Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders.
If I could be anybody, I'd like to be Angela Shepard.
I don't envy her her family or anything like that. I'd hate to be Tim Shepard's little sister or have a brother as stupid as Curly. As bad as Keith is, he sure looks better compared to those guys. And whenever you pass her rundown house her mother's always screeching and her stepdad's always hollering and there's something always breaking. Been there, done that, no thanks.
Everyone talks behind her back. Back in elementary school and junior high the worst thing someone could say to you was that stupid chant I would've taunted Keith with when we were younger, but high schools a whole other ball park. They've got names that make "fatty fatty two-by-four" look like a compliment. They call her bitch and whore and worse things that make me blush just thinking about. Just thinking of some of the stuff she's probably done makes me blush. I'm not really one for gossip, but I find there's normally some truth buried beneath all the crap people spread around. I don't envy her that neither, though she seems to eat it up.
It's the couldn't-give-a-shit attitude. It's the easy way she talks and flirts. It's the way she leans against the wall, steals someone else's smokes and matches, and lights up. It's the way she walks with her head raised like she owns the whole goddamn world, like she's someone even if no one else thinks she is. I like her cocky smile and the way she acts like nothing scares her. She doesn't think twice about shit and she doesn't give a hang about nothing. I can't help but admire a girl like that.
It's mostly the way she doesn't give a hang.
If I didn't give a hang about anything, everything would be a lot easier. I'd pack up a bag and beat it out of here as soon as I could, be it bus or hopping trains or my own two feet. I could hitchhike or something get as far away from here as I can, leave and never look back. I'd take Minnie with me and tell her she never has to go back home. It would be me and her against the whole damn world and it would be great.
But then I think of my ma with her tired smile and I feel shittier than I did about Keith's old hand-me-down shoes. I couldn't walk out that door if I tried and each time I think about just up and leaving, its days before I can face my reflection again. And even then, memories twist in my stomach and I forget my stubbornness and do the dishes or sweep the floor to make it up to my ma.
Even then, I sometimes wonder if me staying isn't worse than me not going. She'd never say it. I know she loves me and wouldn't want me to go, but I ain't dumb. I know one less mouth to feed could mean less hours she needs to work and then maybe she wouldn't be so tired all the time. Maybe she could look into some of those old dreams she had back when she was my age.
I asked her once, when she insisted on making me dinner at one in the morning after her shift, why she doesn't go for one of those dreams now. She ain't tied to some bastard anymore, so what's to stop her. Her tired smile turned sad and she kissed my forehead and said those dreams were dead and gone now. It made me feel too sick to finish the dinner, which really sucks because I love those types of late-night/early-morning dinners when it's just the two of us and I was real hungry. Even if she's dead on her feet and yawns after every word, it's the effort she puts into the little time she can give me.
I think most of all these bad feelings come from knowing she could take off at any point and no one would blame her, but she doesn't. Every night she comes through that front door and is the saint she is.
It would be easier if I didn't care. It wouldn't hurt as much if I was that tough, that careless, that thoughtless, that invincible as Angela Shepard.
I look away as Minnie, Kelly, Susie-Ann, and Tiffany and I enter the DX. If she catches me staring, she'd probably claw my eyes out. It's funny, I think, because she's the polar opposite of those Soc girls, but they'd do the same thing. No Soc would ever hang out with the likes of me. One whiff of my last name, my mother, where I live, my brother and they immediately turn their nose up. Truth is Kelly, Susie-Ann, and Tiffany, aren't Socs, they're middle-class, but they look down their noses at me, too. I couldn't tell you why they hang out with me, except maybe for it's a friendship of convenience. That is to say, they've known me since elementary school, since before they've adopted their parents outlook on those from the East side, and larger numbers of familiar faces is the only thing that'll get us through these next four years. At least, until Tiffany manages to kiss Cherry Valance's head cheerleader ass and make the team and win a little popularity and contacts to make her social status and party invites as big as her ego is currently. Her and the socs deserve each other. And where Tiffany goes her little minions follow, but the thread tying Kelly and Susie-Ann and her together will probably unravel when her two shadows aren't deemed good enough to hang with the Super Socs.
Minnie doesn't say anything when she pays for my soda. It almost goes by unnoticed when Tiffany huffs, the way she always does before she's about to make some snide comment. Today she's done it four times with me, for being late, my shoes, my hair, and my wrinkly clothes, in that order. "Gee, Deb, why do you always have to take advantage of Minnie?" She says it loud enough for everyone in there to hear. I feel their eyes on us. Tiffany loves the attention, but my face burns. Of course, Kelly and Susie-Ann are right there backing her up, nodding and agreeing and saying I'm rude and mean and the three of them got this way of saying it that feeds on the guilt I already have about making her spend the money she's saving. I don't know how they do it, but they really got this way of making you feel like a bitch.
"I don't mind." Minnie mutters, reaching in her sock for the dollar or two.
"Minnie," Tiffany levels her with this condescending look and tone to match, "when are you going to stop being such a push-over?" She flips her hair off her shoulders like she's seen Cherry and Marcia and those other Soc girls do. "No one respects you because you always let people like Deb, here, walk all over you." It's that same type of fake nice that really eats at you. The tone of I'm saying this to help you, but with the underlying bitch she truly is.
Minnie shrinks under Tiffany's challenging eyes. Tiffany's daring her to prove her right, prove she doesn't deserve any type of respect, prove she won't stand up for herself by standing up for herself. No matter what she does she loses. Minnie's head lowers and her shoulders slouch and part me gets really pissed she won't just pay for my soda, but she's in a tough spot so I tell her forget it. "I'm not that thirsty anyway." She bites her lip and gives me an apologetic look and I just shrug and force a smile so she knows I ain't going to ditch her or say she ain't my friend anymore like Tiffany used to do when we were younger.
"On me." The soda slides to me and I catch it before it can fall off the counter. I look up and my face burns hotter. I always blush whenever I see Sodapop, I just can't help it, but I'm equally embarrassed he, one of my brother's friends, was part of the audience to the whole thing. He winks at me and I swear my knees turn to jelly. Damn, is he good looking.
Minnie elbows me and I startle out of my daze. "Uh…" My words get jumbled as I pick at the sweaty bottle. "Thanks," I reply lamely.
He shrugs like its nothing. "You're Two-Bit's kid sister." He says that like that means something.
I know he and his brothers' situation. Ma was friends with their mother and Keith practically lives at their house. I know his parents died in a car crash a little while ago and that he had to drop out of school to help his older brother, Darry, pay for the important stuff. His younger brother, track star and top student in all the smart class, Ponyboy, is in my grade. They all get to stay together as long as the state lets them and the state's always breathing down their necks.
They're nice people and all, and I've got no reason to hate them, but I ain't their biggest fans. I guess if I was being honest, most of that is 'cause of Keith. Don't get me wrong they're good people, and Keith's lucky to have them as friends and all, but it kind of pisses me off. I can understand going over there when their parents died, but when our dad walked out Keith pretty much spent all his time over there, too.
Ma will go over there before her shift or after it and play mother hen, lecturing Darry about locking the front door, and making sure they've got enough food and if they need any help with anything. She's a saint, like I said, but honestly, we don't got enough for ourselves, let alone to help them; enough food, enough money, enough time. And Darry, out of no fault of his own and though too stubborn to admit it, is desperate enough to begrudgingly have to take a little.
I guess all in all, I'm jealous more than anything. I'd give anything to have friends like the Curtis's.
I don't know if it's all this or the fact Keith is the only reason for the free soda, but I can't take it. "But no thanks," I tell him and spin on my heel to walk out. I lean against the building outside, waiting for the rest of the pack. Tiffany tries to flirt with Sodapop, which makes me even more embarrassed, but he won't have any of it and keeps on brushing her off, which is hilarious. I watch Minnie swipe the free soda and walk out to lean against the building with me. She hands me the soda she bought and keeps the free one for herself, flashing me a victorious, ha-ha I found a loophole grin. I appreciate it just enough to pop the cap and take a swig. It would hurt her feelings if I didn't.
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