27:Eleanor Brown Breaks the Rules

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Eleanor Brown
 
A series of graceful cursing flows out of room 1031. Passerby pause and look around—wondering what they’ve possibly done wrong to deserve this verbal abuse—and go away like scolded children, with heads bowed and a newfound sense of pudoration.

“Dammit! There goes another one.” Molly Brown sucks off another bead of blood from her finger. “Lawrence, hon, get another bandage.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asks Jack, straining to look down without moving his neck. Lawrence’s suit is a little long on him. Jack looks like a mannequin, up on the chair, still and stiff as death as Molly stitches up his pant leg.

Well, almost like a mannequin, Eleanor thinks, as she lounges back on the couch. Mannequins don’t sweat like that.

“Hush now. I’ve got a left hand that still works.” Molly patches up her enormous swathe of bandages and brandishes the needle like a sword. “Hold still so I don’t stick you.”

“It’s fine. Really. I’ll just… walk on my toes!”

“Nonsense! Have you seen those ol’ vultures? I won’t have any one of those cows goin’ around saying my stitching is shoddy—hold it right there young man, don’t you dare step off that chair!”

“Oh, stop it, you’re scarin’ him!” Eleanor, unable to take it anymore, bolts up and elbows her aunt out of the way. She wrestles the needle from Molly’s vice-like, one-handed grip. “He’s gonna think we’re weird!”

Jack relaxes a bit more as Molly backs off, grumbling and defeated. Eleanor shakes her head as she kneels down on the carpet, knees sinking into its plush fibers, and takes over with her amateur stitches. “Sorry, hon. I’m not as good, but I think you’re a mite bit safer. Quite the character, ain’t she?”

He gives an apologetic laugh. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am. You’re sure all this is okay? The suit? You didn’t have to…”

“Don’t mention it! Ol’ Lawrence doesn’t mind.”

Eleanor licks the frayed end of her black thread, and maneuvers it carefully into the eye of the needle. When Jack shifts nervously, she moves with him, as if she’s expected this. Like I’ve known him my whole life, she thinks suddenly, without warning. This familiar, strange boy, from another world right down my street. This boy I’ve know, whom I’ve never seen before.

But no. That’s impossible. Déjà vu, that’s all, she assures herself.

“So, stranger, tell me your story.”

“My what?”

“You know.” The needle darts in and out of the black fabric with ease, a silver fish in a sea of ink. “Who you are, who you were, why you are, where you been and where you’re goin’. Everyone has a story.”

He laughs again, a low, friendly sound. Unlike many people she’s met, he smiles like they are old friends—no dirty leer, or apologetic wincing, or condescending grin—and she appreciates this. It’s almost like she’s known him for five years and not five seconds. He’s just one of those people. Just one of those people with that kinda face. That’s why I think I remember him from somewhere.

“I’m afraid mine is a story well repeated,” he says with a shrug. “A washed-up dreamer. An artist without a penny in his pocket. I left to see the world, but you know, there’s nothing quite like the land of the free.” He turns at her gesture, and she starts on the other pant leg. “What about you? The infamous Browns, huh? What’s like, that big oil thingy? Having Molly as a mom must be—”

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