The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau Page B

until her foot rested on Jamie’s.
    “Dad’s wasn’t so good, right?”
    “He’s got some things to work out.”
    “What exactly did she say?” Jamie pulled her foot out from under her mother’s foot and crossed her ankles. She wished there were such thing as a bed divider: a metal plank that would cut the bed in two, creating a small wall through which her mother’s naked body could not pass.
    “Your father has a selfish penis, dear.” Betty scooted closer to Jamie so their thighs were aligned, touching. Thin snakes of nausea ran from Jamie’s legs to her gut.
    “You mean separate from him? So, it’s not like he’s selfish, it’s just that his penis is selfish?”
    “Yes.”
    “So it does think on its own!” Jamie started giggling.
    “It’s not funny. He listens to his penis. The penis wants certain things and he listens to it.”
    “Mom, can you please scoot over? I’m getting claustrophobia.”
    “Are you naked?” Betty turned her head and looked at Jamie without scooting away.

    “No! I’m in a T-shirt and underwear.”
    “You should sleep naked. Or at least without underwear.  You know, give your vagina some air every now and then.” 
    Jamie didn’t want her mother to be the person Renee wanted her to be, but she often wished that Betty wasn’t so comfortable discussing Jamie’s anatomy. A couple years back, when Jamie had first indicated that she was ready to try a tampon, Betty burst into Jamie’s bathroom one day, holding an open Tampax that she, herself, wanted to insert into her daughter to free her from the bonds of the belted pad. Jamie had snatched the tampon from her mother and violently shoved it in herself, lest her mother get there first.
    She quickly pulled up her underpants and refused to let Betty look to make sure it was in properly. It wasn’t. Five minutes later Jamie snuck into Renee’s bathroom, where she removed the dangling, dry tampon and put on her elastic bra strap–like waist belt that held up the brick-shaped pad.
    “Mom, back to what you were saying before—are you thinking that Dad’s having an affair?” Although the subject matter was, Jamie thought, overly intimate, she preferred talk of her father’s selfish penis to matters of her own body.
    “I don’t really know. Maybe he is. Or maybe it’s just that he might have an affair in the future. Or maybe it’s the fact that he could have an affair. He has a penis that would lead him to an affair.”
    “I don’t see it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Who would want to sleep with him? He’s so skinny and white.”
    “Your father is a very handsome man!” 
    “To you, maybe. But Mom, face it, it’s not like girls are lining up to be with Dad.”
    “You’ve got it all wrong. Women my age think your father is very attractive.”
    “Dad is not attractive. Flip is attractive.” Jamie pulled her leg away from her mother’s and bent it at the knee, making a small triangular barrier between herself and her mother.
    “Flip’s okay,” Betty said.
    “Okay? He was Luscious Lester, Mom. He was voted the most luscious guy in school.”
    “I think his friend Jimmy is cuter.”
    “You think Jimmy’s cuter than Flip?”
    “Jimmy’s sexy. He’s sensuous. Jimmy’s . . . ah, god, to be in high school again.”
    The idea that her mother might actually fantasize about Flip’s friends made Jamie’s stomach lurch. She was glad she couldn’t read minds—she didn’t want to know what images were pooling in the nooks and recesses of her mother’s brain. It seemed much better just to skim across the surface of Betty’s thoughts, move quickly enough not to pick up too much of the stuff that was seeping out from her inner life.
    “Mom, please. Please don’t talk about Flip’s friends like you really want to be with them.”
    “I’m human, Jamie. I’m alive.”
    “You know, Dad, who has the allegedly selfish penis, would never say something like that. Maybe the aura reader got it all wrong.”
    “She