‘It’s okay,’ she told Mrs Dunne. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Tina had watched Eleanor get on the bus that morning with her tongue on her top lip, like she was waiting for Eleanor to spaz out – or like she was trying to see whether Eleanor was wearing any toilet clothes. But Park was right there, practically pulling Eleanor into his lap – so it was easy to ignore Tina and everybody else. He looked so cute this morning. Instead of his usual scary black band T-shirt, he was wearing a green shirt that said ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish.’

He walked with her to the counselors’ office, and told her that if anybody stole her clothes today, she was to find him, immediately.

Nobody did.

Beebi and DeNice had already heard about what happened from somebody in another class –

which meant that the whole school knew. They said they were never going to let Eleanor walk alone to lunch again, Macho Nachos be damned.

‘Those skanks need to know you have friends,’ DeNice said.

‘Mmm-hmm,’ Beebi agreed.

Park

His mom was waiting in the Impala Monday afternoon when Park and Eleanor got off the bus.

She rolled down the window.

‘Hi, Eleanor, sorry, but Park has errand to run. We see you tomorrow, okay?’

Sure,’ Eleanor said. She looked at him, and he reached out to squeeze her hand as she walked away.

He got into the car. ‘Come on, come on,’ his mom said, ‘why you do everything so slow?

Here.’ She handed him a brochure. State of Nebraska Driver’s Manual. ‘Practice test at end,’

she said, ‘now buckle up.’

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘To get your driving license, dummy.’

‘Does Dad know?’

His mom sat on a pillow when she drove and hung forward on the steering wheel. ‘He knows, but you don’t have to talk to him about it, okay?

This is our business right now, you and me. Now, look at test. Not hard. I pass on first try.’

Park flipped to the back of the book and looked at the practice exam. He’d studied the whole manual when he turned fifteen and got his learner’s permit.

‘Is Dad going to be mad at me?’ he asked.

‘Whose business is this right now?’

‘Ours,’ he said.

‘You and me,’ she said.

Park passed the test on his first try. He even parallel parked the Impala, which was like parallel parking a Star Destroyer. His mom wiped his eyelids with a Kleenex before he had his picture taken.

She let him drive home. ‘So, if we don’t tell Dad,’ Park asked, ‘does that mean I can’t ever drive?’ He wanted to drive Eleanor somewhere.

Anywhere.

‘I work on it,’ his mom said. ‘Meantime, you have your license if you need it. For emergency.’

That seemed like a pretty weak excuse to get his license. Park had gone sixteen years without a driving emergency.

The next morning on the bus, Eleanor asked him what his big secret errand was, and he handed her his license.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Look at you, look at this!’

She didn’t want to give it back.

‘I don’t have any pictures of you,’ she said.

‘I’ll get you another one,’ he said.

‘You will? Really?’

‘You can have one of my school pictures. My mom has tons.’

‘You have to write something on the back,’

she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like, “Hey, Eleanor, KIT, LYLAS, stay sweet, Park.”’

‘But I don’t ll-Y like an S,’ he said. ‘And you’re not sweet.’

‘I’m sweet,’ she said, affronted, holding back his license.

‘No … you’re other good things,’ he said, snatching it from her, ‘but not sweet.’

‘Is this where you tell me that I’m a scoundrel, and I say that I think you like me because I’m a scoundrel? Because we’ve already covered this, I’m the Han Solo.’

‘I’m going to write, “For Eleanor, I love you.

Park.”’

‘God, don’t write that, my mom might find it.’

Eleanor

Park gave her a school picture. It was from October, but he already looked so different now.

Older. In the end, Eleanor hadn’t let him write anything on the back because she didn’t want him to ruin it.

They hung out in his bedroom after dinner (Tater Tot casserole) and managed to sneak kisses while they looked through all of Park’s old school pictures. Seeing him as a little kid just made her want to kiss him more. (Gross, but whatever. As long as she didn’t want to kiss actual little kids, she wasn’t going to worry about it.) When Park asked her for a picture, she was relieved that she didn’t have any to give him.

‘We’ll take one,’ he said.

‘Um … okay.’

‘Okay, cool, I’ll get my mom’s camera.’

‘Now?’

‘Why not now?’

She didn’t have an answer.

His mom was thrilled to take her picture. This called for Makeover, Part II – which Park cut short, thank God, saying, ‘Mom, I want a photo that actually looks like Eleanor.’

His mom insisted on taking one of them together, too, which Park didn’t mind at all. He put his arm around her.

‘Shouldn’t we wait?’ Eleanor asked. ‘For a holiday or something more memorable?’

‘I want to remember tonight,’ Park said.

He was such a dork sometimes.

Eleanor must have been acting too happy when she got home because her mom followed her to the back of the house like she could smell it on her. (Happiness smelled like Park’s house. Like Skin So Soft and all four food groups.)

‘Are you going to take a bath?’ her mom asked.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’ll watch the door for you.’

Eleanor turned on the hot water and climbed into the empty bath tub. It was so cold by the back door that the bath water started cooling off before the tub was even full. Eleanor took baths in such a hurry she was usually done by then.

‘I ran into Eileen Benson at the store today,’

her mom said. ‘Do you remember her from church?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Eleanor said. Her family hadn’t gone to church in three years.

‘She had a daughter your age – Tracy.’

‘Maybe …’

‘Well, she’s pregnant,’ her mom said. ‘And Eileen’s a wreck. Tracy got involved with a boy in their neighborhood, a black boy. Eileen’s husband is having a fit.’

‘I don’t remember them,’ Eleanor said. The tub was almost full enough to rinse her hair.

‘Well, it just made me think about how lucky I am,’ her mom said.

‘That you didn’t get involved with a black guy?’

‘No,’ her mom said. ‘I’m talking about you.

How lucky I am that you’re so smart about boys.’

‘I’m not smart about boys,’ Eleanor said. She rinsed her hair quickly, then stood up, covering herself with a towel while she got dressed.

‘You’ve stayed away from them. That’s smart.’

Eleanor pulled out the drain and carefully picked up her dirty clothes. Park’s photo was in her back pocket, and she didn’t want it to get wet.

Her mom was standing by the stove, watching her.

‘Smarter than I ever was,’ her mom said.

‘And braver. I haven’t been on my own since the eighth grade.’

Eleanor hugged her dirty jeans to her chest.

‘You act like there are two kinds of girls,’ she said. ‘The smart ones and the ones that boys like.’

‘That’s not far from the truth,’ her mom said, trying to put her hand on Eleanor’s shoulder.

Eleanor took a step back. ‘You’ll see,’ her mom said. ‘Wait until you’re older.’

They both heard Richie’s truck pull into the driveway.

Eleanor pushed past her mother and rushed to her bedroom. Ben and Mouse slipped in just behind her.

Eleanor couldn’t think of a place safe enough for Park’s photo, so she zipped it into the pocket of her school bag. After she’d looked at it again and again and again.

CHAPTER 44

Eleanor

Wednesday night wasn’t the worst.

Park had taekwando, but Eleanor still had Park, the memory of him, everywhere. (Everywhere he’d touched her felt untouchable. Everywhere he’d touched her felt safe.) Richie had to work late that night, so her mom made Totino’s Party Pizzas for dinner.

They must have been on sale at Food 4 Less, because the freezer was stuffed with them.

They watched Highway to Heaven while they ate. Then Eleanor sat with Maisie on the living room floor, and they tried to teach Mouse ‘Down Down Baby.’

It was hopeless. He could either remember the words or the clapping, but never both at once.

It drove Maisie crazy. ‘Start again,’ she kept saying.

‘Come help us, Ben,’ Eleanor said, ‘it’s easier with four.’

Down, down, baby, down by the roller coaster.

Sweet, sweet, baby, I’ll never let you go.

Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa puff, shimmy . . .

‘Oh my God, Mouse. Right hand first – right first. Okay. Start again …’

Down, down, baby . . .

‘Mouse!’

CHAPTER 45

Park

‘I don’t feel like cooking dinner,’ his mom said.

It was just the three of them, Park, his mom and Eleanor, sitting on the couch, watching Wheel of Fortune. His dad had gone turkey hunting and wouldn’t be home until late, and Josh was staying over at a friend’s.

‘I could heat up a pizza,’ Park said.

‘Or we could go get pizza,’ his mom said.

Park looked at Eleanor; he didn’t know what the rules were, as far as going out. Her eyes got big, and she shrugged.

‘Yeah,’ Park said, grinning, ‘let’s go get pizza.’

‘I feel too lazy,’ his mom said. ‘You and Eleanor go get pizza.’

‘You want me to drive?’

‘Sure,’ his mom said. ‘You too scared?’

Jeez, now his mom was calling him a pussy.

‘No, I can drive. Do you want Pizza Hut?

Should we call it in first?’

‘You go where you want,’ his mom said. ‘I’m not even very hungry. You go. Eat dinner. See movie or something.’

He and Eleanor both stared at her.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, go,’ she said, ‘I never get house to myself.’

She was home all day, every day by herself, but Park decided not to mention it. He and Eleanor stood up cautiously from the couch. Like they were expecting his mom to say ‘April fools!’ two weeks late.

‘Keys on hook,’ she said. ‘Hand me my purse.’ She gave him twenty dollars from her wallet, and then ten more.

‘Thanks …’ Park said, still hesitant. ‘I guess we’ll go now?’

‘Not yet …’ His mom looked at Eleanor’s clothes and frowned. ‘Eleanor can’t go out like that.’ If they wore the same size, she’d be forcing Eleanor into a stonewashed miniskirt about now.

‘But I’ve looked like this all day,’ Eleanor said. She was wearing army surplus pants and a short-sleeved men’s shirt over some kind of long-sleeved purple T-shirt. Park thought she looked cool. (He actually thought she looked adorable, but that word would make Eleanor gag.)

‘Just let me fix your hair,’ his mom said. She pulled Eleanor into the bathroom and started pulling bobby pins out of her hair. ‘Down, down, down,’ she said.

Park leaned against the doorway and watched.

‘It’s weird that you’re watching this,’ Eleanor said.

‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ he said.

‘Park probably help me do your hair on wedding day,’ his mom said.

He and Eleanor both looked at the floor. ‘I’ll wait for you in the living room,’ he said.

In a few minutes, she was ready. Her hair looked perfect, every curl shiny and on purpose, and her lips were a glossy pink. He could tell from here that she’d taste like strawberries.

‘Okay,’ his mom said, ‘go. Have fun.’

They walked out to the Impala, and Park opened the door for Eleanor. ‘I can open my own door,’ she said. And by the time he got to his side, she’d leaned over the seat and pushed his door open.

‘Where should we go?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, sinking down in her seat. ‘Can we just get out of the neighborhood? I feel like I’m sneaking across the Berlin Wall.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘yeah.’ He started the car and looked over at her. ‘Get down more. Your hair glows in the dark.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You know what I mean.’

He started driving west. There was nothing east of the Flats but the river.

‘Don’t drive by the Rail,’ she said.

‘The what?’

‘Turn right here.’

‘Okay …’

He looked down at her – she was crouching on the floor – and laughed.

‘It’s not funny.’

‘It’s kind of funny,’ he said. ‘You’re on the floor, and I’m only getting to drive because my dad’s out of town.’