I accepted, glancing at her brother. Despite Dmitri’s slender build, somehow his T-shirt with the Superman logo suited him. Maybe it was the way a stray lock of dark hair fell on his forehead. Or the Clark Kent glasses.
“Would we get our pictures in the paper?” he asked.
“If I can manage something decent,” I said.
The Flash explained, “We’re going to listen in, ask a few questions. . . .”
Queenie picked a dandelion. Dmitri lifted a ladybug with his index finger. Spence popped a bubble, and Marie scooted closer to Aunt Georgia.
The Flash began again: “So if it’s all right with you . . .”
“Why of course,” Aunt Georgia said. “Everything’s just fine.”
It was time to get to work.
Moving so the tree trunk would block the sun from directly striking my lens, I tried one angle after another and fretted about losing details to the short, dense shadows.
Aunt Georgia reached into her backpack for a fistful of blue pens and four matching journals, just like mine. She gave them to the Indian Campers and invited them to write poems, essays, stories, and random thoughts. She said, “Rain’s big brother, Fynn, will be showing us how to work up a website.” Aunt Georgia gestured toward the Headbirds. “Dmitri and Marie’s big brother, Ron, is waiting tables this summer at Tricia’s Barbecue House, but he’ll be joining us for those sessions.”
So there would eventually be another Indian Camper. Mrs. Owen hadn’t known about Ron when she’d written her letter to the editor. Of course, I thought, she didn’t know everything. For some reason, I found that a comfort.
“Right now,” Aunt Georgia added, “we need to think about creating some content to put on the site. It’d sure be nice to include some of your writing.”
Spence’s eyes widened, and my camera caught him shutting his journal.
“Volunteers only,” Aunt Georgia added.
“Do we need drawings?” Dmitri asked.
Aunt Georgia assured him that drawings were welcome and then reached into her backpack again. She retrieved a handful of granola bars and tossed one to everyone, including me.
The Flash returned his and said, “No thanks.” When she pulled out seven bottles of water, the Flash again declined. He stepped away from the group for a moment to jog back to the park’s welcome sign. He apparently wanted to double-check its official name.
Kind of intense, I thought. But maybe that made for a good reporter.
“What do you think of him?” Queenie whispered to Marie. “Cute, huh?”
“I think he’s going to pass out,” Marie said, sipping her juice. “It’s too hot for that outfit.”
“What do you think of me?” Spence pitched in with a winning smile.
“Not much,” Queenie answered, and Marie seemed to hold back her own grin.
Dmitri stayed out of it, but I recognized the protective look on his face and the way his shoulders straightened. Fynn is the same way on those rare occasions when a boy happens to pay the slightest attention to me. And come to think of it, I’m pretty protective of Fynn, too. You have to look after family, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
“Rain,” Aunt Georgia began, “how’s Natalie?”
I tried to keep the concern out of my voice. It would’ve been okay to tell her I was worried about the tension between Fynn and Natalie, but not with Queenie and three strangers in listening range. “She’s fine,” I mumbled. “Working a lot.”
The tone of my voice seemed to dampen everyone’s mood. The group was quiet for a moment, and then the Flash returned.
At that point, Aunt Georgia began speaking again. “What I’m hoping,” she said, “is that once the crop is ready, we’ll be renting a minivan and taking a road trip to the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota so you kids can be there when it’s time to harvest the rice. Dmitri and Marie’s grandparents have invited us to visit.”
Not wanting to look at Aunt Georgia, I weighed my tank of a Nikon in my hands, running a fingertip over the dents and dings where the black paint had been chipped. I couldn’t say the idea wasn’t tempting, a road trip to Ojibwe country.
And I was sure that even though she wasn’t showing it, Aunt Georgia was disappointed that I wouldn’t be coming along. She knew my family as well as I did, knew about my own Ojibwe heritage. Even with Dmitri and Marie being part of Indian Camp, that particular destination didn’t feel like a coincidence. Mom had always said to consider new opportunities carefully, even if they might make me uncomfortable at first.
For once, I tried not to think about her words.
Malibu Pocahontas
FROM MY JOURNAL:
Third grade. Mrs. Taylor’s class. The assignment was to dress up as an important person and give a report about that person to the class. Two sources. I got it in my head that I wanted to pick a Native woman, and I considered Sacagawea.
I chose politician Sharice Davids instead.
JUNE 29
I don’t remember ever not wanting to be a photographer. When I was four or five years old, Grampa bought me a toy camera, and I carried it like a baby blanket.
By the time I’d turned ten, I was borrowing his Minolta.
By age twelve, I’d started scraping my money together to buy a 35-mm of my own. For weeks, I’d scoured shutterbug magazines for a good deal and pumped up my fund of allowance and birthday money by mowing lawns. At $250, the Nikon I chose was a steal, but the costs kept on coming—printing paper, lenses, a flash.
Grampa helped out, showed me how to shoot, and let me use his darkroom. He taught me how to see like a real photographer—details, texture, light and shadows.
When I walked into the Examiner’s darkroom, I couldn’t help comparing it with Grampa Berghoff’s and mine in the attic.
At home, black plastic sheeting covered the window to block out daylight. A red safelight hung over the three developing trays that rested on a sheet of plywood propped over the bathtub. The enlarger sat on the counter next to the sink, where we washed prints.
Crowded but homey.
The musty darkroom at the Hannesburg Weekly Examiner was like a giant walk-in closet with a double sink. It had all the essentials, plus old photos of floods, fires, and fireworks. Chemicals had long stained the concrete floor.
It was spacious, uncharted territory. Glorious.
Grampa always says a darkroom is like a magic cave, low on light, smelly. A different adventure for every shooter, every time. A place of possibilities. Using filters, papers, and chemical mixes, the photographer can reproduce, rediscover, and reinvent realities.
Most of my first roll had been shot before that afternoon—the Christmas lights I’d taken six months earlier, after visiting the playground with Galen and Chewie. I’d used fence posts, mailboxes, and car hoods to substitute for a tripod, and my filter had created starburst effects. My favorite showed off the shimmer of the giant wire flamingo strung with holiday lights on the mayor’s front lawn. Along the way, I’d taken four shots of Galen, just to tease him, calling him a “supermodel.” The moon hadn’t been bright enough to make those pictures come out. Sure enough, those frames looked empty.
Vacant.
Negatives show scenes in reversed light. Mine showed too many snapshots and not enough pictures of the Indian Campers at the park. At first, I’d jabbed the shutter release button instead of squeezing it, blurring the images. Halfway through, I’d realized power lines cluttered my shots. In the next two negatives, waving water from the in-ground sprinklers appeared to spurt out of Marie’s head and shoulders. In another frame, I’d decapitated Aunt Georgia.
Nerves, I guess.
After a few hours, I sloshed yet another blank sheet of paper in the developer and waited as the image slowly emerged. I’d managed to shoot only one decent photo. The Indian Campers all seemed in sync—Dmitri and Marie without their shoes, Spence blowing a bubble, Queenie with her regal braid, and Aunt Georgia with her backpack.
The scen
e almost made me wish I wasn’t addicted to black-and-white film. But Grampa always says that true artists shoot the highlights and the shadows because stories live in shades of gray. He says color can hide the truth.
Finally, I pulled the paper out of the developer, let it drip, and dropped it into the fixer. It had taken eight prints to get it right.
After my final effort dried, I stepped out and let myself savor working in a real-life, old-school newsroom: the cheap wood paneling, the industrial tile, the agricultural calendar from the local insurance office. The place smelled like worn boots, stale cigarettes, and burning wax. Mrs. Burnham looked over from the ad she was designing to tell me Natalie had stepped out for a doctor’s appointment. Mrs. Grubert snagged the phone at the front desk.
The Flash hunched in front of a Mac, eating Oreo cookies the wrong way, like sandwiches. “Any luck?”
I handed over the picture, telling myself I didn’t care what he thought. I mean, how smart is a guy who wears a black trench coat in eighty-plus-degree weather? Marie had been right at the park. It sounded like an invitation to heatstroke.
Studying the photo, the Flash said, “Not bad, for Little Miss Ask Permission.”
“You charmed Aunt Georgia,” I said.
“Like a snake,” he replied. The Flash licked his fingers, crumpled his cookie wrapper, aimed for the trash can, and missed. “But it was you she was glad to see.”
I wondered what all Natalie had told him about me.
“Let’s see,” the Flash continued. “Spence lives in some place called Edmond, just outside of Oklahoma City. That leaves only three Native Americans actually from Hannesburg. Wait—do you know if the Headbirds’ parents both live here in town?”
A painted hangnail had split from my right pinkie. I flicked it with my thumb. “What difference does it make?”
“It’s for the story,” the Flash replied. “You know, ‘who, what, when, where, how, and why’ under the ever-popular category of ‘who.’”
Sounded more like “how many” to me. The preschool song about counting “little Indians” popped into my head. I’ve always hated that song. “I know of nine Indians living in town,” I said.
“They prefer ‘Native Americans,’” the Flash told me.
I shoved the tune out of my head and shifted my camera strap.
He jotted down the number. “I’ll call Mrs. Wilhelm to double-check.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Look, I know you’re from here,” the Flash said, “and everybody seems to know too much about each other in this creepy little town. But if Nat has to run a correction, she’ll shish kebab me. Your future sister-in-law is my only professional rec.”
Part of the deal with being me is that every now and then I feel like I have to announce my Native heritage. “What are you?” people sometimes ask Fynn. It sounds like they want him to ID his entire species. Because my coloring is lighter, I usually get the next standard questions: “How much Indian are you?” (About forty-five pounds’ worth.) And “Are you legally [or a card-carrying] Indian?” (Yes, but only on my mother’s side.)
I don’t mind as much when it’s Native people asking, probably because they show respect for the tribal affiliation, for my family. They never follow up with something like “You don’t seem Indian to me.”
I’ve never asked about the phrase “seem Indian,” but I figure it involves construction-paper feathers, a plastic paint pony, and Malibu Pocahontas.
Right then, I missed Galen even more than usual. He used to go everywhere with me. If I ever felt uncomfortable, he’d step up with the smooth thing to say, make a joke.
Standing in the newsroom, I didn’t feel ready to deal with someone new. I wanted to hightail it back home to Fynn and Natalie, to wait for Grampa Berghoff to come home from Vegas. I wanted to do mindless, monotonous things like vacuum and dust.
“Look,” I finally told the Flash, “I should know how many Native people live in Hannesburg. It’s not that big of a town, and I’m one of them. Me, my brother, my uncle, Aunt Georgia, and the Headbirds.”
Come to think of it, the Headbirds’ moving to town had more than doubled our Native population. I’d always been the only Native kid near my age who’d attended Hannesburg Middle School, prayed at the First Baptist Church, and gobbled fries at the local McDonald’s. Maybe that sounds lonely, and I guess in some ways it was. But I was used to it. And besides, it wasn’t like I couldn’t have non-Native friends. At least, I used to.
I glanced at the Flash.
Some people size up me and my brother like we’re the latest models in experimental genetics. Most normal, polite people at least try to look like they aren’t staring. Not the Flash—he was going for it. Bug-eyed and proud. It struck me as funny—ridiculous funny, not ha-ha funny—but my smile felt tight.
I was still waiting for a question.
The Flash shifted his gaze from me to his notes, twisted back around, and keyed in a quote. He bit into another Oreo cookie, again like a sandwich.
So much for my theories on human behavior.
I decided to change the subject. “I know it’s not any of my business,” I said, sitting on the corner of his desk, “but is it true that you always carry tequila?”
The Flash reached into an inner pocket of his trench coat, pulled out a monogrammed silver flask, and set it on the desk. “Want some?”
I picked it up, unscrewed the cap. “Had this batch long?”
“Ages,” the Flash answered. Then his expression changed from know-it-all to caught red-handed. “Why?”
Something about his questioning tone reminded me of the way Fynn had reacted as a sophomore in college when I’d asked him why he’d been carrying the same condom in his wallet for six years.
I sniffed the flask, and the smell of the tequila burned the back of my throat.
“It’s full,” I said.
“Image,” he explained, blushing, “and emergencies.”
Fynn had said pretty much the same thing.
I thought about how Uncle Ed had tried to forget the Gulf War and ended up with two ex-wives to forget, too. But Fynn and Grampa had a few beers every now and then, and they didn’t seem worse off for it. I recapped the flask, not eager to find out what Fynn might say if I came home with tequila breath. I was even less eager to hear one of Dad’s lectures if he ever found out. Partly, I think, because of the grief it’s caused Uncle Ed, Dad never touches the stuff.
Once last fall, I’d finished a half-empty beer Uncle Ed had left on my porch—mostly to impress Galen. The end result? Grampa grounded me for a month, and let’s just say that Galen had to throw away his shoes and socks.
The Flash repocketed his flask and laughed. “Shooter,” he said, “I was thinking it would be amazing to do a feature project on this Native American youth camp. I could do sidebars on Mrs. Wilhelm and the rice harvest. Personality profiles on a couple of the kids. You’re not doing anything else, are you?”
Fynn had Natalie. Grampa had Clementine. The house was spotless.
Of course I wasn’t doing anything else.
I picked up the Oreo wrapper, dropped it into the trash can, and said, “I’d signed on for a one-day shoot, but . . .”
In just a couple of minutes, my attitude had flip-flopped. I liked hanging out with somebody who wasn’t being careful with me. My struggles at the shoot and in the darkroom faded. I told myself I could make Natalie proud and maintain my objectivity.
The Flash and I shook on it. Not spit-shook, just shook.
I hoped I wouldn’t live to regret promising a favor to a moderately cute college boy wearing a nose ring.
When I got home from the Examiner, I checked my phone. The only message said, “Cassidy Rain, this is Mrs. Owen, Galen’s mother. I have a few more questions to ask you about this Native American youth program. I’m sure you’ve learned more about it since we last spoke. Please return this call as soon as possible.”
“Galen’s mother,” she’d said.
Like I could forget.
I deleted the message.
After the evening news, I wandered back into the kitchen and noticed a postcard from Grampa on the table. UNLUCKY IN LAS VEGAS headlined a picture of a cracked slot machine. The other side read:
Dear Rainbow,
Never met a woman so stubborn as that Clementine. She won’t so much as let me pick up the check at dinner. All that sass, no wonder she’s been married six times. Probably jabbered her husbands to death. I’ve had enough.
Going back downstairs for more Jell-O.
XOXO, Grampa
P.S. Lost the $440 I’d won on the slots.
Natalie strolled past my open door, carrying four rolls of wallpaper. One had unfurled, and it trailed her like a bridal train.
We do not have a wallpaper kind of house. We have a house with antique white walls and stenciled borders—roosters in the kitchen, cherubs in the bath, pineapples in the dining nook, ivy in the family room and hallway.
Turning into my parents’ bedroom, I bumped into Natalie coming back out. She had apparently dropped off her supplies and was hauling out a load of clothes. As we collided, she dropped an armful of mostly jeans, sweatshirts, and sweaters.
“You’re exactly what I need,” Natalie told me. “Another set of hands. Fynn’s been holed up in his Domain all night.”
Natalie gathered up most of the pile, carried it back into my parents’ bedroom, and tossed it onto the bed. I picked up a long denim skirt off the hardwood floor and followed her in. I realized then that the skirt in my hand, the clothes she’d been carrying out—they’d belonged to my mother. I couldn’t understand why Natalie had even been touching Mom’s clothes.
Glancing around, I couldn’t believe what Natalie had done, either. Mom’s ballerina jewelry box wasn’t sitting on the dresser. Her collection of antique hats, from pillbox to cowpoke, had been stripped from the brass rack.
Her traditional tear dress was gone.
Natalie tugged a BEAK ’EM, HAWKS sweatshirt onto its plastic hanger and hung it on the molding of Dad’s well-stocked rifle cabinet. She touched the glass doors and then drew back. “Do you think your dad would mind if we move this thing into the basement?” she asked, glancing at me. “Rain?”
Rain Is Not My Indian Name Page 4