“I’d best get a move on,” Aunt Georgia announced, downing the last of her iced tea. “My aqua aerobics class starts in ten minutes. I just dropped by to say hi.” She bent and kissed my forehead. “If you do change your mind about Indian Camp, you’re always welcome. But if I don’t see you again before then, I expect we’ll all get together over the Fourth of July.”
The holiday had sneaked up on me. My toes tingled. Aunt Georgia turned away too soon to notice my surprise.
As the door shut behind her, I thought about how much time had gone by since Galen had died. It had been six months already. Six months. The Fourth of July would’ve been his birthday, an occasion I’d sworn to always celebrate.
I shuffled like a zombie into my room, opened my hope chest, and took out the box with my birthday necklace inside. It had been sitting on a stack of unanswered cards and letters from my grandparents in Oklahoma. Before going to bed that last night, I’d taken the necklace off so as not to get it tangled in my hair.
I wasn’t ready to wear it again, not yet. I wanted to keep it as one last secret between Galen and me. Despite everything—his notorious taste in presents, it being his last night on the planet—he’d still managed to give me something that I’d always treasure for my holiday birthday.
I decided that somehow I had to keep my end of the deal and honor his.
The big question was how. I’d hardly whispered Galen’s name since the last New Year’s Day, and his birthday—the Fourth of July—was only a week away.
Moo Shu and Peace
FROM MY JOURNAL:
Last autumn, the day before the dance, Galen had said, “I’m taking Queenie.”
“Like a date?” I asked, joining him on my creaking porch swing. I’d always been a closer friend to both of them than they were to each other.
Galen explained, “We’ve been going together for a while. I would’ve told you, but we decided not to tell anybody. You know how people talk.”
I’d never admitted to Queenie or anyone else that I liked him liked him.
Galen’s bangs fell forward. “Would you go out with a Black person?” he asked.
In my distant memory, I recalled an elder—maybe an uncle back home—saying it was okay to be friends with Black people, but not more than friends. “Sure,” I answered. “Worried about your mom?”
Mrs. Owen’s rule had been “no dating until high school.”
“I’ll deal with Mother,” he’d said. “It’s my life.”
JUNE 28
While Natalie propped her dripping happy-face umbrella on the porch, Fynn lugged in a red paper bag. Under the dragon logo, it read CLIFFORD’S CHINESE KITCHEN.
“Special delivery,” he announced.
“We come bearing moo shu veggies with hot-and-sour soup,” Natalie added, scratching behind Chewie’s ears. “Your favorites.”
The takeout was a peace offering.
I’m a devout believer in moo shu and peace.
While Natalie and Fynn unpacked the food on the coffee table, I muted the TV and plopped couch pillows on the hardwood floor. Natalie lit a blue candle, and her single silver hoop earring reflected the flame.
Grampa teases Natalie that she looks like a china doll and dresses like a lumberjack. He’s right. She wears hiking boots and overalls with flannel shirts in cold weather and with T-shirts in warm. Her close-cropped blond hair sticks out in all directions. Usually, her only jewelry is the earring. Lately, shadows have circled her gray eyes.
The blue candle smelled like vanilla, mingling with the aromas of my hot-and-sour soup and moo shu veggies, Fynn’s egg-drop soup and kung pao chicken, as well as Natalie’s steaming wonton soup and garlic shrimp.
That last order stumped me. Natalie is Hannesburg’s only known vegetarian. (It’s less annoying because she’s also the only member of our household who really knows how to cook.) When I asked about the carnivorder, Natalie said she’d decided to expand her diet to include seafood, eggs, and milk, so she wouldn’t always have to drive clear to Lawrence for takeout.
Chewie hunkered beneath the coffee table, waiting for scraps.
I’d almost finished my dinner when Fynn reached over and fondled Natalie’s pirate earring. He hadn’t eaten a spoonful of his egg-drop soup, let alone a bite of his main course, or mine or Natalie’s. Fynn never ignores food.
I clicked my chopsticks and asked, “On a diet, Fynnegan?”
My resident love doves traded a look. Natalie pushed back her plate. Fynn grabbed the dog-gnawed remote and clicked off a special report about the president.
“We’ve been trying to tell you all week,” Natalie said. “We’re engaged.”
“To be married,” Fynn added, reaching beneath the table to pet Chewie.
What could I say? I jumped up to hug them both, and my elbow bumped the container of Natalie’s lukewarm wonton soup. It gushed over the table, and Chewie slurped it like only a big dog could. Somehow, the flickering candle survived.
Once we’d mopped the mess, Natalie spilled the details. She’d proposed to Fynn at Potter Lake with a bouquet of sunflowers. Her mother wanted a formal wedding at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and a sit-down reception at some golf-course country club in Overland Park, but Fynn and Natalie planned to get married in three weeks at First Baptist in Hannesburg. Small wedding. Sheet cake and fruit punch reception in the church basement. Fynn had already told Aunt Georgia, Uncle Ed, Gramma and Grampa Scott, and Grampa Berghoff. Dad had already requested leave to fly home from Guam.
“So I’m not exactly the first to know?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
Natalie fiddled with her earring.
“It’s my fault,” Fynn said. “I told her I’d tell you.”
I tapped my plate with my chopsticks, prompting him with an “And?”
Fynn held a chunk of kung pao chicken to my lips and said, “I chickened out.”
I bit into the spicy offering. Fynn isn’t the chicken type. Or the spicy type, for that matter. He’d been the only one at the table eating with a fork.
Natalie grabbed the Examiner and pointed me to “Engagements.” The entry read:
Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Lewis of Overland Park announce the engagement of their daughter, Natalie Michelle, to Mr. Fynnegan Patrick Berghoff, son of Maj. Erik P. Berghoff and his late wife, of Hannesburg. Ms. Lewis, a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, is a graduate of the University of Kansas and the news editor of the Examiner. Mr. Berghoff, also a KU graduate, is a computer consultant and a website designer.
Natalie should have used Mom’s whole name, not that I mentioned it.
“I had no idea you were in a sorority,” I said.
“I moved out after my first semester,” she explained, glancing at me sideways. “My mother made me put it in anyway.”
Natalie’s mother is a PR exec for Hallmark, and her dad is an accountant at Sprint. They live about a half hour east in Johnson County, a Kansas City suburb.
“What’s this?” Fynn asked, raising the editorial page.
Natalie leaned over to see what he was talking about and said, “I guess Mrs. Owen figures that if she keeps chipping, she’ll beat our esteemed mayor the next time around.”
Fynn appeared to be rereading whatever had upset him. I doubted Fynn paid much more attention to local politics than I did, at least beyond handing out flyers to support Uncle Ed’s bid for city council. He’d called the last elections “glorified family feuds” and said it was no accident they fell during April, “the month of fools.”
Fynn closed and folded the newspaper, like it had offended him somehow.
Natalie set down her chopsticks and said, “You know, Fynn, the letter does mention that she has the highest respect . . .”
The flame flickered, and Fynn waved the paper at her. “You approve of this?”
“It’s the editorial page,” Natalie answered, sounding like a journalism professor. “It’s for what anybody thinks whether you or I agree with them or not.”
An
engaged couple should’ve been getting along better. Not that anyone was asking what I thought. Retreat sounded like a good idea.
I tossed the empty take-out containers and still-wrapped fortune cookies into the Clifford’s bag, grabbed the Examiner from Fynn, and marched down the hall to my bedroom with Chewie.
Fynn called, “Rain, stay out of it.”
I shut the door behind my dog and opened the Examiner to “Letters to the Editor.” The only published letter read:
Dear Editor,
Next week’s city council agenda indicates a $1,340 request in conjunction with a Native American summer youth camp program here in Hannesburg.
As a fiscally responsible citizen, I have no choice but to voice my objection. Please understand that I have the highest respect for both Native American culture and Mrs. Georgia Wilhelm, the program coordinator. On an informal basis, I even encouraged my own child to accompany her to Native American events.
But is it the place of our city to finance a special program that serves only one small cultural group? It merits noting that one of the teens is an out-of-towner. While it has been verified that his parents would finance his portion of the expenses, his outsider status only underscores the minuscule participation number of four.
Furthermore, I have verified that the only local Native American child who’s an honor roll student is not on the roster. If she does not find this activity worthy of her time, why should we find it worthy of our tax dollars?
Sincerely,
Mrs. Della Owen
I flipped to page six. Sure enough, the city council agenda read:
II. New Business
A. Financing Request: $1,340, American Indian Youth Summer Camp.
Georgia A. Wilhelm, coordinator.
I couldn’t believe it. Neon Idiot Me had stood right there, holding my dog treats in Frozen Foods, and had told Mrs. Owen that I was blowing off Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp. Mrs. Owen used that news flash to counter Aunt Georgia’s financing request, probably just to make Mayor Tahiti Rummel look bad.
Bottom line: Mrs. Owen needed voters for round two of her run for mayor, Aunt Georgia needed money for Indian Camp, and my big mouth had stuck me in the middle.
If I did nothing, it would look like I was siding with Mrs. Owen. If I joined Indian Camp, it would look like Aunt Georgia had pressured me—something she’d never do. Besides, the way I saw it, my heritage was not something to be talked about in the weekly news.
To think Fynn wondered why I never left the house.
The bathroom smelled like honey and cucumber. Natalie stood in front of the steam-clouded mirror, wearing a green herbal face mask.
“So Indian Camp is news,” I said. “Culturally inclusive news.”
Natalie’s frown cracked her drying mask. “Hadn’t thought of that,” she replied.
It surprised me to hear her say so. Natalie is always looking for stories, and she talks a lot about how newspapers should cover, as she puts it, “the increasingly diverse population.” That’s a monster challenge in Hannesburg. My hometown has about two thousand German-Americans and assorted other white people, three Native families, one Black family, and one Indian-American family (as in from India, although they moved here from Garden City, Kansas).
Lately, Natalie had been toiling seventy-hour weeks on the Independence Day tabloid while almost single- handedly cranking out the regular weekly paper.
Luckily, she’d recently hired some temporary help. The Examiner can’t afford to pay its interns much more than minimum wage, but every semester a couple of journalism students show up for the experience, a letter of recommendation, and a chance to build their portfolios. Some guy named “the Flash” was her latest indentured servant, a reporting intern who was going to be a sophomore at KU. Fynn had called him “a trip,” but I hadn’t met the guy yet.
Natalie flipped on the cold water. “I’m desperate,” she said. “All I have lined up for the issue after the Fourth of July tab is the regular meetings. You know, merchants’ association, city council.”
I tried to cheer her up. “Maybe Butcher Slotnick’s hogs will get loose and chase Sheriff Appelt down Lincoln Avenue again. Or one of Mrs. Washington’s breeding ostriches will take a peck at another unsuspecting jogger. Or, if you’re really blessed, Joey Michaels will spot another Jesus face in his Cool Whip.”
“We can only pray,” Natalie answered, splashing her face.
Suddenly, inspiration struck. “If it would help,” I said, “I could shoot Indian Camp. Just a day would do it.”
“Art!” Natalie exclaimed, straightening, splotches of green goop sticking to her dripping face. “Do you have any idea how gray the front page will look with no art?”
At the last minute, her photojournalism intern had bagged the Examiner for a better paying, big-time summer job at the Wichita Eagle. Bad news for Natalie. The Examiner’s budget was tight, and she had been counting on a staff shooter for summer.
Natalie splashed off what was left of her facial mask and patted a hand towel on her cheeks. “Okay,” she said, “but it’s the Flash’s story, and your pictures have to be professional. No setups. Something decent, or I won’t run it.”
Natalie had run family travel photos shot with a disposable and hazy, badly-composed pics via camera apps. I smiled at the thought that her standards were higher for me.
“But look,” she added, “we both know Fynn wants you to join the program. If you change your mind and go ahead, that’ll be a conflict of interest.” Natalie said “conflict of interest” like it was the eighth deadly sin. “That means you’re too close to the story to cover it,” she explained, “and the deal is off.”
“No problem,” I replied, shaking her hand.
Mrs. Burnham, who sells advertising space for the Examiner, had dated Uncle Ed between Aunt Carol and Aunt Noreen. If I asked, she’d spread the word that I was covering Indian Camp. She’d even explain that Natalie had told me I couldn’t both shoot the story and participate. If people wanted to talk about Mrs. Owen challenging Aunt Georgia’s financing request, they would just have to leave me out of it.
Indian Camp
FROM MY JOURNAL:
Last fall, two hours before the dance, Galen had shuffled up my front walk. “Queenie and I broke up,” he said. “She’s going to the party with Ernie Blastingbaum.”
Ernie had been her partner for a school report about water waste. It was during Queenie’s environmental phase. Queenie always obsesses in phases, but dumping Galen for her sewage partner? Please.
The next Monday at school, Queenie had greeted me by saying, “What do you know?”
I’d opened our shared locker and dumped her pink tampon box, her color-coded notebooks, and her tabbed textbooks onto the eighth-grade hallway’s floor. “Queenie Deloris Washington,” I said, “you’re going to have to find a new locker partner.”
JUNE 29
The first morning of Indian Camp, I met the Flash at the entrance to D. P. Tischer Park. He was wearing a nose ring and a black trench coat. Fynn had told me the Flash supposedly always carried a flask of tequila in one of its inner pockets.
According to Natalie, the Flash’s real name was Jordan Guller, nicknamed “the Flasher” by his pledge brothers because of the coat. He’d shortened it to “the Flash” on homecoming weekend of his freshman year, when his parents came to visit.
I was relieved to see the T-shirt peeking from the neck of the coat and the faded jeans that covered his lower half. My life was complicated enough without throwing in a seminaked college boy from St. Louis.
“My photographer,” the Flash said. “And I thought I lacked experience.”
Ignoring him, I spotted Aunt Georgia’s tomato-red hair. She was one of five people seated in a circle beneath a tree across the park. “There,” I said, pointing. “Now all I have to do is ask them whether I can shoot the story.”
“Ask?” the Flash repeated. “We’re talking about a publicly funded program on public property.�
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It seemed disrespectful to barge in with camera ready, and I hoped that Natalie had remembered to call Aunt Georgia earlier that morning. Natalie used to click off her list of things to do, but lately she hadn’t been herself.
“Why?” the Flash asked, glancing at my camera. “Will they think you’re trying to steal their souls or something?”
It required a supreme effort, but I decided to be the professional one, so I kept my mouth shut. The Flash followed me, and our footsteps sank into the soggy grass.
As the Flash and I drew closer, Spence grinned at me. I’d heard Aunt Georgia speak of him now and then. The son of lawyers with an in-ground pool in their suburban backyard. Played baseball. Into computers. Startling green eyes. The only reason Spence and I hadn’t met already was that he’d been staying with his Osage grandparents in Pawhuska last summer when Aunt Georgia, Galen, and I had gone down to Oklahoma City.
Twins Dmitri and Marie Headbird had kicked off their sandals and placed them side by side in the grass. They were two of the local Native teenagers Mrs. Owen had mentioned in her letter to the editor.
Queenie looked up, studying the Flash. I had no idea what she was doing at Indian Camp. Since I’d last seen her, Queenie had traded in her smoothed-under bob for a braid circling the top of her head. As far as I could tell, nothing else had changed. In the sunlight, Queenie’s skin looked almost the same warm tone as Aunt Georgia’s. I was sure that she wasn’t Native. It was a well-known fact that Queenie (who was named after Queen Latifah) was the only Black girl in town.
While Aunt Georgia handled introductions, Queenie didn’t even try a “What do you know?”—her standard hello. She seemed surprised to see me.
Wasting no time on manners, the Flash announced, “We’re here for the Examiner to do a story on your”—he checked his notes—“Native American summer youth camp.”
“If that’s okay,” I added.
Marie dug into the pocket of her lilac sundress for a Snoopy Pez dispenser. When she pulled back the plastic beagle’s head, candy slid forward. “Want one?” she asked.
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