Act One

Harts' Desire was a terrible show, and I never missed an episode. We even brought in our old black-and-white TV to the office so we could watch when we took our lunch at two. It was damn near pornography, unlike anything I'd seen on television. And it was on in the middle of the day, for Pete's sake. It had everything: psychosexual melodrama, gallows humor, literal back-stabbings, and Alexander Hart.

With his pompous accent and arrogant smirk, I could almost forget it was Ponyboy playing him. But it was broadcasted live and the only time I knew exactly where my kid brother was.

"Oh good," Yvonne said, as Alexander came into the parlor from the garden and promptly took off his shirt for no good reason. "I was afraid he'd overheat."

I think Pony spent more time on that show shirtless than not. He played a real womanizer. It was hilarious if you knew him - shy Pony had never been one to strut. But boy, did he strut on that soap. He'd grown up a lot. Of course, maybe he strutted in real life now, too.

"Body ain't used to it," Two-Bit piped in.

I shushed him. Yvonne snickered.

"Hey, she was talking too!"

"She's my wife. Now can-it." I didn't need their commentary. I needed to see Pony and also figure out if Penelope was really pregnant.

Yvonne kept talking. I loved her, but she couldn't keep her mouth shut for 25 minutes. "I think that's the one Pony's dating. She's a ballerina or something. I know it's one of his sisters. Which one do you think looks more like a ballerina?"

Alexander grabbed the woman on the screen. They kissed passionately.

Two-Bit let out a low whistle. "Didn't you just say that was his sister?"

"Step," I replied curtly.

"I don't know what's going on."

"Well, you would if you kept your trap shut,"

Alexander and Penelope fell into bed and the screen faded to black. The credits rolled and I watched the name "Michael Curtis" come and go, before the news break came on.

We kept eating our sandwiches, the construction business wasn't exactly overflowing in November.

Two-Bit had his feet up on my desk and he used the brown paper bag on his lap like a plate. He started working for us two years prior, right when we started. He was actually pretty reliable, at least for me. All he really had to do was stay sober enough to drive a truck. "You hear from the kid lately?" he asked.

"He's coming home for Christmas."

He'd said as much in the handmade card he sent for Yvonne's birthday, with a bar napkin signed by some old rhythm and blues singer pressed inside it. Of course, we hadn't heard anything since. It had been about a month ago. He didn't have a phone in his apartment, so I couldn't call him. I just had to wait for him to call, which wasn't often, maybe once every few months. He was busy and long-distance calls were expensive. It was fine.

Even if I might have rather he used his brains than his body, I was still awful proud of him. He was a little bit famous. He wasn't Burt Reynolds or anything, but I didn't know anyone else who was an actor. It gave me something interesting to talk about at family get-togethers.

"How's your brother doing? It's a shame he couldn't make it home," Yvonne's Aunt Rosette asked at Thanksgiving, as she inspected the casserole of cornbread dressing that I made from her recipe, which Yvonne took credit for.

"He's good. Busy."

"What's he up to now? Still writing?" That had been his aspiration when he moved out there. Also unlike anyone else I knew, he'd been published. I don't think he ever tried anything he didn't excel at.

"I think he's focusing on acting right now."

"Well, make sure you bring him my way for Christmas. He's such a doll. You did right by him."

I smiled. "Thank you, ma'am."

She smiled back before turning to Yvonne. "You're turning into a real cook, baby."

"Thanks, Auntie." Yvonne winked at me, grinning.

"Just about time you start having your own babies, I think."

The grin left Yvonne's face real fast then. We wanted kids. It just wasn't a good time with the business.

Now, I ain't lying when I say I love my in-laws. I liked going over for dinner on holidays and after church on Sundays. Without my in-laws, I didn't think Curtis Construction Co. would have a snowball chance in hell. I also liked that they liked me more than Yvonne's sister's husband, Roger, who had picked up evaporated milk, instead of sweetened condensed, the idiot.

Al, my father-in-law and Yvonne's brother Lenny came with me to fix Roger's mistake. We had to wake up Lenny when we parked in the grocery store lot. He had driven eleven hours from Dillard University for Thanksgiving. He was about the same age as Pony, but seemed impossibly young.

We wandered around the store in a sea of men staring at grocery lists.

I was about to suggest we pick up a sack of flour just in case, when I saw Cathy Carlson by a display of graham crackers.

"Darry!" She shouted brightly. She was easy to recognize, even though I hadn't seen her since she and Pony broke up before heading off to college. She had one of her little sisters trailing behind her and another (who was too big) sitting in the basket of the shopping buggy.

"Hi, Cathy," I said as she hugged me. I had always liked her, probably more than Pony did. She had a good head on her shoulders. She turned to Lenny and hugged him, too - She knew Lenny from when he and Pony ran track - before introducing herself to Al.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm a friend of Ponyboy's. And this is Daniel." She gestured to a tall guy with light hair that I hadn't noticed, who was looking uncomfortable.

He did not offer his hand to shake.

"Is Pony in town?" she began, in a burst of excitement. "I really want to talk to him. I'm so excited for him. I saw a big display for Rejected at a Waldenbooks in Austin, and I can tell it's picking up with this printing. It's special. I'm student-teaching in Garyville and the kids just love it. It'd be great to have him come in and have the kids see a real author. You know he hates the soap. It'd be great if he could quit and just write, you know? He sent me a galley proof of his new book. Isn't it great? Just really well crafted."

"I thought you said he quit writing?" Lenny asked.

I had absolutely no idea about his new book. He did not send me a galley proof.

There was a moment where her large eyes grew even larger, and I could see the gears turning.

"Well, we really should be going. Mom's waiting on the butter. It was good to see you Darry, Lenny. And nice to meet you, Mr. Johnson."

"Sounds like he has a lot of irons in the fire," Al said.

"Sure does," I said.

I spent the next few days pissed. Pissed that Pony had made me look like a fool in front of my father-in-law. Pissed that he hadn't told me about his new book. Pissed that after he graduated from college he stayed in New York. Pissed that Yvonne's siblings all managed to make it back for Thanksgiving.

And I was still pissed when the phone rang a couple Wednesdays later during supper.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Darry. It's me." Pony sounded remarkably like Dad on the phone. I did not tell him this. "How've you been?"

"Fine." I could hear the city in the background of his voice, a mess of wheels screeching to a halt and people shouting through the graininess of a long-distance payphone call. "What's wrong?"

He sighed. "Nothing. I just can't make it down to Tulsa for Christmas. I got work stuff and this big meeting on the 27th, and I gotta stay for it."

I stared at the fridge, where a magnet that looked like a strawberry held down a poem I didn't understand ripped from The New Yorker four years ago. "Alright. Fine."

"Yeah, well, I'll let you go."

I thought about mentioning the new book but decided not to. "Bye."

"Bye, Darry."

Yvonne looked at me expectantly. "That was Pony. He's not coming. Again." It wasn't the first time he'd cancelled. I should have seen this coming.

"I'm sorry, babe. I'm sure he's just really busy." Her eyes were sympathetic and knowing.

I had come to accept that Pony did not want me to be a part of his life. After all, hadn't it been that way all along? Since Mom and Dad died, and he gave me that look at the funeral like he didn't know who I was. Or when he ran away with Johnny. Or when Soda died and we treaded water until Pony went to Columbia and left me.

So we weren't close. Who cared? Lots of people weren't close with their siblings. Did Two-Bit know a damn thing about Brenda? I doubted it. Yvonne's family were the weird ones. I didn't care. If he wanted to live in a world I wasn't a part of, it was fine by me. He wouldn't visit Tulsa, and I wouldn't mail him Christmas cookies this year.

I knew, though, if he'd just get a phone, I would have called him every Sunday night after the rates went down. Our relationship had always been at his mercy.

Curtis Construction Co. was just on the other side of barely scraping by, which was to be expected for a new business. We didn't have ham money, so we were making cookies for the crew. I drew my thumb along the recipe card, tracing Mom's neat cursive, so much like my own. I sat it down gingerly, away from the ingredients and got to work. The house smelled like pine and cinnamon.

I was using a tablespoon to pack down brown sugar into a measuring cup, when Yvonne came in with the mail.

"Bill, bill," she said as she filed them away into our accordion file. "Christmas card from the Hammonds." - she opened it - "Their baby's still ugly but at least they put a Santa hat on him to cover his forehead, see?"

I looked up. She was right as always, but something else caught my attention: a yellow envelope with slanted, angular handwriting scrawled across it.

"Oh, something from Pony!" She removed the card out and flipped it open. I looked at three upside down wisemen in a swirl of yellow. Another bit of paper drifted to the floor like a falling leaf. Yvonne picked it up and swore. She never swore. She could have a mouth full of shit, and she wouldn't say it.

"What's wrong?"

She showed me a check for $5,000 to be paid to the order to Yvonne and Darrel Curtis. The memo line read simply, "Merry Christmas!"

"What the fuck ? What the fuck does he think he's doing?" I dropped the measuring cup and spoon down onto the counter. "What does the card say?"

"Nothing." She looked at the card again, before locking eyes with me. "This is a lot of money." Her brown eyes were wide.

It was more than half of my yearly earnings. And he just sent it to me. He was unbelievable.

Did he think he could avoid me for years and send me fucking money?

I wasn't going to cash it, I could tell you that much. (But ashamedly, we couldn't throw it away either. We tucked it away on the buffet, behind Mom and Dad's wedding picture.)

When our bedroom door was open you could see the door to the guest room, which had served as storage space for the things we never got around to unpacking. It was supposed to be Pony's room. When we bought the house, this was the room I thought he would stay in. It was the second one we fixed-up. He'd never seen it.

"I'm glad Allen's accepted our bid." Yvonne had a shrewd business sense, and she liked to talk shop even when we were getting ready for bed. Most of the time I did too. "I hope we can start demo by the 8th."

I grunted and watched her open a yellow jar. I could smell the cocoa butter instantly. I always liked how Yvonne got ready for bed. It was the same every night. She'd put her hair up in her silk scarf. She'd put on her Pond's Cold Creme on her face and Young 'n Free Cocoa Butter Creme on the rest of her. I'd watch, already under the covers. I liked routines.

"Tell me what you're thinking." She was rubbing the butter onto her elbow.

"Why'd he send that check? What's his angle?"

"I don't think he has one. He's not that conniving. I can guarantee you that boy doesn't even have any idea you're in a fight."

"We're not in a fight."

"Then you could ask him, instead of being passive aggressive for once."

"I'm not passive aggressive. And I can't ask him, because I can't reach him. He's got five grand lying around, but he doesn't have a telephone?" He probably did have a telephone. He probably just didn't give me his number, so he could control our conversations.

She walked on her knees across the bed and started rubbing my forearms with excess creme. I liked it when she did that. It felt nice.

"Maybe you could write him a letter."

I snorted. I wasn't going to do that.

She dropped my now slippery arms. I think she might have been getting impatient with me. "Then go see him. You have to do something. This - " She waved her hand at my direction. "- isn't working."

"Go see him in New York?"

"If you want to, you should. " She untucked and lifted the bed sheet on her side, sliding in to press a cold foot to my calf. "Darry, it's too easy to fill in the other side of the conversation when the other person isn't there."