Eleanor & Park Read online

His grandmother had filled the wall behind the TV with framed eight-by-ten photographs. There were pictures of his dad and his dad’s older brother who died in Vietnam, and pictures of Park and Josh from every school year. There was a smaller photo of his parents, on their wedding day. His dad was in his dress uniform, and his mom was wearing a pink miniskirt. Somebody had written ‘Seoul, 1970’ in the corner. His dad was twenty-three. His mom was eighteen, only two years older than Park.

  Everybody had thought she must be pregnant, his dad had told him. But she wasn’t. ‘Practically pregnant,’ his dad said, ‘but that’s a different thing … We were just in love.’

  Park hadn’t expected his mom to like Eleanor, not right away – but he hadn’t expected her to reject her, either. His mom was so nice to everybody. ‘Your mother’s an angel,’ his grandma always said. It’s what everyone always said.

  His grandparents sent him home after Hill Street Blues.

  His mom had gone to bed, but his dad was sitting on the couch, waiting for him. Park tried to walk past.

  ‘Sit down,’ his dad said.

  Park sat down.

  ‘You’re not grounded anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter why not. You’re not grounded, and your mother is sorry, you know, for everything she said.’

  ‘You’re just saying that,’ Park said.

  His dad sighed. ‘Well, maybe I am. But that doesn’t matter either. Your mother wants what’s best for you, right? Hasn’t she always wanted what’s best for you?’

  ‘I guess …’

  ‘So she’s just worried about you. She thinks she can help you pick out a girlfriend the same way she helps you pick out your classes and your clothes …’

  ‘She doesn’t pick out my clothes.’

  ‘Jesus, Park, could you just shut up and listen?’

  Park sat quietly in the blue easy chair.

  ‘This is new to us, you know? Your mother’s sorry. She’s sorry that she hurt your feelings, and she wants you to invite your girlfriend over to dinner.’

  ‘So that she can make her feel bad and weird?’

  ‘Well, she is kind of weird, isn’t she?’

  Park didn’t have the energy to be angry. He sighed and let his head fall back on the chair. His dad kept talking.

  ‘Isn’t that why you like her?’

  Park knew he should still be mad.

  He knew there were big chunks of this situation that were completely uncool and out of order.

  But he wasn’t grounded anymore, he was going to get to spend more time with Eleanor … Maybe they’d even find a way to be alone. Park couldn’t wait to tell her. He couldn’t wait for morning.

  CHAPTER 24

  Eleanor

  It was a terrible thing to admit. But sometimes Eleanor slept right through the yelling.

  Especially after she’d been back a couple months. If she were to wake up every time Richie got angry … If she got scared every time she heard him yelling in the back room …

  Sometimes Maisie would wake her up, crawling into the top bunk. Maisie wouldn’t let Eleanor see her cry during the day, but she shook like a little baby and sucked her thumb at night. All five of them had learned to cry without making any noise. ‘It’s okay,’ Eleanor would say, hugging her. ‘It’s okay.’

  Tonight, when Eleanor woke up, she knew something was different.

  She heard the back door slam open. And she realized that, before she’d been quite awake, she’d heard men’s voices outside. Men cursing.

  There was more slamming in the kitchen – and then gunshots. Eleanor knew they were gunshots, even though she’d never heard any before.

  Gang members, she thought. Drug dealers. Rapists. Gang members who were also drug-dealing rapists. She could imagine a thousand heinous people who might have some bone to pick out of Richie’s skull – even his friends were scary.

  She must have started to get out of bed as soon as she heard the gunshots. She was already on the bottom bunk, crawling over Maisie. ‘Don’t move,’ she whispered, not sure whether Maisie was awake.

  Eleanor opened the window just enough to fit through. There wasn’t any screen. She climbed out and ran as lightly as she could off the porch. She stopped at the house next door – an old guy named Gil lived there. He wore suspenders with T-shirts and gave them dirty looks when he was sweeping his sidewalk.

  Gil took forever to answer the door, and when he did, Eleanor realized she’d used up all her adrenaline knocking.

  ‘Hi,’ she said weakly.

  He looked mean and mad as spit. Gil could dirty-look Tina right under the table, and then he’d probably kick her.

  ‘Can I use your phone?’ she asked. ‘I need to call the police.’

  ‘What?’ Gil barked. His hair was oiled down, and he even wore suspenders with his pajamas.

  ‘I need to call 911,’ she said. She sounded like she was trying to borrow a cup of sugar. ‘Or maybe you could call 911 for me? There are men in my house with … guns. Please.’

  Gil didn’t seem impressed, but he let her in. His house was really nice inside. She wondered if he used to have a wife – or if he just really liked ruffles. The phone was in the kitchen. ‘I think there are men in my house,’ Eleanor told the 911 operator. ‘I heard gunshots.’

  Gil didn’t tell her to leave, so she waited for the police in his kitchen. He had a whole pan of brownies on the counter, but he didn’t offer her any. His refrigerator was covered with magnets shaped like states, and he had an egg timer that looked like a chicken. He sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer her one of those either.

  When the police pulled up, Eleanor walked out of the house, feeling silly suddenly about her bare feet. Gil shut the door behind her.

  The cops didn’t get out of their car. ‘You called 911?’ one of them asked.

  ‘I think there’s somebody in my house,’ she said shakily. ‘I heard people yelling and gunshots.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Hang on a minute, and we’ll go in with you.’

  With me, Eleanor thought. She wasn’t going back in there at all. What was she going to say to the Hells Angels in her living room?

  The police officers – two big guys in tall black boots – parked and followed her up onto the porch.

  ‘Go ahead,’ one said, ‘open the door.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s locked.’

  ‘How’d you get out?’

  ‘The window.’

  ‘Then go back through the window.’

  The next time Eleanor called 911, she was going to request cops who wouldn’t send her alone into an occupied building. Did firemen do this, too? Hey, kid, you go in first and unlock the door.

  She climbed in the window, climbed over Maisie (still sleeping), ran into the living room, opened the front door, then ran back to her room and sat on the bottom bunk.

  ‘This is the police,’ she heard.

  Then she heard Richie cussing, ‘What the fuck?’

  Her mom: ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘This is the police.’

  Her brothers and sisters were waking up and crawling to each other frantically. Someone stepped on the baby and he started to cry.

  Eleanor heard the police tramping through the house. She heard Richie shouting. The bedroom door flew open, and their mom came in like Mr Rochester’s wife, in a long, torn, white nightgown.

  ‘Did you call them?’ she asked Eleanor.

  Eleanor nodded. ‘I heard gunshots,’ she said.

  ‘Shhhh,’ her mother said, rushing to the bed and pressing her hand too hard over Eleanor’s mouth. ‘Don’t say anything more,’ she hissed. ‘If they ask, say it was a mistake. This was all a mistake.’

  The door opened, and her mother moved her hand away. Two flashlights shot around the room. Her siblings were all awake and crying. Their eyes flashed like cats’.

  ‘They’re just scared,’ her mother said. ‘They don’t know what’s happening
.’

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ the cop said to Eleanor, shining his light in her direction. ‘We checked the yard and the basement.’

  It was more of an accusation than an assurance.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I heard something …’

  The lights went out, and Eleanor heard all three men talking in the living room. She heard the police officers on the porch, with their heavy boots, and she heard them drive away. The window was still open.

  Richie came into the room then – he never came into their room. Eleanor felt a new flood of adrenaline.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked softly.

  She didn’t say anything. Her mother held her hand, and Eleanor locked her jaw shut.

  ‘Richie, she didn’t know,’ her mom said. ‘She just heard the gun.’

  ‘What the fuck,’ he said, slamming his fist into the door. The veneer splintered.

  ‘She thought she was protecting us, it was a mistake.’

  ‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ he shouted. ‘Did you think you could get rid of me?’

  Eleanor hid her face in her mother’s shoulder. It wasn’t a protection. It was like hiding behind the thing in the room he was most likely to hit.

  ‘It was a mistake,’ her mother said gently. ‘She was trying to help.’

  ‘You never call them here,’ he said to Eleanor, his voice dying, his eyes wild. ‘Never again.’

  And then, shouting, ‘I can get rid of all of you.’ He slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Back to bed,’ her mother said. ‘Everybody …’

  ‘But, Mom …’ Eleanor whispered.

  ‘In bed,’ her mom said, helping Eleanor up the ladder to her bunk. Then her mom leaned in close, her mouth touching Eleanor’s ear. ‘It was Richie,’ she whispered. ‘There were kids playing basketball in the park, being loud … He was just trying to scare them. But he doesn’t have a license, and there are other things in the house – he could have been arrested. No more tonight. Not a breath.’

  She knelt down with the boys for a minute, petting and hushing, then floated out of the room.

  Eleanor could swear she heard five hearts racing. Every one of them was stifling a sob. Crying inside out. She climbed out of her bed and into Maisie’s.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered to the room. ‘It’s okay now.’

  CHAPTER 25

  Park

  Eleanor seemed off that morning. She didn’t say anything while they waited for the bus. When they got on, she dropped onto their seat and leaned against the wall.

  Park pulled on her sleeve, and she not-even-half smiled.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked.

  She glanced up at him. ‘Now,’ she said.

  He didn’t believe her. He pulled on her sleeve again.

  She fell against him and hid her face in his shoulder.

  Park laid his face in her hair and closed his eyes.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost,’ she said.

  She pulled away when the bus stopped. She never let him hold her hand once they were off the bus. She wouldn’t touch him in the hallways. ‘People will look at us,’ she always said.

  He couldn’t believe that still mattered to her. Girls who don’t want to be looked at don’t tie curtain tassels in their hair. They don’t wear men’s golf shoes with the spikes still attached.

  So today he stood by her locker and only thought about touching her. He wanted to tell her his news – but she seemed so far away, he wasn’t sure she’d hear him.

  Eleanor

  Where would she go this time?

  Back to the Hickmans’?

  ‘Hey, remember that time when my mom asked if I could stay with you guys for a few days, and then she didn’t come back for a year? I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t turn me into Child Protective Services. That was very Christian of you. Do you still have that foldout couch?’

  Fuck.

  Before Richie moved in, Eleanor only knew that word from books and bathroom walls. Fucking woman. Fucking kids. Fuck you, you little bitch – who the fuck touched my stereo?

  Eleanor hadn’t seen it coming the last time. When Richie kicked her out.

  She couldn’t have seen it coming because she never thought it could happen. She never thought he’d try – and she never, ever thought her mom would go along with it. (Richie must have recognized before Eleanor did that her mother’s allegiances had shifted.)

  It was embarrassing to think about the day that it happened – embarrassing, on top of everything else – because it really was Eleanor’s fault. She really was asking for it.

  She was in her room, typing song lyrics on an old manual typewriter that her mom had brought home from the Goodwill. It needed new ribbon (Eleanor had a box full of cartridges that didn’t fit), but it still worked. She loved everything about that typewriter, the way the keys felt, the sticky, crunchy noise they made. She even liked the way it smelled, like metal and shoe polish.

  She was bored that day, the day it happened.

  It was too hot to do anything but lie around or read or watch TV. Richie was in the living room. He hadn’t gotten out of bed until 2:00 or 3:00, and everybody could tell he was in a bad mood. Her mom was walking around the house in nervous circles, offering Richie lemonade and sandwiches and aspirin. Eleanor hated it when her mom acted like that. Relentlessly submissive. It was humiliating to be in the same room.

  So Eleanor was upstairs typing song lyrics. ‘Scarborough Fair.’

  She heard Richie complaining.

  ‘What the fuck is that noise?’ And, ‘Fuck, Sabrina, can’t you shut her up?’

  Her mom tiptoed up the stairs and ducked her head into Eleanor’s room. ‘Richie isn’t feeling well,’ she said. ‘Can you put that away?’ She looked pale and nervous. Eleanor hated that look.

  She waited for her mother to get back downstairs. Then, without really thinking about why, Eleanor deliberately pressed a key.

  A

  Crunch-lap.

  Her fingertips trembled over the keyboard.

  RE

  Crch-crch-lap-tap.

  Nothing happened. No one stirred. The house was hot and stiff and as quiet as a library in hell. Eleanor closed her eyes and jerked her chin into the air.

  YOU GOING TO SCRABOROUGH FAIR PARSLEY SAAGE ROSEMAYRY AND THYME

  Richie came up the stairs so fast, in Eleanor’s head he was flying. In Eleanor’s head, he burst open the door by hurling a ball of fire at it.

  He was on her before she could brace herself, tearing the typewriter from her hands and throwing it into the wall so hard it broke through the plaster and hung for a moment in the lath.

  Eleanor was too shocked to make out what he was shouting at her. FAT and FUCK and BITCH.

  He’d never come this close to her before. Her fear of him crushed her back. She didn’t want him to see it in her eyes, so she pressed her face into her hands in her pillow.

  FAT and FUCK and BITCH. And I WARNED YOU, SABRINA.

  ‘I hate you,’ Eleanor whispered into the pillow. She could hear things slamming. She could hear her mother in the doorway, talking softly, like she was trying to put a baby back to sleep.

  FAT and FUCK and BITCH and BEGGING FOR IT, JUST FUCKING BEGGING FOR IT.

  ‘I hate you,’ Eleanor said louder. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’

  FUCK THIS.

  ‘I hate you.’

  FUCK ALL OF YOU.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  STUPID BITCHES.

  ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.’

  WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?

  In Eleanor’s head, the house shook.

  Her mother was pulling on her then, trying to pull her out of bed. Eleanor tried to come with her, but she was too scared to stand up. She wanted to flatten herself to the floor and crawl away. She wanted to pretend that the room was full of smoke.

  Richie was roaring. Her mother pulled Eleanor to the top of the stairs, t
hen pushed her down. He was right behind them.

  Eleanor fell against the banister and practically ran to the front door on all fours. She got outside and kept running to the end of the sidewalk. Ben was sitting on the porch, playing with his Hot Wheels. He stopped and watched Eleanor run by.

  Eleanor wondered if she should keep running, but where would she go? Even when she was a little girl, she never fantasized about running away. She could never imagine herself past the edge of the yard. Where would she go? Who would take her?

  When the front door opened again, Eleanor took a few steps into the street.

  It was just her mom. She took Eleanor’s arm and started walking quickly toward the neighbor’s house.

  If Eleanor would have known then what was about to happen, she would have run back to tell Ben goodbye. She would have looked for Maisie and Mouse and kissed them each hard on the cheek. Maybe she would have asked to go back inside to see the baby.

  And if Richie had been inside waiting for her, maybe she would have dropped to her knees and begged him to let her stay. Maybe she would have said anything he wanted her to.

  If he wanted that now – if he wanted her to beg for forgiveness, for mercy, if that was the price she had to pay to stay – she’d do it.

  She hoped he couldn’t see that.

  She hoped none of them could see what was left of her.

  Park

  She ignored Mr Stessman in English class.

  In history, she stared out the window.

  On the way home, she wasn’t irritable; she wasn’t anything at all.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked.

  She nodded her head against him.

  When she got off the bus at her stop, Park still hadn’t told her. So he jumped up and followed her, even though he knew she wouldn’t want him to.

  ‘Park …’ she said, looking nervously down the street to her house.

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I wanted to tell you … I’m not grounded anymore.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ He shook his head.

  ‘That’s great,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah …’

  She looked back at her house.

  ‘It means you can come over again,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘I mean, if you want to.’ This wasn’t going like he thought it would. Even when Eleanor was looking at him, she wasn’t looking at him.