My hands are buried in the front pocket of my hoodie as I lean against the back of the Bronco and stare across the street, drumming up the nerve to cross it and ring the Trombley bell. The mere thought of it brings acid up my esophagus. One hand grips the hair tie Gemma gave me, the other clutches the six twenties from Grandpa Hank. My mom is home, so her car is mine to take if I want it. The parts shop is open for another hour, so I could make it there in time and maybe even figure out how to install an alternator. I hope it’s basically the opposite of how it’s removed, but I’m not counting on anything being easy with this thing.
Deciding I owe it to Gemma to deliver her gift—and maybe owe it to myself to prove I’m not afraid of being Eleanor Trombley’s friend—I push off from the bumper and take several long strides down my driveway. I’ll use the parts store closing soon as an excuse if I feel trapped. I’ll just make a delivery if her mom or dad answer. I’ll find the right words; I’ll be kind and they’ll think I’m a good friend. So will Eleanor.
And then my finger is on the doorbell and all of those positive affirmations I filled my head with drop to the ground and wither away, probably into the roots of the dead hedge that lines their front walkway.
I think about hooking the hair band on their doorknob, but my inner debate takes way too long and the iron knob I’m staring at twists from someone else’s doing on the other side of the door. Met with Mr. Trombley’s pale face and sunken eyes, I find myself only able to stare back with my mouth hung open.
This is awful.
“You’re here for Eleanor, right?” His voice is raspy as if he just rolled off some barstool after a serious whiskey and cigar bender. That rawness is from emotion, though. I recognize it, and thanks to my grandpa, I’m also able to sniff out the whiskey.
I must have nodded in response, though I can’t feel my face and I don’t recall reacting. Regardless, Mr. Trombley’s large hand wraps around the edge of the door as he leans behind it and shouts, “Elle! You have company!”
I mull over uttering an apology, even going so far as to mouth the word sorry before he pulls the door wider and meets my panicked gaze again.
“She’ll be right here,” he says, monotone and lifeless. He immediately leaves the space, turning and sliding his feet along their wooden floor. His slippers are too small for his feet, his socked heels hanging off the back. I wonder if he wore those shoes to the school this morning and I just didn’t notice.
I take a step back, not wanting to hover at the entry while I wait. I feel like an intruder, breaking up their quiet moment to grieve. The buzz of television is almost always on in my house. My grandpa either has the news on or one of those home improvement shows. He likes to watch the couples fight, he says. The Trombley house is stiflingly silent. It’s the kind of quiet one can practically taste, thick and acidic, and the pull into this darkness is strong. Even as I stand here forcing my legs to step back more, I lean in, curious and perhaps wanting to feel what they feel so I can understand. Maybe I do understand.
The quiet is rich enough that I can hear Eleanor’s feet pad down the wood-planked stairs inside. The warning sound helps me brace myself for making eye contact, not that I’m ever fully prepared to meet her gaze head-on. Where her dad’s eyes were dark and lost, hers are clear. She’s pulled herself closer to the sun, even more than the last time we talked, the night we planned a camping trip that will never come to fruition.
“Let’s go to your house,” she says, pulling the door closed behind her. She passes me on the porch steps and pulls her jacket on as she makes her way down the walkway toward the street.
A little stunned, I look back at the shut door behind me, expecting her father to come storming through it at any minute, fists in the air as he yells, “Come back here, young lady!” I count to three, but the door doesn’t budge.
“You comin’?”
I turn back to find Eleanor waiting in the middle of our street, arms wrapped around her mid-section to stave off the growing chill. Drums thump in the backdrop from the football game she should be cheering at. She ignores them, but they must be scratching at her.
“Yeah, sorry.” I don’t know exactly why I apologize; it just seems right.
I jog the few steps it takes to catch up to her then mimic her closed-off position, stuffing my hands in my hoodie pocket again. In that brief blip of time I’d forgotten the entire reason I came to see her in the first place. I remember the second my hand finds the satin fabric. I’m less sure about giving it to her, though. Maybe I’m assuming too many things and projecting onto her, but I don’t think the football game is what she wants to be reminded of. Instead, I grip the cash from my grandfather and wad it in my palm, pulling my fist out to show it off as I walk sideways to look her more in the eyes on our march up my driveway.
“Wanna come with me to buy an alternator?” This has to be the absolute smoothest line ever uttered by a teenaged boy to a girl.
An amused smile pulls up the side of her mouth as her eyes zero in on my fistful of cash.
“I would love to go buy an alternator with you, Jonah.” She isn’t even kidding a little bit.
“Yeah?” My reply
