‘Mom …’ Park said painfully, but he didn’t move.
His mom sat so that Eleanor could see, then deftly drew a line along Park’s eyelashes.
‘Open.’ He did. ‘Nice … close.’ She did the other eye, too. Then she added another line under his eye and licked her thumb to wipe away a smudge. ‘There, nice.’
‘See?’ she said, sitting back so that Eleanor could see. ‘Easy. Pretty.’
Park didn’t look pretty. He looked dangerous.
Like Ming the Merciless. Or a member of Duran Duran.
‘You look like Robert Smith,’ Eleanor said.
But … yeah, she thought, prettier.
He looked down. Eleanor couldn’t look away.
His mom swooped in between them. ‘Okay, now close eyes,’ she said to Eleanor. ‘Open. Nice
… Close again …’ It felt exactly like having someone draw on your eye with a pencil. Then it was over, and Park’s mom was rubbing something cold on Eleanor’s cheeks.
‘This very easy routine,’ his mom said.
‘Foundation, powder, eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, lip liner, lipstick, blush. Eight steps, take you fifteen minutes tops.’
Park’s mom was very businesslike, like someone with a cooking show on PBS. Pretty soon she was unwrapping Eleanor’s hair and standing behind her.
Eleanor wanted to look at Park again, now that she could, but she didn’t want him looking back. Her face felt so heavy and sticky, she probably looked like one of the Designing Women.
Park scooted his chair closer to hers and started bouncing his fist on her knee. It took Eleanor a second to realize he was challenging her to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
She played along. God. Any excuse to touch him. Any excuse not to look at him directly. He’d rubbed his eyes, so he didn’t look painted anymore – but he still looked like something Eleanor didn’t have words for.
‘That’s how Park keep little kids busy during haircuts,’ his mom said. ‘You must look scared, Eleanor. Don’t worry. I promise no cutting.’
Eleanor and Park both made scissors.
His mom rubbed half a can of mousse into her hair, then blew it dry with a diffuser (which Eleanor had never heard of before but was apparently very, very important).
According to Park’s mom, everything Eleanor was doing with her hair – washing it with whatever, brushing it, tying in beads and silk flowers – was dead wrong.
She should be diffusing and scrunching and, if possible, sleeping on a satin pillowcase.
‘I think you look really good with bangs,’ his mom said. ‘Maybe next time, we try bangs.’
There will never be a next time, Eleanor promised herself and God.
‘Okay, all done.’ Park’s mom was all smiles.
‘Look so pretty … Ready to see?’ She turned Eleanor around to the mirror. ‘Ta-daa!’
Eleanor looked at her own lap.
‘Have to look, Eleanor. Look, mirror, so pretty.’
Eleanor couldn’t. She could feel them both watching her. She wanted to disappear, to drop through a trap door. This whole thing was a bad idea. A terrible idea. She was going to cry, she was going to make a scene. Park’s mom was going to go back to hating her.
‘Hey, Mindy.’ Park’s dad opened the door and leaned into the garage. ‘Phone call. Oh, hey, look at you, Eleanor, you look like a Solid Gold dancer.’
‘See?’ his mom said, ‘I told you – pretty.
Don’t look in mirror until I come back. Looking in mirror best part.’
She hurried into the house, and Eleanor hid her face in her hands, trying not to mess anything up. She felt Park’s hands on her wrists.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I guess I knew you’d hate this, but I didn’t think you’d hate it this much.’
‘It’s just so embarrassing.’
‘Why?’
‘Because … you’re all looking at me.’
‘I’m always looking at you,’ he said.
‘I know, I wish you’d stop.’
‘She’s just trying to get to know you. This is her thing.’
‘Do I look like a Solid Gold dancer?’
‘No …’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘I do.’
‘No, you look … just look.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Look now,’ he said, ‘before my mom gets back.’
‘Only if you close your eyes.’
‘Okay, they’re closed.’
Eleanor uncovered her face and looked in the mirror. It wasn’t as embarrassing as she thought
– because it was like looking at a different person. Someone with cheekbones and giant eyes and really wet lips. Her hair was still curly, curli-er than ever, but calmer somehow. Less deranged.
Eleanor hated it, she hated all of it.
‘Can I open my eyes?’ Park asked.
‘No.’
‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’ Of course she was. She was going to ruin her fake face, and Park’s mom was going to go back to hating her.
Park opened his eyes and sat in front of Eleanor on the vanity. ‘Is it so bad?’ he asked.
‘It’s not me.’
‘Of course it’s you.’
‘I just, I look like I’m in costume. Like I’m trying to be something that I’m not.’
Like she was trying to be pretty and popular.
It was the trying part that was so disgusting.
‘I think your hair looks really nice,’ Park said.
‘It’s not my hair.’
‘It is …’
‘I don’t want your mom to see me like this. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.’
‘Kiss me.’
‘What?’
He kissed her. Eleanor felt her shoulders fall and her stomach untwist. Then it started twisting in the other direction. She pulled away.
‘Are you kissing me because I look like someone else?’
‘You don’t look like someone else. Plus, that’s crazy.’
‘Do you like me better like this?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m never going to look like this again.’
‘I like you the same … I kind of miss your freckles.’ He rubbed her cheeks with his sleeve.
‘There,’ he said.
‘ You look like a different person,’ she said,
‘and you’re just wearing eyeliner.’
‘Do you like me better?’
She rolled her eyes, but she felt the heat in her neck. ‘You look different. You look unsettling.’
‘You look like you,’ he said. ‘You with the volume turned up.’
She looked in the mirror again.
‘The thing is,’ Park said. ‘I’m pretty sure my mom was holding back. I think she thinks this is the natural look.’
Eleanor laughed. The door to the house opened.
‘Awww, I told you guys to wait,’ his mom said. ‘Were you surprised?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘Did you cry? Oh, I miss it!’
‘Sorry if I messed it up,’ Eleanor said.
‘No mess,’ his mom said, ‘waterproof mascara and stay-put foundation.’
‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said carefully. ‘I could hardly believe the difference.’
‘I’ll make you a kit,’ his mom said. ‘These all colors I never use anyway. Here, sit down, Park.
I trim your hair while we here. Looking shaggy
…’
Eleanor sat in front of him and played Rock, Paper, Scissors on his knee.
Park
She looked like a different person, and Park didn’t know if he liked it better. Or at all.
He couldn’t figure out why it upset her so much. Sometimes, it seemed like she was trying to hide everything that was pretty about her. Like she wanted to look ugly.
That was something his mother would say.
Which is why he hadn’t said it to Eleanor. (Did that count as holding back?)
He got why Eleanor tried so hard to look different. Sort of. It was because she was different –
because she wasn’t afraid to be. (Or maybe she was just more afraid of being like everyone else.) There was something really exciting about that. He liked being near that, that kind of brave and crazy.
‘Unsettling, how?’ he’d wanted to ask her.
The next morning, Park took the onyx eyeliner into the bathroom and put it on. He was messier than his mom, but he thought that might look better. More masculine.
He looked in the mirror. ‘This really make your eyes pop,’ his mom always told her custom-ers, and it was true. The eyeliner did make his eyes pop. It also made him look even less white.
Then Park did his hair like he usually did –
flared up in the middle, all messy and tall, like it was reaching for something. Usually, as soon as he did that, Park combed his hair out and down again.
Today he left it wild.
His dad flipped at breakfast. Flipped. Park tried to sneak out without seeing him, but his mom was non-negotiable about breakfast. Park hung his head over the cereal bowl.
‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ his dad asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Wait a minute, look at me … I said look at me.’
Park lifted his head, but looked away.
‘What the fuck, Park?’
‘Jamie!’ his mother said.
‘Look at him, Mindy, he’s wearing makeup!
Are you f**king kidding me, Park?’
‘No excuse to cuss,’ his mom said. She looked nervously at Park, like maybe this was her fault. Maybe it was. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried out lipstick samples on him when he was in kindergarten. Not that he wanted to wear lipstick
…
Probably.
‘Like hell it isn’t,’ his dad roared. ‘Go wash your face, Park.’
Park stayed where he was.
‘Go wash your face. Park.’
Park took a bite of cereal.
‘Jamie …’ his mom said.
‘No, Mindy. No. I let these boys do pretty much anything they damn well please. But, no.
Park is not leaving this house looking like a girl.’
‘Plenty of guys wear makeup,’ Park said.
‘What? What are you even talking about?’
‘David Bowie,’ Park said. ‘Marc Bolan.’
‘I’m not listening to this. Wash your face.’
‘Why?’ Park pushed his fists into the table.
‘Because I said so. Because you look like a girl.’
‘So what else is new?’ Park shoved his cereal bowl away.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, what else is new? Isn’t that what you think?’
Park felt tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t want to touch his eyes.
‘Go to school, Park,’ his mom said softly.
‘You miss your bus.’
‘Mindy …’ his dad said, just barely restrain-ing himself, ‘they’ll tear him apart.’
‘You tell me Park all grown up now, almost man, make own decisions. So let him make own decisions. Let him go.’
His dad didn’t say anything; he’d never raise his voice to Park’s mom. Park saw his opportunity and left.
He went to his own bus stop, not Eleanor’s. He wanted to deal with Steve before he saw her. If Steve was going to beat the shit out of him for this, Park would prefer that Eleanor not be in the audience.
But Steve hardly mentioned it.
‘Hey, Park, what the fuck, man, are you wearing makeup?’
‘Yeah,’ Park said, holding onto his backpack.
Everyone around Steve tittered, waiting to see what would happen next.
‘You kind of look like Ozzy, man,’ Steve said. ‘You look ready to bite the head off a f**king bat.’
Everybody laughed. Steve bared his teeth at Tina and growled, and then it was over.
When Eleanor got on the bus, she was in a good mood. ‘You’re here! I thought maybe you were sick when you weren’t at my corner.’ He looked up at her. She looked surprised, then sat down quietly and looked at her hands.
‘Do I look like one of the Solid Gold dancers?’ he asked finally, when he couldn’t take any more quiet.
‘No,’ she said, sidelong glancing, ‘you look
…’
‘Unsettling?’ he asked.
She laughed and nodded.
‘Unsettling, how?’ he asked her.
She kissed him with tongue. On the bus.
CHAPTER 36
Park
Park told Eleanor not to come over after school.
He figured he was grounded. He washed his face as soon as he got home and sent himself to his room.
His mom came in to check on him.
‘Am I grounded?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good day at school?’
Meaning, did anyone try to flush his face down the toilet?
‘It was fine,’ he said.
A couple of kids had called Park names in the halls, but it didn’t hurt like he thought it might.
Lots of other people said he looked cool.
His mom sat on his bed. She looked like she’d had a long day. You could see her lipliner.
She stared at a jumble of Star Wars action figures piled up on the shelf over his bed. He hadn’t touched them for years.
‘Park,’ she said, ‘do you … want to look like girl? Is that what this about? Eleanor dress like boy. You look like girl?’
‘No …’ Park said. ‘I just like it. I like the way it feels.’