The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

by Blau, Jessica Anya.

  Duckishly, they descended the stairs in a row. Jamie opened the front door and immediately started laughing, although there was nothing funny before her. Standing on the porch were two beach-haired, college-aged boys. These were the kind of boys who grow only in Southern California. Girls in Minnesota dream of boys like this. Certain men in New York and San Francisco dream of boys like this, too.

  “Hey,” the taller of the two said. His eyes were sea green.

  He was swinging a single key on a dirty string around his finger.

  “Hey,” Jamie said, and then uncontrollable laughter over-came the three girls. They hunched over their knees, holding their stomachs, until finally—after clasping hands and taking deep, stuttering breaths—the laughing stopped. The guys stood there, both of them open-mouthed breathers, staring with dazed, patient smiles.

  “You’re the girls who wanted the pizza, right?” the other guy said. His hair was dark brown at the center part and yellow-blond on the ends. His skin and eyes were identical in color: the brown of a buckskin shoe. He wore a Mr. Zogs Sex Wax T-shirt, which was practically a uniform for surfers that year. Jamie couldn’t speak when she looked at him; it was as if she were suddenly asthmatic and couldn’t get enough air.

  “Well,” Sea-Eyes said, “let’s go.” The boys sat in the front and the girls sat in the back of the gasoline-smelling Dodge Dart. Debbie, Tammy, and Jamie smiled the entire ride, their shoulders pressed together, digging their nails into one another’s knees and giggling at anything the boys said. The driver, sea-eyed Mike, was going to be a junior at the university, studying marine biology. The other guy, Joseph, had graduated over a year ago. He was hanging out in town, he told the girls, working at the pizza parlor at night, surfing in the day, and waiting for his friends to graduate so they’d have more time to hang out with him.

  “College must be fun,” Jamie said. Debbie widened her eyes and nudged Jamie with her elbow as if to say, Good one!

  “Yeah,” Joseph said, “it’s a fuck of a lot better than junior high.”

  This, of course, sent fingers flying into nervous, clandestine pinches as the girls wondered if the boys had somehow figured their true age not to be sixteen.

  Bill, the pizza boy Tammy had spoken with on the phone, was cute, too. He had bunny-white hair, white eyebrows, and a golden-pink tan. His T-shirt had a saucer-sized hole under the breast pocket, revealing taut, smooth skin. When the girls walked in, he gave a coolheaded jut of his chin as a greeting. Then, like a gymnast on a pommel horse, he pressed his hands onto the bar counter and propelled his body up and over to the other side. The girls stood motionless, watching and waiting, as the pizza boy walked to the door, flipped over the “open” sign, and turned the key in the lock.

  “Beer?” Joseph asked. He had poured one for himself and was carrying the mug with him as he cleared tables with his free hand.

  “No-o,” the girls sang.

  “Coke?” he asked.

  “I made you pepperoni,” Bill said.

  “Beer?” Mike asked. He stood at the tap, pouring one for himself.

  “They want Coke.” Joseph winked at Jamie and she stiffened up as if they were playing freeze tag.

  Mike poured three Cokes into bumpy, opaque plastic cups, then carried them to a booth where Bill had set down a large pepperoni pizza. The girls rushed to the booth; Tammy and Jamie began eating immediately. Debbie removed her retainer and gingerly placed it underneath a napkin.

  “Don’t let me forget that,” she said. “My mom will kill me.” Somebody turned up the stereo and a Hall & Oates song reverberated out of hidden speakers. The boys went about their business, closing out the cash register, wiping down the tables with a scrunched-up grayed rag, and covering giant silver tubs of grated cheese and sliced pepperoni with Saran Wrap. They drank beer as they worked, and shouted a conversation that had something to do with the size of the waves at various beaches that day. Occasionally one or the other of them looked over at the girls and smiled; in response, the girls giggled and dropped their heads, reached for a new piece of pizza, or took a sip of Coke.

  They ate more than three quarters of the large pizza.

  Debbie’s chin was slick and shiny and Tammy had a piece of pepperoni caught in a square of her braces. Debbie picked the food from Tammy’s braces, then dipped a corner of a paper napkin into her Coke and worked a smear of tomato sauce off Jamie’s face. Jamie sat still and quiet as Debbie groomed her. She remembered when her sister used to make her ponytail in the morning and how good it felt to have her sister’s tiny hands running against her neck as she picked up the scrawny clods of Jamie’s hair.

  Mike tossed the leftover pizza into the trash, then flung the silver platter, Frisbee-style, over the counter and into the sink, where it made a hollow, clanking ruckus.

  “You girls ready to get outta here?” Mike said, dangling the stringed key from his index finger.

  Mike drove, Bill sat up front, Jamie sat on Debbie’s lap in the backseat, and Joseph sat in between Debbie and Tammy.

  “You’re not really sixteen, are you?” Bill asked.

  “No-o.” They giggled.

  “They turned fourteen last month and I turned fourteen in February,” Tammy said. “Two Geminis and a Pisces.”

  “That’s cool,” Bill said.

  “They’re as cute as any sixteen-year-olds I’ve ever seen,” Joseph said, looking at Jamie. She met his stare for a moment, then dropped her head, terrified.

  “So your parents are at Joshua Tree?” Mike pulled the car into the driveway.

  “Death Valley,” Jamie barely whispered.

  “Oh yeah, Death Valley,” Mike said. He turned off the ignition.

  They all climbed out and stood in a circle with the boys on one side and the girls on the other. Joseph looked at Jamie and she looked away at his friends. Bill was eyeing the house up and down, the way men in movies ogle pretty women.

  “Rich girls,” he said.

  “Her dad hardly works,” Tammy said, and she pulled out two cigarettes and passed one to Debbie. “My dad’s always saying he must be a spy or something, ’cause they have this gnarly house and her dad never even wears a tie.”

  “Whose house is it?” Bill asked.

  “Mine.” Jamie flushed as she spoke. “And my dad’s not a spy, even though everyone thinks he is!”

  “Well, what does he do?” Bill asked.

  “What difference does it make?” Joseph said. “She’s the one who’s interesting.”

  Jamie looked toward the house because she could not bring herself to look at this college-aged boy who had just said she was interesting.

  “He, like, tells businesses how to make money, right?” Smoke puffed out of Debbie’s mouth as she spoke.

  “Her dad’s home all the time,” Tammy said. “My mom said if my dad was home that much she’d have to divorce him.”

  “Maybe I should tell businesses how to make money,” Bill said.

  “Oh my god,” Debbie said. “That would be so cool if you did exactly what Jamie’s dad does!”

  “So, can we come in?” Bill asked. He stood in the center of the group. All faces were turned toward Jamie, who felt like a helium balloon bobbing above everyone—remote and out of reach.

  “Uh . . . sure,” she said, and she rushed to the front door and waited for everyone to catch up.

  Once inside, the girls headed for the kitchen.

  “Let’s make brownies,” Debbie said.

  The boys filed into the kitchen behind them. Bill went to the French doors, opened them, and spread his arms as if he were presenting the backyard to the group.

  “Pool,” he said.

  “Pool.” Mike stood behind Bill and looked out.

  “We need music,” Joseph said. “Do you have any music?”

  “They have speakers all over the house, and you can turn a knob and the music comes out by the pool!” Tammy said.

  Jamie had always felt that her life and her friends’ lives were equal
—they all had nice houses, pools, parents who weren’t troubled with money. But Tammy’s enthusiasm for the things Jamie barely noticed—a father who is home, speakers by the pool—startled her and she saw, not uncomfortably, how padded her life was.

  “Who’s making brownies with me?” Debbie asked.

  “Got any weed for them?” Bill said, and the boys laughed.

  “I’ll make brownies,” Mike said. He walked behind the counter and stood beside Debbie. Jamie looked over at them and could barely breathe. Mike was holding up the box of brownie mix and reading the directions. Debbie was baking brownies with a sea-eyed college boy.

  Tammy stepped just outside the French doors; Bill followed, while pulling his ripped T-shirt off over his head.

  “Awesome boulders,” he said. “Do I have to wear a suit?”

  “No way,” Tammy said. “This is a party house. Jamie’s parents don’t even own swimsuits!” Jamie was relieved that Bill seemed impressed by this fact.

  “Where are your records?” Joseph asked. He stood so close to Jamie that his voice was like a whisper.

  “I don’t have any records.”

  “You don’t have any records?”

  “No. My parents have records.”

  “What do they have? Burt Bacharach? Barry Manilow?”

  “They have Barry Manilow!”

  “I was kidding.” Joseph smiled. His eyes alit on her the same way her parents did when she said something they found adorable. She hoped he couldn’t see how deeply she blushed.

  “Show me their records,” Joseph said, and he put his man-sized hand on Jamie’s twiggish, near-hairless forearm.

  Jamie took Joseph to the tiny, internal room off the living room, which was a walk-in closet when her parents bought the house but had been converted into the record room.

  There was a multilayered black stereo system on one shelf.

  The other shelves held records, perhaps a thousand, filed by category and then alphabetically. On the far wall was a panel with white circular knobs that sent music from the record player into various rooms, or the backyard. The single over-head dome light was dim and Joseph had shut the door. Jamie had the feeling she was in a taped-up cardboard box.

  “This is so, way, totally, cool,” Joseph said.

  He squinted and read the room names, which had been meticulously typed out on Allen’s plastic label maker and stuck below the corresponding knob.

  “Rock and roll is over here.” Jamie waved her hand up and down a wall of records, then suddenly shoved it in her jeans pocket. It had looked floppy and strange to her—like someone else’s hand.

  “Help me choose something,” Joseph said. He put his palm on the small of Jamie’s back and lead her over one step so that they were standing together in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves of rock and roll.

  “What do you like?” His voice was slow and hushed.

  “I dunno,” she said. And she really didn’t know. Jamie’s parents chose the music; they chose what to play and when to play it. She had never thought to choose music for herself—as if she had no right to fill the air with something she in particular wanted to hear. And when Jamie’s friends were over, they chose the music.

  “Tammy loves Frampton Comes Alive!,” Jamie said.

  “Nah,” Joseph said, “you can’t understand a word he’s saying.”

  “Debbie always puts on Jethro Tull, but I think it’s kinda boring.”

  “How about Wild Cherry.” Joseph pulled the record off the shelf and smiled at the cover.

  “Cool photo,” he said, and he looked at Jamie so she’d look down at the picture of glassy red lips holding a dripping cherry. The stem came out the corner of the mouth and made a line that ran off the edge of the album. Jamie felt a jolt of panic. She was reminded of the time a year ago when Tammy’s older brother had been packing to leave for college. He had called Jamie into his room as she was walking by to use the bathroom. Once she was standing near him at his desk, he had opened a drawer, pulled out a Playboy magazine, and unfurled the centerfold while staring intently at Jamie.

  “What do you think?” Tammy’s brother had said, and Jamie had just shrugged her shoulders and hurried out of the room. She didn’t know what she thought, all she knew was that Tammy’s brother’s intentions were beyond her understanding—they took place in a world where she didn’t know how things operated or what the rules were. And now, Jamie was standing on the border of that world again, this time with Joseph, who was the cutest boy she’d ever seen in person, but who scared her nonetheless.

  “I like maraschino cherries,” Jamie said, trying to rein the focus into her world, “but my mom won’t let me eat them because she says they cause cancer.”

  “One won’t kill you.” Joseph slipped the record out of its jacket and held it perpendicular to his flat palms.

  “That’s how my dad holds the records,” Jamie said.

  “You don’t want to get grease or fingerprints on it,” Joseph said. “Oh, get that House of Honey record, too.” Jamie pulled House of Honey out of the jacket and handed it to Joseph, who sandwiched it between his hands with Wild Cherry. He slowly lowered the records, piercing the tiny eyeholes with the silver prong that stood up from the center of the turntable. When he turned on the power, House of Honey dropped down, leaving Wild Cherry hovering above like a spaceship. The music started and in her head Jamie heard her mother singing along as she always did.

  She was a sweet, sweet lady with big blue eyes . . .

  “Now, who should we let listen?” Joseph asked, and he turned to face the panel of knobs.

  “Pool,” Jamie said.

  “Pool,” Joseph said, turning the knob.

  “Kitchen,” Jamie said.

  “Kitchen.”

  “Living room?”

  “Okay, living room.”

  “Uh . . . I guess that’s it.”

  “What about the bedrooms?”

  “No one’s in the bedrooms.”

  “Let’s put the music on in your room.” Joseph turned the knob that rested above the piece of red plastic tape with JAMIE BED popping out in white.

  “Jamie bed,” Joseph said. The word bed seemed porno-graphic when Joseph said it. Jamie felt as if he were talking about her sexual anatomy rather than simply the place where she slept.

  “It’s my bedroom,” Jamie said. “Not my bed. I think Dad just got tired of turning that dial and punching.”

  “Take me to your bedroom,” Joseph said. “I want to see if this system really works.”

  “Uh, okay.” Obedience had always been a problem for Jamie. She didn’t know how to not do what she’d been told.

  And with Joseph, whose very presence dulled her intellect into a warm ball of Play-Doh, Jamie didn’t even think to not do what he had asked.

  Upon entering the bedroom, Joseph walked straight to Jamie’s bed and flung himself across it, facedown. Jamie couldn’t see him at first, as all she could focus on was the white bra and rejected T-shirts that lay in a heap on her floor.

  “Where are the speakers?” Joseph asked.

  Jamie kicked the pile of clothes under her bed.

  “Up there and there,” she said, pointing to the black boot-box-sized cubes hanging from the corners of the ceiling.

  Joseph rolled onto his back and patted the bed beside him.

  “Come here,” he said. “Let’s lie together and listen.” Jamie stared at her unmade bed, the pink, chenille bedspread bunched in a corner at Joseph’s feet. He was wearing flip-flops that had a layer of hardened beach tar on the soles. His feet were bony—cadaverous looking—anachronistic on his solid body. Jamie moved to the edge of the bed, put her hands on the brass foot rail, and looked at Joseph. There was a clicking in her brain, like a playing card clicking in a bike tire. This clicking told her what hadn’t yet occurred to her: Joseph might try something. What he’d try, she wasn’t sure, but she knew it would be something she’d never done before, as thus far Jamie had kissed only three boy
s and had yet to be touched anywhere on her body by any boy.

  Jamie exhaled and laughed because she didn’t know what to do or say.

  “Come on the bed with me,” Joseph said again. “I won’t hurt you. I swear.”

  It was a promise Jamie didn’t doubt, and so she did as she had been asked. So, for the first time in her life, Jamie was on her bed listening to House of Honey with a boy. A post-college boy. A post-college boy who had the dazzling looks of a Tiger Beat cover.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” Joseph asked.

  “No.” Jamie snorted and laughed and didn’t even think to ask him if he had a girlfriend.

  Joseph rolled to his side, head propped on the triangle of his right arm. With his left hand he traced his fingers up and down Jamie’s out-turned forearm.

  “You have beautiful, soft skin,” he whispered.

  She didn’t answer. The song ended. For a second all was silent and still.

  Jamie looked at the ceiling, afraid to turn toward Joseph, whose face was inches from hers, and whom she sensed was staring at her.

  “You know,” Joseph said, continuing to stroke her arm, “when a man touches a woman it’s a beautiful thing. A beautiful, wonderful thing.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jamie looked at him quickly, then turned away.

  Joseph shifted Jamie’s T-shirt up toward her rib cage. She tensed up momentarily, and then tensed up in a different, less fearful way as he stroked her belly. A tingling began to run through Jamie—an internal telephone line, calling up all her bits and parts. Somewhere in her mind was the unfocused idea of pressing her body against Joseph’s.

  “You’re very beautiful,” Joseph said, and he swirled his long, dark finger into the whorl of Jamie’s belly button. The telephone ringing echoed in a hollow Jamie never knew she had—she found the sensation captivating and disturbing.

  “Have you ever kissed a boy?” Joseph leaned in so close to Jamie’s face that she could feel his hot breath on her cheek.

  “Yes,” she said.