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.

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.

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.

# Eleanor #

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.

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.

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…

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.

Park cracked up when he saw Eleanor's tie. That was even better than making him smile.

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.

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.)

"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 turned practically sideways in his seat. "So you're leaving right after school?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't know we were getting dressed up," he said when she sat down next to him.

"I hope you're not expecting answers…"

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.

"No, I'll call you as soon as the kid settles down. I really do have to babysit."

"It's extremely long," he said, "and extremely personal."

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.

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.

"I'm not afraid of your list."

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.

"I'm going to ask you a lot of personal questions," he said, leaning forward. "I have a list."

"And you'll call me as soon as you get there…"

"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.

"It's just one night." She shrugged.

"Is that all you brought?" he asked, looking at her school bag.

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.

"Yup," she said flatly. "This is pretty much our uniform."

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.

She walked to the car and got in. There weren't any seat belts.

"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.

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.

"Haven't fixed it yet," her dad said, and laughed.

When they got inside, he took a better look at her.

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.

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."

She couldn't wait for her dad to leave so that she could start eating 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.

She tried to turn the station to MTV, but her dad frowned at her. He was on the phone again.

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.

"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.

Her mom had loved this Bonnie Raitt album. Eleanor wondered if her dad ever listened to it.

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.

She felt seven years old, flipping through their records.

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.

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.

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 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.

"Park," she called. "Out here! In the garage."

When he got home, he called out to his mom. "Mom! I'm home!"

He grabbed a cherry Popsicle out of the freezer and headed out there. He could smell the permanent-wave solution as soon as he opened the door.

# Park #

Everyone in the neighborhood who could afford a hair stylist came to Park's mom. On homecoming and prom weekends, she'd spend all day in the garage. Both Park and Josh were recruited from time to time to hold hot curling irons.

Park's dad had converted their garage into a salon when Josh started kindergarten and their mom went to beauty school. She even had a little sign hanging by the side door. "Mindy's Hair & Nails."

"Min-Dae," it said on her driver's license.

Today, his mom had Tina sitting in her chair. Tina's hair was wound tight in rollers, and Park's mom was squeezing something onto them with a plastic bottle. The smell burned his eyes.

"Hey, Mom," he said. "Hey, Tina."

"Hey, honey," his mom said. She pronounced it with two 'n's.

"Close eyes, Ti-na," his mom said. "Stay close."

Tina smiled broadly at him.

His mom didn't look up from Tina's head. "Nooo," she said, clucking her tongue. "No girlfriend. Not Park."

"Hey, Mrs Sheridan," Tina said, holding a white washcloth over her eyes, "have you met Park's girlfriend yet?"

Park stared at Tina. Shocked that she'd sell him out like this. Startled by her rosy take on bus life. Surprised that she was even paying attention to him, and to Eleanor. His mom looked over at Park, but not for long; Tina's hair was at a critical stage.

"No," Park said, anger and everything else curdling in his stomach.

"Uh-huh," Tina said. "Tell her, Park -- her name is Eleanor, and she's new this year. We can't keep them apart on the bus."

"I don't know about any girlfriend," his mom said.

"I'll bet you've seen her in the neighborhood," Tina said, assuring. "She has really pretty, red hair. Naturally curly."

"No," he said, "she's not my girlfriend. I don't have a girlfriend," he said to his mom.

"Is that right?" his mom said.

"You're such a guy, Park," Tina said from behind the washcloth. "I'm sure it's natural."

"Okay, okay," she said. "Too much girl talk for you. Too much girl talk, Ti-na. You go check on dinner now," she said to Park.

He backed out of the garage, still wanting to argue, feeling more denial twitching in his throat. He slammed the door, then went into the kitchen and slammed as much as he could in there. The oven. The cabinets. The trash.

Park froze. He could not get into trouble tonight. "Nothing," he said. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" his dad said, walking into the kitchen.

"Mindy!" his dad shouted.

Eleanor didn't call during dinner, which was good. That got on his dad's nerves.

But she didn't call after dinner either. Park walked around the house, picking things up randomly, then setting them down. Even though it didn't make sense, he worried that Eleanor wasn't calling because he'd betrayed her. That she knew somehow, that she'd sensed a disturbance in the Force.

The phone rang at 7:15, and his mom answered it. He could tell right away that it was his grandma.

"Out here!"

Park tapped his fingers on a bookshelf. Why didn't his parents want call waiting? Everyone had call waiting. His grandparents had call waiting. And why couldn't his grandma just come over, if she wanted to talk? They lived right next door.

"Jesus, Park, take it out on the bag…" There was an old-school punching bag in the garage, hanging way out of Park's reach.

"I think it's because she has red hair and giant tits," Josh said.

His dad and Josh were trying to watch The A-Team.

"Is your girlfriend calling?" Josh asked. "Park's dating Big Red."

"She's not --" Park caught himself shouting and clenched his fists. "If I ever hear you call her that again, I'll kill you. I'll literally kill you. I'll go to jail for the rest of my life, and it'll break Mom's heart, but I will. Kill. You."

"Park has a girlfriend?" he asked Josh. "Why do they call her Big Red?"

"No, I don't think so," his mother said. "Sixty Minutes always on Sunday… Maybe you think of Twenty-Twenty? No?… John Stos-sel? No?… Geraldo Rivera? Di-anne Sawyer?"

His dad looked at Park like he always did, like he was trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with him.

Park gently banged his head against the living room wall.

"Nothing," Park said, "nothing. I'm sorry. I'm just waiting for a phone call."

"God damn it, Park," his dad snapped, "what is wrong with you?"

"No way, dirty mouth," their mother said. She held her hand over the phone. "You" -- she pointed at Josh -- "in your room. Now."

"Hugh Downs?" Park's mom said into the phone. The pillow fell on the floor and she picked it up. "No?… Okay, I'll keep thinking. Okay. Love you. Okay, bye-bye."

"You talk like that," Josh said, dragging himself off the couch.

"Can I take it in my room?"

As soon as she hung up, the phone rang. Park sprung away from the wall. His dad grinned at him. His mom answered the phone.

"But, Mom, The A-Team is on."

"You heard your mother," their dad said. "You don't get to talk like that in this house."

"Hello?" she said. "Yes, one moment please." She looked at Park. "Telephone."

"Honey, I wish you would," their dad said, throwing a throw pillow at her.

"I'm thirty-nine years old," their dad said, "and a decorated veteran. I'll say whatever the hell I want."

Park ran into his room, then stopped to catch his breath before he picked up the phone. He couldn't. He picked it up anyway. "I got it, Mom, thanks."

Their mother jabbed a long fingernail at his dad and covered the phone again. "I'll send you to your room, too."

His mom nodded. His dad mouthed, "Big Red."

"It's not even 7:30."

She giggled.

"What time is your dad coming home?" he asked.

"What?" he said.

"Cool."

"Yeah, well… is your brother asleep?"

She giggled again.

"Yeah, but it's usually about, like, Magneto or something." Her voice was higher on the phone, and richer, like he was listening to it on headphones.

"I'm always whispering in your ear," he said, lying back on his pillows.

"What?" he asked.

"Late, I hope. They said they almost never get a babysitter."

"I don't know," she said, "I feel like you're whispering in my ear."

"He's not my brother," she said. "I mean, not yet. I guess my dad's engaged to his mom. But, no, he's not asleep. He's watching Fraggle Rock."

"I don't know," she said. "Hi."

"Hi," he breathed.

He waited for the click. "Hello?"

Park carefully picked up the phone and carried it to his bed. He sat down gently. He didn't want her to hear anything. He didn't want her to know he had a twin-sized waterbed and a phone shaped like a Ferrari.

"Hi," Eleanor said. He felt all of the tension rush out of him. Without it, he could hardly stand up.

"I didn't think you were going to call."

"My dad. He served in Korea, they fell in love, and he brought her back."

"Nice."

"So…" she said, "… things we can't say on the bus."

"What do you mean? Are you adopted?"

"Me neither," he said.

"I guess I don't really know what that means."

"I hate those people," she said.

"I mean, you don't seem like you're from there…"

He laughed, then thought of Tina and was glad that Eleanor couldn't see his face. "Me, too, sometimes. I mean, I guess I'm used to them. I've known most of them my whole life. Steve's my next-door neighbor."

"And I'm not going to say anything that I can't say in front of a three-year-old."

"I'm not going to say anything tonight that I could say on the bus or during English class," he said.

"How did that happen?"

"Half."

"Things we can't say on the bus -- go."

"Because I'm Korean?"

"You're Korean?"

"No. My mom's from Korea. She just doesn't talk about it very much."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"So…" Park said.

"I'm just kidding. He's in the other room, and he's totally ignoring me."

"How did she end up in the Flats?"

"You…" she said, "you're so… cool."

Of course he knew. They'd all been telling him so his whole life. When Tina liked Park instead of Steve in grade school, Steve had said, "I think she feels safe with you because you're like half girl." Park hated football. He cried when his dad took him pheasant hunting. Nobody in the neighborhood could ever tell who he was dressed as on Halloween. ("I'm Doctor Who." "I'm Harpo Marx." "I'm Count Floyd.") And he kind of wanted his mom to give him blond highlights. Park knew he was different.

# Eleanor #

"Yeah."

"That's pretty romantic."

God. She couldn't believe she'd said that. Talk about uncool. Like the opposite of cool. Like, if you looked up "cool" in the dictionary, there'd be a photo of some cool person there saying, "What the eff is wrong with you, Eleanor?"

"No," he said. "I don't know."

Eleanor didn't know the half of it; his parents were probably making out right now. "I guess so," he said.

"That's not what I meant though. I meant… that you're different from the other people in the neighborhood, you know?"

"Cool?" he said.

"Wow, really?"

"I'm dirty hairy?"

"I'm not cool," he said. "You're cool."

"Why would she say that?"

"I'm stuck in my own skin," Eleanor said. "And why are we even talking about me? We were talking about you."

"Because that's how she talks."

"That's crazy," she said. "I care what everyone thinks about me."

"You don't care what anyone thinks about you," he said.

"I can't tell," he said. "You just seem like yourself, no matter what's happening around you. My grandmother would say you're comfortable in your own skin."

"Are you kidding me?" he said. "You're Dirty Harry."

"Ha," she said. "I wish I were drinking milk, and I wish you were here, so that you could watch it shoot out my nose in response to that."

"Like Clint Eastwood, you know?"

"No."

"I'd rather talk about you," he said. His voice dropped a little. It was nice to hear just his voice and nothing else. (Nothing besides Fraggle Rock in the next room.) His voice was deeper than she'd ever realized, but sort of warm in the middle. He kind of reminded her of Peter Gabriel. Not singing, obviously. And not with a British accent.

Eleanor had an answer for everything -- but she still managed to evade most of Park's questions.

"Why?" she asked, with something just gentler than disdain.

"Like, where in the house?"

When her sort-of stepbrother fell asleep around nine, she asked Park to call her back in fifteen minutes, so she could put the kid to bed.

Park hurried to the bathroom and hoped that he wouldn't run into either of his parents. So far they were leaving him alone.

He called her back.

"Where are you now?"

"The future."

"It so hasn't been fifteen minutes," she said.

He got back to his room. He checked the clock… eight more minutes. He put a tape in his stereo. He changed into pajama pants and a T-shirt.

"I couldn't wait. Do you want me to call you back?"

"Did he stay asleep?"

"No." Her voice was even softer now.

She wouldn't talk about her family or her house. She wouldn't talk about anything that happened before she moved to the neighborhood or anything that happened after she got off the bus.

"Yeah," she said.

# Park #

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"Yeah, where."

"Is that U2?" he asked. He could hear "Bad" in the background.

"I'm wide awake," he half sang.

"Because I want to feel like I'm with you," he said. "Why do you make everything so hard?"

"Ha."

"Probably because I'm so cool…" she said.

"I'm lying on the floor in the living room," she said faintly. "In front of the stereo."

"What's your favorite part?"

"Because I'm thinking about you," he said, exasperated.

"Of the song?"

He lay back on his bed again and covered his eyes with his arm. He could see her. In his head. He imagined green lights on a stereo. Street lights through a window. He imagined her face glowing, the coolest light in the room.

"All of it," she said, "especially the chorus -- I mean, I guess it's the chorus."

"So?"

"In the dark, yeah."

"Yeah, I think it's my favorite song right now. I keep rewinding it, and playing it over and over again. It's nice not to have to worry about batteries."

"Yeah…" she said, softly.

"In the dark? It sounds dark."

"Yeah."

He kept singing then. Because he wasn't sure what to say next.

He was quiet.

"I'm right here."

"Why can't there be?" he asked.

"Makes what worse?"

She laughed. That's when she realized she was crying.

"What are you thinking?"

"I miss you," she said.

"Do you have a nickname?" he asked. That was one of his tricks, whenever she was put off or irritated -- changing the subject in the sweetest way possible.

# Eleanor #

He was quiet. She listened to him breathe. She wanted to ask him to hold the phone closer to his mouth.

She didn't answer.

"Eleanor?" Park said.

"I'm thinking -- I'm -- I'm not thinking."

"Eleanor…"

"I wish you were here. Or that I was there. I wish that there was some chance of talking like this after tonight, or seeing each other. Like, really seeing each other. Of being alone, together."

"Stop. Don't say my name like that. It only makes it worse."

"Are you there?"

She sat up and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"Everything," she said.

She was so out of it, she actually nodded her head. "Yes," she said out loud, catching herself.

"Not thinking in a good way? Or a bad way?"

"I don't know," she said. She rolled over onto her stomach, and pressed her face into the carpet. "Both."

"Are you trying to give me a nickname?"

"Tell me. Talk to me."

"Eleanor…" he said, "why can't we see each other?"

"Why?"

"No, I love your name. I don't want to cheat myself out of a single syllable."

"Ha. Especially not you."

"Why would you say that?" He sounded hurt. What did he have to be hurt about?

"God," she said, "don't. I'd almost stopped crying."

"Not Nora? Or Ella? Or… Lena, you could be Lena. Or Lenny or Elle…"

"Not even me?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, "Eleanor."

"You're such a dork." She wiped her eyes.

"Stop asking that," she said angrily. There was no stopping the tears now. "You always ask that. Why. Like there's an answer for everything. Not everybody has your life, you know, or your family. In your life, things happen for reasons. People make sense. But that's not my life. Nobody in my life makes sense…"

"Why does he care?"

"He doesn't care. He just wants to kill me."

"Because," she said, "because my stepdad would kill me."

"Why, why, why…" she said.

"Yeah," he said, "why. Why are you always so mad at me?"

"Somewhere," he said. "With each other. Like, a few minutes ago, you said you missed me. And for maybe the first time ever, you didn't sound sarcastic or defensive or like you think I'm an idiot. And now you're yelling at me."

"You can ask me why," he said again.

"I'm not yelling."

"Yeah?" She sniffed.

"You're mad," he said. "Why are you mad?"

"I'm never mad at you." It came out a sob. He was so stupid.

"Eleanor…" he said.

"You are," he said. "You're mad at me right now. You always turn on me, just when we start to get somewhere."

"What can I say then? You can ask me why, you know. I promise I'll have answers."

"Okay." She looked down at the turntable, at her own reflection in the tinted acrylic lid. She looked like a fat-faced ghost.

He sounded frustrated with her, but not angry. She could remember him sounding angry with her only once. The first day she got on the bus.

"Get where?"

She didn't want him to hear her cry. She held her breath. That made it worse.

"Stop saying that."

Even worse.

"Yeah."

She closed her eyes. "Why do you even like me?"

# Park #

He sat up, stood up, started pacing around his small room. He went to stand by the window -- the one that faced her house, even though it was a block away and she wasn't home -- holding the base of the car phone against his stomach.

She'd asked him to explain something he couldn't even explain to himself.

He opened his eyes.

"I don't like you," he said. "I need you."

He waited for her to cut him down. To say "Ha" or "God" or "You sound like a Bread song."

But she was quiet.

He crawled back onto the bed, not caring whether she heard it swish. "You can ask me why I need you," he whispered. He didn't even have to whisper. On the phone, in the dark, he just had to move his lips and breathe. "But I don't know. I just know that I do…"

"I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You're the smartest girl I've ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being…"

Someone knocked softly on his door.

"I don't know what to say."

"But I think it's got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft… and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake."

"Don't laugh. It just encourages me."

"Eleanor," he said, just because he liked saying it, "why do you like me?"

"I'm back," he said. "Are you there?"

"Nice."

"Don't feel stupid, Park," she said.

"I don't like you."

"Ask me why I like you," she finally said.

He felt himself smile. He felt like something warm had spilled in his chest.

"Not too late," he said. She smiled and shut the door.

They were both quiet.

He could hear that she was smiling, too. He could picture her. Smiling.

"Say something, so that I don't feel so stupid."

He waited for her to say something. She didn't.

"I'm here," Eleanor said.

He waited. And waited…

His mom opened his door, just enough to push her head through. "Not too late," she said.

"Say something."

Then he started to laugh. "You're kind of mean," he said.

"Just a second," he whispered into the phone. "Yeah?" he said.

"I'm afraid I'll tell you the truth."

He closed his eyes and arched his head back into his pillow.

"So far, just for me."

"I'm afraid I'll say too much," she said.

"Why not?"

"You can't."

"You don't like me…" he said, leading her, pressing the base of the phone into his lowest rib.

"Eleanor…"

"I don't like you, Park," she said again. "I…" She stopped. "I can't do this."

"I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I…" -- her voice nearly disappeared -- "sometimes I think I live for you."

"Park."

"It's embarrassing."

"I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?"

"Does he have to know?"

And that's exactly why she hadn't said it. Because all her feelings for him -- hot and beautiful in her heart -- turned to gobbledygook in her mouth.

"God," she said. "I told you I shouldn't talk. I didn't even answer your question."

"Why can't I see you?" Park asked. His voice sounded raw and pure. Like something just hatched.

He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with "I want you" in his ears.

She flipped the tape and pressed play, and waited for Robert Smith to start singing before she climbed up onto her dad's brown leather couch.

"My mom will tell him."

"Because my stepfather is crazy."

"Does she have to know?"

She hadn't even said anything nice about him. She hadn't told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan.

# Eleanor #

"I don't know what I mean. I just know that I need to see you. Like this."

Eleanor ran her fingers along the edge of the glass coffee table. "What do you mean?"

"We could meet at the playground."

"Jesus."

Sure he can, she thought. "He can take me away from you," she said. "The last time he got really mad at me, he kicked me out and didn't let me come home for a year."

"I don't know, never. This is one of those things that doesn't make sense. My mom doesn't want to do anything that could possibly irritate my stepfather. And my stepfather gets off on being mean. Especially to me. He hates me."

"Yeah."

"Here," he said. "You could come here."

"Where?"

"Why?"

"He can't take me away from you," Park said.

"Don't be sorry," she said. "Just don't tempt him."

"My siblings would turn me in."

"I'm not even allowed to talk to boys."

"Until when?"

"I'm sorry."

She wanted, badly, to change the subject, but she didn't.

"We could meet somewhere else."

"Because he's a bad person. Just… trust me. He's the kind of bad that tries to kill anything good. If he knew about you, he'd do whatever he could to take you away from me."

"Because I hate him."

"Why?"

"What would your parents say?"

She laughed. She wanted to say it wouldn't work, but maybe it would. Maybe.

"Damn," she said. "I think my dad's home." She got up and looked out the window. Her dad and Donna were getting out of the Karmann Ghia. Donna's hair was a mess.

"Okay," he laughed.

"Yes," he said. "I want everyone to meet you. You're my favorite person of all time."

He kept making her feel like it was safe to smile. "I don't want to embarrass you…" she said.

"Damn, damn, damn," she said. "I never said why I like you, and now I have to go."

"It's because you're kind," she said. "And because you get all my jokes…"

"It's nice to meet you, Eleanor, would you like to stay for dinner?"

"That's okay," he said.

Headlights shot across the living room.

"You couldn't."

"And you're smarter than I am."

"I am not."

"Are you sure you want them to meet me?" she asked.

"And you look like a protagonist." She was talking as fast as she could think. "You look like the person who wins in the end. You're so pretty, and so good. You have magic eyes," she whispered. "And you make me feel like a cannibal."

"I have to go." She leaned over so the receiver was close to the base.

"Eleanor -- wait -- I love you."

"You're crazy."

"Eleanor -- wait," Park said. She could hear her dad in the kitchen and her heartbeat everywhere.

"Eleanor?" her dad was standing in the doorway. He was being quiet, in case she was asleep. She hung up the phone and pretended that she was.