My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead by Jeffrey Eugenides Read Free Book Online Page A

while and talk?”
She drifted closer to the screen door and pressed her nose against it. She looked pale without makeup.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll have to go put my shoes on. I’m not in a good mood or anything.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Neither am I. I just want to talk to somebody.”
While I waited for Eleanor to come out, Mattie Seaton appeared, striding along the sidewalk. He was on the track team. “Hey, Mattie,” I called out to him.
“Hi,” he said.
“What’s new?”
“Nothing much,” he said. “You got your trig done?”
“No, not yet.”
“You going with her ?” he asked, pointing to the house.
“Naw,” I said.
“Well, I got to get my homework done,” he said.
“See you later,” I called after him. I knew where he was going: Nancy Ellis’s house, two blocks down.
“Who was that?” Eleanor asked. She stepped out on the porch. She had combed her hair and put on lipstick.
“Mattie Seaton,” I said.
“He’s pinned to Nancy,” Eleanor said. “He likes her a lot. . . .” She sat down in a white metal chair. I sat on the porch railing, facing her. She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You want a cigarette?” she asked.
“No. I’m in training.”
We looked at each other, and then she looked away, and I looked down at my shoes. I sat there liking her more and more.
“How come you’re in a bad mood?” I asked her.
“Me? Oh, I don’t know. How did you know I was in a bad mood?”
“You told me.” I could barely make out her face and the dull color of her hands in the darkness.
“You know, I think I’m not basically a happy person,” Eleanor said suddenly. “I always thought I was. . . . People expect you to be, especially if you’re a girl.”
“It doesn’t surprise me ,” I said.
A breeze set all the leaves in motion again. “It’s going to rain,” I said.
Eleanor stood up, smoothing her yellow skirt, and threw her cigarette off the porch; the glowing tip landed on the grass. She realized I was staring at her. She lifted her hand and pressed it against her hair. “You may have noticed I look unusually plain tonight,” she said. She leaned over the porch railing beside me, supporting herself on her hands. “I was trying to do my geometry,” she said in a low voice. “I couldn’t do it. I felt stupid,” she said. “So I cried. That’s why I look so awful.”
“I think you look all right,” I said. “I think you look fine.” I leaned forward and laid my cheek on her shoulder. Then I sat up quickly, flushing. “I don’t like to hear you being so dissatisfied with yourself,” I mumbled. “You could undermine your self-confidence that way.”
Eleanor straightened and faced me, in the moonlight. “You’re beautiful,” I burst out longingly. “I never noticed before. But you are.”
“Wait,” Eleanor said. Tears gathered in her eyes. “Don’t like me yet. I have to tell you something first. It’s about Joel.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “I know you’re going with him. I understand.”
“Listen to me!” she said impatiently, stamping her foot. “I’m not going with him. He—” She suddenly pressed her hands against her eyes. “Oh, it’s awful!” she cried.
A little shudder of interest passed through me. “O.K.,” I said. “But I don’t care if you don’t tell me.”
“I want to!” she cried. “I’m just a little embarrassed. I’ll be all right in a minute—
“We went out Sunday night . . .” she began after a few seconds. They had gone to Medart’s, in Clayton, for a hamburger. Joel had talked her into drinking a bottle of beer, and it had made her so drowsy that she had put her head on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “What kind of car does Joel have?” I asked.
“A Buick,” Eleanor said, surprised at my question.
“I see,” I said. I pictured the dashboard of a Buick, and Joel’s handsome face, and then, daringly, I added Eleanor’s hand, with its