The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (28 page)

In order to avoid family therapy, Jamie had to ride her bike to the beach daily with Renee and Lori. Renee and Lori never spoke to her while at the beach. They rarely spoke to each other as they lay like twins, their faces turned toward the sun, flipping over every thirty minutes so that they were perfectly and evenly browned—two pieces of carefully watched toast. Jamie didn’t mind being ignored at the beach; she enjoyed the time in her head; she imagined she lived a different life, a life where she was skinnier, had shiny hair as thick as a horse’s tail, spoke ten languages fluently, and lived in a spacious flat in the center of Paris (where she had been once on vacation with her family).

Renee and Lori always rode far ahead of Jamie on their trips to and from the beach. So it looked as though Jamie were completely alone one day when Brett’s truck pulled up alongside her as she was pedaling home on Garden Street. Brett, Jimmy, Tammy, and Debbie were piled in the cab. Debbie was on Jimmy’s lap. She had one hand cupped over Tammy’s ear, into which she whispered so violently that her head shook, shaking Tammy’s head in turn. Jamie 
stopped and stood, straddling her bike as Brett rolled to a stop. In the back of the truck were Flip, Terry, Scooter Ray, and Kim. Flip was passing a joint to Terry; he looked up at Jamie and lifted his chin real fast, as if he had just hit a Ping-Pong ball with it, as a manner of saying hello. No one else in the back, not even Scooter Ray, looked over at Jamie.

Get used to it, Jamie silently told herself, this is how it will be at school in the fall. She turned her head and tried to breathe away the tumbling stones in her gut.

“How have you been?” Jimmy asked, leaning out in front of Debbie.

“Okay. How are you?” Jamie stared at Debbie and Tammy, who were still whispering.

“OH MY GOD,” Debbie yelled, as if she had just noticed Jamie. “What are you doing?!”

“Riding my bike,” Jamie said.

“WHERE WERE YOU?” Tammy leaned out, pulling Debbie back.

“Why are you yelling?”

Tammy and Debbie fell back into hiccupping laughter.

“They’re wasted,” Jimmy said. “They were drinking mimosas at Terry’s house.”

“What’s mimosas?” Jamie asked.

“OH MY GOD!” Tammy and Debbie cracked up again.

“Orange juice and . . . shit, I don’t know what it is, I wasn’t there,” Jimmy said.

“I see.”

“Throw your bike in the back and get in,” Jimmy said. 
“There’s plenty of room.”

“Nah,” Jamie said. “I gotta go home.”

“She’s depressed,” Tammy said. “She doesn’t do anything anymore.”

“My parents are having a big party tonight,” Jamie said. “I gotta go help them get ready.”

“Your parents are always having a party! They’re total partiers!” Tammy said.

“Veronica Hale’s going to be there,” Jamie said, which was the truth. Jamie had been rolling images of the movie star in her head, incorporating her into her beach fantasies.

“Just get in the truck,” Jimmy said.

“She doesn’t go to the beach anymore!” Debbie said.

“Seriously. I’ve gotta go home. Veronica Hale’s going to be at our house in about two hours.” Jamie hoped Flip was listening. She knew he would be impressed by Veronica Hale. And what was the chance that Terry Watson’s parents ever had a party with a major international celebrity?

Terry Watson might be thin and beautiful, Jamie thought, but she wouldn’t be having breakfast tomorrow with Veronica Hale.

“You swear Veronica Hale is going to your house?” Tammy asked.

“Yes,” Jamie said. “She and her husband, John Krane, are staying in our guest room.”

“I’ve never seen any of her movies but my dad’s, like, pissed at her ’cause she was really mean to the soldiers in Vietnam or something,” Tammy said.

“Oh. Well, my parents are throwing a fund-raising party for her husband, who’s running for Senate. He was in my dad’s fraternity in college.”

“Can we come to the party?”

“No. You’re too wasted.”

“Just me and Tammy,” Debbie said. “Your parents never care if we’re around.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want you all drunk and goofy—you’ll 
embarrass me.” Jamie had a sudden urge to punish them for having rejected her.

“C’mon! We’ll be sober by then!” Debbie said.

“Please, please, please, PLEASE!” Tammy leaned toward the window, grinning at Jamie.

“Fine. Come when you’re sober.” Jamie hoped that Tammy and Debbie would give Flip and Terry Watson a report of the party with many flattering details about how intimate Jamie’s parents were with the Hale-Kranes.

“OH MY GOD!” Tammy screamed. “WE’RE GOING 
TO A PARTY WITH VERONICA HALE!”

Brett leaned over toward the window and said, “Veronica Hale, really, at your house?”

“Yeah,” Jamie said.

“Cool.” Brett said. “You comin’ to the beach with us or not?”

“Don’t say not,” Jimmy said, shooting a smiling wink at Jamie.

“Not,” Jamie said, but she winked back at Jimmy.

“Later!” Brett said, and he pulled the truck away from the curb, jostling everyone and throwing Debbie and Tammy into screams that Jamie could still hear a block away.

Thirty minutes before the guests of honor were due to arrive, two hours before the party was to start, while Allen was out buying bags of ice, Renee and Jamie sat in the kitchen watching their mother give Rosa instructions on how to be in charge of the Chumash couple that was catering the party. Jesus sat on a stool beside Jamie, also observing Betty and Rosa. Each time Betty said the name Veronica Hale, Jesus smiled.

Betty was in a full-length, sleeveless batik dress that she had bought at an art show. There were large gold hoops in her ears and a gold chain around her ankle. Her leather sandals had a braided toe ring for her big toe. Jamie thought the sandals were cool; Renee said they were embarrassing.

“Mom,” Renee interrupted, “you bought a bathing suit, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Betty waved her hand and rolled her eyes.

“And you told Leon and Lois that they had to wear suits if they swam, right?”

“Honey, don’t worry about it. Everyone’s wearing a suit tonight.”

“I mean, Mom,” Renee continued, “he’s running for senator. You cannot go naked at a senatorial fund-raiser.”

“Sweetheart, we know! We bought suits! Relax.”

“Maybe we should go back to family therapy and work out the naked swimming thing,” Jamie said.

“Shut up,” Renee said.

“And listen.” Betty turned to her daughters. “Movie stars are very particular about the way their bodies look and they’re usually skinnier than normal people. So I don’t want you girls comparing yourselves to Veronica Hale, you hear? 
No matter how good her figure may be, you must remind yourself that you are you and you are perfect in the you that you are.”

“A lot of yous in that sentence, Mom,” Jamie said, and Renee cracked up.

“I’m going to go do some sit-ups before they get here,” Renee said, sliding off her stool.

“Don’t you dare exercise because a movie star is coming over!” Betty called after her. “You’re perfect!” 

The doorbell rang and Jamie and her mother froze up, looking at each other.

“Jesus Christ, they’re early,” Betty said.

Rosa wiped her hands on her apron and headed out of the kitchen to answer the door.

“No!” Betty stopped her. “I don’t want them thinking we have some white hierarchy thing going on in this house. 
You take care of the kitchen and I’ll get the door.” Jamie followed her mother to the door and stood right beside her as she opened it. A long-faced man and a beautiful brown-haired, blue-eyed woman stood on the porch.

“Betty?” the woman asked. “I’m Veronica.” Betty shook Veronica Hale’s and John Krane’s hands and invited them in without introducing Jamie. John and Veronica each carried a soft leather duffel bag, which they dumped on the entrance hall floor.

“Tell Jesus to take their bags up to the guest room,” Betty whispered to Jamie.

“But he’s Mexican. Shouldn’t a white person take them up?” Jamie asked, in earnest.

“Just go get him!” Betty hissed, then rushed over to John and Veronica, who were wandering the living room looking at the paintings.

Jamie helped Jesus take the bags up. There was a fat bouquet of yellow roses on the dresser in the guest room. Betty had never put flowers in the guest room for anyone, not even her best friend from college, not even the president of a company Allen was consulting for, not even her own sister. But for Veronica Hale, flowers were everywhere.

When Jamie came downstairs, Betty, Veronica Hale, and John Krane were standing by the pool. Jamie sat on a boulder and watched her mother rigidly gesturing as she 
chatted with the couple. Allen came home from the store and joined them, and suddenly everyone, especially Betty, seemed more relaxed. Veronica told Betty and Allen that she loved the pool, she loved the boulders, she loved the landscaping.

“There’s a eucalyptus grove way back there,” Jamie said, 
“and there’s a trampoline on the lawn.”

“You have a trampoline?” Veronica asked Jamie.

“Yeah, down the hill,” Jamie said.

“I love trampolines,” Veronica said.

Veronica Hale pointed her toes and lifted her arms like a ballerina when she jumped. She was in blue jeans and a puffy-sleeved Mexican peasant blouse that billowed out each time she went up. Jamie jumped with Veronica, facing her, watching her. Veronica didn’t talk or look down at Jamie; she simply jumped in a rhythm, staring off into the distance. Jamie felt like she was jumping by herself while watching a movie of Veronica Hale on a trampoline. She wondered if the only way to endure public life as a movie star was to create invisible walls between yourself and everyone around you. Veronica Hale seemed supremely alone, safely separated from Jamie and anyone else who might approach.

While John Krane and Veronica Hale were in the guest room showering and changing, Betty, Allen, Renee, and Jamie huddled together in the backyard.

“I think she’s too skinny,” Betty said. “I mean, she’s had two children—she doesn’t look normal.” 

“Lois is skinnier than she is,” Jamie said.

“Lois never had kids,” Betty said.

“She looks fine,” Allen said. “She seems wonderful.”

“Oh, of course she’s wonderful to you! Why wouldn’t she be wonderful to you? I bet that yellow-aura penis of yours just loves her!”

“Mom!” Renee said. “Don’t talk about Dad’s penis in front of us!”

Rosa came out to the backyard.

“Miss Betty,” she said, “the Chumash are here, but I think you’ve been duped! That lady in there is no Chumash; she’s a Mexican!”

“How do you know?” Allen asked.

“I know my own people,” Rosa said, “just like you’d know yours.”

“But Chumash, Mexican, they look pretty similar, don’t you think?”

“No,” Rosa said.

“Is it the people who did the food at the aura reading?” Jamie asked.

“Yes,” Betty said. “They’re Chumash and they’re fabulous. Chumash wouldn’t lie about being Chumash.”

“Yes, but a chola might lie,” Rosa said.

“What’s a chola?” Allen asked.

“Mexican American!” Rosa said. “They lie all the time.”

“How can you say that about your people?!” Betty said.

“One’s people is all that we have in this life!”

“That lady is Mexican,” Jamie said. “She told me the last time they were here. Her boyfriend is Chumash.”

“Well, one Chumash is fine!” Betty seemed near tears.

“Just leave them alone and let them cook!” 

“Okay, okay,” Rosa said. “It’s your Veronica Hale party, not mine.”

“Jamie probably knows more about the Chumash than that Mexican lady in there,” Renee said.

“I probably do,” Jamie said. “Did you know that the Chumash believe in four celestial gods?”

“We know, dear, you’ve told us,” Betty said. “Now go get ready for the party.”

Debbie and Tammy appeared just as the party was starting. Jamie vacillated between regretting having invited them and being glad to have them witness Veronica Hale hanging out with her parents and their friends. What she really hoped, however, was that somehow, in the absence of their boyfriends, she and Debbie and Tammy would fall into place together and things would be giddy and wonderful the way they had been at the beginning of the summer.

Tammy’s father walked into the kitchen with Tammy and Debbie. He glanced out the glass doors toward the pool. It was clear he was hoping to see Veronica Hale.

“This thing black tie?” Mr. Hopkins never looked at Tammy’s friends when he spoke to them; it was as if he were avoiding something in their faces.

“I don’t think so,” Jamie said. “Veronica Hale’s wearing a long flowery skirt and a green blouse that’s tied up at her waist.”

“Tied up at her waist?!” Tammy asked. Tammy was in tight, red pants with a red-and-yellow-striped cap-sleeved shirt.

“Yeah, you know, in a big knot.”

“Can you see her belly button?” Debbie asked. Debbie was in Chemin de Fer sailor jeans and a gauzy button-front blouse. She untucked the blouse and tied it around her waist. Jamie was in shorts and a T-shirt. It hadn’t occurred to her to dress for the party and it was entirely unlike her parents to either note what their daughters wore or direct their choice in clothing.

“So Hanoi Hale’s here,” Tammy’s dad said. “I got a thing or two I’d like to tell her.”

“The party’s a fund-raiser for her husband,” Jamie said.

“You know, my brother fought in Nam.” Tammy’s dad nodded his head as spoke, as if he were physically working up to something. “And my father fought in World War Two. 
Tammy comes from a long line of good American soldiers.”

“How’s this?” Debbie asked, showing her tied-up shirt.

“I wouldn’t let that woman in my house to clean the toilets,” Tammy’s dad said.

The Chumash man at the stove stared at Mr. Hopkins with dark, hard eyes.

“Do you think I should change into a blouse?” Tammy asked.

“You look fine,” Jamie said, “and the party’s already starting.”

“Don’t you girls listen to any of her mumbo jumbo now, you hear?” Tammy’s dad ambled toward the door, his giant belly leading the way.