Chapter 1- It Girl

"There he is!" Elaine exclaimed in a less than hush tone. She smoothed her dress down her legs in her typical, habitual manner. "How do I look?" She asked while shooting another look over her shoulder at her target.

"Desperate and horny." She stopped moving so she could glare at me. "So no different than usual." I added a nonchalant shrug to my taunts.

"Low blow." She whined as she punched me in the shoulder. Lightly, of course, but enough to get her point across.

Elaine and I had recently become best friends when we started high school. We were in gym class one Tuesday afternoon and a Soc girl shoved me into a locker as she sashayed past. Elaine whistled loud enough to attract her attention and decked the broad square in the mouth. She approached me and helped me to my feet, making sure I was alright.

Elaine's reaction to the Soc girl was not extraordinary. That's how tight we greaser girls were. We learned to be. That's the only way we could survive.

However, Elaine was different than everyone else. Sure she was obnoxious and her eyeliner flicks were sharper than most of the guys' blades in Buck's but she wasn't a perfect example of a product of the East Side.

She was loyal to a fault. I never worried about her running off behind my back with my current boy. Or that she would trade my intimate secrets for a cigarette behind the auditorium. She was a rare find. A rare friend.

Despite our similar personalities, our looks were night and day. She had pin straight hair that barely touched the top of her shoulders. She was short than me, but barely so. Her killer curves were the envy of both the East and West parts of Tulsa. Her bright blue eyes were cleverly deceitful, hiding a reckless energy boiling just beneath the surface.

My hair was down to the middle of my back. I wouldn't say it was curly but it had a good wave to it. My hazel eyes held no secrets. You would know exactly what mischief I would be engaging in. Elaine could keep her curves because I had legs. I liked to flaunt them because I was proud of them. Socs' may have all the money in the world but they can't buy new legs. It was one thing I could hold over them.

"Fair game." Elaine stuck out her hand and I gave it a fair, gentleman shake.

We just graduated high school and we were looking for some action. Boys and booze. Our type of celebration.

We walked over to the bar Buck was tending at. The guy was a total creep but he often gave us free drinks. He could flatter us all he wanted, but it was never going to happen. I do have some standards.

I got one shot down and was going for a second when someone bumped into me from behind.

"Ya know there are better ways for picking up chicks than ramming them into the side of a bar?" I turned around slowly, my fists balled up.

"Sorry." Sodapop Curtis threw his hands up in false surrender.

Everyone knew who he was. On Saturday nights, like tonight, everyone knew where to find him. Girls would come here to catch glimpses, snag a dance, and if they were lucky enough, they would see the fine interior decorating of one of Buck's upstairs bedrooms. Since Sandy broke up with him when he was sixteen, he never went steady. He was simply a one-night good time. No strings attached. And I guess it was my turn.

I casually gave him an eye roll. "Don't you have better moves than having your buddy purposefully push you into me?"

He grinned. "I don't know." He leaned in so close that if I stuck out my pinky it would go straight into his stomach. He reached around me and grabbed a beer. "You tell me."

"Hmmm." I acted like I was figuring out some complicated calculus problem. "You can definitely try harder." I said this deliberately, as if I had made some great discovery.

I slinked past him, teasing him a tad.

"Hey, can I get a dance?" He called after me.

"I don't know." I turned around to face him. "You tell me." I gave him a half smile and waved.

I returned to Elaine, who was standing off by the stairs, scouting the room.

"How's it going for you?" She asked while keeping her focus.

"Working on it." I smirked, trusting in my self-proclaimed skills.

She mumbled some kind of response, but I couldn't make it out.

"If you don't mind, could you actually talk to me. Instead of staring at Mark." I pestered her. She had her sights set on him since the rumor leaked that he was finally single. "Go talk to him." I nudged her.

"I'm waiting for some of the skanks to clear." She pinched up her nose a bit. "Their mere presence insults me." She said in a pretty good British accent imitation.

"What have you gotten yourself into?" She whispered without trying to hide her amazement.

"About that dance…" Sodapop intentionally trailed off as he approached us. Elaine winked at me, all hesitation disappearing from her as she marched off towards Mark.

"What about it?" I replied as I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt onto the dance floor.

He was a really smooth dancer. He would twirl me just to pull me closer to him. During some of the faster paced songs, he would move his hand farther down my backside and his thigh would slip in between my legs. We would occasionally stop by the bar and grab some shots to down before the next song got good.

I had a pretty good buzz going and judging by the way he would press his lips against my neck so I could feel his smile, he was feeling alright too.

"So are we just going to dance all night?" I inquired as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He finished off his beer before responding, "You tell me."

I looked at him, offered him a small smile, and then I kissed him. He lowered his hands even more and the kiss deepened. He pulled back just long enough to ask if I wanted to. I nodded and pulled him closer to me.

Tonight, I was the "it" girl.

Like I said, everyone knew it was for only a night. And that it meant nothing to him. I meant nothing. I reminded myself that as we climbed the stairs to a secluded room.

Just a one-night stand. No biggie.