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“How is it only the first week of school and I’m already over it?”
“Did you really think college would be any different than high school?” Dennis is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting to turn out of the parking lot of their school.
Victoria kicks her feet up onto the dash, at which Dennis rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest. “I don’t know, I feel like it was something I had built up in my head. Like it would be a huge deal. The only difference so far is not raising my hand to piss.”
“Language!” Dennis swats at Javadi’s arm, who retaliates and hits him back. “Ouch.”
“Don’t language me, you’re starting to sound like Dr. Shamsi.”
“My parents also hate cussing, your mom isn't special.”
“Your parents don’t ground your brothers for it, so it’s technically allowed. Except for you, goody two-shoes.”
“It’s hard work being their favorite. Cussing might make me fall behind John Michael in the ranking.”
“I don’t think you’re ahead of John Michael.”
Dennis scoffs, shaking his head vehemently.
Victoria prods him. “Come on, I mean, he gave them their first grandkid. Stiff competition.”
“Considering the fact that he’s ten years older than me, I think they weigh us differently.”
“He’s almost 29 and has a house and a wife and continued the grandparent naming tradition. You were on the robotics team in high school. He’s the favorite.”
“Do you have to be mean?” He huffs. “You were also on the robotics team. We went to state.”
“I was in a bad mood about school and you weren’t immediately taking my side, I had to drag you down to my level. And I was a girl on the robotics team that went to state, which means I’m less of a loser.”
“This is so unfair.”
“Sexism is unfair, glad you agree.” Victoria pulls her legs off the dash, leaning forward in her seat. “Wait, why didn’t you turn there?”
“What?”
“Why are you taking this way?”
“Cause, I’m taking us home.”
“Well, yeah, but you could’ve taken the cutoff and shaved like, 20 minutes from the drive. This is all backroads with stupid stop signs.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.” Dennis’s mouth is twisted into itself, clearly trying to conceal a smile.
“Why are you lying?” Victoria furrows her brows but can’t help but grin.
“We’re already going this way, might as well continue.” He tries to give a nonchalant shrug.
Javadi scoffs, but considers it, before relenting, “You’re the one driving,” and slouching deep into the passenger seat.
“I’m the one with the license.”
Javadi crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t need to drive, I have a personal chauffeur named Dennis.”
“You’re allergic to getting your hours in. You know, the steering wheel only bites if you ask nicely.”
“Oh shut up.” There’s no real anger in her voice.
“You know,” Dennis says, glancing over at her while dragging out his words. “If we’re driving this way, we might as well stop by the pool.”
“It’s the middle of September.”
“So the parking lot shouldn’t be too crowded! You think I’ll find a spot?”
“You’re so ridiculous.”
“Is that permission?”
“You’re the one with the license.” Victoria grumbles, slouching even further into her seat.
Victoria lived in a quiet house. Her Nani lived in a neighborhood full of old people, and her parents’ jobs kept her from having any usual company that didn’t receive a monthly social security check. But when Victoria was four and a half, the neighbor that paid her a quarter to pick the tomatoes off the vine in his backyard had died. The house that quietly gathered dust and bleached grass spots quickly had new occupants.
The day the Whitakers moved in next door, the air felt electric. Victoria pretended to play with her dolls on the front porch while performing quiet reconnaissance, absorbing everything she could about the strange family moving in. There were four boys, each lanky blondes except the smallest who hadn't yet hit his growth spurt. Their mom and dad herded them with antiquated names, trying to goad them into carrying in boxes. The smallest one tried his best to help, picking up boxes that towered over his five year old frame.
The boys were loud. The only kids she knew, much less boys, were cousins that lived states away that she only saw on holidays. They were mean to their sisters and tugged on their hair until they cried. Boys didn’t exist in her bubble of mahjong and old Bollywood movies, so Victoria tried to keep her distance. That worked for less than a day.
The smallest boy was drawing with chalk on the sidewalk after breakfast and Victoria found herself on the porch again, pretending to read a book she already knew by heart, The Kid’s Complete Guide to Biology.
“Hey!”
Victoria froze, glancing up eyes wide at the boy who yelled towards her. She stayed silent.
He looked at her expectantly. “Do you want to play with me?”
Victoria’s eyes grew wider.
“I’m drawing a chalk zoo. I used to have a horse but we had to move and now it lives with my grammy and pop.”
Victoria took in the small blonde boy. He had caring eyes with dark circles under them. He was covered in pink chalk dust, some of it smudged on his cheek. He had a bandaid on his finger, it looked like Thomas the Train. She chewed on her cheek, a habit her mother hated, and considered if he looked like the type who would tug on her ponytail.
She stepped off the porch to join him.
From then on, Victoria practically lived at the Whitaker house. It was a rambunctious household with the boys always running into the front door out through the back, sometimes with a dog or two in tow, though they only had one dog. Once, Ronald Whitaker, named after Mr. Whitaker’s grandpa, had lured a possum into the house until his mom screamed and grounded him for a month, demanding he figure out how to get it out without letting it touch her hardwood floors or requiring a rabies shot.
Victoria’s parents weren’t thrilled her best friend was a scrawny white boy, but he had manners and his parents were kind, so they didn’t outwardly object. Though, they weren’t around enough to enforce a ban even if they’d want to, and Nani loved the Whitaker boys who “always seemed so considerate” because they would help her bring groceries in from the car.
Her parents were only around to put pressure on Victoria, to get good grades and participate in half-a-dozen extracurriculars, and the Whitakers served as a refuge from the intensity her parents carried. Mr. Whitaker was sarcastic and always liked to make his kids laugh, and he let Dennis and Victoria watch MASH with him with the promise that neither would tell their moms about the amount of curse words they were absorbing. He bought them the cereal with marshmallows and hugged his sons when they brought home their report cards, no matter the grades on them. Mrs. Whitaker taught Victoria how to peel apples for cobbler and how to play a few songs on the piano, and she braided Victoria’s hair while joking that she had always wanted a daughter. Her sons were rowdy but overall nice, and Victoria’s hair never got tugged on. She did get teased about being a girl for a few months while Kenneth was being a rebellious eleven year old, but Dennis would always roll his eyes and whisper “Girls are better than boys, he’s just jealous” and that would make Victoria giggle. Tears never fell when she was with the Whitakers.
Dennis was always nice. He would humor her requests to attend tea parties in between Nerf fights with his brothers and played kitchen with Victoria’s plastic food toys, even when she forced him to be the daddy and take care of the baby dolls. MASH inspired them to try being doctors and at age ten, Dennis sacrificed a teddy bear to learn how to suture. His mom quickly caught them, taught them how to hand sew the bear’s arm back on, and then made them promise to keep away from scissors.
When it rained, they’d play at Victoria's house, because Dennis liked the quiet and the Javadis’ puzzle collection, and they’d watch Raj Kapoor movies curled up on the couch sharing a quilt. Sometimes they’d help Nani cook, other times they’d sit at the kitchen table and color while stew simmered.
Summer tasted like metallic hose water. Victoria spent all day baking in the sun with Dennis, wetting chalk and painting it on themselves until they were both bright pinks and blues. They’d play in the tree house Mr. Whitaker built, or play hide and seek in the backyard with bug bites littering their legs. For Victoria’s birthday, Mrs. Whitaker always helped Nani bake a cake and the Whitakers and a few friends from school would sing her happy birthday then play in the Whitakers’ sprinklers. They spared her on her birthday, because their parents were keeping an eye on them, but usually playing in the sprinklers with the Whitakers boys meant flung mud and being sprayed in the face with the hose. Dennis always stood in front of her to make sure her one-piece would remain unsullied and her hair dry. And the pair had to stick to the sprinklers until they finally got permission to walk to the community pool by themselves when they were nine, and then their world opened up.
The pool was a concrete hole in the ground. Nothing was fancy about it. There wasn’t a slide, or a diving board, and there weren’t any swim lanes. It started at three feet and went down to eight, and that small hole of water is where they spent every summer for the next nine years. They played almost every game you can think of. They got faster swimming laps of the pool, impressively longer times holding their breath underwater, and became experts at diving for dropped goggles. At 15, they both became certified lifeguards and used the money they made from work at the small concession stand to buy popsicles and new puzzles to add to the Javadi collection. Victoria used to sneak up on Dennis when they switched spots on shift to startle him into blowing his whistle, and they’d both laugh until their sides hurt. Dennis got burnt at first, but then tanned, and his dirty blonde hair grew lighter throughout the summer months. He got taller, and she got leaner and stronger, and they both spent the summer smelling like chlorine. They swam every day before the pool opened and after the pool closed, seeing who was faster that day and throwing things into the water to see who was the better diver. Those summers tasted like sunscreen and sticky cherry freeze pops.
The community pool is in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking. As managers of the pool, Dennis and Victoria officially closed up the pool the evening of Labor Day, putting a huge padlock on the gate that wouldn’t be opened until Memorial Day next summer. They pull into the gravel lot and Dennis switches the car off. Victoria looks at him expectantly, and he quietly gets out of the car, grabs something from his backseat, and gestures to her to follow him.
If you’d look at a map, it’d say there’s a small park next to the pool. In reality, it's more of an empty field with a decaying soccer goal and patches of dandelions. It's here that Dennis moves with purpose, spreading the blanket, laying down, and looking up at the sky that is slowly shifting from golden hour to dusk, like he had practiced it all in his head.
She wants to ask what they’re doing there, but she’s never needed a reason to spend time with him before, so she complains instead. “We’re going to get eaten by bugs.” She lays down next to him.
“It’ll be worth it.”
Victoria hums in agreement.
They lay quietly for a few minutes. The buzzing of cicadas breaks up the silence. Frogs start chirping.
“I miss the summer.”
“Me too.” Dennis says, reaching for Victoria’s hand and holding it. She feels herself choking up. They watch the night slowly overtake the sky.
Victoria has always loved Dennis, she thinks. And it wasn’t that grand sweeping love seen in those cheesy romances Nani watched, it was a quiet hum whenever she was near him. He was her best friend, and she his, and they were puzzle pieces that fit snugly together. But she wasn’t in love with him, because of course it wasn’t that type of love, so she accepted proposals to go to dances in high school with other boys, and didn’t cringe when her school friends talked about how hot Dennis got over the summer. She hadn’t really noticed, he was just Dennis. Yes, a taller, tanner, fitter version of him, but he was her Dennis.
They didn’t really talk about stuff like that. They talked about everything, but he didn’t ask if the boy who took her to homecoming held her hand, so she didn’t ask if he had a crush on the girl who came over to talk to them at their lunch table that once asked Dennis for a ride home (Victoria was finishing up an extra credit project after school so he declined). Victoria went to dinner at his house several times a week and helped his mom with dishes while Dennis swept the floors. They’d go to his room and drill AP US history questions, or watch a movie, or play his old Xbox games. Sometimes she’d fall asleep on his bed. When she woke up a few hours later, he had put a blanket over her and was asleep on the couch, and she’d look at him softly for a few minutes before quietly going next door to stare at her own ceiling until she fell asleep.
So yes, he was just Dennis, and yes, the quiet hum had turned into more of a dull constant ache, but they’re freshmen in college now and the time has come and gone to think about that. This isn’t Bollywood.
“Vic, can I tell you something?”
Victoria hums.
“No,” Dennis shifts, turning to face Victoria, propping his arm up to stabilize himself. “Like, can I tell you something?”
Victoria looks at him confused. He looks scared, his eyes wet. She’d only seen him cry at his grandpa Dennis’s funeral. The sternness in his face makes her stomach drop.
“Anything. What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I could never hate you. What is it?”
“Vic.” Dennis’s voice cracks and he reaches for her hand, but pauses. His mouth opens, then closes. He finally finds the words. “I’m in love with you.”
Victoria’s brain goes quiet. She’s always had a remark, a clever comeback for everything Dennis Whitaker has ever told her, but she can only think of one thing, repeatedly pounding in her head over and over. She exhales shakily and laughs, grabbing his hand. His hand is shaking. “I’m in love with you too.”
He pauses, eyes wide. “You don’t have to–”
He tastes like Monster Energy and blueberries and chapstick. She pulls him in by the curls, mouthing at him hungrily. Their kiss is messy. His shoulders drop, tension leaving his body.
Dennis pulls away, panting. “Did you ever kiss that guy?”
“What?” Victoria can’t remember anything besides Dennis’s name.
“The one that took you to homecoming.”
“No.” She kisses him again. He pulls away.
“I never kissed Amy, either. She tried.”
Victoria nods and leans in to kiss him again, desperate for what she’s wanted for 13 years.
He pulls away slightly, holding onto her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “I waited for you. It was always you.”
“Dennis,” her voice is hoarse, “we could’ve been doing this for years.”
He laughs, his head falling back and his whole body following. He pulls Victoria with him, holding her head to his chest.
“I love you, Victoria Javadi.”
“I love you too, Dennis Whitaker.”
The stars have come out by the time they shift off the blanket. Fireflies flicker in the grass around them. Kissing him is so easy, so natural. Every minute they’ve spent together has led up to this, thirteen years of puzzles and sprinklers and falling asleep on his bed. Victoria had dreamed of being in Dennis’s arms for years, but now that it’s happened, it feels familiar. He still smells like sunscreen in September and his body next to hers feels like they’re cuddled under a quilt, one of Nan’s old movies on in the background. She has to bury her head into his chest to hide the smile on her face.
“What is it?” He sits up, hand on her waist.
“I love you.” Her eyes are sparkling.
He holds her close and kisses her slowly. Then he looks at his watch. “We need to get back home. Nani is probably worried sick.” Dennis scrambles to get up, but Victoria meanders, slowly stretching out the crick that formed in her neck.
“She trusts you more than she trusts me. She knows I’m okay when I’m with you.”
Dennis has a big, goofy grin on his face. “You think that too, right?”
“Always have.” She pulls herself off the ground with the help of Dennis’s hand and brushes grass off her legs. “She’s going to find this hilarious.”
Dennis frowns. “Why?”
“She’s talked about us getting married from the day you moved in.”
“No! Really?” He grabs her hand and kisses the back of it.
“Yep, even before I knew.”
Dennis smiles wide. “I’ve known it since that day.”
“The day we met I was worried you’d pull my hair.”
Dennis breaks into laughter. “Why is that?”
“I thought that's what boys did, that they were mean.”
“Was I ever mean, when we were kids?”
“Never.” Victoria grins, shaking her head fervently.
Dennis reaches for her hand and squeezes before picking up the blanket and leading her to the car. She wants to be nervous about driving with him, her feelings bare for him to see, but it’s Dennis, and really nothing has changed.
At the stop sign, Dennis presses on the break and shifts the car into park. He leans over the console, hand reaching up to cup Victoria’s cheek as he kisses her softly. He pulls away and Victoria has a wide toothy smile that makes her eyes crinkle.
“What was that for?”
“This is why I wanted to take the long way.” His hands find the gear shifter and he moves it to drive, letting his foot off the break and pressing lightly on the gas. They go down a hill, slowly pausing at the next stop sign. Dennis parks the car and leans over the console again, kissing Victoria lightly, before shifting gears and continuing their drive.
“Are you gonna do this at every stop sign?”
“And stop light.” Dennis smiles at Victoria, one that grows bigger when he sees her smiling too.
“You’re so dumb.” She reaches for his hand and holds it as they slowly drive back home.