Sometimes being an ice queen was exhausting. Piper not-so-subtly invited Dean over a lot, which meant I had to un-invite him a lot, and it was like a pencil stab in the side every time. Being the official party-pooper was a thankless job, and a lonely one.
Hearing him politely ignore her invitation tonight was more than I could take. So yes, this one time I backed her up and asked Dean to come hang out and have boxed macaroni and cheese with us. Although, by the time he got here, it would be inedible macaroni and cheese. There was a firm half-hour window for eating that stuff. Serve immediately or else.
My cooking skills expanded beyond kid staples, but sometimes it depended on my energy level. Tonight, I was in my pajama pants and messy bun era.
After Piper ate two huge bowls of mac and cheese, I got her showered and dressed right before the doorbell rang. In all our hurry, I hadn’t given a thought to freshening myself up. I ducked into the bathroom off of Piper’s room and checked. Yikes. The best I could do was wipe any traces of mascara from below my eyes and straighten out the bun holding my hair up.My lips were chapped. I needed chapstick. I should freshen my breath, too. I made a run for my room and almost ran over Piper. At the last second, I half leapt, half dodged around her like Barry Sanders avoiding a tackle.
“What are you doing, Mommy?”
“I’ll be right there. Tell him to wait. I’ll get the door in a minute.”
“Okay.”
I ran into my bathroom and gave myself the quickest makeover known to mankind. But not quick enough. Over the sound of my toothbrushing, I heard Piper letting in Dean. “Mom said to wait.”
Ack. I meant have him wait outside for us. I rinsed off my mouth and hurried out to find him holding Piper in his arms. She had her little face tucked against his, and I purposely focused only on her, and not the sweet picture they made together. Or at least I tried. I couldn’t blame her for smushing her cheek against his. He was freshly shaved again. He probably smelled delicious.
“Piper, you can’t reach the peephole. What if it wasn’t Dean when you opened it?”
Piper turned to me and jutted out her little lips in her signature grumpy know-it-all face. “I knew it was Dean because I yelled his name, and he yelled my name back.”
I met Dean’s eyes and he shrugged. “She’s pretty smart.”
“She is,” I admitted. He wasn’t just freshly shaved. He’d had a haircut, and his hair was playfully tousled rather than rebelliously overgrown, and I found I liked it both ways. He was wearing a thin white t-shirt and black jogger pants. Not the kind of jogger pants that sounded like tent material when you walked; no, his were buttery soft. They were probably what ninjas lounged in. Well, if ninjas had downtime.
Meanwhile, my cotton pajama pants had been washed so many times they could stand up without me in them. And now I wanted to throw the faded, stiff, ugly things away so no one would ever see me in them again. It didn’t help that I was still inmy pleated, key-hole neck, silk blouse from work. Like the mullet of outfits, I was business on top, sad pajama party on bottom.
My eyes traveled back up to his hair. “You cut it.”
“Yeah, I finally found time for a haircut.”
There was an awkward lull after that. He put Piper down and stuck his hands in his pockets. I continued to stare at him. Once I’d allowed it, I couldn’t get myself to stop. I was thinking about kettlebells, wondering what he did with them to make his arms look like that.
I needed to say something, but I was not the type to easily fill in silence, even if this was the moment for it. I didn’t come up with jokes on the spot or make people feel welcome with just my presence. Dean and I didn’t “hang out” together. And the reason for that was me. He was around enough that even my daughter considered him one of her best-est friends. But not me.
My conversation with Jessica came back to me, hitting me over the head with the truth of it. “You always talk about him like the two of you aren’t friends.”But it was worse than that. Ithoughtabout him as a non-friend, because being around him made me feel big things, and I didn’t do big feelings. Not anymore.
“So, um. Thanks for coming over,” I managed to eke out.
“Sure. Should I take my shoes off?”
I glanced down at his feet. He had on a pair of black leather flip flops that, like everything else he wore, looked expensive for reasons I couldn’t put a name on. I was not obsessive about taking shoes off in the house, but since he asked, I shrugged. “Sure.”
He toed them off and nudged them next to the door. And then looked back at me for what to do next. This was excruciating.
Piper chose that moment to dance between us in her hip-shaking version of a pop song we’d been listening to in the car a lot. “When the slide’s here, I don’t do fears. Baby, no tents.WATCH ME. Can’t! Chance the night away, uh-huh.” She wasn’t even paying any attention to us, too preoccupied with the origami bird she’d picked up from the couch and the music in her head. She suddenly ran out of the room, probably in search of the bird’s match. Lately, Piper had been obsessed with having everything in pairs.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to laugh. “Is her hearing okay?”
“She can hear a candy wrapper opening from a mile away. Butchering lyrics is a Rob thing. You wouldn’t think that would be genetic, but it totally is.”
“Huh.”
“Yep.”
And now we were back to awkward silence.
“Are you hungry?” I finally asked. We could not keep standing at the door like this was normal.
