one.
He's a bit of space cadet, but I suppose Ponyboy Curtis will do.
He leans all casual-like against the back of his brother's tow truck, quiet. Thinking. Darrel Curtis and some tight-faced hill billy are getting into it about last week's game— if Hanson keeps playing like that, he can kiss his position goodbye, ain't no room for a tight end who can't keep his own weight. I've always thought it was depressing how much grown men cared about high school football.
They go back and forth a while about this Hanson guy, and I swear if Darrel Curtis weren't so hung, I'd claw my eyes out from boredom. Darrel's the kind of guy you sit in silence with on the way to work, someone you call when you're on the side of the road and don't mind too much circulating between small talk, polite chuckles, and comments about the weather. He's got that magical Curtis touch though, one all the girls still go crazy for.
I guess Ponyboy ain't immune to that touch either.
He's in his own world, like he's been since he was twelve and I was ten and Curly would leave him in the living room to go argue with Tim about "catching a movie" with some friends after school. He'd just look around at our dirty walls, sinking into our smoke-stank couch, and pretend like our crap TV wasn't only two stations and static. He's so busy fiddling with the tweed of his jeans he doesn't even see me coming.
"Hey Curtis, I didn't know you were in town."
When Darrel hears me say the name Curtis he looks up across the truck and right at me, holding my gaze for a second before going back to his conversation. I don't miss his shifty eyes and rigid back, how he suddenly carries himself with the weight of a golden boy JD. I guess I have my own sort of magical touch. Us Shepards, we've got that superpower of leaving people on the edge of their seat. But Ponyboy looks up, unbothered, maybe a little surprised that I'm talking to him in the first place. In my entire time of knowing him, we haven't exchanged more than five words.
He seems to realize suddenly that it's his turn to speak, so he pulls himself up off the truck and offers a lazy shrug.
"For a bit. I'll be out of here in a couple days though."
My eyes trail all over him then settle back on his face. He's got the sun-kissed neck of a mechanic with oil stained sleeves and dusty hands. Like most boys around here, he's ditched the grease, so his hair falls a little in his face. He crosses his arms and whether or not he's flexing on purpose, I decide then that working looks mighty good on him.
A while back, Darrel Curtis and one of his buddies started a business together towing and fixing cars. I heard that since the really cute one got shipped out to Vietnam, suddenly the trail of girls lined up at the DX stopped needing gas. So much so, in fact, they'd catch themselves at the nearest pay phone with their daddy's Benz two miles away dripping oil just to get little old Darrel Curtis to come 'n rescue them from the side of the road.
Business must be going good though, cause it looks like Ponyboy got roped into helping out and, jeez, don't I know a thing or two about that.
"Your brother got you working?"
For some reason that makes his ears go pink and I swear every Curtis but that cute one— Soda-can? Fizzy-pop?— is such a square.
"Yeah."
"You can really for real drive this thing?" I turn around and lean my arms against the tow truck. They must've just dropped off that hill billy's car or something.
Ponyboy offers that shrug again, like he really couldn't care less, then nods down at me, noticing the cap and gown folded in my arms.
"It's graduation season, ain't it? Congratulations."
I smirk and hold his gaze cause damn he's got this crazy mix of blue in them grey eyes. And he's tall too, a lot taller than I remember.
"You got a pack of Kools?" I ask and he nods, pulling a fresh pack from his back pocket. I place a cigarette in my mouth and lean up close towards Ponyboy's neck. He seems amused by the whole thing now, shaking his head to himself as he pulls out a light. "Thanks."
"No problem." He takes one for himself and lights it, turning his head slightly to blow smoke in the other direction.
"You go to school out there in California, huh?" I ask, even though I know the answer. "How's that going?"
He frowns slightly before answering. "It's going okay. Y'know, it's college. You going anywhere?"
"Oklahoma State." And really, I can't help the genuine smile that creeps its way onto my face, so I hide it with another drag of the cigarette.
He tries to cover it up, but I can tell Ponyboy is surprised by the answer. Even if he's too polite to say it out loud, there's really no other explanation than it being a God-given miracle I didn't end up dead or pregnant or out on the streets at fifteen— everyone knows it. Somehow I'm eighteen and here and alive and following the golden trail footsteps of a certain Curtis boy making a life for himself. Golly, if I said that out loud I think he might actually laugh at me.
"You take a plane all the way out there? To California."
"No, I'm making the drive."
"Oh yeah? With this old thing?" I look up at him and he gives me that Ponyboy Curtis half smile and that's when Darrel decides I've spent enough time chatting up his kid brother.
"Well we best get to it. It was nice catching up Merle, hope your back gets better." Darrel glances over at us like he hadn't been listening in this whole time. "Ready to go Pony?"
"Hi Darrel," I smile breezily, tilting my head over to meet his eyes. They're stormy and blue and guarded. "Look at you, Mr. Repairman. I just might slash my tires to get in your phone book."
"Hey Angela." Darrel fixes me an identical to Tim look (if Tim were a couple inches taller with a thick neck and a soft side for broads without daddies). He's got it down good, that concerned look of a brother. Please. "What are ya doing all the way out here?"
And it's a fair question. What's a south side chick doing so far up north? If I'm up here, who's down there causing havoc and giving them hell and leaving behind the kind of mess only a Shepard is capable of? It's always the cute ones that gotta be the most nosy, huh?
"Looking to hitch a ride," I say simply, deciding that for once the truth can't hurt.
"You headed back home?"
And I have to smile at the chivalry behind his words. "I ain't asking for a ride or nothing, if that's what you mean." I turn to look at Ponyboy who I'm surprised to find looking right back at me, giving me an odd look. "Just wanted to say hi is all."
"You're gonna hitchhike?" asks Ponyboy.
I shrug. "Done it before."
Ponyboy wears that thoughtful look of his and for a second I think he's gonna offer me that ride, make up some excuse about already going the way I am. Instead he glances behind me at Darrel and that must be some kind of wordless signal because suddenly they both open up the truck and start to get right in.
"See ya around, Curtis brothers."
Darrel throws his hand out his open window and nods at me while Ponyboy lingers halfway in the doorway of his side of the truck.
"See ya Angel." It throws me a bit, Ponyboy calling me that, like he's that hood Dallas Winston or something. I haven't had anybody call me that nickname in years. He fixes me with a real suave look and it sorta irks me knowing he probably doesn't even know what he's doing. "Take it easy."
Feeling bold (and because I always gotta have the last word), I tug the waist band of his jeans and look at him from beneath my lashes.
"You too. Safe travels, hun."
His blush gives him away and, golly, I don't know what it is about boys like him that make me want to punch air and throw up and hit something.
In the truck he goes, off the Curtis boys drive, and left in my hand is a near full pack of Kools, three dollars, and a chewed up ballpoint pen. Hitchhike my ass. Now I've got plenty of change to catch the bus.
(And I know I should feel bad for stealing from him, that I probably could've asked for a dollar and Ponyboy would've given it to me, no sweat. My brother always used to say if I had any problems at all to go to the Curtises. They're good people.)
(But I mean, c'mon, that's just too easy.)