DEAN GREW UP ON A FARM in Ohio so distant from anything that the Amish came there to “get away from it all.” Even people from Cincinnati thought he lived in the sticks. The general opinion in the countryside was that if you could hit your neighbor’s door with a .22 rifle then you were “boxed-in” and “might as well move to the city and wear pantyhose,” as Dean’s mother used to say.
For reasons not unrelated to women’s hosiery, his parents eventually moved to northern California. After his graduation from college, Dean chose to live in Sunnyvale, the safest splotch in the vast and violent sprawl of the Santa Clara Valley. The fact that the firefighters of this enterprising municipality were all sworn police officers and carried firearms was the prime reason for the security, in Dean’s opinion. Even more critical than that critical fact, it was where Dean’s roommate slash girlfriend lived, and that meant he slash lived there slash had his mail slashed open there too.
Dean had the cab pull over a few blocks from the house in case he was still being followed by security from the publisher. He attempted a rakish posture by leaning inside the cab to speak to Lin. This was futile, since every second-grader knows it is impossible to look ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ or ‘sick’ with your upper body inside anything.
“Head to Michael’s and buy some card stock and red food coloring,” said Dean. “When you get back, I’ll dictate a letter to that Nazi editor.”
“Nazi who?”
“Never mind that, just get going!”
Lin nodded and the cab zoomed away, almost garroting Dean around the neck with the door frame.
The morning was bright, and even though he’d just experienced a triple negative of rejection by a publisher, tramplation by strange foreign ladies, and almost-head-removation by a cab window, Dean was happy. Somehow he obtained a delightful contentment from the bland panorama of California suburbia: the well-sprinkled lawns, the waves of whispering leaves on the branches of oldish-growth trees, the streets full of beautiful houses in a perpetual state of refurbishment, refinance, and resale. He knew the book would sell once he found an agent, but in many ways it didn’t matter––the conference was next week and who was a keynote speaker? He was! Due to persistent, unsolicited, and anonymous emails from Dean, Robert Timmins was guaranteed to attend, guaranteed to hear Dean’s words of wisdom, and guaranteed to have the razor-sharp message of Dean’s motivational spear chucked through his forward-thinking brain. He’d have no option but to hire Dean Cook as opening act for the spring tour of “Timmination.”
Dean marched confidently up the walkway of his house with the stride of a conquering hero, opened the front door, and Joanie punched him in the face.
“What the flip!” he said, as he sprawled backwards into the flower garden, trying and failing to avoid the camellias.
“You bastard,” said Joanie. “Who is she? How long has this been going on?”
“What are you talking about?”
Joanie shook her head. “Say something less predictable, please. How about: ‘Ooo, look at me. I’m Dean Cook, a princess like my father and clean as the wind-driven snow.’ Yellow snow is more like it!”
Dean waved at the elderly man peering over the fence next door. “Yes, hello, we’re fine, Mr. Gunderson.”
“I never let those college boys come to the house,” said Joanie, in a matter-of-fact tone. “And when they wanted to invite the rest of their friends, I put my foot down. I have some decency about me, not like you––I went over to the frat house instead.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Shut up and listen, former ex-boyfriend.”
Joanie turned, and her blonde hair fanned in a flat, golden circle: the mirror image of Dean’s favorite Pantene commercial. This never failed to disrupt the electrical impulses in Dean’s sinoatrial node, and she knew it.
Dean clutched his chest and gasped. “Former ... and ex ... That’s a double negative.”
“Quiet. I’m trying to explain why I never brought the three lumberjacks that I met at the Blue Onion back here: we got a room at Quality Inn like decent human beings. Everything stays out of the home, Dean. Do you think the eye exams I had every week with Dr. Goldhammer were real? That all the police johnnies use my first name because I clean the department every Friday? Isn’t it strange that our phone goes out at night and the repairman needs me to go out to his truck and help fix it? You can’t be that dumb. Or are you?”
“I ... uh ... I thought you were just being nice.”
“No, I sleep around. What I don’t do is have sex where I sleep. You broke that rule, Dean, and I want you out.”
“But I didn’t do anything! Honestly, I have no idea what on earth is going on.”
Joanie crossed her arms. Dean tried to keep her gaze and not catch a last glance of her tight yoga pants. Intuition told him that he wouldn’t be seeing much of her toned thighs in the future. Not that he saw them frequently, anyway.
“A girl left five minutes ago,” she said. “Chirping and burbling with a strange accent. She was crying, literally kneeling at my feet and begging for something. Do you know what that something was?” She touched Dean’s nose with her index finger. “You. Dean Cook.”
“I swear I don’t know her!”
“Then this fat woman pushes inside like a tank roaring up Omaha Beach. She tells me you owe them money, that you have to marry the girl.” Joanie spread her arms. “Is that what it’s come down to, Dean? Giving money to underage whores who can’t tell a soul about the horrible things you do to them? My mother was right. She may have thought squirrels were messengers from God and that beer kept the body hydrated, but she was right about you.”
“Joanie, this is all a big misunderstanding.”
“I’m sure it was. I’m sure the poor girl didn’t realize how little you were planning to pay for a private show of ‘Superman Meets Batgirl.’ When the fun was over and the yelling started, Dean, did you hit the girl? Or did you simply jump out her bedroom window?”
“It’s nothing like that!”
Joanie touched his nose again. “I’m only going to say one thing––”
Dean sighed. “Okay, I’m leaving.”