The Terrific T's
April 16, 1975
Contrary to popular belief, Tuesday Evelyn Curtis was not born or conceived on a Tuesday.
In the cutest of coincidences, the day of her birth was a Wednesday, and though Jane and Soda couldn't be sure exactly which day of the week she was conceived, they were positive it wasn't a Tuesday. Tuesday nights were Soda's late nights at work, and by the time he came home, he was often too tired to remember Jane's name, much less how to have sex. So, even though Tuesday Curtis was certainly planned, her name was nothing if not pure happenstance.
Ever since Jane Randle was a little girl, she knew that if she had a baby (almost certainly with Sodapop Curtis, as she'd essentially never been in love with anyone else, not even Troy Donahue in Photoplay magazine – OK, maybe a little in love with Troy Donahue), she wanted the baby to have an unusual name. She thought it was the best way to pay tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, their phenomenal love for each other, and their phenomenal love for their children – all of their children. Jane never quite felt at home with her folks. She knew they loved her even when it seemed like they didn't. She knew she loved them, even when she questioned why. But she always felt loved at the Curtis house. When she was at the Curtis house with Sadie and her brothers, she felt like someone was always looking at her and knowing, intimately, who she was. Mrs. Curtis knew how much she loved Peter Pan. Mr. Curtis used to wave her on over to the backyard and teach her and Sadie how to throw good punches in case they ever needed to get into it with somebody else. They'd given their children unusual, beautiful names. Jane thought it was only right to repay the favor.
When she discovered she was pregnant for the first time, and she reminded Soda of the way she wanted to pay tribute to his parents, he was in complete agreement. Both he and Ponyboy saw their unique names as badges of honor, but Sodapop Curtis loved being named Sodapop Curtis. He loved the sound of the two names together – it was why he signed all of his letters with his first and last name, even if he was writing to someone he knew and loved dearly and closely. The name Sodapop gave him character that he wouldn't have had otherwise, he said. He thought it was a great idea to give his child the same advantage.
Of course, none of the unusual names either Jane or Soda suggested seemed to quite line up with what the other was thinking. Jane's first suggestion, Starlight, was a little too hippie for Soda. He wanted their child to have a timeless name. The name Starlight, he said, was too indicative of the early 1970s. He hadn't phrased it that way ("I can't walk around with everybody thinkin' you and me were hippies, Janie! I can't!"), but it was what he meant. But for Jane, Soda's initial suggestions weren't much better. The first name that came to mind for him was Ransom, and the first thing that came to Jane's mind after her husband presented that idea was, "Do you think we can afford a kid named Ransom?" That was enough to get Soda to drop it.
They fought over names everyday before Jane finally went into labor. On their way to the hospital, they were still warring about what they were going to write on the baby's birth certificate in the coming hours. The day their eldest child was born, they were visiting Steve Randle and his wife, Evie, in Austin, Texas. Steve and Evie had moved their "to get away from Tulsa" less than a year earlier. Soda didn't ask questions, though perhaps he should have. He and Jane had planned the trip to visit her brother months in advance, knowing she'd be about three weeks away from giving birth at that point. They'd have time to pop into Steve and Evie's new place. Jane might be miserable in the Texas heat, they thought, but the Texas heat wasn't all that different than the Oklahoma heat during the right spring. That spring, of course, was the right spring. Jane spent all day sweating. When her water broke in the middle of breakfast, she joked that she wasn't able to tell the difference between water and sweat anymore.
But in between all the jokes and all the muffled screams during her contractions ("Jane, try to hush it up!" Steve shouted as he drove the little family to the hospital.), the Curtises still didn't have a name for their new addition. As Soda held Jane's hand, he tried out a few possibilities. Maybe, he thought, in her pain, she'd agree to one of them and put an end to this nonsense.
"I sure hope Strawberry has your smile," Soda said, trying to calm Jane down.
"Strawberry?" Jane almost shrieked. "Are you serious? You have a friend named Cherry, your name is Soda, and you think we can just get away with naming our child Strawberry Curtis?"
"It was a thought!" Soda said. "But don't worry. I'd never do something like that to Rain."
"Oh, that's rich. We'll name our child after the most depressing kinda weather there is. Oh, and while we're fuckin' at it, his name will rhyme with his mother's."
"So, that's a no?"
"It's the hardest no you'll ever hear."
They arrived at the hospital, and Jane pushes for hours. And hours. And even more hours. Over half a day later, she and Soda had a little baby girl in their arms. They laughed when the doctor told them it was a girl.
"Of course it is," Jane said, tearful and joyful at the same time. "This family almost doesn't do kids unless their first one's a girl."
"What about Michael?" Soda asked, thinking about his very first nephew.
"Michael is our beautiful exception."
She pointed her index finger at her husband with strict purpose.
"We can't name the baby Michael," she said. "We can't even name her Michelle. Your sister called that name years ago. We've gotta come up with somethin' new."
Soda sighed. And he was so close to suggesting that one!
They sat there in the hospital bed, playing with their unnamed baby, for a little while before they were finally allowed to take visitors. Since he was the person who took them to the hospital (and essentially the only person they knew in Texas), Steve was the first to meet the baby.
"Steve," Jane said. "I'd like to introduce you to your niece."
Steve grinned – a rare sight to see – and took the baby out of Jane's arms. He couldn't help but let that smile grow when he saw her. The little baby was perfect. She had Soda's mouth and Jane's tiny little nose. He couldn't believe it. All this time, he thought he would have been disgusted at the thought of his best friend and his little sister making a person together. But all of that immaturity and disgust immediately flew out of his body when he held that baby girl in his arms. She wasn't the product of anything unholy. She was Jane and Soda's little baby daughter, and she was perfect. Steve knew if he wasn't careful, he was going to want to keep her in Texas forever.
"Well," Steve said, gulping to avoid the tears that came with becoming a true uncle for the first time. "What's her name?"
Jane and Soda looked at each other and laughed.
"That's her name?" Steve asked. "How do ya spell 'Nervous Laughter' for a birth certificate, huh?"
"Oh, you think you're so smart," Jane said. "You ain't. We don't know what her name is. We've never been able to settle on one."
Steve turned red with anger. Jane bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her brother had a habit of getting irrationally angry about things that didn't really involve him. This was one of them. And even though she'd just given birth, she couldn't help but want to roll over and crack up.
"Are you serious, Jane?" he asked. "How do you expect this baby to go through life without a name?"
"Well, we don't," Jane said. "We're gonna give her one."
"Yeah," Soda echoed. "We'll give her a name when the time is right."
"Well, I hate to burst your fuckin' hippie bubble, but the right time has already passed!" Steve said. "You're supposed to know what to name the baby as soon as she comes out."
"But …"
"But nothing, man! What am I supposed to do? Stand here, holdin' your kid until my meeting at work next Tuesday?"
Jane and Soda looked at each other again. They looked back at Steve, who was furrowing his brow.
"What?" he asked. "What I say?"
"Soda," Jane said. "What about…?"
"Tuesday," Soda finished.
"Yeah. What if we named this baby Tuesday?"
"I dunno. Steve, let me have a good look at her."
Steve snorted and handed the baby back to Soda. He and Jane stared at her … her delicate little baby features looking so beautiful in her father's arms. They'd held dozens of babies before, and they were the last of their loved ones (except Steve and Evie) to have children at all. They'd loved all of those babies, from Elenore in '67 to Cordelia in '74. But nothing compared to the way they felt when they held their own baby girl for the first time. It was a feeling Jane wanted to have as many times as she could.
She and Soda still looked down at the baby in awe. They met each other's gazes and began to test her name.
"Hi, Tuesday," Jane said. "Hi, Tuesday."
She looked back up at Soda.
"There's no way to know if she likes it," Jane said. "But I'm gonna guess she does. How do you feel about it?"
Soda looked at his baby one more time. He thought about her growing up to be kind like him and passionate like Jane. He thought about how lovely she already was and how he couldn't wait to see her grow. It didn't even matter what her name was, as long as she belonged to him and Jane. But the more Jane whispered Tuesday, the more he started to believe that was her name. He started to believe it had always been her name.
"Tuesday," Soda said. "I think I love it."
Before Jane and Soda could gush about their baby girl's new name, Steve cut in with a chortle.
"Are you kiddin' me?" he asked. "You're gonna name my very first niece after a day of the week?"
"Well, it could be worse, Steve," Jane said. "We could have named her Monday."
"That's true," Soda chimed in. "Nobody likes Monday."
"Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I don't care!" Steve said. "This kid's gonna get picked on at least once a week for the rest of her life! Just 'cause my best friend and my kid sister picked a name at random."
"It's not random," Jane said. "It's her name. Her name is Tuesday. I didn't know it before, but now that I do …"
"It's like we've always known it," Soda said, and Jane nodded.
"I still think you're gonna put the kid through hell," Steve said. "Tuesday."
Soda walked over to Steve and clapped his hand on his best friend's shoulder.
"Steve," he said. "Lemme ask ya somethin'. Did anybody ever make fun of me for bein' named Sodapop?"
"No," Steve said.
"That's right. Didn't people come around to thinkin' it was a pretty tuff name?"
"Tuffer 'n Ponyboy if you ask me."
"Steve."
"Fine. Yeah. People thought Sodapop was a damn tuff name. Ya don't mess with a guy named Sodapop. It's such a crazy name, ya know he's gotta spend hours and hours bulkin' up."
Soda clapped Steve on the shoulder one more time.
"That's right," he said. "And people are gonna think the same thing about our little Tuesday. Kids ain't as cruel about names as you'd like to believe."
"Steve has no idea," Jane said. "Our parents named us Steve and Jane. Might as well have gone with plain and bagel for all the effort that went into those decisions."
Soda laughed and went back around to be with Jane and the baby – Tuesday. Steve rolled his eyes, submitting to the fact that he'd have to spend the rest of his life writing the name Tuesday in birthday cards and on Christmas present tags. But the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. Perhaps he could get used to it.
"Tuesday," Steve said. "It's real nice to meet ya."
"She thinks the same of you," Jane said. "I know it."
"I can't believe it took ya this long to come up with a name for the kid."
"I almost can't believe it either. I mean, I wasn't surprised when Lucy told me that she had to be the one to suggest a name for Violet's baby on the day she was born, but …"
"Wait. Violet Winston had a baby?"
"Well, yeah."
"When?"
"I dunno. February? Soda, honey, was it February?"
Soda nodded.
"I remember February," he said. "It was right in between Rosemary's birthday and Willow's birthday."
"Fuck," Steve said. His exhale seemed to last forever.
"What's the matter?" Jane asked.
"Nothin'. Just can't picture Violet Winston with a baby. What's the kid's name?"
"Anna. She's got a daughter named Anna."
Steve smirked.
"What's that about?" Jane asked. "Why're you smirkin'?"
"I ain't smirkin'!"
"You are! Soda, tell my brother he's smirkin'."
Soda nodded.
"I remember smirkin'," he said. "You were the one doin' it."
Steve rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, well, whatever," he said. "This kid got a middle name?"
"What makes you think she needs a middle name?" Jane asked.
"Are you kiddin' me? Ever since we was little kids, you cried and cried 'cause we ain't got middle names. I figured you'd give one to your kid right away."
Jane turned a little pink. It was true that she'd always been jealous of her friends who had middle names. Steve told her they were kind of useless – just frilly and silly and only used if you were in big trouble with your folks, which Steve almost always was – but Jane didn't care. She thought a middle name had to be the utmost sign of a parent's love. If you had a middle name, Jane figured, your parents loved you enough to name you twice. She always knew that if she ever had a baby of her own, she'd think of a middle name even before she thought of a first name.
By the time she had little Tuesday, that was still true.
"We decided on a middle name awhile back," Jane said. "This is Tuesday Evelyn Curtis."
Steve's eyes lit up. He could hardly believe it. After all this time, he was never even sure if Jane liked her. But she must have. After all, she was naming her first baby after her.
"Is that so?" he asked. "Evelyn? After…?"
"Evie, yeah," Jane said. "I got the idea months ago, but after she was such a big help at the hospital today, I just knew I had to do it."
Steve nodded. Evie had been one hell of a coach through Jane's labor that day. She was taking a well-deserved break in the hospital cafeteria. Steve tried not to think about how calm, collected, and prepared Evie seemed to be when she coached Jane through her labor pains. He tried not to think about how they probably wouldn't have children of their own – especially not now that he knew what he did.
He came up to the other side of his sister's hospital bed and gazed down at his newborn niece one more time. She – Tuesday – had just learned how to open her eyes. Jane beamed when she saw her daughter's eyes for the first time.
"Well, whaddya know?" she asked with a laugh. "She's got her daddy's brown eyes."
"Sure does," Soda said. "They look better on her."
"Everything's gonna look better on her," Jane said. "She's perfect."
She kissed the top of her baby's head.
"Tuesday Evelyn Curtis," she said. "I could get used to the sound of that."
And she did. They all did.
October 7, 1976
Jane was seven months pregnant with her second child when she pulled an old photo album out of storage for little Tuesday to see.
At that point, Tuesday Curtis was only a year and a half old, but she loved to see old pictures of her parents, aunts, and uncles. She always had. Now that she could point at them and identify them in the snapshots, she had even more fun. Jane loved it when Tuesday was happy and having a good time. And since Tuesday's time as an only child was quickly drawing to a close, Jane knew she had to get in all the quality mother-daughter time in before her diaper bill doubled and her sleep halved.
"There's Mommy, Aunt Sadie, and Lucy when Lucy turned eighteen," Jane said and pointed to a picture of the three girls – now women – in the Curtis family's backyard on the night of Lucy's fake surprise party in 1965. "That was a very special night for everybody, Tuesday. That was the night Mommy and Daddy got back together because Dally told them they should."
Jane laughed a little. Dally told them they should. She still couldn't believe they lived in a world where Dallas Winston wanted the best for someone other than himself. She'd start thinking about how they lived in a world where Dallas Winston was married to one of her closest friends, raised his own little girl, and lived past the age of twenty-one. Then again, she could sometimes hardly believe that she lived in a world where she got to be the mother of a baby girl as kind and loving as Tuesday Evelyn Curtis, so maybe the world was just full of surprises that Jane wasn't always ready for.
"And if we go back a little further …" Jane said and flipped the pages back to 1964.
She pointed to a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis in their kitchen, smiling at one another like they were the only two people in the world. Jane's heart clenched when she saw the look in Mrs. Curtis's eye. It was the same look Soda always gave her. All of a sudden, she felt very warm. Very protected. Very loved.
"These are your grandparents," Jane said. "I'm so sorry you're not gonna have a chance to meet them, baby girl. You would have loved them. They would have loved you. Spoiled you as much as they could, I'm sure."
Jane sighed and stared at the picture. If she focused hard enough, it was almost like they were still in the room – still laughing, still playing folksy music, still yelling at Lucy Bennet to get her own damn water from the sink if she was going to visit Sadie so often. She hated that Tuesday would never know that exact love and joy. She hoped that she and Soda could create something like it, both for Tuesday and their little one, who was coming faster than Jane could even fathom.
"Turn!" Tuesday shouted, and Jane laughed. Her baby loved to have books read and shown to her. Though this wasn't quite a book, it was definitely a story – lots of stories. Jane turned the page and was almost taken aback by the next photo she saw.
"Kids!" Tuesday said.
Jane slipped her fingers behind the plastic covering and pulled out the small picture that Tuesday had pointed to. She held it in front of her face and smiled, almost sadly.
"Yeah, baby," she said. "Kids. You know who those kids are?"
Tuesday shook her head.
"It's Daddy and me."
Jane looked at the picture of her with Soda. She knew exactly how old they were – six years old. It was Halloween, a few months after Jane had turned six and a few weeks before Soda would turn seven. After she became obsessed with Peter Pan that summer, and after Soda had gotten the Peter Pan record for her, she badgered him into dressing up like Peter and Wendy for Halloween that year. Steve had made such fun of Soda for listening when a girl (Steve's sister, no less!) told him to wear green tights. But Soda didn't mind. Jane remembered how he said they made him feel free, like he could run as fast as his four-year-old brother when he had the green tights on. Jane had her suspicions when he bought her the record, but when he agreed to dress up like Peter Pan to her Wendy Darling, she knew: That must have been the day Sodapop Curtis fell in love with her.
"Small," Tuesday said.
Jane laughed again and kissed Tuesday's cheek.
"Yeah," she said. "We were awful small."
Just like on cue, Soda walked through the door after his shift. Tuesday lit up when she saw him, like always. But so did Jane – like always.
"Hey, girls," Soda said. "What'cha doin'?"
"Pic-tures," Tuesday tried to enunciate.
"Oh, that's real tuff, Tuesday," Soda said and sidled up beside Jane on the couch. "What'cha got?"
Wordlessly, Jane turned and handed the picture to Soda. He looked almost as shocked to see it as she did.
"Wow," he said. "Can you believe we was ever so tiny, Janie?"
"No," Jane said, not taking her eyes off Tuesday. "It's like … as soon as ya have one of these, you can't help but feel big. Ya know?"
Soda nodded.
"And as soon as we got two of 'em," he said, "we're gonna feel like giants. Like 'Jack and the Beanstalk.'"
"Oh, don't confuse fairytales in front of the baby," Jane said. "How else is she supposed to know Peter Pan is best?"
"She ain't gonna think that if we let my sister babysit her for much longer."
Jane nodded, remembering Sadie's affinity for Cinderella.
"Ya know, Jane, I've been thinkin'," Soda said. "We're gonna have another one of these beautiful babies in a couple months."
"That's what my body tells me," Jane said.
"And maybe we shouldn't walk into another situation where we don't know the baby's name until after it gets here."
"That ain't fair! We decided on a boy name!"
"We did, but we ain't been thinkin' much about what we'll do if it's another girl. And are you sure that's the name you wanna go with if it's a boy?"
"We agreed on it!"
"You got it outta Photoplay when you were a kid!"
"I'm not naming him after the guy in the magazine. I saw the name and I said, 'Hmm. I like it.' It's different."
"Sure thing. Don't change the fact that we ain't got a girl's name."
Jane sighed and took the picture out of Soda's hand. She stared at it and tried to remember what it felt like to think you were in love at six years old. She remembered how she pretended her Wendy nightgown didn't have holes in it. She remembered how Mrs. Curtis told her she was beautiful no matter what she wore. She remembered how excited she was when she found out that there was a character in Peter Pan with the same name as what had always been her favorite …
And that was when it clicked. Jane couldn't believe she'd forgotten it before.
"Soda," she said. "I think I know what we're gonna name this baby if she's a girl."
"Oh yeah?" Soda asked. "Lemme hear it."
"I think we should call her Tigerlily."
Soda furrowed his brow, which made Jane's heart drop into her knees.
"I dunno," he said. "Ain't Tigerlily the Indian character in Peter Pan?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we ain't Indian. Ain't that kinda … racist?"
"I never wanted to name her after Peter Pan. I always wanted to name a baby after the flower. I loved Tiger Lilies even before I knew what Peter Pan was."
Soda took a moment.
"Well," he said. "Does seem only right this family would have a Tigerlily in it."
Jane beamed.
"You think it's a good name?" she asked.
"I think it's a pretty name," Soda said. "But we gotta make sure people know it's a flower."
"I know we can."
(They couldn't, not always, but they would spend the rest of their second baby's life trying.)
Jane squeezed Tuesday a little tighter.
"Whaddya think, baby?" she asked. "Would you like a little sister named Tigerlily?"
Tuesday cooed, and Jane thought of that as a yes.
"Alright," Soda said. "I know you got this kid's middle name picked out."
"What makes you think that?" Jane asked.
"You always pick out middle names before first names. It's kinda your thing."
Jane smiled. He knew her well.
"I was thinkin'," Jane said. "Since none of your siblings have gone for it, and after Cordelia was born a couple years ago, all four of you got together and decided that if you ever had a baby girl …"
"I love it, Jane," Soda said. "I really do."
"But you haven't even heard …"
"I don't need to. I was there. Remember?"
Jane smiled.
"Tigerlily Frances," she said. "Ya think your mom would be OK having her first name next to somethin' as crazy as Tigerlily?"
Soda kissed Jane on the top of her head.
"I think she'd love it."
And on second thought, Jane knew she would.
February 10, 1978
"Unbelievable!"
Jane and Soda looked up from their brand new baby's tiny face and at Darry, who had essentially just stormed into their hospital room.
"Darry," Soda said. "You can't just come in here and yell like that!"
"Yeah," Jane said. "You could wake her up."
"That's exactly what I'm bargin' in here for," Darry said. "You mean to tell me the nurse wasn't lyin' out there? You had another girl?"
"Yeah," Jane said. "There's a fifty/fifty chance, see, and we don't have much control over what takes and what don't."
"I'm just … couldn't ya try to have a boy?"
"Don't work that way, Darry," Soda said. "You know that. You're a dad to a boy and a girl. You should really have some sorta grasp on this stuff."
Darry rolled his eyes.
"Oh, don't try to school me, little buddy," he said. "It's just … was it too much to ask for a nephew?"
"Yes," Jane said. "And what do you need a nephew for, anyway? You've got a son. That's like ten times better than a nephew."
"Jimmy's thirteen already," Darry said. "He's real into his own stuff with his friends, and he don't wanna hang with me as much as he did. Kid won't even hug me unless Lynnie tells him to, and even when he does, they're limp hugs. I deserve more than a limp hug from my son!"
"That's true," Soda said. "Also, what kinda Curtis kid don't give tight hugs?"
Darry looked down at the floor, and Soda bit his lip in some regret. Jimmy and Lynnie had been in their lives for so long, it was easy to forget that Jimmy had a deadbeat dad somewhere else out there.
"He'll learn," Jane said hurriedly. "Darry, I'm sorry we didn't have a boy for you to play football with or … whatever it is boys do. I don't know. I was never a boy."
"You grew up with a brother," Darry said.
"Oh, you hush. My point is … you don't really need a nephew to play football with. Or whatever it is you boys do. Girls can play sports, too."
"Yeah, Darry," Soda said. "Get with the seventies."
Darry rolled his eyes again, but it was much more playful this time.
"You've got a point," Darry said. "Maybe this one will like playin' and runnin' better than the others."
Soda laughed.
"Hey, remember when you tried to teach Rosemary how to punt at Crutchfield Park?" he asked. "She wouldn't listen!"
"But she made beautiful flower crowns," Jane said. "It was almost like having a hippie in the family."
"We ain't got no hippies in our family," Darry said. "I just hold out that we're gonna get one athlete. What'chu namin' this kid, anyway?"
"We'd love to tell you," Jane said. "But we're not gonna tell her uncle before we can tell her sisters."
"So, you're sayin' if I bring them in here, I get to know what I'm gonna be writin' on birthday cards for the next million years?"
"That's it."
"I'll be right back."
A few minutes later, Darry came back into the room. Tuesday, now three and a half, held one of Darry's hands; Tigerlily, who had just turned two in October, held the other. Darry's wife Lynnie, grinning from ear, was behind them.
"Hope I'm not crashing the party, Jane," Lynnie said. "I just really want to know her name."
"It's alright, Lynn," Jane said. "I'm glad you're here."
Jane handed the baby to Soda and leaned forward as much as she could in her bed. She looked her little girls right in the eye.
"You wanna meet your new baby sister?" she asked them, and their eyes lit up.
"Sister!" Tigerlily said.
"I knew it!" Tuesday said. "Tiger, I told you I knew it."
"Go see Daddy," Jane said. "He'll show her to ya."
Tuesday and Tigerlily let go of Darry's hands and ran toward Soda. He crouched forward and bit and showed them the baby's face. Tuesday grinned harder than anybody.
"She looks just like me," Tuesday said.
Soda laughed. His eldest had no way of knowing it, but she was right. As soon as he saw his brand new baby, his first thought had been, "Boy, if she doesn't look just like Tuesday when she was first born."
"Yeah, she sure does," Soda said. "You wanna hear her name?"
The girls nodded so hard and so fast, Soda was worried their heads might pop off.
"Jane?" he asked.
"Girls, this is your sister, Tennessee," Jane said.
"Ten-see?" Tigerlily asked.
Jane chuckled and blew her middle child a kiss.
"We'll work on it," she said.
"Tennessee," Lynnie said. "Another T name. Did you do that on purpose?"
Jane and Soda exchanged glances like they were worried about whatever they had to say next.
"It was an accident," Soda said, turning pink with every second.
"What does that mean?" Darry asked, almost like he was going to ground his thirty-year-old brother for having a baby with his wife.
"Look, Tuesday and Tigerlily weren't necessarily gonna both be T's," Jane said. "And neither was Tennessee."
"But then we thought about how the baby probably happened when we were in Memphis for that job I was doin'," Soda said.
"And that was a good job," Jane said. "He got paid a lot. We were able to buy Tuesday four whole new outfits."
"And that means four whole new hand-me-downs for Tiger."
"Uh-huh."
"We figured … better pay tribute to a place where we got real lucky."
"All puns intended?" Lynnie asked.
"Well, yeah," Jane said.
"And we went with it," Soda said. "'Cause I guess T is our thing."
He looked at Darry like he was a little kid desperate for his big brother's approval once again.
"Do ya sorta not like the fact that we named the baby after where we're pretty sure she happened?" he asked.
Darry sighed and clapped his brother on the back.
"I like whatever name you give this kid," he said. "She's my new niece, and I don't care what ya call her. Just as long as you got her."
Suddenly overwhelmed with emotions he could not name, Soda wrapped Darry up into a tight hug – exactly the kind of hug Darry was missing from his teenage son.
"Glad you're OK with it, Darry," Soda said. "I mean, we'd have gone with it either way, but we already filled out the birth certificate."
"Damn," Darry said. "I think that's the fastest you ever filled out a birth certificate. Usually need a whole squad in here helpin' ya figure out if ya made the right choice."
"Well, we still did," Jane said. "It was just, ya know. After the fact."
Lynnie stepped over to Jane in her bed and kissed her sister-in-law on the forehead. Jane beamed. She could hardly remember a life before Lynnie, but now that she knew one, she didn't want to go back and think about what it had been like before.
"I think Tennessee is a beautiful name," she said. "And if you already filled out the birth certificate, then you must have picked out a middle name, right? What is it?"
"Oh, that was easy," Jane said. "Her middle name's Lucille."
"Lucille! Oh, that's very pretty, Jane. Where'd you get it from?"
Jane knitted her brow, confused.
"Um, that's Lucy's full name," she said. "I thought you'd know that better than anybody. Right? You're her cousin."
"You're right," Lynnie said. "I do know Lucy's name better than anybody. I know it well enough to know it's not Lucille."
"What?" Soda asked, suddenly shocked.
"Yeah," Lynnie said. "It's not her name."
"If it ain't her name, then what is Lucy short for?" Soda asked.
"Nothing. Her name's just Lucy."
"But that doesn't make any sense! It's got an 'ee' sound at the end. That's the sound of a nickname, especially for a girl! Think about it! Lynnie. Katie. Your name is Lynn! Her name is Katherine!"
"Uh-huh. You're forgetting about Lilly, Carrie, and, most of all, Sadie. Are any of those nicknames?"
Soda's ears turned pink.
"I don't believe this," he said. "I've been walkin' around for over fifteen years not knowin' my own sister's name!"
Jane smiled. It was the only happy memory she had of the night Violet Winston beat the tar out of her after she bought baby Elenore a onesie – when Soda slipped and ended up calling Lucy his sister. He meant it, too.
"We could always change it," Jane said.
"No," Soda said. "Tennessee Lucy doesn't sound half as good as Tennessee Lucille."
"We could tell everyone she's named after the Little Richard song."
"It's a good song," Darry offered.
Soda nodded.
"We'll go with that," he said. "Lynnie, you ain't gonna tell Lucy I didn't know her name, are ya?"
"Oh, I'm obviously going to tell Lucy," Lynnie said. "She'll get a huge kick."
Soda held Tennessee closer to his chest and looked down at her sweet face. She opened her eyes – brown, just like Tuesday, Tiger, and him.
"Welcome to the world, Tennessee Lucille," he said. "Sorry your middle name's wrong."
But it wasn't wrong. Everyone in the room knew that. Tennessee Lucille was perfectly right.
That, of course, wouldn't stop Lucy Bennet from cackling on the phone the next morning when Lynnie called her and broke the news.
May 26, 1980
On their way up to Darry and Lynnie's house, Jane and Soda were bickering over T names for the tenth time that week. They were three months away from welcoming their fourth little one into the world. After Tennessee was born, they figured they owed it to themselves and their family to look for another T name. The kid would have stuck out if they gave her something different after three T names in a row. And although they'd had their boy name picked out since before Tuesday was born, they were still struggling with the girls.
"What about Texas?" Soda asked. "That's tuff. And it's tough. Both ways! We could say, 'Don't mess with Texas!'"
"It's a nice name," Jane agreed, "but you have to understand all the reasons why it won't work."
"I understand none of them."
"We're from Oklahoma. Naming our kid Texas is like … if somebody in Michigan named their kid Ohio."
Soda nodded. They'd been learning a lot about the state of Michigan lately. Ponyboy and his wife, Carrie, were moving there so Carrie could continue to study philosophy. They were on their way to the old Curtis house so that all the siblings could spend some time together before Pony and Carrie were on their way.
"And besides," Jane said. "We already have Tennessee."
Tennessee, who was now two years old, waved her little hands at her parents.
"We can't have two kids with state names," Jane said. "It's just not a good look."
"What do we care about a good look?" Soda asked. "We gave our third child the wrong middle name."
"But she doesn't know that," Jane said. "Besides. I think we were on to somethin' when Steve told us about Topanga Canyon after his trip to California with Evie. Sounds like a real pretty place to be."
"We're not namin' this kid Topanga," Soda said. "I don't even think that is a name. It'll never take off."
Jane rolled her eyes and knocked on Darry's front door. In almost no time flat, Sadie Curtis Cade threw the door open.
"Hello!" she said. "Last to arrive, I see."
"Happens when you've got the youngest kids in the bunch," Jane said. "You gonna let us in or what?"
"What's the magic sentence?"
"The magic sentence?"
"Yeah. It's kinda like a magic word, only instead of just one words, it's a bunch of words, all strung together to make a complete thought."
Soda sighed and stepped forward, holding Tennessee's hand in his.
"Is it 'Sadie is five minutes older than me, which makes her five minutes tuffer?'" he asked.
Sadie threw the storm door open and waved the family of five into the house.
"I didn't actually have anything in mind," she said. "But it was just so flattering, I had to give it to ya."
Soda kissed his twin sister's cheek.
"I'm sure ya did," he said.
When the Randle-Curtises poured into the tiny house, the first thing Tuesday Curtis did was run toward her cousin, Cordelia, who was older by a little less than one year. Like her mother, Carrie, Cordelia preferred to curl up in the corner with a book or a magazine. Of course, like her mother, Tuesday had no concept of this. She wanted to play with Cordelia all the time, and she wanted to play with Cordelia in exactly the way Tuesday wanted to play. Jane would have chased after her and told her to back off a little, but she was six months pregnant with her fourth child and not in that kind of shape.
Darry came out of the kitchen, looking even more harried than he ever had.
"Soda, Jane, good to see ya," he said. "I don't know how we ever fit this many people in this house when we were young."
"Easy," Soda said. "We weren't runnin' around like these kids do."
Just like on cue, Tuesday ran up to her parents, tears in her eyes.
"Mommy, Daddy," she said between sniffles. "Cordelia won't let me put lipstick on her."
She showed off the tube of lipstick in her five-year-old hand, and Jane snatched it back protectively.
"Tuesday Evelyn!" she said. "You know this is Mommy's lipstick. It's not a toy!"
"But I want it!"
"We want a lot of things we can't always have. And I don't think Cordelia likes to play makeup. Why don't you play books with her?"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"'Cause I don't like to play books."
Soda and Darry stifled their laughs, and Jane sighed. She grabbed Tigerlily around the shoulder and gently pushed her in Tuesday's direction.
"Here," Jane said. "Play with Tiger."
"But I always have to play with Tiger," Tuesday whined.
"That's not very nice," Tigerlily said.
Before the girls could have their own respective meltdowns, nine-year-old Rosemary Cade, a savior in a little girl's clothing, walked up to her young cousins and put her hands on both of their shoulders.
"You can play House with me," Rosemary said. "Me and Willow were already startin' up in the backyard. She's gonna be the dad, and I'm gonna be the mom."
Rosemary's gaze turned toward Tennessee.
"Tenny?" she asked. "You wanna be the dog?"
"Yes," Tennessee said and ran off with her sisters and cousin into the backyard.
Jane and Soda looked after them and couldn't help but smile. Three of those kids were theirs. It seemed like half an hour ago, they were the kids playing House in the backyard.
"Were we ever that young?" Darry asked.
"We were, but you weren't," Soda said.
Darry clapped him on the back and waved him into the kitchen.
"Come on," he said. "Both of ya. Pony's tryin' to do somethin'."
As they followed Darry into the kitchen, Jane said, "I don't think I've ever heard a more dangerous statement in all my life."
"Oh, that's very funny, Jane," Ponyboy said. "We oughta send you into Reader's Digest, too."
He smiled at Soda, who remembered the old joke Pony used to make when they were just kids.
Jane furrowed her brow at Ponyboy at the kitchen counter. He had a few chicken breasts in a pan and was painting them with some sort of sauce.
"Pony?" she asked. "What're ya tryin' to do, man?"
"What does it look like?" Ponyboy asked. "I'm marinatin' chicken for the barbecue."
Poor Jane had to bite her hand to keep from laughing. Soda cleared his throat to make sure he didn't laugh, either.
"Do you know how to marinate chicken, Ponyboy?" he asked.
"Well, yeah," he said. "Me and Carrie and Core gotta eat."
"Carrie usually does the marinatin', don't she?"
"Oh, every time."
He picked up a fork and pointed at Jane and Soda.
"But the two of you can't talk," he said. "Jane's six months pregnant, and I just know the two of you ain't settled on a name yet."
"We have a boy's name in mind," Jane said. It was her only defense.
"Nice try, but we know that kid ain't gonna be a boy."
Jane frowned. Of course this kid wasn't going to be a boy.
"We can't settle on a unique T name," Jane said. "Any thoughts, uncles?"
Darry nodded as he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.
"I like Treasure," he said. "It's what we do to our kids, anyway."
Jane narrowed her eyes at Darry.
"Oh, sure, that's what we need," she said. "We need our baby to grow up thinkin' she
was born to a couple-a pirates."
"I was just tryin' to help, like you said."
"Well, help better."
"What about Timber?" Ponyboy suggested. "Ya don't hear that a lot."
"Yeah, except for if you're choppin' down trees in the forest," Soda said. "Don't want
my baby to be named after the sound a logger makes."
"By the way," Darry said. "Don't let Willow-Rose hear ya talkin' about loggin' too loud.
She's real into saving the trees these days. Don't know where she gets all this political stuff from, but I know it ain't me."
Jane smirked. She had a thought. She wondered how long it would take Darry to remember that even though his nine-year-old daughter was a Curtis, through and through, she was also a Jones … which made her related to Lucy Bennet, their favorite feminist and assistant professor of English literature. If Jane had to take a wild guess, she could easily figure out why Willow was a little spitfire in the making.
Sadie walked into the kitchen to grab Billy (her six-year-old son) his crackers. He was a notoriously picky eater (worse than Sadie "Burgers and Fries" Curtis Cade), and the crackers were about all he could stomach at a family dinner … especially one where Uncle Pony was in charge of the chicken.
"If you're looking for T names, I'd go with Titania," Sadie said.
"What's that?" Soda asked.
"It's the name of one of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Everyone but Ponyboy stared at her blankly.
"Shakespeare?" she tried again.
"Oh, yeah," Jane said. "Him. Nah. Right, Soda?"
Soda nodded, and Sadie frowned, a bit surprised that they'd turn down her idea like this. Soda had always at least pretended to be interested in her suggestions before.
"Why wouldn't you go with that?" Sadie asked. "It's a strong name. And it's magical! How much better can ya do than strong and magical?"
"Perfect," Jane said. "You can try to be perfect. And so far, none of your T names are cuttin' it. I'm sorry, but actually, I'm not."
She turned into Soda's chest as much as she could for being six months pregnant with her fourth child.
"What were we thinkin'?" she asked. "Namin' all of our kids weird T names. What kinda weird letter is T anyway?"
"Actually, T is the most common consonant in the English language," Ponyboy said. He backed off as soon as he saw Jane staring daggers at him.
"Relax, Janie," Soda said. "We'll think of somethin'. We always do."
"Oh, really? 'Cause right now, I'm tempted to call it. I'm gonna name the baby after the first thing I see in this kitchen."
She looked up and around and saw the radio in the corner.
"Radio," Jane said. "This baby's name is Radio Curtis."
Darry chuckled a little and took a sip of his beer. After he was done, he turned to Soda and said, "Dad would have liked that."
On her way out of the kitchen, Sadie placed one hand on Jane's shoulder and looked her square in the eye.
"He would have," Jane said. "But it's not the name of your baby."
She walked out, and Jane knew. She didn't have any clue of what to name the baby, but she knew it wasn't Radio. She couldn't bear the thought of people singing that Donna Summer song at her kid on the playground ... of course, after Disco Demolition Night, she would be surprised if anyone ever mentioned it again. It still didn't mean she could name her baby Radio. Not when she and Soda were so determined to make it all fit.
"Well, Jane, at least you reminded me," Ponyboy said and flipped the radio on. "Everything's always better with music."
A song came on that Jane and Soda didn't know, but Pony seemed to know all the words. As he finished with the chicken, he was quietly singing along to something that sounded … beautiful. Jane let go of her grip on Soda and inched toward her brother-in-law, almost panting with curiosity.
"Ponyboy," she said. "What is this song? What is he saying?"
"Aww, it's a great song," Ponyboy said. "It's Van Morrison. Never thought I'd like him, but then me and Carrie found Moondance in a record store when we were at TU."
"What is he saying in the song, Ponyboy?"
"Oh. Sorry. He's sayin' that this girl's as sweet as tupelo honey. That's what the song's called. 'Tupelo Honey.'"
Jane whirled back around and looked at Soda, who had the same excited look in his eyes. She darted for her husband and threw her arms around his neck.
"Soda!" she said.
"Jane!"
"I think we just named this baby!"
And they did. A little less than three months after the Curtis family barbecue (and just a week before Pony, Carrie, and Cordelia packed up and moved to Michigan for Carrie's school), Jane brought little Tupelo Marie into the world. She'd been middle-named Marie after Jane heard a lot of girls Tuesday's age (a lot of rich girls Tuesday's age, that was) had Marie for a middle name. She decided she wanted Tupelo to have something nice, too. If she couldn't get her the best dresses, then she'd get her the designer middle name. Then, maybe, somebody would give her a hand-me-down designer dress.
They'd passed out little honey dippers to their immediate family members to commemorate Tupelo's birth. Pony never got rid of his.
June 12, 1985
Jane and Soda hadn't been planning for a fifth child at all. Ten years after Tuesday was born, and five years after Tupelo, they hadn't intended on anyone else. But when their surprise child came, and when he came out to be a boy, well … the naming was easy.
The family of six-and-now-seven went to visit Darry and Lynnie at the old Curtis house two days after the baby boy was born. They hadn't told anyone his name, which made Darry want to go out of his mind. He'd always been curious about names, ever since Sadie had Michael back in '69. Soda teased him over the phone about it.
"I don't know what you're complainin' about," he said. "You got your wish. Tennessee's a little athlete."
On the other end of the call, Darry smiled. He coached his seven-year-old niece in Little League and couldn't have been happier about it. It reminded him of playing with Jimmy (who had just finished his second year at Oklahoma State, the first in his family to attend somewhere other than TU) and Willow (who was going into high school come the fall).
"Can't have too many athletes in this family, little buddy," Darry said. "Bring him by. Let's see what he likes."
"We can try," Soda said. "But I've been lookin' at this kid for two days already, and I dunno, man. Looks like he's gonna be a Pony."
As soon as the Randle-Curtises showed up in the old Curtis family room, Lynnie bombarded them.
"Name?" she asked.
Jane stepped back, guarding her baby son's head.
"Lynnie," she whispered. "You could scare him."
"I'm sorry, Jane. I'm just so excited! You've been teasing us with this 'boy name' you've had picked out for ten years …"
Soda snorted.
"Ten years?" he asked. "More like she ripped it out of Photoplay thirty years ago."
"And it still works," Jane said. "I heard no objections from you."
"You got me there, babe."
"Well?" Darry asked. "What is it? What are we gonna be callin' this kid from now on?"
Jane beamed and turned the baby around to meet his uncle, aunt, and cousins.
"This is Troy," she said. "And believe me, it was a coincidence his name starts with T, but a beautiful coincidence at that."
"Troy," Lynnie repeated. "Wait. Do you mean to say you named this baby after Troy Donahue?"
"Not after," Jane said, already tired of having to explain herself. "Inspired by. I saw his name in a magazine when I was a little girl, thought Troy was a nice-sounding name, and put it in my back pocket. Of course, I didn't have pockets since I was a girl and all that. But it's an expression."
"I don't believe this," Lynnie said. "You named your baby after the guy who beats up his white-passing girlfriend in Imitation of Life."
"WHAT?" Willow asked, suddenly very interested in the conversation. "Aunt Jane, did you name your baby after a racist?"
"It's a movie, Willow," Darry said.
"Still," Willow and Lynnie said at the same time.
"Willow, this baby isn't named after a racist," Jane said. "He's not named after anybody. It's just Troy. I might have seen his name in a magazine when I was very small, but I can assure you. It's just Troy."
Willow stepped up and looked at the baby in Jane's arms. After a moment or two, she broke out into a grin that took up her whole face. Jane smiled, too. She hadn't realized how much Willow looked like her mother when she was smiling.
"He is pretty cute," Willow said.
"You bet he is," Soda said. "We're gonna tell Pony that we named him after the city in Ancient Greece. He'll be so happy he won't know what to do with himself."
"You're a terrible brother," Darry said.
"Naw, man, that's you."
Darry rolled his eyes in jest and walked up to Jane. He didn't even need to ask if he could hold Troy. Jane gave him up immediately. Soda looked at his wife quizzically. They'd had four babies before Troy, and Jane had never ever been so willing to give the baby to anyone who wasn't Soda before. Maybe it was just that she trusted Darry that much. But Soda knew that wasn't it.
"Welcome to the family, Troy," Darry said. "Your old man was right. I think you are gonna be a Pony."
"What's his middle name?" Lynnie asked. "I know how much Jane loves giving out middle names."
But Jane and Soda didn't say. They couldn't yet. They hadn't had the time to place a long-distance call to New York to tell the person they really needed to tell.
Troy's middle name was Dallas.
So, there's that fluff! I really probably should update 'Turn the Page' for anyone who's interested, but I just don't have it in me right now to write a story about change and separation. Maybe soon, but not too soon. I hope this cute story about how Jane and Soda named their quirky kids was sufficiently fluffy … and sufficient in general.
Hinton owns The Outsiders. I own my laptop, which I'm very grateful to have now more than ever. Knock on wood, right?