Come Down From Your Fences

Chapter 37

Sarah pushed her hair behind her ear as she inspected the menu in front of her. It was a gesture she did often, Darry noted. She also crinkled her nose when she smiled and covered her mouth when she laughed. He liked noticing these things and wondered why he hadn't before.

She was wearing a light blue dress and a white cardigan, and her hair was unconfined, skimming her shoulders in soft waves. Darry had dug out his gray suit, much to the amusement of his brothers. What they expected him to wear, he wasn't sure. Soda usually left for a date in a flannel shirt thrown over the jeans he'd worn to work that day, like any typical seventeen-year-old greaser. It amazed Darry how different his outlook on the world had become once he'd hit twenty. Suits and tablecloths would have seemed so foreign to him just a couple of years ago.

"You look nice," he told Sarah as she continued to decide what to order. She looked up at him and smiled, the flickering light from a candle on their table catching the lenses of her glasses.

"Thank you, you look nice, too," she said, again tucking that errant lock of hair back.

"Thanks, so do you," he replied quickly, without thinking, and then immediately fought the urge to slam his forehead onto the table. He'd already said that, hadn't he? Sarah laughed softly but didn't say anything. Apparently she'd noticed his blunder - of course she had. Suddenly he was acting about as smooth as Ponyboy on his first date.

He couldn't think of what to say next, how to cover up his mistake. He was saved from having to come up with would have most likely been an awkward transition when their waitress appeared next to their table. When he had called Sarah after he and his brothers returned from their fishing trip, she had suggested they go to a small, family owned Italian restaurant that she knew well. An image of Sarah at Buck's flashed through his mind, courtesy of Soda, and he immediately agreed to her suggestion.

The place was nice - rustic and warm. It was the kind of place his mom and dad went to on their anniversary. A nice treat where they could pretend for a while that they weren't struggling to make ends meet.

"What can I get you tonight?" the waitress asked in a cordial tone and then proceeded to rattle off a list of the specials for the night. Darry was only half listening as he quickly scanned the menu. The prices weren't bad, but he couldn't help calculating how many hours of roofing equaled that lasagne. It was a habit - an annoying one, as Pony felt the need to constantly point out - that he couldn't break. In the end, a tiny voice - one that sounded suspiciously like Sodapop - told him to quit worrying and he wound up ordering the lasagne. It was either that or a salad and if anybody he knew ever found out he'd ordered a salad, he'd be dead meat.

Sarah ordered and the waitress left with the menus, and she seemed to take all the topics for conversation with her as well. Sarah sipped her white wine and Darry idly swiped at the condensation forming on his beer bottle. They sat like that for a couple of minutes, neither one saying anything. Finally, Sarah broke the silence.

"So," Sarah started just as Darry took a swig from the bottle, "I understand you're the toughest guy in a rumble."

He almost choked on his beer as he sputtered, "w-what?"

She was grinning, a look that made him think immediately of Two-Bit. "Toughest guy in a rumble," she repeated with a thoughtful nod. "Pretty impressive."

"Who told you that?" his eyes narrowing as his mind sifted through the list of potential suspects.

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, I have my sources." She said it seriously, but Darry could tell she was holding back a laugh.