Davanee and I were about to leave when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hello is this Ponyboy Curtis?" asked a man from the other end.

"Yes. Who's this?" I asked.

"This is Dave Morrow. I'm the manager from San Jose Country Club. I was just calling to tell you that I was rather impressed with your application. You got the job" said Mr. Morrow.

"Oh, thank you so much Mr. Morrow. You don't know how much I need this job" I said.

"Please call me Dave. Now, you start Monday so I want to see you here bright and early" said Dave.

Dave and I talked a little while longer. He told me about all the employee benefits, hours, pay, stuff like that. The hours for my new job didn't really work out like I had planned. I worked days, which meant that I would either have to take Davanee to work with me or find someone to baby sit here. Dave said the club offered a nice day care service to employees but I wasn't sure if I wanted to put Davanee in day care just yet. In my opinion, she seemed too young.

"Who dat?" asked Davanee.

"That was my new boss. Daddy got the job at the country club" I said.

"Yay!"

"Sweetie, how would you like it if you went with me to work?" I asked.

"I spend all day wit you?" she asked.

"No, you would be playing with other kids while I go work" I said.

"I not see you?"

"No, you'll see me but it'll be after work" I said.

"I make friends" said Davanee.

"Yeah, you'll make some new friends."

We went to the DX and told everybody about the new job. Everyone seemed happy about it except Anya. When I told her all she could say was oh and she went right back to working. I waited till Soda and Steve went out to the garage so we could talk about it. I sent Davanee out there with them.

"What's wrong? I thought you wanted me to take this job" I said.

"We'll never see you" she said.

"What are you talking about? Of course you'll see me" I said.

"When? I'm at school all day and work in the afternoons. You work all day and go to school at night. Besides weekends, when are we going to see each other?" she asked.

"Of course we'll see each other. I'll be over here every day, I promise. I'll be here every day after work and during my lunch break" I said.

"You sure?"

"Have I ever broken a promise to you?" I asked.

Anya shook her head and said "no. I'm sorry I got mad at ya. All these hormones are starting to take a toll on me."

"That's ok" I said, giving her a kiss.

"What do you have going on at school tonight?" asked Anya.

"Nothing really. Just a bunch of test and quizzes. I better get going, I'll see you tonight" I said.

"Alright. What time do you think you'll be home?" she asked.

"I dunno. School is suppose to get out a little early tonight so somewhere around 8:30" I said.

"Ok, I'll see you when you get home" said Anya, giving me a kiss. I left Anya and Davanee at the DX. I really didn't want to leave but I had to. I couldn't afford to miss school. Sometimes I thought it would be easier to drop out, but Darry would kill me if I dropped out. He was somewhat ok with Soda dropping out but not with me.

School turned out to be ok that night. That night was Maddie's first night back. Everybody swarmed her with questions and comments and what not. She was right in the middle of a group of girls, who were asking rather personal questions, when she shot me a look that said "help me." So, I intervened and told the girls there really was not story. I told them that Maddie was just very sick. They seemed to believe me and took there seats. The rest of school wasn't that interesting. Like I said before, we just had a bunch of tests and quizzes.

When I got home that night, I was rather surprised to see that all the lights in the apartment were off. Normally, Anya would have stayed up and waited for me. I know this may sound bad, but my first initial thought was that something was wrong. It turns out that Anya got tired and couldn't wait up for me any longer. She went to bed just minutes before I went home. Davanee on the other hand was almost always asleep when I got home, but there were those few occasions where she would be watching TV when I walked in.

That weekend went by pretty fast. Not having plans tends to make things go by fast for me. That Monday, I started my new job. I got there a couple of minutes before the club opened. I met the manager at the front desk. Dave looked to be around 60 or so. My guess was that he'd been around that club for a long time. Dave was wearing a grey sports jacket with a button down shirt. I don't mean to be rude or anything ,but he was rather short. He had short, grey hair with a bald spot in the back. His skin was slightly tan and wrinkled.

"You must be Ponyboy. I'm Dave. Welcome to San Jose" he said, sticking his hand out for me to shake. I shook his hand and smiled as politely as I could.

"Nice to meet you" I said.

"Come, I'll show you around before we opened" said Dave. We started the tour with the dinning room, which I had already seen. We then proceeded to tour the ballroom and other party rooms. We were about half way through the tour when he had another employee show me the golf course and pool. The other employee was his son, Jack. Jack seemed to be really nice. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes.

Last came the nursery. Jack said I probably wouldn't be working the nursery very often but there were those few occasions. It turns out that my first day was one of those occasions. We had about 20 kids that day. Jack and another employee named Samantha helped.

"You seem to have a way with kids" said Jack, watching me one of the babies.

"Well, I have 2 year old so that could have something to do with it" I said.

"You're 16, right?"

"Yeah, look I know what you must be thinking. I'm too young to have a kid" I said.

"No, I was just thinking back to when my kid was born" said Jack.

"You have a kid? You don't look that old" I said.

"I'm 20. I was 17 when my son was born" said Jack, "what about you?"

"14. The mother didn't even bother to tell me about the baby until 2 weeks after she was born" I said. Normally I wouldn't tell a complete stranger stuff like that, but for some reason I was ok with telling him. He seemed to understand what it was like to be a kid with a kid.

"What's your sons name?"

"Jack. What about your's?"

"Davanee."

"That's a pretty name."

"Thanks but I didn't name her" I said.

I was about to add more to that statement I put I saw there was a parent waiting to drop off the kid. The mother was a bit hesitant about leaving her kid with us but after a while and a couple of minutes of persuading her, she finally left her kid with us. The kid seemed to do just fine when her mom was gone.

My first week at work seemed to be going pretty well. I didn't have to work at the movie theatre that Friday night but the club was having a big party and they needed me. At first, Anya wasn't happy about it. She complained about not seeing me all week but once I explained to her what was going on and that it wasn't my choice to work that night, she seemed to be ok with it.

When I was getting ready for work that night, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of party the club was having. At first I thought it was some big wedding or something because everybody seemed to be making a big deal out of it but boy, was I way off. It was a 16 year old girl's birthday party. She was definitely a soc. I arrived at work that night to find a white limo and a red carpet at the entrance. Just as I was about to go in, I saw Jack getting out of his car.

"This girl must be pretty important if they rolled out the red carpet for her" said Jack, walking up to the entrance.

"Either important or spoiled" I said.

"I think the second option is probably right. We better get inside and start setting up" said Jack. I followed him inside. When we stepped into the ballroom, my jaw dropped. The whole room was covered with pink and white. The chairs were pink. The tables were white. The roses on some of the tables where pink and on the others white. There was a huge happy sweet 16 sign on the stage.

"I guess we don't have to sent up anything" I said.

"I guess not" said Jack.

"Oh there you are" said Dave, coming up behind us, "we have a very big evening ahead of us tonight. Tonight you two will be serving the guest and the girl. I don't want to hear any complaints about it, got that?" asked Dave.

"Yes sir" said Jack and I at the same time.

"Very well then. The guest and the girl, uh Mary I believe that's her name, will be arriving shortly. The limo just left to pick up. I expect everything to be ready by the time they get here. The girl arrived about an hour later. Her escort had to cancel at the last minute so guess who got to replace him. The girl looked at me in disgust. I offered to help her out of the limo but all she said was "there is no way I'm walking into my party with you." Sure, it hurt but for some reason I understood. No soc girl wanted to be seen with a greaser like me. So I simply said "either you can take my hand and get over it or you can stay out here and miss out on all the fun. Which will it be?" The girl reluctantly grabbed my hand and we made our way towards the door. I must admit, the girl was very pretty. She had on a white dress that almost resembled a wedding gown. Her brown hair was done up in girls on the top of her head. She was always wearing a crown.

Once I escorted her inside the ballroom, she took of with a bunch of her friends without even so much as a thank you. I went back to the kitchen to help with the food. The party pressed on as we worked our fingers to the bones in the kitchen. Since I really wasn't that good with food, my job for the night was to give out drinks. The drinks were soda in champagne glasses. You would've thought they give us plastic glasses in case of an accident but no, these were made of real glass. I handed a glass to just about everyone who had an empty hand, and I tried to do it with a smile. I was about to head back to the kitchen when I noticed the princess didn't have anything to drink. So, being the nice person that I am, I started walking over to her to give her something. I was about to offer her something when I tripped. Soda and glass went flying everywhere, including on the girls white dress. The girl looked like she was about to strike me but her mother quickly pushed her off to the bathroom, while I laid on the ground soaked.

I didn't really know what it was like to have everybody laughing at you until that moment. I closed my eyes and pretended like I didn't hear it, but I knew I had to get up and clean up the glass and soda sometime. I opened my eyes to see Samantha helping me up. This was the same Samantha that helped me in the nursery on my first day. She had long red hair that was tied up in a ponytail, and dark brown eyes. She smiled at me and said "I'll help you clean up."

"No it's ok" I said as I started picking up the glass, "I got it." Samantha acted as if she didn't hear me and continued to pick up the glass while cleaned up the soda.

I carried the broken glass back to the kitchen and threw it away.

"You ok?" asked Jack as he was preparing one of the many treys.

"Yeah I'll be ok" I said, "how's the girl?"
"Oh, you couldn't hear her screaming from the bathroom? 'Mama, my dress is ruined! He did that on purpose!" said Jack, imitating the girl.

"Oh well. She was asking for it anyways" I said, "listen, I should probably get home."

"Alright" said Jack, "see ya Monday."

I waved and said goodbye as I left the kitchen. I walked out the front, trying my best to avoid the bathrooms. It's not that I was afraid of the girl, I can handle a spoiled brat, it's jut that I really wanted to get home. Unfortunately, I ran into traffic on the way home but after all, it was a Friday night.

I was greeted by two hugs and a kiss when I got home.

"Well this is a surprise. What are you doing up so late?" I asked, picking Davanee up.

"She couldn't sleep" said Anya.

"Come on" I said, "let's get you back to bed."

"But I not sleepy" said Davanee, half a wake.

"Oh yes you are" I said, laying her down and covering her up.

"Daddy, sing to me" said Davanee.

"No, daddy's too tired to sing tonight" I said.

"Please?"

"I'll make a deal with you. How about tonight I put on your Mary Poppins record and I'll sing to you tomorrow night" I said.

"Otay."

I put the record on, turned out the lights, and left the door cracked.

"She just wanted to see you" said Anya.

"Yeah I figured that."

"So how was work?"

"It was interesting. Tonight we had a 16 year old girls birthday party. Boy was she a spoiled brat. I accidentally spilt soda on her dress and she freaked out. She claims that I did it on purpose" I said.

"Oh I'm sorry. That must have been embarrassing" said Anya.

"It was but I'll get over it" It'd be pretty stupid not to.