Alice Blue
I wanted to post this on March 11, which was the one-year anniversary of my joining this board. I've understandably been busy, but consider this my one-year anniversary tribute to the 'Arrogance and Aggression' universe. It's not what I would have expected for an anniversary one shot, but I'd been thinking a lot about the three babies who are conceived during 'Turn the Page' (Lilly's daughter Emily, Johnny and Sadie's daughter Rosemary, and Darry and Lynnie's daughter Willow) and the kind of people they might turn out to be. It's just a fun little character exercise, and I hope there's something enjoyable about it for you, too.
"Willow-Rose Curtis!"
After a protracted sigh from the back of the old Curtis house, Willow emerged from her room to face the inevitable wrath of her father. Sure enough, there he was – Darrel Curtis, Jr., built like a brick wall and glaring like steel. And yet, because he was her father, Willow Curtis had to laugh.
"What are you laughing about?" Darry asked. "I just hollered your full name. That's usually somethin' that sets off alarm bells 'round here."
"You didn't holler my full name," Willow said. "There's a whole Caroline you missed out on there in the middle."
"Oh, my apologies. Would it help if you went back into your room, and we tried this again?"
"Eh, I'm already out here. What's the matter?"
"I think you know what the matter is," Darry said. He motioned to the dining room table for his daughter to sit down. "Sit."
"And I just have to listen to you?"
"Sit, Willow."
Willow grumbled something about how she wasn't a dog, but she sat at the table across from her old man, anyway. She couldn't help it. She gave her father hell, but she couldn't help it. She loved the guy. If he wanted to have a futile talk at the dining room table, she'd have it with him.
"I got a call from your principal's office," Darry said.
"And they wanted to tell you how proud they are of me for being one of only five freshmen to wind up with a 4.0 at the end of their first semester?" Willow asked.
"Oh, your grades were in there somewhere. 'S a matter of fact, your grades were couched in between, 'We're calling to let you know that your daughter, Willow, started a massive paint fight in the art room today,' and 'It's not the kind of behavior we expect from such an excellent student.'"
"Expectations are for suckers," Willow said. "I like to give 'em a great report card, but I like to keep 'em on their toes about all the other stuff."
"What's all the other stuff?"
"Where do you want me to start, Daddy?"
Darry sighed. He could barely look at his daughter, smiling so sweetly at him with her electric blue eyes – his eyes. He remembered the way she used to look when she was a baby … before she started getting into mischief for the fun of it and turning his hair even grayer than it already was. He couldn't look at her when she had that expression on her sweet, sweet face. It made it hard to give her the stern lecture she deserved (and that her mother was too soft to give to her, which was why she'd taken the care to visit their son, Jimmy, in Stillwater for the night). He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Willow had stopped flashing him that baby face. Good. He could proceed.
"Why did you start a massive paint fight in the art room today?" Darry asked. Each one of his words was slow and purposeful. He thought that might do Willow some good. He didn't know why, but he thought he'd give it a shot.
"It was art," Willow said. "Can't you see that?"
"Willow."
Willow exhaled. She loved giving her enemies a hard time, but this wasn't her enemy. This was her father. The least she could do, after a long day of snarky comments to her teachers and classmates, was give her own father a break.
"They were talking about that thing the Senate just did a couple of weeks ago," Willow said. "The radio was on. It was the news. They were talking about how the Senate finally passed that law that says genocide is illegal."
Darry nodded. He'd heard something about that, and he'd been glad about it. But neither he nor his wife, Lynnie, kept up with the news incredibly well. For that, they relied on their newly fifteen-year-old daughter, Willow. Darry wasn't quite sure where Willow learned that. Lynnie, however, was sure she knew.
"And they were saying things, like, 'Genocide is illegal, except for …' and then they'd fill in the blank with whoever or whatever they wanted to see gone, and they'd laugh. They'd laugh as though this was anything to laugh about. I couldn't take it. I threw paint on one of the guys, and he threw paint on me. It became a whole thing."
"Uh-huh," Darry said. "And are you gonna tell me why you're not covered in paint right now?"
"I've got a spot behind my ear!" Willow protested.
She flipped her light brown hair to the side and revealed a smudge of pale blue paint – the last evidence of her most recent battle. Part of Darry was glad that it wasn't blood, like all the stains he'd had to wash out of Soda's clothes and all the cuts he'd had to disinfect. Another part of him was still angry at Willow, who didn't seem to understand why she needed to follow rules. It wasn't the same out there anymore – not for Darry, anyway.
"A smudge is nothing," he said. "Are you gonna tell me why you're not covered in paint?"
"No," Willow said.
"Why not?"
"Because I think you already know."
Darry sighed again. They were one hell of a father-and-daughter pair. They knew each other far too well.
"I don't understand why you'd think it's OK to drag Rosemary into this," Darry said.
"Because she's my best friend," Willow said. "Best friends are supposed to help each other out!"
"Yeah, and cousins are supposed to protect each other from getting into trouble for no reason. You got Rosemary into trouble for no reason today."
"Relax, Dad, would you, please? Rosemary is uptight as can be. She needed to get into a little trouble for skipping class to help clean the paint off of me. What'd she get, anyway? Are they going to make her sit in a classroom by herself during lunch tomorrow? The horror! The horror!"
Darry raised his eyebrows, immediately interested. He thought for sure that Willow had seen or heard about Rosemary's punishment during school that day. Perhaps it was better this way. Willow, despite being one of the toughest girls in the neighborhood, had a terribly weak spot for her sweet best friend (and cousin), Rosemary. This, Darry thought, might actually teach her a damn lesson.
"No," Darry said. "See, I was just on the phone with Aunt Sadie. Rosemary's been tryin' not to cry since she came home from school. Because of you, the principal gave her the punishment that would hit the hardest so that she'd never do somethin' so stupid as skip classes again."
"And that is?" Willow asked, losing any shred of patience she might have had before.
"They're not going to let Rosemary make up any of the work she missed in the class she skipped for the rest of the week. She'll have to take a bunch of zeroes."
Just as Darry had predicted, Willow turned stark white. He felt terrible, both for his daughter and his niece, but this wasn't the first time Willow had come home with stories of fights and misbehavior in school. He couldn't believe it. How did Darry Curtis, who hadn't been in an honest-to-goodness scrape since he was in high school himself, and Lynnie Jones, a woman so soft and kind she could put bunnies to shame, produce a daughter like Willow-Rose Curtis, who was angry and political and had fantasies of righteously taking down her enemies? They hadn't raised her to be such a fighter. They had raised her to be more like Rosemary.
Rosemary Cade, God love her, was made of the best and sweetest parts of her mother and father. She had Sadie's ability to read people's feelings and to make them feel like they were the most special people in the world. Like Sadie, Rosemary had a knack for talking to someone just once and knowing exactly what to say to make sure they were doing right by themselves. Rosemary looked rather like Johnny, which meant she looked even more like her Aunt Lilly: long, dark hair and big, smiling brown eyes. She had Johnny's uncanny knack for seeing the best in people – even the people who could get her into trouble, like her cousin, Willow. Darry wouldn't have traded Willow-Rose for anything, but there were times he wished that Rosemary had a stronger influence on Willow than the one Willow appeared to have on Rosemary.
"No," Willow said. "That's her history class. She's trying to get into the honors course for next year … if she takes a week of zeroes …"
"Might hurt her chances," Darry said. "How would you feel then?"
"I wouldn't know what to do with myself."
"But this is what I'm trying to talk to you about. Willow, your actions have consequences. You're not the only one who suffers from this paint fight in the art room. What did they punish you with, by the way?"
"In-school suspension for the rest of the week. As far as I know, I get to make up my work. I don't know why Rosemary wouldn't."
But, of course, both Darry and Willow knew exactly why Rosemary wasn't allowed to make up her work. For one thing, Willow was at the top of her class, and Rosemary was slightly below her. For all the good she'd inherited from Sadie, she'd inherited her inability to do math. For another thing, Willow was white, and Rosemary wasn't (but it wasn't like anyone was going to talk about that).
"Well, either way," Willow said. "I'm sorry that Rosemary's getting screwed over, and I'll do whatever I can to help her."
Darry narrowed his eyes at Willow, and she corrected herself.
"I'll do whatever I can within the rules to help her," she said, and Darry nodded. "But, Dad, you gotta admit. I'm a little impressive. I mean, Uncle Soda got arrested for doing handstands through the city. Emily told me that her dad started a paint fight in the art room during his second junior year just because he wanted to."
Darry had to hold back a laugh. He remembered cleaning Two-Bit up after that one. It had been hilarious then. They'd all called him a regular Picasso. Sadie took photographs – this was back when she wanted to be a photographer and didn't tell anyone, but Darry knew, anyway. A paint fight had been exactly what they needed when they were all just kids. But now that they had kids, a paint fight suddenly seemed like the end of the world.
"What are you playin' at?" Darry asked.
"I'm playing at this," Willow said. "How many people in the world do you know who have gotten into a physical fight at school because they were standing up for their political beliefs?"
And then, it hit him. Darry had almost forgot. He'd spent so much time wondering if Willow was going to turn out like Ponyboy once she got to high school – brooding, forgetful, and mood swings like a pendulum – that he'd almost forgotten who else Willow was related to.
"You're not," he said matter-of-factly, which caught Willow off guard.
"What?" she asked.
"You heard me. You're not. Go to your room, Willow."
"But I'm fifteen. You can't tell me to go to my room."
"Oh, yes, I can. Remember what almost happened that night your Uncle Pony didn't go straight to bed when I told him to?"
Willow rolled her eyes contemptuously but sulked off to her room, anyway. It usually worked to threaten her – or any of the kids – with the night that Johnny almost killed Bob Sheldon in Crutchfield Park. It wasn't something they were proud of, but it was effective. Darry was fairly convinced it was why Sadie and Johnny's kids were so pragmatic and well behaved.
But in that moment, he didn't need pragmatic and well behaved. He needed everything but. He went over to the phone and dialed the number he'd memorized almost sixteen years before.
"Hello?"
"You wanna switch daughters?"
"What? Darry, man, is that you?"
"No, Dally, it's your other friend with my exact voice."
"You got brothers. Families sound alike. Wouldn't know, I guess. Wasn't exactly ever part of one."
Darry rolled his eyes. Even almost twenty-one years of marriage, Dally always seemed to forget that things were different now.
"I'm kinda serious," Darry said. "I mean, how is it possible that you raised Elenore, who's responsible, smart, and friendly, and I raised Willow, who is …"
"Smart enough to avoid jail for all the shit she's gonna do?" Dally asked.
"So you've heard."
"I've seen enough of your little Willow to know she's got somethin' up her sleeve. Last time we was down in Tulsa, I caught Willow tryin' to steal a bag of chips from the DX. She would have gotten away with it, too, if I wasn't smarter than she is."
"Willow got caught stealing?"
"Relax, man. She didn't do it or nothin'. Besides, she ain't like everybody thought of me. She ain't like what I thought I was, either."
"What does that mean?"
"Your little Willow ain't actin' out just 'cause she thinks it's fun. She's actin' out 'cause she wants to see who's gonna stop her … and when."
Darry thought about that for a moment. Maybe Dally was right. Dally always had a way of being right, even when he was wrong.
"Well, you should hear what she did today," Darry said. "Then maybe you'll change your mind and give me Elenore instead."
"Give you Elenore?" Dally asked. "Please. She ain't so great. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she grew up to be a home-wreckin' tart."
He laughed playfully, and Darry heard Elenore's voice in the background, shouting, "Daaaaaaaaaad!" She was laughing, too, and Darry felt his heart clench. He wondered if he'd ever be able to joke around with Willow like Dally could joke around with Elenore or if he'd have to spend the rest of his life bailing her out of trouble. He thought back to something Lucy said the last time she and Dally were in from New York. She'd pulled him aside and told him stories about Alice Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter. She said that ole TR used to say, "I can do one of two things. I can be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." She asked him which one he wanted to be. At the time, he hadn't really known what Lucy meant. But as he pictured bailing Willow out of jail for protests and indecency in the name of "making a statement," he thought maybe now he understood.
"Do ya see what I mean?" Darry asked. "Your daughter's at home with ya. She jokes around with ya. You can say somethin' like 'Elenore's gonna be a home-wreckin' tart' because we all know she ain't. But then Willow …"
"First thing you gotta do is stop wishin' Willow were anybody else but Willow," Dally said. "You've got a daughter. She's a smart kid. She ain't a bad kid. Bennet was talkin' about how she thinks she's real good to Rosemary. She might not be the same as you were, and she might not be a geek like Elenore …"
"Daaaaaaaaaad!"
"But she's a good kid," Dally finished. "But that don't mean good kids don't need shapin' up. You remember. You had to deal with Pony."
Darry was quiet for a moment. He wondered when the world had gotten so screwed up that it had turned Dallas Winston into a good father – perhaps an even better father than he turned out to be. Then he thought even if the world had gotten screwed up, he was thankful it did. He liked that he lived in a world where Dally was OK.
"You haven't heard what she did today," Darry said.
"It can't be that bad," Dally said. "She's still your kid. If you went to one of them boarding schools, you'd have been the class perfect."
"Prefect, Dad," came Elenore's voice in the background of the call.
"This is why you got a free ride to college, and I got a free ride to the police station."
"Today, in her art class, Willow started a massive paint fight with the other students," Darry said. "Only it wasn't like when Two-Bit was just jackassin' around. My daughter threw paint on some other kids 'cause they were makin' jokes about how the government outlawed genocide a couple of weeks back."
Darry could have sworn he heard Dally smirk.
"Well, now I get why you're callin' me," he said. "You didn't think I was gonna be the one who picked up, did ya?"
"Can't say I did," Darry said. "Is that sexist of me?"
"Could be, man. But Bennet ain't here right now."
"Where is she?"
"You don't know? Thought that sister of yours would've told you. She's landin' down in Oklahoma tonight. Her folks are pickin' her up. She's givin' some presentation on Charles fuckin' Dickens at TU. Maybe I could give her a call and see if …"
"That'd be great," Darry said.
"But ya didn't let me finish."
"I don't have to. I been writin' Willow Curtis on things for so long, I almost forgot she's just as much Jones. I think it's time for her to figure out just how much Jones she's got in her."
"I'll call Bennet, then. She'll call you. Or maybe she won't. You know how Bennet is. Always makin' everything into a surprise."
Darry chuckled. He remembered the night of Lucy's eighteenth birthday when she and Sadie begged him for his keys so that Lucy could drive over to Buck's and tell Dally how she really she felt about him. He remembered hearing, early the next morning, that Lucy had punched Buck Merril himself in the gut so that she could get upstairs and see Dally. She really was full of surprises – most of them terrifying, in one way or another. He couldn't believe he'd almost forgotten that his own daughter was cut from the same cloth that cut Lucy.
"I'd appreciate that," Darry said. "And, hey, Dally?"
"Yeah, man?"
"How're ya doin'?"
And again, Darry thought he might have heard Dally smirk. No, not smirk. He thought he might have heard Dally smile.
"I'm alright," Dally said.
Darry beamed. If Dally was alright, well, then, Darry was in fucking Brigadoon.
One evening since the paint fight had passed, and Darry still hadn't told Lynnie about it. He had his reasons, but he kept them completely hidden from Willow. She figured she could guess one of them: Her mother was the most sensitive person she'd ever known, and that included her Uncle Pony, who could cry at the drop of a hat – literally. When his daughter, Cordelia, who was three years younger than Willow, Rosemary, and Emily (who was Rosemary's cousin, but not Willow's, which they had a little song-and-dance routine to explain it to their teachers on the first day of every new school year), had graduated from kindergarten, she dropped her cap on the sidewalk and cried about getting it dirty. So did Pony. Aunt Carrie had been so mad. But if Uncle Pony cried at the sight of his daughter's hat on the ground, Willow could hardly imagine what her mother would do if she found out she'd gotten in even more trouble at school. She'd probably pass out on the floor and die. Maybe it was a good thing Dad had called and recommended she stay in Stillwater for the next few days.
What Willow really couldn't figure out, however, was why her father hadn't punished her yet. In their house, he'd always been the disciplinarian – and a strict one at that. Willow remembered when she was six, and her brother, Jimmy, was twelve. Jimmy had stayed out half an hour past his curfew (eight o'clock, as Dad never messed around in a neighborhood like theirs), and Dad grounded him for a month. "One day for every minute you scared the hell outta your mother and me," he'd said. Jimmy accepted his punishment with aplomb, but when Willow defended him by saying, "What does it matter? You're not even his real dad!" he took away her favorite doll and didn't give her back for two weeks. Mom had never quite forgiven him about that one. Willow was only six at the time, and she'd just learned that technically, there had been another dad in the picture before Lynnie and Darry met. She hadn't been sure what that meant, really, so she'd been testing it out. If he'd been willing to punish a six-year-old child for not knowing the differences between being born to one man and raised by another, why wasn't he reading her the riot act now? When Willow asked him about it, he just shrugged and said, "Put your shoes on. I'm taking you to Aunt Sadie's."
Willow obliged right away (much to Darry's surprise), but as she followed him out the door, she worriedly asked him where they were going. Visions of orphanages danced in her head. She knew Uncle Pony would chop her head off for even thinking a thing like that, but even he had to face facts. Dad had been very strict with Uncle Pony when he was about Willow's age. That much was true. But they were brothers. As Willow learned just by being alive, there was a big difference between being raised by Darry Curtis, your brother, and Darry Curtis, your father. It was harder to have him as your father. The chances of disappointing him were much higher.
When Darry and Willow arrived at Sadie's house, Darry didn't even say hello to his sister when she opened the door. All he said was, "Is she here?"
Sadie nodded.
"She's been lookin' forward to this since I told her about it," Sadie said. "C'mon in. Hey, Willow."
"Hi, Aunt Sadie," Willow said as she made her way to the couch to sit next to Rosemary. Rosemary was beaming from ear to ear.
"Willow!" she said. "I couldn't believe it when Mom said you were comin' over today. I thought for sure Uncle Darry was gonna have locked you away."
"A paint fight isn't that big of a deal," Willow said.
"It is when it's the straw that breaks the camel's back."
"Gee, Rosemary. You're so supportive."
"I cleaned you up."
Willow tossed her hair to the side and revealed the mark of bright blue paint behind her ear.
"And you missed a spot," she said.
"It's been a whole day!" Rosemary said, incredulous. "How could you not have cleaned that up yet?"
"To prove a point!"
Darry looked at Sadie and sighed. Willow knew that sigh. She hated it. It was the, "I'm disappointed in Willow, and I wish she could go live with Dallas Winston" sigh. Her heart clenched.
"Where is she, Sadie?" he asked.
"She's finishing up something in the back," Sadie said. "You know how she hates to be interrupted while she's writing."
Darry nodded, but Willow wrinkled her nose.
"What're you talking about, Aunt Sadie?" she asked. "Rosemary's right here. Isn't she the her that Dad took me over here to see?"
But Darry and Sadie just shook their heads. To Willow's surprise, Rosemary was shaking her head, too. She turned to Rosemary, confused.
"What are you all doing?" she asked. "What am I doing here?"
"You're here to talk to me."
Willow was actually surprised when she saw her cousin, Lucy, emerge from the back of Aunt Sadie and Uncle Johnny's tiny house. It had been a little while since she'd seen her. She couldn't help but smile. For a reason she could never quite understand, Willow had always felt very connected to her cousin Lucy.
Lucy walked over to Darry and wrapped him up in a hug. It was funny, Willow thought. Dad was more than double Lucy's size, but when she hugged him, it was like Dad became the dwarf. It was kind of cool. She didn't know how Lucy pulled it off, but she was glad she did.
"Sorry I couldn't be out here when you got here, Darry," Lucy said. "I was finishing up a sentence, and it takes me forever to write the perfect sentence."
"That's our Lucy," Darry said. "It's good to see you."
"You, too," Lucy said.
Her eyes flickered over to Willow and Rosemary, and her lips turned into a sly grin.
"I see my timing was fortuitous," Lucy said.
"Sure was," Sadie said. "Girls, why don't you tell Lucy what happened at school yesterday?"
"Oh, I'm not sure Lucy wants to hear …" Willow started, but she was immediately cut off.
"Willow started a huge paint fight during her art class!" Rosemary blurted. "I wasn't there, but afterwards, she found me in the hall and asked me to clean her up."
"And you obliged?" Lucy asked.
"Of course I did," Rosemary said. "She's not just my cousin. She's my best friend. I'd do anything for her."
"I see," Lucy said. She looked Willow directly in the eye.
"Would you do anything for her?" Lucy asked.
"Well …" Willow started, but this time, Lucy cut her off.
"I see!"
"I didn't even say anything," Willow said.
"You said plenty, and I think you know it."
Willow looked beyond Lucy and toward her father, a look of confusion and desperation in her eye.
"What is this supposed to help me with?" she asked. "Can't you just punish me and get it the hell over with?"
"Don't swear," Darry said. "And no. This is going to help you a lot more than any punishment I could give you."
Lucy still hadn't taken her eyes off Willow. Just as Willow was about to say something, Lucy asked her yet another sticky question.
"Why'd you start the fight, Willow?" she asked.
"I think you already heard about that," Willow said.
"Ah, maybe. But I want to hear it from you."
"Why?"
"I just do. And I usually get what I want. So you're going to answer."
Willow rolled her eyes. She couldn't explain it, but Lucy had some sort of power.
"I was trying to provoke some kids who were making jokes about how genocide is officially illegal in the United States," Willow said. "They were ignorant, and I couldn't let them get away with it. They had to pay, even if it was just in paint. Do you understand? I'm not like Two-Bit, and I'm not like Uncle Soda. I don't just start paint fights because they're a rollicking good time. I start paint fights because I've got a political agenda, and I want people to hear it from my point of view. How many people do you know who can say that they get into fights because they've got a political message to share? Huh?"
Lucy raised her hand. Willow looked beyond her cousin to see that her father and her aunt were raising their hands, too. Willow furrowed her brow, confused.
"Hey, Willow," Lucy said. "Has anyone ever told you about the time I got arrested?"
Willow's eyes widened.
"What?" she asked. "How? I didn't think professors were even capable of getting arrested. It doesn't seem like it's in your DNA."
"Oh, there's a lot of stuff in our DNA," Lucy said. "Besides, this happened long before I was a professor. In fact, I was thirteen."
"Thirteen?" Rosemary asked. She'd heard bits and pieces of the story since Lucy had arrived in their home a few hours earlier, but she hadn't put it together that Lucy had been thirteen.
"That's nothing," Lucy said. "My husband? He was ten the first time he got hauled in."
"Well, now we know why the notorious hood married the English professor," Willow said. "They're both notorious hoods."
"Actually," Sadie started to say, but Darry quieted her down.
"When I was thirteen," Lucy said, "I got into a fight with a kid in the cafeteria because his parents thought Nixon should have won the 1960 election."
"Against JFK?" Rosemary asked. "Were they insane?"
"Perhaps," Lucy said. "But I couldn't handle it. I decked him good. Next thing I knew, I was in cuffs, and the judge was telling me he was going to let me off easy."
"What does that mean?" Willow asked. "How easy?"
"Well, have you ever noticed that every time you see me," Lucy said, pulling a copy of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test out from behind her back, "I'm carrying a book?"
"Yeah," Willow said. "You're an English professor. What of it?"
"That was how the judge let me off easy. I was mandated, by the court, to carry around a book everywhere I went until I was eighteen. That way, if something made me so angry I felt like I might strike out, I could just read until the urge to hit passed."
"But you're thirty-eight. Why do you still carry around a book now?"
"Not the point, kid. The point is, I got arrested. I have to carry that around. Luckily, I was able to get into the kind of field where my arrest is just a fun story to tell at a cocktail party. But not everyone is as lucky as I am."
"Willow's never been arrested," Rosemary said. "I think I'd know if she had been."
"Because you'd bail her out?"
"Well, yeah."
"Oh, Rosemary. I'm getting to you."
Rosemary bowed her head, worried about exactly how Lucy was going to get to her. She'd heard the way that Elenore used to talk about her mother. She could be cold as ice. Elenore took ballet lessons in New York City from the time she was four until the time she was eleven. After her last recital, she'd apparently asked Lucy what she thought of the performance. According to Elenore, Lucy had said, "You were good, Elenore, but the girl to your right was very good." She'd said that to her own daughter. Rosemary couldn't imagine what she might have to say to her, and she was just Lucy's goddaughter.
"Willow, the point is, we're related," Lucy said. "I understand the kinds of things you get angry about and how angry you really get because I'm right there with you. But there were people around who knew how to stop me. There were people in my life who helped me to control myself before things got really bad."
"Like who?"
Lucy stood up and wrapped her arm around Sadie's shoulder. Willow looked at them curiously. It was strange. She'd seen Lucy and Aunt Sadie together a bunch of times, but it was the first time she realized just how much they looked like her and Rosemary.
"Rosemary, meeting your mom was about the best thing that ever happened to me," Lucy said. "Without her, I'd have been friendless. I never would've gotten married to that notorious hood Willow was on about. I wouldn't have Elenore. Imagine a world without Elenore."
"I don't want to," Rosemary said. "I love Elenore."
"Yeah, so do I," Lucy said. "But without Sadie, I wouldn't have any of the good things I have today. She's my best friend. And you know what I did to deserve that?"
Lucy was looking at Willow now. Willow rolled her eyes a little.
"You treated her right," Willow said. "You didn't expect her to cover for you when you got yourself into situations you might have preferred not to be in."
"Nope."
Willow and Rosemary both dropped their jaws.
"What?" Rosemary asked.
"Yeah, what?" Willow followed suit.
"I was nowhere near the kind of best friend I could have been," Lucy said. "There were times in our late teens and early twenties where I was terrible to Sadie."
Sadie nodded.
"It's true," she said.
"I don't believe it," Willow said.
"Oh, you should believe it," Darry chimed in. "I was there. When Lucy was a senior in high school, and your Aunt Sadie was a junior, that's when Rosemary's folks started datin'. But Lucy didn't like that, see, 'cause she was Tulsa's first little feminist."
"Not the first," Lucy said.
"The first," Darry and Sadie said together.
"Well, they got into a whole big fight about it," Darry said. "Lucy refused to see it from Sadie's point of view."
"There was a point of view?" Rosemary asked. "My mom didn't just … love my dad?"
"Oh, honey, of course I did," Sadie said. "But it was 1965. It wasn't enough just to love him. When I agreed to a first date with your dad, given where I lived and the fact that Uncle Darry was looking, after your uncles and me, I had to think about marrying him all in the same breath."
"You what?"
"It's a good story for another time."
Sadie looked at Lucy with something of a smile in her eyes.
"Aren't you glad it's 1986?" she asked.
"Everyday," Lucy said. "Listen. Willow. Your aunt was a better friend to me than I ever could have asked for. And I wasn't always the best friend she could have asked for. I spent a lot of time thinking about what was best for me. Does that sound familiar?"
Willow closed her eyes with animosity. She thought back to all the times she'd pulled a stunt and expected Rosemary to cover for her because they were both best friends and family. In first grade, Willow placed a lizard on the teacher's desk chair, and when she asked who did it, Rosemary was so worried that Willow would but put into prison that she lied and said she'd done it (Sadie and Johnny had a detailed talk with her about the prison system that night.). In fourth grade, when Willow paid everyone a nickel to call her cousin Billy "Wee Willie Winkie" for the entire day, and Aunt Sadie and Uncle Johnny had been pretty mad about that considering Billy was only in the first grade at the time. But Rosemary had taken the fall for that. She said she'd been jealous that her brother was the youngest and the center of attention. Aunt Sadie and Uncle Johnny dropped their anger and bought Rosemary a dozen chocolate doughnuts after that, and no one ever spoke of it again. Now, Rosemary's ass was on the line for Willow's first big risk in high school. Of course Lucy's story sounded familiar. Everyday, Willow lived it.
Slowly, Willow turned to Rosemary. She took her cousin's hands in hers, and she forced Rosemary to lock eyes, even though she knew Rosemary didn't want to. That didn't matter anymore. Willow wasn't going to let Rosemary cover for her this time.
"Rosemary," she said. "I'm sorry I roped you into this."
"I'm not," Rosemary said, though everyone in the room knew it was a lie. "Willow, you say it all the time. We're not just cousins. We're best friends. And that's what we do. You get into trouble, and I help you out of it. I'm sure you'd do the same for me if it was reversed."
"But it's never reversed. I never have to think about helping you because I'm so busy asking myself what I want to do that I never think about what's best for you."
Rosemary leaned forward and kissed the top of her cousin's head.
"Thanks," she said. "It means a lot."
"I can try to convince everyone in the office to lift your punishment for the week," Willow said. "I'm pretty good at convincing people to do stuff."
Darry cleared his throat loudly, and Willow's eyes flickered over to her father.
"I'll play by the rules," she assured him. "But you've gotta admit. I'm a master of getting what I want. What's the only reason you got that terrible mall haircut two years ago, Dad?"
Darry let out a deep, beleaguered sigh.
"It's because you told me I'd look cool," Darry said. "And you're a young kid, so I believed ya."
"I'm a young kid with master skills," Willow said. "And don't you forget it."
When Darry and Lucy exchanged another one of those knowing glances that apparently only parents knew how to communicate in, Willow knew that what she had said was grounds for another family lecture. She took a deep breath and braced herself. She had to act like these lectures annoyed her – for street credit. It would have been too much to let on that she actually enjoyed her father's strictness. Then she'd have let him win, and she wasn't about that. She had to pretend like she resented him so that she could keep her cool. She'd learned that from Dally the last time he and Lucy visited Tulsa together, and he'd caught her trying to steal from the DX. He hadn't turned her in to her folks, and she never stopped being confused about that.
"Listen, kid," Lucy said. "We're related, and apparently, you've inherited what I like to call the 'Jones ruthlessness.'"
"Then why is my mother a fluffy bunny?" Willow asked.
"We don't know," Lucy said. "But it's not the point. The point is, you're going to be frustrated at times. You've got something in you that says, 'This is OK, but I should be doing more. This is OK, but the people around me should be doing more.' And you're going to want to strike out because of that. I did, and I regret it."
Darry and Sadie exchanged a look between them that could only be summed up as, "Yeah, right."
"Just try to relax, Willow," Lucy said. "Think about people other than yourself. Listen to your family. We're the people who love you. When we say we want to help keep you out of trouble, it's for a good reason."
"What's a good reason?" Willow asked.
"What?"
"You heard me. What's a good reason?"
Lucy got quiet for a moment. Although Willow could tell that there was something she wanted to say, she didn't say it. It was almost like it didn't feel right to speak anymore. She turned her head and looked toward Darry, whose burly arms were still folded across his chest in disapproval. When he saw the look in Lucy's eye, he softened and panicked all at the same time.
"What?" he asked.
"I did what I could," Lucy said. "I spoke from my experience, and I think she heard me."
"Yeah," Darry said. "You saw the way she took Rosemary's hands. Ain't never done a thing like that before. Has she, Rosemary?"
"No way, Uncle Darry," Rosemary said. "Willow's not really the hand-touchy kind."
"My time's up," Lucy said. "Darry, man. You have to take it home."
Lucy stepped aside and switched places with Darry. As they did, Darry looked her in the eye and said, "You know, you sound more like that husband of yours everyday."
"Good thing or a bad thing?" Lucy asked through a smile.
"It's a better thing everyday."
Darry took a knee in front of his daughter – his beautiful daughter, whom he wouldn't trade for the world, even if she was a headache and a half, and even if Dally would have understood her better – and exhaled quietly. He wasn't sure why this was so hard. Maybe it was that his sister was standing behind him, watching him parent. Maybe it was that Lynnie was out of town (and for good reason). But he thought maybe the scariest part of all was that Willow was fifteen years old now, and fifteen years old meant that soon, he wouldn't be able to have these talks with her anymore. He swallowed hard. He wasn't ready to let her go. She wasn't ready to be let go. He thought it had been difficult when Ponyboy graduated from high school, and his job was done. It had been difficult. He cried for days about how no one would ever need his help again. Sadie could attest to that. Then Lynnie and Jimmy came along, and suddenly, he was important again. Someone looked up to him again. Once he and Lynnie had Willow, it seemed like he'd never stop being loved. He'd never stop being the one that they depended on. He'd relished in Willow's childhood – read baby books to her, helped her get dressed when Lynnie was busy trying to wrestle Jimmy into his pants for school (Kid hated wearing pants for a good two years there.), learned how to braid her hair. On some level, he knew Willow had to grow up. He just never figured it would go by so quickly. He never figured that once she was old enough to start a political paint fight, he wouldn't have anything left.
"Willow, we don't want ya to get in trouble 'cause we know that's not who you really are," Darry said. "None of us are. When we were growin' up, people said awful things about us."
"It's true," Sadie said. "When your Uncle Pony was fourteen, some kids on the other side of town jumped him just because he was a greaser."
"Two-Bit used to get slapped all the time," Lucy said.
"That's 'cause he was lookin' up girls' skirts," Darry said.
"I was trying to leave that part out, but thank you, Darry."
Willow rolled her eyes. This was exactly what it was like to try to have real conversations with her family and their friends. They'd start off serious, but then, they'd almost immediately veer into nostalgic, reminiscent territory. Sometimes, it was great. During his last year of high school, Jimmy got in trouble for staying up all night to watch baseball with his friends and failing a history test the next day (his best and favorite subject), and Dad started to scold him. But Uncle Soda was there, and they started talking about the first time they all made chocolate cake for breakfast. None of them even knew how they got on the subject – just that they did, and they laughed a lot. They laughed so hard that Dad forgot why he was upset with Jimmy in the first place.
But sometimes, it could be a real pain. Willow remembered the time she tried to tell Dad that she was thinking about majoring in political science when she got to college so she could become a lawyer and represent goodhearted boys who got into trouble, like him and all of his friends growing up. They barely made it into the conversation when Uncle Pony brought up the time Dally went to jail for Two-Bit and told Darry not to tell anybody what had really happened. That had turned into a whole story about how if Two-Bit hadn't broken that window, there would be no Elenore Winston, and Dad had forgotten that Willow had started the conversation in the first place. That was the problem with her big extended family, she figured. They had so much going on between and among themselves that they couldn't take a minute and think about how their kids were trying to forge a brand new path. In a way, Willow thought her dad, her uncles, and all their friends were still trying to be kids themselves. Strict kids, sure. But kids nonetheless.
Darry looked at Willow one more time, and she noticed something rather odd. Where his eyes were normally cold and blue, they were somehow warmer now. Melting, maybe. Either way, Willow found herself beginning to relax. Her father wasn't about to give her another stern talking-to. He was about to talk to her like a person. Finally. She'd been waiting for this for years.
"Listen to me," he said. "I know you're growin' up. And I know ya want to make a lot of statements. Believe me. I know. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell ya how much I don't want ya to grow up and leave me and your mom, even though ya know I don't want that. I just want you to know that just 'cause you're gettin' older, and you're gettin' real involved in the news and politics and all that doesn't mean you can just do whatever ya want. There are rules."
"But some rules are stupid," Willow said.
Rosemary placed a kind hand on her cousin's shoulder.
"Willow, listen to your dad," she said. "I think there's something he's trying to say."
"Thanks, Rosemary," Darry said, trying to remember that Dally had said on the phone before. He needed to stop wishing that his daughter were anyone but his daughter. She was the one he got. And how could he be disappointed in that? She was one tuff kid.
"Is there a point to this?" Willow asked. "Because it feels like you brought me here for Lucy to tell me she was arrested when she was a kid, and then she was a shitty friend to Aunt Sadie. It's not real uplifting talk."
Lucy opened her mouth to object, but she quickly closed it again. Willow had her there. The conversation hadn't had much of a through line.
"The point is that I know we're different people, Willow," Darry said. "I know you got Jones blood in ya just as much as ya got Curtis. But that doesn't mean I don't love the hell out of you, baby girl. It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop givin' you advice and pushin' you to be smarter. And you gotta admit – starting a paint fight in the art room isn't the smartest decision you could have made."
"And I'm just supposed to, what?" Willow asked. "Grit my teeth and bear it?"
"Oh, no," Darry said. "There are plenty of ways to make a guy feel small without throwin' paint on him and gettin' the whole class involved."
"After the judge said I had to carry around books, I resorted to Shakespearean insults," Lucy said.
"Remember the time you called that guy a three-inch fool?" Sadie asked.
"That was Steve," Lucy said.
"Ah, that's right, it was."
Darry saw the look in Willow's eyes, and as much as he wanted to join his sister and her best friend on their little nostalgic trip, he knew he couldn't afford it. There was a teenage girl in this room, and for now, there was a tiny little part of her that still wanted his help.
"I just want you to know that when I get mad at ya like this, it's 'cause I'm on your side," Darry said. "Sometimes I worry you think I'm against ya 'cause I'm tellin' you no and stop all the time. But that just ain't true. I love you, Willow. The reason I tell ya not to do certain stuff is 'cause I love you, and I don't want you to come out weaker on the other side. I want you to come out strong."
Willow felt tears starting to form in her eyes, but she held them back. For as much as she loved her father (especially when he was earnest in his feelings, which wasn't quite as often as she wished), she had an image to protect.
"Thanks, Dad," Willow said. "That means … well, it means a lot, if I'm being honest."
Darry smiled and patted Willow's knee for her to get up off the couch, which she did. Without thinking too hard about it, Willow wrapped her father up into a hug. It was odd that she was able to do that, given how big he was. She never did quite figure out that he loved her so much, he always let her win.
"Now, why couldn't you have said all that nice stuff when Pony was a kid?" Sadie asked.
"Simple," Darry said. "I wasn't forty-one years old when Pony was a kid. Plus, there's nobody I know better than I know my little girl."
Willow let go of her father's embrace and walked over to Lucy.
"Thank you, Lucy," Willow said.
"For what?" Lucy asked. "You pretty much told me that all of my stories were useless."
"They weren't. They're not. I'm just a smart ass. Figured you could relate."
"Oh, yeah."
Willow laughed.
"I appreciate you telling me that there's more to standing up for yourself than getting into fights," she said. "And I appreciate you telling me that I have a lot to appreciate."
She turned to Rosemary and beamed. Rosemary, God love her, seemed stunned that she was suddenly part of the story.
"I love you, Rosemary," Willow said. "And I'm gonna do whatever it takes within the rules to make sure you're off the hook for helping me."
"I don't deserve you!" Rosemary gushed.
"You don't. You deserve better."
She looked at Lucy and Sadie and smiled.
"I'm gonna be better," she said.
"Thank you, Willow," Sadie said. "It means a lot to your Uncle Johnny and me that you try to help Rosemary the same way she tried to help you."
"Of course," Willow said. "What's family for?"
Lucy pointed at Willow like the story wasn't quite over.
"Lift your hair one more time," she said. "I want to see that splatter of paint behind your ear."
Willow wrinkled her nose.
"What for?" she asked.
"Just do it, kid," Lucy said, and Willow obliged.
Lucy stepped forward and looked at the splotch of paint one more time. There it was, in all its pale blue glory. She knew she wasn't mistaken. Her gaze flickered over to Darry, and she hoped he knew what she was going to say.
"Would you look at that?" she said. "It's Alice blue."
Darry nodded. Of course he knew. He remembered when Lucy told him about Alice Roosevelt, the heroine hellion. She was such a fire starter that she had a shade of blue named after her. He remembered how Lucy pulled him aside to tell him a secret that she'd only ever told Dally before. After she miscarried, she named the baby in her head – Alice Blue Winston. It was the kind of tough, indomitable spirit she wanted in her children. It was the kind of spirit she saw and admired in Willow.
"Let the Alice blue take her where it needs to," Lucy had said to Darry in private. "I know that's not easy, but trust me. She's going good places, Darry. I know it."
In the moment, Darry beamed at Willow. She didn't really understand why, but she accepted it. Any time she felt seen and understood by her dad as a person, not as a baby, she would accept it.
"Yeah," he said, more to Willow than to Lucy. "I guess it is."
Darry Curtis had bred a hell raiser. Nobody had seen it coming, least of all him and Lynnie. It drove him crazy and turned his hair gray – all of the parental clichés. But it didn't matter. Willow was his, and he was lucky enough to know her. When they got home that night, he wasn't going to punish her. No. He'd done enough of that. He was going to bake a chocolate cake with her, tell her that he loved her, and never speak of the Massive Paint Fight of 1986 ever again. He figured Willow would prefer it that way.
"Darry, man, you gotta stop it with these long distance phone calls."
Darry chuckled. He loved that he lived in a world where Dallas Winston was saying something like that (and meaning it).
"Hey, Dally," Darry said. "Talked to your wife earlier tonight."
"Yeah?" Dally said. "So did I. Only I think our conversations were a little different. You probably didn't hear what color underwear she's got on."
"Are you bragging about sex as an adult? Is that something you're doing?"
"I might be."
Darry sighed. Dallas Winston in his late thirties was somehow more exhausting than Dallas Winston in his late teens.
"What're you callin' for, anyway?" Dally asked.
"I've been thinkin' about what I said earlier," Darry said. "About you and me switchin' daughters."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"What'cha come up with, man? Still wanna trade?"
Darry took a moment. Willow was a great kid – all brawn in her brain. The more Darry thought about it, the more he realized that he and Willow were a little bit alike.
He didn't answer the question. He didn't have to. After all this time, Dally could hear him smile.
And that's that. I know it's really second-gen heavy, but these girls just popped into my head, and I wanted to do a little bit with their dynamic/how the Curtis and the Bennet-Jones families come together through Darry and Lynnie. I'd been hoping to include more of Emily Cade Mathews in this fic, but it just would have felt even more forced than the rest of it already is. It's not the anniversary tribute I would have imagined, but consider it one, anyway. Hopefully there were parts of it that were enjoyable.
And yes, Alice blue is a real color! Alice Roosevelt made it popular when she was a teenager. You can look it up and everything.
Hinton owns The Outsiders. I own several black mini skirts, only one of which I can currently locate. Bummer.