All right, shopping with Lisa! Yeah, I'm not excited either. Anyway, happy reading!

Many the Miles

"When their whispers have painted pictures that

Make you doubt what you once believed in

…

Who do you believe when you can't get through

When everything you know seems so untrue

When I'm lost in a place that I thought I knew

Give me some way that I might find you"

~Needtobreathe (Through Smoke)

As the clock struck two, a pale yellow Corvair swiftly pulled up my driveway. I was thankful that I was ready on time; Lisa was very prompt, especially for an outing that involved shopping. If my mom hadn't brought it up at the table this morning, I would've never remembered that I had somewhere to be.

Lisa beamed when I finally got myself together, slamming the car door shut. She carefully set her sunglasses on the top of her head. Her chestnut-brown hair was curled into silky ringlets and her eyebrows were freshly plucked. Lisa was one of those girls who embraced her femininity to the maximum. Those were the girls that wore every kind of make-up known to woman and never seemed to break out or get sweaty. I didn't understand how they could put so much time into their exterior, but allow their interior to be so ugly.

Turning the key in the ignition, Lisa giggled. "We're gonna have a blast, aren't we?"

One of us is, I thought irritably. "We sure are," I replied, with as much rigor as I could muster.

Within minutes, Lisa parked over by the curb that was in front of a couple little boutiques. Before she got out, she pulled down her mirror, reapplied her lipstick, and daintily placed her rose-colored glasses on her nose. I rolled my eyes and got out of the car, hoping that would get the ball rolling. I wanted this day to be over with as soon as possible. She grabbed her purse and tottered after me in too-high heels calling, "Hey, wait up!"

The boutique was cute with its peach-colored walls and flower designs. Everything looked orderly and groups of girls around my age were everywhere, holding dresses up to their figures or trying on high heels. I even saw a couple boys in there with their girlfriends and I cringed out of sympathy. I couldn't imagine how they felt when even I didn't want to be there.

Lisa tilted her head in the direction of one of the boys. "Les, look. He's cute, huh?" she whispered persuasively.

She was either trying to get me interested in somebody's boyfriend or she was checking him out for herself. Either way, I was appalled. "Aren't you already goin' out with someone?"

She scoffed. "You mean Patrick? Absolutely not. We broke up on Tuesday."

"How come?" It wasn't a surprise. Lisa had dated a couple different guys, but she never really looked into personalities. They'd buy her a couple roses and she'd be smitten, until she found out what their flaws were. It was as if she was looking for someone with only good traits. It never seemed to cross her mind that her standards were unrealistic.

She was browsing through a rack of skirts, mumbling, "He complained about everything. It was drivin' me crazy, so I broke it off. I guess he's gonna have to find some other girl to go to prom with."

We hadn't even entered our senior year and she had a prom date. I bet she bought the dress already, too. A light bulb seemed to go off in her head. "Hey, Les, if you could go to prom with anyone, who would it be?"

I paused, startled by the question because I didn't have an answer. There was nobody at our school I was really attracted to, let alone desperate enough to spend my only prom with. "I dunno. There's not really anyone I'd wanna go to prom with."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, come on. There has to be someone out there that you'd love to take you to prom!"

I wondered if it would be wrong to just not go to prom. It was wishful thinking to assume that I would have a special prom date. I may get asked, but the chance of the guy having the qualities I looked for was second to none. I took a deep breath. I couldn't worry about what I couldn't change.

All Lisa's talk brought Dally to the forefront of my mind. It was horrible knowing that he was walking around town feeling such hatred towards me. Or maybe he had completely forgotten I existed, unaware that I still cared a lot about him. Either way, in his mind, I was still a fake like Lisa, prancing around a boutique and buying everything I could ever want. I had quite a bit of money in my bag, but I knew if I took my wallet out, I would feel sick. That money needed to be in the hands of someone who needed it, not in the possession of a girl who already had plenty of options in her wardrobe. I wanted to toss it onto the pavement. Out of sight, out of mind.

"There's nobody. Nobody," I repeated, getting impatient. Lisa raised her eyebrows in concern. She shook the look of worry of her face and patted my arm.

"Well, we'll make sure you find someone perfect, hon."

Several blouses and a couple hundred pairs of shoes later, Lisa finally narrowed down her choices and went up to the register. She looked to see that I had nothing in my hands. "Leslie, ain't you gonna buy anythin'?"

"No, I didn't see anythin' I really liked." Truth was, the store was full of really cute clothes, but I was a bit scared. I was fearful of the monster that I would become. If I looked around and began trying everything in my sight on, I would spend all of my cash on a bunch of junk I didn't need. If this was the same me from a year and a half ago, there would've been no problem with that. But if that happened now, I would feel mighty guilty. Guilty that I go around thinking my financial situation is screwed up, when I would be doing nothing in my life to stand up against the injustice. I'd be another hypocrite, like the rest of them, and I wasn't about to let that happen.

Lisa just shrugged. She turned back to the cashier and began having some kind of meaningless conversation. It was a mystery to me why Lisa involved herself with such petty things. She was a real intelligent girl, getting A's in all her classes. But maybe she could only comprehend plain facts and couldn't look farther into things. I couldn't imagine that. Being trapped inside a bubble of proofs and unable to use your judgment to form opinions for yourself because you can only believe what you see. Every greaser is a waste of life because they don't have money and that means they are only capable of causing turmoil. Every girl accepts her femininity because she wears skirts and that means she needs a man to complete her. That kind of mindset was beyond me, but it wasn't uncommon.

"Alright, let's head back to the car," Lisa said, her voice muffled from behind a stack of boxes. I helped her unload them into the trunk and we ambled down the sidewalk.

"Hey, Les," Lisa was looking ahead, as if she was contemplating something, "Y'know that cousin of yours? He's real cute, huh?"

She was referring to my cousin Daniel. I supposed he was good-looking, but he was my cousin. It wasn't on my priority list to be checking him out.

"I guess, but he's my cousin. It's weird to look at him like that!" I teasingly elbowed her.

She giggled. "Yeah, I know, but I think he seems like a real sweet guy. Me and him were partners in class one time." I didn't know they were ever in class together, but it wasn't really a far-fetched idea considering the fact that they were both really good students. I tried my best at school, but I wasn't good enough to be in all the genius classes or anything.

I knew Danny would like her because they were both close-minded. He was over- protective too and Lisa would like that. She had an impertinent side to her, but physically, she was weak. I liked to be around Danny for the most part, but I had to be cautious of his domineering ways.

"I think he'd like you, Lisa," I assured her.

She sighed. "I hope so. He seems better than the other guys."

I dropped the topic because a greaser was walking down the sidewalk in the direction opposite of us. A sense of dread came over me. The greaser wasn't making me uncomfortable; it was the nauseating anticipation of what was bound to come from Lisa. When he glanced in our direction, Lisa shot him a dirty look. I didn't know how he responded because I kept my head down, feeling like I wanted to crawl under a rock. It was no surprise Dally thought what he did about me. And as terrible as it was to be around it, I would never sink low enough to be a part of it.

Lisa sighed in frustration. "I really can't stand them," she said honestly. I had a feeling then that I never really had for Lisa. I pitied her. She was worse off then I thought. It was just a given that Socs hated greasers, but I've heard of a lot of girls that were just put-off by them, but were too busy with their own lives to really even care. But the confession in Lisa's voice proved to me that she couldn't overcome her loathing for them. She wasn't bluffing when she said she hated them. And the saddest thing was that her contempt was a waste of time because they didn't deserve it. But try telling that to her.

I sighed. I would've liked to go off on her, but I felt defeated. It would just be a waste of my time because she was too ignorant to understand. A thought suddenly popped into my head. "Hey, Lisa. You remember when you said at school that Mr. Parker's store got robbed?"

She furrowed her brow, searching her memory. "Yeah! Yeah, I remember that."

"Well, I just thought of it. So, was it Dally that did it?" I spoke quickly in anticipation, praying that she was wrong.

She grimaced. "Dally?"

I stood there, trying not to let my mouth gape open. I wasn't supposed to know who Dally was. It was okay to have heard of Dallas Winston, but not Dally. "I meant Dallas Winston …" I trailed off. She looked suspicious.

"Yeah, but how would you know if he's called Dally?" Her eyes widened. "Leslie, do you know Dallas Winston?"

A lie. Just a lie. "N-no. I've just heard people refer to him as Dally, is all."

She appeared to be relieved and laughed quietly. "I don't know what I was thinking. You knowing Dallas. That's ridiculous." A pang of guilt hit me. I lied about Dallas.

"But anyway," she continued, "I heard it was someone else. The grease that did it got locked away." I don't know why I was so pleased about that. I guess it was partly the childish feeling of "I'm right and you're wrong" that made it feel so good. But despite my sense of pride, I still wished that I could show her what was wrong with her accusations and have her actually care. Not that I had the slightest chance at that. In her barricaded mind, I could never be right because greasers weren't anything but scum. There's no difference between one anarchist rebel without a cause and another, no?

I dropped the subject with a resigning nod and we carried on our way. Lisa was all smiles and giggles for the rest of day, dismissing the whole conversation. I maintained an amiable front when she looked over, but my mind was somewhere far away from the hundreds of brick buildings we walked into.

By the end of the day Lisa had made three trips back to the car with armloads of boxes, and I had still purchased nothing. I promised her I'd had a nice time even though I didn't buy anything and that we could do it again another time. Then she drove me home.

Instead of going inside and having to sneak past my parents, I waved goodbye to Lisa and headed on a walk as soon as she was out of sight. I wasn't in the mood to put on a smile and submissively answer all their questions about my day. I needed to think.

The same voice that told me I wasn't like Dally was screaming things I couldn't make sense of. But one thing was clear: I lied about Dallas and I was a hypocrite.

If I really cared, I wouldn't be embarrassed to talk about him. I desperately thought, I can't. Nobody would understand. It occurred to me that I did deserve his anger because I was a fake and we had absolutely nothing in common. I should have just beat it out of that drugstore as soon as I saw him coming.

Making its way through the raging battleground of emotions and blame, a foreign idea came into perspective: If I had left the drugstore as soon as Dally sauntered over, I would have proven to be an even bigger hypocrite. I would have been leaving behind a broken life because of how he was socially defined.

If I had never met Dallas Winston none of this would have even occurred to me. But I did, and now he was gone. I had blown it; the chances of us meeting again were slim. The only thing left to do was move on.