Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

  ‘You look like a different person,’ she said, ‘and you’re just wearing eyeliner.’

  ‘Do you like me better?’

  She rolled her eyes, but she felt the heat in her neck. ‘You look different. You look unsettling.’

  ‘You look like you,’ he said. ‘You with the volume turned up.’

  She looked in the mirror again.

  ‘The thing is,’ Park said. ‘I’m pretty sure my mom was holding back. I think she thinks this is the natural look.’

  Eleanor laughed. The door to the house opened.

  ‘Awww, I told you guys to wait,’ his mom said. ‘Were you surprised?’

  Eleanor nodded.

  ‘Did you cry? Oh, I miss it!’

  ‘Sorry if I messed it up,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘No mess,’ his mom said, ‘waterproof mascara and stay-put foundation.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said carefully. ‘I could hardly believe the difference.’

  ‘I’ll make you a kit,’ his mom said. ‘These all colors I never use anyway. Here, sit down, Park. I trim your hair while we here. Looking shaggy …’

  Eleanor sat in front of him and played Rock, Paper, Scissors on his knee.

  Park

  She looked like a different person, and Park didn’t know if he liked it better. Or at all.

  He couldn’t figure out why it upset her so much. Sometimes, it seemed like she was trying to hide everything that was pretty about her. Like she wanted to look ugly.

  That was something his mother would say. Which is why he hadn’t said it to Eleanor. (Did that count as holding back?)

  He got why Eleanor tried so hard to look different. Sort of. It was because she was different – because she wasn’t afraid to be. (Or maybe she was just more afraid of being like everyone else.)

  There was something really exciting about that. He liked being near that, that kind of brave and crazy.

  ‘Unsettling, how?’ he’d wanted to ask her.

  The next morning, Park took the onyx eyeliner into the bathroom and put it on. He was messier than his mom, but he thought that might look better. More masculine.

  He looked in the mirror. ‘This really make your eyes pop,’ his mom always told her customers, and it was true. The eyeliner did make his eyes pop. It also made him look even less white.

  Then Park did his hair like he usually did – flared up in the middle, all messy and tall, like it was reaching for something. Usually, as soon as he did that, Park combed his hair out and down again.

  Today he left it wild.

  His dad flipped at breakfast. Flipped. Park tried to sneak out without seeing him, but his mom was non-negotiable about breakfast. Park hung his head over the cereal bowl.

  ‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ his dad asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Wait a minute, look at me … I said look at me.’

  Park lifted his head, but looked away.

  ‘What the fuck, Park?’

  ‘Jamie!’ his mother said.

  ‘Look at him, Mindy, he’s wearing makeup! Are you fucking kidding me, Park?’

  ‘No excuse to cuss,’ his mom said. She looked nervously at Park, like maybe this was her fault. Maybe it was. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried out lipstick samples on him when he was in kindergarten. Not that he wanted to wear lipstick …

  Probably.

  ‘Like hell it isn’t,’ his dad roared. ‘Go wash your face, Park.’

  Park stayed where he was.

  ‘Go wash your face. Park.’

  Park took a bite of cereal.

  ‘Jamie …’ his mom said.

  ‘No, Mindy. No. I let these boys do pretty much anything they damn well please. But, no. Park is not leaving this house looking like a girl.’

  ‘Plenty of guys wear makeup,’ Park said.

  ‘What? What are you even talking about?’

  ‘David Bowie,’ Park said. ‘Marc Bolan.’

  ‘I’m not listening to this. Wash your face.’

  ‘Why?’ Park pushed his fists into the table.

  ‘Because I said so. Because you look like a girl.’

  ‘So what else is new?’ Park shoved his cereal bowl away.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, what else is new? Isn’t that what you think?’

  Park felt tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t want to touch his eyes.

  ‘Go to school, Park,’ his mom said softly. ‘You miss your bus.’

  ‘Mindy …’ his dad said, just barely restraining himself, ‘they’ll tear him apart.’

  ‘You tell me Park all grown up now, almost man, make own decisions. So let him make own decisions. Let him go.’

  His dad didn’t say anything; he’d never raise his voice to Park’s mom. Park saw his opportunity and left.

  He went to his own bus stop, not Eleanor’s. He wanted to deal with Steve before he saw her. If Steve was going to beat the shit out of him for this, Park would prefer that Eleanor not be in the audience.

  But Steve hardly mentioned it.

  ‘Hey, Park, what the fuck, man, are you wearing makeup?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Park said, holding onto his backpack.

  Everyone around Steve tittered, waiting to see what would happen next.

  ‘You kind of look like Ozzy, man,’ Steve said. ‘You look ready to bite the head off a fucking bat.’

  Everybody laughed. Steve bared his teeth at Tina and growled, and then it was over.

  When Eleanor got on the bus, she was in a good mood. ‘You’re here! I thought maybe you were sick when you weren’t at my corner.’ He looked up at her. She looked surprised, then sat down quietly and looked at her hands.

  ‘Do I look like one of the Solid Gold dancers?’ he asked finally, when he couldn’t take any more quiet.

  ‘No,’ she said, sidelong glancing, ‘you look …’

  ‘Unsettling?’ he asked.

  She laughed and nodded.

  ‘Unsettling, how?’ he asked her.

  She kissed him with tongue. On the bus.

  CHAPTER 36

  Park

  Park told Eleanor not to come over after school. He figured he was grounded. He washed his face as soon as he got home and sent himself to his room.

  His mom came in to check on him.

  ‘Am I grounded?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good day at school?’

  Meaning, did anyone try to flush his face down the toilet?

  ‘It was fine,’ he said.

  A couple of kids had called Park names in the halls, but it didn’t hurt like he thought it might. Lots of other people said he looked cool.

  His mom sat on his bed. She looked like she’d had a long day. You could see her lipliner.

  She stared at a jumble of Star Wars action figures piled up on the shelf over his bed. He hadn’t touched them for years.

  ‘Park,’ she said, ‘do you … want to look like girl? Is that what this about? Eleanor dress like boy. You look like girl?’

  ‘No …’ Park said. ‘I just like it. I like the way it feels.’

  ‘Like girl?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Like myself.’

  ‘Your dad …’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

  His mother sat for another minute, then left.

  Park stayed in his room until Josh came to get him for dinner. His dad didn’t look up when Park sat down.

  ‘Where’s Eleanor?’ his dad asked.

  ‘I thought I was grounded.’

  ‘You’re not grounded,’ his dad said, concentrating on his meat loaf.

  Park looked around the table. Only Josh would look back at him. ‘Are you going to talk to me about this morning?’ Park asked.

  His dad took another bite, chewed it carefully, then swallowed. ‘No, Park, at the moment I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to say to you.’

  CHAPTER 37

  Eleanor

  Pa
rk was right. They were never alone.

  She thought about sneaking out again, but the risk was incomprehensible, and it was so effing cold out she’d probably lose an ear to frostbite. Which her mom would definitely notice.

  She’d already noticed the mascara. (Even though it was brown and said ‘Subtle, Natural Look’ right on the package.)

  ‘Tina gave it to me,’ Eleanor said. ‘Her mom’s an Avon lady.’

  If she just changed Park’s name to ‘Tina’ every time she lied, it only felt like one big lie instead of a million small ones.

  It was kind of funny to think about hanging out at Tina’s house every day, doing each other’s nails, trying on lip gloss …

  It would be awful if her mom actually met Tina somewhere, but that didn’t seem likely – her mom never talked to anybody in the neighborhood. If you weren’t born in the Flats (if your family didn’t go back ten generations, if your parents didn’t have the same great-great-grandparents), you were an outsider.

  Park always said that was why people left him alone, even though he was weird and Asian. Because his family had owned their land back when the neighborhood was still cornfields.

  Park. Eleanor blushed whenever she thought about him. She’d probably always done that, but now it was worse. Because he was cute and cool before, but lately he seemed so much more of both.

  Even DeNice and Beebi thought so.

  ‘He looks like a rock star,’ DeNice said.

  ‘He looks like El DeBarge,’ Beebi agreed.

  He looked like himself, Eleanor thought, but bolder. Like Park with the volume turned way up.

  Park

  They were never alone.

  They tried to make the walk from the bus to Park’s house last forever, and sometimes, they’d hang out on his front steps a while … until his mom opened the door and told them to come in from the cold.

  Maybe it would be better this summer. They could go outside. Maybe they could take walks. Maybe he’d get his driver’s license after all …

  No. His dad hadn’t even spoken to him since the day they fought.

  ‘What’s up with your dad?’ Eleanor asked him. She was standing one step below him on his front stoop.

  ‘He’s mad at me.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For not being like him.’

  Eleanor looked dubious. ‘Has he been mad at you for the last sixteen years?’

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘But it always seemed like you got along …’ she said.

  ‘No,’ Park said, ‘never. I mean, we were kind of getting along for a while, because I finally got in a fight, and because he thought my mom was being too hard on you.’

  ‘I knew she didn’t like me!’ Eleanor poked Park’s arm.

  ‘Well, now she likes you,’ he said, ‘so now my dad is back to not liking me.’

  ‘Your dad loves you,’ she said. It seemed to really matter to her.

  Park shook his head. ‘Only because he has to. He’s disappointed in me.’

  Eleanor laid her hand on his chest, and his mom opened the door.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ she said. ‘Too cold.’

  Eleanor

  ‘Your hair looks nice, Eleanor,’ Park’s mom said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Eleanor wasn’t diffusing, but she was using the conditioner Park’s mom had given her. And she’d actually found a satin pillowcase in the stack of towels and stuff in her bedroom closet, which was practically a sign from God that He wanted Eleanor to take better care of her hair.

  Park’s mom really did seem to like her better now. Eleanor hadn’t consented to another full-on makeover, but Park’s mom was always trying new eyeshadows on her or messing with her hair while she sat at the kitchen table with Park.

  ‘I should have had girl,’ his mom said.

  I should have had a family like this, Eleanor thought. And it only sometimes made her feel like a traitor to think so.

  CHAPTER 38

  Eleanor

  Wednesday nights were the worst.

  Park had taekwando, so Eleanor went straight home after school, took a bath, then tried to hide in her room all night, reading.

  It was way too cold to play outside, so the little kids were crawling up the walls. When Richie came home, there was no place for anybody to hide.

  Ben was so afraid that Richie would send him to the basement early that he was sitting in the bedroom closet, playing with his cars.

  When Richie turned on Mike Hammer their mom shooed Maisie into the bedroom, too, even though Richie said she could stay.

  Maisie paced the room, bored and irritable. She walked over to the bunk bed.

  ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please …’

  Their beds were junior-sized, smaller than a twin, just barely big enough for Eleanor. And Maisie wasn’t one of those stringy, weightless nine-year-olds …

  ‘Fine,’ Eleanor groaned.

  She scooted over carefully, like she was on thin ice, and pushed her grapefruit box behind her into the corner.

  Maisie climbed up and sat on Eleanor’s pillow. ‘What’re you reading?’

  ‘Watership Down.’

  Maisie wasn’t paying attention. She folded her arms and leaned toward Eleanor. ‘We know you have a boyfriend,’ she whispered.

  Eleanor’s heart stopped. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said blankly – and immediately.

  ‘We already know,’ Maisie said.

  Eleanor looked over at Ben, sitting in the closet. He stared at her without giving up a thing. Thanks to Richie, they were all experts in the blank-face department. They should find some family poker tournament …

  ‘Bobbie told us,’ Maisie said. ‘Her big sister goes with Josh Sheridan, and Josh says you’re his brother’s girlfriend. Ben said you weren’t, and Bobbie laughed at him.’

  Ben didn’t flinch.

  ‘Are you going to tell Mom?’ Eleanor asked. May as well cut to the chase.

  ‘We haven’t told her yet,’ Maisie said.

  ‘Are you going to?’ Eleanor resisted the urge to shove Maisie off the bed. Maisie would go nuclear.

  ‘He’ll make me leave, you know,’ Eleanor said fiercely. ‘If I’m lucky, that’s the worst that’ll happen.’

  ‘We’re not going to tell,’ Ben whispered.

  ‘But it’s not fair,’ Maisie said, slumping against the wall.

  ‘What?’ Eleanor said.

  ‘It’s not fair that you get to leave all the time,’ Maisie said.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Eleanor asked. They both stared at her, desperate and almost … almost hopeful.

  Everything anybody ever said in this house was desperate.

  Desperate was white noise, as far as Eleanor was concerned – it was the hope that pulled at her heart with dirty little fingers.

  She was pretty sure she was wired wrong somewhere, that her plugs were switched, because instead of softening toward them – instead of tenderness – she felt herself go cold and mean. ‘I can’t take you with me,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ben said. ‘We’ll just hang out with the other kids.’

  ‘There are no other kids,’ Eleanor said, ‘it’s not like that.’

  ‘You don’t care about us,’ Maisie said.

  ‘I do care,’ Eleanor hissed. ‘I just can’t … help you.’

  The door opened, and Mouse wandered in. ‘Ben, Ben, Ben, where’s my car, Ben? Where’s my car? Ben?’ He jumped on Ben for no reason. Sometimes you didn’t know until after Mouse jumped on you whether he was hugging you or trying to kill you.

  Ben tried to push Mouse off as quietly as he could. Eleanor threw a book at him. (A paperback. God.)

  Mouse ran out of the room, and Eleanor leaned out of her bed to close the door. She could practically open her dresser without getting out of bed.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ she said. It felt like letting go of them in
deep water. ‘I can’t even help myself.’

  Maisie’s face was hard.

  ‘Please don’t tell,’ Eleanor said.

  Maisie and Ben exchanged looks again, then Maisie, still hard and gray, turned to Eleanor.

  ‘Will you let us use your stuff?’

  ‘What stuff?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Your comics,’ Ben said.

  ‘They’re not mine.’

  ‘Your makeup,’ Maisie said.

  They’d probably catalogued her whole freaking bed. Her grapefruit box was packed with contraband these days, all of it from Park … They were already into everything, she was sure.

  ‘You have to put it away when you’re done,’ Eleanor said. ‘And the comics aren’t mine, Ben, they’re borrowed. You have to keep them nice …

  ‘And if you get caught,’ she turned to Maisie, ‘Mom will take it all away. Especially the makeup. None of us will have it then.’

  They both nodded.

  ‘I would have let you use some, anyway,’ she said to Maisie. ‘You just had to ask.’

  ‘Liar,’ Maisie said.

  And she was right.

  Park

  Wednesdays were the worst.

  No Eleanor. And his dad ignored him all through dinner and taekwando.

  Park wondered if it was just the eyeliner that had done it – or if the eyeliner had been the pencil that broke the camel’s back. Like Park had spent sixteen years acting weak and weird and girlie, and his dad had borne it on his massive shoulders. And then one day, Park put on makeup, and that was it, his dad just shrugged him off.

  Your dad loves you, Eleanor said. And she was right. But it didn’t matter. That was table stakes. His dad loved him in a completely obligatory way, like Park loved Josh.

  His dad couldn’t stand the sight of him.

  Park kept wearing eyeliner to school. And he kept washing it off when he got home. And his dad kept acting like he wasn’t there.

  Eleanor

  It was just a matter of time now. If Maisie and Ben knew, their mom would find out. Either the kids would tell her, or she’d find some clue Eleanor had overlooked, or something … It would be something.

  Eleanor didn’t have anywhere to hide her secrets. In a box, on her bed. At Park’s house, a block away.

  She was running out of time with him.