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 Gill 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 it.’
‘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.
Her mom nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘then I won’t mention it. But if you change your mind
…’
‘I won’t,’ Eleanor said.
Her mom left the room, and Eleanor pretended to go back to sleep.
Park
He slept until noon on Christmas Day, until Josh came in and sprayed him with one of their mom’s salon water bottles.
‘Dad says that if you don’t get up, he’s going to let me have all your presents.’
Park beat Josh back with a pillow.
Everybody else was waiting for him, and the whole house smelled like turkey. His grandma wanted him to open her present first – a new
‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ T-shirt. A size bigger than last year’s, which meant it would be a size too big.
His parents gave him a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Drastic Plastic, the punk-rock record store downtown. (Park was surprised that they’d think of that. And he was surprised that DP sold gift certificates. Not very punk.) He also got two black sweaters he might actually wear, some Avon cologne in a bottle shaped like an electric guitar, and an empty key ring –
which his dad made sure everybody noticed.
Park’s sixteenth birthday had come and gone, and he didn’t even care anymore about getting his license and driving himself to school. He wasn’t going to give up his only guaranteed time with Eleanor.
She’d already told him that as awesome as last night was – and they both agreed it was awesome – she couldn’t risk sneaking out again.
‘Any one of my siblings could have woken up, they still could, and they would definitely tell on me. They have very confused allegiances.’
‘But if you’re quiet …’
That’s when she’d told him that, most nights, she shared a room with all of her brothers and sisters. All of them. A room about the size of his, she said, ‘minus the waterbed.’
They were sitting against the back door of the school, in a little alcove where no one would see them unless they were really looking, and where the snow didn’t fall directly on their faces. They sat next to each other, facing each other, holding hands.
There was nothing between them now. Nothing stupid and selfish just taking up space.
‘So you have two brothers and two sisters?’
‘Three brothers, one sister.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m just curious,’ he said. ‘Is it classified?’
She sighed. ‘Ben, Maisie …’
‘Maisie?’
‘Yeah. Then Mouse – Jeremiah. He’s five.
Then the baby. Little Richie.’
Park laughed. ‘You call him “Little Richie”?’
‘Well, his dad is Big Richie, not that he’s very big either …’
‘I know, but like Little Richard? “Tutti-Frutti”?’
‘Oh my God, I never thought of that. Why haven’t I ever thought of that?’
He pulled her hands to his chest. He still hadn’t managed to touch Eleanor anywhere below the chin or above the elbow. He didn’t think she’d necessarily stop him if he tried, but what if she did? That’d be awful. Anyway, her hands and her face were excellent.
‘Do you guys get along?’
‘Sometimes … They’re all crazy.’
‘How can a five-year-old be crazy?’
‘Oh my God, Mouse? He’s the craziest of them all. He’s always got a hammer or a jackrab-bit or something stuck in his back pocket, and he refuses to wear a shirt.’
Park laughed. ‘How is Maisie crazy?’
‘Well, she’s mean. For starters. And she fights like a street person. Like, take-off-your-earrings fights.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Eight. No, nine.’
‘What about Ben?’
‘Ben …’ She looked away. ‘You’ve seen Ben. He’s almost Josh’s age. He needs a haircut.’
‘Does Richie hate them, too?’
Eleanor pushed Park’s hands forward. ‘Why do you want to talk about this?’