SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.
Female Lead
I watched my favorite movie
And thought that maybe I could be
Just like the female lead
So I went out to buy some bleach
I put it in my black hair
And waited for an hour
But when I washed it out
Oh, God, I've let my mother down
Honeyglaze, "Female Lead"
One-
Honey is leaning against the outside wall of the diner on 3rd Street, freezing her ass off in a cold wind that will bring with it rain by nightfall. She alternates between studying her nails and studying the sky and doesn't see in either one anything that surprises her. The sky is clear and sunny, which means a cold day on an October in Tulsa. Her nails are painted a color called Strawberry Margarita. That's what it said on the bottle that she'd liberated from the drug store, stuffed in her bra. Entwined in the fingers of one hand are the open ends of three bags of day-old dinner rolls. She was allowed to take them at the end of her shift.
Her hair is shoulder-length and honey-blonde, though not the source of her nickname. She'd been towheaded as a child. Today, it is pushed back with a headband and teased at the crown. She is wearing a white blouse with short sleeves that has long-since lost the stiffness that the iron and the starch had given it last night. Her brown wool coat is nearly as long as her skirt, but her cream-colored tights offer little protection from the wind. She wears boots with heels that give her a bit of lift beyond her five-foot-four frame.
Honey wraps her arms around her and hops up and down on her toes. The air smells like fried chicken and exhaust. She's been waiting almost 20 minutes for a ride, and- as time goes by- she is getting less and less choosy about who that ride might be coming from.
A gust of wind blows dust against her legs. She pulls her skirt in tight against her hips to keep it from blowing around. The wind and the other traffic almost drown out the sound of a car honking at her. At first, it doesn't register. It's just another noise, and she's learned to filter out background noise from working in the diner. The car is almost in front of her and squeaking to a stop before she realizes that it's stopping for her.
It is not the ride she was expecting. Her little brother is supposed to be picking her up. He's always late. If he's not late, then he's pawned the job off on someone else, and today it's Two-Bit Mathews that he's stuck her with.
Honey's relationship with Two-Bit is distant at her insistence and growing more so by the day. They grew up together, should have graduated high school together, but Two-Bit still hasn't graduated. When they were kids, it was taken for granted by everyone- including Honey and Two-Bit themselves- that they would be an item. These days, Honey doesn't have time for a boy her own age who's still in school when she's working full-time. Her priorities have shifted. She walked out of her parent's house at 4:30 in the morning the day after her high school graduation and disappeared for eight months, effectively ending their relationship. Two-Bit would have been happy to pick up where they'd left off when she reappeared, in spite of all the rumors her absence generated. Honey has kept her distance.
Two-Bit, for his part, resents this new attitude that Honey has adopted. She doesn't think his antics are cute anymore, and he doesn't get when they stopped being that way. She didn't used to be like this. Two-Bit has always known that Darry Curtis is a better breed of guy than he can ever hope to be, but Darry's little sister used to be his kind of girl- blonde with mischievous eyes and an attitude to be sure, but one who didn't ask for much.
Two-Bit leans across the front seat and forces the passenger door open. Whether it is the wind or something wrong with the door itself that requires his intervention, Honey does not know. She jumps inside, slams the door, and gets to rubbing her hands together and then rubbing them against her knees.
"It's a little late in the year for a tornado, you think?" She says, more to herself than Two-Bit. When he doesn't have an answer, she gestures to the three bread bags that she has tossed on the seat in between them.
"Bread?"
"Yes, it is," Two-Bit replies. "Yeah, my mom'll take some. I suppose you'll be wondering where your little brother is."
"Not really. I ain't his damned guardian. I've made the case that I'm more responsible with the truck, and therefore I should be the one driving and picking him up, but...you know…"
Two-Bit doesn't know. He has his own car, even if it's barely clinging to life most of the time. Having to ask to drive is foreign to him.
"He picked up Sandy from school. Haven't seen him since," Two-Bit tells her anyway.
"Why would you even tell me that? Do you just like to stir up shit?"
And there it is- that attitude of hers. Ten months ago, a revelation like that would've gotten her all fired up. She'd sat in his front seat while he drove all over and she cursed a blue streak over her dumb, little brother. When she was good and furious, Two-Bit would've asked if she could go for a quick one in the back seat or at least a beer, and she'd say yes, and it would go on from there.
"Kind of, yeah," he says, sneaking a glance at her.
She actually smiles at that, although she's shaking her head like she's his mom now or something.
"I just want to go home," she says, cutting him off before he can ask the next question.
"Let's take the long way," he tells her anyway, and she doesn't protest.
He waits for her to fiddle with the radio. When she doesn't, he fiddles with it himself. To his surprise, she tosses the bread into the backseat and lays down with her head in his lap. He debates laying his hand on her stomach, like he would've when they were 16. Sooner or later, his fingers would have found their way between the buttons on her blouse or under the waist of her skirt. Now, he doesn't have a clue what he'd do with them, so he keeps his arm resting across the back of the seat. Honey props her feet up on the corner of the dash.
It should be a fifteen-minute drive back to Honey's house, but Two-Bit continues north on Sheridan when he should've gone left at Admiral.
"Where you going?" She asks, but she doesn't sound worried or annoyed.
"Just up to Mohawk, then turn around."
He adds the "turn around" part to assure her that he isn't expecting to drive through the park and around the lake to find a spot to make out.
Honey smiles. Her eyes are closed.
"If you wanna see a zoo, my house is closer."
"You want to go straight home?"
"I already told you I did. Whatever, drive up to Mohawk, if it makes you happy."
"It'd make me happy if you'd come out and have a drink with me like before. I think I'd be a helluva lot happier if I knew what was going on in that head of yours, Honey Bee."
"No, you wouldn't. Nothing going on in here but me being pissed off."
"At who? At me?"
He half-wishes she'd say "yes". At least then he'd know she was still thinking about him from time to time.
"Nah," she says, and breaks his heart just a little. "Just everything else."
And, so, he leaves it at that. He sings along to a few bars of Johnny Cash on the radio. From the corner of his eye, he can see Honey mouthing the words: "Give my love to Rose, hey won't you, mister…"
Two-Bit muses, "You think that fucker ever actually gave Rose all her old man's money?"
"Of course he did. Who else is he singing to? He's talking to Rose, telling her who he is."
"But he ain't anywhere close to Louisiana, from the sound of it. If he's got a ways to go, he's got time to think about it- taking off with the money."
"Christ, you would think that. That's something you'd do."
She's teasing him. Two-Bit looks down, and she's smiling. He feigns offense.
"The hell you say. Damn, Honey. I ain't that low!"
"You'd probably get the idea in your head that you could double it for them, and then you'd lose it all in a poker game."
"Ye of little faith. I bet I could double it. Then I'd take it all straight to Rose and her boy. Maybe I'd even hang around, help them out a little. Fix some stuff that needed fixing."
"What the hell do you know how to fix?"
"Stuff," he says, incredulously.
Honey laughs out loud at that. She opens her eyes and looks up at him.
"What if she wasn't pretty? I bet you'd only stick around to do 'stuff' if she was pretty."
"I'm still stickin' around your place, ain't I?"
"Yeah, but Soda's pretty. Everyone says so."
Two-Bit snorts and steals another glance at her. She is pretty, although in a low-key sort of way that's different from her brothers, who are almost glamorous. She has green eyes- more green and less blue than Ponyboy's, and her blonde hair is lightened at the ends from the summer sun, although she probably helped it along with a little bit of lemon juice here and there. She's shorter than Two-Bit by eight inches, but Two-Bit comes in at six foot. She looks childlike and delicate sitting next to him, but he knows from experience that her nondescript diner uniform hides a tight, little physique and there is nothing childlike about the way her mind works.
Coming around a curve in the road, Two-Bit is suddenly almost on top of a car parked just off of the shoulder. On instinct, he grabs Honey's arm to keep her from rolling off the seat when he hits the brakes. He curses and Honey sits up.
"What the hell?" She whispers.
A/N: I'm fishing here to see if anyone will read this. It feels clunky to me, but I know where I'm going with it. I would appreciate any reviews that might help alleviate the clunkiness. Thank you for taking the time.