It's Complicated

Sylvia was proud of how her dress had turned out, and she was glad to be wearing it instead of her usual cotton skirt and drab blouse with a worn scarf knotted around her neck for color. The simple A-Line dress with its see-through, gossamer sleeves puffing into ovals at her shoulders was the culmination of three weeks of working by candlelight in her room every evening after her parents were in bed.

It had cost her four months' worth of babysitting earnings, the pain of many needle pricks to her fingers, and many nights of very little sleep, but she loved the effect it was having on Glenda Rogers and Faye Floyd. This dress was better than anything she'd ever owned before in her life, and she was satisfied that it made her look like one of the princesses in those stories her mother used to read to her and her sister, Penny, when they'd been little girls in calico pinafores dreaming of the future. It was the dress that would make Dallas Winston look at her as something other than an off and on girlfriend that he contacted only when he wanted something from her.

Sylvia was enjoying the oohs and ahhs of her girlfriends as they stood around the girls' bathroom in the school gym and admired the silvery-blue fabric and the shiny ribbon that created a neat bow right under her breasts. The color really brought her eyes out much more than heavy eye shadow and thick black liner had ever done, and she knew she looked like a treat tonight.

I look better than the Soc chicks do tonight, she thought to herself as she studied her reflection critically and allowed a slight smirk to tilt her full, pink lips upward. She'd noticed the stares of quite a few upper class, male eyes on her when she'd sauntered into the school gym, and she'd also noticed more than a couple of jealous girls eyeing her new outfit while she trounced across the wooden floor to the bathroom.

The bodice was a little lower than she's anticipated when cutting and piecing it together and Sylvia was a little concerned about being singled out for a lecture on being a proper student by the teachers who were chaperoning the Spring Fling. The concern was slight, though, since the whole reason for this dress was to ensnare Dallas Winston's attention, and everybody knew that the reckless hood liked his women fast, cocky, and improper.

"Where'd you get fabric like that from, Syl?" Faye asked between loud cracks of her chewing gum, interrupting Sylvia's train of thought. Her brown eyes were pinned to the dress with a dreamy glaze clouding them, and Sylvia suddenly felt like her friend would rip the cloth right off her if she knew she could get away with it. "I've never seen anything like that at Lindsey's Department Store."

Tossing her head so that her shoulder-length, blonde hair swished behind the light blue headband holding it back from her face, Sylvia rolled her eyes at Faye's ridiculous question. "I got it in Okie City, you dunce, and doncha go getting it dirty," she replied as she swatted her friend's fingers from the fabric at her waist before turning her attention back to the mirror behind the row of sinks. "Lindsey's can't hold a candle to what the city has, you know."

"She's just trying to impress that nasty old Dally Winston," Glenda said in a snide tone as she leaned forward over the sink beside Sylvia and primped her auburn hair with two fingers, her green eyes narrowing and a sneer thinning out her bright red lips as she met Sylvia's gaze in the mirror. "It's a waste of time if you ask me because he don't even come to these dances."

Why are we even friends? Sylvia wondered as she shifted her gaze between the two girls and studied them both with new eyes. They were a perfect foil for each other with her blonde hair, Faye's medium brown, and Glenda's red tresses, and she's cracked once that they had everything a guy could want whether he was into redheads, brunettes, or blondes.

The three of them had literally grown up together because their houses were on the same block with just a few other dwellings separating them. They had played together as preschoolers and the friendship had endured from those care-free days on into their teen years, but now she was wondering if the envy she could see in their eyes would be the end of their bond.

Shaking off the feeling of doom, Sylvia turned her gaze back on her reflection and fluffed her bangs with her fingers, forcing the curls back into order to frame her face. "Dally is not nasty," she countered firmly, avoiding the knowing glimmers in the other two girls' eyes at her declaration. "He's sweet, exciting, and we love each other."

A snort escaped Faye's lips before turning into a chuckle, her chubby body shaking as she giggled. "Sweet? Of all the words applied to Dallas Winston, Syl, sweet is definitely not one of them!"

"Love?" Glenda joined the brunette in her laughter and added her thoughts to the pile in a breathless voice, "Dallas Winston don't love anybody but himself and those dirty old horses he rides!"

Sylvia suddenly felt like she was under attack, and her stomach knotted up like a pretzel made of lead as she watched her supposed friends leaning against each other in their mirth. "He does have feelings for me," she insisted, her words only making Glenda and Faye laugh harder. "He loves me, and I love him."

Her hand lowered from her hair to touch the heavy ring hanging on a silver chain around her neck, and she let her fingertips trace over the smooth surface of the sapphire stone before they followed the raised symbols and letters etched into the sides. "He wouldn't have given me this ring if he didn't feel something for me."

Faye's laughter let up long enough for her to speak in a strangled tone, "He feels lust for you, Syl," she gasped out, the mirth rising to almost make her next words unintelligible, "He stole that ring from Davie Presnell, and he hoped giving it to you would get you into the backseat with him!"

Before Sylvia could respond to the accusation of Dally's larcenous goals, Glenda spoke up with her usual snide addition to the situation, "A class ring is only binding when the giver has earned it! Stealing one from somebody else don't count as going steady!"

Tears of anger pricked the backs of Sylvia's eyes, but she forced them down so the two harpies wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing their mean words affect her. She didn't want Dally's first glimpse of her in the new dress to include reddened eyes. He hated drama of any sort and the red eyes would make him run for the hills thinking she was going to cry on his shoulder all night long.

Lifting her chin defiantly, Sylvia dropped the ring back out of sight down in the cleavage of her lovely dress and tossed her head in an 'I don't care' gesture. "You two should start your own variety show with jokes like that," she said in as calm a tone as she could manage for the hurt and anger at their words. "I bet you'd give Lucy and Desi a run for their money."

Turning away from the mirror, she fixed them both with a haughty stare and watched their laughter only increase at her words. There was no way she was going to let Glenda and Faye ruin this night, or the magical dress for her. She had worked too hard making the dress and convincing Dallas Winston to attend this dance to be dragged down by people who were supposed to be her friends and support her endeavors.

"At least I have a boyfriend," Sylvia taunted cruelly, knowing that the words would strike a sensitive nerve in both of them. Satisfaction rose inside her to cool down the flames of rage when their laughter cut off abruptly and both girls stared at her with eyes that were widened in shock by the low blow she'd dealt to them. "That's more than either of you can say."

Without waiting for them to respond to her dig, Sylvia spun on the heels of her silver sandals and glided toward the bathroom door with the intent on finding her 'date' and getting away from here as fast as whatever car Dally had stolen tonight would take them . If he's even here …

The thought popped into her head unbidden and caused doubt to rise inside her as the words of Glenda and Faye echoed in her mind. Sure, it had taken some heavy wedeling and ego boosting to get Dallas to even consider coming to the Spring Fling dance, but he'd never actually said that he would attend. All she'd gotten from the reckless hoodlum was an offhanded 'maybe' when she'd pressed him for a response.

With Dallas Winston, a maybe wasn't a sure thing and there was the possibility that he'd found something much more suited to his larcenous, wild ways than a lame high school dance with a bunch of 'squares', as he called anybody that didn't live by the same rules he did. But then, Dallas didn't have very many rules in his life, and the ones he did have were broken more often than they were followed.

Sylvia pushed through the bathroom door into the empty hallway beyond with a feeling of trepidation cloaking her thoughts, and she made her way to the double wooden doors twenty feet away that would take her back into the gym where the party was revving up for a night of fun. She could hear The Diamonds through the muffling doors playing The Stroll, and her vivid mind imagined Dallas across from her with the boys as they waited their turn to ease down the line in unison to the music.

It was a fantasy, and Sylvia knew that for a fact. Dallas wouldn't be caught dead dancing because it would ruin his bad boy rep and nothing was allowed to do that. Not even if it would've made her over-the-moon happy.

Pushing through the gym doors, Sylvia allowed the music to invade her, but she refused to watch the smiling faces on both sides of the line as her classmates took their strolls down the center. Instead, she focused on the decorations that were festooning the ceiling, walls, and even the basketball backboards for the occasion.

The theme was an "Under the Sea" type thing, and she wished she could've had the chance to help plan the dance. Only the Socs were elected to the dance committees at the school, though, so that idea was null and void before it ever took hold. It felt to her and the others like nobody trusted the greaser girls to have any sense of good taste when it came to decorating their gymnasium for something as socially important as a school dance.

A band was playing on a stage borrowed from the drama department, and behind them was a large, hand-drawn and painstakingly colored mural of what appeared to be the inside of one of the huge aquariums Sylvia had seen on television. From the basketball hoop above the stage, long streamers of white and blue twisted across the gym to the other side of the court where they were attached to the opposite hoop, and papier-mâché fishes of different sizes hung from twine along the streamers so that the different colors of glitter coating them sparkled in the lights that flashed around randomly from four simulated lighthouses, one in each corner of the gym.

It was a magical view, but her anxiety that Dallas may not show up to see her in the perfect dress and perfect setting kept her from enjoying the scenery as much as she should have. The night would only be perfect if he came to the dance. She should've been used to being stood up by the bad boy of her dreams by now, and she forgave Dallas every time he left her to fend for herself alone with no idea where he was.

"Looking good, Sylvie," a gruff voice stated into her ear from behind, and the words were still barely audible over the loud music despite the closeness announced by hot breath skating over the skin of her neck. "Is that a new dress you're wearing?"

Spinning around, Sylvia found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes that were made almost navy by the low lighting of the gym, and her breath caught in her throat as she recognized the slight smirk that twisted Tim Shepard's lips into a sardonic expression and made his gaze twinkle with a wicked glow.

"Well, if it ain't Timothy Shepard," she exclaimed with mock surprise while tossing her head to make her blond hair glimmer in the lights that flashed around them. "What're you doing here? I thought you were too old to be hanging out with us high schoolers."

Tim's eyes flickered down to the silver sandals on her feet and slowly traveled upward, pausing briefly on the low-cut bodice and the delightful glimpse it provided of the tops of her breasts before finally reaching her face once more. "I had to bring Angie to this boring shindig," he explained in a clearly practiced offhand tone to show his feelings for such a tame gathering as being beneath him. "She's dating some new Poindexter from across the highway, and I don't trust the little shithead no further than I can toss him."

Sylvia felt a shiver run down her spine when Tim's gaze bounced down to her chest again and the ever present smirk on his lips leaned more toward devious than its usual expression of notorious, and he added, "Gotta say I sure am glad now that I did."

Oh my word … The meaning behind Tim's statement hit Sylvia like a ton of bricks, and she shook her head while a smile came to her lips for the first time all night. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Timothy," she countered as she shook a finger at him like a mother chastising her naughty son. "I've already got a date tonight, and all of this is for him and only him."

Navy blue eyes narrowed and a sinister expression came over Tim's features, a low chuckle coming from him that perked Sylvia's instincts to high alert. "If you're waiting for Dally to make an appearance at this drab little dance, doll face, then you'll still be here at midnight like Cinderella without her pumpkin to ride home in."

The heaviness that had left the pit of her stomach once she was out of the bathroom now returned with even more weight than before, and Sylvia had to force the smile to remain on her lips as the implication behind Tim's words sunk into her brain. Somehow, Tim knew where Dallas was right now, and that knowledge led him to believe that the blond hoodlum wouldn't be coming to the dance at all tonight. As much as she wanted to discount the words as a part of the bitter rivalry between Tim and Dallas, something kept her from doing so. Despite the fact that they were adversaries in the streets, she knew that they also possessed a close friendship behind the scenes of what the world viewed going on between them, and Tim would know better than anybody what Dallas was up to tonight.

"Dallas is in Okie City on a booze run with Buck. He won't be back until tomorrow some time." The smirk on Tim's lips changed to a crooked smile at her silence, and he held his arm out to her, bowing slightly in mock courtesy. "You can stay here and wish for a knight in shining armor, Sylvie, or you can come with me and settle for a hood in a slightly dusty Malibu."

As if sensing her reluctance to leave with him, Tim dangled an illicit carrot as enticement. "We'll go dancing on a real dance floor, have a few of those fruity drinks you love so much, and then grab something to eat."

A real date. It sounds so lovely. Much more than Dally ever does with me. Sylvia stared for a long moment at the offered arm clad in the cotton sleeve of Tim's black shirt and silently weighed her options. If she stayed here, she would have to face the know-it-all stares of her friends and the toldja-so sneers on their lips, but if she went with Tim she would be labeled a slut once more and scorned for not wanting to give up her pride.

Maybe Dallas didn't love her like she loved him. He sure never acted like it, and he'd never said the words to her … not out loud anyway. What kind of love wouldn't allow for him to want to spend time with her in public or take her out on a 'real' date instead of her sneaking out her bedroom window after midnight for a heavy petting session in the backseat of whatever vehicle Dallas had managed to cajole or steal from someone else?

Making up her mind, Sylvia accepted the arm Tim offered and allowed him to steer her around the edges of the dancing couples toward the exit. Dallas was the loser here, not her. She would have her fun and enjoy the night despite the feeling of being stood up and abandoned. It was Dally's loss and her gain. Tim wasn't exactly the one she'd wanted to spent the first night in her new dress with, but he would do for now.

This time there would be no forgiving Dallas Winston and his excuses.

A big thank you to my lovely beta, Cyn. Without you, my writing would be unintelligible to anybody over the age of four. :-)