Flip and Jamie were dipping cookies into a glass when Dog Feather came in wearing a batik sheet bound around his waist.
“Dude,” Flip said. “You’re the Indian!”
“Native American,” Dog Feather said, and he shook Flip’s hand.
“I’m Flip.”
“I know.”
“Whoa, how do you know, man? You like one of those people who knows things?”
“What?” Jamie said.
“You know. Those people who read people’s minds.”
“But if he read minds, how would he know you’re Flip?” Jamie asked. “I mean, it’s not like you’re sitting there eating Nutter Butters thinking, ‘I am Flip, I am Flip.’” Jamie stopped herself from laughing at Flip. She would never want to embarrass him.
“Got any spleef ?” Flip asked Dog Feather. “I’ve been away with my parents for two weeks and I’m dying, man.”
“I’ll get my pipe,” Dog Feather said, and when he left the room Flip looked at Jamie and mouthed, Fuck yeah.
Flip and Dog Feather sat at the barstools while Jamie stood at the other side of the island and watched them smoke a pipe.
“So,” Dog Feather said, “are your parents cool with you guys having sex?”
“Jamie told you we’re having sex?” Flip asked.
“No!” Jamie said.
“I just know,” Dog Feather said. “I am one of those people who sees things.”
“It’s a guess,” Jamie said. “You just guessed.”
“It’s so cool that you can read us like that,” Flip said.
“But he can’t!” Jamie imagined herself giving Flip a Three Stooges head bop and slap. She wanted him to awaken from the marijuana fog and look at Dog Feather with the same yellow glare as she.
“You should honor your parents and tell them about this beautiful thing that’s happening with you two,” Dog Feather said. “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m going to bed.” Jamie looked at Flip, who was squinting as he sucked in deep, his lips pursed around the stem of the pipe.
When he finished, he passed the pipe to Dog Feather.
Flip’s eyes looked torpid and dull; he had an aimless smile.
“I’m going to bed,” Jamie repeated, more sweetly this time. “Do you mind letting yourself out?”
“Nah, I can get myself outta here.” Flip blew her a kiss before turning to watch Dog Feather repack the pipe.
Jamie left the kitchen wishing the day were already over: Renee’s horror subsided, Flip’s postvacation horniness settled, her post-Flip-vacation awkwardness dissipated, and Dog Feather’s revelations forgotten and ignored.
Jamie hadn’t been under the covers for five minutes when her mother slowly opened her door.
“Jamie?” she whispered. “You up?” Jamie refused to answer.
“Jamie?” Betty delicately walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Jamie, honey?” Jamie’s eyes were shut. She was afraid to move.
“Jamie,” Betty nudged her daughter’s arm. “Wake up.”
“Huh?”
“Sweetheart, I want to talk to you about your sexual relations with Flip.”
“Mom!” Jamie rolled over, away from her mother. “We’ve already talked about this, remember?”
“I’m not mad, honey.”
“Dog Feather’s making it all up, Mom. He’s a crazy red-blooded Indian.”
“Red-blooded? Aren’t we all red-blooded?”
“His is redder ’cause he’s crazy.”
“Jamie, your father and I aren’t mad. We just want to make sure you’re using birth control.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about sex, I don’t want to talk about pleasing myself, I don’t want to talk about what Flip and I may or may not be doing.” Jamie shut her eyes and shot up a quick prayer that Flip wouldn’t try to sneak into her bedroom just then.
“Just tell me you’re using birth control.”
“God, I hate Dog Feather!”
“Honey, he has nothing to do with this. Your father and I are the ones who want to know.”
“Mom! It’s not like I even like sex, okay? I mean, we’re not doing it that much and when we do do it, it’s not like it feels good or anything, okay?”
“Oh, sweetheart! I want it to feel good for you. I want you to be having beautiful orgasms.” Jamie couldn’t speak; she struggled for even breaths.
Betty leaned in and went for her arm. Jamie wanted to scream and push her away. The paradoxical effect of Betty’s desire to wade into Jamie’s body was that sex, to Jamie, didn’t seem like a joy to sneak off to. Rather, it felt like a crossover into her mother’s life. The only people Jamie knew who enjoyed sex or drugs were the people who weren’t allowed to indulge: Tammy, Debbie, all the boys at the beach. Was the thrill in those things simply because they were forbidden?
“Please Mom,” Jamie finally said, “please just let me do this on my own.”
“Sex is a beautiful, magical thing, honey. But pregnancy isn’t. So just tell me you’re using birth control.”
“I’m using birth control. Good night.”
“Are you on the pill?”
“Diaphragm. Okay?”
“What size? I have a diaphragm, too. Wouldn’t it be funny if we were the same size?!”
“Mom, I really need to go to sleep.”
“I’m a ninety-five.”
“Good for you, Mom. That sounds about the size of a Frisbee.”
Betty laughed. “A Frisbee! That’s funny. I’m going to tell your father you said that.”
“Please don’t tell Dad any of this.”
“But that’s funny. A Frisbee! So I take it yours isn’t a Frisbee.”
“More like a yarmulke for a guinea pig.”
Betty laughed again. “Oh, you are so funny! I wish I could tell your sister this but it would just make her mad.”
“Mom, please don’t tell anyone. Especially not Dog Feather.”
“Okay, sweetheart. It’s between me and you.”
“Me and you,” Jamie said, and her mother leaned down and kissed her once, quick, right on the lips.
My parents found out I’m having sex,” Jamie told Debbie and Tammy. They lay three in a row on their stomachs facing the ocean. Tammy’s top was untied; she stayed down low to cover her breasts.
“How did they find out?” Debbie asked. She was smiling.
“Dog Feather.”
“How’d he know?” Tammy tied her top, then propped herself up on her elbows.
“He guessed, and they believed him.”
“Why didn’t you just say it wasn’t true?” Tammy asked.
“I dunno. They don’t care so there didn’t seem to be a point in lying.”
“They don’t care!” Debbie was laughing.
“They’re nudists,” Tammy said. “Of course they don’t care. I mean, did you think they’d really care? Did anyone think they’d care? I mean, they’re not even Christian!”
“I kinda hoped they’d care.” Jamie tried not to sound defensive; she didn’t want to try this case with Tammy, who seemed to feel that the only way to get away with bad behavior was to filter it through Christ. Jamie just wanted to complain. “I mean, you’d think a person would care that their daughter, who just turned fourteen, is having sex with a seventeen-year-old boy.”
“They don’t care if you smoke pot, so why would they care about sex?”
“My father actually does care if I smoke pot. And I don’t smoke it.”
“You have,” Tammy said.
“Once. That day we hung out with Jan.” Jamie felt a flush of embarrassment when she remembered how hard she had tried to be cool in front of Jan.
“You could smoke every day if you wanted to,” Debbie said.
“I dunno,” Jamie said. “Having sex just seems like something to care about.”
“I think it’s cool that they don’t care,” Debbie said.
“It’s grossing me out,” Jamie said. “Every
time Flip brings up sex I just see my mother sitting on my bed asking me what kind of birth control I’m using.”
“No way!” Debbie said.
“Yes. And then she told me—”
“What?” Debbie sat up and crossed her legs.
“I can’t even say it because it’s so gross.”
“You have to tell us.” Tammy sat up too.
“I don’t know if I can say it aloud.”
“Just say it and get it over with,” Tammy said.
Jamie sat up, looked out at Flip, who was riding a wave, his hands in karate position, mouth open, knees bent. He wiped out, then popped up from the foamy water, smiling.
“Say it.” Tammy demanded.
“She told me she wears a diaphragm too, and that it’s a size ninety-five.”
“That is so gross,” Tammy said.
Debbie laughed like she was wheezing.
On day nine of Dog Feather’s stay, Allen emerged from his study and said he was taking the day off work. Betty pushed a waxy smile across her face.
“We’re going to the natural history museum today,” Betty said. “You don’t want to come, do you?” Allen looked over at Dog Feather, who sat at the counter eating seven-grain oatmeal with sliced strawberries that Betty had made for him. He wore Allen’s leather slippers.
Jamie was standing on the other side of the counter next to her mother; she refused to sit beside Dog Feather.
“Are those mine?” Allen looked down at the slippers.
“The floors are cold in the morning,” Betty said, “and he has only one pair of shoes.”
“So those are my slippers?”
“They remind me of the moccasins my grandmother sewed for me when I was just a small boy.” Dog Feather looked up from his oatmeal.
“Did she use a seal bone needle and the skin of an elk? Did she chew the thread from whale fat?” Jamie laughed, but no on else did.
“You know, I’ll go with you to the museum,” Allen said. He sat at the counter and poured himself a bowl of cereal.
“Jamie’s not even coming,” Betty said.
“How do you know I’m not coming?” Jamie said.
“You just said a couple minutes ago that you’ve probably been to that museum three hundred times.”
“I’ve been three hundred times because I like it there.”
“So you’re coming too?” Betty wasn’t even trying to look pleased.
“No,” Jamie said. “I’ll stay home.”
“Come,” Allen said.
“Why don’t you stay home with her,” Betty said. “She never has father-daughter time.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Jamie said. “It will be like when we were in Indian Maidens.”
Dog Feather looked up.
“Don’t say Indian,” Betty said.
“That’s what it was called,” Jamie said. “It was Indian Maidens.”
“What’s Indian Maidens?” Dog Feather asked.
“It was a father/daughter club,” Allen explained. “I think it was through the Girls Club of America. Or maybe it was the YMCA.”
“They should call it Native American Maidens,” Betty said.
Allen rolled his eyes.
“I don’t understand why Indian is a bad word,” Jamie said.
“The people in India are Indian,” Dog Feather said.
“So, you can be Indian too.”
“But I’m not from India,” Dog Feather said. “I’m from the United States of America. My people were the first people here. This land belongs to my people.”
“This land belonged to the Chumash, not the Pomo.” If she were Chumash, Jamie thought, she’d start a tribal war against Dog Feather.
Betty slurped her coffee while staring at her daughter. Allen ate his cereal while looking alternately into the bowl and down at his slippers on Dog Feather’s feet. Dog Feather smiled at Betty.
Renee walked into the kitchen. Since returning from Outward Bound she had spoken to Jamie only to discuss their mutual dislike of Dog Feather. Renee poured a bowl of cereal and sat on a stool on the other side of Allen.
“Renee,” Jamie said.
“Farrah,” Renee said.
“Do you think it’s bad to say Indian?”
“Indian.”
“See,” Jamie said, “that wasn’t so awful. I mean it’s not like saying fuck or shit.”
“Or motherfucker,” Renee said.
“Or mother shit fucker,” Jamie said, and she and her sister laughed while Allen and Betty looked at each other with bemused smiles.
“Sweetheart,” Allen said to Renee, “do you want to go to the natural history museum with us today?”
“No.”
“You can look at the Indian exhibit,” Jamie said. “You know, those life-sized models of Chumash Indians picking up acorns, making fires, shooting arrows at mountain lions.”
“She’s too old for the museum,” Betty said.
“She’s younger than you,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, Mom,” Renee said. “Like, twenty years younger.”
“No, I mean there’s a window,” Betty said. “The museum is for the very young or the somewhat old.”
“Maybe Dog Feather’s too old but not old enough. I mean, like, how old are you?” Jamie said to Dog Feather.
“In human years,” Renee said, and Jamie laughed.
“Younger than the moon, older than the sparrow,” Dog Feather said.
Allen lifted his eyebrows like he was waiting for more.
Betty smiled.
“Come on!” Jamie said. “Sparrows have probably been around longer than humans. So you’re saying you’re like, over two hundred thousand years old?”
“How old are you really?” Allen asked. “Did you go to college?”
“Will you all just leave Dog Feather alone!” Betty said. “He’s younger than Allen and I and older than you kids.”
“So you know his age and you’re not telling?” Jamie asked her mother.
“Your mother is very wise,” Dog Feather said.
“Yeah, she’s wise like the owl, right? Or is it wise like the slumbering wolf ?” Jamie said.
“Are you old enough to vote?” Renee asked.
“Enough!” Betty said, and her face turned stiff, like a cat watching a hamster.
Allen, Renee, and Jamie convened in the kitchen after Betty and Dog Feather had left for the museum.
“Dad, you don’t have to stay home for us,” Renee said.
“I didn’t really want to go,” he said. “I was just trying to be included.”
“I say you kick Dog Feather out of the house,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, Dad,” Renee said. “It’s your house. Mom’s your wife.”
“He makes your mother happy.” Allen sighed.
“Well he’s making me miserable!” Jamie said. “And he’s making Renee miserable too. So that’s two unhappy people versus one happy one.”
“And Dad,” Renee said, “you seem unhappy too. So that’s really three unhappy people versus one happy one.”
“Dad, he’s wearing your slippers! You love those slippers!” Jamie said.
“All our friends seem to like him.”
“Yeah, ’cause he’s got good pot,” Renee said.
“Face it, Dad,” Jamie said, “if he weren’t an Indian, I mean if he were a Mexican or something, no one would have anything to do with him.”
“How can you say that?!” Allen asked.
“It’s true, “ Renee said.
“If he were a Mexican,” Jamie said, “Mom would hire him to clean out the flower beds, not take him to the museum.”
“She’s right,” Renee said. “You need to evict him.”
“I’m going to look through his stuff,” Jamie said, and she marched out of the kitchen. Renee followed; she placed one hand on her sister’s shoulder, making a chain between them.
Allen didn’t move from the stool, but he also made no indication that he minded if his daughters rummaged throu
gh Dog Feather’s things.
Dog Feather’s backpack was propped against the wall in Allen’s study. His sleeping bag was on the floor next to the couch. There was a small zipper pouch at the bottom of the backpack. Jamie went there first.
“Maybe you should put on gloves,” Renee said.
“For fingerprints?” Jamie asked. “You think he’s going to fingerprint his backpack?”
“Your hands are always so greasy,” Renee said. “You don’t want to get caught, do you?” Jamie unzipped the pouch, pulled out a folded wad of bills and handed them to Renee.
“One hundred thirty-seven dollars,” Renee said, after a quick count.
“Hey Dad!” Jamie yelled out the door. “He’s got a hundred thirty-seven dollars!”
Next Jamie pulled out a credit card with the name Anthony Mirello; a student ID for Essex City College in Newark, New Jersey, for Anthony Mirello; a membership card for the Italian Students’ Union, also for Anthony Mirello; and a New Jersey driver’s license with a photo of Dog Feather and the name Anthony Mirello.
“Dog Feather is a murderer!” Jamie handed the cards to her sister.
“You’re such an idiot!” Renee said. “He’s a liar, not a murderer.”
“He murdered Anthony Mirello and assumed his identity!” Jamie laughed. “Look!”
“Dad!” Renee yelled. “Dog Feather is really Anthony Mirello!”
“OR ELSE HE KILLED ANTHONY MIRELLO!” Jamie was cracking herself up.
Allen showed up in the doorway.
“What are you screaming about?”
Renee handed him the four cards.
“Anthony Mirello,” Allen said. “Funny name for a Native American.”
“He’s busted!” Renee said.
“You think Mom would let anyone named Anthony Mirello mooch off her for nine days?” Jamie asked.
“No way,” Renee said.
“Maybe his mother was native and his father’s a Mirello,” Allen said.
“He said he was one hundred percent Pomo Indian,” Jamie said. “He tells everyone that he was born on the reservation and that his dad didn’t even speak English, he spoke only Pomo.”
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Page 13