What Rizzo really meant when she told Kenickie it was "someone else's mistake." That moment and everything that happened thereafter, behind the scenes and on film. Rizzo/Kenickie alternating POVs.
Kenickie, Kenickie, fuckin' Kenickie. We're always on the outs. He always treats me like shit, but I keep coming back to him, so I guess it's all my fault in the first place. My fault anyway, considering I'm the girl. I'm the one who ended up with the reputation, not the T-birds or Scorpions, though they do most of the screwing around, anyway. So maybe when I considered everything, I was acting royally pissed, but I thought that was perfectly understandable behavior when you consider my circumstances. Even loathing every male for their abilities to weasel out of these situations unscathed, I couldn't have hated myself more than I did at that moment. What was I supposed to feel when I skipped the period? Afraid…useless, broken, a screw up. Always a screw up. Like a defective typewriter, that's what. So when I explained this to Marty who looked at me with wide eyes and asked, "You think you're PG?" I kept my pissed off shield in place and said, internally fuming, "I dunno, big deal."
"Was it Kenickie?" she asked as I continued to nonchalantly examine my reflection in the mirror. To her credit, Marty was genuinely concerned. Too bad I couldn't have cared less about anything other than ignoring own anger and fear. Her mention of Kenickie only sent my further over the edge of being able to hold it all in. He couldn't know, he could never know…at least not until I knew for sure. Then maybe I'd tell him, or maybe I'd let the whole thing blow over when my parents found out and inevitably kicked me out to great Aunt Ida's for what they'd tell their friends was a "summer on the farm." Kenickie treated me like shit all the time; I was only good for a screw to him. Why would he even care?
"Nah, you don't know the guy," I said, fluffing my do' a final time and walking away from the sinks. Marty followed me, ranting about some aspirin and Vince Fontaine. It was kind of endearing, the way she tried to make me feel better, but suddenly I realized I'd made a major mistake in my choice of confidant. Marty, sweet girl that she is, lets her mouth run freely. "Hey," I said, grabbing her arm as she turned out the door, "Marty, you ain't gonna tell nobody about this, right?"
She looked at me all concerned and said, crossing her heart, "Oh, sure Rizz. Look, I'll take it too the grave, okay?"
Well, guess I don't have a choice now but to trust her, I thought, and I went back to processing all the ways in which my life was going to change when I heard it. Marty wasn't just being her usual abrasive self. "Coming through, coming through, come on!" she said, parting the crowd, "Lady with a baby."
My eyes said everything I wish my mouth could have in a single look thrown at her before I walked away.
I wandered aimlessly behind a row of cars, trying to clear my head. It was okay, it was okay. If one or two people heard, or thought they did, what would happen? Nothin'. Maybe Marty would keep sew her mouth shut for just a few more weeks and I could make it to graduation without incident. Maybe I'd be really visible about smoking my cigs' or throwing back a cold one if some rumor started up, though they wouldn't start, because maybe two people tops had heard. Yeah, beer is bad for a baby, right? But I didn't care if it bought me a few more weeks… No, that was wrong! Wrong, damn it! I started chewing on my nails. How could I be that selfish? Just because I didn't want the kid didn't mean that I could do anything to harm it. Just because I couldn't give it a daddy that loved it, or a mom who wanted it, or grandparents who wouldn't nearly be killed over it…
I was such a fuck-up. Fuck, Kenickie could never know what I'd just thought, or he'd think I was more useless than he seemed to already. Who knows what he'd say, what he'd do. What would they all think if they'd heard my thoughts..? What kind of person did that make me to even consider…
The body next to me startled me, but not as much as the voice. I backed up when my brain caught up with my eyes. "Rizzo," Kenickie said, and I stumbled trying to put some space between us so I could think. I was already anxious, but then he said, "I hear you're knocked up."
My brain went on auto-bitch. "Ya' do, huh?" I stalled.
"Yeah," he said, standing very close to me.
Suddenly, Marty was right there, and I glanced at her. "Boy, good news really travels fast." I kept walking but found myself corned between a red car and my good for nothing fuck-buddy. I reeled.
"Why didn't ya' tell me about it?" he asked, and he seemed so totally unconcerned, so totally unafraid that I finally had a reason to hate someone more than myself. Thank the Lord I'm such a hard ass, because I went fully on instinct. I didn't even know what I would say before I said it, but I knew what I had to do to protect myself.
"What's it to ya'?" I smiled mockingly, but he didn't seem to catch that as he went on.
"Thought I might be able to do somthin'…" he said smugly, taking another drag on his cig.
"You've done enough!" I insisted, still with that sarcastic smile. And he had. Damn it, damn HIM, he had, and now my fucking life was ruined. What a proposal!
Kenickie moved his arm up my back and rested his hand on the back of my neck, leaning in a little closer. He looked me right in the eyes, and for just a second I thought he might say something…something perfect. Something that I'd never heard him say before, that might actually make all this hell a little better. But no, I should have known. Instead? "I don't run away from my mistakes."
When I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, kicked in the head, and been shot through the chest, I realized indisputably the type of person I was. Yes, I'd protect myself over this baby, and I didn't even have to lie. I would not cry. In fact, it was all I could do not to laugh.
"Heyyy, don't worry about it, Kenickie," I said, mimicking his accent. "It was someone else's mistake."
A blink. I knew he'd immediately think to Leo. Kenickie laughed a little bit and took his hand away, and for a second I couldn't begin to figure out what was running through his mind, but then he looked at me and said, so dismissively, "Thanks a lot, kid."
I hated him when he walked away, and then I realized two important things: somewhere along the line I had really fallen for Walter Kenickie, and, baby or no, that was my biggest mistake.
I was lightin' up when Tommy told me, "Rizzo's knocked up." I was jolted, but…not shocked? Kinda mad she didn't tell me first, but ever since the dance, she'd been actin' more like an ice queen than usual, and if she had a bun in the oven and we'd been fightin' all this time…well, I almost felt bad. Okay, so I felt real bad, alright? I flipped my lighter shut and spun to see her walking up the lane behind me, biting her thumb like she does when she's nervous. Dumb luck I'd seen her before the rumors started circulating even faster. No parents needed to know what was goin' on before I fixed this, and what Rizzo needed was some classic Kenickie charm to pull her outa what I figured musta been…well, fuck. Terror, right?
I walked up to her and got real close before she noticed me, but that was pretty weird in itself. Weirder still the…panic?...what flashed on her face for a second when she looked up and saw me there. "Rizzo," I said, "I heard you're knocked up." She was stumblin' a little, very un-Rizzo like. Is that what havin' a baby does to somebody? Throws 'um off this bad?
"Ya' do, huh?" she asked, and she seemed to be looking anywhere but at me.
"Yeah," I said, standin' real close. She's gotta understand that I'm not going anywhere 'cause of this.
Why was she bein' so fidgety? "Boy, good news really travels fast," she said, and she kept walkin', but she had to stop when we got right up near a red Chevy bel air.
"Why didn't ya' tell me about it?" I asked all smooth, still smokin' my cig. I smiled at her, totally unafraid. So maybe it was a little sooner than I'd planned, but I was always gonna marry the girl, right? Even if we hadn't talked about it, you don't fool around with a girl for that long without it developin' into somethin' serious.
"What's it to ya'?" she asked, in that mocking way of hers, and I felt like everything was gonna be okay once we fell into our little game. My hard ass little Rizzo was back, and I felt like a million dollar man because for her to go back to normal I must have gotten through, right? Unless, she didn't think...
"Thought I might be able to do somthin'…" I hinted, taking another drag on my cig. It was a beautiful night for a proposal, anyway, even if it was in that unconventional way of ours. She had to realize I had a role in this. She should'a told me right away.
"You've done enough!" She claimed, still smiling. Feisty Rizzo, gutsy Rizzo, my Rizzo. She was pissed, to be sure.
I put a hand behind her neck and leaned in. I wanted her to understand something important, something I thought would take away the last of her fears. "I don't run away from my mistakes."
Then the bitch broke me.
"Heyyy, don't worry about it, Kenickie. It was someone else's mistake."
For a second, I couldn't do anything, but suddenly I knew. Leo. That fuckin' son of a bitch Scorpion had finally taken from me the only thing that actually mattered. It was almost funny, in a way. "Thanks a lot, kid," I said, turning and walkin' away before I lost my mind right there on the drive in lot.
My Rizzo had fucked the Scorpion, and after I thought we'd been…that she…fuck the bastard! Fuck him! I tossed my cigarette aside and kicked the bumper of a nearby 300C. The couple inside got real pissed and started yellin', but I didn't care. I just kept walkin'.
I knew we fought, but I never thought she'd sink this low. She knew how I felt about her, didn't she? So she knew how I…how with Cha Cha I'd never…
Fuck.
My whole life was over, and I didn't even know how it'd happened.
Over the next few weeks, everyone found out. Everyone. Including my parents. They were LIVID. I took the test, and it was positive. Dad nearly knocked me into a wall. Mom woke up the neighborhood with her screams. I went to school every day and came home every night with no idea how I'd gotten through another twenty-four hours. The girls gossiped, the boys leered, and I steered clear of Kenickie by avoiding our friend circles all together. I'd hear the girls whisper in the halls. "She's the one I was telling you about," they'd say. And they were right to gossip, 'cause I got myself into the mess and I'd been too proud, or too afraid, or too hurt to get myself out of it.
One night about five weeks after my confrontation with Kenicke, Dad announced what I'd expected him to announce all along. "You're going to Aunt Ida's after graduation, Betty. Best be packing soon."
I didn't know if I was relieved or devastated. Aunt Ida wasn't a judgmental woman, but Kenicke would never know his child, and I wouldn't get to raise him. I dunno why, but I had a feeling it was a him, this little baby inside me. And I knew without saying that going to Aunt Ida's to hide the baby meant I wouldn't be expected to return with it, though it wasn't until a few nights later I overheard Mom telling Dad what was going to happen. Some nice, childless couple from Ida's church would take the baby, and I would come home.
Guess we'd pretend it never happened. Which would be hard to do, since I'd started imagining what a child part me and part Kenickie would look like.
Then there was the day I hadn't been expecting. I was walking through the school parking lot, clutching my books and strutting like I didn't have one damn thing to be ashamed of, when the black Scorpion wheels drove through and pulled up beside me. Leo was inside, and even when Dad was screaming at me and punching the wall, I'd never been afraid of a man before I saw the look in his eyes.
"Cha Cha won't speak to me because of YOU," he growled, and he jumped over the closed car door. Most Rydell students hang in the commons after school, so the parking lot was nearly deserted. A few strands of hair fell in his eyes, but he didn't seem to care. Leo just walked toward me, and I backed up hard into a yellow station wagon.
"Everyone knows that Kenickie ain't the dad and they're sayin' it's me 'cause I took ya' to the dance, you bitch! Tell 'um somethin' different, you slut, or you'll wish you had; you wouldn't even hardly fool around that night!"
He was so close I couldn't move, leaning over me. When I was too shocked to answer, he grabbed my arm and shook me twice. I nearly dropped my books and my attitude.
"Do I look like I'm going to wait for an answer?" he threatened loudly.
"Hey," said a voice from my right. Leo and I spun our heads to see Kenickie standing there with his hands balled into fists. I've never seen him so angry. He was shaking. "Take your hands off her, you son of a bitch, or I swear I'll make you."
The guys stared at each other for a full minute before Leo let me go. Then he got into the car, slammed the door, and drove away. I watched him go, saying nothing, feeling nothing.
Then Kenickie touched my arm, and a turned toward him and jerked away, dropping my books entirely, my face, I'm sure, no longer expressionless. I don't even want to think about what he saw there, because he pulled his hand away. "Rizzo," he said, with something like pain in his eyes. I didn't stick around to figure it out. I just ran. I didn't stop til I reached my mailbox. Then I bent over and threw up.
All I could think about for weeks was Riz, every second of every day: the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way she'd punch me in the arm or call me Pinky Lee. The way her eyes would burn when we fought and during the make-up sex. That was something… And it was something that Leo got to see.
I tried to shut it down, but soon I wouldn't be able to deny it. Soon Rizzo's start to get big, right? I mean, real big? It would be so obvious that bastard had been inside her, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. She was my girl and she'd stabbed me in the back, and all 'cause she suddenly got so sick of the way we operate? Things had always been that way. I learned her name seven months after we started dating in the back of my car. What did she think I was, a gentleman? It wasn't like I didn't fucking…fucking…It's not like I didn't care.
It's not like my best bud hadn't been with her, too. I mean, Zuk and Riz dated before Riz and I spoke, and I know she wasn't no virgin, but for some reason that didn't feel the same, even when the jokes would come out. "Bite the weeny, Riz," Zuko'd ordered, pissed. "With relish," she'd said, sporting that signature smile.
For some reason, it didn't bother me as much. I mean, it used ta sometimes, but I'd stomp that down hard. Then Sandy came along. After that, none of it seemed to matter. Leo was different. He was scum. He didn't deserve her.
On top of all that, I was still scared for her, ya' know? I knew damn well Leo wasn't gonna do the right thing, not with Cha Cha in the mix and his track record. Riz was all alone, and… She didn't deserve that, okay? I don't care. I just know she didn't.
I was layin' down under tree just off the commons after school one day and imaginin' breaking Leo's face into small pieces when I heard it, that flaming engine I recognized so easy.
I looked in time to see him jump outa the car and back Rizzo into Calhoun's yellow wagon. He got real close to her and my blood boiled I was so jealous. Then my blood boiled for a whole different reason. Riz was scared.
I stalked over without a second thought in time to hear the tail end of their conversation.
"…'cause I took ya' to the dance, you bitch! Tell 'um somethin' different, you slut, or you'll wish you had; you wouldn't even hardly fool around that night!"
Rizzo didn't say anything and he shook her, hard. Shook her just like that, and I started runnin'. I never laid a finger on Riz she didn't want to. "Do I look like I'm going to wait for an answer?" Leo yelled. It was like she shut down. Her eyes were empty. I think mine were red.
"Hey," I yelled when I got close. I'm pretty sure my whole body was shakin', but I didn't care. I was tryin' hard not to murder him right there. "Take your hands off her, you son of a bitch, or I swear I'll make you," I said in a voice that didn't sound like mine.
We looked into each other's eyes. Let him even MOVE, let him BREATHE on her, and I would end him.
Finally he jumped back into his stupid ride and drove off. Riz turned to watch him go, and I watched Riz. I stopped shaking, and started thinking. What'd he mean she hadn't fooled around? Why was he shakin' her exactly? Why'd she look so empty and afraid? She didn't even fight back. That wasn't the Riz I knew.
After a few seconds of this, I touched her arm, but she jumped back from me like my hand was on fire.
Her eyes…God, I'll never forget those eyes. It was like I could see sometin' in Riz I'd never seen before. I didn't like it. It hurt just to look at it. "Rizzo," I said, wanting so bad to touch her again. Nothin' else mattered but her.
But then she turned and ran. I coulda caught her, but I just let her go. Her books were on the ground, so I picked them up and decided to pass 'um off on Sonny to give to Marty. I also decided I'd watch Rizzo a lot more closely from now on. I'd been avoidin' her 'cause I didn't want to see her change. I didn't want to see it 'cause I knew she would kill me. But I couldn't get that look out of my head. It was like she hadn't felt anythin', then everythin' all at once.
Until I saw that, I didn't see.
When my period came again, better late than never, I actually cried. I cried for the first time in months, cried for the first time since I vowed not to in front of Kenickie, cried in relief and shame and gratitude and every other emotion you can imagine. I cried so much I made myself violently sick. Then I went downstairs and told my parents, and they cried too.
The day of the senior carnival, I rode the ferris wheel with French and laughed with joy I usually wouldn't show, kicking my legs and making my squeaky friend look at me like I was nuts. I felt like I'd been losing my edge over the past two months, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I'd never felt so light before I heard a loud, deep voice from below.
"Rizzo!" Kenickie bellowed, looking outraged. He ran toward the wheel. "Rizzo! Get off that thing in your condition!"
I didn't ask myself why he cared. I was too light, light headed even. "Forget it! It was a false alarm!" I shouted, smiling.
"What?" he roared up.
"I'm not pregnant!" I screamed, kicking my feet.
The whoop of joy I heard from him was enough, and he crushed his lips to mine the moment my feet hit the ground again, which was a good thing, since I don't think I could have stood on my own.
Then, "I'll make an honest woman out of you," he says, and I can't help but feel floored and angry again. So soon with his games? I could feel bitch-mode reactivating.
"Listen, fella, if this is a line, I ain't biting," I said, starting to turn away, but he stopped me, and his eyes were strangely sincere.
"That's a bona fide offer."
What. The. Hell.
"Well, it ain't moonlight and roses, but…"
Our lips met and didn't part for the rest of the night.
Rizzo'd been actin' strange again, and I didn't know why. I thought things were goin' so good. We were plannin' a wedding in a few months, and her parents were just happy that the hoodlum they thought knocked up their daughter was doin' the honorable thing and marryin' her. But she'd been so moody and out of sorts, a twenty-four seven ice queen, that there was no bein' around her. We fought worse than we ever had. I was annoyed and pissed and afraid. Maybe we'd both been through too much to go back again. It wasn't 'til I caught her throwin' up by my back porch that I got her to tell me the truth.
We were watchin' the stars, for once not fightin'. We weren't touchin', but weren't sayin' anything either. I was tryin' to figure out a way to bring up what was bothering her when she promptly got up, staggered a few feet to her left, and barfed all over Ma's roses. She puked a few times before I got my wits about me enough to go over there, but by then she was done, shakin' a little, and wiping her mouth, I grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her behind the shed, cornering her a little.
"What's goin' on, Riz?" I asked, concerned. My attitude didn't show it. My attitude was my own, and I crossed my arms.
Rizzo refused to look at me, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense 'a déjà vu. I looked at her face, at her posture, and then to her stomach. I put my hand there, and she jumped about half a foot.
"Rizzo," I said, my voice dark. I ran a hand over my hair. "Tell me, Rizzo. Don'tcha think I deserve to hear it?"
"What do you deserve, Pinky Lee?" she asked me, suddenly mocking. She met my eyes and jerked away. "What do you deserve after what you put me through?"
"What I…Riz, you slept with Leo, that Scorpion scum! And you got knocked up by him, and now you lied to me…!"
"What about you and Cha Cha?" she accused, eyes burning. "What about the best "dancer" at—"
"I didn't fuckin' screw around with Cha Cha!" I screamed, finally at my wits end. I grabbed Rizzo by the upper arms and held her tight against the shed wall. "I didn't fuck with Cha Cha because she wasn't my GIRL! And then you went behind my back and screwed the Scorpion, and lied to me about it! And I was still so fuckin' concerned for you!"
"You're girl—" Rizzo begain.
"I was 'THIS CLOSE' to askin' you anyway, Rizzo," I interrupted, furious and broken. "'THIS' close! 'Cause that scum wasn't gonna do the right thing by you, and I couldn't let that happen 'cause I LOVE YOU, damn it, and you-!"
"You love me?" she interrupted, the strangest look on her face.
"The fuck was I just—"
"You never said that to me before."
That got me. I'd never said it before? How had I never said it before? Then I thought back. I guess I really…but..and I…I had always just assumed she knew.
"Riz," I said, quietly.
"The baby's yours, Kenickie. I didn't lie. It was that night in the car, when the condom broke. I didn't wanna tell you. I didn't want your pity. I thought you were just a fuck buddy. I didn't know any different."
"Riz…"
"I thought I had my period again. I was wrong. It was just bleeding. I'm pregnant, Kenicke, and I'm scared, and my parents don't know, and you can tell it. She turned to her side. "Look at me!"
And I did look at her. I'd been so scared about what was goin' on with us that I'd stopped lookin' at her body that way for a long time, but now I knew. It wouldn't be long before everyone else did, too.
I lit up a cigarette then and took a long drag. Rizzo watched me, floored, as I dropped it in the grass and snuffed it out with my shoe. Then I hugged her to me.
"Let's run away. Let's do it now. We don't gotta wait anymore and I ain't gonna let my child and his mother go through one more minute without him there all the time."
I kissed her, and she kissed me, and it felt real for the first time in weeks and weeks. Then she leaned over in the grass and threw up.
I smiled. We eloped.