her hands. Until her lips were numb from cold and kissing.
He wanted to walk her back home, but she told him that would be suicidal.
‘Come see me tomorrow,’ he said.
‘I can’t, it’s Christmas.’
‘The next day, then.’
‘The next day,’ she said.
‘And the day after that.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t think your mom would like that. I don’t think she likes me.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Come.’
Eleanor was climbing the front steps when she heard him whispering her name. She turned back, but she couldn’t see him in the shadows.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
She smiled, but didn’t answer.
CHAPTER 33
Eleanor
Eleanor slept until noon on Christmas Day. Until her mom finally came in and told her to wake up.
‘Are you okay?’ her mom asked.
‘I’m asleep.’
‘You look like you’re getting a cold.’
‘Does that mean I can go back to sleep?’
‘I guess so. Look, Eleanor …’ her mother stepped away from the door, and her voice dropped. ‘I’m going to talk to Richie about this summer. I think I can get him to change his mind about that camp.’
Eleanor opened her eyes. ‘No. No, I don’t want to go.’
‘But I thought you’d jump at the chance to get out of here.’
‘No,’ Eleanor said, ‘I don’t want to have to leave everybody … again.’ Saying it made her feel like one hundred percent jerk, but she’d say anything to spend the summer with Park. (And she wasn’t even going to tell herself that he’d probably be sick of her by then.) ‘I want to stay home,’ she said.
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