-1Disclaimer: SE Hinton owns all but Cherrytree and Sarah.
A/N: I like this chapter, and I have really been working hard on becoming better. I hope everybody realizes that and that my writing is getting at least a tiny bit better than the beginning. I thrive on comments and suggestions, so please leave a review, telling me what you can see coming in the rest of the story and any other little thing you think of while reading. Happy reading!
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I took a good look at myself in the mirror and checked every part of my body to make sure it looked okay. Make-up was fine; it was the same as it was the day I met Mike. I didn't want him to think I dressed up a lot to go out and turn him off. Most greaser girls would put on way too much eye shadow or liner, but I didn't want to look like a tramp. Darry probably wouldn't have let me out of the house if I put that much make-up on anyway. Besides, I had limited supplies.
I even let my hair down after I took a shower so that it hung around my face. After a few minutes of scrounging around under my bed I eventually found a cute white headband that I hadn't worn since sixth grade, but it still looked good. My clothes were simple, mostly because the only fancy clothes I had were the ones Cherry Valance gave me, and those would look ridiculous going to the movies. So I put on a pair of Pony's old jeans (though I was older, he still was bigger than me) and a white collared shirt. Since it was so cold out, I grabbed my jean jacket and a red scarf that had been hanging in my closet unused for ages. So, I still looked like a greaser girl, just a little bit less exaggerated.
Sarah had agreed only after a little persuasion to come. It hadn't taken long after I mentioned Sodapop was the one she would be going with because apparently every girl in Tulsa knew who he was. She was meeting us down there, as was Mike, so it was only Soda and me walking.
After one last check in the mirror I went out to the living room where Soda was sitting on the couch impatiently. He was dressed in casual jeans and a regular t-shirt. I liked the way he never got dressed up when going out anywhere. If he had actually decided to dress up, his good-looks would overshadow me by miles, so I was glad he hadn't. Soda looked at me approvingly. He had probably been expecting an entirely different girl to come out of my room because I had spent so much time in there.
"Ya ready?" I asked nervously. I don't know why I was so jumpy. I had never been this way with Johnny. We had been always comfortable together. "Sarah and Mike are meetin' us there."
"Yup," Soda said, getting off the couch and then yelled into the kitchen to Darry that we were leaving. I don't know why, but Darry didn't come out to say good-bye like he usually would have. It may have been because he didn't want to see me go out on a date, or he couldn't get off the kitchen chair from his back hurting so much from work. I wasn't sure which. Instead, the oldest Curtis just told us to be careful or else and we left out the front door.
We walked in silence for awhile, which is strange when you're with Sodapop. His mouth usually has at least something interesting to say, just like Two-Bit, but a bit more appropriate.
"Hey Soda," I said carefully, too curious for my own good.
"Yeah?" he answered, looking at me strangely, though he really had no reason to.
"Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" I asked.
"Oh, I just think it's funny my kid sister is setting me up on a date," he said, grinning like a movie-star. I knew that hadn't been what he was thinking, but I went along with it. "I must be losing my charm."
I laughed at him as he stumbled over a stick that had fallen off of a tree and he almost fell. "Believe me, you're not. Sarah agreed right after I said your name. Besides, you're not going to bother Mike at all, are you?"
Soda glanced up at the sky, as if really thinking it over. "It depends what he does." He smirked as I frowned.
"Come on, Soda," I pleaded. "Please don't do anything stupid that will embarrass me. I only have a few weeks before I look like I'm actually pregnant." My last words brought on a whole other topic of conversation, which I had been thinking secretly long and hard about.
"Are ya gonna tell him 'bout it?" Soda asked carefully.
"I dunno," I answered and shrugged like it didn't really matter. In truth, I had stayed up late last night thinking about it. Every single pro and con known to man had come to my mind, some were completely ridiculous like: What if I went into labor tonight at seven weeks pregnant? Eventually, after getting the thought out of my mind that a meteor was going to crash and Mike wouldn't save me unless I told him everything about my life, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't tell him tonight. If the date went well, maybe next time, but tonight was too soon.
"I think you should," Soda said wisely. "It's not fair if ya don't."
"Not tonight," I confided. "If it doesn't go well, then I have nothing to worry about afterwards. Maybe next time if everything goes okay."
Soda shrugged then grinned wildly. "Hey, check this out. I've been practicin'." He had obviously gotten bored with our other conversation. I think the sudden change of subject might have also been because Soda didn't like to talk about relationships with me ever since the baseball field incident.
So I watched as Soda jumped off the curb and did a flip in the air. He landed perfectly on his feet and bowed proudly. I had never actually gotten a hold of the whole gymnastics thing Darry had taught the whole gang. I did one handstand, my shirt went up, or down I should say, so everybody would see my worn out bra and I landed painfully on top of my head. I quit trying to learn after that embarrassment, but was teased for a whole month by Two-Bit until Darry got sick and tired of him telling me to pull up my shirt again that Darry yelled at him. When Johnny had still been alive and we had been becoming closer, he had even told Two-Bit to shut up once, which had surprised everybody. Nobody liked to bring up topics that had once included Johnny or Dally unless they needed to, so it was a dead topic nowadays.
When we got to the drive-in, since we didn't have a car, Soda and I paid the quarter to get in and then went to the seats for the walk-ins. Sarah was waiting there, dressed in a skirt and sweater. I knew she was a bit more wealthier than us, but she wasn't a Soc. Sarah was part of the middle-class that had enough money to buy what they needed or perhaps a new car for their sixteen year old, but not a lot more than that. Soda looked her over and grinned, obviously thinking that she was good-looking.
"Sodapop, this is Sarah," I told him, though he already knew who she was. "Sarah - Sodapop."
They smiled at each other and then started talking about some random thing that I wasn't even sure about, but I didn't care because my eyes were scanning the crowd for Mike. I finally spotted him walking over from the front gate and waved him over. He smiled and then pushed something in front of him to keep moving. I looked a little bit closer and noticed a small kid, about five or six maybe, leading the way over. He had dirty blonde hair that masked over his eyes, as if trying to hide something, and from so far away, the only other thing I could tell was that his shirt was five times too big and he had on blue pants.
It was just me who greeted Mike and the little kid as they came over because Soda and Sarah had gone and sat down already. I didn't know whether they had just hit it off real well, or Soda was just using his charm to get through the night. It was something he liked to do when he was stuck on a date when he didn't want to be. He knew just how to get the girl to feel comfortable enough to have a good time, but send enough signals that he didn't want to go out with her again. Steve had told me all of this a year or two ago when he was envying his best friend. Unlike most of what Steve said, that had kind of stuck because I had just become a teenager and I was interested in boys, who could possibly be like my brother.
"Hey," I said happily when they reached us. Mike looked good in just about the same outfit he had been wearing at The Dingo last week. A t-shirt with some type of logo on it and pants, but he still looked cute. His hair was only slicked back a little bit more than the last time I had seen him. I figured he wanted to impress me and didn't think anymore of it.
"Hey, Cherry," Mike greeted enthusiastically. He looked down at the little kid standing in front of his legs. "This is Tyler. Sorry, I didn't know I'd be stuck with him tonight 'til my parents said they had to go somewhere at the last second. I tried to get out of it."
"That's okay. I had to bring my brother too, but he has a date with." I looked down at the kid again and noticed he had two dollars grasped tightly between his two hands.
"What's that for?" I asked him sweetly, figuring if I was going to be talking this way soon, I might as well have practice now. I took Mike caring for his little brother as a good sign he would take the pregnancy well, when - or even if - I told him.
"Cigarettes," Tyler answered back proudly and I kind of stared at him and then up at Mike quizzically.
"He smokes?" I asked hesitantly, unsure of what to make of the situation.
"Not if I can help it," Mike answered back, embarrassed. "Tyler," he said down to the kid, "Mom said that's for popcorn and a soda. Not cigarettes."
"But you would use it for cigarettes," Tyler stated and I laughed. This kid reminded me of somebody, I just wasn't sure who. Just the way he said things made me think of somebody in my mind without a face or voice.
"Hey, Tyler," he looked up at me and I grinned. "Do you wanna meet my brother? He works with cars."
Tyler's eyes lit up and I knew I struck gold. The kid liked cars and cigarettes. It reminded me of a mix of Steve and Ponyboy, which probably wasn't the best combination of people in the world. The vision of Tyler digging into the hood of a car with a weed in his mouth, or changing somebody's tires, which covered half of his body, came into my mind.
"What kind? Mustangs are tuff," Tyler asked excitedly.
"He's seen a bunch of those," I hinted at, actually having fun with the little kid, talking about something I had no interest in unless one was trailing me. "Ya know I rode in a Stingray once?"
"Really?" Tyler bounced on the balls of his feet, too excited for his own good.
"Yup, a blue one," I said, taking Tyler by the shoulder and leading him over to where Soda and Sarah were sitting. Soda seemed perfectly at ease, but Sarah looked like she was as stiff as a board sitting next to my brother. I wondered why. They had been talking like old buddies and now here they were, barely even acknowledging the other. I made a mental note to thank Soda later by buying him some new piece of clothing. He probably wouldn't accept it, but it would be worth a shot. He didn't seem to be having such a good time, and now I was dumping a kid on him. How great of me.
"Tyler, this is Sodapop," I told him, looking at my brother expectantly. Soda looked at me strangely, as if saying 'This is your date?' and then grinned widely. "Soda, this is Mike's little brother."
"Is Sodapop your real name?" Tyler asked incredulously, forgetting about cars for the moment. "I want a name like Sodapop, Mike." Tyler looked back at his brother.
Mike was there, standing right behind me, eyebrows cocked up to the brim of his forehead. He seemed to be enjoying the sight of me with his brother, and I blushed a little bit around my cheeks, glad Mike was standing behind me so he couldn't see. Soda saw though and he laughed, then he let Tyler sit in the seat beside him and started talking about his name and how our Dad had argued with my Mom over it. All us Curtis' knew the story of how Soda hadn't been named for over a day when he was born because Mom didn't want a kid with the name of a beverage. Yet, Dad wouldn't have it, and on October 9th, a day after Soda was born, he finally had a name. I thought it was kind of ironic that the boy without a name for twenty four hours would be known by almost everybody when he grew up.
"Wanna go sit?" Mike asked me when Tyler was settled and in deep conversation with my brother. There were no more seats next to our friends, which I was kind of relieved of, because I don't think Soda would have liked it so much if Mike did anything with me while he was sitting right next to us. Soda didn't mind me dating, he just was particular in not seeing anything happen.
I nodded to Mike and we went back a few rows where two empty seats were waiting for us. The movie hadn't started yet, just the commercial with the dancing refreshments. When I was younger, I used to watch with amazement at the tap-dancing soda and wondered when my own cup was going to sprout arms and legs and dance in the same way. Nonetheless, when I asked Darry why my cup wasn't doing what the other one was, he laughed at me and told me it would never happen. That was when Darry had been happier and the thing he was worried most about was being caught at the movies with his family. I missed that Darry. I think everybody did.
"You gonna go off with Tyler instead of me?" Mike joked, sitting down and rubbing at his arms because the air was so cold. My whole body was on the verge of freezing up, but I didn't say anything.
"It depends if he uses that money for good instead of evil," I laughed at him and Mike joined along. At first, I actually thought he thought that I didn't like guys that smoked. That was pretty hard to do considering Ponyboy smoked like he would die if he didn't.
"Sorry I had to bring him," Mike apologized again. Then he glanced up at his brother with Sodapop and Sarah. Soda was getting up and leading Tyler to the snack stand, but Sarah stayed behind. I didn't know whether it was because she didn't want anything, she wanted to save their seats, or she wasn't having a good time. Maybe I would have to buy something for her instead of Soda. There goes my well earned cash.
"That's okay. I have to get used it to it," I said genuinely. It was true that I had to get used to it, but Mike took the comment in the way that we would be together for awhile. I didn't bother to tell him it was for another reason.
"He's a real kid brother, though," Mike said proudly. I looked at him strangely. What, was he fake or something? Did he have a zipper attached to his back under that oversized shirt. "I mean he does everything you can expect from a little kid. He puts holes in the milk carton, dyes your hair green, and last week he dumped out all my hair grease." So that was why his hair was greasier than last Friday.
"He dyed your hair green?" I asked, chuckling at the thought of good-looking Mike with green hair, walking around town with no hair grease to put it back with.
"Yeah, the little monster," Mike said, but he grinned. "It was like that for a month last year. I love him, just wouldn't want one of my own."
"Yeah," I sighed, suddenly feeling a bit of foreboding of the future. If Mike didn't want a kid of his own, there was more than a good chunk of a chance that he wouldn't want to be around me when I confessed I was pregnant. I rung my hands nervously in my lap, and Mike noticed.
"You want a kid?" he asked, disbelievingly.
"I can honestly say I don't," I told him and he believed me. I no I hadn't exactly told him the truth. I didn't want to have the child at all, but not telling him a bout it at that exact moment just seemed like a mistake. I don't know why, but it just felt all wrong.