What if Park realized that all the things he thought were so mysterious and intriguing about her were actually just … bleak?
When he asked about her Christmas, Eleanor told him about her mom’s cookies and the movies, and how Mouse thought The Grinch was about ‘all the Hoots down in Hootville.’
She half expected him to say, ‘Yeah, but now tell me all the terrible parts …’ Instead he laughed.
‘Do you think your mom would be okay with me,’ he asked, ‘you know, if it wasn’t for your stepdad?’
‘I don’t know …’ Eleanor said. She realized that she was holding on to the silver pansy.
Eleanor
spent
the
rest
of
Christmas vacation at Park’s house. His mom didn’t seem to mind, and his dad was always inviting her to stay for dinner.
Eleanor’s mom thought she was spending all that time with Tina. Once she’d said, ‘I hope you’re
not
overstaying
your
welcome over there, Eleanor.’
And once she’d said, ‘Tina could come over here sometimes, too, you know,’ which they both knew was a joke.
Nobody brought friends into their house. Not the little kids. Not even Richie. And her mom didn’t have friends anymore.
She used to.
When Eleanor’s parents were still together, there were always people around. There were always parties. Men with long hair.
Women in long dresses. Glasses of red wine everywhere.
And even after her dad left, there were still women. Single moms who brought over their kids, plus all the ingredients for banana daiquiris. They’d sit up late talking in hushed voices about their ex-husbands and speculating about new boyfriends, while the kids played Trouble and Sorry in the next room.
Richie had started as one of those stories. It went like this: Her mom used to walk to the grocery store early in the morning while the kids were still asleep.
They didn’t have a car back then either. (Her mom hadn’t had a car of her own since high school.) Well, Richie would see her mom out walking every morning on his drive to work. One day he stopped and asked for her number. He said she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.
When Eleanor first heard about Richie, she was leaning against their old couch, reading a Life magazine, and drinking a virgin banana daiquiri. She wasn’t exactly eavesdropping – all her mom’s
friends
liked
having
Eleanor around. They liked that she watched their kids without complaining, they said she was wise beyond her years. If Eleanor was quiet, they sort of forgot she was in the room. And if they drank too much, they didn’t care.
‘Never trust a man, Eleanor!’
they’d all shouted at her, at one point or another.
‘Especially if he hates to dance!’
But when her mom told them that Richie said she was as pretty as a spring day, they’d all sighed and asked her to tell them more.
Of course he said she’s the prettiest woman he’s ever seen, Eleanor thought. She undoubtedly is.
Eleanor was twelve, and she couldn’t imagine a guy fucking her mom over worse than her dad had.
She didn’t know there were things worse than selfish.
Anyway. She always tried to leave Park’s house before dinner – just in case her mom was right about wearing out her welcome – and because, if Eleanor left early, there was a better chance that she’d beat Richie home.
Hanging out with Park every day had really messed up her bath-taking routine. (A fact she was never ever going to tell him, no matter how sharey-carey they got.)
The only safe time to take a bath in her house was right after school. If Eleanor went over to Park’s house right after school, she had to hope that Richie would still be at the Broken Rail when she got home that night. And then she had to take a really fast bath because the back door was right across from the bathroom, and it could open at any time.
She could tell that all this sneaky bath-taking was making her mom nervous, but it wasn’t exactly Eleanor’s fault. She’d considered taking a shower in the locker room at school, but that might even be more dangerous: Tina et al.
The other day at lunch, Tina had a made big point of walking by Eleanor’s table and mouthing the C-word. The c-u-n-t word.
(Richie didn’t even use that word, which implied an unimaginable degree of filth.)
‘What is her problem?’ DeNice asked. Rhetorically.
‘She thinks she’s all that,’
Beebi said.
‘She ain’t all that,’ DeNice said.
‘Walking
around
here
looking like a little boy in a miniskirt.’
Beebi giggled.
‘That hair is just wrong,’
DeNice said, still looking at Tina.
‘She needs to wake up a little earlier and try to decide whether she wants to look like Farrah Fawcett or Rick James.’
Beebi
and
Eleanor
both
cracked up.
‘I mean, pick one, girl,’
DeNice said, milking it. ‘Pick.
One.’