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Chapter One

After all, it was the seventies, so Allen and Betty thought nothing of leaving their younger daughter, Jamie, home alone for three nights while they went camping in Death Valley. And although most girls who had just turned fourteen would love a rambling Spanish-style house (with a rock formation pool, of course) to themselves for four days, Jamie, who erupted with bouts of fear with the here-now/gone-now pattern of a recurring nightmare, found the idea of her parents spending three nights in Death Valley terrifying. Jamie was not afraid for Allen and Betty—she did not fear their death by heat stroke, or scorpion sting, or dehydration (although each of these occurred to her in the days preceding their departure). She feared her own death—being murdered by one of the homeless men who slept between the roots of the giant fig tree near the train station or being trapped on the first floor of the house, the second floor sitting on her like a fat giant, after having fallen in an earthquake.

Jamie's older sister, Renee, was also away that weekend, at a lake with the family of her best and only friend. But even if she had been home, Renee would have provided little comfort for Jamie, as her tolerance for the whims of her younger sister seemed to have vanished around the time Jamie began menstruating while Renee still hadn't grown hips.

"I invited Debbie and Tammy to stay with me while you're gone," Jamie told her mother.

They were in the kitchen. Betty wore only cutoff shorts and an apron (no shoes, no shirt, no bra); it was her standard uniform while cooking. Betty's large, buoyant breasts sat on either side of the bib—her long, gummy nipples matched the polka dots on the apron.

"I know," Betty said. "Their mothers called."

Jamie's stomach thumped. Of course their mothers called. They each had a mother who considered her daughter the central showpiece of her life. "So what'd you say?" Jamie prayed that her mother had said nothing that would cause Tammy's and Debbie's mothers to keep them home.

"I told them that I had left about a hundred dollars' worth of TV dinners in the freezer, that there was spending money in the cookie jar, and that there was nothing to worry about."

"What'd they say?"

"Tammy's mother wanted to know what the house rules were."

"What'd you say?"

"I told her there were no rules. We trust you."

Jamie knew her parents trusted her, and she knew they were right to do so—she couldn't imagine herself doing something they would disapprove of. The problem, as she saw it, was that she didn't trust them not to do something that she disapproved of. She had already prepared herself for the possibility that her parents would not return at the time they had promised, for anything—an artichoke festival, a nudists' rights parade—could detain them for hours or even days. There was nothing internal in either of her parents, no alarms or bells or buzzing, that alerted them to the panic their younger daughter felt periodically, like she was an astronaut untethered from the mother ship—floating without any boundaries against which she could bounce back to home.

Allen walked into the kitchen. He'd been going in and out of the house, loading the Volvo with sleeping bags, a tent, lanterns, flashlights, food.

"You know Debbie and Tammy are staying here with Jamie," Betty said, and she flipped an omelet over—it was a perfect half-moon, and she, for a second, was like a perfect mother.

"Why do all your friend's names end in y?" Allen asked.

"Tammy," Jamie recited, "Debbie . . . Debbie's i e."

"But it sounds like a y."

"So does my name."

"You're i e," Betty said, "You've been i e since you were born."

"Yeah, but Jamie sounds like Jamey with a y."

"There's no such thing as Jamie with a y," Allen said. "But there is Debby with a y."

"Well Mom's a y—Betty!"

"I'm a different generation," Betty said, "I don't count."

"And she's not your friend, she's your mother," Allen said.

"Oh, there's also Kathy and Suzy and Pammy," Betty said.

"No one calls her Pammy except you," Jamie said.

"Too many y's," Allen said. "You need friends with more solid names. Carol or Ann."

"No way I'm hanging out with Carol or Ann."

"They've got good names." Allen sat on a stool at the counter, picked up his fork and knife, and held each in a fist on either side of his plate.

"They're dorks," Jamie said.

Betty slid the omelet off the pan and onto Allen's plate just as their neighbor, Leon, walked in.

"Betty," he said, and he kissed Jamie's mother on the cheek. His right hand grazed one breast as they pulled away from the kiss.

"Allen," Leon stuck out the hand that had just touched Betty's breast toward Allen, who was hovered over his omelet, oblivious.

"Did you find some?" Allen asked.

"I stuck it in your trunk," Leon said.

"What?" Jamie asked.

"Nothing," Allen said, although he must have known that Jamie knew they were talking about marijuana. They rolled it in front of their daughters, they smoked it in front of them, they left abalone ashtrays full of Chiclet-sized butts all over the house. Yet the actual purchasing of it was treated like a secret—as if the girls were supposed to think that although their parents would smoke an illegal substance, they'd never be so profligate as to buy one.

"So what are you going to do in Death Valley?" Leon asked.

Allen lifted his left hand and made an O. He stuck the extended middle finger of his right hand in and out of the O. The three of them laughed. Jamie turned her head so she could pretend to not have seen. Unlike her sister, Jamie was successfully able to block herself from her parents' overwhelming sexuality, which often filled the room they were in, in the same way that air fills whatever space contains it.

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Excerpted from The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.