Authors: Rainbow Rowell
think of how to stop her.
‘I don’t know who’s been
writing on my books,’ she said
coolly. ‘But I think we just solved
the mystery of why Tina hates me
so much.’
‘Eleanor …’
‘No,’ she said, her voice
catching. ‘I don’t want to talk
anymore.’
She walked out of the kitchen,
just as Park’s mom was coming in
from garage. His mom looked at
Park with a face he was beginning
to recognize.
What do you see in
this weird white girl?
Park
That night, Park lay in bed
thinking about Eleanor thinking
about him, writing his name on
her book.
She’d
probably
already
scribbled that out, too.
He tried to think about why
he’d defended Tina.
Why did it matter to him
whether Tina was good or bad?
Eleanor was right, he and Tina
weren’t friends. They weren’t
anything like friends. They hadn’t
even been friends in the sixth
grade.
Tina had asked Park to go
with her, and Park had said yes –
because everybody knew that Tina
was the most popular girl in class.
Going with Tina was such
powerful social currency, Park
was still spending it.
Being Tina’s first boyfriend
kept Park out of the lowest
neighborhood caste. Even though
they all thought Park was weird
and yellow, even though he had
never fit in … They couldn’t call
him a freak or a chink or a fag
because – well
first
, because his
dad was a giant and a veteran and
from the neighborhood. But
second, because what would that
say about Tina?
And Tina had never turned on
Park or pretended he didn’t
happen. In fact … Well. There
were times when he thought she
wanted something to happen
between them again.
Like, a few times, she’d come
over to Park’s house on the wrong
day for her hair appointment –
and ended up in Park’s room,
trying to find something for them
to talk about.
On homecoming night, when
she came over to have her hair put
up, she’d stopped in Park’s room
to ask what he thought of her
strapless blue dress. She’d had
him untangle her necklace from
the hair at the back of her neck.
Park
always
let
these
opportunities pass like he didn’t
see them.
Steve would kill him if he
hooked up with Tina.
Plus, Park didn’t want to hook
up with Tina. They didn’t have
anything in common – like,
nothing
– and it wasn’t the kind
of nothing that can be exotic and
exciting. It was just boring.
He didn’t even think Tina
really liked him, deep down. It
was more like she didn’t want him
to get over her. And not-so-deep
down, Park didn’t want Tina to
get over him.
It was nice to have the most
popular girl in the neighborhood
offering herself to him every now
and then.
Park rolled onto his stomach
and pushed his face into his
pillow. He’d thought he was over
caring what people thought about
him. He’d thought that loving
Eleanor proved that.
But he kept finding new
pockets of shallow inside himself.
He kept finding new ways to
betray her.
CHAPTER 31
Eleanor
There was just one more day of
school left before Christmas
vacation. Eleanor didn’t go. She
told her mother she was sick.
Park
When he got to the bus stop
Friday morning, Park was ready to
apologize. But Eleanor didn’t
show up. Which made him feel a
lot less like apologizing …
‘What now?’ he said in the
direction of her house. Were they
supposed to break up over this?
Was she going to go three weeks
without talking to him?
He knew it wasn’t Eleanor’s
fault that she didn’t have a phone,
and that her house was the
Fortress of Solitude, but … Jesus.
It made it so easy for her to cut
herself off whenever she felt like
it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at her
house, too loudly. A dog started
barking in the yard next to him.
‘Sorry,’ Park muttered to the dog.
The bus turned the corner and
heaved to a stop. Park could see
Tina
in
the
back
window,
watching him.
I’m sorry
, he thought, not
looking back again.
Eleanor
With Richie at work all day, she
didn’t have to stay in her room,
but she did anyway. Like a dog
who won’t leave its kennel.
She ran out of batteries. She
ran out of things to read …
She lay in bed so much, she
actually felt dizzy when she got up
Sunday afternoon to eat dinner.
(Her mom said Eleanor had to
come out of her crypt if she was
hungry.) Eleanor sat on the living
room floor next to Mouse.
‘Why are you crying?’ he
asked. He was holding a bean
burrito and it was dripping onto
his T-shirt and the floor.
‘I’m not,’ she said.
Mouse held the burrito over
his head and tried to catch the leak
with his mouth. ‘Yeh oo are.’
Maisie looked up at Eleanor,
then back at the TV.
‘Is it because you hate Dad?’
Mouse asked.
‘Yes,’ Eleanor said.
‘
Eleanor
,’ her mother said,
walking out of the kitchen.
‘No,’ Eleanor said to Mouse,
shaking her head. ‘I told you, I’m
not crying.’ She went back to her
room and climbed into bed,
rubbing her face in the pillow.
Nobody followed her to see
what was wrong.
Maybe her mom realized that
she’d pretty much forfeited the
right to ask questions for all
eternity when she dumped Eleanor
at somebody’s house for a year.
Or maybe just she didn’t care.
Eleanor rolled onto her back
and picked up her dead Walkman.
She took out the tape and held it
up to the light, turning the reels
with her fingertip and looking at
Park’s handwriting on the label.
‘Never mind the Sex Pistols …
Songs Eleanor might like.’
Park thought she’d written
those awful things on her books
herself.
And he’d taken Tina’s side
against hers.
Tina
’s.
She closed her eyes again and
remembered the first time that he
kissed her … How she’d let her
neck bend back, how she’d
opened her mouth. How she’d
believed him when he said she
was special.
Park
A week into break, his dad asked
Park if he and Eleanor had broken
up.
‘Sort of,’ Park said.
‘That’s too bad,’ his dad said.
‘It is?’
‘Well, it must be. You’re
acting like a four-year-old lost at
Kmart …
Park sighed.
‘Can’t you get her back?’ his
dad asked
‘I can’t even get her to talk to
me.’
‘It’s too bad you can’t talk to
your mother about this. The only
way I know how to land a girl is
to look sharp in a uniform.’
Eleanor
A week into break, Eleanor’s
mom woke her up before sunrise.
‘Do you want to walk to the store
with me?’
‘No,’ Eleanor said.
‘Come on, I could use the
extra hands.’
Her mom walked fast, and she
had long legs. Eleanor had to take
extra steps just to keep up. ‘It’s
cold,’ she said.
‘I told you to wear a hat.’ Her
mom had told her to wear socks,
too, but they looked ridiculous
with Eleanor’s Vans.
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