by Ginger Scott
Jake has quit asking me to go to the games. I usually make it to at least one football game every season, and this year I got it out of the way early with our home opener. It’s the crowds that get to me, mostly. Besides, I need to save up my inner super strength for basketball season so I can watch Jake play. And since tomorrow’s my birthday, I don’t think forcing me out of my comfort zone is something he could justify.
Sounds like I missed a good one tonight. From my last count of the distant blare of trumpets and pounding snares and base drums, we’ve scored four times this hour. Of course, there aren’t any sounds for the opponent’s side, so it could be a high-scoring game on both sides. We aren’t exactly known for our defense—or for football, period.
I’ve had the garage open the entire first half. Once again, the street is quiet and peaceful. Other than a few tiny spray paint marks the police left on the roadway, there isn’t a single sign of the full-blown media feeding frenzy at the end of my driveway. That doesn’t mean things are back to normal, though; far from it. The Trombley house is dark, minus the dim glow of the single-bulb porch light next to their front door. Morgan’s SUV is pulled all the way up to the closed garage. So is the Volkswagen. There is no spirit paint to celebrate the exciting game happening down the road. No need for any of that since Eleanor isn’t on the sidelines. I’ve been waiting for her to at least come to her window or step outside. Maybe I’m naïve but I have this sense that she misses it, her life from before. Perhaps that’s exactly why she hasn’t come outside.
My hands are buried in the front pocket of my hoodie as I lean against the back of the Bronco and stare across the street, drumming up the nerve to cross it and ring the Trombley bell. The mere thought of it brings acid up my esophagus. One hand grips the hair tie Gemma gave me, the other clutches the six twenties from Grandpa Hank. My mom is home, so her car is mine to take if I want it. The parts shop is open for another hour, so I could make it there in time and maybe even figure out how to install an alternator. I hope it’s basically the opposite of how it’s removed, but I’m not counting on anything being easy with this thing.
Deciding I owe it to Gemma to deliver her gift—and maybe owe it to myself to prove I’m not afraid of being Eleanor Trombley’s friend—I push off from the bumper and take several long strides down my driveway. I’ll use the parts store closing soon as an excuse if I feel trapped. I’ll just make a delivery if her mom or dad answer. I’ll find the right words; I’ll be kind and they’ll think I’m a good friend. So will Eleanor.
And then my finger is on the doorbell and all of those positive affirmations I filled my head with drop to the ground and wither away, probably into the roots of the dead hedge that lines their front walkway.
I think about hooking the hair band on their doorknob, but my inner debate takes way too long and the iron knob I’m staring at twists from someone else’s doing on the other side of the door. Met with Mr. Trombley’s pale face and sunken eyes, I find myself only able to stare back with my mouth hung open.
This is awful.
“You’re here for Eleanor, right?” His voice is raspy as if he just rolled off some barstool after a serious whiskey and cigar bender. That rawness is from emotion, though. I recognize it, and thanks to my grandpa, I’m also able to sniff out the whiskey.
I must have nodded in response, though I can’t feel my face and I don’t recall reacting. Regardless, Mr. Trombley’s large hand wraps around the edge of the door as he leans behind it and shouts, “Elle! You have company!”
I mull over uttering an apology, even going so far as to mouth the word sorry before he pulls the door wider and meets my panicked gaze again.
“She’ll be right here,” he says, monotone and lifeless. He immediately leaves the space, turning and sliding his feet along their wooden floor. His slippers are too small for his feet, his socked heels hanging off the back. I wonder if he wore those shoes to the school this morning and I just didn’t notice.
I take a step back, not wanting to hover at the entry while I wait. I feel like an intruder, breaking up their quiet moment to grieve. The buzz of television is almost always on in my house. My grandpa either has the news on or one of those home improvement shows. He likes to watch the couples fight, he says. The Trombley house is stiflingly silent. It’s the kind of quiet one can practically taste, thick and acidic, and the pull into this darkness is strong. Even as I stand here forcing my legs to step back more, I lean in, curious and perhaps wanting to feel what they feel so I can understand. Maybe I do understand.
The quiet is rich enough that I can hear Eleanor’s feet pad down the wood-planked stairs inside. The warning sound helps me brace myself for making eye contact, not that I’m ever fully prepared to meet her gaze head-on. Where her dad’s eyes were dark and lost, hers are clear. She’s pulled herself closer to the sun, even more than the last time we talked, the night we planned a camping trip that will never come to fruition.
“Let’s go to your house,” she says, pulling the door closed behind her. She passes me on the porch steps and pulls her jacket on as she makes her way down the walkway toward the street.
A little stunned, I look back at the shut door behind me, expecting her father to come storming through it at any minute, fists in the air as he yells, “Come back here, young lady!” I count to three, but the door doesn’t budge.
“You comin’?”
I turn back to find Eleanor waiting in the middle of our street, arms wrapped around her mid-section to stave off the growing chill. Drums thump in the backdrop from the football game she should be cheering at. She ignores them, but they must be scratching at her.
“Yeah, sorry.” I don’t know exactly why I apologize; it just seems right.
I jog the few steps it takes to catch up to her then mimic her closed-off position, stuffing my hands in my hoodie pocket again. In that brief blip of time I’d forgotten the entire reason I came to see her in the first place. I remember the second my hand finds the satin fabric. I’m less sure about giving it to her, though. Maybe I’m assuming too many things and projecting onto her, but I don’t think the football game is what she wants to be reminded of. Instead, I grip the cash from my grandfather and wad it in my palm, pulling my fist out to show it off as I walk sideways to look her more in the eyes on our march up my driveway.
“Wanna come with me to buy an alternator?” This has to be the absolute smoothest line ever uttered by a teenaged boy to a girl.
An amused smile pulls up the side of her mouth as her eyes zero in on my fistful of cash.
“I would love to go buy an alternator with you, Jonah.” She isn’t even kidding a little bit.
“Yeah?” My reply is mixed with a breathy laugh. I follow it up with, “Cool,” realizing that having said that I seem anything but cool. Rather than apologizing again, though, I shove the money into my pocket and fish out my mom’s set of keys.
Eleanor heads into my garage, reaching the passenger door of the Bronco when it dawns on her.
“Duh,” she laughs out. “Guess that’s probably why we’re going to get an alternator, huh?”
“Among many other parts in my future,” I add.
Our eyes meet for a long second above our matching smiles.
“It’s a really nice Chevy Malibu. I think you’ll find the lumbar support to be quite nice.” I gesture toward my mom’s car parked behind the Bronco. Our garage isn’t clean enough to handle two vehicles inside it, which means I have a few weeks to get this mess under control unless I want to spend the winter scraping ice off her windshield.
“I do like a good massage chair in a vehicle,” Eleanor says, carrying on my joke.
I pull the door open for her and flash a guilty smile that I speak through.
“I didn’t say massage chair. This ain’t a Lexus.”
My self-effacing humor draws another laugh out of her as she drops into the seat and pulls her safety belt over her chest. She wriggles into the faux leather that still has an ink stain o
n it from a major backpack explosion I had in eighth grade.
“Bring on the massage,” she demands, clearly joking.
I give her side eyes.
“I never promised—”
“I demand a massage,” she cuts in, reaching out for her door and shooing me out of the way so she can close it. She continues to shuffle in her seat as if something magical is about to begin, and I look to the ground, shaking my head while I laugh my way to the driver’s side.
“You might be crazy,” I say as I get in.
She shrugs it off with a smile, leaning forward and patting her hands on the dash as I turn the ignition. She takes control of the radio the moment it’s on, tuning in a country station I doubt has ever played through these speakers. I’m in awe at the difference between her from her dad, and from the version that stumbled into my garage a week ago.
I’m also aware that she lives in a bubble, riding a distraction and pretending life is normal. She’s missing out on major rites of passage because her family has been rocked to its core. I may not have been close with my dad in a typical way, but I still feel every ounce of the void now that he’s gone. Addy’s void is never far from being felt. Hers just comes with the added pain of hope.
“You like country music?” We’ve driven a full block with her singing along to the current song before she asks this.
“It’s all right, I guess.” I lie for her benefit, but to be fair, I’ve never really given country a chance. It’s not a big Chicago sound, and most of the things I listen to are in the top billboard charts. If it’s on the pop station, I’ve heard it.
“You’re missing out. I’m going to school you in the art of country music, Jonah Wydner. Prepare yourself.” She leans into the center again and turns the volume up a little more. I maybe recognize this song from commercials, or maybe from the background on Monday Night Football. It’s upbeat, and not at all the stereotype I often associate with the genre of dead dogs and pickup trucks with flat tires. What intrigues me more, though, is the way Eleanor sounds singing along with it. There’s a slight lilt in the way the lyrics fly from her lips. It’s oddly, pleasurably, heartbreaking. I glance and catch her smiling back at me through the verse.
“You ever do choir or anything like that?” I ask. My voice shakes a little with nerves this time, and I mask it with a cough. This entire scenario is surreal and I’m starting to feel it. I also realize her parents have no idea where she is, where she went. Her car is at home, but she is not. They have to be worried. Is she worried they’re worried? I keep all of those thoughts and questions inside to protect the bubble, but they bounce around my brain like a pinball.
“I don’t have the time. Cheer takes up most of my afternoons and I do student council stuff in the mornings. At least, I did.” Her eyes flit down to her lap then move to stare out her window. I’d forgotten she was on student council too. I’m wondering if that’s something they let her participate in from home, at least to keep it on her college resume.
“I guess it’s a pretty full slate, huh?”
“Yeah,” she sighs out. Reality seems to be pushing in on her all of a sudden. It makes her shoulders drop, and she’s no longer singing with the radio. Thankfully, we’re a block from the auto parts shop.
“I mean, I was going to sign up for advanced shop class, but my schedule is just so—” I let go of the wheel briefly to hold my palms outstretched to signal something exaggeratingly big. It’s a clever enough joke to draw Eleanor’s attention back to the inside of the car, to me, and it gains me a fleeting smile. “Where would I fit welding metal and running circular saws in amongst all this studying and writing unnecessary essays for extra credit I don’t need.”
“Maybe you can give some of that extra credit to Jake,” she adds.
My lips form a puckered smile and I shrug one shoulder.
“It wouldn’t be enough to help him.” Poor Jake is going to have to be the butt of this joke. I’m sure his ego will be fine. Besides, he’s passing his classes, and that really is thanks to me.
We arrive at Toby’s Auto Parts before another bout of quiet has a chance to settle in and take over Eleanor’s fragile spirit. I rush around to her side so I can be a gentleman before she opens her door, but she waves me off, insisting she can handle opening a door on her own. I doubt this will stop me from trying to impress her with simple little gestures. I’m still blown away that we’re breathing the same air right now.
My nerves take over my face as soon as we walk into the store as I realize I have no idea where to look for what I need. The only thing I’ve ever purchased from Toby’s are windshield wipers and wiper fluid. Those things are on an end cap, and I had to get help picking out the right wipers. I’m about to embarrass myself, badly.
Thankfully, Eleanor peels off from me to wander different aisles while I walk up and down sections that seem they might have engine parts out and ready to take. It only takes a trip down two of those aisles for me to swallow the hard truth—I am going to have to ask someone for help. Taking advantage of still being alone, I step up to the service counter and lean over as far as I can without lifting my feet off the floor in an effort to gain the attention of the guys in the back. It takes two coughs for someone to rear back in a chair and make eye contact with me, and the man who looks like he could be my grandfather’s brother—I guess that means my great-uncle—sidles toward me, hitching his pants up on either side as he walks.
“How can I help you?” He pulls the reading glasses from atop his head and slides them up the bridge of his nose before typing on his computer.
“I need an alternator.” My voice cracks with my request, and things get a little fuzzy in my periphery. The flop sweats are hitting hard, and underneath the counter, my knee is bobbing like a meth addict. This, of course, is when Eleanor joins me.
“For what?” The man—whose name is Dale, which I read on his shirt—dips his chin to peer at me over his glasses. The slight smirk that joins his query is a pretty clear signal that he knows I’m clueless. The glance to my left, toward Eleanor, that follows, is an even clearer sign that he sees I’m here with a girl who is way out of my league. And then finally, the way his eyes, full of pity, flitter back to me and land on my face, tells me he probably won’t be as helpful as I need him to be in terms of making me sound like I know what I’m doing.
“Seventy-two Ford Bronco.” My hand squeezes the cash in my pocket while visions of my five-year-old self slapping cash haphazardly on the counter for candy run through my mind. The grumbled response I get from Dale is not reassuring. Neither is the way he shifts his weight and pulls his glasses down more.
I swallow.
“One-twenty? One-forty? Preference?”
I swallow again. My mouth is dry. So. Very. Dry.
“I—”
I’m interrupted with the swift smack of Dale’s fat palm on the worn laminate counter top in front of me. It startles both Eleanor and me back a step, and my mouth snaps shut while my eyes widen.
“Hey, you Hank’s grandson?”
Thank you, sweet baby Jesus!
“I am,” I answer, eager that maybe I’m going to be spared more embarrassment.
“Jonah, right?” He shakes his finger at me, backing up and peering down at some mystical space beneath his computer and register.
I nod.
“That’s me.”
“Ah, yeah. Here it is.” Dale’s enormous body disappears behind the counter as he crouches and when he stands, he slides a box toward me with a yellow sticky note slapped on the top and HANK scribbled on it in fat marker.
“No charge. And tell that goddamn card hustling grandfather of yours that we’re square now, and I plan on raking him over the coals next week.” His hands cup the sides of the box and hold it just tight enough that when I reach to take it, it doesn’t move. He doesn’t let go until our eyes meet and I nod to agree to his demand.
“Yes, sir.”
Box tucked under my arm, I stride out of the stor
e a little buzzed by what just happened. I’m frightened and a little insulted. I’m also lucky I got the part I needed without breaking down completely and begging for Dale’s help or running back home to take photos and bringing in my dad’s weird-ass notebook.
Unable to help myself, I head for Eleanor’s door first, pulling it open and getting a playful chastising glare from her as I do.
“I’m fully aware you can open your own doors, but I think if I didn’t do this with Dale staring at me out that window he’d come out here and punch me in the nose.” I’m only half joking.
Eleanor’s crooked smile deepens and she nods, accepting my gesture and getting in the car.
“You’re probably right. I should tell him I was promised a massage chair!”
“I never said—” She pulls the door closed, cutting me off again.
My face tingles from the stupid grin my lips form. In a million years, I never would have imagined I could be more attracted to Eleanor Trombley. Every word that leaves her mouth proves that wrong. Every. Single. Word.
During our drive home, I explain to Eleanor the history of how my grandfather came to live with us and his regular poker games in our garage. It all comes down to cost-savings for all of us, and even though they bicker, my mom and he love each other like blood relatives. I realize while I talk that he skipped having his regular game yesterday, and I’m not sure whether it had to do with the Bronco’s arrival or Eleanor’s sister going missing. Grandpa Hank’s friends are all like Dale, blunt and a bit pushy. He was maybe sparing the sweet girl he let into the garage from their probing questions.
“How come Dale didn’t recognize you right away?” she asks as I pull into my driveway. I shift into park and kill the engine, riffling through the faces I’ve seen join my grandpa’s games and give up.
“I avoid the man cave when they come over. I maybe would recognize one or two of his buddies. I can only imagine the stories my grandpa has told them about me!” I laugh at the thought as we get out of the car. I’m not the manly kind of grandson a war vet brags about to his friends, I’m sure. But I guess my dad wasn’t that stereotype either, and Grandpa Hank would never poke fun of my dad.
