reckless 【 the outsiders 】

four.

"I think you should go out with him," Leigh's best friend, Dorothy, suggests. Leigh groaned and rolled her eyes but Dorothy had her reasons. Leigh never went out. Her last boyfriend was almost as boring as she was and Dorothy always felt like Leigh needed something to take her out of her comfort zone, he may not be the right guy but it wouldn't hurt to hang out with him a little, give him a chance.

The pair sat in Leigh's small, bright room since Dorothy's home had no privacy whatsoever. While they ate the junk food she bought on the way home, Leigh gave Dorothy a debrief of what transpired the week before with Winston and everything else. Mostly Winston, though, seeing as it was the main thing going on in her life besides work, which is always the same. Like the majority of teenage girls, Dorothy's favorite subject was boys even though she rarely got any action of her own due to her tunnel vision that she gets with school.

"Why should I?"

"Well, for one," Dorothy held up a finger, "Everyone knows Dallas Winston, even me and I don't usually keep up with white boys besides your brothers. He always seems to get who he wants. He ain't gonna quit until he does. For two, he's pretty damn good-looking."

Leigh chuckled and couldn't help but agree, thinking about the way his hair looked the day he followed her from school. The way he smiled at her, which didn't seem to be overly cocky. When he hugged her from behind one day, she remembered examining his face up close before she pushed him away. She abruptly stopped thinking about it. "He is kinda handsome but that ain't the only reason you date someone. He's a rotten guy. What do you take me for?"

"Oh come on, one of the guys you hang out with is a drug dealer. Your brother's been arrested plenty of times."

"Why does everybody gotta bring up Bug? He's completely different than him. Why are you not on my side?"

Dorothy rolled her eyes and rested her head on her fist, flipping through the pages of her notebook, forgetting that she was supposed to be cramming for a test the next morning. "Because you're being too judgemental."

"You aren't the least bit worried?"

"What's to worry about, anyway? You can handle yourself." The girl sighed and Leigh watched Dorothy close her book and roughly throw it on the floor, exhausted. It was the fourth time that day that Dorothy had given up on school but Leigh knew she didn't mean it. "Do you think I have to finish school to be the next Dorothy Dandridge?"

"You really wanna use Dorothy Dandridge as your role model? She just OD'd," Leigh pointed out, now lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. She took a moment to wonder who else Dorothy could use. "What about Hazel Scott?"

Dorothy shook her head, "Pearl Bailey's more my type."

"Ain't she republican?"

Dorothy shrugged, "So is Sammy Davis."

Leigh nodded and gripped her sheets, remembering how badly she was doing in class. It usually doesn't bother her but she's a second-year junior now while Dorothy's getting ready to graduate. She wanted to be done with school the right way like her brothers were but could never find it in her to care about school. She blew a lock of her tightly curled, blonde hair out of her face and sighed. "Anyway, if you do quit school, I won't be too far behind. I'm failin' every single class except for Remedial English."

"That's 'cause you don't show up like you need to."

Leigh rubbed her head, sighing. "Why should I keep showin' up if it don't do nothing anyway? None of this is gonna help me. Fred Astaire barely went to school."

"I'm with you there, we should just cut out and go to New York, y'know?" Dorothy took the spot right beside Leigh on the firm bed, covering herself with the soft, warm blanket and looking up just like Leigh. "Or California. It's way different over there."

Leigh chuckled, "You got California or New York cash?"

"I got a little. You do too from your fancy hotel job."

The two rested their heads on Leigh's mountain of pillows, sighing and painted their perfect futures on the ceiling above, treating it as a clean sleight for the both of them in their own perfect little world. Leigh would be a dancer. She didn't have much of a voice so singing was out of the question for her. She imagined dancing with the best: maybe overseas, maybe with the USO, even Broadway.  She had the hotel gave her a bit of practice and always claims that when she's raised the right funds she'll really start to get into dancing as a career.

But they imagined packing their bags and being gone by morning.

Dorothy wanted to be an actress, she also played a few instruments on the side. She came from Mississippi and learned almost everything she knew from there including her love for theatre. She saw herself on a tour, singing for sold out arenas. She pointed at the sign with her name from her first big box-office hit. Leigh took a picture of it and Dorothy saved that instant picture for her children and grandchildren to see.

After what felt like hours of discussing their wildest dreams, it almost hurt that they'd soon have to get up, open their eyes, and face the real world, which was much uglier than either of them liked to really think about.

edited 12-27-21