Rainbow Rowell Eleanor & Park Novels & Stories

"Elaine, listen, I just—" "Senior Rowan," she interrupted without looking back, "may I ask you for a favor?" Rowan stepped forward. "What do you need?" "A book and a pen, please." "A book and a pen?" He asked, confused. Elaine nodded. Her eyes drifted toward the window, her thoughts already far away. There were too many questions. Too many gaps. Only one person might have the answers. "I want to write to my mother."

Edmund three weeks old with his grandfather's name and his mother's eyes and apparently my eyebrows. Daniel two blocks from the water building things under his own name. Griffin answering questions a three week old cannot ask yet. Marcus and Sebastian on Fridays. Margaret with her window boxes and Archie and the twenty year game that landed exactly where she intended. All of it. Every piece of it. Exactly right. As it had always been going to be. From the moment a woman raised a paddle at a charity auction for a Maine vacation rental with a kitchen facing the ocean and looked across the room and found someone looking back.

"She's very excited." --- Olivia arrived next, carrying a gift bag the size of a small car. She was wearing a bright pink dress and a wide smile, her energy filling the garden before she even stepped through the gate. Chloe came behind her, wearing a bright yellow dress and an even brighter smile, her camera already in hand. Eleanor appeared in the doorway of the house, her silver hair swept up in an elegant twist, her expression one of quiet satisfaction. "Rachel," Eleanor said, walking to her. "You look beautiful."

But today, the glass just reflected her own face back at her, pale and entirely too still. The silence left behind by a four-and-half-year-old was its own kind of weight. It sat in the corners of the room, heavy and unmapped. Eli was at Eleanor's. It was the monumental, operational first time of a grandmother collecting a grandchild for an afternoon. It had happened at the park gate two hours ago, with Eli examining the arrangement with the systematic thoroughness of a scientist evaluating new parameters before confirming his participation. He had confirmed it. Gerald had gone with him, tucked firmly under a small arm.

"He’s not looking at a manifest, Jillian. Look closer." Jillian shifted those sharp, analytical eyes past the fuel slips to the guest docks, where a sleek, beautifully restored wooden sailboat from the opposite side of the cove had just moored. Standing on the deck, securing a heavy marine cleat, was a young woman with sun-bleached hair, wearing a grease-stained canvas apron over her shorts. She was the local shipwright’s apprentice from the northern ridge—Eleanor. Leo was standing on the dock just a few feet away, holding a clipboard, entirely frozen. When Eleanor looked up, wiping a streak of dark grease from her forehead and offering him a bright, unabashed smile, the brilliant young prog

Eleanor cleared her throat and started, " I was at the party and my husband left to pick up a call. I was just there, enjoying Nikki's speech and a waiter brought me a plate of fruits. While eating, I found a letter that told me to meet a particular lady named Mary in the restroom. She claimed she was a friend of mine in middle school. It wasn't really convincing but I went there." "Okay, from there, did you meet anyone or send anyone any letter?" Another detective asked. Eleanor shook her head. "I didn't even have a pen and paper in my purse, I wrote absolutely nothing but I did meet someone on my way there." "And who was that?" "Hendrix. He's a close friend of mine that I met in a saddle.

"Relax your shoulders Sydney, don't let people see how tense you are. " Dawson County, in a dark red tux with his dark hair in a buzz cut, saw Gavin and walked to him. They shook hands and talked about a new project he was coming up with. He told Gavin he wanted him to be part of it. While they talked, Eleanor, his wife, stared at Sydney with malicious eyes. She had been in the same high school with her and Gavin. They never really cliqued. Most especially because she had a crush on Gavin. Pulling on a mocking smile, she stretched out her hand. " You must remember me, Eleanor James, now Mrs. County."

Eleanor sat in the field looking from her sketchbook to Storm and back again. Her ability had improved a lot in the past month, but she still could not get the horses neck to look right and with Mairead gone she could get no pointers or lessons to fix it. She’d never be as skilled as Mairead, but her drawings were fairly nice now. Especially when she drew plants or flowers, things that didn’t move much. She was not nearly as good if she had to hold an image of a living creature in her mind and draw it with accuracy after it had moved. She was a bit disappointed that Eliana wouldn’t try learning to draw with her. She had hoped to be close with her sister once again, but she and Eliana had lit

cu said, lifting the book. “A guard talking about our God...” I cut him off before he could finish the word “That! A book about our favorite character,” I said hurriedly. I gave him a pointed look. “Maybe when we’re done out west, I can go to Name to look for this lady Eleanor.” “Eleanor?” He looked at me. “Yes, her name is Eleanor.” Wendell interrupted. “Eleanor Winchester, moved to Name a few years ago and became the guardian of the book.”

A sudden wave of something I didn't even recognize flushed through me and I found myself wanting to keep that smile and those bright green eyes on me. I had seen that she eyed the panda in the glass and I knew she wanted it even though she claimed that she didn't. She was like an open book, every emotion that flashed across her face could be ready and understood by me. I loved how she didn't mask her emotions or how she was genuine in everything she did. She was so different from the other girls I had taken with me to the park. While they mostly fawned over taking pictures and looking pretty. Eleanor was moved by everything she saw, from the games she claimed she didn't like to the cotton ca