Buttons had his name for a reason. There was no secretive or complex or ironic meaning behind his quirky title, it was just that he really liked buttons. His father had been a tailor, and before their quaint, family-owned and operated tailoring boutique was accidentally burned to the ground, Buttons had worked for his father making...you guessed it...buttons. Every morning he would travel down to the wharf and gather discarded oyster shells from the fishing boats and bring them back to the shop to turn them into buttons. He had quickly became a master at his craft, and he could turn any shell or piece of wood into a beautiful little button.
Once the shop burned down, however, he had to work as a newsie to support his family while they collected enough money to buy and open up a new shop, but he never stopped making buttons. Even though he didn't need them to sell in a shop, Buttons could often sell one to the odd passerby on the street if he noticed thier coat pocket was missing its little circular fixture. He gave them to his fellow newsies as checker pieces or poker chips, or to fix their frequently torn shirts and jackets.
Just like every Friday night, Buttons was at Ms. Medda's theater with the rest of the Newsies for their weekly free show. They watched from the balcony seats as the Bowery Beauties shimmied around on stage in their sparkling costumes. Most of the boys were completely engrossed in the dancers and their apparent lack of clothing, but Buttons had noticed that one of the girls was uncomfortably pressing her arms down to her side, not letting them move and swing freely like the other dancers. As she turned in unison with the other girls, he realized that the some of the buttons fastening her bedazzled corset had popped off, leaving the item precariously loose. She was holding her arms down to keep her outfit on her body and off the floor, just like someone holding their pants up to keep from flashing their undies when they don't have a belt.
Buttons swiftly got out of his seat, trying as hard as possible to not disturb the other newsies, and sprinted out of the balcony and towards the backstage area. He got there right as the Beauties finished their routine and were entering the backstage. The girl with the broken corset hurried out first, desperately trying to keep the loose outfit from falling off her body and exposing her while she was still on stage. She ran straight into Buttons.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed.
"Sorry Miss!" Buttons squeaked out. She was very, very pretty. Just as he was about to say something else, one of the older dancers walked up with a stern look on her face.
"What was that, Eliza? You were performing like a limbless corpse back from the dead!" she scolded.
"It's not my fault!" the younger Bowery Beauty, who Buttons supposed was named Eliza, protested. "The buttons on my costume popped off! I knew it wasn't the right size..."
"Can you still perform?" the other Beauty asked.
"Not unless you want me to end up giving the audience a far better show than what they paid for." Eliza said, gesturing to how she was barely keeping her costume from slipping onto the floor.
"Well, if you can't perform in your costume, then you can't perform in the next number tonight." The other girl said sympathetically. "It will take at least a day for the costume designers to get to fixing your costume, since they are so backed up already."
Eliza sighed sadly. She knew it was true, but she really needed the money from tonight's performance to pay for her grandfathers medical bills. He was sick and her dancing helped pay for his medicine.
"Um, I could help?" Buttons spoke up, tapping Eliza gently on the shoulder.
"Huh?" both dancers said. They had completely forgotten that the soft spoken boy was still standing right by them.
"I can fix your costume." He elaborated. He dug around in his pockets and pulled out a small, bulging pouch and poured around twenty perfect buttons, a needle, and some sewing thread into his hand. "I can sew some buttons back on before your next number!" he offered, gesturing from the buttons in his hand to Eliza's broken costume.
"Could you?" Eliza exclaimed happily.
"Of course," said Buttons with a small blush on his face. Eliza was even more pretty when she smiled.
The show finished without another hitch. Buttons had managed to fix Eliza's costume before she went back on stage, and he even made it back to his seat in time to watch her last performance. She was the most beautiful dancer on the whole stage, or at least he thought so.
The show ended, and the Newsies began to leave the theater to head home to the Lodging House. As Buttons walked through the main foyer towards the exit, a soft hand grabbed his and spun him around. His gaze followed the arm connected to the hand, and then the arm connected to the person to see that it was Eliza who had grabbed him.
"Haha! Sorry!" she yelped, and quickly let go of his hand with a pink face. "I was just trying to get you attention…" she said hurriedly. Buttons just stared at her in wide eyed silence. She truly was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. "Um," she said, slightly uncomfortable by his lack of response, "I just wanted to pay you for fixing my costume." She offered him a few quarters in her open palm.
"No no." Buttons said, gently pushing her offering away from himself and back toward her. "I really don't need payment. It was nothing, really!"
"Well is was something to me." Eliza said. "I have to repay you somehow! Is there anything you would like?"
Buttons looked down at his shoes and the tips of his ears turned cherry red. "A date?"
"A date?" Eliza parroted in confusion, not completely understanding what the bashful Newsies was asking.
"We could go on a date, if you would like? Go get something to eat?" His whole face was bright red now, and he was nervously twisting his hands behind his back. He couldn't bring himself to look at her face, expecting a sharp no. Who would want to go on a date with a Newsie anyway, especially someone as beautiful as her.
"Of course!" she chirped happily.
Buttons looked up from the ground in surprise and couldn't help but blush even more at her beaming face.
"R-really?" he sputtered out with a dopey grin.
"Absolutely!" she said. "Just give me a few minutes to change out of my costume and I'll meet you right here!"
Buttons just happily nodded in shocked silence to show that he understood. Eliza gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried off and get changed. As she disappeared from the foyer, Buttons couldn't help but gently touch his face where the feeling of her soft lips on his skin still tingled, smiling like a love struck puppy.