All the Pieces of You
To get Lily to walk by herself, we had to trick her. Like, literally trick her. She crawled on time. She could stand fine. And when she was holding onto furniture or someone's hands, she would walk. But she refused to do it by herself.
"Think this'll work?" I asked Soda, bringing Lily into the living room. He came up with the idea. Soda had moved some of the furniture back, so Lily wouldn't have anything to grab onto.
"Are you kidding? She loves this bunny more than she loves us." The little stuffed bunny that was Lily's favorite toy was a first birthday present from Ponyboy. That bunny had gone everywhere with Lily in the last two months.
Soda sat down on one side of the living room, and I sat down with Lily on the other. I stood Lily up on her feet and pointed to Soda.
"Look, Lily," I told her. "Go get your bunny from Daddy."
Lily turned to look at me and held her hand out to me, but I shook my head. "No, baby. You gotta go by yourself."
This made Lily pout her lips and cross her arms. Across the room, Soda laughed before hugging Lily's bunny. "I guess it's my bunny now, huh, Lily Bloom?"
"Hey," Lily said. She had added 'hey' to her list of words recently. 'Hi' was still a greeting, but she only said 'hey' when she didn't like something. "Dada, mine."
'Mine' was another favorite new word.
"Not if you don't come get it," Soda told her. "I'm gonna keep it unless you walk over here."
Lily sighed and stood her ground. But after a few minutes, she got the idea that we weren't kidding, and started taking a step. And then another, and another, and another. She didn't even fall.
"See, you can walk, little faker," Soda told her once Lily was in his lap. She smiled up at him and hugged her bunny. "Now go to Mama."
Now that her gig was up, Lily walked right to me with no problem, showing me her bunny with a big, proud smile.
"You can really play with Dulce and Anna Maria now," I told her. "You can run like they do, and not have to sit and watch."
That little girl of ours was something else. She spent the rest of her day walking and running around the house.
It was summer by then, early June, meaning Ponyboy was back in Tulsa for a few months. He had one year left in college, only because he hadn't been able to choose between majoring in English literature and philosophy. He loved both, but it meant going to college for five years instead of four. Ponyboy didn't mind a bit, though. He loved school.
Since it was summer, that meant he was staying with us. Two-Bit always offered to let Pony stay with him in the summers, but I think both Soda and Pony needed these months together.
It was nice having someone home with me and Lily, too, since Ponyboy worked at night a couple of times a week at one of the movie theaters in town. Soda worked during the day, but when Ponyboy was home for the summer, I had someone to drag along on errands with me and Lily.
"So, when are you going to bring a girl home for us to meet?" I teased Pony one day when he tagged along to go grocery shopping. I turned in time to see his cheeks glow red in a blush.
"C'mon, Brookie, not you, too. All of y'all are always teasing me." It was true. We were. But he had never blushed like that before when I had asked.
"Okay, so what's her name?"
"How do you know?" He asked, very much still embarrassed.
"I know everything, just ask Lily." But the truth was that I just knew Ponyboy. We spent a lot of time together after Johnny and Dally died. He couldn't lie to me if he tried. "Huh, sister?"
Lily was sitting in my grocery basket looking at a picture book, but she picked her head up to smile and nod at Ponyboy.
"Her name is Elayne, but she goes by Ellie," Ponyboy finally grumbled after a while.
"And how long have you been dating her?"
"Since last fall." That made me stop in the aisle and turn on my heel to Pony.
"Ponyboy Michael Curtis," I said, in what everyone had started to call my 'mom voice'. "That's almost a whole year, and you haven't told us?"
Ponyboy was staring down at his shoes. "Well…I'll tell you when we get home, okay?"
I thought that was weird, but I just shrugged. Whatever Ponyboy wanted. I wasn't going to let him forget it, though, so after we were home and Lily was down for her nap, I brought it up again.
"So, this Ellie," I spooked Ponyboy when I spoke. He had gone to read on the porch while I got Lily to go to sleep. Pony jumped, almost dropping his book.
"Well, um," Ponyboy stumbled over his words. He put his bookmark in between the pages and set the book down. "I just, I get worried…thinking about bringing her here, I mean. Ellie's African American."
I felt my eyebrows scrunch together. "So?"
This did not matter to me, or either of Pony's brothers, or any of our friends. I knew Ponyboy knew that, so I couldn't understand why he wouldn't tell her about us.
"I know y'all don't care, but think about the rest of Tulsa. Think about Johnny. Don't tell me you forgot already." With Johnny's black hair and eyes and his dark skin, he was one of the darkest people in Tulsa. We were a Southern state. We were slow to change, despite how much the rest of the nation had.
We didn't know, and Johnny didn't either, what exactly his race was. His mom had all the same dark features as Johnny did, but none of us ever felt the need to strike up conversation with the woman. Neither did Johnny. I knew what Ponyboy meant, though. I remembered how hateful people, and not just Socs, could be to Johnny.
I couldn't count how many times Dallas had gotten into fights over that for Johnny.
"Your college isn't this way?" I asked. "It's in Oklahoma, too."
Ponyboy shook his head, though. "College is so different, Brookie, I swear. It's a whole different world."
We were quiet for a little while. I almost pointed out that Aunt Dolly's husband never had any trouble even though he was Spanish, but I knew that wouldn't help. His Spanish features were fair, and only Esteban's name and accent gave him away.
"It's changing here, too. I mean, not very quickly, but just look at the neighborhood. When is the last time you heard sirens or gunshots?"
Tulsa was getting better. It really was. But I knew why Ponyboy was scared.
"Nothing would happen to her with all of us here," I promised Ponyboy. "You know none of the boys would let it."
I had Ponyboy there, and he knew it. "Yeah, I know, but I would hate myself if anything happened."
"Is she from Oklahoma?" I asked, but Ponyboy shook his head.
"Her family lives in Texas."
"That's not so far," I told him. "Is she still in school?"
"Yeah," Ponyboy said with a nod. "She's a couple of years younger than me."
"Then when school starts, I want Ellie at my house when you come and visit on weekends."
Ponyboy smiled a huge smile that had the 'thank you' in it that he didn't say.
"Yes, ma'am," was what he chose to say instead.
"Good boy," I told him, ruffling his hair. Ponyboy didn't grease it anymore, but he still kept it carefully styled, and I knew that would annoy him. "Now finish your book."
A/N: A little different, I know, but I've always had it in my head that Brooklyn and Ponyboy would be good friends since they are close in age and the most central to Johnny and Dally's deaths, so I wanted to show that...and also set Pony up for a girlfriend ;)