Chapter One
Apparition
Mom was the only real proof I had that Dallas was an idiot when it came to women. In the 14 years that she was a part of my life, I spent about three quarters of my time watching her. Often she would be puttering around the kitchen, while the boys and dad roughhoused in the den. The house was a small space to begin with, but with the boundaries set by the sheer amount of testosterone at any given point, it was compact enough to drive me crazy.
There were places I never went, mom occasionally, but hesitantly, Darry and Soda's room, Ponyboy's, the backyard, and then the den. The boys never said anything about it, never bothered to ask for alone time, so I was always dying to know when the madness began. Had I lived with this segregation my entire life? Was it something mom just expected once she realized her first child, and then second, would be boys? Well, I finally decided to just ask her.
"Oh, dear, that's just how it is…just how they like it." She gave me her knowing look, the one where she lowered her chin, and observed you playfully through her eyelashes. "Don't you like being in the kitchen with me?"
I loved her for that, one of the few things she did that encouraged it, and for that I felt it tenfold. I really couldn't believe she would say that to me, like her restlessness didn't exceed mine, that I never saw her wringing her hands, staring at the pile of freshly washed dishes, wishing there were more, that there were more distractions, that I never noticed when she would look out the window above the sink, wishing she'd never made that road trip from Maryland.
The boys would drop into our little world when they wanted cake or Pepsi, or wanted to know if mom would do them a real solid and toss their jeans in the wash, grass-stained from football. She was pleasant, excessive almost, in the lengths she would go to just to play the loving mother, the cordial housewife. For that, I disdained her.
But Dallas, Dallas always stuck around an extra five, extra ten, I always knew something was up when it went past 30, and then I'd be sent to fetch milk or eggs from down the street. And of all of them she chose Dallas, the wiry delinquent, not good looking or tall enough for most girls to take a second glance.
Chose, yes she chose him, like dad, like whatever guy coughed up the gas money to drive her cross country. She could have had anyone, but she didn't fancy just anyone. Cowboys, maybe that's why she bothered heading west at all, she wanted a Clint Eastwood, and instead she got some half-Cherokee farm hand. Well, that was good enough for her.
I knew she liked Dallas' recklessness, but to what end I was never sure. They only ever talked, low enough that it stayed between them. I saw them touch only once, the night he screwed himself over badly enough to earn nine months in the reformatory. Part of me thought he was in love with her, in love with the idea of someone outside his world of rumbles.
"You got one helluva mom, you understand?" He'd say as he cast a meaningful look at me, in my seat at the kitchen table, like I was some ungrateful brat.
If only he knew what he was to her, a distraction. If only I had told him the truth, and been able to see some emotion besides anger register on his face, rejection, hurt, maybe.
I liked the thought of honesty, of being an honest person. And if I'm being honest, I hated it, being in the kitchen with mom. I hated being with her anywhere.
It's odd to finally confess that I felt a strange kind of hope when she died. I thought, finally, all those things we had in common would dissipate, the restlessness and selfishness was something of hers that must have just rubbed off on me, from sticking so close to her side all those years.
That hope endured, even when social services came to tell us that a girl couldn't be raised by her 20-year-old brother, when mom's cousin in Tennessee offered to take me in. I'm sorry to say Dallas and Johnny's deaths happened at a pretty opportune time. I got the sympathy vote with my new guardians, Jeanie and Don, but mostly Jeanie. The social worker took some time to make a decision, but I got the news I wanted. I would spend the summer at home, in Tulsa.
Even though I hated Murfreesboro, I was thankful for Jeanie. Under her roof, I finally felt like I could be the girl that the guy's at school would whisper about, the kind of girl Angela Shepard was effortlessly. Mom was from an upper class family, so she always had a certain expectation, for how I should dress, and walk, and talk. I also knew that if I had been allowed to stay at home for that year, I would have been on an even tighter leash than before.
Jeanie really was something else, young for one, very young. After about a week there, I surmised that the only reason she offered to take me in was to have a doll to dress up. She gave me all the sweaters, blouses, and miniskirts that I asked for, and makeup, all the makeup she put on me. So it was no surprise that when I turned up on the doorstep of my old house, in the middle of June, that Ponyboy blinked like he didn't recognize me, that Two-Bit's eyes raked me up and down the way I'd only ever seen him do to girls at the Ribbon—the few times they let me tag along.
I knew I looked good, my hair long, my skin dark, a tan deeper than I remembered Darry ever having. I expected Two-Bit to have a certain look in his eyes, once they came back up to meet mine, surprise maybe, desire, but I found myself disappointed. He looked at me like he had always looked at me, like a kid.
He elbowed Ponyboy's side, and pretend-whispered through the side of his mouth, "Pone, what's this greasy chick doing on your porch?" He barely got the tail end of that sentence out, because I had bounded up the steps and smacked the side of his arm with my purse.
"Why don't you make yourself useful and help me with my bag?"
He cackled at that, and elbowed Pony for the second time. "You heard the lady, hop to it, kid."
Pony stood up, put out his cigarette, then seemed to hesitate once he made eye contact with me again. It was only when I opened my arms wide and said, "Get in here, Hot Shot," that he embraced me. The hug was distant, unsure, which I had expected, given that it was Ponyboy. "Jeez, you must've shot up a whole head—how tall are you now?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling at the ground, "Six foot".
I smirked at that, knowing that Soda was probably steaming about their now nonexistent height difference.
Ponyboy stooped down to take my old canvas bag off my shoulder, Two-Bit opened the screen door of the house, and then the smell of it all hit me. It was hot, so the scent of our wooden floors and wool rugs wafted throughout the house. The lump in my throat formed first, thankfully, giving me enough time to suffocate any tears that would've pooled in my eyes. I hadn't smelled home since a month after the accident, I had almost forgotten it.
Everything looked more or less the same, I could feel part of me waiting for my parents to step out of the kitchen to greet me, but the more observant part noticed a sort of emptiness that lingered in the air. Darry kept things tidy, I could see, but it wasn't the same. I thought, maybe it could never be home again.
Ponyboy headed down the hall to my room, and looked back at me questioningly when I didn't follow.
I cleared my throat and pointed my thumb toward the kitchen, "I'm just gonna grab a glass of water." He shrugged and kept walking.
"We thought you weren't gettin' in 'til tonight, 'Lil Lizzy." Two-Bit spoke from the doorway, while I held a glass under the faucet.
"Yeah, I caught an earlier bus…just…felt antsy, ya know?" I turned to face him, leaning my back against the counter. Maybe he hadn't expected me to turn around before I took my first sip, but I had seen him. He had been raking me up and down once more, I caught his eyes just as they left my ass; maybe I wasn't so much of a kid to him. "You been lookin' after things around here?"
He put his hands on his waist and donned an overtly-feminine tone, "Why do ya think it looks so clean, darlin'." He cracked a lopsided grin when I held my stomach and laughed. "I sure have been lookin' out for your kid brother," he added, right as Ponyboy, who cocked an eyebrow, walked in behind him.
"He need lookin' out for?"
Ponyboy blushed and tilted his head toward the ceiling, groaning like he knew exactly what was coming. Two-Bit scoffed and took the seat at the kitchen table nearest to me, "Does he ever, you should see all the chicks that hang on him now, latest one was—"
"Come on, man," Pony attempted to cut him off.
"Angela Shepard."
I baulked at him and cast a bewildered look at Pony, "You been busy while I've been gone, huh?"
I raised my eyebrows and smiled at him, he didn't smile back. His grey-green eyes, my mother's eyes, searched my face with abandon, something he never would have done before, but I couldn't blame him for this knew disregard of his shyness, to him I was a stranger.
The most spectacular hello didn't come until past six that evening. Soda had only seen me for a total of five seconds, before he had slung me over his shoulder and spun around in circles fast enough that I couldn't stand on both feet once they hit the ground again. He grasped me in a tight hug before I could topple over.
"'Lil Lizzy, I sure did miss you." He chuckled as I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, once he finally let me go I hit him lightly in the stomach, unable to get rid of the grin cracked across my cheeks. "Speaking of," he looked me up and down, "what have you done with my baby sister?"
"I ain't your baby sister no more," I attempted to say cheekily, but when the words hit the air, they sounded sad, reminding us of the time we lost.
"I think you might be right about that, honey."
Darry's greeting was a whole different story. He must've gone out for drinks with some of his roofing buddies after work, he got in half past ten to find me sitting on the back porch, a cigarette held between my middle and index finger.
He stared at it pointedly, "Pony let you have one of his?"
"It's mine."
"Jeanie and Don let you get away with stuff like this?"
"Gave me my first pack," I said through an exhale of smoke, which probably wasn't a good idea in hindsight.
He plucked it out of my hand and crushed on the ground with the heal of his boot, then gestured at me, "What about that getup?"
"All Jeanie."
I expected to hear some lecture about how mom would have disapproved, which Pony told me he had received a lot of since Darry became his legal guardian. But he nudged me over and sat beside me on the step. I almost thought he might ask for a cigarette, but he didn't.
"So you're all grown up now, huh?" I stared back, silent, so he chuckled and turned to look at our measly excuse for a backyard. "Hell, lookin' at you now, feels like you been gone years…still chewin' your fingernails I see." He held my hand up in front of my face, and finally I laughed with him, then pulled my wrist out of his grasp and away from him.
"Oh, shut up, you used to do the same thing."
"Did not."
"Did too."
He shook his head and stood up, brushing his hands off on the back of his jeans. "You ain't gonna be smokin' no more, not while you're here," he pointed his finger at me and I opened my mouth incredulously.
"You ain't my boss."
He snorted. "Ladies don't smoke, 'Lil Lizzy."