"Hey," Soda's voice was soft. He'd just caught up to me as I was walking to school, and the cool breeze and jog he had done to catch up with me had made his cheeks pink. He was wearing his work shirt and his hair was still a little wet from the grease he put in it.
"Hi, Soda," I said and felt his hand softly on my lower back. He guided me away from the edge of the sidewalk where I had been walking so that he was positioned between me and the street. It made me blush a little, and he smiled.
"Thought you might like some company this mornin'," he said and offered me his arm. I slid my hand into the bend of his elbow, and it brought us closer together. Soda smelled like aftershave and soap, and very faintly of cigarette smoke that probably came from Ponyboy seeing as Soda didn't smoke too much himself.
Even though my heart was beating a little fast, I decided not to bring up the letter unless he did. Maybe he didn't even see it. Maybe Pony or Darry got to the mail first, and hid it so as not to let him get anymore hurt. But I knew from countless afternoons at the Curtis house that Soda brought in the mail. It was even that way when his parents were alive. Soda just loved bringing in the mail for some reason, and he'd always done it.
We were quiet, but it was nice. The sun was warm on our faces and the air smelled sweet, the way spring does.
"You're birthday's comin' up soon, ain't it, Soda?" I asked, just remembering he was born in the spring. When Pony turned fourteen soon after their parents' death, there hadn't been any kind of party. I don't think Darry even made Ponyboy a cake. The pain was too new, too fresh for a celebration of life. It was the same way when Dally had his birthday not even a month after our mother died.
"Yeah it is," he said with a smile. "The big seventeen. I'm catchin' up to Steve."
"Gonna be an old man," I teased. The way the sunlight was hitting his eyes made them warm and bright and the exact color of Coca-Cola. No wonder his daddy named him Sodapop.
He laughed, and when we came upon a house he suddenly spun me around in a short little dance. Soda was always so happy and carefree it was hard not to be the same when you were with him. So I let him take my hand and put the other one on my waist and dance me down the sidewalk a little ways until we couldn't hear the music anymore. By the time we were done I was dizzy and a little lightheaded from spinning and laughing.
An old man sitting on his porch clapped and smiled in that knowing way that old people do.
"Better treat that girl right, boy," he said, winking at Soda and me.
"I'm sure tryin'!" He didn't let go of my hand after that, but he didn't lace his fingers through mine either. He cupped our palms together like he was making sure it was an okay thing to do. I swung our arms back and forth a little and smiled at him.
By the time the school was in sight, I wasn't even nervous he'd talk about the letter anymore. Instead I was kind of worried he hadn't seen it, because if he had he sure was doing a good job of acting like nothing was wrong. Maybe I would have asked him about it if we weren't already walking up the school steps, but we were, so I kept my mouth shut instead.
Soda pulled me into him for a quick hug.
"Have a good day at school, Brookie!" he said before walking back down the stairs, waving the whole time. I waved back until he stopped. When I went through the doors, I was instantly taken over by Curly and Karen.
"Lover boy walks you to school now, does he?" Curly taunted. His hair didn't have as much grease in it as usual, and his curls were a little more wild than usual. I knew this was Karen's doing, she'd never cared much for hair grease.
"Who you callin' lover boy?" I asked, nodding at Karen's bright pink school bag he held in the hand not holding hers. For a tough hood of a boy, Curly was treating Karen better than any girl he'd dated in the past. I didn't know if it was because of Two-Bit's threats or his genuine feelings for her, but he was acting mighty different for Karen. Tim Shepard may have been just like Dally, but that wouldn't make him stop Two-Bit from setting his little brother straight for mistreating his baby sister.
He did the tough hood thing to do and stuck his tongue out at me, and I returned the gesture.
"Can't you two ever behave?" Steve asked, nearly succeeding in knocking our heads together when he came up behind us.
"Nope!" Curly said just as I was asking, "Where's Evie?"
"She's playing hooky to get her hair dyed or somethin'," Evie's dark hair wasn't natural, and she was known to do things like skip school to maintain it.
"Ponyboy's got a track meet later after school. Did Soda tell you that y'all are going to meet me an' Evie there?" I was a little surprised that Steve would want to do anything that supported Ponyboy in anyway. There had always been bad blood between them, but with all that had happened lately, Steve seemed to be trying not to give Pony such a hard time. It was a nice change.
"No, but I'm glad you're going," I told him and he gave me a sheepish smile.
"The kid's come far. He's going to be running for real competition soon. If he keeps it up, he might win district."
Very quietly, I heard Curly telling Karen, "If any of us get outta here without a whole bunch of luck havin' a hand in it, it'll be Ponyboy."
It was true, and we all knew it was. Ponyboy was simply better than us. We didn't hold it against him, and we all knew it. It was just a fact of life that Pony was going places in his life, probably all the places Darry had wanted to go and never had the chance to.
He could get that book published, I thought, much later towards the end of the day during one of my home economics elective classes. I already knew how to bake, so I mostly just sat around and directed the younger girls in the class.
We were making chocolate cake, and it made me think of the ones that Soda made, with way too much sugar in the frosting. He always put so much in that it never quite mixed in like it should have and you could feel the tiny little grains of sugar between your teeth when you ate it. That's how I always knew that Soda had made any kind of food at the Curtis house, because his sweet tooth would show through. That or he would add in drops of food coloring and there would be a rainbow assortment of food on the table.
"You're looking a little bored, Brooklyn," Miss West, our very young and very proper baking teacher, said. She came from the good side of town, you could tell, and I really didn't think she was much older than Two-Bit. Darry's age, maybe. Truth was, I probably did look spacey, but more because I was thinking of Soda and not because I was bored.
"Sorry," I said, kind of half-smiling at her. The class was mostly full of greaser girls like me, but there were a few Socs thrown in. What I really liked about Miss West was that she didn't treat the Soc-y girls any different than she treated us, which was real nice. Most of the teachers at school let them get away with anything under the sun.
I was still getting treated a little different than the other kids. Anything I did even a little bit wrong was chalked up to the fact that Dally died. I knew for sure that Pony was still being treated different. He still got real spaced out sometimes. As far as I knew, Cherry Valance still hadn't talked to Ponyboy since that last time.
It made me really mad that she did that to him. She had already laid her precious reputation on the line by speaking against her boyfriend in court. Cherry didn't have to do that to Pony, especially not so soon after all the bad things that had happened in his life. Thinking about it made me roll my eyes.
"Pony's sure fast." He was easily lapping people on the track. I was pretty surprised Steve was being so well-behaved. He didn't even have any smart-mouth remarks about the tiny shorts that the track team was supposed to run in like he usually did.
"Blink and you'll miss him," Soda agreed. Unlike Steve and Evie who always seem like they might pull the clothes off of each other, Soda again had my hand cupped in his. It felt slow, but not awkward. Just like we were taking things slow.
"This is public. People are here," I said, tapping Evie with my foot whenever her hand slipped under the bottom of Steve's t-shirt.
"Yeah, we don't need any more babies going around," Soda added. It was so sudden, and he said it so casually that it caught us all off guard. But then Steve's face broke into a wide smile and he reached over Evie and me to give his best friend a high five.
"No, sir, we don't!" Steve agreed. I felt Soda squeeze my hand, and I smiled wide at him myself. It shouldn't have been funny, but it was.
"Look at him go," Soda said, pointing on the track at his brother. Ponyboy had just broken into a sprint to the finish line. His hair was wild, only a little of it still bleached blonde then, and his cheeks were pink. He looked like he was having the time of his life. They announced his name as soon as he placed his foot over the line.
Soda and Steve exploded from their seats, yelling for Ponyboy as he got claps on the back from his coach and teammates. It amazed me that he could this, that he could be so good at something like that. Sodapop reached down and pulled me up with him, wildly waving his hand in the air until Ponyboy finally looked up and saw him.
In a form of celebration, Soda wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me in so that again I could smell the grease of the DX and his clean soapy smell underneath. Even though the grease smell was strong, it was a happy and familiar scent.
Quick and light, I felt Soda's lips against the top of my head. My cheeks got warm, but no one saw because my face was still pressed into Soda's side. Soda was happy, Ponyboy was happy, Steve and Evie were happy. Even I was happy, and it didn't even feel a little bit wrong this time.