TWENTY FOUR
We have three hours till my Dad gets home from work so I let Dean in through the front door and into the kitchen. I never imagined that a 'No Pinkettes Allowed' rule would ever affect me. In fact, I used to think that we needed one, especially when my mom invited the Pinkettes over for Christmas.
I still remember my twelfth Christmas, when my mom and Mrs Pinkette purposely made the seating arrangements all wrong. My dad was stuck next to Mr Pinkette and my stockinged leg was pressed up against Dean's trousers. Every time Dean or Mr Pinkette would speak my dad and I would have a silent competition about who could make the rudest faces. Even from across the table, I'd never felt closer to my dad than then.
Almost five years later I have to hurry with Dean so my dad doesn't come home and find him in our kitchen. I've already printed out some 'fortunes' and we get Nina to cut them into strips.
"I usually charge." She'd said as she trimmed the edges of the first strip into a perfect straight line, "But since Dean is involved, I'll let this one slide." He pulled one of her pigtails playfully. I just shook my head at her. I swear she'd do things for Dean that she'd never do for me (for free).
We lay out all the ingredients we bought on the counter and then I reread the recipe from my phone, while Dean checks and double checks that we have everything we need. Then we get working. I start by mixing the egg whites with the vanilla and other wet ingredients, just like the recipe asks.
"Are you sure this is the right recipe?" Dean peers over my shoulder.
I nod. "It better be." I look down at my bowl of eggs and compare it to the picture. It could be frothier. "If it turns out bad then I'm telling everyone you made it." I tell Dean and I'm only half joking.
"And if it turns out good?" Dean wants to know. He picks up my phone from the counter to look at the recipe. I'm instantly distracted, nervous that somehow he'll find out that we got matched up. He sets it down on the counter again and I relax.
"Then I made it and you helped." I answer him finally. Dean just laughs. He grabs another bowl and we work side by side, silently, mixing and beating, him with the dry ingredients, me with the wet ones, getting the batter perfect. My eggs are finally looking right.
"Would you past me the flour, Valerie dearest?" Dean says, his voice playful. I'm pretty confused by him calling me Valerie, but I say not a word, and hand him the flour.
"Thank you, Valerie."
"Uh huh. No problem."
Dean pauses and from my peripheral vision, I can tell he's staring at me. "What?" I say, not looking at him.
"You're seriously not going to acknowledge the fact that I called you Valerie?"
I turn to look at him, slightly amused now. "Nope." and then, because I'm just extra I add, "Pinkette."
Dean drops his spoon. "No way." He goes for the flour bag and pours some into his hand, "Say my name, Valerie." Dean threatens with a handful of flour. I narrow my eyes like, I dare you.
"Say it." he raises his hand high.
"No!" I shriek, as I realize that he wasn't joking. I laugh as it gets dumped on my head, covering me in flour for the second time for the day.
It's already evening when we finally pop the cookies into the oven. I set the timer and lean against the wall and Dean sighs and leans against the counter.
"Four more days till the dance." Dean says and I groan, because I'm tired of hearing it. Dean comes close. "Wait. You're not excited? I thought all the girls were. You should hear them."
"I hear them." I say, and wipe my hands on my jeans. It leaves two large flour streaks over my thighs, I should have known, "But me, not so much."
"Why?" Dean moves closer. He stands in front of me so my back is pressed against the wall and I can't escape his gaze. I'd never noticed the color of his eyes before, a shade of brown that's pretty when you really look at it.
I can't look away.
Wait.
I can.
What the hell was I doing, thinking Dean has pretty eyes? I shake my head and frown at him. I don't answer. "Let's clean up." I say quickly, putting my hand on his chest and pushing him away.
Dean leans away, finally and smirks at me, but his smile is gone when the sound of my dad pulling into the driveway is loud and clear. There's no more time for cleaning. He looks at me with his eyes wide, actually scared. It's almost funny to see his expression change so quickly, from confident to frightened. Quick, I shout to Nina to check the oven, then grab Dean's hand and pull him through the house towards the back door.
We're just in time, I think. Just as I close the back door behind us, I hear Nina squeal, probably as my dad lifted her up and the strained voice of my dad, because she's getting heavy. I turn to Dean, amused by the way he's looking at the door, like my father might emerge at any second and tackle him.
"See you tomorrow." I tell him. But when I think that I'm just going to watch him go into his house, he grabs my hand and pulls me with him, running across the front yard and onto the sidewalk.
"Let's walk." He yells back at me, although we're literally running. Running until we're way past our houses and half way down the street. Eventually we slow down and Dean lets go of my hand and sticks it in his pocket instead. We're heading towards the bay, I can tell, because there's not much in this direction anyway. I slip my hands into the pockets of my own jeans and look at the sky.
It's navy blue, I notice, the beauty of the sun set is long gone and the chilly air is nice on my flour dusted skin. My mind floats back to those seconds in the kitchen, where something truly terrible might have happened if I hadn't pushed Dean away from me. Something that might have shaken the universe, because I think Dean Pinkette was going to kiss me.
What the hell?
"What do you think he would have done?"
"Huh?" I stop looking at the sky and look toward Dean, then look away, because, you know.
"Your dad." He says, "What would he do if he caught me?"
Somehow I feel like he's referring to our almost kiss in the kitchen and not the fact that he, a Pinkette, was in our house in the first place. But I shrug and nibble on my bottom lip. "Kill you, I guess." I'm only joking, but I'm not so sure what my dad would have done to Dean if he had caught him in our house. And baking! Of all things!
Dean chuckles. "Kill you." He says, trying to imitate my voice. Then, "You say it like it's nothing."
I laugh with him and shrug again."Maybe it isn't."
He pretends to be hurt. We continue walking and Dean isn't saying anything for once so I speak up, to destroy the silence. "Remember when you basically shoved me off my bike?" I say and I fold my arms and bump into him on purpose. Dean bumps right back into me and he's so much stronger than me that I stumble a bit and nearly fall onto the street.
"That's not what happened." Dean says, helping me to steady myself. "You fell all on your own. And I actually felt really bad about it until you made all your little friends paint my favorite toy car glittery pink. I hated you for that."
I laugh, remembering. "We made it pretty!"
"You ruined it." Dean sounds amused, even if he gives me a mean look.
By now we're at the bay. It's an open space that some people like to go jogging or walk their dogs in the evening. It's crowded, always, with kids on their bikes and skateboards and roller skates and hands-free segways. It's almost like it's not in the same neighborhood we live in, although it's not more than a ten minute walk away.
We walk until we get to a little bridge, tucked away in the corner. It leads to the next neighborhood, the only route that's made only for bikes and feet. From the middle of the bridge, I watch all the little boats floating on the dark water, the buoys bobbing next to them and the twinkling lights all along the bay, the cars on the other side of the street. It's pretty and I'm actually glad I let Dean whisk me away like that.
I don't know why it feels like such a serious deja vu experience: The blur of lights, the sound of the water under the bridge, the bikes whizzing past us, Dean looking at me that way...
Dean looking at me that way!
My heart starts to pound. It's that same look he gave me in the kitchen but what it does to my body is 100 times more intense. I get goosebumps, instantly.
"Do I make you nervous?" Dean tilts his head at me and smiles a little.
He can tell. He can tell what he's doing to me. But before I have the chance to respond, to say no, he pulls me in and kisses me, perfectly and meaningfully and in all the ways he should not. I feel like I'm floating up in the air and I know I need to stay grounded or else I'll float away into the night. That's when I stomp on Dean's foot, as hard as I can, and push him away from me.
I grab the railing of the bridge and stare at him. "What did you do?" I whisper, my voice panicked. Was I dreaming? And what kind of sick nightmare was this? Dean just shrugs and looks at his foot, like it was only dirty and not like I'd just stepped on it with all my might and hopefully crushed his toes.
He runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know. I'm a romantic, remember." His voice is different. Unsure. He shrugs again, "And your eyes looked really pretty."
Your eyes looked really pretty.
This is a new Dean. A weird Dean I didn't know. My heart beat won't slow down. "You can't just do what you want because you're a--a romantic!" I yell this time and push past him. My lips still tingle as I speed walk, then jog away from the bay. Away from him.
I hear the sound of his footsteps but he keeps behind me, not saying a word. My mind is racing with thoughts I can't even decipher. Why was I mad? I mean, it was a terrific kiss. A really terrific kiss.
I can't think. As I walk I feel like we're still there on the bridge, with Dean looking at me that way, asking if he makes me nervous. It's only when we get in front of our houses again that Dean grabs my hand.
"Come on." He says, pulling me and making me face him. "Are you seriously mad at me? It was just a kiss." He looks confused. I guess he didn't think it would be such a big deal.
But it is. Because he's Dean Pinkette and I'm Valerie Blythe and we're not even supposed to talk, far less kiss.
"Yes, I'm mad." I say with a frown and leave him there. But honestly, I'm not. I am terrified. Terrified that in the moments before I got to my senses and pulled away, Dean would realize that I actually kissed him back.