‘Maybe the Public Works,’ she said, laying her hand on top of his, finger to finger. Her fingertips came to his last knuckle. It might be the only part of her that was smaller than him.
‘You’re like a little girl,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your hands. They just look …’ He took her hand in both of his. ‘I don’t know … vulnerable.’
‘Pipemaster,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘That’s your superhero name.
No, wait – the Piper. Like, “Time to pay the Piper!”’
He laughed and pulled at another curl.
That was the most talking they’d done in two weeks. She’d started to write him a letter – she’d started it a million times – but that seemed like such a seventh-grade thing to do. What could she write?
‘Dear Park, I like you. You have really cute hair.’
He did have really cute hair.
Really, really. Short in the back, but kind of long and fanned out in the front. It was completely straight and almost completely black, which, on Park, seemed like a lifestyle choice. He always wore black, practically head to toe. Black punk rock T-shirts over black thermal long-sleeved shirts.
Black
sneakers.
Blue
jeans.
Almost all black, almost every day. (He did have one white T-shirt, but it said ‘Black Flag’ on the front in big, black letters.) Whenever Eleanor wore black, her mom said that she looked like she was going to a funeral – in a coffin. Anyway, her mom used to say stuff like that, back when she occasionally noticed what Eleanor was wearing. Eleanor had taken all the safety pins from her mom’s sewing kit and used them to pin scraps of silk and velvet over the holes in her jeans, and her mom hadn’t even mentioned it.
Park looked good in black. It made him look like he was drawn in charcoal. Thick, arched, black eyebrows. Short, black lashes.
High, shining cheeks.
‘Dear Park, I like you so much. You have really beautiful cheeks.’
The only thing she didn’t like to think about, about Park, was what he could possibly see in her.
Park
The pick-up kept dying.
Park’s dad wasn’t saying anything, but Park knew he was getting pissed.
‘Try again,’ his dad said. ‘Just listen to the engine, then shift.’
That was an oversimplification if Park had ever heard one. Listen to the engine, depress the clutch, shift, gas, release, steer, check your mirrors, signal your turn, look twice for motorcycles …
The crappy part was that he was pretty sure he could do it if his dad wasn’t sitting there, fuming. Park could see himself doing it in his head just fine.
It was like this at taekwando sometimes, too. Park could never master something new if his dad was the one teaching it.
Clutch, shift, gas.
The pick-up died.
‘You’re thinking too much,’
his dad snapped.
Which is what his dad always said. When Park was a kid, he’d try to argue with him. ‘I can’t help but think,’ Park would say during taekwando. ‘I can’t turn off my brain.’
‘If
you
fight
like
that,
somebody’s going to turn it off for you.’
Clutch, shift, grind.
‘Start it again … Now don’t think, just shift … I said, don’t think.’
The truck died again. Park put his hands at ten and two and laid his head on the steering wheel, bracing himself. His dad was radiating frustration.
‘Goddamn, Park, I don’t know what to do with you. We’ve been working on this for a year. I taught your brother to drive in two weeks.’
If his mom were here, she would have called foul at this.
‘You don’t do that,’ she’d say.
‘Two boys. Different.’
And his dad would grit his teeth.
‘I guess Josh doesn’t have any trouble not thinking,’ Park said.
‘Call your brother stupid all you want,’ his dad said. ‘He can drive a manual transmission.’
‘But I’m only ever gonna get to
drive
the
Impala,’
Park
muttered into the dash, ‘and it’s an automatic.’
‘That isn’t the point,’ his dad half shouted. If Park’s mom were here, she would have said, ‘Hey, mister, I don’t think so. You go outside and yell at sky, you so angry.’
What did it say about Park that he wished his mom would follow him around defending him?
That he was a *.
That’s what his dad thought.
It’s probably what he was thinking now. He was probably being so quiet because he was trying not to say it out loud.
‘Try it again,’ his dad said.
‘No, I’m done.’
‘You’re done when I say you’re done.’
‘No,’ Park said, ‘I’m done now.’
‘Well, I’m not driving us home. Try it again.’
Park started the truck. It died.
His dad slammed his giant hand against the glove box. Park opened the truck door and jumped to the ground. His dad shouted his name, but Park kept walking.
They were only a couple miles from home.
If his dad drove by him on the way home, Park didn’t notice.
When he got back to his neighborhood, at dusk, Park turned down Eleanor’s street instead of his own. There were two little reddish-blond kids playing in her yard, even though it was kind of cold.