1. I'll Give You the Moon

It's 2016, an even-numbered Christmas, which means Veronica and her family are in Tulsa.

Such has been the tradition since just two months before Veronica herself was born. Before then, there was no Christmas system. Some years, the New York folks would fly down; some years, a few of the Tulsa folks would fly up; some years, nobody would see anybody at all. Her mother, Elenore, says it all changed once they found out there was going to be a Veronica. A Veronica, she thought, should have some stability around the holidays.

She doesn't love Christmas in Tulsa because there's not much to do except for see some extra people she loves. That's always worth being a little (a lot) bored. While she'd much prefer an odd-numbered Christmas where she gets to watch Soda and Jane get excited about the Rockefeller Christmas tree, no matter how many times they've seen it, it's good enough to be with them – all of them.

It's the very end of the night. They've done dinner with Darry and Lynnie, followed by a cacophony of present opening, which is probably Veronica's least favorite thing about Christmas in Tulsa. In New York, the gatherings are small enough so that when they open presents in the morning, everybody can go one at a time. It's not like that with Darry and Lynnie. The family is so big they have to open all the presents at once, shouting thank you at one another through the rustling of wrapping paper and the whooping of slightly drunk (but very merry) grandfathers.

The Winstons aren't even the first shift. Darry and Lynnie do exactly the same thing in the morning with their family, Two-Bit's, and Steve's. Veronica has always wondered why she and her family get lumped with the rest of the Curtises, but she figures it's probably because of her grandparents and Sadie and Soda, the twins. They're the best friends to end all best friends.

They're all together at Sadie and Johnny's house now. They do this every even-numbered Christmas. The Bennet-Winstons always stay with Sadie and Johnny, and the Winston-Randles always stay with Jane and Soda. But on Christmas Night, after Lynnie politely kicks everybody out with pumpkin pie, Soda sneaks on over to his sister's place to spend just a little more time with Lucy and Dally (Grandma and Grandpa). This is Veronica's favorite part of an even-numbered Christmas. There's only one way it could be better.

Tonight, Elenore sits beside her husband, John, opens a cheap copy of A Christmas Carol, and starts to read. She clears her throat, and all eyes are on her – her favorite position in the entire world. Veronica is almost twenty-two, and though she's not the same bitterly shy kid she was at fifteen, she still can't even attempt to relate to her mother's hammy habits.

"'Marley was dead, to begin with,'" Elenore recites in a deep, dramatic tone, and everyone groans, including Veronica.

"Oh, Elenore," Lucy says. "Do you really think this is a good idea?"

"Yes!" Elenore shrieks. "It's Christmas, and it's classic. How could it not be a good idea?"

"'S about a guy who hates Christmas so much, they take him to see his own fuckin' grave," Dally says (and Veronica notes the way his fingers are locked in between her grandmother's). "I'll pass, man."

"Is this how you all feel?" Elenore asks. Her eyes first settle on Veronica.

"Veronica?"

It takes Veronica a moment to swallow all of her anxious saliva.

"I mean … if it were up to me, we'd just be singing 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch' until Grandpa realizes it's about him and storms off like a drama queen," she says.

Lucy turns to Dally with genuine curiosity on her face.

"How do we manage to piss you off that badly every year?" she asks with a laugh. "You know it's coming."

"Just 'cause I know it's comin' don't mean I like it," Dally says.

Veronica watches as her grandmother presses her nose against her grandfather's nose. She can't help but grin. They're something to see.

"You know what kind of joke I want to make," Lucy mutters.

"I do, but ya better not," Dally mutters back.

"Why? Because it's Christmas?"

"Naw, because you'd be forcin' it."

"You know you just gave me good material, don't you?"

"Only the fuckin' best for you, Bennet."

"Hmm. It's still true."

She kisses him for a little longer than one might expect two people nearing seventy to kiss. Veronica looks at them out of the corner of her eye. Before she can wonder if she's creepy or they are; she takes a minute to love Grandma and Grandpa. They know exactly what they're about. But as soon as she takes another breath, she wonders if they've spoiled her – if she expects to meet a man who understands her as deeply and quietly as Grandpa understands Grandma. She hates that even on Christmas, she's thinking about how she's over twenty-one and has nothing to show for it.

Elenore is still up in arms about A Christmas Carol. She turns her eyes to Soda next and glares at him until he says something.

"Oh!" he says (after it takes him about five seconds to catch on). "I dunno, baby girl. Your daddy's got a point. Death and Christmas don't really mix."

"Take him at his word!" Lucy shouts. "I spend every other day of the year thinking about death and Victorian England; Victorian England and death. Can't I, for one red-and-green day a year, think about nothing more than sugar cookies and 'Jingle Bell Rock?'"

Sadie, from her seat beside Johnny, turns to her best friend with a wrinkled nose.

"Really?" she asks. "That's the Christmas song you're gonna go with?"

"Well, yeah," Lucy says. "What should I have gone with? 'Fairytale of New York?'"

"I like that one," Dally says immediately.

"I didn't think you liked anything," Soda says.

"Shut up, Soda."

"Plus, it's not like it's better!" Sadie says. "It's just weirder!"

Lucy rolls her eyes, and Sadie laughs like hell. Veronica watches that, too. Everybody says that she and Jenny, her cousin who so happens to be her best friend, are the closest things this family has to another Lucy and Sadie. Veronica has never been too sure how she feels about that – not because she thinks she and Jenny are any less than Lucy and Sadie but because she doesn't wan to be another anything. She never has. Everybody's always trying to put her somewhere they've been before.

Elenore turns her gaze over to her husband by her side. John, who still isn't used to the intensity of an even-numbered Christmas, gulps hard.

"Mister Webber," Elenore says through her front teeth. "What do you think? Shall I continue to read this Christmas classic with the dozens of silly voices I have planned, or shall I acquiesce and allow my mother and daughter to mock my father with Dr. Seuss?"

John grits his teeth and sucks in. Veronica conceals a giggle behind the palm of her hand.

"I'm … kind of a fan of Dr. Seuss," John says, and Elenore lets the book fall to the ground.

"I'm sorry!"

Elenore playfully glares at him.

"It's a good thing you're so cute and that I love you so much I could bust wide open, right here," she says. "Otherwise, you'd be in trouble."

"Is this the part where I say I love you, too?" John asks.

"Only if you want it to be."

"Well, then, it's a good thing I do."

Veronica watches as her mother kisses her stepfather, too. She feels her hands turn into fists. She can't believe she's sitting here on Christmas Night with her family, so bitter about being dumped last year by a guy who wasn't even her boyfriend; she's going to be jealous of her mother and her grandmother. But that's Veronica Winston: obsessive to the last.

"Fine," Elenore says as she stands and walks over to Veronica. Veronica finds herself filled with the same existential dread she's always had when someone acknowledges her, even when it's her mother. When Elenore's hands land on Veronica's shoulders, Veronica knows she's in for it – public acknowledgment.

"I'd like to take a moment at the end of this uniquely terrible year to talk about my daughter, the only person in the world who matters," Elenore says.

Lucy claps once, and Veronica wants to crawl inside herself and die. It's funny, though. She's not sure she'd feel this way if Ponyboy were here instead of staying with Darry and Lynnie.

"Veronica, my daughter, your granddaughter, your … Veronica," Elenore says, "just successfully finished her bachelor's thesis, which she sent off as a writing sample to five stellar master's programs, any of which would be lucky to take her."

"Mom," Veronica says as her cheeks flush and burn. "Why would you bring this up in front of a bunch of people who already know?"

"Ah, for God's sake, Bug," Dally says. "You got any idea how many of us would-a killed for what your mom is doin' for you?"

"The Grinch is right," Elenore says. "You're the one thing that redeems 2016."

"I hardly think a mediocre bachelor's thesis on reclaiming Beatlemania as feminist is the one thing that redeems 2016."

"You make it so hard to love you."

It's an obvious joke from Elenore, who loves her daughter far beyond the end of time, but Veronica can't help but wonder if it's true in other places. She flashes back to her Hitchcock class last fall when she was in love during Rebecca and thrown out with the garbage by Marnie. It's a full year later, it's Christmas, and she still can't stop thinking about it. Maybe she is finally as selfish as her mother.

Elenore comes around to Veronica's front side and raises an invisible glass. She's so giddy. No matter how old Elenore gets, she never stops having fun. Veronica almost wonders if she should worry about that.

"To my Veronica," Elenore says. "The only film scholar worth loving in the entire world."

Veronica feels her cheeks burn again, so she puts a long strand of hair in front of her mouth and tries to hide. It never works, but she always figures it's worth a shot. Though she spends most of her time worrying she hasn't changed enough or done enough since she was just a kid, her mother's makeshift toast forces her to realize that in some ways – boring ways – she has changed. As a teenager, Veronica's obsession was clear: get into Princeton and find a way to write stories. The thought is all well and good until it's early 2013, and she got a tiny envelope from Princeton in her mailbox.

Sorry, Veronica. We're not interested.

She still doesn't like to think about it, and it was a long time ago. To this day, it's the most embarrassed she's ever been (except for that time her professor crush heard her talking to a friend about how she wanted to kiss him like Indy and Marion in Raiders). She sobbed so hard and for so long she was sure she'd die. It got better, of course. Elenore reminded her that she didn't need an Ivy League degree to be smart and special and creative. Maybe she'd do better without one. That made her think about her unofficial tour of Princeton with Ponyboy. He said he was too weird to have gone to an Ivy League school, and until she held that rejection letter in her hands, Veronica didn't really know what he meant. But it was OK after that. It was OK because it meant she got to be a little more like Pony.

Veronica has always wanted to be more like Pony.

Like her grandmother and her mother before her, Veronica will graduate from NYU; unlike her grandmother and her mother before her, Veronica isn't an English major. She probably would have been if her mother's ex-fiancé hadn't left Tisch for one of the California schools. If Pete had been there, she probably would have avoided film classes altogether. But she watched Johnny Guitar in an elective during her last year of high school, and something clicked. Veronica Winston has been in the darkness of the movie house since she was eighteen. She's one semester away from a bachelor's degree in Cinema Studies.

Pony is really proud of her for that, which counts for more than she'll let on.

"Well, little lady," Soda says as he takes to his feet. "I'm gonna second what your mom says. You save 2016 just by livin', and I'm real proud of you."

Sadie rises to her feet, too.

"Are you leavin'?" she asks.

She sounds more worried than she should. Veronica thinks very little of it. She watches as Soda nods once.

"I oughta," he says. "'S usually about now Jane's finished with the dishes and realizes she misses me. I don't want her to have to miss me too long."

Sadie wraps her arms around him tightly, and Veronica is struck by the fact that they're twins. She's never thought too much about having a sibling. John's ten-year-old daughter, Riley, is technically her stepsister, but it feels more like an aunt-and-niece relationship the older Veronica becomes. The closest she supposes she has to a sibling – to a twin – is Pony's grandson, Cal. She and Cal get closer all the time, but she knows it could never be like Sadie and Soda. There's something unrepeatable about Sadie and Soda.

"You're a good man," Sadie says. "You know that?"

"Only 'cause I got a good sister," Soda says. "Ya keep me in line."

Sadie beams and hugs him again. Lucy does, too. Veronica watches as her mother walks over to Soda and just stands in front of him for a little while. She seems to be taking in every part of him that she can see. It's strange, but it's Elenore.

"It always goes by too fast," she finally says.

Soda smiles at her. He's nearing seventy, too, but his smile is just as charming as it was in all the pictures from when he was seventeen. When he smiles, Veronica remembers that she loves him, too.

(When he smiles, Veronica can't help but wonder where she's seen that look before.)

"I know," he says. "You sure you gotta get on a plane tomorrow?"

"My husband's a good father," Elenore says. "Riley will be home from her grandparents' house in Denver, and he wants to be there as soon as she lands."

Soda cranes his neck to get a look at John.

"And ya have to take my girls with you?" he asks.

John just laughs. He's a good man, too. Elenore turns her head back to face Soda. It's always hard for her to leave him. No matter how many times she does it, it never gets any easier.

Veronica is glad she never really has to leave Ponyboy.

"I spent decades running away from him," Elenore says. "I might as well spend what I've got left right beside him. You know. It's why you're on your way back home to see Jane."

Soda smiles, and Veronica notices he has a distinct smile for Jane – even mentions of Jane. She wonders if anyone will ever have a smile just for her.

"How'd you get to be so wonderful, baby girl?" Soda asks. "With a couple-a hotheads like them for parents?"

He jerks his thumb toward Lucy and Dally, who react exactly as one would expect Lucy and Dally to react: Lucy rolls her eyes, and Dally does nothing at all.

Veronica knows better than to think he doesn't care. It's about what Dally doesn't do.

"Worse things than bein' a hothead," Dally finally says. "Crybaby."

"Thief," Soda says back.

"Hick."

"Hood."

"Hood."

"That mean we're square?"

"Naw, we're even. You're square."

They almost smile at each other, and Veronica bites her lip to keep from laughing. It's been more than fifty years since Sadie and Soda dared her grandparents to get married (more than fifty years since Lucy and Dally went through with it), but neither man has ever admitted what the other means to him. As Veronica watches them together tonight, she just isn't sure they need to.

Soda turns back to Elenore and grabs both of her hands. They look so desperate. They always do. They're in love with their own drama.

"I'm going to miss you," Elenore says. "I know I always do, but I just …"

"I know," Soda says. "Gets harder all the time. I'm gonna miss you, too."

She pulls him in for another hug. This one is much longer. Veronica's eyes shift to the ground, and she tries to disappear. It doesn't work. She can't stop listening.

"I love you," Elenore says.

"I know. Just not 's much 's I love you."

Veronica swears she can hear her mother start to cry. She almost begins to think about how strange it is that Christmas brings out the worst in a person's nostalgia. Instead, she feels a pair of eyes on her. It's Soda.

"Hey, little lady," he says. "You wanna come outside with me 'fore I go?"

Veronica looks up at Soda. There's something about his eyes when he smiles. They're just good. He has a shine no one else in his family shares, not even Sadie. When he smiles like that – with those eyes – Veronica almost understands what it's like to love him like her mother does.

"Um," she struggles. "Sure."

She grabs her coat from the back of the chair and follows Soda onto the porch. She doesn't have time to think about whether it's strange. All she knows is that she has to go with him.


It's not terribly cold, but Veronica shivers, anyway. In part, it's because she's nervous. She's never alone with Soda, and while it's easier for her to be alone with Soda than it is for her to be alone with Darry, she's still never sure what to do. She's still never sure where to put her hands. She finds them on her hips like a defiant schoolteacher when Soda starts talking again.

"Probably wonderin' why I wanted you to come outside," he says.

"A little," Veronica says. "You're not usually one for the dramatics."

"Oh, that ain't true. I love drama. Your grandpa just loves it enough for the both of us. Really takes up my spotlight."

Veronica giggles. She wonders what it must have been like to stand on this porch with Soda when he was also in his twenties. What would he have talked about then? Whatever it was, Veronica likes to imagine it must have been something very exciting. Some drama at the DX station. A fight and a make-up with Jane. How he felt to watch both of his brothers raise children when he still feared what it would be like to have one. Veronica wishes she'd known Soda when he was twenty-two. She has a feeling she would have adored him.

"Anyway," Soda says, and when he looks at her, she never wants him to go back home. "I just wanted you to come outside 'cause I feel like I don't ever get a chance to talk to you. Just you."

"You are the man of the hour, every hour," Veronica says. "Everybody wants all of your attention …"

"Which means nobody's gettin' enough of it," Soda says. "I know. 'S been this way since we was all just kids."

Veronica furrows her brow.

"Why?" she asks.

Soda looks at her like it's a tricky question. Maybe it is. Everything is always much trickier in this family than Veronica wants it to be.

"Dunno," he says. "Pony says it's 'cause I understand everybody. You think that's true?"

But Veronica just shrugs.

"I don't know," she says. "I think it could be."

"But?"

She was both hoping he'd ask that and wishing he wouldn't. She takes a deep breath and lets it all out. It's not cold enough to see it in the air, and all she can think is that they should be in New York. It's easier to pretend everything's better in New York.

"I don't know," Veronica says again. "Do you understand me?"

Soda throws his head back a little while he laughs. He's got the same energy now as everybody says he had when he was seventeen. Veronica admires him for that. He grew up, but he never let his heart die. She used to think it wasn't possible to do both. She knows better every time she looks at Sodapop Curtis. Nobody ever told Soda to stay gold. He just figured out how to do it right anyway.

"I like to think I do," Soda says. "But you're right. We ain't ever had enough time together, have we?"

Veronica shakes her head.

"I guess not. So … one talk on the porch on Christmas right before you head home and I get on a plane is going to solve it?"

Soda laughs again. He's infectious.

"No, one talk on the porch ain't gonna solve it," he says. "Figured it might start to, though, 'f you were willin'."

Veronica shoots him a nervous smile. It's the best she can do.

"I am," she says. "So. What'cha got for me?"

Soda smiles at her, but the smile seems almost sad. Before she can worry about the look in his eyes, he answers her question.

"Your mom was right in there," he says. "I mean … I don't think ya really fixed the whole year 2016 just by livin'. Country kinda screwed us over this time around."

Veronica gulps. She doesn't want to think about it (mostly because she spends half her free time thinking about it now).

"But you're a real special kid, Veronica," Soda says. "But I guess you ain't really a kid anymore."

Veronica snorts.

"Oh, trust me," she says. "I feel like one."

"Good or bad?"

"Little bit of both."

Soda laughs a little. It's not clear why.

"Yeah," he says. "Sounds about right."

They're quiet for a little while. Veronica notices the tiniest sliver of the moon in the sky. It's hardly there, and yet, she can't stop staring. She feels Soda's eyes on her again. She doesn't meet them right away.

"I don't ever get a chance to tell ya," he keeps on. "But you're a lot more than you think you are. And I ain't talkin' about the stuff ya work on, even though it seems real cool, 'cause in the end, I'm not sure how much it all counts. I'm talkin' about who you are. You come to life like nobody I've ever seen."

"That can't be true," Veronica says. "You've lived with yourself your whole life."

"Yeah, that's true. But you're somethin'. And I hope ya know that."

For a moment, Veronica tears her eyes away from the moon and looks at Soda. When she looks in his eyes and around his wrinkles, she realizes how he was handsome. She aches to know that she will never know him when he was young – not because he used to be handsome but because there's so much she missed.

"I think," Veronica starts, almost in disbelief, "that I'm afraid of myself."

Soda smiles, kind as ever, and draws her to his side. He's not quite as skinny as he was in all the pictures, but Veronica assumes he was just as warm then as he is tonight.

"I know," he says. "You ain't the first one to feel that way."

"What does that mean?" Veronica asks.

Soda laughs, but it's in a way that makes it clear there's a lot he can't say. Veronica knows that laugh. People have been doing it at her since she was old enough to ask questions.

"Just that you ain't the only one of us that's ever been twenty-two," Soda says. "You're kinda the last one, actually. 'S a weird time."

"Yeah."

(She wants to ask, "What do any of you know? All of you were married by the time you were twenty-two.")

"But you're so … good, Veronica," Soda says. "I don't get enough of a chance to tell ya. Shouldn't matter, though. You oughta just know it like we do. Make your whole life easier."

He looks up at the tiny sliver of the moon with her.

"You're more than the moon," he says.

She tips her head at him.

"What?"

"Somethin' I used to say to my kids. Don't know what it means, really. Just popped into my head one night when Tuesday and Tiger were real little. They liked it, so I kept sayin' it. How about you?"

Veronica slowly beams. She feels more than the moon.

"I like it, too."

Soda smiles again and takes Veronica's hand. She turns her head toward him, but her eyes are fixed to the steps until he speaks again.

"Hey," he says. "Look at me."

So, she does. They lock eyes for a moment that goes on for a little too long. Veronica's not sure what it's supposed to mean to her. It's clear, however, that whatever it is means everything to Soda. He can't stop grinning.

"You got such pretty eyes," he says. "You know that?"

Veronica nods.

"Good."

Soda squeezes her hand one more time and walks off the porch. He stands on the sidewalk for a second longer.

"You take good care of your mom tonight, you got me?" he asks. "I know how sad she still gets when it's the end of Christmas."

Veronica laughs out loud.

"I will!" she calls out.

"Thatta girl, little lady. Good flight tomorrow, OK?"

"OK."

He gets into the car and backs out of the driveway. Veronica watches as he pulls down the street, but she stays out on the porch for a little while. There's not much of the moon out tonight. She's going to stay out and look at it, anyway.

This town, she's heard, was all about sunsets – soft purples and pinks all strung up with gold that everybody could share. Everybody had the same sunset, and it was beautiful. That's what Ponyboy said. Veronica is sure the sunset was lovely. She's just never been much of a sunset girl. Veronica wants to be the moon.


A few months ago, Veronica was in a seminar on comedy writing – a requirement for her minor in Film. One of the brassier students took a long sip of his tea and then said that part of the reason sitcoms are so appealing is because the predictable structure mirrors our predictable existences under capitalism. Everyone, including Veronica, nodded sagely and continued to scrutinize the structure of Full House.

She recalls the story about sitcoms and predictability two days after Christmas when she's sitting alone in her New York bedroom. Carrie Fisher died today. Elenore and John watch A New Hope in the living room. She thinks about that class and allows the sound of Han Solo's blaster to fall into the background. It's easy to say our lives are as predictable as a sitcom in a classroom. It's easy to doubt it when someone dies. Veronica knows she shouldn't be affected by a celebrity's death, and she isn't – not really. It just feels different when the celebrity's likeness was your first Halloween costume (and how proud Elenore looks in those pictures with baby Veronica on her lap, cinnamon buns resting on either side of chubby cheeks).

Plus, there's a strange, sticky feeling in her heart that has nothing to do with Princess Leia dying at all.

She grabs her laptop, sits back, and clicks around until she finds the right file. It's an outline for a movie she thinks she wants to make one day. Veronica still isn't over a desire to tell stories. She just doesn't know what to make them about. She hasn't lived enough to have anything to tell. Right now, her best idea is about her grandparents: On the night of her eighteenth birthday, Lucy Bennet catapults herself into adulthood by hooking up with the town bad boy. Two weeks later, they're married on a dare and blind to their own love for each other until the birth of their beautiful, accidental daughter. It's a great story. All of Veronica's professors say so. The problem is every time she sits down to write it, she finds herself jealous. Someone loved Lucy Bennet. He was gruff and stubborn about it, and to this day, he's never said it out loud. But he loved her then as he loves her now.

Lucy always says she's surprised anyone was looking at her. Girls with focus and intensity are usually threatening to boys their own age, she says. That's usually when Dally says something like, "I think you're forgettin' who you were dealin' with, Bennet. I ain't threatened by anything." Then they're insufferable for a little while, and Veronica thinks. She's intense and focused, too. If that's not what keeps love and sex and adventure out of her life, what is it?

Veronica is a few months away from graduation, and her life is every bit as predictable (and chaste) as an episode of Full House. The thought is discouraging enough to make her close her laptop, lie down, and look up at the ceiling. She hooks her headphones up to her iPod (still always within two feet of wherever she sits) and lies down with one ear bud in. It's "Bring on the Dancing Horses," and she wishes Jenny were here to talk synthpop (but Jenny and Cal are too busy making their own lives – one life together, really, if Veronica is honest. It happened exactly as she feared when they, too, were all just kids.). Her life is a three-act structure, and it hardly feels like a metaphor.

It's something of a thought exercise – predictability and death and Princess Leia – when it first comes to mind. It stops being a thought exercise when she hears her mother gasp from the living room.

"What?"

Veronica's eyes pop wide open. This is not a good what.

She runs out of bed and into the living room where Elenore is doubled over in John's arms, too shaken to cry. It looks like she might vomit instead. Veronica has never seen this look on anyone's face before, much less her mother's. Elenore is steel. She is her father's daughter.

It takes about a minute of screaming, "Mom! MOM!" to get any response. John finally hands Elenore's phone to Veronica without a word. It's Grandma and Grandpa on the other line.

Soda's dead.


In less than twenty-four hours, they're on a plane back to Tulsa. Veronica sits in between Elenore and John. In the middle of the flight, Veronica realizes she's never been on a plane to somewhere she doesn't really want to go. She almost says something about it to Elenore, but then she notices that Elenore is finally asleep. It's just as well. A few moments earlier, Veronica noticed that the whites of her mother's eyes had gone red. She hasn't been able to eat or sleep before now. She's dehydrated, too, because every time she tries to drink, she says the water tastes bad. Veronica knows better than to say anything, but she knows it's because Elenore threw up once and can't quite scrub the taste of vomit from her tongue.

John grabs Veronica's hand on the flight, which takes her aback. She looks at him, and she notices his eyes have the same goodness as Soda's did.

Did.

"She'll be OK," John says. "She's always OK. Right now, she's just feeling a little guilty."

"Guilty?" Veronica asks. "Why?"

John takes a breath like he can't say everything he wants to say. Veronica should be used to that by now. She isn't.

"Lots of reasons," John says. "She's not sure if she has the right to be this sad since Soda's got five kids of his own, and she was just his goddaughter. She's worried she didn't give you enough time with him."

Veronica's stomach turns itself up in knots. She hadn't even thought of that. Three days ago, she and Soda were standing on Sadie and Johnny's front porch (Oh, God, Sadie.), talking about how they were going to make things right – they were going to talk more. He said she was more than the moon. Now, she'll never see him again.

If Elenore doesn't have the right to be sad, Veronica certainly doesn't.

They were going to do something about their relationship. They were going to get closer. Sixty-eight isn't old enough to just get up in the morning, have a stroke in your kitchen, and die. Veronica will never see him again. It's a stupid thing to say. Veronica will never see him again, as though Veronica seeing him meant anything. She used to see Soda twice a year, three if they were lucky. But frequency doesn't matter anymore because she'll never see him again. Nobody will. They'll never hear him tell stories about how when he used to take the kids to the roller rink, you always knew the DJ had to go take a piss when he played "Nights in White Satin." They'll never hear him finish the story by singing "Nights in White Satin," only for Jane (Oh, God, Jane.) to playfully scold him because his voice is awful.

His voice was awful. It was.

They'll never hear his awful singing again. There's something wonderful about awful singing when it comes from somebody like Soda. But it's just gone now. Veronica sits on the plane and grieves for all the times she didn't get to hear it.

She rests her head back on the uncomfortable seat and tries to think. When the plane lands, she'll have to see a bunch of people she loves – people she just saw, people she just exchanged happy hugs with because it was Christmas. She'd wanted to see them then, even if it was an even-numbered Christmas, and even if it had to be in Tulsa. She's not sure she can look them in the eye now. Each one of them has more of a right to grieve than the last (and far more of a right to grieve than Veronica has at all). She's not sure she knows how to do that. She's never lost someone who was supposed to be close to her before. All of Veronica's losses were dealt before she was born.

She closes her eyes and thinks about the last person she wants to see when they get back to that shit town. It knocks the wind out of her, too. Normally, he's the first.

But Soda is dead now. In a world where that's possible, it's hard to believe anything was ever normal.

It feels profound, but Veronica knows it's not. She tries to sleep, though it doesn't work. All she can think is that from this window, she can't see the moon.


The next few days are blurry. Veronica realizes she hasn't had a full conversation with anyone since the plane landed. Darry's sworn a lot, and Lynnie has cried buckets because that's what Lynnie does. Earlier, Veronica tried to talk to Sadie, but as soon as she heard Sadie say, "I'm not a twin anymore," Veronica had to excuse herself. Her head was too light.

Jane manages to stay upright, which isn't much of a surprise. Between Jane and Soda, Jane was always the tougher one. Veronica hasn't had much of a chance to talk to her or even to see her. Steve and Violet flank her on either side with her daughters always orbiting the path.

Troy is nowhere to be found.

Just before the sun goes down on December 30, Veronica sits on the steps of Darry and Lynnie's porch. She wonders if a Tulsa sunset will feel different on a night like this. In the end, she doesn't even notice it. Jenny and Cal come walking up the sidewalk, arm in arm, instead.

It makes Veronica feel sick to see them have each other like that. She hates herself for it.

Jenny's eyes fix on her from across the sidewalk. They're softer than they should be. Veronica isn't even surprised anymore. Jenny's been getting softer and softer these past couple of years. It's the Randle in her blood, to be sure.

"Veronica!" she calls.

Jenny doesn't let go of Cal's arm when she darts toward the front porch. She just pulls him along with her. It takes everything Veronica has left in her not to roll her eyes. Jenny and Cal have been on and off for years, but since Jenny turned twenty last January, they've been on like nobody's ever been on before. Veronica wonders if that's appropriate for a funeral. She stares at them with blank eyes.

"Hi."

"We've been looking, like, everywhere for you all day," Jenny says. "We saw your mom and John a little while ago at … God, I don't even remember where we were now. We've been everywhere today. Cal, were where we when we saw Elenore and John?"

"With Jane," Cal says. "We were with Jane."

Veronica shrugs.

"Well, I guess you didn't look hard enough," she says. "I was in the backyard the whole time."

Jenny's face falls. She looks remarkably like Jane this way. For a moment, Veronica wonders if Jenny has more of a right to be sad about Soda. They weren't related, but Jenny is Jane's niece, and that has to count for more. Veronica's just some girl. It doesn't matter that she's Dally's granddaughter because Dally is the original Just Some Guy. They're not special. They only have a place here because Soda wanted them to, and he's dead now.

"Aww, hey, I'm sorry," Jenny says. "Things have just been … I think everybody's cloudy right now. You know?"

Veronica nods curtly.

"Sure," she says.

Jenny turns to Cal with worry in her eyes, and Veronica represses another urge to roll hers. She knows that look – a look couples give one another when they think they can communicate telepathically. She wishes she weren't jealous. She's not sure she can help it. No one has ever loved her, and now that she's nearly twenty-two, she's not sure anyone ever will.

It's a selfish thing to worry about when your godfather dies, but she comes from a selfish family.

Cal looks at Veronica, but he doesn't make eye contact. He's staring at her forehead. Veronica knows that move all too well. She's the master of it.

"My grandparents are looking for you," he says. His voice is scratchy. He's been crying (because he has the right).

"OK," Veronica says.

"Don't you want to know where they are?"

"Not really."

It's harsh, but it's true. It's not that Veronica doesn't want to see Pony and Carrie. She does. She just doesn't know how to see them. Soda was Pony's favorite brother, and Veronica loves Pony so much she's not sure she knows how to see him in pain.

She knows he's in pain, too. She can feel it.

(Why can she feel it?)

"All right," Cal mutters again. "Anything you want me to tell them? Anything you want me to tell Ponyboy?"

Veronica rolls her eyes.

"'If he wants to see me, you can tell him that I'm easily found,'" she says.

"OK," Cal says. "Do you have anything you want me to tell him that isn't Springsteen lyrics?"

Veronica rolls her eyes again. She stands up and heads for the door. Jenny finally lets go of Cal's hand and lunges toward Veronica, but Veronica won't let her. She's got a stubborn streak worse than anyone she knows.

"Veronica, come on," Jenny says. "Why're you … don't you want to come see Pony and Carrie?"

Veronica looks toward the sky. The moon is duller than it was four nights ago. She knows it's because it's the end of the month, but she doesn't care. It seems only right.

"I don't really know," she says. "Guess I'll see them tomorrow. Funeral and all that."

"You don't have to be like this," Cal says. "This isn't easy for anybody, you know."

But all Veronica can do is shrug. She's been angry with Jenny and Cal since she was seventeen. Soda being dead feels like a good excuse to act on it.

"Should be easiest on me," she says.

"What does that even mean?" Cal asks.

Veronica doesn't answer. She waves her hand over two of the people she loves most and walks through the front door. She swears she can hear Jenny whine a little, but she doesn't have time for it.


Lucy is right there, on the couch in Darry and Lynnie's living room. There's a photo album open on her lap. As soon as she sees Veronica, she pops up from her seat and wraps her in a hug. It's a little out of character. There's nothing like the death of your gang's heart to make everything go sideways.

No one and nothing is anywhere near Soda's spot on the couch.

"Hi," Lucy says. "I don't … when was the last time I saw you?"

"Couple of hours ago, maybe," Veronica says. "I think I saw you with Sadie."

Lucy nods, but it looks like she might faint. Veronica feels sick, too. She's never seen her grandmother look so lost or so hurt before. She's not sure she knew her grandmother could get hurt. Somehow, Lucy manages a smile and waves Veronica over to the couch.

"The hours have been running together," Lucy says. "I can't keep track of much."

"Yeah."

"Come on. Look at these pictures."

Veronica shuffles off to the couch, careful to avoid Soda's spot as much as she can. As Lucy turns the page of the photo album, Veronica can't help but notice that her grandmother's hands have gotten old. It makes her want to puke again, though she hasn't puked yet.

Elenore has been in and out of bathrooms so often for the past couple of days that Veronica hasn't been able to talk to her.

Lucy points to a picture of herself in between the twins. They all look to be about Veronica's age. There's a hand on Lucy's shoulder – unmistakably Dally's by the ring (his wedding ring, not the one he stole as a teenager, which Lucy still has). His face isn't in the picture. His face isn't in almost any of the pictures.

"That was Christmas in '70," Lucy says. She's smiling, and it's too big for the circumstances. "We'd just moved to the city a few months earlier, but we came back to see my parents. I think they'd have been crushed if we didn't."

She looks at the picture once more and laughs.

"Elenore was so confused," she continues. "She saw the houses and the people she knew, and she thought we were back for good. She cried for a week when she realized coming back here was temporary."

Veronica nods. Her mother always had a tendency to be that way – to look at Tulsa like it was made of anything else but bullet holes and bullshit. She's been better since Veronica was about fifteen. But the longer they spend in Tulsa, planning the one funeral that would always seem too soon, the more Veronica wonders if Elenore had a point.

"Soda told her he'd fold up in her suitcase really small, and she could take him back to the city with her," Lucy says. "He always told her that. She believed him, and I think he would have tried."

Her eyes fix on Soda in the picture. He's got such a grin. Veronica swears she recognizes it from more than just his face.

"God, he loved her so much," Lucy says, quieter now than she was before. "I knew he would, too, as soon as she was born. I knew it."

Out of almost nowhere, she slams the photo album shut and stands up. She inhales once, and Veronica wonders if she's about to see Lucy Bennet cry. But she doesn't. Lucy turns her head and darts out of the room. On her way out, she runs right into Dally, who's walking in.

"Bennet?" he asks. "What's goin' on?"

Veronica watches as Lucy shrugs her shoulders. She looks so helpless. Veronica has never seen her grandmother look so helpless (and without shame).

"I just shouldn't be looking at pictures right now," Lucy says. "When I look at them … this fucking picture is more than forty years old, but I swear, he looked the same the other night."

She inhales again, and Veronica watches as Dally grabs her hands. He holds them as kindly as he can. Lucy murmurs something to him that Veronica can't hear, but she still watches as Dally moves one hand up to Lucy's face.

"I got 'er," he says, loud enough to catch Veronica's attention. "You go."

Lucy nods and walks down the hall while Dally comes into the living room. He sits on the couch far enough away from Veronica so that she knows he's still the toughest guy in any room. Veronica knows him better than that.

He's close enough to let her know that she can talk to him.

She looks at her hands in her lap and takes a breath.

"Does it bother you?" she asks.

"Does what?" Dally asks back.

"That you never told him."

She feels her grandfather's eyes on her. It takes her a moment to turn her head so that she can meet them. He doesn't have the same goodness in his eyes as Soda did, but there's something there. It's so small that only Veronica can see it.

"Told him what?" Dally asks.

Veronica sighs and tears her gaze from him again.

"That he was your best friend."

Dally exhales just loudly enough. To anyone else, he would probably sound angry. Veronica knows him better than that.

"Naw," he says. "He knew."


It's Sadie who eulogizes her brother. They spent three and a half days trying to figure out who would do it when the answer had always been staring them in the face. Nobody knew him quite the same way. Jane was glad for Sadie to do it. She hasn't been able to let go of Steve and Violet's hands for days, and she knew if she had to step up to the pulpit and let go, she would have collapsed. It was better, Jane said, to hear from her husband's twin.

By the look on his face in the front of the church, Ponyboy feels differently. Veronica's not sure what to do with that, but it sits strangely in her chest for hours.

Sadie's eulogy is beautiful, which comes as a surprise to everybody but Lucy and Johnny (and Ponyboy). Veronica's heart snaps in two when Sadie says, "Once we came into the world together, I guess I always thought we'd leave it together, too." Maybe it's sappy. Maybe it's obvious. It doesn't make it any less true. Veronica realizes she must have had the same thought, too. Growing up, the Curtis twins always went together in her thoughts. When she spoke of them, they came out in one breath: SadieandSoda.

They won't go together in a single breath anymore. They don't even really exist. Veronica clutches the edge of her dress and tries not to cry. She doesn't have the right. She's just a Winston.

Elenore has barely opened her eyes.

There's music ("In the chilly hours of uncertainty …"), and it's over as soon as it started. Veronica wants to run up to Ponyboy as soon as it's over, but she can't. He's got to carry his big brother.


To have a funeral and a wake on New Year's Eve is too much of a metaphor, even for Veronica. She wonders what Pony has to say about it, but every time she looks for him, she gets lost. There are so many people at Jane's house. Everybody who ever met Soda loved him too much to let him go without saying goodbye.

She wanders aimlessly through the swarms of people – some she knows and loves, many she doesn't know at all. There's a little too much laughter for Veronica's taste. She's not sure why. She loved Soda, but everyone else in this house has a better reason to grieve him. They spent more time with him. They'll have time to miss. Veronica can't know what that's like.

Sometimes, she forgets where she is, and she even starts to look for Soda. She almost listens for his laugh. It never comes. The closest she hears to it is his daughter Tigerlily (more like him than any of his kids), laughing as she tells a not-that-funny story about the time her dad tried to convince the folks at Disney World that five-year-old Troy was big enough to ride Space Mountain.

Troy is still nowhere to be found.

Veronica wanders down the hallway where she finds her mother leaning up against the linen closet, chest heaving with silent sobs. To Veronica's surprise, it's not John who stands by Elenore's side, but Dally. Neither of them seems to notice that Veronica is there.

"I treated him like shit," Elenore says.

"You didn't," Dally says. "I don't wanna hear ya say it again."

"But I did. My whole life … I made everything he did about me. I wasn't even his kid. I'm yours."

"Ain't about me, so don't fuckin' make it that way. He could've said somethin' when you was still a kid. He didn't."

"Don't blame a dead man. Please."

"I'll blame whoever I want."

Elenore exhales, and so does Veronica. They still don't notice she's watching. No one ever notices Veronica is watching.

"We'd just been starting to treat each other like real adults," Elenore says. "Can you believe it, Dad? I have a godfather for almost fifty years, and we only spend six of them treating each other like real adults. How is that fair?"

"To you?" Dally asks. "Or him?"

Elenore sighs.

"I don't know."

"Yeah. Well. Better figure it out, then."

Elenore closes her eyes, and Veronica can't look at her anymore. Whenever her mother is in pain, Veronica feels it twice as much. She continues down the hallway when she hears music behind the same old bedroom door.

"You gave me life / show me how to live …"

Veronica's breath hitches in her throat. She doesn't even give herself time to think. She whips the door open and walks inside.


Troy Curtis lies on his childhood bed, turns his head, and looks at Veronica with a sort of bemused grin. It's almost like he was expecting her.

"Yes?" he asks.

He's not even mad that she's just stormed into his old bedroom, uninvited, and in the midst of his father's wake. He doesn't look to be much of anything. If Veronica didn't know better, she never would have guessed this man had just lost a parent. He looks cooler than a Curtis should.

Veronica's not sure what she wants to say. She wants to tell Troy she hates him – that she's not sure she saw him at the funeral, and by hiding out in his old room now, he's not proving anything to anybody except for that he's worse than an asshole because he's a parody of an asshole. She wants never have to deal with him again.

But that's not true. There's something about Troy that always makes her want to talk. Her question comes out too easily.

"Why did you hate your father?"

Troy grabs the remote and pauses the music. He sits up, plants his feet firmly on the ground, and looks Veronica right in the eye. She stares back at him. He's only thirty-one, but today, he looks old.

"I love my father," Troy says. "You know that."

"Then why are you hiding from him?"

Troy sighs and lies back down. Veronica wants to pull him back up, but it's no use. There's always a push and pull with Troy, and she never wins. He'll never let her, and she doesn't love herself well enough not to give up.

"I'm not," Troy says. "He's not here."

Veronica bites her lip from the inside and glares at Troy. He doesn't bother to look at her. He picks up the journal next to him and starts to read from it.

"Why were you looking for me, anyway?" he asks.

"I wasn't," Veronica says.

"Yeah, you were. You wanna talk?"

Veronica gulps. Yes.

"I don't …" she starts, and Troy sits up again.

"'Cause I don't mind talking," he says. "Not if it's you. You're just about the only person here who gets what this all means."

"What what all means?" Veronica asks. She has such little control over her curiosity. "Your dad is dead. What else is there to get?"

Troy raises one eyebrow at her, and it's enough to make Veronica want to run out of the room. It's also enough to make her never want to leave. Troy is a train wreck.

"I don't know, Veronica," he says her name like it means something she doesn't understand. "You tell me."

She takes a step back. She's not sure what he's trying to say, but she has a sharp memory of standing in Tuesday's shop with him from way back when (when she was fifteen and everything was clear, compared to now, at twenty-two). Maybe she should ask him now. He said he'd tell her if she wanted to know.

But she doesn't.

"I don't know," she says.

She expects Troy to let her go, but she isn't all that surprised when he doesn't.

"I know," he says. "You could, though. If you wanted to."

Veronica exhales softly and backs out of the room. Troy doesn't follow her. He never does. Since she was just a kid, he has loved to leave her twisting in the wind. Maybe that's what happens when your parents name you after Dallas Winston.

She's back in the hallway, still walking backwards. After a minute, she runs into someone she can't see – a man, she assumes, by the boniness. She figures it's probably Dally by the way he doesn't move an inch.

It's not.

"Hey, sweetie," Pony says. "You been runnin' away?"

Veronica turns around and tries to smile at him. She just can't. She can't be sad in front of Ponyboy, who looks so sad and so old that Veronica wants to close her eyes and forget it forever.

His grief makes sense. Veronica's doesn't. And now, she can't stop thinking about how she'll feel one day when the wake is his.

"Hi," Veronica manages. "I …"

She forgets the rest of the English language just by looking in Ponyboy's eyes. They're red in all the same places Elenore's are red, too. She makes a sound worse than a whimper, and Pony grabs her hand like it's something he's always done.

"You wanna come outside?" he asks. "Just you and me?"

On the inside, Veronica scoffs. Last time she went outside alone with one the fabulous, famous Curtis brothers, he died.

She nods anyway and follows Ponyboy out into the backyard where she's been a million times before. She's used to standing out there in the middle of summer, watching Pony watch the sunset because it still means as much to him in his sixties as it did when he was sixteen. It's cold today, but Veronica's pretty sure she could stand outside forever without a shiver. No one's body feels like it should on a day like this one.


In the backyard, Veronica spots Jane and Soda's lawn chairs, and she automatically thinks about the same-looking chairs Darry and Lynnie have had since they got married. She's not sure whether to laugh or cry. They shouldn't mean anything to her. She wasn't alive when they bought them, and she did not live here. But somehow, this shit town is a place she's always been. She's baked into these streets, and she didn't even ask to be. A long time ago, she didn't care. It didn't make a difference. It just does now.

Pony pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and lights up. Veronica looks at him with raised brows. He notices.

"I know I ain't supposed to be smokin'," he says. "But ya gotta hand it to me, just one day. Just buried my big brother. Gotta figure out some way to deal with it, besides throwin' up."

Veronica nods. She wonders why everybody keeps throwing up instead of crying. In a way, she understands. Losing Soda is just that sick. There's a small part of her that worries it's all for show. If you can throw up, then you loved him more than the person who just cried.

Maybe that's what Troy meant.

(It's not.)

"It wasn't a terrible funeral, as funerals go," Veronica says, and Pony looks at her like she's out of her mind. She swallows and starts again.

"I mean," she says. "Funerals are never, like, good. But … I haven't been to very many other funerals, but I've been to some really awful ones. Mom and I went to a Catholic funeral for one of her colleagues' wives. They got the priest to give her eulogy, and it was awful. He hardly knew her. He was improvising worse than a theater kid."

"Hmm," Pony says.

"So, I … at least we didn't have some stranger up there, talking about Soda like he knew him. That would've been awful. Better to have Sadie."

Pony takes a particularly long drag.

"Yeah," he says. "Sadie was good."

Veronica twists her waist a little. Her tights are getting uncomfortable, but she has to stand in them for a few more hours and look like she's got it together. She has to do it for Elenore, who's somewhere inside, trying her best not to cry. Veronica knows how hard it must be to bite down and walk through it. This morning, when Elenore tried to roll on her own pair of tights, she couldn't even bend. Never have there been this many Winstons looking so weak all at the same time. Veronica takes a deep breath and tries to be tough enough for all of them. What are they, really, if they're not?

"The song surprised me," she muses. "'Catch the Wind.'"

Pony looks at her with arched brows.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah. Soda never struck me as a Donovan kind of guy. A Dylan kind of guy, maybe, and a Van Morrison guy for sure …"

"That was me."

"Huh?"

"That was me. I was … I am … a Van Morrison kinda guy. Soda and Jane wouldn't-a known what to name Tupelo 'f I hadn't pointed to it. Ya know. 'Tupelo Honey?'"

Veronica nods.

"That's not … really what I was getting at," she says. "But I … yeah. Just never figured Soda for a Donovan guy."

Pony shrugs.

"Soda could listen to anything and love it like he made it himself," he says. Veronica can't tell if it's admiration or resentment. "Never wanted to make art worth a damn, but he knew how to feel it."

He takes as deep a breath as he still can, and Veronica realizes she never knew what kind of music her godfather liked – not for certain. She could make guesses, based on what he named his kids and what she saw him dance to every now and then. But she didn't know how he felt about music. She didn't know how he felt about art. She was going to learn. On Christmas Night, she stood on Sadie and Johnny's front porch, and she was going to learn. Soda said. Soda said, and now, he's dead. It's a fucking couplet, which Veronica has always hated.

She goes to say something, but Pony talks over her thoughts instead.

"Seems silly, don't it?" he asks, almost like he can read her mind. "Cryin' ourselves sick for a guy who lived a full life."

But Veronica shakes her head.

"Not at all," she says. "He … none of us were expecting it. He was still your brother."

"I know. I'm just thinkin'. He did everything he wanted to do. He married Jane, he had kids, he worked on cars. That was all he ever really wanted. To love people – to help 'em."

Veronica presses her lips together and thinks about the time Pony drove her home from their unofficial Princeton tour. He'd talked to her ad nauseum about how his first book wasn't what he wanted to it to be, since he had to whittle Soda down into a single trait, fit for a magazine cover. She never forgot it. She thinks about it now, as Pony stands here, hours after his brother's funeral, doing the same thing to Soda all over again.

(He's fucking dead. Give him a break.)

"Soda didn't leave no stones unturned," Pony says from behind the cigarette (that he probably thinks makes him look younger or cooler, though Veronica could assure him it does neither). "He did everything he ever wanted to – or needed to, really. This was enough for him."

Veronica looks at him like she can't believe him, but of course, he doesn't notice. She wants to ask him, "Why would you paint your own brother like a bumpkin when we're at his wake?" But she doesn't. By now, she knows Ponyboy Curtis better than she ever has, and she knows he doesn't take kindly to challenges.

She loves him, anyway.

"It's weird," Veronica says. "I keep thinking, 'I'm graduating from college in May, and he won't be around.' I know … I know it doesn't really make a difference, but it just feels like … if everybody else is around to see it, then he should be, too."

Pony nods, but he's not listening.

"Soda got to do everything he ever wanted," Pony says again, and it's even dumber this time around. "He didn't want for too much. But me … I always wanted more than I could do. 'S why I had to get outta here."

No, Veronica thinks. You had to get out of here because Carrie got into the Ph.D. program she wanted, and she's smart.

He looks at Veronica as though he's looking at a contemporary. Normally, she'd feel happy to be thought of that way. Today is different. Today has to be different.

"I ain't as young as I was, either," Pony says. "Me and Soda … there's only three years between us. Could be me in there. Should be me in there. I'm the one who's smokin'."

He takes the cigarette out from between his lips and snuffs it out under his shoe. Veronica digs her heels into the pavement, too. She's never felt the need to run away from Pony like this before. But today is different. Today has to be different.

"Makes ya wonder," Pony says, staring his shoes. "What're we really doin' with our time?"

Veronica sighs.

"I'm twenty-two, and I feel like I've been young all wrong," she says.

Pony looks up from the ground and locks eyes with her. It's an expression Veronica has seen before (and on more than just Ponyboy's face).

"I had a brand new baby when I was twenty-two," he says. "After that … all kinda starts to blur."

Veronica's gut turns to ire and confusion. She's not mad at Ponyboy – not exactly. She's never been mad at him – not exactly. Today isn't like most days. It's worse. There isn't a prettier way to say it.

It's obvious, by the look in Ponyboy's eyes; he's looking for one.

For a moment, Veronica takes a step back and scans the whole backyard. It feels like it should mean more to her than it does. It feels like she should have more than foggy memories of summers with Jane and Soda. But she doesn't. She has a vague memory of playing hide and seek with Willow and Rosemary on the Fourth of July when she was about four, but she's not even sure if it happened in Jane and Soda's yard or Lynnie and Darry's. Everything in Tulsa looks the same. It never used to matter. Tulsa was just a shit town. But when Soda's in its ground, how can it be shit? When Soda's in its ground, how is she not shit for treating it that way?

She almost says something to Ponyboy, but it's no use. He wouldn't listen. He's stuck in his own head (and worse than usual). She hears the back door creak open.

"Bug!"

Veronica turns around to see her grandfather in the doorframe. He glares – just not at her.

"Yeah?" she asks.

"Your mom's lookin' for ya," Dally says. "Doesn't want you to get cold."

She looks at him and nods once. Veronica knows how to translate by now.

I'm looking for you. I don't want you to get cold.

He can't say that (especially not in front of Pony, at whom he still glares), but Veronica knows him well. She can hear him better than any man in the world.

"Be right in," she says.

Dally mumbles and walks back into the house. Pony's eyes are still fixed on the door where he stood. Slowly, Veronica turns to face him one more time.

"Do you want to come in with me?" she asks.

She's not surprised when Pony shakes his head. He does whatever he wants.

"Not now," he says. "You go."

Veronica mutters something other than words and walks back into the house. She doesn't even bother to look back to see if Pony is looking for her. She knows he isn't.


Once she's inside, the minutes creep, and the hours whoosh. Today is the reason clichés exist. Veronica moves through a sea of people she knows dearly and people who write love in her birthday cards because they feel like they should. She passed around for hugs like a doll during show and tell. Katie Mathews pinches her cheeks and says she looks just like her grandma; her wife Marcia says she still can't believe ole Dallas Winston could have such a sweetheart for a granddaughter. Two-Bit comes around and reminds them all that he can't believe they still haven't been to ole Dally's funeral. For some reason, everyone laughs. Veronica feels fifteen years old again. All she wants to do is hide.

Eventually, she ducks out of the crowd and makes her way back down the hall. She slips into the bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror. Her green eyes are most striking when she wears all black.

She grips both sides of the sink and breathes through the rattling in her ribs. It hasn't been this bad since she was just a kid. As she stares at her own face, she realizes she doesn't want this to be a shit town anymore. She doesn't want to feel like a rag doll passed from old unfamiliar friend to old unfamiliar friend. She wants to feel the way this place is supposed to feel.

Veronica wants the right to be here.


Chapter title is from It's a Wonderful Life, because of course it is.

I sit here … wondering how I'm going to pull this off … now that I've killed the heart of this entire universe. I will pull it off the way I always do: with rich intertextuality and formidable work ethic. And just to be clear: Veronica is our sole point-of-view character this time around. In this house, we love Veronica.

As for the more obscure references: "Fairytale of New York" is a song by The Pogues. Rebecca and Marnie are both Alfred Hitchcock films, if the context wasn't clear (Rebecca was his first American picture; Marnie was toward the end of his life and career). Raiders is shorthand for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Johnny Guitar is a 1954 film by Nicholas Ray. "Nights in White Satin" is a song by The Moody Blues. It's only about four and a half minutes long, which isn't especially lengthy by today's industry standards, but it used to be. The Bruce Springsteen quote that Veronica gives to Cal is from "Darkness on the Edge of Town," which was definitely on the Ponyboy playlist I made at age thirteen. The song playing in Troy's room is "Show Me How to Live" by Audioslave.

Hinton owns The Outsiders. I own … can a woman own exhaustion? If she can, then I do.