I read the entire thing in one sitting, immediately after I got home. Dad wasn't there. I guess he must have had to leave himself after that blow up fight. I was glad, though, because it made the reading easier.
Sometimes, I forgot how smart Ponyboy was. Well, I reckon I always knew how smart he was deep down. It was just that sometimes, it would sneak up on you, and you would realize it all over again. Pony, he kept saying in his composition how easy it was for Soda to read people. I don't think he knew he was doing the same thing while he was writing it. I didn't even see Dally's death the way he did because I was too caught up in what it meant for me and how much it was like Mama that I didn't even try to think of it from Dally's point of view. But Ponyboy did, and Dallas wasn't even his brother, not really.
I didn't agree with one of the lines that Pony had written, about Johnny being the only person Dally loved. I know Dally loved me. I know he did. I couldn't accept Pony's idea that I wasn't included in the few things Dallas truly loved during his life.
I laid in bed thinking about it for a really long time. Dallas cared about all the boys, but did that mean he loved them? He would have done anything for them, and for me. Pony was right, though, he was awful tough. It was just that no one knew the full story behind it, because Dally guarded that secret with his life and he made sure I did, too.
I sighed and blew my bangs out of my eyes. My brother was a real puzzle, alright. I figured I wouldn't know how he ticked until I made it to the other side myself. I was happy I read Pony's work, though. He was a great writer. He earned every bit of that A that was written on the front page of the first folder. I learned a lot about that week that I didn't know about before.
Pony was a good kid. I knew he'd be okay. Darry would make sure of it. He would be a great dad, when he finally had children of his own.
Before I could forget again, I slipped Sandy's second letter back into the envelope she sent it in. Even though it was postmarked for my house, I knew Soda would understand whenever he saw her name on it. I decided I'd put it in their mailbox tomorrow before school, so it'd be in there with the rest of the mail before anyone had a chance to take it out and it wouldn't get mistaken for mail to be sent by the mailman.
I put the letter and Pony's composition books in my bag for school the next day. It was too late to be walking around at night alone, even with the 'pact' with the Socs. Sometimes, they weren't the only dangers. I had just decided that I should probably cook something for myself when I heard the front door open and shut.
"Brooklyn!" It was not my father's voice that called my name, but it was one I recognized instantly. I hadn't seen my mother's sister, my Aunt Dolly, in the longest time. I was nicknamed after her. She stayed behind in New York when we moved to Oklahoma. Dally and I all but lived with her for a few weeks after our mother died and Dad was trying to figure things out. I hadn't seen her in years. We'd only talked on the phone when it could be afforded, and wrote letters back and forth.
"Aunt Dolly!" I yelled back, rushing from my room to the living room. She was standing there with her bags all around her. You could tell that Aunt Dolly and my mother were related, and that I was also a part of it. We all looked too much alike not to. She was much younger than my mother, a 'surprise' baby. When the three of us would go to a park or something in New York, everyone always thought we were sisters.
"What are you doing here? Especially like this," I said, carefully hugging her around her big belly. She hadn't told me she was pregnant, or that she had gotten married. There was a gold ring on her finger. It seemed to me then that my life would never stop changing in surprising ways.
"Dolly's husband turned out to be somethin' of a flake," Dad said, settling bags around the living room to clear a path to the couch. I led Aunt Dolly over to sit down.
"My Esteban is not a flake. He simply had to go back to Spain." I tried not to show my surprise. Aunt Dolly had always been something of a free spirit, but going with a Spaniard was a shock even for her life. Dad didn't try so hard and rolled his eyes for me.
"Dolly's gonna be stayin' here with us, Brooklyn. If you don't mind, she's gonna share your room with her." Even Dad didn't want to open Dally's room.
"'Course I don't mind, Dad," I told him while Dolly started to finger comb my hair.
"Baby Doll, you sure are getting pretty," she said. I liked her faster accent. It reminded me of the way my mother talked. New York accents are so different than the ones Dally and I picked up in Oklahoma. Aunt Dolly's voice sounded like home.
"What're you gonna do with your baby?" I asked once Dad had gone into the kitchen to cook. Aunt Dolly looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
"Why, I'll keep it, of course. Esteban is going to come back one day. I know it in my heart. You'll understand when you start dating a boy you really love." I blushed after she said this, because it reminded me of Sodapop. I didn't think I loved him yet, but I did care about Soda a whole lot, and I really liked having him around.
"Unless you already have that boy," Aunt Dolly said with her eyes shining. I only shrugged.
"We'll see," I said, and Dolly took my hand and squeezed, a wide smile on her face. I know it was wrong to think this way, but Aunt Dolly just looked so much like my mother. When we were eating supper that night, it looked like a real family. The wrong family, where I was the oldest child instead of the youngest, but a real family. And I liked that.
I got up real quietly the next day to make sure I didn't wake up Dolly or Dad and got ready for school. It was harder with Aunt Dolly snoring softly in my bed, but I wouldn't have traded it for the world. It was almost like having a little piece of my mother there with me.
I left early. The air was cold in that way that promises a warmer day will follow. I was lucky enough that the Curtis boys had already gotten their mail, and Darry hadn't gone to get it yet. I slipped Sandy's letter inside even though it made my heart pound and my hands shake. I kept Pony's composition books, though. I wanted to thank him in person.
After school, instead of going to the DX with Evie and Karen like I usually did, I hung around the track and waited for Pony's practice to end. I watched him run around the track, lapping some of the older, taller boys as they raced. I watched him jump high and strong over hurdles, and bring his relay team into victory as the last runner in the order. He was gonna get a scholarship. Darry didn't have anything to worry about. That week took a lot out of Pony, but he would be okay. We would all be okay.
"Hey, Brooklyn," Pony said after practice, taking the bleacher stairs two at a time until he reached me.
"Hi there, Ponyboy," I said to him with a smile. I pat the seat beside me. He looked confused, but he sat down beside me and waited as I pulled his composition books out of my bag. Those eyes of his about swallowed his face, he was so surprised.
"Where did you get those?" It took him a few minutes to ask, and his breath was a whisper when he did.
"Sodapop gave them to me. Please don't be mad at him." Pony's ears and cheeks started to turn red. He was embarrassed.
"It was great Ponyboy. You're a real good writer." I told him, but he was shaking his head.
"It ain't that, Brooklyn. You read all those things about Dallas. I didn't mean to show this to anyone other than Darry and Sodapop because of what it says in it."
"You mean stuff like how you don't like Steve much? I don't care that you wrote about Dally. You didn't write anything someone else wouldn't have. I know he was mean, it ain't like you burst my bubble or anything." Pony didn't say anything so I kept going.
"Look, Pony, if anything that book you wrote helped me out. There was a lot of stuff that I didn't know 'bout that week. It's not like I got to talk to Dally a whole lot. He was too busy helpin' y'all and makin' sure y'all stayed hidden and safe." He still wasn't saying anything, so I reached over and put my hand under his chin so he'd have to look up at me.
"It's a good book, Pony. The best I ever read which I know doesn't mean a whole lot considerin' I don't read much, but it's true and that book is true. I'm happy you wrote it and I'm happy Sodapop let me read it. I still don't agree with what Dally did, but you're right. It's what he wanted, and Dally always got what he wanted."
I smiled at Ponyboy, or at least tried to since all I really wanted to do was cry. His smile was sad, too, so I didn't feel too bad about it.
"Let's go home before we start blubberin'," Pony said with a shaky kind of laugh.
"Sounds like a fine idea to me."
All that long walk home, we kicked rocks and coke bottles lying in the gutters. When we passed Johnny's house, we could hear his parents hollering at each other.
"Thank God he don't have to live with that anymore," Ponyboy's face was dark and mean as he said it. None of us would ever stop hating his folks, not for the world.
When I turned to go down the block where my house sat, Pony seemed surprised.
"I figured you were comin' over for dinner, Brookie," he said and I shook my head.
"Not tonight. My aunt just got into town, and she's gonna be livin' with us for a while. Just tell Soda… well, tell him he knows where to find me, alright?"
"Yeah, alright," he agreed, but he was looking at me funny.
"It's important," I said. "He'll understand."
My heart was beating hard enough that I was sure Pony and just about everyone else in the neighborhood could hear it, but he just shrugged and told me goodbye before continuing down the street. I let out a breath and kept walking down my street. The closer I got to my house, the louder I could hear old jazz music. Aunt Dolly had always loved jazz.
"Should you be cleaning?" I asked loudly over the music when I walked in. Dolly was mopping the kitchen floor, swinging her hips with the music and moving the mop handle like it was her partner.
"I suppose I can do whatever I want!" She said happily, taking my hand and twirling me in a circle on the wet tile. I laughed and she twirled until we were both breathless and just about falling to the floor.
"There was a boy that came by here a little earlier looking for you. A very handsome boy," she added with a wink. "Said his name was Sodapop Curtis. Even showed me his driver's license to prove it."
"Did he now?" I asked, picking up and apple from the table and biting into it. "Since when do we keep fruit on the table?" Dolly rolled her eyes at my subject change.
"Since a pregnant woman who constantly needs food lives here, that's when. I did some closet and drawer rearranging to get my stuff to fit into your room, but I may be stealing one of your dresser drawers if I can't find a crib before the baby comes."
"We'll find a crib somewhere, Dolly." The more I looked around, the more I realized the house was the cleanest I'd probably ever seen it. Dad and Dally were never much for cleaning, and I was hardly home when I could help it because I hate to stay home alone, so a lot of the time the house was at least a little bit messy. Now all of the usual clutter was gone. Dolly had even gotten out an old blanket my grandmother had made and thrown it over the couch.
"Looks homey in here," I said and Dolly smiled.
"That's exactly what I was going for. I thought it would be a nice thing for you to come home to after school, and for your dad when he gets back." I didn't know he'd left for work again already.
"Emergency call to Arizona. The guy already assigned to the route had an accident," Dolly said by way of explanation. I nodded and walked over to the fridge. We actually had a decent amount of food for once, and sitting on top was a basket of seeds.
"Where'd you get those?" I asked. Momma had a garden in New York. I didn't remember it very well, only that there were bright flowers and strawberries and a lot of other plants, all grown in window ledges because we lived in a tiny apartment and didn't have a yard, or even a balcony like some of the people living there.
"I brought them with me. I thought it might be a good thing for you to take up, instead of smoking." She held up a mostly empty pack I'd gotten from Angela and I blushed.
"I ain't that bad. You ought to see Soda's little brother, Ponyboy. Now that's a smoking addict if I ever did see one." She tossed the rest of the cigarettes in the trash anyway.
"You'll thank me in twenty years when that pretty face of yours isn't drooping and wrinkled thanks to the cigarettes."
"You know, for someone going with a Spaniard, you sure are strict," I teased, and she swatted me with her broom and laughed.
"What your grandmother would have to say about your language and habits," she said. Her mother, who made all the grandkids call her Mimi, was a 'lady of society'. She was basically a grown-up Soc, only I don't think she'd ever gotten it into her head to beat someone half to death for fun. When I was little, even though my parents didn't have the money for it, she paid for me to go to ballet classes and attempted to get Dally to learn to play the piano, but he didn't last long before he got himself kicked out of the lessons.
"What your mom would say about your baby," I shot back and she made a face.
"Mimi's consoled herself with the fact that Spain is a part of Europe, and she has European blood, so surely the baby will turn out all right, even if he or she does get dark hair and a few darker features." Dolly rubbed her belly as she said it. I suddenly thought of Sandy states away, doing the same thing. For some reason, though, I couldn't see her having the same loving look on her face that Dolly did.
Thoughts of Sandy led to thoughts of Soda. Unless him and Steve were closing, he was surely home by now. Had he read the letter? If he had, how had it made him feel? If he hadn't, when would he? It made my head spin to think about.
I went to bed and dreamed just about every bad dream I could about the whole ordeal.