Sodapop told my daddy on me.
"I can't believe he did that! What was that boy thinkin', runnin' his mouth instead of keepin' it shut?" Evie was riling mad when I told her and Karen a few days later. I just shrugged. I didn't really care whether Soda had told my father one way or another. It's not like any of what he did was out of actual heart-felt caring anyhow.
"Reckon he thought he was helpin'?" I'd noticed it before that Karen carries a nail file with her just about everywhere and that she files her nails all the time, but never had it grated on my nerves like it had been lately. I never used to notice the sound of the little board against her nail before. Once I did, it drove me up a wall. I gritted my teeth. I didn't want to yell at her, but she was grinding on my nerves.
All three of us were in our cooking class, where we should have been making chicken pot pie. Only problem was Karen was filing her nails and Evie was braiding her hair and I was doing all the work. I knew I never really cared about school work before, but after I started to do my work regularly and starting getting such good grades, I kind of liked it. I could see why Ponyboy kept it up. Plus only idiots flunk out of cooking, and I may have been a lot of things, but I wasn't an idiot.
"What'd your dad do, Brookie? I bet he threw a damned fit, huh?" All of my friends thought that since Dad looked so much like Dally, he had Dally's temper too. That wasn't passed on, though, that was made on New York's rough side. We saw more of that than Dad ever did, driving his truck routes.
"No. He wasn't that mad." I don't know if that was exactly a lie or just an understatement.
I woke up to a very angry father. The night before, he had been so happy to hear I was going out. I figured it was because most of the time, I holed myself up in my room and that wouldn't do. That meant I wasn't okay, and a good father is supposed to make sure his daughter is okay. Having a daughter that is so drunk she can't walk herself home is more than not okay.
The first thing Dad did was turn the light on in my room and open the curtains. This made it entirely too bright and I pulled my covers over my face. He just pulled them off, and then he threw some clothes at me.
"Get dressed. We're going to church." I hadn't been to church since the funeral service for my mother. Lordy, my mouth tasted awful. I buried my face in my pillow and mumbled that I wanted to go back to sleep, not to church. Suddenly, I was sitting straight up.
My father's finger nails dug into my shoulders. We were nose to nose, those ice blue eyes so like Dally's looking straight into mine for the first time in years. I could smell his aftershave and see all of the wrinkles that had worked their way into his face. My father was not very old. He was only nineteen when Dallas was born. Thirty-six was too young for him to have such deep lines. It was too young to have lost a wife and son, too.
"Brooklyn. Paige. Winston. I am not losing you, too. If you ever come home like that again, there will be hell to pay. Now get dressed."
I don't think my father had spoken so directly to me since I was six years old. I don't know if it was divinity, pure luck, or if Dad still remembered church schedules, but it just so happened to be a Communion day on that first Sunday of 1965. Dad watched me like he expected me to go up in flames when I took the wafer and juice.
After the service, while we were eating the soup that Dad had made, he told me that Soda told. I had thought that maybe we had got caught, but no, Soda left me high and dry.
"Boy woke me out of a dead sleep, sayin' you weren't in your right mind. Figured maybe you were sick, but no he said you been drinkin'. Let me tell you, girl, you are damn lucky it was one of your brother's friends that brought you home. They may be hoods, but them boys are still good people."
"They're my friends, too," I said into my soup. I knew Dad didn't think it was proper for girls and boys to really be considered friends. I knew I was pushing buttons, trying to get a rise out of him. I was acting like Dally. Dad just shook his head and sighed and that was the last time we spoke before he went back to work.
"At least you don't have that problem to worry about. Mom was right raisin' hell over Two-Bit, but it's not like she ever does anythin' to that boy. I ever come home like he does, there wouldn't be anythin' left of me." Karen rolled her eyes and slipped her nail file back into her purse. We all knew Two-Bit could get away with murder. Nobody could stay mad at that boy. He smiled that goofy smile of his and you were done for. It worked for him every time. How else could he get out of jailing so often?
"Maybe Soda helpin' like he did means that boy's finally gettin' over Sandy." None of us ever talked much about Sandy, and especially not in front of the guys. She had been gone for about three months by then. Honestly, I hadn't thought much about her since she left. I hoped she was doing good and all but she just never crossed my mind.
Soda on the other hand was another story. He had ignored girls for the longest time. You'd think that would mean that sales at the DX would have started to tank, but they actually went up. Just about every girl in town, whether she was going with a boy or not, was trying to cheer up the sad and handsome Sodapop Curtis.
I cut my eyes over at Evie.
"They'll want you to go to the counselor's office, talkin' nonsense like that." She just laughed. She knew I was still bitter about my brief sessions with the counselor immediately following Johnny and Dally's deaths. Cherry, me, Pony…we were all supposed to meet regularly with the lady. I think Cherry is the only one who still does. Pony suddenly got better. As far as the lady was considered, there was never anything wrong with me and I told her as much before I started ditching the sessions. Eventually she stopped sending notes to class asking for me.
I knew that even though Evie never said much about it, she missed Sandy something awful. Sandy had been her best friend, just like Soda and Steve. I still remember how they thought they would be with those boys forever, two sets of best friends dating and all. Well, I figure Sandy wasn't as sure about that as Evie was. Evie was real good at hiding things, too, though.
"You and Ponyboy still workin' on that project after school? If you are, I might as well go with you to the house to wait for Stevie to get off of work." Evie absolutely loved that not only did her given name—Eve—rhymed with Steve, but that their nicknames did, too. Tough girl she was, she was all softness for Steve.
"Yeah, I am. What are you gonna do, Kare?" We all knew the answer to that one. After Soda had taken me home from that party, Curly sobered up quick after getting that black eye. On Monday, the greasers had been telling tales all through the hallway of Curl and Kare dancing and kissing. Karen blushed a deep red that just made her silvery blonde hair look even lighter.
"Bet you're real glad Curly got out of reform school for his 'good behavior', huh, Karen?" I was real happy for her. Nobody knew but me, but Karen always had a thing for Curly, ever since we were little kids.
Hours later, while I was working with Ponyboy, he sent me up to the attic. We needed yarn to use as reigns and lassos in our diorama of the Wild West. He said that they should have had some in the attic, that they had put a lot of their parents' things into storage up there.
It was dusty and the ceiling was so low even I had trouble standing up straight. The light wasn't very bright, but I found the trunk Ponyboy had told me to look for. Downstairs, I could hear Two-Bit give a yell and tackle somebody to the floor. Steve, by the sounds of the yelling. Sodapop was playing Elvis records louder than necessary so that he could hear them while he showered.
There was yarn in the trunk, all right. When I picked up some of it, wound into perfect balls, a yellow envelope fell out. My name and Dally's were written on it in my mother's hand. I had just slid my finger under the lip when I heard Two-Bit shouting.
"Brookie! Pony figures you done went and died up there. If you're alive, knock once for yes and twice for no." He let loose his crazy laugh, and I could hear skin connecting. Someone had punched him.
"She can't answer if she's dead, bonehead." Pony was getting sassy lately. I folded the envelope in half and shoved it into my pocket. I didn't have a clue what could be inside, but I knew I couldn't read it there at the Curtis house.
I decided, instead, I'd take it to Dally.