Pamela loved going grocery shopping on Friday nights.

She purposely arrived at eight o' clock when she knew no normal person would be there. Most people in Tulsa used their Friday nights to go to football or basketball games or to recover from the work week at home, so this meant she was free to roam the aisles as she pleased, take as long as she pleased when smelling the different candles, and avoiding seeing people she knew in high school.

The store was cool and quiet at that hour; the kind of quiet that only exists in banks, libraries, graveyards, and your house before you put children in it. She could spend at least an hour in there without hearing whining or feeling someone tug at the bottom of her skirt.

As she steered the cart down the empty meat department, she sighed. Such bliss!

The feeling went away a bit when she got to the rice section and realized she couldn't get Darry's preferred kind off of the top shelf. Not just because she was tiny; she didn't mind stepping on the bottom shelf to give herself a boost up, but that behavior just wasn't a great idea when you're nine months pregnant.

The thing about being pregnant, though, is that you don't usually like to go anywhere that requires you to walk or stand for any amount of time. Though she tried not to complain too much, Darrel and Ponyboy both knew this and had, on multiple occasions, offered to go shopping for her, but the answer was always no. It wasn't that her husband was careless; he was always more than happy to make the trip for her, but whenever Darrel went to the store alone, he always came back with far too few vegetables and far too many boxes of chocolate cake mix. If Ponyboy had done the shopping by himself, he would have found something interesting in every aisle or spent too much time reading every. single. magazine. and then the groceries wouldn't be home in time for breakfast the next morning.

The compromise she had made with the men in the house was that she could shuffle around in her slippers, leaning on the cart, while Ponyboy followed her around like a puppy, reached things on the high shelves, and gathered up the rest of the items on her list. All she had to do was carry her list and boss him around (because the girl loved telling people to do the things on her lists more than she loved actually making them) and then give him her credit card. While he paid, she waited in the car, and then he brought the bags outside, packed them into the trunk, and then carried them into the house. It was a great arrangement; Pamela was able to get everything she needed but not have to do any of the work in obtaining it, and it gave Ponyboy a boost of confidence to take care of his sister-in-law.

Though this arrangement worked much better than sending Pony to the store by himself, it didn't stop him from finding fascinating things like clearance books and strangely colored Jell-O, so every few aisles Pamela had to call his name to come back to her.

The fluorescent lights paired with the dark night outside the windows gave the store a strange, other-worldly feeling, which made Pamela feel a little sick. She was so glad she didn't have to weave her cart around people having deep conversations in the middle of the aisle because she just wanted to get out of there. Trying not to look at the lights, she searched for Darrel's preferred type of rice. The man was very picky about his rice.

She groaned when she realized the rice had been moved from the middle shelf to the top. Glancing behind her, she noticed that her brother-in-law was nowhere in sight. Her fingertips barely brushed the bag when she rose up on her tiptoes, and she winced a little as she came back down. It was about a half a second before she was about to call the boy's name when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Let me help!" said a girl who seemed to be the embodiment of Pippi Longstocking herself. Long, loose braids stuck out behind her head, and she was decked out in a black jumper dress, a green cardigan, and knee socks with patches on the ankles. Freckles covered a face that was still trying to hold onto the tan from summertime, and she had long, skinny arms and legs. Pippi was quite a bit taller than Pamela, and started to reach up for the rice.

"Don't worry, dear, I can just call my errand boy." She grinned a little at Pippi's confused face, but then the girl shared a smile.

"Wow, where did you find one of those?"

"Well, all you have to do is marry a mama's boy with a couple of brothers, and one of them is bound to do the trick," Pamela joked, craning her neck to see if Ponyboy was coming down the end of the aisle. He wasn't.

Pippi stood up straighter and looked around, craning her neck too for a sight of this errand boy. "Does yours have any available brothers?"

"I guess the one who's with me is available, but he's already my errand boy. You seem friendly enough though, I suppose we could share." Pamela was not one who normally made friends with random strangers in the grocery store (mostly because when she went, there were hardly any people to be found) but she just felt like this girl was good friend material, and she stuck out her hand. "My name's Pamela." She was sure this girl's name couldn't be Pippi, but part of her hoped.

"Nice to meet ya! I'm June." The redhead shook her hand and smiled back at her. "Now, where is Available Errand Boy? I'm not sure if I'm interested in sharing him if he's slacking on the job."

Pamela leaned against the cart, stretching her back, her belly bulging out in front of her. "Ah, I guess I should tell you, he can be very absentminded and he can't be trusted to run errands on his own, so you'll have to go along with him."

"Hmmm," June thought aloud, tapping her chin.

"Yeah, I know. But the nice thing is that he's tall and a little brawny, so I like to take him places where he can carry things or reach tall shelves."

All joking aside, June was beginning to like the sound of this errand boy; she was rather tall for a girl and had always wanted a boy who was taller than her, and she liked the idea of him being a little brawny, because then he could take her to concerts and she could sit on his broad shoulders. Maybe he even looked like Dirk Benedict; that was a plus, but not a deal breaker. She studied Pamela for a second and thought that it might be fun to have her as a sister-in-law.

June, you're getting carried away, her brain told her. Boys are dumb, remember? And not only that, in that science magazine, it said that their brains aren't even fully developed until they're twenty-eight.

But MAYBE, she tried to tell herself, maybe this is Pamela's husband's OLDER brother. He might already be twenty-eight or even older. She winced a little bit; she didn't want a man who was more than five years older than her. A girl she knew from the bank, Jacquelyn, was dating the bank manager, a nice man who was EIGHT years older than her. He was practically geriatric.

Shaking these thoughts away, June asked, "Well, does he come when you call?"

Pamela smirked at her. This girl might be too sassy for Ponyboy, but she would certainly be a fun friend to have around. It got lonely hanging around the house with just five-year-olds all day, and she loved the idea of someone just coming to sit at the counter and talk while she made lunch or folded laundry or chased the girls around. Most of her girlfriends had their own little families now, and they didn't always have time to talk on the phone or do playdates. Also, on multiple occasions, the twins had overwhelmed and scared off the fancy-nancy children with names like Liam and Victoria. Pamela remembered Sodapop's antics and felt sad as she realized the new baby would never meet his uncle.

She shook those thoughts away and sized June up. Maybe this girl would be able to handle the craziness of the Curtis household, and maybe Pamela would have someone to talk to who wasn't five or a man. "Let's see!" She made a megaphone around her lips and called, "PONYBOY!"

Pamela frowned when she saw June turn white underneath her tan, and wondered if she was feeling ill, too. But then when Ponyboy, loping sheepishly, came down the aisle, then stopped in his tracks, she grew confused.

"Well. Well. Well," was all June said.

Ponyboy gulped.

"You know, I've been wondering when I would hear that name again," she said, taking a few steps toward him. "But I never thought I would hear it from a new friend I made in the grocery store. I thought I'd maybe hear it from...I don't know...Alice? Alice Orman? The girl you couldn't stop staring at through The Music Man and through most of West Side Story?"

Ponyboy gave a large wince at that, and June chuckled. "Yeah, that's right. I saw you." He blushed, and she quickly said, "I thought it was cute, and she did too, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm mad at you. You got her hopes up and I gave you the tools to seal this deal, to get to know her better, and you haven't done anything with them, have you?"

Pamela was very curious about what kind of tools June was talking about, who Alice Orman could be, and when Ponyboy could have ever watched a musical in his life, but she suddenly remembered walking past the bathroom door and hearing him sing "Tonight" in the shower, and then noticing him whistling "Seventy-Six Trombones" as he peeled potatoes for her. As much as she desperately wanted to pry, she also loved drama, so she smushed herself against the burlap bags of rice so she would blend in and not be noticed.

June knew the score, and she could almost hear the gears turning in Ponyboy's head as he tried to craft a response. She knew, without a doubt, that his next words would be-

"I'm sorry." And he looked it. His brows were furrowed and her green eyes did not look at the ground but bore into hers, pleadingly. At that, June lost her tough exterior, because dumb boys never looked that sorry, and she knew somewhere in her heart of hearts that the boy really did want to go see Alice. She didn't know this, but he carried that note around in his pocket every day (not just his wallet-he physically picked it up and put it into his pocket every morning) even though he already had its contents memorized. She didn't know that he drove past the diner every morning as he took the long way to work, knowing she was there if it wasn't on a Monday. She didn't know that in the morning, he stood in front of the mirror, wearing nothing but a pair of too-long pajama bottoms, practicing what he was going to say if he finally made his move.

Just that morning, Ponyboy had been thinking and decided that hello was too formal, hey was too juvenile, and salutations was too King James Bible, so that didn't leave him with a lot of greeting options. He personally didn't mind starting a conversation without beating around the bush-small talk was uncomfortable and a waste of time. He would rather dive into deeper things, like books that have shaped her life, or what she thought about the long war that had just ended. He felt more comfortable with that.

But did Alice?

Ponyboy didn't want to explain all of this to June-she was already peeved at him for not following the instructions on her note. It had been nearly three weeks, and there was no excuse. "I really want to see her, I just...don't...know how to do this." He sighed heavily. "How do you even know that she would be happy if I just showed up at her work to see her? I'm practically a stranger."

Pamela, whose lip was so sore from being bitten, wanted to interrupt this with so many questions, but she held her tongue. She hoped June would have a response that would clear some things up for her.

June thought quietly for a moment before she spoke, which was a first for her. Flashes of the pink wall with "BUT FIRST, YOU" scribbled onto it with dark pencil, the accidental timely arrival to the movies just so Alice wouldn't miss him, and of course their multiple drives past the movie house every week in order to stay up to date on any midnight showings. All of those things would have answered his question, but might have overwhelmed him, so June just stuck with, "I live with the gal. I know. Can't ya just trust me?"

"Well, I hardly know you."

June blew her bangs off her forehead in frustration. "Ponyboy, what reason have I given you NOT to trust me?"

Begrudgingly, Ponyboy acknowledged that with a shrug of his shoulder. He blushed a little and quieted his voice when he asked, "But what am I supposed to do first, when I get there? I know, that's probably a stupid question, but I don't even know her-"

"Would you like to, though?"

Pamela got goosebumps when she saw Ponyboy's eyes widen seriously, and he softly said, "Yes."

"Then just say hi." June hopped over to Pamela and gave her a hug. "And with that, I will leave you. Goodbye, new friend. As long as Ponyboy does his job-" she threw a look at him over her shoulder "-I hope that Alice and I will be seeing a lot of you."

June leaned closer to Pamela's ear and said, "Please, PLEASE. Whatever you do, make sure he goes tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to keep this a secret for long." Walking backwards, she looked at Ponyboy, pointing a threatening finger toward him. "I'll be expecting to hear your name again tomorrow, this time, from Alice's lips." With a flip of her braids, she was gone.

Pamela turned to her brother-in-law and pointed at the rice still sitting on the top shelf. Avoiding her eyes, Ponyboy grabbed it and set it in the cart. "Well, Pony, I would like to have a talk, but I think you need to go see this Alice first before that happens." As much as she wanted to poke and prod and squeal, she kept quiet, and as they walked to the end of the aisle, she slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his arm. She knew he had thinking to do.