Chapter Three
Soda and Liz came into the kitchen through the side door just as Corrine opened the opposite door, which led into the garage. "Hey! Did you finally get some sleep?"
"What? Oh, yeah, couple of hours. Darry called around twelve and woke me up."
Corrine grinned. "What, did he forget he was supposed to bring potato salad? Men."
"Boys are dumb," Liz agreed. "Except Daddy."
Soda didn't answer. He was staring at the fridge, at Maureen's name and number, still on the message board.
"How was Wendy's?" Corrine asked her daughter.
"It was fine," Liz answered. "She said she might come by later and have a burger, is that okay?"
"Sure. If she can get a ride over, maybe Dad or I can run her home. A couple of the guys from Shayne's team are coming, so we can do one run. That sound okay, honey?"
There was no response.
"Daddy's weird today," Liz said to her mother. "He says he's fine but he's all preoccupied. He was like that all the way from Wendy's."
"Soda?" Corrine said, a little louder.
He broke out of his trance and smiled at her. She smiled back, relieved. "Want to give me a hand?" she asked. "I've got a case of water and a million hamburgers in the car."
"Sure, I'll be out in a minute. Lizzy, help your mom, 'kay?"
When Liz followed Corrine into the garage, Soda scribbled Maureen's number onto a napkin and erased the board.
The Curtis boys had always been close, but after their parents died they grew indivisible. It was more than brotherly love – it was that, but it was also a complicated relationship that was partly parental and rooted in the fact that no one, save the three of them, understood what it had been like to be the sons of Darrel and Diane Curtis.
They got together once every few weeks and talked frequently – Pony and Soda spoke almost daily. They had never lived further than 20 miles from each other, not even when Ponyboy was in college. Darry's wife, Marie, hadn't liked it at all. She thought Darry put his brothers first and eventually, claiming Darry was more married to the boys than her, left him. It wasn't really true, and there had been a myriad of problems, almost from the beginning, but that was the excuse she'd used. She was currently on her fourth husband.
Corrine and Suzanne, Pony's wife, were not at all threatened. They both encouraged the bond and thought it was sweet, but neither of them understood how deep the connection went. The men's devotion to one another was their survival. It was their brotherhood that enabled them to be husbands and fathers.
Darry arrived at Soda's house first, his son Will reluctantly in tow. Darry saw Will as often as the divorce decree and Marie's fickleness would allow, and no one but Pony and Soda knew it about killed him to not be raising his own child on a day-to-day basis. Will was 16, a year ahead of Shayne in school, and the cousins could not have been more different. Shayne was buoyant, confident and athletic. William was shy and bookish. He reminded his family of how Ponyboy had been, but unlike Pony, Will lacked an everyday foundation of love, so he had retreated into himself. He was uncomfortable all the time, even around his family. It broke Darry's heart.
Darry pulled a grocery bag out of the back seat as Will allowed Corrine to hug him. "Liz is inside with some video game," she said, and Will walked gratefully to the house.
Darry handed Corrine the bag and kissed her cheek. She looked inside. "Chips," she said in surprise.
"Chips." As Corrine furrowed her brow, he said hesitantly, "Not chips? I thought Soda said chips."
"Not a problem. You can't have too many chips."
A horn sounded behind them as Pony pulled in with his family. He and Suzanne had met at the University of Oklahoma their freshman year and had married right after graduation. They had three girls, Melanie, Jill, and Abby.
"Aunt Cory." Jill started talking before she even got out of the car, Abby right behind her. "Settle an argument for me. Abby is going to be seven, but she has lived for eight years, right? Because you have that first year, and the year you say you're one, you're really more than one, right?"
"You don't have to answer that," Suzanne said. "It's been like this all day. No one knows as much as she does. Ten is not a pretty age."
Corrine glanced at Melanie, who was leaning against the house. "How's 14?"
"You had a 14-year-old," Suzanne said.
"A boy," Corinne reminded her. "His feet stank and he stopped talking."
Suzanne sighed. "You should have seen the fight she had with Pony about what she wanted to wear."
Melanie went off to find her cousins, with Pony watching her worriedly. "She only wanted to come to see if Shayne's friends were here," he said. "She wanted to practically come topless."
"It was a halter," Suzanne corrected. As Pony glared at her, she held up a hand in protest. "I'm not saying she should have worn it, I'm just saying it wasn't like she was auditioning for Hooters, that's all."
"Is Soda cooking?" Pony asked. "I'm starving."
Corrine handed Pony and Darry each a beer, and then gave Pony a bottle of Pepsi for her husband. "Here, do me a favor, will you?" she said. "Go help him. I think something's bugging him. Something more than towing a wreck last night."
"Sure," Pony said easily. "C'mon, Superman, let's go." And he sprinted across the lawn, Darry close behind, yelling taunts over his shoulder about "old man" and "almost 50."
"Children," Corrine said.
"I know," Suzanne said affectionately. "Isn't it great?"
