The dog and I had a lengthy discussion about this over the weekend and we came up with a list of the reviewer suggestions that, combined, we liked the best to develop the character of Linda Brown:

1. She doesn't have to be a visitor from out of town.

2. She doesn't have to have a bad home life.

3. It might be fun to have her interested in somebody who doesn't get as much attention in fanfics.

4. She doesn't have to be beautiful.

5. Dogs make great conversation starters (the dog was all over this one).

6. We could get more tension from the situation if the object of her desire doesn't feel the same way about her. And that's good, because tension makes readers turn the page.

7. Not everybody sees all of the canon characters the same way Ponyboy did.

Other suggestions we liked, but passed on, and why:

1. Keep the POV from one of the canon characters – Excellent idea, but for this story I'm really trying to figure out what makes an OC interesting when you're writing from his or her perspective, and how to avoid doing the things that make people want to exact a slow painful death on the poor unsuspecting OC.

2. Have the character visiting a relative to give her a solid reason for being in Tulsa – I loved this idea, but I loved the "she's always lived here" idea equally, and I had to choose one of them. My plot seems to be developing (woohoo! a plot is developing!) around the idea of Linda already knowing one of the canon characters.

3. She doesn't get much attention or affection from her family – I thought this was realistic, especially if she were to be one of the youngest of a large family, but wanted to first try giving her such a normal home life, she could almost be boring. In other words, is it possible to create reader interest in a boring person?

Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. I am making no profit from this story.

Save the OC

Chapter 4

Did you ever realize, say, halfway through a random walk, where you honestly thought you were just getting the dog out for some exercise, that some unknown segment of your brain had other intentions that it didn't bother to let you in on until it was too late to turn back?

I held my knee-length wool coat closed a little tighter against the late-November wind, but it didn't do much for the cold air against my legs. Leaves whipped past me, and the low-hanging ceiling of clouds spit a few chilly drops at me, but I took in a deep breath and smiled. Winter was fun, spring was pretty, and summer was relaxing; but fall – that was the season I was born for.

Sometimes I wondered if I only liked Thanksgiving because it fell within the most perfect part of autumn, when hot dinners and crackling fires made my insides swell with an anticipation of something I hadn't yet figured out. On Thanksgiving, I could put up with Mom and Aunt Sally bickering about the stuffing, and Grandpa going on for an hour about Kennedy being assassinated by his own bodyguards, and Uncle George smelling the place up with his cigars, and even Aunt Millicent telling Mom what a shame it was that I couldn't find myself a good man. All of that, I could deal with.

Any other time of the year, those things would probably have driven me insane when packed together into one crowded day. But in the fall, none of those was enough reason to drive me out of the house. It wasn't because the dog needed a walk, either. "Mocha, slow down."

I had left the house shortly after Mary arrived.

Mocha pulled forward with increased fervor, zigzagging me along the sidewalk. You would have thought she was hot on the trail of some fantastic prize, or that she was on a mission to hunt down and apprehend our dinner. Maybe that's what she actually believed. Or maybe, I figured, she was doing as much pretending as I was, imagining herself in a world where she was so good at what she was born to do, somebody needed her more than any other dog in the universe.

Another gust of wind pulled at the flaps of my coat, bringing with it the sweet smell of cut wood before I registered the sound of jagged metal raking across lumber. Mocha's little beagle tail began wagging furiously, even before her nose left the ground. I looked up to see what had gotten her attention.

Oh, God. What are we doing here? How did I not notice that we were walking this way?

And what were the odds that he would be outside, hammering and sawing and looking up to see who was walking toward him?

"Hi," he said.

I smiled as if I hadn't just figured out that a part of me had known all along where I was headed, and like I found it utterly surprising that I had ended up in front of his house. "Oh! Wow, hi!"

By the look on his face, I realized that he hadn't actually recognized me. He was just being polite. "Hi," he repeated.

He's wondering why on earth this girl with the wind-ragged hair has stopped at his front gate. An almost painful wave of nostalgia passed over me at the sight of him – beautiful, strong, perfect him. Mocha gave an impatient tug, so I let go of her leash and she trotted into the yard. "Mary," I said, and could have kicked myself. "Mary's sister, I mean. Linda. You went out with her, in high school. Mary, that is, not Linda. Not me." No, you definitely didn't go out with me. But you were sweet and kind and beautiful, and every night, my dreams had you carrying me off to a place where I was somebody other than Mary's Sister.

"I thought I recognized you," he said with a smile in his voice, and my heart nearly skipped a beat as a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

And then I realized that he was down on one knee petting the dog. He recognized Mocha. I shook off the pang of jealousy that struck upon watching Darry run his weathered hands over Mocha's wiggling body. God, what I would have given to switch places with her right then.

Darry stood up and leaned his saw against the porch railing. "It's been a long time."

"Yes, it has." I nodded. "Yep. Long time." Wonderful. For almost five years I had fantasized about the day I would run into him in the grocery store, or at the post office, or at the bank, or, what the heck, right in his front yard on Thanksgiving day while he was replacing his porch steps and I just happened to be walking by with the dog … and all I could think to say was yes, it has. We stood smiling at each other and watching Mocha sniff around the yard and…

"Oh, no! Mocha! I am so sorry." I watched in horror as my dog arched her back and emptied her last meal in a neat pile on Darry's front lawn. "I am so sorry."

Darry looked less than impressed, but gave his head a shake. "It's alright, don't worry about it."

"If you have a little trash bag or something, I'll clean that up."

"No, you don't need to do that. It's fine."

"No, really. I wouldn't want anybody stepping in it. I insist."

Darry gave a sigh before hopping over the gaping hole where the bottom step had been removed and disappearing into the house.

I glared at Mocha, who sat in front of me wagging her tail like this was all some grand joke. "Thanks a lot," I whispered. "See if you get any turkey in your Alpo tonight."

"Will this work?" Darry hopped back down the steps and handed me a small trash bag, the kind Mom used to collect the kitchen scraps in the sink.

"Perfect!" I pulled the bag over my hand, squatted down, and died a little inside while Darry watched me pick up my dog's poop. "Where should I…"

"Trash can's out back by the alley." He pointed next to the porch. "Just toss it over there, I'll get it later."

I took a step forward and tossed the bag in the general direction he was pointing.

"So," he said, "are you still in school?"

"No! I mean, no. No, I graduated this year. I'm working at Sears." I pointed behind me, as if the Sears were right there up the road, and then realized I wasn't even pointing in the right direction.

"Oh yeah?" He picked up a couple of boards and stood them against the porch.

Say something interesting. "I get a discount." Brilliant. You're a genius, Linda. I get a discount. Couldn't I have managed something a bit more relevant? I made an attempt at a casual laugh, like Mary did when she was talking to somebody and there just weren't any words. Something occurred to me then. "So, you know, if you ever need anything, just stop by my register."

He gave me a skeptical look. "Aren't the discounts for employees and their families?"

Good job, Linda, now he thinks you're a dishonest discount-thief. "Oh! Well, sure. But I mean, we all do it. Give discounts, I mean. To people we know." I glanced at the weathered house that stood in front of me. "Not that you would need a discount. I mean, it's just ten percent, but every little bit helps, right?" Especially when you're living in squalor, he probably figured I was thinking. Oh God, just let me die right here.

When Darry stepped forward to pick up a hammer, my gaze lingered momentarily on his faded blue jeans and the tool belt that was loosely draped around his waist. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up just enough to expose the hairs on his muscled forearm. He was still strong and perfect, and he wasn't eighteen anymore. My mouth dried up in one fell swoop; I took in a sharp breath and blinked. "What?"

Darry paused for an instant. "I said, how's Mary doing? How's your sister?"

"Mary? Oh, you know, she's,"fat, I wanted to say, she's a frumpy boring housewife, all fattened up and tied down and nothing like the girl you used to kiss goodnight on our front porch while I watched from the hall window; but it wasn't true, and the words wouldn't come. "She's good. Expecting in a few months."

Even pregnant, Mary somehow managed to not be awkward or ugly. She wasn't beautiful, and never had been, but she had the grace of a swan and a personality that make her seem like the last living woman on an island full of men. Marilyn Monroe could have been standing right next to her, and the boys would have looked right past her to Mary. Mary knew how to use her eyes, her body, and her smile to make them see a beauty that I could just never find in myself. It was hard to believe we were even related, much less had grown within the same woman. The worst thing was, it was like she had no idea what a special gift she had, or that it was something that most of us weren't fortunate enough to be born with.

"So she and Peter got married?"

"Yes, a few months after graduation. Just celebrated their four-year anniversary." Peter was rich, from one of the oil families, and Mary had dropped Darry like a hot potato when she found out that Peter was eying her up. He was two years older than her.

I waited for some glimmer of sadness in Darry's face, something that I could help him get past by being the person he would realize he really needed, but there was only a vague interest. "Good for her. Tell her I said congratulations." He gave a polite smile and a nod, and glanced toward the partially-cut lumber that was laid out across the dormant grass.

I realized then that he was dismissing me. He needed to get back to work. I would walk away with my dog and spend the next four or five or twenty years looking back on that moment and wishing I had said something more, like what have you been up to, or how's life been treating you, or, I don't know, maybe something along the lines of I have been in love with you since I was thirteen years old and you patted my shoulder gave me a smile and thanked me for bringing you an iced tea when you were helping Dad fix our leaky roof. Darry was one of Mary's only boyfriends that Dad had actually liked. "That boy's going somewhere," he would say. "He'll make his way in this world, come hell or high water."

I couldn't leave yet.

"So," I said and, remembering how Mary used her body to say things that went beyond words, set my left hand on my hip and leaned my right hand on the old wooden sawhorse that was standing next to me, "what have you been -"

With a creak and a crash, the sawhorse tipped sideways, dumped a box of nails onto the ground, and landed like a startled turtle with me sprawled out next to it. I instinctively wrapped my left hand around my right palm. "Ow! Oh my gosh, I am so sorry." Assuming that I had gotten down onto the ground to play with her, Mocha rushed over, jumped in my lap, and set a chewed up piece of wood into my hand. "What is this thing?"

Darry, who had made a grab for the sawhorse structure and only managed to get a hold of one of the boards that had been laid across it, tossed the board onto the ground and came over to squat down next to me. "Well, it was one of the shims I was using for distancing the boards on the steps."

I had no idea what a shim was, but now it was just a chewed-up scrap of wood. "Oh. I'm sorry." I glared at Mocha again. Her tail tapped against my leg, and she smiled at me.

"Forget it, I can make another one. Are you alright? I knew I should have put a couple more clamps on there." He wrapped his hand around my arm and helped me up, spilling Mocha off of my lap onto the ground and not bothering to say out loud what was written all over his face – when is this girl going to leave and let me get on with my work?

Because right then, I was a girl. Not a woman. Not even a young woman. I wasn't eighteen anymore, and I wasn't the confident picture of female strength I tried to imagine myself as every morning when I got out of bed to get ready for work. I was thirteen and gangly and in the way, and there was absolutely nothing about me that somebody like Darry Curtis would ever find attractive. He was strong and perfect and always had the exact right words to say; I was clumsy and didn't know how to start a conversation with a man without making it clear to him how inept I was at trying to start a conversation with a man.

"Is your hand okay?"

I let go of my hand and looked at it. "No, it's fine. Just a few splinters." It looked like I had gotten into a fight with one of the talking trees from The Wizard of Oz. My hand was throbbing and stinging like crazy.

"Doesn't look fine from here." Darry took my wrist and got a closer look at my hand. "I've got some tweezers inside. I can get some of the bigger ones out, but you'll probably have to soak it when you get home to get the rest out."

My throat felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. Tweezers? Inside? I nodded and worked to slow my racing heart, or at least not let my face give it away. "Okay."

Darry held my arm to help me across the missing step, and Mocha followed us up the porch and through the front door. I reached down and unsnapped her leash. The smell of roasting turkey gave the place a warm and homey feel. "How's the bird?" Darry asked.

Somebody on the couch cleared their throat. "Still dead, no complaints."

Darry nodded toward the voice. "My brother, Ponyboy. Pone, this is Mary Brown's sister…" He paused and looked back at me.

"Linda," I said. Oh God, he didn't even remember my name that I just reminded him of not ten minutes earlier.

"Soda's out," he said.

For some reason, I interpreted that as,we're out of Soda. "That's alright, I usually drink water or milk." It wasn't until I saw the looks on their faces – that look that people give you when they are trying to think of a tactful way to tell you that you're an idiot – that I realized my mistake. How could I have been so stupid? He was talking about his other brother. He had been a year ahead of me in school. To be honest, I was glad he wasn't home. Sodapop had this wild side to him that made me uncomfortable. He had been popular in school, but not like Darry. Darry was polite and friendly and sweet. Soda was just … wild.

Before I could make any attempt to explain away my comment, Darry had disappeared around the corner into a hallway.

Ponyboy sat up, spilling a pile of damp tissues onto the floor. He gave me a little wave. "I wouldn't come any closer," he advised in a croaky voice. "Flu."

"Sit down," Darry called in.

Mocha, having greeted Ponyboy with exuberance, was moving on to sniff every possible object in the room. "Cute dog," he said.

"Thanks." I stepped crossed the room to sit in an old brown armchair that looked very much like the green plaid Montgomery Ward one we had at home. "I think we have this same chair at my house." Like anyone cared what kind of furniture we had at my house.

Darry came back into the room with a kitchen chair and a pair of tweezers. He set the chair in front of me and reached over me to turn on the floor lamp, then sat down and took my hand in his.

Despite the burning pain on my palm, the hair on the back of my neck tingled as I watched him lean forward and turn my hand this way and that to remove the largest splinters. His hands were large and warm and steady, and I was suddenly wishing that I had put on some nail polish, or at least that I hadn't chewed three fingernails down to the quick. Darry smelled like coffee and fresh-cut wood and sweat, but it wasn't a bad sweaty smell like in a locker room. It was that this is who I am smell that stays on somebody's shirt so that if you press it against your face when they are gone, you can take yourself right back to when they were sitting next to you. While the clock on the mantle ticked away the minutes, I sat there watching Darry's hands and arms and shoulders and eyes, feeling his warm breath on my fingers, and breathing in his scent, until it was all I could do to fight back the longing ache that had been buried inside of me for years.

The front door opened with a clatter, letting in a crisp breeze. "Sorry I'm late."

Darry glanced over his shoulder at the woman who had closed the door behind her and come all the way into the living room. "It's alright. Turkey won't be done for another hour or so."

She held aside a bakery box and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "I brought dessert." Her fingernails, shaped into perfect ovals, were coated with a layer of soft pink polish.

Darry stopped picking at my hand long enough to introduce us. "Ellen, this is … Linda? Linda. I used to date her sister. Long time ago."

Ellen smiled at me. "Nice to meet you. Just stopped by for a visit?"

I didn't like the way she asked me that, though there hadn't been anything malicious in her tone. Maybe it was my own stupidity that was bouncing off of her and slapping me in the face. "I was walking the dog, and happened to be passing by…" So I decided to make a complete fool of myself in front of the only man I have ever imagined myself marrying. God, please let a meteor fall on this house right now.

"I was out working on the step," Darry said.

Ellen walked into the kitchen, returning a minute later to look over Darry's shoulder. "Yes, I saw you didn't finish out there, and now it's starting to rain. What happened? And did you put poor Linda to work?"

I smiled to be polite, though the lump in my throat was preventing anything from being funny. "I knocked over the sawhorse." She wasn't beautiful, but she was … grown up. She didn't look like a thirteen-year-old girl who was only pretending to be a grown woman because her body had made it to eighteen. She was in her early twenties, and she looked the part.

Ellen turned toward the couch. "Hi, sweetie, how are you feeling?"

Ponyboy gave a shrug. "Same." He picked up a nearly-empty glass from the coffee table and drank the rest of the orange juice from it.

Darry sat up straight and tossed the tweezers onto the phone table. "I think that's about all I can get for now, unless you're up for some surgery."

"No, that's fine." It didn't even occur to me that he had made a funny comment. All I could think was that I needed to get out of that house as fast as possible. "I really need to get going."

Ponyboy got up off the couch with his glass and walked past us toward the kitchen. "Nice meeting you," he said in a tired voice, but with a smile.

"Bye."

"You should come over for dinner sometime, do some more catching up," Ellen said, though I knew she didn't really mean it.

When Ponyboy spoke from the kitchen the next instant, it was in such a calm, reasonable tone, I had just about convinced myself that he had said something like, the grass is green, or the sky is blue. It took a second for my brain to process his actual words – "The dog is eating the pie."

I jumped up and was around the corner and into the kitchen in about a heartbeat. There, standing in the middle of the small kitchen table, was Mocha. Orange residue dripped from her jowls onto the pumpkin pie that sat beneath her. The entire middle of it had been eaten away. I gasped. Mocha looked up at me and wagged her tail.

"Bad dog!" I hurried forward and snatched her off the table. "I am so sorry." I was near tears. "I am so sorry." I didn't even know what else to say. Ellen looked horrified and disgusted. Ponyboy was wearing a dazed neutral expression that matched the tone his voice had held, and Darry had one hand partially covering his mouth.

Reprimanding Mocha the entire way to the door as her tail thumped against my side, I grabbed her leash and shot out of the house with Darry's attempt at reassuring words trailing me – don't worry about it – and almost broke my leg because I forgot that the bottom step wasn't there. I dropped Mocha, hit the ground hard, and popped back up like I hadn't just knocked the wind out of myself. "I'm fine! I am so sorry about the pie."

The rain was coming down steadily, but I waved off Darry's offers of an umbrella, snapped Mocha's leash onto her collar, and hurried up the sidewalk, dragging her along behind me. I didn't stop until I was far enough away from my sister's ex-boyfriend's house that he wouldn't hear me sobbing into my nail-bitten hand.

Never again, I vowed. I will never go near his house again. I will live to be a lonely old spinster with twenty cats before I ever go near him again. And that night, for the first time in five years, I sank into bed without even a lingering hope that someday, Darry Curtis would need me more than any other girl in the universe.

As always, jump in and rip it apart.