Chapter 4
Soda helped me move the boxes into Davanee's room the next morning.
"Maybe you should take her to the park today" suggested Soda as he hung up a purple dress that had yellow polka-dots. "It's a nice day out."
"Ok. You wanna come with us?" I asked, putting some of the clothes in the dresser.
"I can't. I gotta work today" said Soda.
"It's Sunday. Since when do you work on Sunday?" I asked.
"Joe wanted me to. Darry's gotta work today too." Joe was Soda's boss.
"So I'll be here all alone with Davanee?"
"Maybe. Maybe one of the guys'll stop by" said Soda, placing some stuffed animals in the crib. Davanee was lying on her blanket on the floor with the teddy bear I bought her.
"They probably will" I said. I stuffed more clothes into the dresser.
"Hey, listen, I gotta go to work. I'll be back a little later, ok" said Soda as he put the last of the clothes into the closet.
"Ok. Bye" I said.
"Bye" said Soda. Soda got down in front of Davanee and said "see ya latter cutie. You be a good girl for your daddy, ok?" Davanee just smiled a toothless smile at Soda.
Soda left and I heard the door slam behind him.
"Hey Pony" called Darry from the living room. I got up and brought the baby with me to the living room.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"I'm leavin' ok? You think you can handle everything here by yourself?" asked Darry, putting his shoes on.
"Yep, we'll be fine. I think I'm gonna take Davanee to the park a little later" I said.
"Ok. I think there's an old stroller in the garage. Don't forget to bring her toys and stuff" said Darry.
"I won't. You better get goin' or else your gonna be late."
"Ok. You be good, girly" he said to Davanee. Once Darry left, I dressed Davanee in that little pink dress and hat I got her the other day. She looked so cute. I gathered up her toys, bottles, diaper changing stuff, and her blanket.
"Let's go see if we can find that stroller" I said. I opened the garage door and saw the old black stroller in the back. I laid her down with her blanket and teddy bear.
"Here we go, Davanee. Our first trip to the park" I said, walking down the sidewalk. When we where about halfway to the park, I heard someone calling my name.
"Hey Pony!" I turned around to see Johnny running up to us.
"Hey Johnny" I said, "long time no see. What's goin' on?"
"Nothing much. Just the same old stuff. Hey, Two-Bit told me about the baby. How ya holdin' up?" asked Johnny.
"Pretty good actually aside from waking up at 3 am every morning" I said, "we where just goin' to the park, you wanna join us?"
"Yeah sure." Johnny looked down at the stroller. "She's cute, Pony."
"Yeah she is."
"How old is she?"
"About a month, I think. Her birthday is April 22" I said.
"Almost a month" said Johnny as we approached the park. I spread a blanket out underneath the big oak tree and we all sat down. Well, actually Davanee laid down. She couldn't sit up by herself just yet. There where a bunch of moms and there kids here. They all gave me funny looks but from what I could tell they didn't suspect anything.
"So how are things going at home with your parents?" I asked.
"Same as always. Got beet last night cause I came home late" said Johnny.
"Where'd you go last night?"
"Went to the drive-in with Dallas and Shepard. We went to a party at Buck's afterwards and we just lost track time. When I got home, my dad was waiting for me with a busted beer bottle." When Johnny said that, I felt Davanee hit my leg. I thought that she wanted attention so I picked her up and cradled her in my arms.
"He beet you good this time?" I asked.
"No, not really. I got off easy this time."
"You know you could've come over to our house if you needed a place to stay" I said. Johnny already knew that of course but I felt like he needed to be reminded.
"I know but I figured with the baby and all, you guys would probably have your hands full."
"We do but your still welcome to come over. That is if you don't mind being woken up by crying" I said. As I said that, I noticed a red mustang circling the park.
"What do they want?" asked Johnny, following the car around the park with his eyes. My grip tightened on the baby. Luckily for us, they didn't stop. They just drove past us. My grip loosened slightly.
"You wanna go to the Tastee Freeze?" suggested Johnny.
"Why not. If those Socs are gonna be circling the park the whole time, I don't want to be here" I said, getting up. I placed the baby in the stroller and folded up the blanket. We made our way out of the park before the Socs could see us.
"So tell me what happened that night" said Johnny.
"Which one? The party or the night she showed up on my door step?"
"When she showed up."
"Well, we where sitting around in the living room, watching TV and stuff when somebody knocked on the door. As you know, nobody ever knocks on the door at our house so we figured it was probably something important. Two-Bit opened the door and said there was this guy that wanted to speak to me. He told me he was Jamie's brother, gave me a note, and the kid. The note said her name her name was Davanee Austin and that Jamie couldn't take care of her any more. It said that if I couldn't, there was a social services place that I needed to call. Obviously, I never called."
"So basically, her brother just showed and said 'here's your kid. Have a nice life.'?"
"Yeah. Something like that." By then we where at the Tastee Freeze. Surprisingly, the restaurant wasn't filled with smoke, which was good because I wasn't going to bring Davanee in there if it was. We sat down at a booth in the corner. I noticed that a lot of people where looking at me and whispering.
"This isn't uncomfortable at all" I said.
"What?" asked Johnny, looking at the menu.
"Everybody's looking at us" I said. Johnny turned around in his seat to see everybody stare. He turned back around and shrugged.
"What'll it be, guys?" asked the waitress.
"Cherry coke" replied Johnny.
"What about you, hon?" asked the waitress, turning to me.
"Pepsi." The waitress wrote my order down and walked away. Davanee started crying again. I grabbed a bottle out of the diaper bag and stuck it in her mouth. She hadn't eaten in a couple of hours.
"How'd you know that's what she wanted?" asked Johnny.
"She hasn't eaten since five. She needs to eat every 3 hours or so or else she get cranky."
"So what did you say her name was again?" asked Johnny, working on his Cherry Coke that the waitress brought.
"Davanee Austin Curtis" I replied, taking a sip of my own drink.
"What does her name mean?"
"Well, Davanee means friend or beloved one. Austin means exalted and Curtis means courteous. All together, her name is beloved, exalted, courteous one." I couldn't help but laugh when I said that. Could you imagine hearing that name called during the role in the morning at school? I couldn't. It's bad enough to have a name like mine but to have a name like that? I think I'll just call her Davanee.
The waitress came back to get our food orders. Johnny ordered a cheese burger with a side of fries.
"What about you?" asked the waitress.
"Uh…….just fries I guess" I said. I wasn't really all that hungry. The waitress took our orders and put them in with the cook.
I took Davanee out of her stroller, and held her in my lap. She seemed to be somewhat amazed by all the stuff on the table. She had never seen any of that stuff before so who could blame her?
"You want to hold her?" I asked Johnny.
"Can I?"
"Sure." I passed Davanee over the table.
"Hold her head" I said.
"Why? Does it come off?"
I laughed and said "no. It's for support. She can't hold her head up very well yet."
Davanee looked at Johnny and then looked at me, a bit uncertain about Johnny. That's kinda funny because Johnny wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone his best friends baby. Once she got use to Johnny, she looked up at him and smiled.
"She's got Soda's smile" remarked Johnny.
"She does, doesn't she?"
"Yeah" said Johnny. Davanee looked at me and her face started to scrunch up and turn red. She was about to start crying again. Johnny handed her back to me.
"Here we go. You want you teddy bear? Here's your teddy" I said ,winding up the bear. She seemed to calm down once she had her bear. Davanee lifted up her bear towards Johnny.
"I see that's a teddy bear" said Johnny, "your daddy buy that for you?"
"First day we had her" I replied. Davanee then pointed the bear towards me.
"Is that your teddy?" I asked, "watch this." I took a straw out from the straw holder on the table and blew in her face. She smiled really big. She probably would of laughed if she knew how.
I it did a couple more times and she smiled wider every time. On the last time I did it, I noticed a couple of Socs walking into the Tastee Freeze.
"What are they doin' here?" asked Johnny. "This is our hang out." Once again, my grip tightened on Davanee. The Socs took a seat in a booth across the room. They got more stares then I did.
"Maybe we should go" said Johnny.
"Yeah. Let's go" I said. I put Davanee back in the stroller and we where almost out of the restaurant when a couple of Socs stopped us.
"Where you goin' Curtis?" asked one of them. It was Bob.
"Away from you" I snapped.
"Who's kid is that?" he asked.
"She's mine" I replied, and the whole restaurant fell silent. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the jukebox playing in the corner. I turned to walk outside when I heard Bob say "I always knew you'd be a screw up. She'll probably grow up to be a screw up too, just like you." Without thinking, I turned around and hit him square in the eye.
"If you ever lay so much as one hand on her, I will kill you" I warned. And I would do it too. Without saying anything else, Johnny and I walked outside.
"Where did that come from?" asked Johnny.
"I don't know" I replied. I honestly don't know why I hit him. I guess I was just mad about what he said.
"You wanna go someplace else?" asked Johnny.
"I dunno." I looked down at Davanee. She started yawning. "I think I should probably put her down for a nap soon."
"Oh come on, you haven't been out of the house in weeks. Besides, it would do her good to get some fresh air." Johnny did have a point. I hadn't been out in a long time and Davanee did need to get out every once in a while.
"Why don't we go walk around downtown. Davanee might like it" suggested Johnny. I said Ok. We walked around downtown for a long time. I think Davanee liked seeing all the people. We had tons of people stop and tell us how cute she was. We decided to go into the drug store. A lot of people usually hung out there on the weekends. When we walked in, we got a lot of stares like we had at the Tastee Freeze.
"It's crowded in here" said Johnny, sitting down in one of the booths near the window. Just as we sat down, Tim and Dally walked in. They saw us almost immediately and sat down next to us.
"Hey Dal, hey Tim" I said.
"Hey kid. What's happenin'?" asked Dally.
"Nothing really" I replied.
"Hey, Two-Bit told us about the baby" said Tim.
"It seems like Two-Bit told the whole world about her. He tell you about the test results too?"
"No. What about them?" asked Dallas.
"They came back positive" I said.
"Sorry man" said Dallas.
"It's ok. I'm getting the hang of it now" I said, bouncing Davanee on my knee. Davanee yawned again. It was getting close to nap time.
"Guys, I should probably take her back to the house. She's startin' to look a little sleepy" I said.
"I'll come with you" said Johnny. Dally and Tim got up so we could get out.
"You comin' over to the house later?" I asked Dal.
"I dunno. Probably. See ya latter" said Dallas.
I said bye and walked home with Johnny and Davanee. When we got inside the house, I noticed a funny smell. It smelt like new paint. And Darry's car was in the driveway.
"I wonder what Darry's doin' home" I said, "Hey Dar! We're back!"
"In here!" yelled Darry from Davanee's room.
"Let's go see Uncle Darry. Let's go see him" I said to Davanee. There was a huge pink ribbon and bow on Davanee's door. I opened the door to see that her room had been completely redone.
"You guys did all this?" I asked.
"Yep. We where lyin' to ya about workin' today" said Soda.
The room was completely pink. On the wall, above her crib, it said in purple letters "My Little Princess Davanee." All the blankets where pink with little flowers, except for one blanket that had Minnie Mouse, Sleeping Beauty, and other Disney princesses and characters on it. I trust that was from Two-Bit. Above the changing table it said in green letters "Daddy's little girl."
"You did all this for us?" I asked, setting Davanee down in her newly decorated crib.
"We thought she deserved a little girls room instead of a boring guest room" said Darry.
"Wow. Who painted all the flowers and stuff?" I asked, knowing that neither one of my brothers where artist.
"Sandy" replied Soda, "she came by right after you left. We're goin' out later tonight. She wants to come by and see the baby if that's ok with you."
"Yeah that's ok. Tell her I said thanks for painting" I said. Soda left the room to go get ready for his date.
I was busy checking the locks on the crib when Darry said "I'm sorry for what I said to you the other night. You know I didn't mean it." I figured he was talking about the first night we had Davanee. For a little while, I thought he had forgotten about what he said. Either that or he wasn't sorry.
"You where just mad. I understand" I said, covering the baby with her Minnie Mouse blanket. She looked so sweet in her new room.
"Are you still mad at me?"
I thought about it for a minute. He had said that he didn't want to see me but I wasn't known for holding a grudge against anyone.
"No."
Darry smiled one of his rare smiles.