The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (27 page)

“Thank you for sharing that, Stan,” Dick said. Then he turned to Jamie and Renee and said, “Stan is going to hit the bed with a tennis racket. This is what we do when we feel rage. Do either of you have any rage? Would either of you like to hit the bed with the racket?”

“No, thank you,” Renee said. Jamie didn’t even answer.

Within the next hour, four different adults left to hit the guest bed with a wooden tennis racket. Then the girl with the lipstick raised her hand and said she needed to hit the bed with the racket.

“What are you feeling?” Dick gave her a rubbery smile.

“Tons of rage,” she said.

“Go ahead,” Dick said.

She picked up the racket, turned, and looked at Jamie.

“Wanna come?” she asked.

Jamie looked toward Allen for an answer.

“Go, sweetheart,” Allen said. “Check it out.” 

"What’s your name again?” the girl asked.

They were in the guest room, sitting on the end of the 
bed. There was an orange floral bedspread that reminded Jamie of beds in hotels.

“Jamie.”

“I’m Pam.”

“Are you going to hit the bed?” Jamie asked. Up close, she could see that Pam had acne blooming across her forehead, and that the tips of her teeth were bluish gray.

“No,” Pam said. “I was getting bored and just wanted to get away for a few minutes.”

“Cool,” Jamie said.

“What did you do anyway?” Pam asked.

“I didn’t really do anything. I’ve just been sitting on my couch watching TV and eating all day long.”

“Oh, I love doing that!” Pam said. “Do you throw up?”

“Throw up?”

“Yeah, after you eat. Do you, like, eat and eat and eat and then barf it all up so you don’t get fat?”

“No. I just eat and eat.”

“Oh, you should try barfing. It’s so great, ’cause you can eat more and not be so full and it helps maintain your figure.”

“Is that what you do?”

“All the time! I’m up to, like, three times a day.”

“You’re throwing up three times a day?”

“Yeah. Swear you won’t tell my dad? He’d kill me if he knew.”

“Which one’s your dad?”

“Dick! Dick’s my dad.”

“Dick the therapist?”

“Yeah,” Pam said, as she crawled to the top of the bed, untucked the pillows, and lay down. “It’s my house. Dick and Karen are my parents.”

“Oh.” Jamie crawled up and lay beside her. “Is it fun to have a dad who’s a therapist?”

“No. Think about the word, okay? Therapist. The rapist. 
Get it?”

“The rapist?”

“If you divide the word therapist it comes out to the rapist. That’s my dad. The rapist.”

“Oh. I guess that’s not cool.”

“What did you think of Dodie and Sela?” Pam asked.

“Did one of them have Tugboat?”

“They adopted him,” Pam said, “from Los Angeles.”

“Was he already named Tugboat?”

“No, he was named Michael Paul, but they didn’t like that name, they thought it was a name that humiliated women and Afro-Americans.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m adopted too,” Pam said.

“Where are your real parents?”

“No one will tell me—my adopted mom said she doesn’t know, but I don’t believe her. I think my real mom is Carol Burnett.”

“Really?”

“It’s a long story, but I have evidence. I’ll show you some other time.”

“Cool,” Jamie said, and she believed Pam; she couldn’t imagine that someone this grown, this womanly, would make up fantasy stories like the girls in elementary school, like Tammy, who when she moved to Santa Barbara in third grade, had told the class that her little sister had tumbled down a hill, fallen into a piece of glass that jammed into her eye, and bled to death from her eyeball, when in fact Tammy had never had a sister.

“Have you ever been in a trance?” Pam flipped to her side, head propped up on an elbow, and stared at Jamie.

“No.”

“Roll onto your stomach and I’ll put you in a trance,” she said.

“Will it hurt?” Jamie rolled over.

“No.” Pam hopped off the bed and locked the door. “I don’t want anyone interrupting us.”

“How old are you?” Jamie asked.

“Fifteen,” Pam said, and she straddled Jamie’s butt.

“You look eighteen, or twenty or something.”

“I know.” Pam shifted Jamie’s shirt up as high as her arm-pits. “What size bra do you wear?”

“Thirty-two B.”

“I’m a D.”

“Cool,” Jamie said.

“I’m going to unhook your bra, okay? So I can put you in a trance.”

“Have you done this before?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah.” Pam began running her fingernails up and down Jamie’s spine. “My friends and I do it all the time. It feels really cool.”

“Was your name Pam when your parents adopted you?”

“I think it was Carol, after my real mother, but my adopted mother won’t admit that.”

“Have you gone into a trance before?”

“Yes. Now be quiet so it will work. You have to shut your eyes and breathe really slowly, okay?”

“Okay.”

Pam continued to tickle Jamie’s spine. Jamie shut her eyes and tried to breathe slowly but found that she was simply holding her breath.

“Now count backward from a hundred.”

“Ninety-nine,” Jamie began. The counting allowed her to forget about the difficulties she was having with the breathing.

Somewhere around thirty-seven, Jamie petered out.

“You are in a trance,” Pam said in a slow robotic voice. 
“Do not open your eyes until I snap my fingers.” Jamie did nothing, said nothing; she tried not to think about breathing. She thought that if this state she was currently in was a trance, then she frequently went into a trance—she was entranced when she watched TV, or ate ice cream, or read a book, or looked out the car window.

Jamie thought that this was just her being quiet. This was Jamie with her eyes shut.

“Now keep your eyes closed and roll over, veeeery slowly.”

Pam lifted her body off Jamie’s butt so Jamie could roll over, then sat back down once Jamie was in position. Jamie’s eyes remained shut and her hands remained by her sides, but she wanted to reach behind herself and hook her bra, which was sitting loose across her breasts.

“You will not remember any of this.” Pam slid her hands up Jamie’s belly and across her breasts as she pushed her bra toward her neck.

Jamie was nervous and absolutely certain that she was not in a trance. Pam swirled her hands across Jamie’s chest and belly as if she were playing with finger paints. There was a ticklish feeling inside Jamie that told her this might feel good. But her racing thoughts didn’t linger on the ticklish feeling; they lingered on how strange it was that this girl she had met only an hour ago was sitting on her crotch, rubbing her hands across Jamie’s bare chest. And who was 
this girl anyway? Jamie wondered. Was she insane? If this was what group therapy did for you, Jamie wanted no part of it. These people seemed crazier than she. Jamie wasn’t about to make herself throw up; she was simply eating! And Renee was angry and full of rage like Stan, but she never threatened to take a standard screwdriver and rip her heart out! She never threatened to throw her eviscerated heart into Jamie’s face! And her parents liked to smoke pot and swim naked, her mother liked to talk to her about sex and masturbation and diaphragms, but they would never have named her Tugboat! And how, Jamie wondered, could she possibly get this loony girl off her body without completely humiliating herself ? She was the therapist’s daughter! (Or the rapist’s daughter?!) That was like being daughter of the boss, or the president, or the school principal! Jamie considered opening her eyes, showing Pam that she wasn’t really in a trance, but she was afraid that then she’d be exposed as a liar and a fake. On the other hand, Jamie thought, to not do anything might bring on further deranged exploits!

The door rattled and someone knocked. Pam jumped off Jamie and snapped her fingers. Jamie popped her eyes open, sat up, hooked her bra, and pulled down her shirt.

“Just a minute,” Pam said, walking toward the door.

She unlocked and opened the door to her smiling father.

“You girls okay in here?” Dick asked.

“Yeah,” Pam said. “Jamie took a turn at the bed too. She was really raging.”

Jamie hopped off the bed and picked up the tennis racket that was sitting on the floor.

“Jamie, maybe you want to observe as Pam and I discuss her feelings,” Dick said. “Think of our interaction as a model for your relationship with your parents.”

“Okay,” Jamie said, although she wanted nothing more than to sprint out of the room, away from the rubber-faced man and his daughter, who just then seemed more the rapist than he.

“Pam,” Dick said, turning toward his daughter. “What are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling rage.”

“Why do you feel rage?”

“Because I was abandoned at birth by you-know-who.”

“Pam, we do not know who your birth parents are. We’ve told you that many times.”

“I’m feeling rage because you won’t tell me the truth about my birth parents.” Pam began to tremble. Dick paused and looked at Pam as if he were analyzing her aura.

“I feel love, Pam.” Dick leaned forward and hugged Pam.

Pam began sobbing into his shoulder.

Jamie edged toward the door. Dick looked up and smiled, his arms still around Pam.

“Come back here, Jamie! Pammy’s okay! Right now we’re sharing our love!”

“Cool.” Jamie stood three feet from the bed, and began counting the repeats in the floral pattern on the bedspread as Pam and her father finished sharing their love. When they were done, Dick instructed Jamie to sit on the bed, saying that he’d send in her family. Pam held her father’s hand and followed him out of the room without once looking back at Jamie.

Betty, Allen, and Renee shuffled into the guest room.

Allen shut the door quickly behind him, like he was playing hide and seek. They mustered together, standing at the end of the bed.

“Did you hit the bed?” Renee seemed excited by the possibility.

“No. But that girl, that daughter of that therapist guy”—
Jamie couldn’t bring herself to say Pam’s name—“she told her dad that I did and that I was screaming.”

“That’s what he told us!” Allen said.

“He said you were wailing,” Betty said.

“I swear,” Jamie said, “I wasn’t wailing and I didn’t hit the bed.”

“So you’re not feeling rage?” Renee asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jamie said. “Are you?”

“No,” Renee said.

“I think I’m feeling kind of freaked out by that lying, makeup-wearing girl.”

“I was feeling rage,” Allen said. “But then I started feeling bored with listening to everyone complain, complain, complain.”

“I was feeling pissed off at you for talking me into this,” Betty said to Allen.

“Well,” Allen said, “you should feel glad you’re married to me and not to all those complainers out there.”

“I feel glad you didn’t name me Tugboat,” Jamie said, and everyone laughed.

“Was that girl screaming when she hit the bed?” Renee asked.

“She didn’t even hit the bed, she just wanted to hang out.” An image of Pam sitting on her, rubbing her chest, flickered in Jamie’s mind; she quickly blinked it away

“She looks slutty,” Renee said.

“Don’t criticize her,” Betty said. “She was adopted.”

“Yeah, her real mother is Carol Burnett.” No one seemed to hear Jamie.

“Why can’t Renee criticize someone who’s adopted?” Allen asked.

“Think how hard it would be to be adopted,” Betty said. 
“It’s tragic.”

“It’s not tragic,” Allen said. “It would have been tragic if no one adopted her and she was an orphan.”

“At least they didn’t change her name to Tugboat,” Jamie said, making Renee scream with laughter.

Betty shushed her daughters.

“We’re supposed to be working on your rage,” she said.

“Yeah,” Allen grunted, “why don’t you fake cry or something, so your mother won’t be embarrassed that you’re not raging properly.”

“I’ll hit the bed.” Jamie picked up the tennis racket and hit the spot on the bed where she had been lying in her false trance. Surprisingly, it felt good to hit the bed, like she was hitting that moment away, banishing it with each thrash of the racket.

“Let me try,” Renee said, and she did a few whomps on the same spot. Jamie imagined her bashing the ghost of Pam.

“Maybe you girls should take tennis lessons,” Allen said.

“Tennis?” Betty scowled. “It’s such a white man’s sport.”

“We’re white,” Allen said.

“Mom, there aren’t any Native American sports for us to do,” Jamie said.

“There must some sort of Native American sport,” Betty said.

“Lacrosse was invented by the Indians,” Allen said.

“I want to do tennis.” Renee swung the racket in the air as if she were returning a ball.

“Why don’t we build a tennis court in the backyard by the eucalyptus trees?” Jamie asked.

“Let’s put in a lacrosse field,” Betty said. “Everyone has a tennis court, but no one we know has a lacrosse field.”

“I’m not competing with the neighbors,” Allen said.

“What is lacrosse?” Renee asked.

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “If we’ve never even heard of it, it can’t be that great.”

“It’s an East Coast sport,” Allen said.

“I thought it was Native American,” Jamie said.

“Who the hell knows,” Allen said, wandering toward the door.

“Do we have to come back here next week?” Renee asked.

“Not as long as Jamie stops watching TV and eating all day,” Betty said.

“So we don’t have to do this again? ’Cause Dad, I swear, these people are really crazy,” Jamie said.

“Well, I don’t know if we can call them crazy . . .” Allen paused to think.

“Dad! Do we have to go again or not?” Renee snapped.

“Not,” Betty said. “As long as Jamie promises to get out of the house, go to the beach, and find another boyfriend.”

“I promise,” Jamie said.

“Good. Then let’s go.” Renee marched to the door, opened it, and walked out with the rest of the family following behind.