That stupid Asian kid totally knew that she was reading his comics. He even looked up at Eleanor sometimes before he turned the page, like he was that polite.
He definitely wasn’t one of them, the bus demons. He didn’t talk to anyone on the bus.
(Especially not her.) But he was in with them somehow because, when Eleanor was sitting next to him, they all left her alone. Even Tina. It made Eleanor wish she could sit next to him all day long.
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This morning, when she got on the bus, it kind of felt like he was waiting for her. He was holding a comic called Watchmen, and it looked so ugly that Eleanor decided not to bother eavesdropping. Or eavesreading. Whatever.
(She liked it best when he read X-Men, even though she didn’t get everything that was going on there; X-Men was worse than General Hospital. It took Eleanor a couple weeks to figure out that Scott Summers and Cyclops were the same guy, and she still wasn’t sure what was up with Phoenix.)
But Eleanor didn’t have anything else to do, so her eyes wandered over to the ugly comic …
And then she was reading. And then they were at school. Which was totally weird because they weren’t even halfway through with it.
And which totally sucked because it meant he would read the rest of the comic during school, and have something lame like ROM out on the way home.
Except he didn’t.
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When Eleanor got on the bus that afternoon, the Asian kid opened up Watchmen right where they’d left off.
They were still reading it when they got to Eleanor’s stop – there was so much going on, they both stared at every frame for, like, entire minutes – and when she got up to leave, he handed it to her.
Eleanor was so surprised, she tried to hand it back, but he’d already turned away. She shoved the comic between her books like it was something secret, then got off the bus.
She read it three more times that night, lying on the top bunk, petting the scrubby old cat. Then she put it in her grapefruit box overnight, so that nothing would happen to it.
Park
What if she didn’t give it back?
What if he didn’t get to finish the first issue of Watchmen because he’d lent it to a girl who 71/593
hadn’t asked for it and probably didn’t even know who Alan Moore was.
If she didn’t give it back, they were even.
That would cancel out the whole ‘Jesus-fuck-sit-down’ scenario.
Jesus … No, it wouldn’t.
What if she did give it back? What was he supposed to say then? Thanks?
Eleanor
When she got to their seat, he was looking out the window. She handed him the comic, and he took it.
CHAPTER 10
Eleanor
The next morning, when Eleanor got on the bus, there was a stack of comics on her seat.
She picked them up and sat down. He was already reading.
Eleanor put the comics between her books and stared at the window. For some reason, she didn’t want to read in front of him. It would be like letting him watch her eat. It would be like …
admitting something.
But she thought about the comics all day, and as soon she got home, she climbed onto her bed and got them out. They were all the same title –
Swamp Thing.
Eleanor ate dinner sitting cross-legged on her bed, extra careful not to spill anything on the 73/593
books because every issue was in pristine condition; there wasn’t so much as a bent corner. (Stupid, perfect Asian kid.)
That night, after her brothers and sister fell asleep, Eleanor turned the light back on so she could read. They were the loudest sleepers ever.
Ben talked in his sleep, and Maisie and the baby both snored. Mouse wet the bed – which didn’t make noise, but still disturbed the general peace.
The light didn’t seem to bother them though.
Eleanor was only distantly conscious of Richie watching TV in the next room, and she practically fell off the bed when he jerked the bedroom door open. He looked like he expected to catch some middle-of-the-night hijinks, but when he saw that it was only Eleanor and that she was just reading, he grunted and told her to turn out the light so the little kids could sleep.
After he shut the door, Eleanor got up and turned off the light. (She could just about get out of bed without stepping on somebody now, 74/593
which was lucky for them because she was the first one up every morning.)
She might have gotten away with leaving the light on, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She didn’t want to have to look at Richie again.
He looked exactly like a rat. Like the human-being version of a rat. Like the villain in a Don Bluth movie. Who knew what her mom saw in him; Eleanor’s dad was messed-up-looking, too.
Every once in a while – when Richie managed to take a bath, put on decent clothes and stay sober all on the same day – Eleanor could sort of see why her mom might have thought he was handsome. Thank the Lord that didn’t happen very often. When it did, Eleanor felt like going to the bathroom and sticking a finger down her throat.
Anyway. Whatever. She could still read.
There was enough light coming in from the window.
Park
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She read stuff as fast as he could give it to her.
And when she handed it back to him the next morning, she always acted as if she were handing him something fragile. Something precious. You wouldn’t even know that she touched the comics except for the smell.
Every book Park lent her came back smelling like perfume. Not like the perfume his mom wore. (Imari.) And not like the new girl; she smelled like vanilla.
But she made his comics smell like roses. A whole field of them.
She’d read all of his Alan Moore in less than three weeks. Now he was giving her X-Men comics five at a time, and he could tell that she liked them because she wrote the characters’ names on her books, in between band names and song lyrics.
They still didn’t talk on the bus, but it had become a less confrontational silence. Almost friendly. (But not quite.)
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Park would have to talk to her today – to tell her that he didn’t have anything to give her. He’d overslept, then forgotten to grab the stack of comics he’d set out for her the night before. He hadn’t even had time to eat breakfast or brush his teeth, which made him self-conscious, knowing he was going to be sitting so close to her.
But when she got on the bus and handed him yesterday’s comics, all Park did was shrug. She looked away. They both looked down.
She was wearing that ugly necktie again.
Today it was tied around her wrist. Her arms and wrists were scattered with freckles, layers of them in different shades of gold and pink, even on the back of her hands. Little-boy hands, his mom would call them, with short-short nails and ragged cuticles.
She stared down at the books in her lap.
Maybe she thought he was mad at her. He stared at her books, too – covered in ink and Art Nouveau doodles.
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‘So,’ he said, before he knew what to say next, ‘you like the Smiths?’ He was careful not to blow his morning breath on her.
She looked up, surprised. Maybe confused.
He pointed at her book, where she’d written
‘How Soon Is Now?’ in tall green letters.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard them.’