This piece is similar to the 'Who Gets to be Daddy' piece. This one is centered on Ponyboy as an adult, however. Hope everyone enjoys.
As with the WGTBD piece, I had to loose something to get this started, so: In light of the fact I can still not find my staple gun, and now the packaging tape is missing, I am at it again.
Disclaimer: The usual
On with the show…
My heart beat heavily in my chest as I pushed myself forward. The sand sifted under my feet while the rhythm of the waves kept me going. The skyline was light in the distance, promising a bright new day. Everyone would be awake soon and before long the beach would be crowded with families enjoying the summer day with their kids. But for right now, the beach was still and I was alone with my thoughts. Running had always helped me think. I loved to run and that hadn't changed since I was a little kid. Even if my whole life had changed, I could still run.
I could get into the long story of how I came to be running on the shores of the pacific an hour before dawn, but I like to think the short version was love. Perhaps that version was a little too short, but that's how I saw it in my mind. It had been nearly seven years since I had graduated from university with an English degree under my belt and a best seller on the market. I'm told I'm one of the only people to be published that actually held through university and put off a book tour for over a year. Darry and Soda were proud of me and saw me off at the station when I headed for LA to begin that tour. That's where I met Leslie...
I forced my legs to pick up more speed, to make my breath come in faster intervals, and to make my mind forget. I knew I was on the loosing end there because it never made me forget. Sure, I could ease my troubles, but they were always there. Well, I had plenty of them. The divorce would be final in a couple weeks and I would be moving back to Tulsa. I knew I would be miserable there, but anything beat where I was now.
Leslie and I had been separated for seven months now. I lived in the beach house owned by one of my publishers, and she stayed in our house uptown. We only saw each other on my weekends to see Johnny and even then she never stopped to chat or even look at me. I didn't know where things went wrong, but she hated me. It was hard to face mostly because I loved her. There. It was out. I was a man who was still in love with his wife. She wanted me gone and I was willing to go if it meant she could be happy again. I was abandoning my family because I loved them. Was that why I felt so horrible?
I reached the back steps to the beach house and flopped down on them to watch the sunrise. Panting, I tried to get my breath back after I had pushed myself like that. The sun was calming. The sea seemed to intensify the colors, making them even brighter than they had ever been in Tulsa. It reflected them, the colors that is, shimmering with each wave that moved with the light's rays. It was simply breathtaking.
For the past seven years, this had been my backdrop. The sea had been there every day, crashing against the beach and moving ceaselessly. For seven years I had loved it, even when everything else came crashing down. Seven years. It seemed like too much time to just throw it all away. A bitter smile came to my lips. Seven was just not my lucky number, not these days, anyway.
"How can you move this early?"
"Morning, Joe," I greeted.
Joe grunted in reply and sat down beside me on the stairs. I continued to watch the sunrise while he fidgeted annoyingly. Now, Joe was my current neighbor, as there was a high turnover on the beach because they were mostly vacation places. His story was similar to mine, since his wife booted him out roughly a month before I got there. He figured that made us instant best friends. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind Joe, but he wasn't the type of person I would normally seek out to be friends with. He had to grow on you.
He'd never understood my appreciation of sunrises and sunsets, but he tried to be as quiet as possible so I could enjoy them. The only way I had found to repay the favor was to let him raid my fridge at odd hours of the day. He already had a bagel in his hand and he would go for a cup of coffee next.
Once the sun was up and Joe was licking his fingers thoroughly, I sighed and headed into the house. I heard Joe get up and follow me as I moved to the coffee pot. The aroma was everything that you would expect from coffee, but I was suddenly not in the mood for it. I opened the fridge and saw how bare the shelves were. Being a bachelor wasn't all it was cracked up to be in the food department.
"Going to have any coffee, Curtis?" Joe asked, already pouring a mug full.
"No," I said pulling out the milk and going through the cupboard.
I pulled out a tin of the chocolate powder I had enjoyed as a kid and dumped a few spoonfuls into the cup of milk I had absent mindedly poured. I stirred it, amazed at how such a little movement could break the quiet of the house completely.
"What's with the milk?" Joe asked, pouring sugar into his coffee.
"Don't know," I answered. "Just remember it from when I was a kid and it seemed like a good idea. I'm too addicted to coffee, especially on mornings like these."
"I hear ya," he agreed, chuckling. "Only thing that keeps me awake until noon. Speaking of which, I had this great salami on rye the other day. It was to die for..."
I turned and wondered if Joe shouldn't take it easy on the salami sandwiches before he did in fact die for it. He had a beer belly and had packed on the pounds since his wife, Halley, kicked him out. I wondered how he could do it. I had lost a lot of my appetite since she decided we were calling it quits. It wasn't likely I would have much of an appetite until I was home where both Darry and his wife, Layne, would be shoving food into me.
"Hey, Curtis? When are you planning on buying a TV?" Joe asked, sitting down on my couch. "You must not be a big baseball fan. The Dodgers are up for the money this year, I can feel it."
"Never followed baseball," I commented, looking down into my cup.
I took a sip and felt all the memories of Mom's early morning breakfasts wash over me. I missed her and Dad, even now, thirteen years after they'd died. It was always the little things, like the milk or seeing Johnny looking back at me through Dad's eyes.
"Hey, what's with all the boxes?"
One thing I could say for Joe was that he never ran out of questions.
"Hum?" I asked, shaking out of my own little world.
"The boxes, Curtis. What's up with all the damn boxes?" Joe repeated.
"I'm leaving," I answered simply.
"Oh yeah?" Joe asked, going to the fridge. "Another book tour or something? You finally get over that writers' block?"
The writers' block was a touchy subject. I hadn't written anything since before Leslie and I started fighting. That was even why we fought some days. I was lucky that I was able to find a columnist's position to pay the bills.
"No. I'm going back to Oklahoma," I explained.
"When you coming back?" Joe asked, still pulling things off the shelves to sniff.
I paused over my glass and pondered that question myself. When was I coming back? Was I even coming back?
"You've got to be kidding me." Joe looked unbelieving as he closed the fridge door and walked over to me with a slice of Pizza in his hand. "Tell me you're doing some reverse Psycho thing on me."
I shrugged and emptied my glass while Joe gave me that perplexed look I normally would have smiled at. Joe was not hard to confuse, so I tried to see if I could do it without trying on a daily basis. Some days were better than others, but I wasn't even thinking of that when I started telling him I was lighting my torch for Oklahoma.
"Sorry, Joe."
"No, no, no. See if you leave, Mr. P.M. Curtis, not only will I never find out what the P. M. stands for – even after raiding your mail and reading one of your books – but there'll be no more male bonding," Joe pointed out.
I couldn't ever remember any male bonding between the two of us, but he was my only friend here in LA. I had my publisher and people I had met while Leslie was being the social butterfly she was meant to be, but no one truly close. I didn't know if I could ever explain that to Joe without making it seem like we had a strong bond.
"Ok, answer this for me. When you get back east and you're there, what are you going to do?" Joe asked.
"I have a place bought in the country," I answered. "Then there are people I left there that I've been missing for a long time now. Who knows, maybe I'll finally be able to write again?"
Joe gazed at me as if I had lost my mind at some point over the last couple of minutes. I sighed and moved over to where the open boxes were on the floor. I was nearly done packing away the few things I had taken from the house. The furniture wasn't mine, so I could probably make the drive and wouldn't have to come back for another load.
"Ok, forget about me for a minute. Sure, I'll be lonely with out you here," Joe paused, giving me a stern look. "But how are you going to see little Johnny when you're in Tulsa?"
I sighed, a long and painful sigh. I had ran over that question millions of times in my mind since I had bought the property. It frustrated the hell out of me to admit that I didn't know the answer to that. I didn't know the answer to anything anymore.
"I don't know, Joe," I answered with a strained voice.
"Do you know why I'm staying in this beach house instead of heading back to Cincinnati? Little Joe and Katie, that's why," Joe said, pointing a finger at me. "If I went back to Cincinnati, I would probably be giving up on everything I have in a relationship with them. I know Johnny is only four, but even four year olds need father figures. You leave him now and you'll never know him."
By the time Joe had stopped talking, I had had enough. It was bad enough that I heard Darry's voice in my head telling me the same thing without "father of the year" telling me, too.
"Make sure you close the door behind you, Joe," I instructed, picking up my jacket off the table.
"Now where are you going?" Joe asked around a mouthful. "Sun's already up, Hayseed."
I didn't answer because I didn't think about that. I knew I would get there when I got there. I had the sneaking suspicion I would end up outside our — well, Leslie's house, just sitting there on the curb, like I always did. Even when I was bound and determined not to, it always seemed to happen. So I left the car where it sat and started walking. At least this way I would end up there after I had a chance to cool down and think. I would never let Joe know it, but some of the things he said did hit home.
If I left, I would be leaving Johnny, the amazing sunrises, and the past seven years behind. I would also be leaving behind the one person I every truly fell in love with and with her the pain of the fact that she no longer felt the same way. Anything seemed worth it to get away from that, but was it?
Mustering up all my courage and pushing back pride, I knocked on the door. A moment later Leslie opened the door and what I saw shocked the hell out of me, more than anything else could have at that moment. She was crying.
"Les?" I asked softly.
"Oh, go away," she sobbed and tried to close the door on me.
"Listen. No matter what's going on between us, I'm still your husband and I still care about you, especially when I see you crying. So you can let me in now, or later, but I'm not leaving."
"What are you doing here?" she asked, still keeping the door between us. "You don't get Johnny until Friday. Monique has him today…"
"I know. I'm not here for Johnny. I wanted to talk to you."
There was a moment of silence between us that seemed to last an eternity before she finally opened the door and gestured me in. I stepped into the foyer, feeling at home for the first time in a long while and turned to the blonde I married.
Leslie's light blue eyes were dark from all the crying and her face was splotchy. Her makeup was runny and she was clenching her handkerchief for dear life. There was loneliness in her expression that made me want to cry with her, but instead I stood there, wondering if she would let me hold her.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, in more control of herself.
"Us, mostly," I answered, sitting down in the living room.
"There hasn't been an 'Us' since last January," she replied stiffly, sitting at the other end of the couch.
"Until this stupid divorce goes through, we're still 'Us'. If we weren't, you wouldn't be avoiding me and you wouldn't have let me into the house."
She looked away from me, fresh tears pouring down her face. I moved closer to her and she stood up, keeping her back to me. There was nothing else I wanted to do but take her in my arms and make her tears go away, but I knew that wasn't going to happen, not with how she was acting.
"Why are you upset?" I asked, finally.
"You want to know why I'm upset?" She turned and snapped at me, her face full of anger.
I nodded, wondering what had got her so mad at me. I couldn't remember doing anything lately.
"This is why I am 'so upset'." She threw an envelope from off the table at me.
I pulled the papers out of the envelope and was surprised to say the least. It was a copy of the papers I had signed to buy the property in Oklahoma.
"How'd you get these?" I asked.
"You know exactly how I got them," she seethed. "They mysteriously showed up on the door step this morning and here you are to see the results!"
"You don't think I sent them, do you?" I asked, astonished that she thought I could be so calloused.
"Who else would?" She nearly screamed, tears rolling down her face.
"What would I have to gain?" I asked. "Think about this for a minute."
"Who else would?" She repeated.
"Come here," I said opening my arms to her.
She didn't move so I went to her and let her fight me until I was holding her close and she was sobbing down the front of my shirt. I stroked her hair lightly and kept her close, even when she hit me. I don't know how long we stood like that before we moved to the couch and she stayed close to me. I was amazed by that, to say the least. Seven months of only cold heartedness and harsh words would make anyone surprised to find himself in this position. We were silent, with the occasional sob from Leslie into my shoulder. When that subsided, we could hear kids playing outside and it was calming, like the ocean.
"Les?" I ventured after her tears had long stopped.
"Hum?"
"What happened to us?"
She sighed and straightened up so she could look into my face. She seemed to think that if she was going to have this conversation with me that she was going to do it on her own terms. She moved away from me a bit and pushed her hair out of her face.
"You know, just as well as I do," she answered.
I nodded to myself. The only answer was LA. We'd moved here a year ago after Leslie's dad died. He'd been living with us at the time, so the house had ghosts in it. We packed up and came to LA so Leslie could be close to her mother, to be back where we first met and fell for each other.
Things went down hill from there. Les started fighting with her mother and I fell into the first writers' block of my career. We didn't know anyone; Les was cooped up in the house all day with my frustration and Johnny suffered because of it. Then my mother-in law got into the habit of calling at all hours to tell her daughter what she had realized while drinking away her savings. We both started fighting to get what we were going through off our chests, instead of trying to stand together and work it out. But it got out of hand and she kicked me out. Now we were looking at a divorce. It all seemed so stupid to me.
"I know, but it still makes no sense to me," I answered dryly. "Nothing has been right since we moved here."
Leslie nodded and wiped her nose with one of the tissues on the table. She frowned and looked off across the room.
"Is that why you're leaving?" she asked.
"I don't want to for so many reasons, but there are a resounding few that have made my mind up for me," I sighed.
"Like what?" she almost sounded curious.
"I don't want to leave you and Johnny, but I want to get away from all the pain I'm causing you and just go where I know there's some chance of salvaging my life," I paused. "Haven't you ever thought about leaving LA?"
"I don't have anywhere to go," she said dryly.
I saw her fingers twitch, wanting a cigarette as badly as I did. We'd both quit when Johnny was born, but the habit died hard when you'd been at it since you were a kid. Quitting was just one of many things we shared. I knew right then I'd be miserable without her. It was an odd thought since I was miserable all the time right now. Maybe we just needed to reconnect.
"Les, do you really want to see it end like this?" I asked in all sincerity, plans forming in my head.
She paused and looked over at me, as if she had just noticed I was there. She looked back across he room as her eyes filled with tears again.
"No," she sobbed.
"Then why let it?" I asked, pulling up her chin to look into her face. "I still love you and I want you to come with me."
She fully broke down in tears right then and buried her head in my chest again. I don't know what did it right then, but I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. It wasn't the first and I knew it wouldn't be the last, but there it was. When Les finally looked up at me, she looked shocked. I tried to grin at her and she looked serious, more than I had seen her look in a long time.
"I love you, too," she whispered.
I fully smiled then and left a kiss on her forehead. She snuggled in closer to me and we sat there for a long time. I even fell asleep; exhausted after not only the run and then the walk over here, but also the emotion we'd gone through. Something told me it had been coming for a long time, but we were both too hard headed to see it.
When I woke up, I had Dad's eyes and Leslie's smile tugging on my shirt. I grinned and put my finger to my lips, to indicate we should be quiet. He giggled. It was one of the best sounds I had ever heard.
Monique was one of the only people in LA Leslie had found a friend in. I didn't mind her before all the trouble started, but after that she was never on my side and I had little to no contact with her. Well, there she was, giving me a curious look I only returned with a triumphant smile. She rolled her eyes at me and let herself out the front door. I couldn't help but laugh. Leslie woke up then and Johnny went over to her.
"Mommy, is Daddy staying?" he asked.
Leslie looked up at me and I nodded. She smiled and nodded to Johnny. Johnny was a serious kid sometimes, even for a four year old and now seemed to be one of them. He nodded and crawled into my lap. Leslie threw an arm around him and looked up at me.
"So, tell me about Oklahoma."
Well, that's it. I've been giving it thought and I'm not committing to anything, but I would like to have one of these for all the gang. So, let me know what you think. Enjoyed? Hated it? Anything at all
As always, any comments at all are welcome and flames are accepted
See ya in the funny papers!!
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