Author's Note: Hey, all! This story right here is a multi-chapter collaborative effort between AndThatWasEnough, lulusgardenfli, and This Is Melodrama. You'll be seeing some familiar faces, noting some crossover, and hopefully feeling some feels. That's about all we are at liberty to say.

Disclaimer: We do not, absolutely do not own SE Hinton's The Outsiders (though, sometimes we wish we did). We also do not own any recognizable or quoted material. We're just playing in the garden.

Happy reading :)

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"I am always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though." – J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

There were rumors circulating about Miss Tracy, the eleventh grade English teacher, some of which were quite colorful. The most popular ones were that she had a beatnik boyfriend, or that she was some underground beathouse poet, or perhaps even a communist on the run. When seen out and about town, she was reported to dress like Audrey Hepburn, in cigarette pants and ballet flats and cat-eye sunglasses. She looked like a normal woman in school, however, with the same pleasant smile that many young teachers have, and she was well-liked amongst the students because she was the easiest grader of all the English teachers, and the boys noted that she was the prettiest – much prettier than ol' Mr. Hillenberg or Mr. Syme.

The truth, though, to Tulsa's own bohemian, was that she probably just had a few different ideas. She wasn't a communist or on the lam. She was no poet. And she hadn't had a steady boyfriend since high school. The truth was that Miss Tracy was a woman with a passion for good books, and she wanted to share that. But none of that was interesting. It was the private life that was interesting to her students. And the rumor mill always needs help spinning.

The day Miss Tracy assigned The Catcher in the Rye to her class, she continued to be blissfully unaware of the tensions boiling underneath the surface. What is obvious to some is hidden to others, sometimes in plain sight. The boys were always so rowdy – the ones in the leather jackets with slicked-back hair always seemed to be at odds with the ones in the solid-colored sweaters and shined shoes. But with the girls, the rivalry was played out in near silence; psychological warfare. Nasty rumors and snide remarks.

Isn't that how it was everywhere? It was no different here. It didn't mean any more than it did anywhere else. Girls will be girls, just as boys will be boys. They will giggle and tease and scour their fashion magazines and the gossip columns and worry about who's going to be prom queen. It was that way all over America, and surely Tulsa was no different.

But, no. It was oh so different in Tulsa.

XXXXX

"…Alright. You were expected to read chapters one through three last night for homework. For today, I've assigned you a group to discuss the questions I have written out on the board. We'll reconvene in roughly fifteen minutes, discuss as a whole, and then I'll assign you your independent projects. Your groups are listed on the board. Sit where you like, but stay in the classroom."

Miss Tracy finished giving her instructions and moved away from the chalkboard to sit at her desk and grade Tuesday's grammar test. Evie scanned the board for her name, and rolled her eyes when she found it. Just her luck. Lucy Radner was such a bore, and so were those two dopey jet-set boys. And then that Bridget Stevens girl apparently had a stick up her ass – Two-Bit Mathews had said so. Evie sighed and stood up, already mentally preparing herself for any bullshit they threw at her, which was essentially a given. The boys weren't even the worst part – they just stared at her. It was the girls who always talked about her and her friends (if you could call girls like Kathy and Sylvia friends) behind their backs, and gave them funny little once-overs and then giggled. It was bad enough when Evie would stand side-by-side with one of them in front of the bathroom mirror, both trying doggedly to ignore each other, but each taking little glances, silently judging. Whores and prudes, the lot of them, when you boiled right down to it.

Meanwhile, Bridget had floated over to where her group was congregated, book clutched tightly in hand. Meeting people was still hard. She was only just getting to know the girl she sat next to, Lucy Radner. Lucy was nice enough, but Bridget liked Missy Redar, the girl she sat next to in history, better, as well as Missy's friends. She'd probably like history class better, too, if it weren't for those two awful boys that sat behind them. But English was bearable. She liked The Catcher in the Rye. What it really did was make her miss New York. Tulsa was no New York. There was no Central Park. No Radio City Music Hall to go see concerts at. Just dust and heat and old men in bolo ties and cowboy boots. The book left her with an ache in her chest.

She sat down gently in someone else's chair in the back corner of the classroom and sighed a bit shakily. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to be the new girl anymore. Lucy sat down next to her and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Just our luck," Lucy whispered to Bridget. "Evie Martin's in our group."

Bridget raised a confused eyebrow. "What's so wrong with that?" She whispered back.

"I keep forgetting you're new," Lucy sighed. "Just look at her," she mumbled, her eyes darting towards Evie, who was making her way over to their group.

Bridget looked at her. She decided that Evie was pretty. But on closer inspection, she began to see what it was that Lucy must have been talking about. Must be something about that class war that was going on down here. Like West Side Story, but dumber. Evie's hair was ratted high. (Bridget self-consciously fingered her long, frizzy hair, painfully aware of how untamable it was, how it must look next to Lucy and Evie's shiny, smooth locks.) She wore a neatly-hemmed bright pink dress that came up well above her knee. (Bridget figured she must look like a little schoolgirl in her knee socks and saddle shoes, and realized that boys probably looked at Evie and thought of her as a woman.) The heel on her shoes was at least an inch too high to look comfortable. So, yes, Evie was pretty. But there was another word for her that was coming to mind, but Bridget refused to say it, even in her head. Evie sat down and smoothed her skirt, looking coolly at the rest of the group. Rodney cleared his throat and looked at the board. There were only two questions:

What do you think of Holden's voice?

What have you noticed so far that is grammatically unique?

"Alright," he mumbled, then cleared his throat and read, "'what do you think of Holden's voice?'"

Lucy was the first to speak up, never one to fear speaking her mind. "In my opinion, Holden is too vulgar for my liking. And a pest, too. I couldn't put up with someone like him, honestly," Lucy said.

Evie fought the urge to roll her eyes. Everyone knew that's not what "voice" meant. Even Evie. She wasn't stupid. It had to do with more than just swear words. And just because he was too vulgar for Lucy Radner's liking didn't mean anything. Lucy was a prude and a bore and it made sense to Evie that she didn't get it. She didn't get anything.

"Well, I like 'im. I like Holden just fine. He speaks his mind. Ain't that a good thing?" (Of course that was a good thing. No one liked a spineless pansy.) "And I don't mind him swearing either. Just who he is, I guess."

The boys sort of shrugged, like they might have agreed with her if those other two girls weren't sitting there. And speaking of them, Bridget and Lucy watched Evie closely, like they were calculating something, and Evie allowed for the silence in the group to challenge them to say something to that, something snarky and smart like she knew they wanted to. And it seemed like they were going to just move on before that new girl said,

"That isn't a surprise, Evie. I mean, listen to you. You're basically the female Holden Caulfield."

That got a few laughs, and Stevens seemed to momentarily bask in their praises and the glory of her one-liner. Look – Evie had certainly had worse. But Jesus, even the new girl? They'd already gotten to her, too? Something sank into her stomach – maybe it was her heart – as she listened to their giggling. Evie glared at Bridget, and had to resist softening at the timid look in her eyes and her shaking hands.

Evie tuned out the rest of the discussion, knowing they didn't care if they heard her or about what she had to say, even though she had plenty to say. It's just that nobody ever wanted to listen. So she buffed her nails as she sat in her seat at the back of the class, filtering out her classmates' bullshit "insight" until the class seemed to still and Miss Tracy lifted a large stack of books – really a small library – onto her desk. There were a few murmurs amongst the class as Miss Tracy stood looking pleased before them.

"I'd like to make you all aware that our next project after this will be with partners, which I've already decided. It's another reading project, and I've already decided which book you'll each be reading."

The boy next to Evie raised his hand high. "Miss Tracy, aren't we all reading the same book?"

Miss Tracy smirked. "Not at all. In fact, Kevin, you'll all be reading something different." She took a book from the middle of her large stack. "And you, Mr. Anderson, will be reading Steinbeck," she said, and plopped The Grapes of Wrath in front of him and returned to the front of the classroom, a pleased look on her face and her hands clasped in front of her.

"The idea of the next project is to make comparisons. As you're all reading different books, none of you will have the same characters or plotlines, but that doesn't matter – you're looking for those universal things. Themes, grammatical stylings, motifs, archetypes. The possibilities are really endless! And you and your partner are going to find those universal things between your two readings. And speaking of partners, the partnerships are as follows…" She began, and Miss Tracy read from her list. Evie didn't really listen (She rolled her eyes when Lucy and Bridget were paired together, and nearly gagged at the excited, smug look they shared.) Actually, she was really thinking more about how she felt bad for Miss Tracy in a way. She was so young and enthusiastic about everything, always trying new things. Eventually, she'd probably get tired of all that, which would be a real shame. Someone would eventually catch up to the fact that The Catcher in the Rye was widely banned and really give her an earful, and that'd be that.

Evie's ears finally perked up when Miss Tracy read, "Evelyn and Ella."

Ella. Ella. Who's Ella? Did Evie know any Ellas? She looked around the room until she met eyes with a freckly, bushy-haired girl who gave her the tiniest of waves. Evie gave her a small wave back. So this was Ella. She looked a bit familiar. Maybe they'd shared a class before. And Evie thought she recognized her from the grocery store on Sutton.

Miss Tracy began passing out books after she finished reading the pairs. Evie couldn't help but feel marked when The Scarlet Letter was placed on her desk, staring up at her like an accusation. When Evie moved to sit next to Ella for the duration of the project, Ella showed her the copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that she'd been given.

"I think I saw the movie of that," Evie told her. "It was good." Ella just shrugged.

"I don't know anything about it," she said. "When can you meet? I have work."

"Me too. Weekends are fine," Evie said easily. "But not nights. I usually go out."

Ella nodded her head and made a note of that, and Evie wondered if Ella ever went out on Saturday nights.

XXXXX

Bridget couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach. How awful she had been! Ugh! She flopped onto her bed, feeling useless and gross in a way that had nothing to do with her physical health. She was always opening her mouth at the dumbest of times and saying the stupidest of things. Bridget just wanted to fit in – was that really too much to ask? And she'd never fit in with girls like Evie, with their short hems and high hair and cakey makeup. That was too far for her. That was too big a change. So she'd keep on wearing her knee socks and saddle shoes and dresses (the one she'd worn today really was nice – red really was a nice color for fall), which would keep Dad from looking at her askance.

But the truth was, Bridget never really fit in anyway. She'd tried. Oh, she'd tried. She'd dressed decently and was always hyper-conscious of her skin and nails and teeth and just being clean. She'd suffered through manners courses that their old bat of a neighbor told Dr. Stevens "were absolutely necessary for a young woman" in order to even begin to function in society. Which was – pardon her French – bullshit. Nothing in that course had prepared her for the complete and utter wilderness of girlhood and the fact that no matter how polished she was or how well she could play piano and how many books she'd read and how much she squealed over the Beatles, she didn't fit. Her hair was too frizzy and her eyes were too big and she knew she was small and spoke that way.

God, she thought (prayed?), I don't know if you're there, but if you are, would you mind giving me a spine? Or maybe telling Two-Bit Mathews to stop smiling at me that way and tapping my shoulder? Maybe tell Evie I'm sorry for me. I was stupid for saying anything. I just want to fit here, somewhere, anywhere!

"Bridget!"

Bridget shot up. Her father didn't sound mad, so that was good. She hopped off her bed and ran down the stairs, her stocking feet slipping slightly on the hardwood. Her father was waiting at the bottom of them. Dr. Stevens was a dignified man that wore clothes Bridget could only describe as professorial, and glasses. His black hair, which he'd given to his daughter, was greying. If she had to compare, Bridget would probably say he looked like a more tired, slightly less handsome Christopher Plummer. (God, The Sound of Music was a great movie.)

"Yeah, Daddy?" She asked, hand gripping hard on the banister. Dr. Stevens cleaned off his glasses.

"I forgot to mention – someone left a message for you earlier."

Bridget's eyebrows shot up. "A message?" She repeated. Shit, no one ever left her messages. "What about? When? Who was it from? What did they say?"

Dr. Stevens smirked but waved her off, putting his glasses back on. "A young woman named Missy Redar called. She said she and a…Cherry…were wondering if you were free this weekend."

"Really?" She asked. Another first – someone asking if she was free for the weekend? "Of course I am. Did she leave a number? So I can call back?" She asked, hoping not to sound too eager. Her father nodded.

"Left it by the phone. Bridget, honey, if you don't mind my asking, how are things going?"

Bridget shuffled her feet, feeling a bit awkward and unsure how to answer. Before she came to Tulsa, all she knew of Oklahoma was what she'd gleaned from the Rodgers and Hammerstein play, so not much. She wasn't expecting all of this, for her money to get her this far. To be told she's supposed to look down on the kids from the other side of town, like God himself had decreed it. And that wasn't the only thing. But she couldn't explain all that to her father.

"Fine," she said simply, shrugging. "I'm meeting people. Like Missy and Cherry, they're really nice. I like them. We all sit together at lunch with these other girls, Marcia and Vickie and Penny. They're nice, too." Bridget tried to give her father a reassuring smile. "It's really fine, Dad. Really."

It really wasn't fine, not exactly, but she wasn't completely lying. She did like those girls. And her heart was pounding with excitement at the idea of Missy and Cherry calling her house, wondering if she was free for the weekend. Did that mean a sleepover? She'd have to ask when she called.

"Alright," he said gently. "Good. I think you have a call to return."

They smiled at each other, and Dr. Stevens patted his daughter's back as she ran off to make a phone call.

XXXXX

Someday, Evie was going to be a hairdresser. And someday after that, she was gonna be the best goddamned beautician in all of Tulsa. She was gonna do hair and paint nails and do amazing things for ordinary-looking – maybe even ugly – women.

But, she thought glumly, scowling at her sudsy hands as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister, washing dishes, that day is not today.

"You're quiet," her little sister, Beth, observed. "What's up?"

Evie rolled her eyes and blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Nothin'. Just that this is disgusting. I hate doin' the damn dishes."

Beth giggled. At fourteen, Beth had, of course, heard pretty much every swear word in the book, but she still blushed and giggled almost every time she heard one, especially when Evie used them. What a doof. But Beth was the easy sister. Evie put in her work at her mother's salon and helped around the house and the hospital, but she also liked to go out, and she knew what those looks her mother sometimes gave her meant. They meant, Dammit, Evelyn, would it kill you to wear a longer skirt? The answer was yes, yes it would.

"Hey. Hey, Evie."

"What."

Evie turned to Beth, who then proceeded to flick her wet, soapy hands in her face. Evie sputtered and spit, glaring at her sister, who thought she was the funniest damn person on the planet. Funnier than Johnny Carson and Bob Newhart combined. "Ha, ha," she deadpanned.

"I'm so funny," Beth said loftily. Evie just shook her head and moved a stack of plates into the cabinet. The house was quiet with Daddy out working, leaving Mama with no one to talk to while the two of them did up the dishes. Mr. Martin worked a couple jobs. Tonight he was a janitor over at the university. "Hey, Evie."

"What now?"

"Did you ever have Mr. Syme?"

Evie let the cabinet shut with a soft thud and narrowed her perfect brows at Beth. "Mr. Syme? For what?"

"Freshman English."

"No," Evie answered quickly. "But doesn't Ponyboy Curtis have him?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "He's in my class. He'd be no help."

"No help with what? Some project?"

"No," Beth pouted. "I just happen to think he's annoying."

"Yeah, well, most of them are like that," Evie shrugged, shooting her sister a smile. But then it faltered. While they were on the subject of English class…"Hey, Beth?"

"Yeah."

"You ever…well, you ever think I'm…well. D'you think I'm a whore?"

Beth snorted in surprise. Evie scowled. "Um. No?" She tried timidly. "Gee, Evie, I dunno. I mean, you've really only ever been with Steve." She shrugged. "I don't think you're…easy."

Evie nodded and leaned against the counter, dishrag in hand. She trusted Beth – she did. But ever since Miss Tracy had placed The Scarlet Letter in front of her, something had been bugging her. Evie had heard what that book was about. That Hester woman was some whore, or something. And she knew it was probably just a coincidence that Miss Tracy had given her that book, but she also couldn't help but think that Miss Tracy knew something about her, or thought she did. She really wasn't that much older than her students. Maybe she thought…oh, she didn't know. All Evie knew was that it gave her an odd feeling, and she hadn't even started reading it yet.

"Evie? Evie, I meant it. I really don't think you're a slut. Ya just dress like one."

Evie shot her sister a look, and Beth looked like she was working real hard to keep in the laughter. "Yeah, thanks, skeeze," she said, snapping her bottom with the dishrag, making her yelp, and then Beth chased her up the stairs to their bedroom.

"That hurt!" She cried, chasing Evie as she laughed. Beth chucked a pillow at her. "You're so mean to me," she pouted, rubbing her backside.

"Yeah, yeah," Evie laughed, picking up her book off the nightstand and beginning to read aloud. "Listen to this: 'A throng of bearded men, in sad–coloured garments and grey steeple–crowned hats, inter–mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.' Jesus, I'm already bored."

Boring worked. If she could get through this book and the worst that could be said for it was that it was boring, she could deal with it. But she wouldn't be able to deal with it if she suddenly started identifying with it or some shit.

Because then that would mean she really might be a whore.

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AN: Thank you so much for reading. Stay tuned!