Authors: Rainbow Rowell
‘I’m sorry I look so stupid
today,’ she said.
‘You look like you always do,’
he said. Her bag was hanging at
the end of her arm. He tried to
take it, but she pulled away.
‘I always look stupid?’
‘That’s not what I meant …’
‘It’s what you said,’ she
muttered.
He wanted to ask her not to be
mad right now. Like, anytime but
now. She could be mad at him for
no reason all day tomorrow, if she
wanted to.
‘You really know how to
make a girl feel special,’ Eleanor
said.
‘I’ve never pretended to know
anything
about
girls,’
he
answered.
‘That’s not what I heard,’ she
said. ‘I heard you were allowed to
have girl-
zzz
in your room …’
‘They were there,’ he said,
‘but I didn’t learn anything.’
They both stopped on his
porch. He took her bag from her
and tried not to look nervous.
Eleanor was looking down the
walk, like she might bolt.
‘I meant that you don’t look
any different than you usually
look,’ he said softly, just in case
his mom was standing on the
other side of the door. ‘And you
always look nice.’
‘I never look nice,’ she said.
Like he was an idiot.
‘I like the way you look,’ he
said. It came out more like an
argument than a compliment.
‘That doesn’t mean it’s nice.’
She was whispering, too.
‘Fine then, you look like a
hobo.’
‘A hobo?’ Her eyes lit.
‘Yeah, a gypsy hobo,’ he said.
‘You look like you just joined the
cast of
Godspell
.’
‘I don’t even know what that
is.’
‘It’s terrible.’
She stepped closer to him. ‘I
look like a hobo?’
‘Worse,’ he said. ‘Like a sad
hobo clown.’
‘And you like it?’
‘I love it.’
As soon as he said it, she
broke into a smile. And when
Eleanor smiled, something broke
inside of him.
Something always did.
Eleanor
It was probably a good thing that
Park’s mom opened the door
when she did because Eleanor was
thinking about kissing him, and
no way was that a good idea –
Eleanor didn’t know the first thing
about kissing.
Of course, she’d watched a
million kisses on TV (thank you,
Fonzie), but TV never showed
you the mechanics of it. If Eleanor
tried to kiss Park, it would be like
a real-life version of some little
girl making her Barbie kiss Ken.
Just smashing their faces together.
Besides, if Park’s mom had
opened the door right in the
middle of a big, awkward kiss,
she’d hate Eleanor even more.
Park’s mom
did
hate her, you
could tell. Or maybe she just hated
t h e
idea
of Eleanor, of a girl
seducing her firstborn son right in
her own living room.
Eleanor followed Park in and
sat down. She tried to look extra
polite. When his mom offered
them a snack, Eleanor said, ‘That
would be great, thank you.’ His
mom was looking at Eleanor like
she was something somebody had
spilled on the baby-blue couch.
She brought out cookies, then left
them alone.
Park
seemed
so
happy.
Eleanor tried to concentrate on
how nice it was to be with him –
but it was taking too much of her
concentration, just keeping herself
together.
It was the little things about
Park’s house that really freaked
her out. Like all the glass grapes
hanging from everything. And the
curtains that matched the sofa that
matched the little doily-napkins
under the lamps.
You’d think that nobody
interesting could grow up in a
house as nice and boring as this
one – but Park was the smartest,
funniest guy she’d ever met, and
this was his home planet.
Eleanor
wanted
to
feel
superior to Park’s mom and her
Avon-lady house. But, instead,
she kept thinking about how nice
it must be to live in a house like
this one. With your own room.
And your own parents. And six
different kinds of cookies in the
cupboard.
Park
Eleanor was right. She never
looked nice. She looked like art,
and art wasn’t supposed to look
nice; it was supposed to make you
feel something.
Eleanor sitting next to him on
the couch made Park feel like
someone had opened a window in
the middle of the room. Like
someone had replaced all the air in
the room with brand new,
improved air (now with twice the
freshness).
Eleanor made him feel like
something was happening. Even
when they were just sitting on the
couch.
She wouldn’t let him hold her
hand, not in his house, and she
wouldn’t stay for dinner. But she
agreed to come back tomorrow –
if his parents said it was okay,
which they did.
His mom was being perfectly
nice so far. She wasn’t turning on
the charm, like she did for her
clients and the neighbors, but she
wasn’t being rude either. And if
she wanted to hide in the kitchen
every time Eleanor came over,
Park thought, that was her
prerogative.
Eleanor came over again on
Thursday afternoon and Friday.
And on Saturday, while they were
playing Nintendo with Josh, his
dad asked her to stay for dinner.
Park couldn’t believe it when
she said yes. His dad put the leaf
into the dining room table, and
Eleanor sat right next to Park. She
was nervous, he could tell. She
barely touched her sloppy joe, and
after a while her smile started to
go all grimacey around the edges.
After dinner, they all watched
Back to the Future
on HBO, and
his mom made popcorn. Eleanor
sat with Park on the floor, leaning
against the couch, and when he
surreptitiously took her hand, she
didn’t pull away. He rubbed the
inside of her palm because he
knew she liked it. It made her
eyelids dip like she was going to
fall asleep.
When the movie was over,
Park’s dad insisted that Park walk
Eleanor home.
‘Thanks for having me, Mr
Sheridan,’ she said. ‘And thank
you for dinner, Mrs Sheridan. It
was delicious, I had a great time.’
She didn’t even sound like she
was being sarcastic.
When they got to the door, she
called back, ‘Good night!’
Park closed the door behind
them. You could almost see all the
nervous niceness draining out of
Eleanor. He wanted to hug her, to
help wring it out.
‘You can’t walk me home,’
she said with her usual edge, ‘you
know that, right?’
‘I know. But I can walk you
partway.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s dark.
No one will see us.’
‘Okay,’ she said, but she put
her hands in her pockets. They
both walked slowly.
‘Your family is really great,’
she said after a minute. ‘Really.’
He took her arm. ‘Hey, I want
to show you something.’ He
pulled her into the next driveway,
between a pine tree and an RV.
‘Park, this is trespassing.’
‘It’s not. My grandparents live
here.’
‘What do you want to show
me?’
‘Nothing, really, I just want to
be alone with you for a minute.’
He pulled her to the back of
the driveway, where they were
almost completely hidden by a line
of trees and the RV and the
garage.
‘Seriously?’ she said. ‘That
was so lame.’
‘I know,’ he said, turning to
her. ‘Next time, I’ll just say,
“Eleanor, follow me down this
dark alley, I want to kiss you.”’
She didn’t roll her eyes. She
took a breath, then closed her
mouth. He was learning how to
catch her off guard.
She pushed her hands deeper
in her pockets, so he put his hands
on her elbows instead. ‘Next
time,’ he said, ‘I’ll just say,
“Eleanor, duck behind these
bushes with me, I’m going to lose
my mind if I don’t kiss you.”’
She didn’t move, so he
thought it was probably okay to
touch her face. Her skin was as
soft as it looked, white and
smooth as freckled porcelain.
‘I’ll just say, “Eleanor, follow
me down this rabbit hole …”’
He laid his thumb on her lips
to see if she’d pull away. She
didn’t. He leaned closer. He
wanted to close his eyes, but he
didn’t trust her not to leave him
standing there.
When his lips were almost
touching hers, she shook her
head. Her nose rubbed against his.
‘I’ve never done this before,’
she said.
‘S’okay,’ he said.
‘It’s not, it’s going to be
terrible.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not.’
She shook her head a little
more. Just a little. ‘You’re going
to regret this,’ she said.
That made him laugh, so he
had to wait a second before he
kissed her.
It wasn’t terrible. Eleanor’s
lips were soft and warm, and he
could feel her pulse in her cheek.
It was good that she was so
nervous – because it forced him
not to be. It steadied him to feel
her trembling.
He pulled away before he
wanted to. He hadn’t done this
enough to know how to breathe.
When he pulled away, her eyes
were
mostly
closed.
His
grandparents had a light on, on
their front porch, and Eleanor’s
face caught every bit of it. She
looked like she should be married
to the man in the moon.
Her face dropped after a
second, and he let his hand fall to
her shoulder.
‘Okay?’ he whispered.
She nodded. He pulled her
closer and kissed the top her head.
He tried to find her ear under all
that hair.
‘Come here,’ he said, ‘I want
to show you something.’
She laughed. He lifted her
chin.
The second time was even less
terrible.
Eleanor
They walked together from his
grandparents’ driveway to the
alley, then Park waited there in the
shadows and watched Eleanor
walk home alone.
She told herself not to look
back.
Richie was home, and everybody
except her mom was watching TV.
It wasn’t
that
late; Eleanor tried to
act like there was nothing strange
about her coming home in the
dark.
‘Where have you been?’
Richie said.
‘At a friend’s house.’
‘What friend?’
‘I told you, honey,’ her mom
said, stepping into the room,
drying a pan. ‘Eleanor has a
girlfriend in the neighborhood.
Lisa.’
‘Tina,’ Eleanor said.
‘Girlfriend, huh?’ Richie said.
‘Giving up on men already?’ He
thought that was pretty funny.
Eleanor went into the bedroom
and closed the door. She didn’t
turn on the light. She climbed into
bed in her street clothes, opened
the curtains and wiped the
condensation off the window. She
couldn’t see the alley or anything
moving outside.
The window fogged over
again. Eleanor closed her eyes and
laid her forehead against the glass.
CHAPTER 29
Eleanor
When she saw Park standing at the
bus stop on Monday morning, she
started
giggling.
Seriously,
giggling like a cartoon character
… when their cheeks get all red,
and little hearts start popping out
of their ears …
It was ridiculous.
Park
When he saw Eleanor walking
toward him on Monday morning,
Park wanted to run to her and