The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (30 page)

“What are you guys doing?”

“Mom’s bored because people only want to talk to Veronica Hale—”

“Or look at her!”

“Or look at her. And I’m avoiding Tammy and Debbie because they don’t want to be my friends anymore.”

“Did they say that?” Renee asked.

“Yeah. They said I’ve changed since the baby died.”

“Oh, I hate them!” Renee said. “That is so nasty. They are so mean!”

Jamie stared up at her sister; she was surprised that Renee was so angry on her behalf. Jamie felt an internal easing, as if her sister’s fury relieved Jamie from the full load of her pain.

Renee lay down beside Jamie and looked up at the stars.

“She’s better off without them,” Betty said.

“And she’s way better off without Flip,” Renee said.

Allen approached his family on the trampoline.

“What are you doing?! We’ve got a party going on here!”

“What are you doing?” Betty asked. “Go back out there and schmooze.”

“Eh,” Allen climbed onto the trampoline, “I’m sick of schmoozing. This party’s dull.”

“Tammy and Debbie told Jamie that they don’t want to be her friends anymore,” Renee said.

“Did they really say that?” Allen lay down on the trampoline with his head on Betty’s lap.

“Yup,” Jamie said. “I’m all alone now.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Allen reached his hand up and took Jamie’s hand. “You’re never all alone. You’ve got us.”

“Then who do I have?” Renee asked.

“Lori Nambine, ’cause I just tap-tapped Mom and Dad.”

“You have us too, dear,” Betty said.

“Look at that beautiful sky,” Allen said.

“I think I see Perseus,” Renee said.

“I’m trying to find the Chumash celestial gods,” Jamie said, “Sky Eagle, Sun, Coyote, and Morning Star.”

“Don’t you think you can see Morning Star and Sun only in the morning?” Renee asked.

“You looking for the Greek Orthodox god out there, Betty?” Allen asked.

“Oh, I’m so jealous that Jamie got baptized,” Renee said. 
“That is just so unfair.”

“Oy vey,” Allen groaned.

“Oh yeah,” Jamie said. “It was real fun. Get in the pool in your clothes, then some wrinkled old man throws your head back and all this chlorinated water plunges up your nose—”

“You think there’s too much chlorine in the pool?” Allen asked. “I always try to use a little less than what’s recommended.”

“Gross, Dad,” Renee said. “All those naked bodies in our pool and you’re using less chlorine.”

“God, I never thought about it,” Jamie said, “swimming in water where all those old vaginas have been, all those wrinkly balls—”

“Jamie!” Renee yelped. Allen and Betty laughed.

“Hey,” Jamie said, “anyone wanna jump?”

“I’ll jump,” Renee stood.

“Why the hell not,” Allen said, and he stood and helped Betty up too.

“Put your drink down, Mom,” Renee said.

“Okay, okay.” Betty staggered to the edge of the trampoline, lay on her stomach, dangled her hand and let the glass drop onto the grass.

“Take my hand,” Jamie said, turning toward her sister.

Renee picked up her sister’s hand without comment, then reached for her dad’s hand. Allen took Renee’s hand and Betty’s hand, then Betty closed the circle by taking Jamie’s other hand.

“One, two, three . . . ,” Jamie said, and up they went.

I would like to thank the following people who have given me tremendous support throughout the writing of this book: Bonnie Blau and Sheridan Blau; Rebecca, Satchel, and Shiloh Summers; and Joshua Blau, Alex Suarez, and the entire Grossbach family of New York. 

I owe considerable thanks to the writers of the Northway Writers’ Project, particularly Lindsay Fleming, Madeleine Mysko, John Sasser, and Tracy Wallace. I am forever indebted to Joanne Brownstein of Brandt and Hochman, and exceedingly grateful to Katherine Nintzel of HarperCollins.

Jessica Anya Blau is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Johns Hopkins University, where she received her master’s degree.

She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she teaches creative writing at Johns Hopkins.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

“If books could be trains, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties would be a high-speed zephyr, traveling at great speed from California to Baltimore, providing great scenery and good company. To carry the metaphor further, this novel has energy and power and will be a great ride for everyone who reads it. Ms. Blau is a writer of wit, intelligence, deep feeling, humor, and imagination, and she gets into the head of a young person like almost nobody since J. D. Salinger. All aboard!”

—Stephen Dixon

“You’re fourteen years old in 1976 and your parents throw naked swim parties. How the hell are you supposed to have your own private sexual awakening? Jessica Anya Blau creates a charming protagonist, her charismatic Santa Barbara family and a summer of love, lust, and confusion. You won’t want summer—and this wonderful book—to end.”

—
Ellen Sussman
, author of Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex; Bad Girls: 25 Writers Misbehave; and On a Night Like This

“This book will make you laugh and cry in public. Jessica Anya Blau has written a soaring teenage lament, perfectly pitched, containing the single saddest and funniest line of seduction ever uttered.”

—
Larry Doyle,
author of I Love You, Beth Cooper

“Funny and charming, moving and sweet—Jessica Anya Blau beautifully captures the awkwardness and the wonder of coming of age. The Summer of Naked Swim Parties is a remarkable debut novel.”

—
Michael Kimball
, author of Dear Everybody

“Once you dive into this sweet, sparkling coming-of-age story, dripping with heart and heartbreak, you won’t want to come up—even for air.”

—
Hillary Carlip,
author of Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan

“Among the many truths in this intelligent, funny novel about family, sex, and coming of age in the 1970s is this: no one can embarrass us more than our parents.”

—
Geoffrey Becker
, author of Dangerous Men and Bluestown

“Having grown up in 1970s Southern California, I can personally attest to this novel’s utterly uncanny evocation of the era. It’s also really, really fucking funny.”

—
Jonathan Selwood,
author of The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse

“Jessica Anya Blau’s Summer of Naked Swim Parties is a time capsule of 1970s details, from pot parties to the backseat of a VW bus.

But, reader, hold your breath: This novel is moreover a plunge into that stage of life they call “coming of age,” and for Blau’s protagonist, Jamie, that plunge is risky and deep. At fourteen, Jamie is a precociously wise observer of human behavior; she’s also a chronic worrier. Hippie parents, an unavailable older sister, traitorous girlfriends, and a sex-charged boyfriend—one sees them all through Jamie’s smart, engaging point of view. But behind the scenes one also senses the implied author herself. It’s in her tenderness for young Jamie, as though she too were holding her breath.” —
Madeleine Mysko,
author of Bringing Vincent Home

“Jessica Anya Blau is a warm and funny storyteller. The Summer of Naked Swim Parties conjures the thrills and anxieties of 1970s-California adolescence in a world awash in sex.”

—
Gabriel Brownstein
, author of The Man from Beyond

“A nervous child of the 1970s takes on the excesses of the ’60s in the form of her nude-swimming, dope-smoking parents. A funny, slightly chilling account through the sharp, unforgiving eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl.”

—Jean McGarry,
author of the novella A Bad and Stupid Girl

Credits

Designed by Jessica Shatan Heslin/Studio Shatan, Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES. Copyright © 2008 by Jessica Anya Blau. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader April 2008

ISBN 978-0-06-167069-5

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