‘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.’