She’d read all of his Alan Moore in less than three weeks.
Now he was giving her X-Men comics five at a time, and he could tell that she liked them because she wrote the characters’ names on her books, in between band names and song lyrics.
They still didn’t talk on the bus, but it had become a less confrontational silence. Almost friendly. (But not quite.) Park would have to talk to her today – to tell her that he didn’t have anything to give her. He’d overslept, then forgotten to grab the stack of comics he’d set out for her the night before. He hadn’t even had time to eat breakfast or brush his teeth, which made him self-conscious, knowing he was going to be sitting so close to her.
But when she got on the bus and
handed
him
yesterday’s
comics, all Park did was shrug.
She looked away. They both looked down.
She was wearing that ugly necktie again. Today it was tied around her wrist. Her arms and wrists
were
scattered
with
freckles, layers of them in different shades of gold and pink, even on the back of her hands.
Little-boy hands, his mom would call them, with short-short nails and ragged cuticles.
She stared down at the books in her lap. Maybe she thought he was mad at her. He stared at her books, too – covered in ink and Art Nouveau doodles.
‘So,’ he said, before he knew what to say next, ‘you like the Smiths?’ He was careful not to blow his morning breath on her.
She looked up, surprised.
Maybe confused. He pointed at her book, where she’d written ‘How Soon Is Now?’ in tall green letters.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard them.’
‘So you just want people to think you like the Smiths?’ He couldn’t
help
but
sound
disdainful.
‘Yeah,’ she said, looking around the bus. ‘I’m trying to impress the locals.’
He didn’t know if she could help but sound like a smartass, but she sure wasn’t trying. The air soured between them. Park shifted against the wall. She looked across the aisle to stare out the window.
When he got to English, he tried to catch her eye, but she looked away. He felt like she was trying so hard to ignore him that she wouldn’t even participate in class.
Mr Stessman kept trying to draw her out – she was his new favorite target whenever things got sleepy in class. Today they were supposed to be discussing Romeo and Juliet, but nobody wanted to talk.
‘You don’t seem troubled by their deaths, Miss Douglas.’
‘I’m sorry?’ she said. She narrowed her eyes at him.
‘It doesn’t strike you as sad?’
Mr Stessman asked. ‘Two young lovers lay dead. Never was a story of more woe. Doesn’t that get to you?’
‘I guess not,’ she said.
‘Are you so cold? So cool?’
He was standing over her desk, pretending to plead with her.
‘No …’ she said. ‘I just don’t think it’s a tragedy.’
‘It’s the tragedy,’ Mr Stessman said.
She rolled her eyes. She was wearing two or three necklaces, old fake pearls, like Park’s grandmother wore to church, and she twisted them while she talked.
‘But he’s so obviously making fun of them,’ she said.
‘Who is?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘Do tell …’
She rolled her eyes again. She knew Mr Stessman’s game by now.
‘Romeo and Juliet are just two rich kids who’ve always gotten every little thing they wanted. And now, they think they want each other.’
‘They’re in love …’ Mr Stessman said, clutching his heart.
‘They don’t even know each other,’ she said.
‘It was love at first sight.’
‘It was “Oh my God, he’s so cute” at first sight. If Shakespeare wanted you to believe they were in love, he wouldn’t tell you in almost the very first scene that Romeo was hung up on Rosaline … It’s Shakespeare making fun of love,’ she said.
‘Then why has it survived?’
‘I
don’t
know,
because
Shakespeare is a really good writer?’
‘No!’
Mr
Stessman
said.
‘Someone else, someone with a heart. Mr Sheridan, what beats in your chest? Tell us, why has Romeo and Juliet survived four hundred years?’
Park hated talking in class.
Eleanor frowned at him, then looked away. He felt himself blush.
‘Because …’ he said quietly, looking at his desk, ‘because people want to remember what it’s like to be young? And in love?’
Mr Stessman leaned back against the blackboard and rubbed his beard.
‘Is that right?’ Park asked.
‘Oh, it’s definitely right,’ Mr Stessman said. ‘I don’t know if that’s why Romeo and Juliet has become the most beloved play of all time. But, yes, Mr Sheridan.
Truer words never spoken.’
She didn’t acknowledge Park in history class, but she never did.
When he got on the bus that afternoon, she was already there.
She got up to let him have his place by the window, and then she surprised him by talking. Quietly.
Almost under her breath. But talking.
‘It’s more like a wish list,’ she said.
‘What?’