Pinky is a coming of age tale taking place in the small coastal California town of Ventura during the late 50's.
A boy raised on a Nebraska wheat farm finds himself, at age 16 living next door to our 16 year old heroine who is the quintessential California girl.
A multi-talented young woman, she studies ballet and is an exceptionally good painter.
He loves his 40 Ford coupe and comes to find that he likes the girl better than he does hot rods. He has a tough time understanding her as well as understanding women in general.
This story is very true to life and pretty much the way it happened for many kids of the 50's.
It was, as the saying goes, a kinder and gentler time where the girls were ladies, the boys were gentlemen and both sexes were as confused about the other as any generation that ever was.
Excerpt from the first chapter.
After breakfast, I walked out to the driveway with high hopes. High hopes because I thought there was a good chance she’d say yes if I asked her out for next Saturday night. I was a little nervous about it though. I’d only been there for a few minutes and then I heard the little A coupe chugging up the driveway. I looked over and watched her drive it out of her driveway and over to mine. It was still pink. I couldn’t get over it. In a way it was kind of growing on me. This was Pinky’s car and it reflected her love for pink a whole lot and to an extent, it reflected her personality too. Just like seeing her, when I saw the Model A, it made me smile.
I got in and once we were cruising down Foothill headed for the high school I figured this was as good a time as any to ask her out. I’d already checked my financial situation and I had enough cash for us to hit the Ventura Theater, get cokes and fries after and maybe even cruise around a bit. I didn’t have any pre-arranged speeches or smooth mannerisms. In fact I just blurted the whole thing out.
I screwed up my courage and said, “How would you like to go to a movie Saturday night? In Ventura. The two of us. You and me. Not too late though, we could get home early if you want.”
Geez, I must have sounded like an idiot. I thought of saying something else to salvage the situation, but once I thought about it, I realized that ship had sunk long ago.
She smiled and said, “That would be nice. But I can’t. Unless...”
Smooth me, I jumped right in there with, “Unless what?”
“My folks don’t really know you and there’s no way they’d let me go out on a date with a stranger even if you do live next door.”
“Even though we drive to school together?”
“That’s different.”
“That makes sense, but what about ‘Unless what’.”
“Unless you could come over for dinner Friday night and meet the folks. Once they approved of you, and I’m sure they would, Saturday night would probably be ok with them. Provided it wasn’t too late.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you want to go?”
She smiled and said, “Slow down for a minute and listen to what I’m saying.”
“Ok.”
We sat there for a minute and she said, “Well?”
“Well what?”
Geez, this was getting complicated.
“Pay attention Vince. What do you think I said?”
I tried not to act mixed up, but somewhere along the line I’d lost control of the conversation. If I ever had control. Right now, I don’t think I did. In fact, I didn’t know where I was at.
“Are you mad at me?”
She pulled the car over, stopped on the dirt shoulder and looked out the window at the ocean for a few seconds.
She turned, looked at me and said, “Let’s start all over again.”
“Ok.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Jesus Vince, listen to us. We sound like Laurel and Hardy.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Alright” she said, “Let’s dissect the conversation. What was the first thing you asked?”
“I asked you to the show Saturday night.”
“Good...good. And what did I say?”
“You invited me to dinner Friday night.”
“And why did I invite you to dinner Friday night?”
Oh man, I sure wasn’t impressing her now. In fact I wasn’t even impressing myself. I was such an idiot I couldn’t believe it.
“To meet your folks.”
“And once you met my folks, then what?”
“I don’t know Pinky, I lost track somewhere along the line.”
I think she got a little mad then. She slid the A into gear, spun the tires in the dirt and went bombing down Foothill and down the long grade by the hospital where Foothill - still the same road - changed names and was now Poli. We were sailing along pretty good by then and it didn’t take long to roll down Poli and up to the school parking lot. And sail right on by headed down Poli for the other end of the high school.
Poli was kind of a weird deal, it ran right through the high school, splitting it into two pieces with the main campus on one side, the auto shops and ball diamonds on the other.
I didn’t say a word. For some reason I felt like I was in really deep water. Pinky stopped the coupe by the auto shop driveway, put it in neutral and got out.
She turned and said, “If you think you can find the parking lot and if you think you can drive this thing, take it back there and park it! You can do the running for class. As for me, I’m not going to be late.”
That said, she got her stuff and walked away leaving me sitting in the little pink coupe. Just sitting there, the motor chugging away like the Model A’s do. I wasn’t sure if she was mad or not. It sure seemed that way. I wasn’t sure either what I’d done to make her mad. It was obvious that somewhere along the line I’d said something wrong, but I’ll be darned if I knew what it was.
Then the bell rang. I looked around and realized that all the kids were in class and I was sitting there on Poli, in the passenger side of an idling A coupe. I slid over, ran the A down to Catalina, pulled a U-turn and ran back to the parking lot. When I got out, I was going to run for it, but I figured what the heck. I was late already, why run. No use screwing up the rest of the morning. I walked to class. And walked in fifteen minutes late.
The teacher looked up and said, “Tardy Mr. Bezdek.”
“Yes sir.”
“How come Mr. Bezdek?”
“My girl friend stopped the car so I could ask her for a date.”
I could hear some of the girls in the class giggling.
“You had to stop the car to ask your girl friend for a date?”
“Well, yes sir. Except she’s not exactly my girl friend.”
Now I could hear more of the kids in class laughing.
“If she’s not exactly your girl friend, then who is she?”
“Well sir, I thought if she said yes to a date, then maybe she would be my girl friend.”
By now the whole class was cracking up and the teacher was getting a little red in the face.
“Well Mr. Bezdek, I’m going to send you to the Principal’s office and you can tell your little tale to him.”
“Yes sir.”
“I can’t resist asking Mr. Bezdek, did she say yes?”....
Is there anything quite so magical as first love? That initial meeting of the eyes and the hands, the exhilaration felt every time you glimpse your beloved, agonizing over every word uttered by either of you, and the unforgettable thrill of that first kiss. When you read Pinky, you experience it all through the eyes of 16-year-old Vincent Bezdek, a hero as endearing as any to ever capture my heart.
A transplanted Nebraskan farm boy, Vince quickly becomes enamored with Ventura, California, and almost as quickly falls in love with the beautiful girl next door who appears to be too busy with painting and ballet to even notice him--or so he thinks. He focuses his attention on his other love: hot rods--specifically, the 1940 Ford coupe he plans to customize, but when the summer ends, Vince discovers he must never assume anything about this girl called Pinky. The morning of the first day of school, she gets into Vince's coupe as if he should have known all along she would do so, and so begins the natural progression of their relationship and the role the little '40 coupe plays in it all.
Vince and Pinky's love is sweet and innocent, but it's also deep and complex. Because he is so much in awe of Pinky's talent and unpredictable nature, Vince doesn't seem to realize how special he is himself and how much Pinky loves him in return. Pinky is not only talented and smart, she is also fearless and passionate and does her best to help Vince believe they are meant to be. They have their share of misunderstandings and hardships, but their mutual respect and depth of character carries them over the hurdles with only a few stumbles--until high school ends and the adult world rears its demanding head to make them both make the hardest decisions of their lives.
This coming-of-age story made me laugh out loud and shed tears of heartbreak and joy, and I came to think of the characters as members of my own family. The book is 536 pages and I was still sorry to reach the end, because the story is told in the author's engaging voice that reads like a conversation with a close friend. Although I didn't understand some of the technical details about building a hot rod, they were woven into the story so naturally they seemed only more proof of Vince's love for Pinky, because anyone who knew cars so intimately and would still have given them up in a heartbeat for a girl has most surely found true love.
Pinky is a book that will leave you feeling you've just taken a drive along the Ventura coastline, shared the beauty of an ocean sunset with someone special, and fallen in love for the first time. You'll finish it feeling wistful over the story's end, but you'll also feel as if you've gained some new friends you'll never forget.
Reviewed by Jim Roper
8/21/2003
You paint a real picture from the past. Been there! Looks like a fast, fun read.
Reviewed by Byron Abrams
8/18/2003
I was in high school in the mid 50's. There was this girl...well you get the idea. Brings back bunches of memories. This book is going to bring back memories to lots of people. It reads quickly, and will bring lots of smiles. And who knows, maybe a tear or two? Good writing, Jay. Well done!
Reviewed by Mary Erickson
8/18/2003
Loved the excerpt. Brought back those good old days when life was simpler and kids were innocent. I'm sure after reading this the book is will be a big success.
Sounds so familiar, I could have written it myself. Living in California in the late 50s, early 60s, was a sort of mystical place. And a mystical time, where everything was possible. I remember it well.
Sounds like that place and time transferred itself to your computer, via your mind and memory. Good read Jay.
Claudia VanLydegraf
http://notesfromnobody.homestead.com/book.html or look my page up on Authors Den.
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