Skinny Dipping by Connie Brockway Page A

out from the shore and was still standing knee-deep in the lake with the hem of her bedsheet floating around her, turned around in disgust and slogged to shore.
    “This sucks,” she said to Birgie, who happened to be the closest to her. “I knew I shouldn’t have used a match. You’re supposed to shoot a flaming arrow into the pyre.”
    “Ah-huh,” Birgie muttered before upending the last swigs of a can of Diet Coke into her mouth.
    “I don’t understand it,” Naomi went on. “I used a gal—”
    A sudden whooshing sound spun Naomi around. Birgie was already staring. The flames had found the gas. The fire shot eight feet into the air, embracing the Ardis poster in glowing orange and blue. Birgie could hear the Styrofoam backing popping as the picture slowly melted, reminding her of the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy had doused her in water. Ardis would have appreciated the comparison.
    “Hot damn!” Naomi said gleefully, rubbing her hands. “Wait here. I’ll say my piece and be right back.”
    “Wasn’t going anywhere, Naomi,” Birgie said, crossing her ankles. She liked Naomi. She wasn’t nearly as crazy as the younger generations thought. Except for Mimi, of course. But then most of the younger generations thought Mimi was a little odd herself, what with the medium thing and living like a gypsy. Birgie suspected Mimi dragged eighty percent of her worldly possessions with her up to the lake each year and she still didn’t fill up the trunk of a midsized car.
    “Oh, Viking Maiden, may your journey to Valhalla be swift!” Naomi waded back out toward the burning pontoon, her arms raised above her head. A rising wind whipped the bedsheet around her. Birgie had to admit it, Naomi looked pretty impressive.
    “May you soon reach the distant shores of eternity!”
    Impressive, too, was the way that same wind was whipping the fire higher.
    “May your proud spirit find rest in the halls of your great ancestors!”
    And really impressive was the way the wind had turned around the pontoon with its roaring fire and was pushing it back toward shore.
    “May you—Aw, shit!” Naomi hoisted up her bedsheet and lurched toward the pontoon, obviously intending to push it back out into the lake.
    “Don’t do that, Naomi!” Birgie called, a little concerned. “You’ll get your hair all burned off!”
    Birgie had just lumbered to her feet when a group of people burst from the woods next to the Big House and raced toward the shore. Gerry, his kid Frank, and the guy who’d been following Mimi around the picnic were in the lead, but Vida and Bill were close behind, followed by Debbie and Hank Sboda. Mimi was last, but not by much; she was hop-skipping on one leg like a madwoman.
    The well-dressed guy waded into the water next to Naomi and with a clipped, “Sorry,” tore the bedsheet off her, dunked it in the lake, and flung it across the pontoon.
    “Well, crap,” Naomi muttered, looking down at her Playtex Eighteen Hour bra. She turned sullenly away from the burning pontoon, now being covered with all manner of sodden bed dressing, and struggled up out of the water to Birgie’s side.
    “It wasn’t going to get close enough to set anything on fire,” she grumbled. “I had it anchored offshore.”
    Birgie couldn’t say she was surprised. Naomi might be colorful, but she wasn’t incautious.
    “Should I tell them?” Naomi asked.
    Birgie considered. The crowd on the beach had shifted its dynamic from spectators at a funeral pyre to active participants at a five-alarm fire. They’d apparently decided to concentrate their efforts on sinking the pontoon under as many sodden blankets, sheets, towels, and even one mattress, as they could pile on it.
    “Nah,” Birgie finally advised. “Let ’em be. They’re having fun.”
    They were, too. Now that it was apparent that the forest wasn’t going to catch fire, and only a few wisps of black smoke were left curling up from the pontoon, the fire fight had