guest: Yep, but he just rolls with it.
Happier than Most: I'm glad to loved Wendy's steady realization, I wanted it to be subtle, gentle, till Steve rips the band aid off. And I'm glad you loved Two-Bit's part, he was a riot to write.
lulusgardenfli: drool worthy...phenomenal...thank you! I love what I do here, and it great to see you all enjoy it! Keep reading!
Jcuret98: Believe me I know, and Johnny's my favorite character! He needs more stories.
bookgirl18 : Maybe they'll do their own thing.
Chapter XV
S*S
Wendy didn't have much of an appetite at dinner. So she ended up herding her vegetables around on the white china of her plate, the fork pressing just hard enough to scratch the frail surface. While the Allen's dinner times had always been subdued since losing Mama, this time round, Wendy just wasn't contributing at all.
Her siblings were giving her and each other looks from their spots at the table. The twins baffled as blue jays, and Connie unreadable as a reflection on the water.
And when dinner was over, she didn't protest when they scattered to their self-discriminated zones within the house, as separate as as east and west Berlin, behind its iron wall. But Wendy changed it up a bit regarding herself, once more retreating to the embrace of Mama's reading chair; trying to think of what she would say to what Wendy had just learned this day. Mama had been a child's doctor, a Pediatric, and while she never talked about it, there were some days where Mary Allen would return home, lips pressed, eyes flashing, before talking to the police on the telephone (and cursing them in foreign tongues, when she didn't get the answer she wanted.)
Which lead to Wendy's eyes traveling over to the telephone here with her now, laying in wait besides the lamp. It's grip pleading for her fingers.
But some whisper in her mind held onto her shoulders, held her firm, whispering to her wait. Think. Think it all through chey...
She pushed a raven lock of hair out of her face, behind her ears. Johnny's friends...had been taking him somewhere. To a Mrs. Curtis...Sodapop and Ponyboy's mother, she presumed. A full grown adult, who surely must've treated Johnny before this day, from the way the boys had mentioned it. Surely the kind looking lady Wendy had seen would've done all she could to help -her husband too. Maybe the Police gave them the same answers they'd given Mama all those times and all those years ago.
Then there was Johnny himself...he hadn't been too happy when Steve Randle spelled the beans on him. If he wanted it to remain silent...who was Wendy to do otherwise, without his knowledge? Johnny hadn't demanded her silence, but it was clear as hell that he trusted her.
Wendy breathed shakily, hugging her knees. She couldn't break that trust. Not when the trust he ought to have in his own family was clearly broken and shattered like ice beneath his feet.
A thought suddenly tugged at her ear, and with a subtler force of Mariska Allen's temper, Wendy felt her teeth clench. And what about Johnny's mother? What was her say in all this? Unfortunately, Wendy recalled Johnny's earlier tale of hellcat and scratches; and soon the chair pillow, which had always looked too smug for its own good, was sailing across the room and into the wall with an impotent and unimpressive thump.
...Back when Wendy had lived in D.C. there had been an absolute snot of a boy that she went to elementary school with, Jeremy Coins, with hideous brown teeth. Cruel and vicious in a way that defined belief, for only being ten years old. Once at recess, he'd caught a monarch butterfly in hand, and displayed it proudly to a crowd of little girls...before tearing the beautiful thing apart, right before their eyes, laughing while they screamed and cried for it. But worse was when a mother cat had the unfortunate to have her babies found by Jeremy, who took the blind things, tossed them in garbage can, shutting the lid and watching the mama go utterly frantic trying to save them.
...that was cat, running off pure instinct, unblessed with the reasoning and knowledge a bite of apple had granted the human race. What excuses did a human mother have, to misuse her own flesh and blood?
Wendy didn't know...and God help her, she never wanted to know.
Fiery water stung her eyes, burned her throat, soon escaping down one cheek. Her own family might be fractured and divided, her father -who had yet to return from Jerry's- might be as distant as God on high, but at least they never put hands on each other. How could anybody stand too, when all it did was destroy your past, make your present a living hell, and the future inescapable?
S*S
Life had its quiet victory though and went on after that day. Tulsa's trees continued to change and lose their leaves, summertime innocence giving way to maturity. The weather grew brisker until Wendy started wrapping the twins up more before they left for school. Dad came home, and reported that Pete and Joe would have a memorial service by November, before snow and ice froze the ground. Once things and paperwork were settled with the Military. So there was that to look forward to. Much as she loved her cousins, Wendy didn't want to think about it with everything else. And she didn't think they'd mind. For Pete and Joe, it was the living that counted more than the dead.
After all, the living could be helped, the dead you had to let rest in peace.
So she threw herself in school, getting in great shape due to her stupid schedule, and spent more time with Peggy and Marcia and Cherry...felt like they had just dropped from the story lately. And Marcia and Peggy were the same as they always were, and beyond happy to have Wendy back in the group again. But Cherry...Cherry was different, her pretty forehead furrowed more often, and her lips pressed. She even snapped at poor Peggy, when the smaller girl asked what was wrong.
"Don't take it the wrong way ya'll," Marcia explained quietly, after Cherry miserably apologized and walked off. "She an' Bob...things aren't good with them lately..."
Cherry wasn't the only girl with romance woes though. Even Connie had proven herself a human being, her green eyes going wide when Jack began blowing her off with greater ease than ever before. On a private note, Wendy thought it might be good for Con.
But life at Roger Wills had changed in other way; for one thing, Wendy had noticed that the boys belonging to the Curtis gang were paying more attention to her, where as before, she hadn't even appeared on their radar -she would catch the newly returned Sodapop peering over at her sometimes, curiously, while Two-Bit would offered a nod if he saw her walking down the hall; apparently taking her association with Johnny a bit more seriously after the incident. The days of imaginary tops hats and gazunites had passed over yonder.
Steve Randle just scowled, like he bit into a bad lemon.
S*S
And with the most private thing between them now out in the open, her friendship with Johnny changed as well. It deepened; from a early spring-baby green, to rich shades of red and gold and orange. Their secret talks in the back of class, as well as after it, lingering with much greater ease, despite the failure of their "not-date". And honestly... they hadn't rescheduled, and Wendy wondered if this might not be better.
"I love all the gang," he was telling her one day; as they roamed the empty halls once more, after everybody had gone home, feet looping and hands in his pockets as they step in window-pools of sunlight and shadow. "But Pony's my best friend outta all of them. We're the most alike."
"How so?" she asked, curious about his life. She liked it when he talked about his friends, it made his eyes shine with reclaimed youth.
"Shoot...we're just different," Johnny answered with a shrug, lips pulling. "Don't always match up too well to the hand we're dealt, ya know? But he's a good kid. Wicked smart like you. We're all proud of him, expect 'im to get inna collage like Darry-"
Her head tilted. "Darry?"
"Ah sorry -Darrel Curtis, he's Ponyboy's and Soda's older brother..." he trailed off at the look on her face, their steps coming to a halt on the second floor, blinking.
"Um...Wen?" he asked, shuffling and baffled. "What is it?"
Calmly, she lifted a hand. Unfurled a finger in what might've been mistaken for a "come hither" gesture if not for the blank look on her face. His eyes certainly got wide.
"Ponyboy," she said frankly, before unfurling a second finger. "Sodapop..."
Then she unfurled a third, eyebrow arching. "Darrel?"
Johnny sniggered and grinned. "Yeah, their Dad likes weird names. Though Darry kinda lucked out I guess."
Wendy clicked her tongue. "I don't know about that...Darrel sounds like barrel and his nickname could be mistaken for what comes from a cow..."
Ruefully, she shook her head, eye glinting cheekily. "None of 'em really lucked out in the name department, did they?"
By this point, Johnny shoulders were shaking and his eyes were aglow. "Nah, I guess they didn't."
Their inevitable laughter, when it came, crept out shyly; peering around the corners of their mouths before walking out into the open to meet and greet with bashful eyes. They didn't get out much.
"I'm tellin' 'em ya said that," he teased, reaching over and tugging a stray lock of her hair, before blinking and quickly releasing it.
Wendy beamed. "Feel free, but be sure to mention my sister thought for sure there was a Popcorn and a Camal in their somewhere."
When they calmed down, the rest of the gang came up.
"Pony may be my best friend, but the one I look up to the most is ol' Dally."
The rasp in his voice was different when he said it, reverent almost. And Wendy locked onto it. That name was important.
"Whose Dally?"
Johnny whistled as they started walking again. "Dally one'a the newer members of the gang. We didn't grow up with 'im, he came down from New York a few years ago. He's our age but don't go to school or to nothin' he don't want to go to. He knows all he needs to an' can take care of himself."
The name suddenly rang a bell. Dally. Dallas Winston. Meaner than a junk yard dog, according to Marcia. But Johnny clearly admired him...so maybe he wasn't all bad. Few things were what they seemed to be in Tulsa.
S*S
Of course their talks weren't all so lighthearted, sometimes after that, right as they were finishing up homework in the abandoned library, Johnny admitted that he hated to go home, and that most days he didn't, camping out with the Curtis'. How long that could last he didn't know.
"I hate feelin' like I'm drainin' 'em," he drawled softly, looking at the wall with his gaze far away. "They don't got no money to spare. I think when I'm outta school I'll get a job and try to pay 'em back some, while I can..."
"You don't want to leave Tulsa?" Wendy asked, not understanding that last part. "There's a whole world out there..."
Johnny gave a thin smile. "Don't got no money to leave, do I? Sides, where would I go? My life's here."
Then his head tilted and he changed the subject. "How 'bout you? Whatdaya wanna do, Wen?"
"Oh," she flushed and shuffled her notebooks a bit. "Well...I guess I wanna write..."
"Write? Like...newspapers?"
"Oh no...," she shook her head fiercely. "I'd be thrown in jail for yellow journalism if I went for that. No...I want to write books. And short stories. Like...Flannery O'Conner or somthin'."
The embers in Johnny's eyes lit again, and his arms folded on the table. "O'Conner? Pony's got a book of hers. Good stuff. I like it. She's...I donno...real I guess. Almost like a fairytale but...well, sure ain't a lot of happy endin's."
"No," Wendy agreed, softly, pushing her hair back, not seeing how he watched. "Fannery thought there was more important things in life than a 'happy ending'. She was hardcore Catholic. So by default, she didn't think there was any human being on earth that, by himself, was worthy of a happy-ever-after...or of creating one that last forever. That's why a lot of her characters were so...so..."
She searched for the word, hand flipping over in the air.
"Messed up?" Johnny suggested drily.
"Yeah," Wendy agreed. "Like real people. She was a Christian Realist...the idea was that the more you try to make something perfect, the more the world messed you up, but that there's this thing called grace, and that grace sometimes hits us between the eyes when we're the most disgusting."
Johnny nodded, pencil drumming thoughtfully. "We all like 'em leaves on the trees, I guess. We rot and fall off...what ya favorite story of hers?"
"The Displaced Person," Wendy said. "I love the theme. How about you?"
Johnny clicked his cheek and thought a moment. "The Artificial Nigg..."
He trailed off before he could finish the word, wincing and reaching for his bangs, before rubbing his redden neck.
"Uh...sorry 'bout that, Wen," he said, sheepish.
Wendy appreciate the gesture. "It's fine, I like that one too."
They were quiet for a few minutes, until Johnny asked the next question.
"So...which do ya like better? Books, or short stories?"
Wendy pursed her lips, thinking that over. "Short stories I think, like fairy tales. It more difficult to get all you want in a certain number of pages. I...I even sent in two of my own to a contest lately."
His eyebrows peeked up in interest. "No kiddin'?"
She blushed. "Nope."
His mouth twitched up and he nodded. "Tuff enough. Did ya win?"
"Um...I don't know yet. Won't know for a week or two."
"Oh." he lifted his head a bit to look at her more seriously. "You let me know how it goes, okay?"
She beamed. "Sure."
Johnny wasn't the only one sharing secrets of course. That hardly be fair, not to mention a gross imbalance. So slowly, carefully, Wendy told him about Mama, about what her absence had done to her home. How it had wreaked her father, to watch his wife succumb to the hell of lung cancer - her own body doing what the Nazis couldn't- and how it drove her sister away and into herself; leaving Wendy to somehow become the artificial mother to her brothers.
And despite the fact that her troubles were small compared to his, Johnny was sympathetic, the dark coals of his eyes warmed and calm with similar hurts.
Above all else, that's what gave her the courage to reach over, and print her phone number in the heart of his palm, something she'd been wanting to do for a while.
As he blinked in surprise, she pulled back, biting her lip. "Look I know you got the gang...but if you ever need to talk, don't feel shy about calling, okay?"
The embers in his eyes turned look at her, she got the widest smile she'd ever seen from him.
"Sure thing, Wendy," he promised, soft like.
S*S
Of course not everything could be pleasant and easy. One day, when Wendy, puffing exhaust from her latest sprint down the stairs, was fumbling to remember the last number on her bright red locker when the sudden presence of fingers in her hair nearly made the younger Allen girl jump out her scalp.
"Easy Wendy," Jack laughed, making himself at home on the locker next to her, the middle classer girl who owned it was fidgeting from a safe foot away, not daring to approach. "I don't bite."
She wrinkled her nose. Marks she'd seen on her sister's neck, covered by delicately mack-up, suggested otherwise. But Wendy didn't deem it prudent to remind him of that fact. Breathing out, she gave him about half of her attention as she still struggled with her locker, resisting the urge to kick it, figuring he just wanted to know if Connie was still angry with him.
"Say," he said, smiling like the thought had just come to him. "How 'bout you and me head to the Dive-In this weekend?"
...Or not. Blinking, she stopped fiddling with the locker door and looked at him. Like always, she was made to craned her neck up him as he leaned over her, and she couldn't get the thought out of her head that he was making fun of her littleness as she tried to gauge his intent.
Because really...it had to be a joke. Aside from his annoying behavior at the rodeo, he hadn't spared two words for her all year, perfectly happy to make time with Lillian or Connie, depending on which girl was at hand. And when David wasn't around to see with the former, though Wendy had heard the rumor saying that Randy had protectively confronted Jack over it on his stepbrother's behalf; for once forcing Bob, of all people, into the roll of the blessed peacemaker. A sure sign of the end times. And just like that, on top of the fact that she really didn't like him, Jack thought she'd be willing to turn her house into a verbal cat fight over him? Connie was unbearable as it was. And the Drive-In of all places?
Idly, she wondered if she ought to feel bad, especially since she never turned anybody down before. But the thought soon discarded itself. Like Connie, it would him some good to learn that he was not the center of Will Rogers High School.
"No, thanks," she answered, giving a mild shake of her head. Then inspiration dawned, she remembered the last number was 12, and she was taking out her books for English class, and then off on her merry way, leaving a Mr. Jack Pescare gaping after her.
S*S
Unfortunately, it also turned out to be the worst mistake Wendy had made in her short life. Because somehow, instead of taking her rejection as the no it was, Jack had re-translated it into "follow-Wendy-around-until-she-said-yes". Which was as unbearable as it sounded. Over the next week, she slowly came to the conclusion either she'd killed him, or he'd put her in the nut house.
He'd started snatching her books from her arms as soon as she entered the school; holding them hostage high above her head until she let him walk her to and from class, during which he'd list the reasons she should want to go out with him (humility wasn't on the list), and how much fun they'd have (of which she was sure they had very different definitions of). And lets not forget the Monday when, high off his own fun, he followed her down the hallway, tugging at her hair saying "com'on Wendy, ya know ya want to," even after people started to stare.
...Connie had stopped speaking to her. And their mildly warming relationship had taken Mr. Wells' time machine back to the stone age. All Connie ever graced her little sister with now was the frostiest of ice, if Wendy so much as glared her way, at home or in the hall. Green ice in her eyes, and unsubtle venom in her voice, leaving her alone with a mouthful of salty, burning misery. It wasn't fair.
Even the other members of their group were getting a testy with it.
"You want me to have a talk with 'im, Wen?" Randy asked her, after the hair-pulling incident. To which she declined, if only because Randy still had the busted lip from the last "talk" he had with Jack. The only one could've done it successfully was probably Bob, who was both higher in their pecking order and raw size.
And who was taking to much enjoyment out of the thing to want too do any such thing.
"Just go out with him, Wen," was his lazy-given advice. "Put the poor guy out of his misery."
"What about her misery, Bob?!" Cherry snapped back, face reddening. Things went south from there.
"He won't leave me alone!" Wendy complained about five minutes later; as she, Cherry, Marcia and Peggy walked home together, declining to ride when Bob apparently saw no problem in allowing Jack to join them in the car (as they left, Wendy could hear Randy giving them both an earful).
Peggy patted her arm, and Marcia nodded sympathetically.
"I'll bet, hon," she said, gentle as honey, though she couldn't stop herself from trying to butter it up a bit, so it sounded better then it was. "I think it cause ya making 'im work for it. He never really had to with Lils or ya sister...or anybody. Guess he see's ya as a catch," she finished with forced brightness.
Wendy's head was staring to ache something awful, and she hugged her books to her. "I'm not a baseball. And I'm not a catch anyways. He's probably doing this to mess with Connie."
Cherry pressed her lips, glazing up at the sky before blowing out a breath. "I don't know what to tell ya, Wen. Other than hope he gets bored fast and moves on."
Wendy was ashamed to say she let out groan that was half a whine. "How long will that take?"
The best her friends could offer up were uncertain shrugs, as browned and rotted leaves blew around them in the wind.