Eleanor took a deep breath.
She smelled like pee. God. The cleanest clothes she had were the ones she wore yesterday, which Tina would surely point out, because it was a goddamn gym day on top of everything else.
She grabbed her clothes and stepped purposely out into the living room, determined not to make eye contact with Richie if he was there. He was. ( That demon.
That bastard.) Her mother was standing at the stove, standing more still than usual. You couldn’t not notice the bruise on the side of her face. Or the hickey under her chin. ( That fuck, that fuck, that fuck.) ‘Mom,’ Eleanor whispered urgently, ‘I have to clean off.’ Her mother’s eyes slowly focused on her.
‘What?’
Eleanor
gestured
at
her
clothes, which probably just looked wrinkled. ‘I slept on the floor with Mouse.’
Her mother glanced nervously into the living room; Richie would punish Mouse if he knew. ‘Okay, okay,’ she said, pushing Eleanor into the bathroom. ‘Give me your clothes, I’ll watch the door. And don’t let him smell it. I don’t need this this morning.’
As if Eleanor was the one who’d peed all over everything.
She washed off the top half of her body, then the bottom, so that she wouldn’t ever be totally naked. Then she walked back through the living room, wearing yesterday’s clothes, trying really hard not to smell like pee.
Her books were in her bedroom, but Eleanor didn’t want to open the door and let out any more acrid air – so she just left.
She got to the bus stop fifteen minutes early. She still felt rumpled and panicked, and, thanks to the bacon, her stomach was growling.
CHAPTER 12
Park
When Park got on the bus, he set the comics and Smiths tape on the seat next to him, so they’d just be waiting for her. So he wouldn’t have to say anything.
When she got on the bus a few minutes later, Park could tell that something was wrong. She got on like she was lost and ended up there. She was wearing the same thing she’d worn yesterday – which wasn’t that weird, she was always wearing a different version of the same thing – but today was different. Her neck and wrists were bare, and her hair was a mess – a pile, an all-over glob, of red curls.
She stopped at their seat and looked down at the pile of stuff he’d left for her. (Where were her schoolbooks? He wondered) Then she picked everything up, careful as ever, and sat down.
Park wanted to look at her face, but he couldn’t. He stared at her wrists instead. She picked up the cassette. He’d written ‘How Soon is Now and More’ on the thin white sticker.
She held it out to him.
‘Thank you …’ she said. Now that was something he’d never heard her say before. ‘But I can’t.’
He didn’t take it.
‘It’s for you, take it,’ he whispered. He looked up from her hands to her dropped chin.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean, thank you, but … I can’t.’ She tried to give him the tape, but he didn’t take it. Why did she have to make every little thing so hard?
‘I don’t want it,’ he said.
She clenched her teeth and glared. She really must hate him.
‘No,’ she said, practically loud enough for other people to hear. ‘I mean, I can’t. I don’t have any way to listen to it. God, just take it back.’
He took it. She covered her face. The kid in the seat across from them, a twerpy senior who was actually named Junior, was watching.
Park frowned at Junior until he turned away. Then Park turned back to the girl …
He took his Walkman out of the pocket of his trench coat and popped out his Dead Kennedys tape. He slid the new tape in, pressed play, then – carefully – put the headphones over her hair.
He was so careful, he didn’t even touch her.
He could hear the swampy guitar start and then the first line of the song. ‘I am the son … and the heir …’
She lifted her head a little but didn’t look at him. She didn’t move her hands away from her face.
When they got to school, she took the headphones off and gave them back to him.
They got off the bus together and stayed together. Which was weird. Usually, they broke away from each other as soon as they hit the sidewalk. That’s what seemed weird now, Park thought; they walked the same way every day, her locker was just down the hall from his – how had they managed to go their separate ways every morning?
Park stopped for a minute when they got to her locker. He didn’t step close to her, but he stopped. She stopped, too.
‘Well,’ he said, looking down the hall, ‘now you’ve heard the Smiths.’
And she …
Eleanor laughed.
Eleanor She should have just taken the tape.
She didn’t need to be telling everybody what she had and didn’t have. She didn’t need to be telling weird Asian kids anything.
Weird Asian kid.
She was pretty sure he was Asian. It was hard to tell. He had green eyes. And skin the color of sunshine through honey.