Eleanor & Park (14 page)

my dad’s number, and if I haven’t

called you by nine, you can call

me.’

‘That’s an excellent idea,’ he

said, ‘seriously.’

‘But you can’t call it any other

time.’

‘I feel like …’ He started

laughing and looked away.

‘What?’

she

asked.

She

elbowed him.

‘I feel like we have a date,’ he

said. ‘Is that stupid?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Even though we’re together

every day …’

‘We’re never really together,’

she said.

‘It’s like we have fifty

chaperones.’

‘Hostile chaperones,’ Eleanor

whispered.

‘Yeah,’ Park said.

He put his pen in his pocket,

then took her hand and held it to

his chest for a minute.

It was the nicest thing she

could imagine. It made her want

to have his babies and give him

both of her kidneys.

‘A date,’ he said.

‘Practically.’

CHAPTER 19

Eleanor

When she woke up that morning,

she felt like it was her birthday –

like she used to feel on her

birthday, back when there was a

shot in hell of ice cream.

Maybe her dad would have ice

cream … If he did, he’d probably

throw it away before Eleanor got

there. He was always dropping

hints about her weight. Well, he

used to, anyway. Maybe when he

stopped

caring

about

her

altogether, he’d stopped caring

about that, too.

Eleanor put on an old striped

men’s shirt and had her mom tie

one of her ties – like knot it, for

real – around her neck.

Her mom actually kissed

Eleanor goodbye at the door and

told her to have fun, and to call

the neighbors if things got weird

with her dad.

Right, Eleanor thought, I’ll be

sure to call you if Dad’s fiancée

calls me a bitch and then makes

me use a bathroom without a

door. Oh wait …

She was a little nervous. It had

been a year, at least, since she’d

seen her dad, and a while before

that. He hadn’t called at all when

she lived with the Hickmans.

Maybe he didn’t know she was

there. She never told him.

When Richie first started

coming around, Ben used to get

really angry and say he was going

to move in with their dad – which

was an empty effing promise, and

everyone knew it. Even Mouse,

who was just a toddler.

Their dad couldn’t stand

having them even for a few days.

He used to pick them up from

their mom’s house, then drop

them off at
his
mom’s house while

he went off and did whatever it

was that he did on the weekend.

(Presumably, lots and lots of

marijuana.) Park cracked up when

he saw Eleanor’s tie. That was

even better than making him

smile.

‘I didn’t know we were getting

dressed up,’ he said when she sat

down next to him.

‘I’m expecting you to take me

someplace nice,’ she said softly.

‘I will …’ he said. He took the

tie in both hands and straightened

it. ‘Someday.’

He was a lot more likely to say

stuff like that on the way to school

than he was on the way home.

Sometimes she wondered if he

was fully awake.

He turned practically sideways

in his seat. ‘So you’re leaving

right after school?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you’ll call me as soon as

you get there …’

‘No, I’ll call you as soon as the

kid settles down. I really do have

to babysit.’

‘I’m going to ask you a lot of

personal questions,’ he said,

leaning forward. ‘I have a list.’

‘I’m not afraid of your list.’

‘It’s extremely long,’ he said,

‘and extremely personal.’

‘I hope you’re not expecting

answers
…’

He sat back in the seat and

looked over at her. ‘I wish you’d

go away,’ he whispered, ‘so that

we could finally talk.’

Eleanor stood on the front steps

after school. She’d hoped to catch

Park before he got on the bus, but

she must have missed him.

She wasn’t sure what kind of

car to watch for; her dad was

always buying classic cars, then

selling them when money got

tight.

She was starting to worry that

he wasn’t coming at all – he

could’ve gone to the wrong high

school or changed his mind –

when he honked for her.

He pulled up in an old

Karmann Ghia convertible. It

looked like the car James Dean

died in. Her dad’s arm was

hanging over the door, holding a

cigarette. ‘Eleanor!’ he shouted.

She walked to the car and got

in. There weren’t any seat belts.

‘Is that all you brought?’ he

asked, looking at her school bag.

‘It’s just one night.’ She

shrugged.

‘All right,’ he said, backing out

of the parking space too fast.

She’d forgotten what a crappy

driver he was. He did everything

too fast and one-handed.

Eleanor braced herself on the

dashboard. It was cold out, and

once they were driving, it got

colder. ‘Can we put the top up?’

she shouted.

‘Haven’t fixed it yet,’ her dad

said, and laughed.

He still lived in the same

duplex he’d lived in since her

parents split up. It was solid and

brick, and about a ten-minute

drive from Eleanor’s school.

When they got inside, he took

a better look at her.

‘Is that what all the cool kids

are wearing these days?’ he asked.

She looked down at her giant

white shirt, her fat paisley tie and

her half-dead purple corduroys.

‘Yup,’ she said flatly. ‘This is

pretty much our uniform.’

Her dad’s girlfriend – fiancée

– Donna, didn’t get off work until

five, and after that she had to pick

her kid up from daycare. In the

meantime, Eleanor and her dad sat

on the couch and watched ESPN.

He smoked cigarette after

cigarette, and sipped Scotch out of

a short glass. Every once in a

while the phone would ring, and

he’d

have

a

long,

laughy

conversation

with

somebody

about a car or a deal or a bet.

You’d think that every single

person who called was his best

friend in the whole world. Her dad

had baby blond hair and a round,

boyish face. When he smiled,

which was constantly, his whole

face lit up like a billboard. If

Eleanor paid too much attention,

she hated him.

His duplex had changed since

the last time she’d been here, and

it was more than just the box of

Fisher Price toys in the living

room and the makeup in the

bathroom.

When they’d first started

visiting him here – after the

divorce, but before Richie – their

dad’s duplex had been a bare-

bones bachelor pad. He didn’t

even have enough bowls for them

all to have soup. He’d served

Eleanor clam chowder once in a

highball glass. And he only had

two towels. ‘One wet,’ he’d said,

‘one dry.’

Now Eleanor fixated on all the

small luxuries strewn and tucked

around the house. Packs of

cigarettes, newspapers, magazines

… Brand-name cereal and quilted

toilet paper. His refrigerator was

full of things you tossed into the

cart without thinking about it just

because they sounded good.

Custard-style yogurt. Grapefruit

juice.

Little

round

cheeses

individually wrapped in red wax.

She couldn’t wait for her dad

to leave so that she could start

e a t i n g
everything
. There were

stacks of Coca-Cola cans in the

pantry. She was going to drink

Coke like water all night, she

might even wash her face with it.

And
she was going to order a

pizza. Unless the pizza came out of

her babysitting money. (That

would be just like her dad. He’d

take you to the cleaners with fine

print.) Eleanor didn’t care if eating

all his food pissed him off or if it

freaked out Donna. She might

never see either of them again

anyway.

Now she wished she
had

brought an overnight bag. She

could have snuck home cans of

Chef Boyardee and Campbell’s

chicken noodle soup for the little

kids. She would have felt like

Santa Claus when she came home

…

She didn’t want to think about

the little kids right now. Or

Christmas.

She tried to turn the station to

MTV, but her dad frowned at her.

He was on the phone again.

‘Can I listen to records?’ she

whispered.

He nodded.

She had an old mix tape in her

pocket, and she was going to dub

over it to make a tape for Park.

But there was a whole packet of

empty Maxell tapes sitting on her

dad’s stereo. Eleanor held a

cassette up to her dad, and he

nodded, flicking his cigarette into

an ashtray shaped like a naked

African woman.

Eleanor sat down in front of

the crates full of record albums.

These used to be both of her

parents’ records, not just his. Her

mom must not have wanted any of

them. Or maybe her dad just took

them without asking.

Her mom had loved this

Bonnie Raitt album. Eleanor

wondered if her dad ever listened

to it.

She felt seven years old,

flipping through their records.

Before she was allowed to take

the albums out of their sleeves,

Eleanor used to lay them out on

the floor and stare at the artwork.

When she was old enough, her

dad taught her how to dust the

records with a wood-handled

velvet brush.

She could remember her

mother

lighting

incense

and

putting on her favorite records –

Judee Sill and Judy Collins and

Crosby, Stills and Nash – while

she cleaned the house.

She could remember her dad

putting on records – Jimi Hendrix

and Deep Purple and Jethro Tull –

when his friends came over and

stayed late into the night.

Eleanor could remember lying

on her stomach on an old Persian

rug, drinking grape juice out of a

jelly jar, being extra quiet because

her baby brother was asleep in the

next room – and studying each

record, one by one. Turning their

names over and over in her

mouth. Cream. Vanilla Fudge.

Canned Heat.

The records smelled exactly

like they always had. Like her

dad’s bedroom. Like Richie’s

coat. Like pot, Eleanor realized.

Duh. She flipped through the

records

more

matter-of-factly

now, on a mission. Looking for

Rubber Soul
and
Revolver
.

Sometimes it seemed as if she

would never be able to give Park

anything like what he’d given her.

It was like he dumped all this

treasure on her every morning

without even thinking about it,

without any sense of what it was

worth.

She couldn’t repay him. She

couldn’t even appropriately thank

him. How can you thank someone

for The Cure? Or the X-Men?

Sometimes it felt like she’d always

be in his debt.

And then she realized that Park

didn’t know about the Beatles.

Park

Park went to the playground to

play basketball after school. Just

to kill time. But he couldn’t focus

on the game – he kept looking up

at the back of Eleanor’s house.

When he got home, he called

out to his mom. ‘Mom! I’m

home!’

‘Park,’ she called. ‘Out here!

In the garage.’

He grabbed a cherry Popsicle