“I don’t think my suits will fit you,” Jamie said. “Maybe you can borrow one of Mom’s.”
* * *
Jamie paused at the French doors leading out to the pool.
The sticky, arm-pit smell of marijuana puffed up the air. She wasn’t sure if Betty cared if Jan saw her smoking or not, so she blocked the doorway as best she could and shouted a warning.
“We’re coming out!”
“Well, come on, then!” Betty yelled, as she handed a roach to Lois, who smashed it into a rock.
Betty was splayed against the boulder, butt folded up, creating a gap at the small of her back, breasts flung to either side like fighting kids who had been separated. Lois sat cross-legged at Betty’s feet. She looked like a scarecrow closed up to be put into storage.
“So this is Jan,” Lois said softly.
“Jan,” Betty said. “People in California don’t wear bathing suits when they swim in their private pools. So don’t be shocked, okay?”
“Uh . . . ” Jan pulled her chin in. She turned her head toward the bushes on her left, her eyes flitting to and from Betty’s breasts.
“If you want to swim naked, you’re welcome to do so. No one will judge you here. All bodies are beautiful bodies.”
“Except the ugly ones,” Jamie said. “Like Johnathan, the man who looks like Moses in The Ten Commandments, or Judith Tisch, whose body looks like the Grinch’s without the green hair—”
“Jamie!”
“It’s true.”
Lois sat up tall and sucked in her already hollow stomach. Her mouth was a straight line across her face.
“It’s not true,” Betty said. “Everyone is beautiful.”
Music popped into the air, and ten beats later, Allen and Leon wandered out of the house. They were each in rib-knit jock straps. Leon’s jock was yellowed like the walls in a smoker’s house and Allen’s was a purply-gray; it was clear that both jocks had originally been white. Jan turned to them, then turned away, her face searching the bushes, the lawn, the blue and red skyline. Jamie could not help but stare at the abstract form made by the jock straps on their crotches. They were twin white elephants, albino armadillos, the letter T beside another T: TT? They were anything but two, hairy, grown men wearing worn-handkerchief-colored jock straps.
“Sweetheart,” Allen said, and Jamie looked up at his face, surprised to find him there. “Run to the poolroom and get us some towels. I forgot to get towels.” Jan was so close behind Jamie, Jamie could hear her breathing as they walked into the poolroom, a closet-sized room with no windows and two doors: one that went out to the backyard and one that went into the house. Jamie pulled four towels off a shelf and turned to leave. Jan was in the doorway.
“It’s okay,” Jamie said. “It’s just bodies. They’re just naked.”
“But your dad and his friend aren’t naked.”
“That’s so you wouldn’t see their penises, okay? They did that for you so you wouldn’t be embarrassed, being from New Hampshire and all.”
Jan looked at Jamie like she was drowning. But how could she be drowning? Jamie thought. This wasn’t her dad, this wasn’t her family, how dare she drown when Jamie herself didn’t have the luxury to do so.
“Just get over it. I mean Get. Over. It.” Jamie squeezed past her and headed toward the pool. By the time Jamie reached the water she was almost running. She dropped the towels on a rock, relay style, then kept going until she hit the diving board. Once on the board she was truly running until her feet were bicycling in the air like Wile E. Coyote in The Road Runner when he doesn’t realize the road has ended and he’s suddenly run himself off the edge of a cliff.
Halfway through Jan’s visit, Betty and Allen went to Ojai for the day, leaving Jamie to tend to Jan on her own.
Jamie invited Debbie and Tammy over to help. They were hesitant, as neither wanted to give up her time with Jimmy or Brett. Jamie argued that if she could go without Flip for fourteen days, surely they could spend a day or two without their boyfriends. Finally they agreed, and when Jamie hung up the phone she was no longer sure that she wanted them to come after all; friendship, Jamie thought, shouldn’t have to be operated with guile.
Immediately after meeting her, Tammy declared that she wanted to try on Jan’s clothes. Jamie decided that if Jan was stupid enough to let her, then she deserved whatever followed. Tammy knocked on the outside of the suitcase.
“This thing is like a rock,” she said.
“I think they put elephants on them,” Jan said, “to make sure they’re sturdy.”
“When would you ever have to worry about an elephant stepping on your suitcase?” Tammy asked.
“I dunno.”
“Is this how they dress in New Hampshire?” Tammy held out a turtleneck shirt with acorns printed on it.
Debbie pulled out a pair of pants that appeared to have been made out of burlap, or the wiry straw stuffing from an old chair.
“Do these itch?”
“You wear long underwear under them in the winter,” Jan said.
“But it’s summer,” Debbie said.
“Yeah,” Jan said. “I packed them just in case there was a cold spell.”
“Don’t light a cigarette around those pants,” Jamie said. “They’re probably flammable.”
Debbie and Tammy collapsed on the bed in laughter. Jan stood beside the suitcase and sort of hee hawed.
“I’m putting those on,” Tammy said, and she grabbed the pants from Debbie.
Jan grinned as Tammy pulled on her clothes. Scrawny, blond Tammy looked clownish, mean, in the huge, stiff pants. She rolled up the hem so the pants wouldn’t drag on the floor and slipped on her pink Candie’s mules.
“You look ridiculous,” Jamie said.
“I think you need a smaller size,” Jan said.
“I need a cigarette.” Tammy pawed through her purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Light 100’s. “Want one?” she asked Jan.
Jan looked to Jamie as if Jamie could give her the answer.
Jamie looked away. She hated the flightless dodo bird feeling she had when presented with the onus of Jan.
“Are you going to smoke?” Jan asked Jamie.
“What?”
“Are you going to smoke?”
“Not those gross things.” Jamie waved her hand. “But you can smoke if you want. I won’t tell.”
“Do you smoke other stuff ?” Jan asked.
“All the time.”
Tammy and Debbie pursed their lips so as not to laugh.
Jamie still hadn’t tried pot, even though it crowded the sea-shell ashtrays that were scattered around the house and by the pool; even though Tammy and Debbie had taken to smoking it every now and then with Brett and Jimmy.
“Yeah,” Tammy said, “Jamie smokes pot all the time.”
“Whoa,” Jan said.
“Wanna try some?” Debbie asked.
“I dunno.”
“I’ll smoke some now to show you how,” Tammy said.
“I’ll do it, too,” Debbie said, jumping off the bed and hopping from one foot to the other in a spastic dance of anticipation.
“But aren’t you tired of smoking pot?” Jamie said. “Don’t you think it’s getting old?”
“No,” Tammy said. “Let’s smoke pot, again.” Jamie felt dirty as she dug through the ashtray on the night table next to her parents’ bed. Pulling out a half-smoked joint seemed just as invasive as peering at the vibrator she accidentally found one day in the back of her mother’s underwear drawer. But her need to be bolder, braver, bawdier than Jan pushed her ahead. Jamie took the joint and a pack of matches to the pool, where Tammy, Debbie, and Jan were waiting. Tammy had let Jan’s pants fall to her ankles; she sat against a rock in her underwear.
“I got tired of holding them up,” she said.
“Here.” Jamie handed her the joint and the matches.
Tammy put the half cigarette in her mouth, lit it, and took a pittering puff that barely inflamed the
tip. She handed the joint to Debbie, who pulled a little harder but didn’t get enough smoke to exhale. Debbie passed it to Jamie, who pursed her lips as if she were smoking but was really holding her breath. Jan took the joint from Jamie, wrapped her wet lips around it, and pulled so hard that it burned halfway down. She was like a soft dragon as she hissed out the smoke. Tammy grabbed the joint from Jan and pulled on it just as Jan had. She was seized with a coughing fit that turned her face red and teared up her eyes. Debbie took another hit, which she coolly held in before slowly exhaling. Then Jamie really inhaled, sucking it in fast and hard, until her lungs felt like they were being scraped with a nail file, and she coughed. They passed the joint until it was the size of a child’s tooth. Tammy and Jamie coughed at each round. Jan was still and mighty like a rock.
Tammy flicked the tab of the joint into the bushes, stepped out of the puddle of Jan’s pants around her ankles, peeled off her tank top and bra in one swift motion, slid out of her underpants, and dove, naked, into the water. Jan watched her the way people watch fireworks.
“Can anyone see back here?” Debbie asked.
“No way,” Jamie said. “The whole layout of the pool was planned around—” Her mind had ended.
“What?” Debbie laughed.
Jan watched Tammy swim laps, rolling from her belly to her back to her side.
“I dunno,” Jamie said.
“No one can see, right?”
“My parents swim naked all the time.”
“But they don’t care if people see them. That’s what their style is.”
“Style?” Jamie smiled.
“Can people see us?” Debbie was still laughing.
“No. It was plotted that way. The place. The place of the pool is the place where no one sees.” Jamie looked at Debbie and erupted in laughter.
Debbie stripped down and Jamie followed. They jumped into the pool, one after the other. Jan had not moved.
Swimming naked felt better than Jamie had imagined.
The water was alive; it swam against her, tickled, tingled. It was nothing like a bath—it was not passive, or restful, or soft. Swimming naked was motion, action, sensation.
Tammy and Debbie were noise and movement. They were a kaleidoscope that sings.
Jan was mute.
Jan stared.
Jan breathed through her mouth.
Every couple of minutes Jamie forgot that Jan was there.
On the rock.
In her clothes.
Every couple of minutes Jamie saw Jan and remembered that she was there.
On the rock.
In her clothes.
It was as if Jan were a thought too ill-fitting for Jamie’s long-term memory.
Debbie was hungry. She pushed herself out of the water like a mermaid emerging from the sea. Sheets of wetness glided down her back, off her thick black hair, tailed off the crack of her butt. She left a wet trail as she walked naked into the house. Jan was still looking at the French doors when Debbie emerged from them several minutes later.
“There’s nothing good to eat in this house,” she said. “Let’s go out.”
They all wore shorts and tank tops, except Jan, who had on dungarees and a brown T-shirt. The sidewalk wasn’t wide enough for the four girls, so Jan fell behind. When the sidewalk narrowed further, from a bush, or bulging-rooted tree, one of the girls stepped ahead so that they formed a diamond. They walked to the Fig Tree, a restaurant built around a giant fig tree, on which lived two wallabies. There were interior glass walls forming a cage, and a net that en-closed the top of the massive tree. The wallabies looked like miniature kangaroos. They were the size of small monkeys and hard to find. If you didn’t know they were there you could have an entire meal without ever noticing them.
The girls were seated at a table whose end abutted the glass wall. Jamie sat closest to the wall, Jan was across from her, Debbie was beside Jamie and Tammy was across from Debbie.
“I’m having French dip,” Debbie said to the waiter, who was college-aged, thick-haired, smiley.
“Me, too,” Jamie said.
“French dip and fries,” Tammy said.
“You don’t have to say fries,” Jamie said. “It automatically comes with them.”
“But you don’t have to have the fries,” the waiter said.
No one asked Jan what she was having.
“Three French dips with fries,” Tammy said, and she handed him all four menus.
“Three for the four of you?” he asked.
“No, for the three of us.” Tammy pointed at herself, Debbie, Jamie.
“Anything for you?” The waiter stared at Jan, who was looking out the glass wall.
“Jan, do you want a French dip?” Jamie asked.
Jan looked at her and nodded.
“Four French dips,” Jamie said.
Jamie, Debbie, and Tammy began laughing when the waiter walked away. Jan had yet to turn away from the glass wall.
Then, suddenly, she yelped and pushed her chair back. “There’s something hell’a big in that tree!” she said.
The other three couldn’t stop laughing.
Jan had brought her wallet—a red plastic square with a yellow plastic apple on the front—but had forgotten to put money in it (her cash was hidden in the lining of her suitcase). Jamie had three dollars that she took from the cookie jar where her mother kept grocery money—the French dip was only $1.75, but she threw all three in. Debbie didn’t have any money with her, so Tammy, whose father handed her a twenty-dollar bill every time she walked out the door, paid the rest of the tab.
“I’ll pay you back,” Jan said to Tammy.
“I don’t care,” Tammy said. “Easy come, easy go.” Just as the girls approached the door, their waiter dashed up.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Tammy said.
“What are you girls doing later?”
“Why?” Tammy asked.
Debbie and Jamie were holding in laughter. Jan looked bewildered.
“Some friends and I are having a party at Devereux tonight.”
“Who’s Devereux?” Jan asked Jamie, her voice sounding as if it were dubbed in at the wrong speed.
“It’s a beach,” Debbie snapped, “not a person. A beach.”
“Kegger,” he said.
“What time?” Tammy said.
“Ten,” he said. “And bring any cute friends.”
“Cool,” Tammy said, and she sauntered toward the door.
“See ya tonight,” Debbie said.
“Yeah, see ya,” Jamie said, though she knew that even her parents wouldn’t drive them out to Devereux beach at ten o’clock at night, and there was no possibility of Brett and Jimmy driving them to a party hosted by college boys.
They paraded out the door, Tammy in front, Jan stumbling in back. Jamie was smiling, seeing herself from what she imagined was Jan’s perspective, thinking how cool they were, fourteen-year-olds who had been asked by a college boy to go to a kegger. Just when they reached the sidewalk, the waiter ran out behind them.
“Hey, one thing,” he said.
Like pigeons in a row, the girls cocked their heads toward him.
“Don’t bring the retard.” He jutted his chin toward Jan, turned, and walked back into the restaurant.
Debbie and Tammy each placed a hand over their mouths—they were smiling in horror. Jamie’s stomach thumped like a giant heartbeat as she reached out and grabbed Jan’s forearm.
“We’re not going to that party anyway,” she said. “Tammy was just flirting.”
“Yeah,” Debbie said, half-smiling, “he’s the retard.”
“I don’t care.” Jan’s cheeks were bulging tomatoes, her eyes were wet, flashing butterflies. She turned and galumphed off in the direction of home.
Tammy exaggeratedly mouthed Oh My God. Debbie was still trying not to laugh. Jamie ran ahead and caught up to Jan. Jan shrugged Jamie’s hand off her shoulder.
“Hey,” Jamie said. “I�
�m just trying to walk with you.”
“Kay,” Jan said, and she slowed.
They walked side-by-side; Debbie and Tammy were two sidewalk squares behind them, whispering and giggling.
Jamie despised them both. And although it was the first time she had had such strong distaste for her friends, Jamie wasn’t surprised by how easily the feeling had come to her, as if it were something she had been working toward all along.
“When are your parents going to be home?” Debbie asked. They were at the turning point for Tammy’s house, paused on the corner.
“They’re probably home by now,” Jamie said. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Later,” Debbie said, as she and Tammy turned the corner and walked away.
Jan remained silent for the rest of the march home. As Jamie expected, the car wasn’t in the driveway when they approached the house; Allen and Betty hadn’t planned on returning until late that night, after dinner at their favorite restaurant in Ojai.
“Do you know how to play Rummy 500?” Jan asked.
“Yeah,” Jamie said.
“Wanna play?”
“Yeah, sure.” She would have played anything her cousin wanted.
Jamie and Jan sat at the kitchen counter with a package of Oreos, a carton of butter pecan ice cream with two spoons, and a deck of cards. They played Rummy 500 until their bottoms were sore and their stomachs were churning from too much sugar.
“Let’s have popcorn and cocoa for dinner,” Jamie said.
“That’s so crazy,” Jan laughed.
Jamie made popcorn in a saucepan that sounded like it was screaming when she scraped it back and forth along the iron burner. Jan melted butter in another saucepan, then added parmesan cheese and garlic powder before pouring it over the popcorn. In a third saucepan, cocoa brewed. When everything was ready, they poured the popcorn into a bowl and took it with their mugs of cocoa into the TV room. Jan plopped down just beside Jamie on the couch, thigh to thigh. The Gong Show was on and they both laughed. Jan screamed each time a contestant was gonged. The first couple times, Jamie looked at her cousin and laughed at her lumbering figure: mouth open, hands pushing down on her thighs as if it would give more force to her scream. Then Jamie joined in, bellowing each time the gong sounded, releasing something inside her—the weight of too much air, it seemed, for she felt so much lighter after screaming. By the end of the show the girls were throwing popcorn at the TV following each gong. Jamie thought it was more fun than any beach party she’d ever been to.
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Page 10
