Chapter 10
Soda was bent over the engine of a '93 Firebird when Benjy, his lead mechanic, tapped him on the shoulder. "There's a lady for you," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as he came back into the garage. "Came in asking for the owner."
Soda straightened up and wiped his hands on a rag, heading into the reception area. A woman in old jeans and a sweatshirt, looking tired and dirty, was standing there waiting.
"Can I help you?" Soda asked.
"I'm looking for Sodapop Curtis," she said, a note of disdain in her voice, as if she couldn't believe anyone actually had such a ridiculous name. "I'm thinking that's you."
"Yes, ma'am," Soda said, pointedly ignoring her tone. When you ran a business, you were bound to run into a disgruntled customer every now and again, no matter how good your service was. It was human nature. Then he took a closer look at the woman. "Wait a minute … Debbie?"
"You remember," she said, the tone of disgust still in her voice.
"Yeah," he said. Debbie Hinton, Sandy's older sister by five years. Soda had only met her a few times, since she had already moved out when Soda and Sandy were dating. "What are you doing here?"
"I've spoken to my father," she said bluntly. "I understand Sandy's little problem has come back to haunt us."
Soda stared at her, completely befuddled, until he realized she was talking about Maureen. "If you mean I've met our daughter, then yes, that's true," he said pointedly.
"She's not your daughter," Debbie said. "She was adopted out. Sandy signed her away. She belongs to those other people."
"I didn't sign a thing," Soda said, "and I'm glad to know her. And I don't know what business it is of yours."
Debbie turned on her heel and walked out of the office. After a moment, she said impatiently, "Well, do you want it or not?"
"Want what?" Soda asked, but he followed her nonetheless. "Ma'am, you ain't makin' a lick of sense." He trailed Debbie to her car and waited while she opened her trunk and handed him a copy-paper box. Sandy's name was scrawled on the lid in black magic marker.
"This was at my grandmother's house," Debbie said. "When she died, my father had it shipped back here from Florida. Sandy was already dead then; I don't know why he didn't just toss it in the barrel with the rest of the trash." She opened the lid so Soda could glance inside. "Pictures, papers, clothes, I don't know what all."
"Why are you giving this to me?"
Debbie looked at him as if he were completely stupid. "It's not for you. It's for her."
Soda's eyes narrowed. "Her name is Maureen," he said. "And if you're all hell-bent on not seeing her, I don't know why you're giving me this."
Debbie closed the lid. "Because my father is dying, and he asked me to," she said. "I think it's a terrible idea. But I don't want her bothering him, and this is all that's left of Sandy, so if we give her this, she has no reason to call us."
This is all that's left of Sandy. The thought made Soda incredibly sad.
"My father gave her … he gave Maureen the birth certificate, but then he found the box," Debbie said. She looked as if saying Maureen's name caused her physical pain. "He's all worried she's going to come back for it. I kept trying to tell him she doesn't even know about it, but he insisted. So here. Give it to her. He's old and he's losing his mind, and I don't want him dealing with it."
Soda's parents fluttered through his head. His father would have turned 70 in May, his mother 69. He tried to picture them "old and losing their minds" and he couldn't. The image that came to him was always the same, from the last time he'd seen them alive: Darrel fussing at Diane to hurry up, or they'd be late, and Diane being sure there was enough cold chicken and chocolate milk in the fridge to feed her three boys and the other four that were always there.
"Do you have children?" Soda asked. Debbie raised her eyebrows. "Because if you don't have children, Maureen is your father's only grandchild," he went on. "Maybe he'd like to get to know her before passes on."
"I'm not married," Debbie said stiffly. Soda refrained from commenting that he could see why not. "And we are not that girl's family. I don't know why you think you are." She folded her arms and looked suddenly close to tears. "I don't know how this happened. That adoption agency promised Sandy that the baby would never come back. They promised her it would be over."
"What happened to her?" Soda asked softy.
"It was never over," Debbie replied. "She kept saying you were going to come after her and you didn't. The baby was born, they put your name in the paper and she kept saying you were going to come, and you didn't."
"What? Are you kidding me?" His arms were beginning to ache and he set the box down at his feet. "I wanted to! I wrote to her, I wrote her all the time and the letters came back."
"Curtis, please," Debbie said disdainfully. "You don't really think my father would have let her hear from you, do you? I'm sure my grandmother just put them back in the box."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Soda whispered. How could anyone be so cruel?
"She stayed on in Florida for a while, but she wouldn't go back to school and she wouldn't get a job. So my grandmother told her she had to go and she came back to Tulsa."
"She came back here?" Soda gasped. He always thought if Sandy ever came back he'd be the first to know. "I never saw her."
"No? Well, she sure saw you. Went by that old gas station you worked at and you were moonin' over some girl in a tuff car. At least, that's what she said. My father forbade her to see you anyway, so I don't know what she was thinking." Debbie shook her head. "It was like she went crazy. She disappeared and we only heard from her every now and then. She was drinking a lot. She ran into that Steve Randle -- you remember him? – up in Oklahoma City, and just got high. She wouldn't get help; she said it was her just punishment for the baby." Debbie stared at Soda stonily. "She overdosed in 1986. The way I look at it, you and that girl are the reason my little sister is dead."
"That ain't fair, and you know it," Soda hissed. "It has nothing to with Maureen. And as far as the other goes – yeah, we were foolin' around. But it was Sandy's idea, too. No one forced anyone to do anything."
"You were a stupid greaser boy whose parents went and got themselves killed," Debbie spat. "She felt sorry for you."
In a wave, Soda felt 16 again, broken and vulnerable, and the boy left inside him wanted to weep. Instead, the man he'd become picked up his daughter's box and looked steadily at Debbie Hinton. "That may be true," he said evenly, "but she took off her own dress."
