A Boy Named Pony - A Sequel to East West Sunset

Chapter Twenty-Two - Betty

I knew better than to ask Pony about the strange man he'd been talking with in the parking lot. All of my instincts were screaming at me that he was bad news, but selfishly I realized that if I brought him up, it would only alienate Pony from me, and we had just gotten back to normal.

I called Ponyboy almost as soon as I got home from school. I wasn't sure if he would be home yet (or even if he wanted to speak with me, to be honest). Still, I wanted to make it extremely clear to him that I trusted him and his judgement, even if my gut was telling me he was lying to me. I consciously held my breath as I dialed the Curtis' home phone number, listened to the trilling ring of the call attempting to go through. He didn't pick up.

He's just not home yet, I reminded myself. He's not ignoring you. He just isn't home from school yet.

Sure, yeah! Yeah.

I fixed some dinner for myself and my dad instead of doing my homework. It suited my nerves much better to be flitting around the kitchen, skinning potatoes and boiling chicken and noodles for chicken noodle soup, rather than trying to duke it out with a notebook of algebra problems and kicking my feet under the kitchen table. I almost cut myself with the potato peeler a couple of times but hey - at least I was keeping busy. 

It sure put my father in a good mood, to come home and see me busy cooking like I was expected to. He had been rather silent and reserved since the robbery, hardly speaking to me at all (which in all honesty, was much preferable to the snide remarks and snarky comments he usually made, so it was a definite improvement), but when he walked in the door and saw me cooking, he sighed in contentment and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. Awful cheerful, for a Thursday night.

"Ah. This is how home life should be," he said, dropping his briefcase on one of the kitchen chairs. "It smells real good, Betty."

I was so disconcerted by the display of affection that I nearly dropped the whole pepper grinder into the pot simmering on the stove. "Um, thank you, I suppose."

He chuckled. "Don't sound so surprised, kid. You get all your homework done?"

"Yes," I lied.

"Good, good."

He sounded relaxed, humming as he unfolded the morning's newspaper to reread it. I turned back to the stove; my nerves sang beneath my skin, uncomfortable at having someone else in the room with me. It made me feel like a dead flower pinned to a glass plate beneath a microscope - wholly scrutinized, wholly foreign. This side of my father wasn't so bad, I realized. His hum was strangely comforting, and the spot where he'd kissed my head tickled with warmth. I guessed it didn't take all that much to keep him happy. 

I stuck a fork into a piece of carrot that was floating in the soup. I couldn't spear it on the first try - it was too hard - so I determined it needed to simmer for a little longer.

"The winter formal's coming up, right?"

The sound of my dad's voice startled me. "Oh. I guess so."

"A lady came in today and was talking about it. Her daughter's a year younger than you, and she said all the kids are excited about it. I didn't know there even was a dance, until today."

"Yeah. It's next week - that last Friday before Christmas break," I said. 

"Hmm," he mused, flipping a page in the newspaper. "You going with that hood?"

I pursed my lips, my back still to him. "Dad, he's not a hood. And I don't know yet." In truth, Ponyboy hadn't asked me yet; I almost thought that he'd forgotten about it. 

"I'm just saying. Some of the boys from that part of town are dangerous. You know what happened with the robbery at my bank and everything."

I nodded, a chill shuddering through me at the memory. Of course, I didn't think that one robbery meant that the entire East side was dangerous - but he did have a point there. Unconsciously, my mind returned to the strange man I'd encountered Pony talking to after school