There was no place to sit but on his bed, which Eleanor wouldn’t consider. So they sat between his bed and his stereo, where there was just enough room to sit with their legs bent.

As soon as they sat down, Park started fast-forwarding through the Elvis Costello tape. He had stacks and stacks of tapes, and Eleanor pulled a few out to look at them.

‘Ah …’ Park said, pained.

‘What?’

‘Those’re alphabetized.’

‘It’s okay. I know the alphabet.’

‘Right.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry.

Whenever Call comes over, he always messes them up. Okay, this is the song I wanted you to hear. Listen.’

‘Call comes over?’

‘Yeah, sometimes.’ Park turned up the volume. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Because now I just come over …’

‘Which is okay with me because I like you a lot more.’

‘But don’t you miss your other friends?’ she asked.

‘You’re not listening,’ he said.

‘Neither are you.’

He paused the tape, like he didn’t want to waste this song as background music. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about whether I miss Cal? I eat lunch with him almost every day.’

‘And he doesn’t mind that you spend the rest of your time with me now? None of your friends mind?’

Park ran his hand through his hair. ‘I still see them all at school … I don’t know, I don’t really miss them, I’ve never really missed anybody but you.’

‘But you don’t miss me now,’ she said.

‘We’re together all the time.’

‘Are you kidding? I miss you constantly.’

Even though Park washed his face as soon as he got home, the black around his eyes didn’t come off completely. It made everything he did lately seem more dramatic.

‘ That’s crazy,’ she said.

Park started laughing. ‘I know …’

She wanted to tell him about Maisie and Ben and their days being numbered, etc., but he wouldn’t understand, and what did she expect him to do?

Park pushed play.

‘What’s this song called?’ she asked.

“‘Alison.”’

Park

Park played Elvis Costello for her – and Joe Jackson, and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

She teased him because it was all so pretty and melodic, and ‘in the same phylum as Hall & Oates,’ and he threatened to evict her from his room.

When his mom came to check on them, they were sitting with a hundred cassette tapes between them, and as soon as she walked away, Park leaned over and kissed Eleanor. It seemed like the best time not to get caught.

She was a little too far away, so he put his hand on her back and pulled her toward him. He tried to do it like it was something he did all the time, as if touching her someplace new wasn’t like discovering the Northwest Passage.

Eleanor came closer. She put her hands on the floor between them and leaned into him, which was so encouraging that he put his other hand on her waist. And then it was too much to be almost-but-not-really holding her. Park rocked forward onto his knees and pulled her tighter.

Half a dozen cassette tapes cracked under their weight. Eleanor fell back, and Park fell forward.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh, God … look, what we did to Meat is Murder.’

Park sat back and looked at the tapes. He wanted to sweep them out of the way. ‘It’s mostly just the cases, I think,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He started picking up the broken plastic.

‘The Smiths and the Smithereens …’ she said. ‘We even broke them in alphabetical order.’

He tried to smile at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I think it’s almost eight, anyway.’

‘Oh. Okay, I’ll walk you.’

She stood up and Park followed her. They walked outside and down the walk, and when they got to his grandparents’ driveway, Eleanor didn’t stop.

Eleanor

Maisie smelled like an Avon lady, and she was made up like the whore of Babylon. They were definitely going to get caught. Talk about a house of effing cards. Jee. Zus.

And Eleanor couldn’t even think strategy, because all she could think about was Park’s hands on her waist and her back and her stomach –

which all must feel like nothing he’d ever en-countered. Everyone in Park’s family was skinny enough to be in a Special K commercial. Even his grandma.

Eleanor could only be in that scene where the actress pinches an inch, then looks at the camera like the world is going to end.

Actually, she’d have to lose weight to be in that scene. You could pinch an inch – or two, or three – all over Eleanor’s body. You could probably pinch an inch on her forehead.

Holding hands was fine. Her hands weren’t a complete embarrassment. And kissing seemed safe because fat lips are okay – and because Park usually closed his eyes.

But there was no safe place on Eleanor’s torso. There was no place from her neck to her knees

where

she

had

any

discernible

infrastructure.

As soon as Park touched her waist, she’d sucked in her stomach and pitched forward.

Which led to all the collateral damage … which made her feel like Godzilla. (But even Godzilla wasn’t fat. He was just ginormous.) The maddening part was, Eleanor wanted Park to touch her again. She wanted him to touch her constantly. Even if it led to Park deciding that she was way too much like a walrus to remain his girlfriend … That’s how good it felt. She was like one of those dogs who’ve tasted human blood and can’t stop biting. A walrus who’s tasted human blood.

CHAPTER 40

Eleanor

Park wanted Eleanor to start checking her books now, especially after gym class.

‘Because if it is Tina,’ he said – you could tell that he still didn’t believe that it was, ‘you need to tell somebody.’

‘Tell who?’ They were sitting in his room, leaning against his bed, trying to pretend that Park didn’t have his arm around her for the first time since she crushed his cassette tapes. Just barely, not quite around her.

‘You could tell Mrs Dunne,’ he said. ‘She likes you.’

‘Okay, so I tell Mrs Dunne, and I show her whatever awful thing Tina has misspelled on my books – and then Mrs Dunne asks, “How do you know that Tina wrote that?” She’ll be just as skeptical as you were, but without the complicated romantic history …’

‘There’s no complicated romantic history,’

Park said.

‘Did you kiss her?’ Eleanor hadn’t meant to ask that. Out loud. It was almost like she’d asked it so many times in her head that it leaked out.

‘Mrs Dunne? No. But we’ve hugged a lot.’

‘You know what I mean … Did you kiss her?’

She was sure that he’d kissed her. She was sure that they’d done other stuff, too. Tina was so little, Park could probably wrap his arms all the way around her and shake his own hands at her waist.

‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ he said.

‘Because you did,’ Eleanor said.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter. Was it your first kiss?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and that’s one of the reasons it doesn’t count. It was like a practice pitch.’

‘What are the other reasons?’

‘It was Tina, I was twelve, I didn’t even like girls yet …’

‘But you’ll always remember it,’ she said. ‘It was your first kiss.’

‘I’ll remember that it didn’t matter,’ Park said.

Eleanor wanted to let this go – the most trust-worthy voices in her head were shouting, ‘ Let it go! ’

‘But …’ she said, ‘how could you kiss her?’

‘I was twelve.’

‘But she’s awful.’

‘She was twelve, too.’

‘But … how could you kiss her and then kiss me?’

‘I didn’t even know you existed.’ Park’s arm suddenly made contact, full contact, with Eleanor’s waist. He pressed into her side, and she sat up, instinctively, trying to spread herself thinner.

‘There aren’t even roads between Tina and me …’ she said. ‘How could you like us both?

Did you have a life-changing head injury in junior high?’

Park put his other arm around her. ‘Please.

Listen to me. It was nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters,’ Eleanor whispered. Now that his arms were around her, there was almost no space between them. ‘Because you were the first person I ever kissed. And that matters.’

He set his forehead against hers. She didn’t know what to do with her eyes or her hands.

‘Nothing before you counts,’ he said. ‘And I can’t even imagine an after.’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t talk about after.’

‘I just meant that … I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too … That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I’m trying to say is, you’re it. This is it for me.’

‘ Don’t.’ She didn’t want him to talk like this.

She’d meant to push him, but not this far.

‘Eleanor …’

‘I don’t want to think about an after.’

‘That’s what I’m saying, maybe there won’t be one.’

‘Of course there will.’ She put her hands on his chest, so that she could push him away if she had to. ‘I mean … God, of course there will. It’s not like we’re going to get married, Park.’

‘Not now.’

‘Stop.’ She tried to roll her eyes, but it hurt.

‘I’m not proposing,’ he said. ‘I’m just saying

… I love you. And I can’t imagine stopping …’

She shook her head. ‘But you’re twelve.’

‘I’m sixteen …’ he said. ‘Bono was fifteen when he met his wife, and Robert Smith was fourteen …’

‘Romeo, sweet Romeo …’

‘It’s not like that, Eleanor, and you know it.’

Park’s arms were tight around her. All the play-fulness in his voice was gone. ‘There’s no reason to think we’re going to stop loving each other,’

he said. ‘And there’s every reason to think that we won’t.’

I never said I loved you, Eleanor thought.

And even after he kissed her, she kept her hands on his chest.

So. Anyway. Park wanted her to start checking her book covers. Especially after gym class. So now Eleanor waited until almost everybody else had changed and left the locker room, and then she carefully examined her books for anything suspicious.

It was all very clinical.

DeNice and Beebi usually waited with her. It meant that they were late for lunch sometimes, but it also meant that they could all change in relative privacy, which they should have thought of months ago.

There didn’t seem to be anything pervy written on Eleanor’s books today. In fact, Tina had ignored her all through class. Even Tina’s sidekicks (even thuggy Annette) seemed bored with Eleanor.

‘I think they’ve run out of ways to make fun of my hair,’ Eleanor said to DeNice while she looked over her algebra book.

‘They could call you “Ronald McDonald,”’

DeNice said. ‘Have they called you that?’

‘Or “Wendy,”’ Beebi said, lowering her voice and wolfing, ‘Where’s the beef?’

‘Shut up,’ Eleanor said, looking around the locker room. ‘Little pitchers.’

‘They’re

all

gone,’

DeNice

said.

‘Everybody’s gone. They’re all in the cafeteria, eating my Macho Nachos. Hurry up, girl.’

‘You go ahead,’ Eleanor said. ‘Get us a place in line. I still have to change.’

‘All right,’ DeNice said, ‘but stop looking at those books. You said it yourself, there’s nothing there. Come on, Beebi.’

Eleanor started packing up her books. She heard Beebi shout, ‘Where’s the beef?’ from the locker-room door. Dork. Eleanor opened up her locker.

It was empty.

Huh.

She tried the one above it. Nothing. And nothing below. No …

Eleanor started over, opening all the lockers on the wall, then moving on to the next wall, trying not to panic. Maybe they’d just moved her clothes. Ha. Funny. Super-good joke, Tina.

‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Burt asked.

‘Looking for my clothes,’ Eleanor said.

‘You should use the same locker every time, so it’s easy to remember.’

‘No, somebody … I mean, I think somebody took them.’

‘Those little bitches …’ Mrs Burt sighed.

Like she couldn’t imagine a bigger hassle.

Mrs Burt started opening lockers at the other end of the room. Eleanor checked the trash and the showers. Then Mrs Burt called out from the bathroom. ‘Found them!’

Eleanor walked into the bathroom. The floor was wet, and Mrs Burt was standing in a stall.

‘I’ll get a bag,’ Mrs Burt said, pushing past Eleanor.