Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

Jimmy sat in the front seat with Dr. Cone. The rest of us bumped around in the back, Izzy and myself framed by Mrs. Cone and Sheba. No one had on a seat belt and the windows were open, blowing my hair into my face. Mrs. Cone’s and Sheba’s blond wigs barely moved, as if the hair were too heavy to be pushed around.

“When I was a kid, my family always sang in the car,” Sheba said.

“Can I have a Lorna Doone?” Izzy asked me, though her mother was the one who had packed the cooler with snacks and placed them in the wayback of the station wagon.

“Yes. Anyone else?” I flipped around in my seat and leaned into the wayback.

“Bring out the whole pack,” Mrs. Cone said.

“We sang mostly school songs,” Sheba said. “Like ‘My Country, ’Tis of Thee.’”

“My country ’tis of thee—” I started the song as I sat back in my seat and opened the box of cookies. I handed one to Izzy and tried to give one to Mrs. Cone, who waved her hand to mean no, thanks.

“Sweet land of liberty—” Sheba joined in.

I sat forward and handed Dr. Cone and Jimmy each a cookie. Sheba and I kept singing. When Jimmy twanged in with his rumbling voice, it suddenly sounded beautiful.

“Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from ev-ryyy mountain side, let freedom ring!”

“Why did the fathers die?” Izzy asked.

Mrs. Cone reached over my lap, took Izzy’s unfinished cookie, bit into it, and then handed it back. “I guess they’re talking about the dads who died in the Revolutionary War.”

“What’s that?”

“When Americans decided they didn’t want a king or a queen.” Sheba reached over, grabbed the box of cookies, and pulled one out. Mrs. Cone took the box from Sheba and pulled out a cookie for herself.

“Maybe Izzy knows this one,” Jimmy said. “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening. . . .”

Jimmy sang and everyone joined in. Izzy made hand motions as she sang, her fist bumping up and down for a hammer, her hands over her head and her head tocking back and forth for a bell. By the time we were on the last chorus, everyone was doing the hand motions.

We sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”in a round. Next Dr. Cone sang us a song he had learned at camp as a boy. It was about a cannibal king playing the bongos under a bamboo tree and kissing his girlfriend. Izzy loved the song, especially the part where you made big kissing sounds. It went Boom boom(kiss kiss) Boom boom(kiss kiss). It only took a couple of minutes for Dr. Cone to teach the song to everyone, and soon we all sang it with as much exuberance as Izzy.

“Again! Let’s sing it again!” Izzy said.

We did as Izzy requested, only this time everyone turned to someone beside them and kissed. Jimmy even kissed Dr. Cone’s cheek. I’d never seen a man kiss another man like that, and it seemed so funny that I was still laughing as I kissed Sheba’s cheek.

We all sat in the car and stared at the low, long white clapboard house. The shingles and shutters were old-looking, faded pea green. The house seemed lonely against the beach. The neighboring houses were so far away, they reminded me of the little green homes in Monopoly.

“It looks like a Hopper painting,” Mrs. Cone said.

Jimmy sang, “Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and grey —”

“Isn’t that song about Van Gogh?” Dr. Cone asked.

“I’m about to pee my shorts,” Sheba said.

“Really you will? Sheba, will you pee your shorts?” Izzy asked.

“Where did I put that key?” Dr. Cone was searching his pockets. He leaned past Jimmy and opened the glove box.

“I have to go NOW!” Sheba burst out of the car and ran to the sand dunes. The rest of us got out of the car, Dr. Cone still patting down his pockets. Sheba turned around to face us, then pulled down her shorts, squatted, and peed. I looked around. No one seemed to be paying attention, except Izzy.

Izzy ran to Sheba. “I want to pee in the sand!”

“Got it!” Dr. Cone pulled the key from his breast pocket. He unlocked the house and propped the front door open. Jimmy and Mrs. Cone started unloading the car.

I looked over at Izzy squatted at the base of the dune. “Mary Jane!” she shouted. “Come pee in the sand!”

Suddenly I did want to pee in the sand. Just for fun. Just because the nudest I’d ever been in public was two weeks ago when I put on my bra in the dark beside my own house. I looked toward the car. Dr. and Mrs. Cone were pulling out suitcases and placing them on the driveway. Jimmy was carrying a brown-and-mustard-patterned suitcase toward the house. He looked back at me and said, “Go for it, Mary Jane!”

Before I could think it through, I ran to Sheba and Izzy. They were both standing now, with their pants pulled up.

“Do you have to pee?” Sheba asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s like being a cat. You just kick sand over it when you’re done.” Sheba kicked sand over the big, wet oval near her feet. Even though I had gotten used to being with Sheba, my brain dinged a little alarm that said, You’re looking at Sheba’s pee.

Izzy tried to kick sand over her wet circle. She was barefoot and her toes kept hitting the pee spot.

“Can you barricade me from their view?” I asked.

“Yes!” Izzy shouted. “What does that mean?”

“Stand in front of her so no one can see.” Sheba moved so she stood between me and the house. Izzy positioned herself beside Sheba.

I backed up a bit so I wouldn’t pee on their feet, and then pulled down my shorts. The hot sun on my bare butt was a totally new feeling. When I was done, I quickly pulled up my shorts and then kicked sand over my spot.

“Can we poop?” Izzy asked.

“No!” Sheba and I said together.

The house was mostly on one floor, with a small second floor that had only a bedroom with a sitting room. The five remaining bedrooms were on the first floor, lining a long hallway. Some of the bedrooms shared a bathroom and some had their own bathroom. Mrs. Cone told Sheba and Jimmy they had to take the second-floor room, and they did. She and Dr. Cone took the front-most bedroom, facing the beach. This left four bedrooms for me and Izzy.

Izzy took my hand. “Will you share a room with me?”

“Sure.” I had been wondering what I was supposed to do after Izzy went to sleep. Was I to join the adults, or stay in my room? Even if Izzy and I shared a room, I could go in another bedroom to read.

Izzy pulled me into the room next to Dr. and Mrs. Cone’s. “Do you think there’s a witch here?” She dropped my hand and turned in a circle. The room had two single beds with anchor-print bedspreads that matched the wallpaper.

I turned in a circle too. Then I dropped to my knees and flipped up the bed skirt on the first one, and then the other bed. “No. There’s definitely no witch here.”

In the next room we looked again for the witch. This room had rowboat-and-fish wallpaper that matched the rowboat-and-fish bedspreads. The bedside lamps each had a copper rowboat for a base.

The next room had a double bed with daisy-print wallpaper and a solid white bedspread with lacy scalloped edges.

“Witch?” Izzy asked.

“Hmm, I dunno. But I don’t like this room. Don’t you think we should be in a beachier room since we are, actually, at the beach?”

The last room had beach-ball-and-beach-umbrella-print wallpaper with matching bedspreads. Izzy and I agreed that although it was beachy, it was too colorful to be peaceful.

“Rowboats or anchors?” I said.

“Rowboats,” Izzy said.

Once Izzy and I had finished unpacking, I took the week’s worth of recipe cards I had brought to the dining room table and read them to Izzy. She wanted to pick the order of meals. The dining room was open to the kitchen, where Mrs. Cone and Sheba were unpacking the bags of groceries—mostly snacks—we’d brought. They were talking about Jimmy and his progress. The way they spoke made Jimmy sound like a little boy—taking responsibility, learning to be alone, figuring out how to sit still with his thoughts, stopping himself and thinking before he takes action. I was glad Jimmy wasn’t around to hear them.

Dr. Cone walked onto the screened porch off the kitchen. “BONNIE!” he shouted in.

“WHAT?!” Mrs. Cone shouted back.

Dr. Cone lowered his voice. “What if we worked here?”

Mrs. Cone and Sheba walked into the screened porch. Izzy and I watched. Sheba thought it was too public and the rest of us would feel banned from the house.

Jimmy came downstairs, wearing his jean shorts and nothing else, and sat at the table with me and Izzy. Hanging from his neck was the leather-and-feather necklace. In his hand was a wide-brimmed straw hat with a red bandanna-print scarf tied around it. The hat looked like it belonged to a woman. “What are you two up to?” he asked.

“We, uh . . .” I blushed. We were eavesdropping, but I didn’t want to admit it.

“We’re making the order of the dinner. Here.” Izzy stood on the chair and spread out the index cards like a train in front of Jimmy. “First, mac ’n’ cheese! Which one’s mac and cheese?”

“Find the letter M and then A,” I said. “M, ma ma ma. And A, ah, ah, ah.”

“Ma, ma, ma.” Izzy ran her finger along the cards.

Dr. Cone, Mrs. Cone, and Sheba returned to the kitchen. “What if you worked on the beach?” Mrs. Cone asked. “I saw a stack of chairs in the garage.”

“Not a bad idea.” Dr. Cone looked over at the three of us.

“MAC AND CHEESE!” Izzy waved the correct recipe card.

“We’re gonna make an office on the beach?” Jimmy asked.

“What do you think of that? It could be productive to feel connected to the ocean, the sky, the sand.”

“It’s cool. I like it.” Jimmy nodded and then he stood. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Alone?” Sheba sounded nervous.

“Yeah. Just wanna clear my head.”

“Maybe I should go with you,” Sheba said.

“I’m fine. Relax.”

“Why are you getting defensive? Why can’t I go with you?” Sheba’s voice was tightening. Her face was as pointed as an arrow.

“I just want to be alone for a few minutes! What’s the fucking crime?!” Jimmy verged on yelling.

“Did you phone someone?! Tell me you didn’t phone someone!” Sheba was yelling now.

“Who the fuck am I going to phone?! We’re in a fucking shithole town in Maryland!”

“We’re in motherfucking Delaware!” Sheba walked to Jimmy and stood so that her face was only inches from his. With her mouth drawn shut like that, she looked ten years older.

“HOW THE FUCK WOULD I CALL SOMEONE IF I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT FUCKING STATE I’M IN?”

Izzy climbed on top of the dining room table. She rearranged the index cards as if nothing unusual were happening. But I could see that she was anxious: her barely noticeable eyebrows were pulled together, and her mouth churned as she quietly spoke to herself.

“It’s okay.” Dr. Cone put up both hands, fingers spread. “Jimmy, I feel your frustration. I can see that it pains you that Sheba doesn’t trust you.”

“THE FUCK I DON’T! HE SCORED IN THE ALLEY BEHIND YOUR FUCKING HOUSE!”

“Sheba,” Dr. Cone said. “I feel your anxiety. You love Jimmy. He had a setback. You’re carrying a lot of fear. And I can see that you feel responsible for him.”

Izzy whispered, “Mac and cheese tonight.”

“She’s not my fucking mother,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, I’m not an alcoholic chasing you around the house with a lethal wrought-iron fire poker!”

“The FUCK, Sheba! It was an ash shovel!”

“Why don’t we do this? Let me check Jimmy’s pockets, make sure he has no cash, and we’ll put a time limit on the walk. You okay with that, Jimmy?” Dr. Cone put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and rubbed, as if he were trying to warm him up.

Jimmy nodded, stuck his hands into his front jean shorts pockets, and pulled out the linings. He turned and Dr. Cone patted his back pockets.

“Don’t forget your hat.” Izzy stood on the table and held out the straw hat.

Dr. Cone took the hat, then looked inside it and ran his finger under the scarf. He handed the hat to Jimmy. “An hour okay?”

“What about ninety minutes?”

“What direction are you going?” Sheba asked. “To the left or the right?”

Jimmy shrugged.

“Pick one.”

“Right.”

“Nope,” Sheba said. “Go left.”

“Okay, left.”

“You’re fucking playing with me, aren’t you? You knew I’d switch it, so you gave me the opposite direction.”

Dr. Cone looked flummoxed. Mrs. Cone was leaning against the kitchen counter, watching. Izzy had crouched back down and was rearranging the cards again.

“Fine. You tell me what direction to go and that’s the direction I’ll go.” Jimmy’s chest was heaving. I worried he’d start throwing things or shouting again. But he didn’t. Sheba did.

“YOU SNEAKY MOTHERFUCKER! IF YOU MEET ONE PERSON ON THAT BEACH, I’M FUCKING CUTTING OFF YOUR BALLS! YOU HEAR ME?!”

“What are Jimmy’s balls?” Izzy whispered to me. “Do I have balls?”

“It’s another word for testicles,” I whispered back. “You know, like in your coloring book?”

“YOU CANNOT FUCKING POLICE ME LIKE THIS! YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME SPACE TO BREATHE YOU GODDAMMED—” Jimmy stopped and shook his head. I quickly assessed the throwable breakables in the room. There wasn’t much. He’d have to open a cupboard.

“Breathe in, breathe out,” Dr. Cone said. “Sheba, you too. Just breathe in and out. Let’s have a quick meditation moment.”

Dr. Cone, Jimmy, and Sheba turned so they were standing in a circle facing each other. Mrs. Cone joined them. Sheba still had on her old lady face and Jimmy’s chest continued to heave.

“I breathe in, I breathe out,” Dr. Cone said in a low, smooth voice, like he was the DJ in a nighttime love song radio show. He repeated the words over and over again as the group breathed in and out. I wondered if this breathing was any different from regular breathing.

“Will Sheba really cut off Jimmy’s balls?” Izzy looked at me with huge eyes.

“No.” I pulled her off the table and onto my lap. She pushed her head into my neck and I rubbed her back. “She would never do that. She just said that to let him know how angry she was.”

Izzy started breathing in and out along with Dr. Cone’s instructions, and soon I felt her body melt into me like a warm stick of butter.

“Okay, let’s keep this peace.” Dr. Cone put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “I’m going to walk Jimmy to the beach and send him off. Sheba, you’ll be fine and Jimmy will be fine.”

“Yeah. Whatever. That’s good.” Sheba stared at Jimmy like she was daring him on something. “I’ll sleep in the sun and wait for you.”

“Good. Good.” Dr. Cone put a hand on Sheba’s shoulder too. He was like a yoke between oxen.

Sheba nodded and then reached up to her head, ripped off the blond wig, and threw it so it landed on the dining room table. Mrs. Cone took off her wig too. She looked toward the table, and then pulled the wig against her chest and held it like she was holding a cat.

Dr. Cone drove Izzy and me to the grocery store. Izzy held all the recipe cards tight in her hand.

When we got to the store, I grabbed a cart and Izzy jumped on the end. “Do we need to find the ratio?” she asked.

“The ratio?” Dr. Cone asked.

“When we go to Eddie’s, we count the employees and the customers to find the ratio.” I shrugged, embarrassed. It sounded weird and silly when I said it aloud.

“Yesterday it was eighteen to twenty-nine,” Izzy said.

Dr. Cone rubbed Izzy’s curls. “That’s marvelous!”

“I think this store is too big for us to count.” I looked up and down the aisles. It was huge, like a warehouse.

“I agree.” Dr. Cone turned toward the produce section. I had memorized most of the ingredients on the cards and started putting things in the cart.

“The ratio of the witch is three to one,” Izzy said.

“Three what to one what?” Dr. Cone asked.

“Me, Mary Jane, and Sheba are three. And the witch is only one.”

“Well, I’ll join your team.”

“Then we’ll be”—Izzy pointed at me, her father, herself, and then an imaginary Sheba standing beside us—“four! To one. Right?”

“Yup,” I said. “There isn’t a witch in the world who could hurt a kid in the middle of a four-to-one ratio.”

“Agreed,” Dr. Cone said. I was relieved that he didn’t seem to think the ratio game was weird or silly. And I felt strangely happy that he had been so quick to join our team. Izzy talked about the witch so frequently, I had forgotten that I didn’t believe in her.

Before we left the produce section, I shuffled through the cards to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. “Wait! Artichokes!”

“Fancy.” Dr. Cone loped over to the artichoke display. I pushed the cart behind him.

“Do you like artichokes?” I asked. I worried that fancy wasn’t good. The Cones seemed anti-fancy, with Izzy standing on the dining room table, peeing on the beach, and coloring penises in her anatomy coloring book.

“I love them. We just never eat them. Restaurants don’t serve them.” Dr. Cone put his hand on my head and rubbed, the way everyone did to Izzy. It felt so nice, I didn’t move for a second, just to sense the vibrations of that touch.

When we returned to the beach house, Jimmy and Sheba were snuggled up together on the living room couch watching Green Acres. It had never occurred to me that people who were on TV might watch it too.

“I love this show.” I paused, a brown bag of groceries in my arms. Izzy paused beside me. She was carrying the lightest bag.

“Come watch!” Sheba patted the cushion beside herself.

“I have to put away the groceries,” I said.

“Mary Jane,” Dr. Cone said. “Watch TV. I’ll put everything away.”

I looked at him for a second to see if he was serious. He and Mrs. Cone were paying me. Was it really okay for me to get paid to sit on a couch and watch Green Acres with Sheba and Jimmy? “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Sit. Relax. You work too hard.”

“Sit!” Sheba said.

“Okay!” I went to the kitchen, put down my bag, and then returned to the couch. Sheba patted the cushion again. I sat and tucked my feet under my bottom, mimicking her posture.

“I love Mr. Haney,” Jimmy said.

“Me too.”

Izzy came into the living room and snuggled into me the way Sheba was snuggled into Jimmy. “Why is there a pig in the house?”

“That’s Arnold Ziffel,” Jimmy said. “He’s like their son.”

“Why does that lady talk like that?”

“She’s a Gabor,” I said. “She and her twin sister are very beautiful and they’re from another country. Maybe Hungary.”

“She’s a bitch,” Sheba said. “In real life.”

“You know her?”

“Yeah. Snobby and mean. Huge boobs. Fake nails.”

“But Eddie Albert”—Jimmy pointed to the screen—“damn nice guy. Can drink a fuck of a lot.”

“Do you know everyone on TV?” I asked.

Jimmy and Sheba looked at each other as if they were thinking about it. A commercial for Trix cereal came on. The manic white rabbit ran around screaming, “Trix are for kids! Trix are for kids!”

“You know,” Sheba said at last, “I’ve been in the business for so long, I do know just about everyone. And Jimmy’s toured for so many years that he’s met everyone too.”

“Yeah. People want to come backstage, they join the tour, they come to the hotel to party. . . .” Jimmy shrugged.

“No more parties,” Sheba said. A commercial for Control Data Institute, a technical school, came on. We all watched as if we were ready to enroll.

That first-day fight between Jimmy and Sheba was like a fire hose that cleared away all the debris. From Green Acres on, everyone in the house seemed happier and more relaxed than usual. Jimmy and Dr. Cone did therapy on the beach, but it was intermittent and brief. They had a spot between two sand dunes that they called “the Office.” They’d laid down a bedsheet there that was quickly half covered with sand.

Sheba and Mrs. Cone and Izzy and I set up chairs and towels and a cooler on the first stretch of dry sand in front of the water, directly in line with the Office.When I turned around, I could see Jimmy eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers, nodding as Dr. Cone talked, or sometimes talking as Dr. Cone nodded. Every now and then he put down the snacks and lay on the sheet, curled up on his side. I got nervous when he did that, but he didn’t look like he was in pain, or crying.

Sheba and Mrs. Cone abandoned all wigs, as the beach really was private. We could see anyone coming from way down it, and whenever we did, Sheba would slip on a pair of sunglasses that covered her face from her eyebrows to her lips. She’d put on a hat, too, to hide all that long, thick black hair. Mrs. Cone often put on shades and a hat when Sheba did. “In case it’s someone I know,” she said to me once.

Izzy and I dug holes, built sandcastles, and went in and out of the water. Sheba and Mrs. Cone also took Izzy in the water, which gave me time to sit and read my book. I’d found the book Jaws on a shelf in the living room of the house. It was about a shark attack on a beach on Long Island, but it didn’t make me afraid to go in the water.

Whenever Jimmy and Dr. Cone weren’t in the Office,they were on the beach too. Jimmy liked taking Izzy in the water. He’d throw her up in the air and catch her again. Dr. Cone read his book and often napped with a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.

Every day, Jimmy went for a walk alone, to clear his head. Before he took off, he pulled out his shorts pockets—when he was wearing shorts instead of a suit—and presented his behind to Dr. Cone to pat. After the pat down, Izzy and I would go up to the house and make dinner. I liked our time in the kitchen. After a day in the sun and water, there was a peacefulness to the warm kitchen, the quiet of the house, the stillness of the air.

I gave Izzy a bath every night following dinner and then put her to bed in our room. Once she was asleep, I joined the adults in the living room, or on the screened porch. They listened to music, or Jimmy strummed his guitar. Jimmy and Dr. Cone each had a cup of tea, Mrs. Cone and Sheba drank wine, and a joint circulated. Dr. Cone, like me, didn’t smoke, though once I saw him take a single puff just before he went to bed. And another night, I cleared the teacups and smelled something funny in Dr. Cone’s cup. I suspected he was pretending not to drink, so Jimmy wouldn’t be the only adult without alcohol.

Jaws was always on my lap at these living room hangouts, but usually the conversation was so engaging that I didn’t read. Sheba talked the most. She once named every famous person she’d had sex with and also told us how big each man’s penis was and what it looked like. She said one looked like it had knuckles under the skin, one was the size of her pinkie, one smelled like ham and was the color of ham, and one was angled to the right like it was pointing out directions. I had no idea that penises were that variegated. One movie star, an action guy, had a penis so big, Sheba couldn’t put it in her vagina. I hadn’t known who some of the stars were, but now I’d never be able to watch any of their movies or TV shows without pulling up the image of their penis.

Of the star with the enormous penis, Jimmy said, “I’m bigger than him, but then she had a little surgery to let me in and now it’s all good.” Everyone laughed at that, so I knew it was a joke.

Mrs. Cone asked Jimmy if he’d made love to as many stars as Sheba. Jimmy took a hit off the joint, furrowed his brow, and looked like he was thinking. Then he said, “You know, Bonnie, I just don’t fucking remember. No idea. Drug brain. Before I was with Sheba, the way I’d know I’d fucked someone was that she’d be in my bedroom or the hotel bed or on the tour bus in the morning. Sometimes I’d sense I’d been with someone, so I’d check my back in the mirror. If I didn’t see scratch marks, then I’d sniff my fingers.”

Everyone laughed, but I didn’t get it.

“You remember the girl you lost your virginity to,” Sheba said. “And you remember sleeping with Margaret Trudeau.”

“Well, yeah, there are people who stand out—”

“You slept with Margaret Trudeau!” Mrs. Cone leaned forward in her chair.

“You didn’t forget Streisand,” Sheba said.

“No one forgets Streisand.” Jimmy winked at Sheba and she laughed. I was surprised she didn’t get jealous. But maybe when you were Sheba, and every man in the world wanted to make love to you, you didn’t get jealous.

“Miss March,” Sheba said, and she put her hands in front of her chest to indicate breasts that jutted out about three feet.

“I think you’re thinking of Miss June.”

“Miss May.”

“There was a run of four Playmates,” Jimmy conceded. “I believe it was June, July, August, and September.”

“Did you save the issues?” Dr. Cone asked. I thought he was kidding, but I couldn’t be sure.

“The only issue he has is the one I was in.” Sheba moved from her chair to the ground in front of Jimmy’s legs. She wrapped her arms around his calves.

“That’s the only issue I cherish,” Jimmy said.

I wanted to know what it was like to pose for Playboy. If I could summon the nerve, I’d ask Sheba later. And maybe I’d also asked her why Jimmy would look at his back or smell his fingers to see if he’d made love to someone.

On the fifth day at the beach, Jimmy turned his pockets inside out and presented his behind to Dr. Cone, who looked up from his book and waved him away. Jimmy then presented his behind to Mrs. Cone, who giggled and gave a little slap on each of his back pockets. He went to Sheba next. Sheba was wearing a bikini that looked small enough to fit Izzy. Her skin was smooth and creamy, like she’d been sanded down.

“I need to do a thorough exam.” Sheba kneeled at Jimmy’s back and felt his pockets. Then she leaned in and bit him. Jimmy yowled and Izzy laughed so hard, her curls shook.

“Your turn.” Jimmy presented his bottom to Izzy. Izzy slapped his pockets over and over again like she was playing the bongos.

“Mary Jane has to check too!” Izzy stood and pushed Jimmy toward me.

I slapped his pockets once each. He had swum in his jean shorts and they were damp and sandy. “All clear!”

“Then I’m off!” Jimmy lifted his leg, cartoon-style, like he was winding up to run. And then he did. Run. Away from us and down the beach wearing only those damp, gritty shorts and the leather rope with feathers around his neck.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” Mrs. Cone reached out and squeezed Izzy’s fleshy leg. Izzy was wearing a red polka-dot one-piece and looked like a cute little ladybug.

“Pizza!” Izzy said.

Mrs. Cone looked over at me. “You’re making pizza?”

“No, Dr. Cone said this morning that he wanted to order pizza from some place in Rehoboth, so we shouldn’t cook tonight.” I hadn’t grown tired of cooking, but it did seem nice to have the night off.

“Ah, exciting. I haven’t had pizza in ages.” Mrs. Cone patted her stomach. Her bikini was as small as Sheba’s and reminded me of a disassembled net bag. My mother wouldn’t have even considered it a bathing suit.

“What?” Dr. Cone looked up from his book. He’d been completely tuned out.

“Do they deliver or do we pick it up?” Sheba asked. “Maybe we can pick it up and then stop at a boutique and buy a new suit for Mary Jane.”

I was wearing the one-piece I’d been wearing all summer. It had started out orange but had faded to a pale almost-pink color. “I don’t think my mother will let me wear a bikini,” I said.

“Your mother’s not here.” Sheba winked.

“Oh, let’s get a new suit for Mary Jane!” Mrs. Cone said.

“Do I need a new suit?” Izzy asked.

“No, you’re a perfect little ladybug.” I leaned in and kissed Izzy.

“But Mary Jane needs a new suit?”

“I don’t,” I said. “And it’s a waste of money. We only have two more days.”

“It is not a waste of money,” Sheba said. “When you run away from home and move to New York to live with me and Jimmy, you can wear it there.”

“Mary Jane can’t leave me.” Izzy climbed into my lap and I kissed her again. I didn’t want to leave her. And I’d never once thought of leaving my parents before college. But after Sheba had tossed out the idea of running away and living with her and Jimmy, I was momentarily infected with it. Like a fever that lets you see the usual world through the intensity of the unusual.

Dr. Cone called in the pizza and Mrs. Cone, Sheba, Izzy, and I went to pick it up. Jimmy was home by then, so he and Dr. Cone decided to do some work in the Officewhile we were gone.

Mrs. Cone drove and Sheba sat in the front seat. They were both wearing black pixie wigs and giant sunglasses. Sheba was wearing a terry-cloth shorts jumpsuit that zipped up the front and had a hood. Mrs. Cone was in her jean shorts that showed the white untanned edge of her bottom, and a tank top that revealed the outline of her nipples. Izzy and I wore jean shorts that did not reveal our bottoms and tank tops that did not reveal our nipples.

Mrs. Cone and Izzy went off to pick up the pizzas while Sheba and I went into the Red Crab Boutique. Sheba circled the store, pulling clothes off the racks without even checking the prices. I walked behind her. I didn’t realize she was choosing items for me until she said, “Okay, Mary Jane, in the dressing room.”

I looked at the pile of clothes in Sheba’s arms. On top of the pile was a black crochet bikini that I immediately loved. But I knew I could never wear it in front of my mother, or even at the Elkridge Club when my mother wasn’t there (my mother was always there). Crochet was subversive—it was the domain of hippies and pot smokers, and the Age of Aquarius. I really would have to move in with Jimmy and Sheba if I wanted to wear this suit outside of my bedroom.

I opened a dressing room door, Sheba standing behind me.

“Mary Jane!” I jumped. It was Beanie Jones, coming out of the fitting room next to mine. She was holding a silver jumpsuit that looked like liquid mercury. “I was wondering when I’d run into y’all! And the out-of-town guests!” She winked at Sheba as if she were a Cone family insider, and not a stranger to be lied to.

“Good to see you again.” Sheba put on her socialite voice. I wondered if she could remember the name she had come up with when we’d seen Beanie and her husband at Morgan Millard. I couldn’t.

“How did you know we were here?” I asked. Dr. Cone had told us that the Flemings, from whom we had borrowed the house, had sworn not to tell anyone we were staying there.

“I saw your mother at Elkridge and she told me you were staying somewhere on Indian Dunes.” Beanie Jones waved her hand over the pile of clothes in Sheba’s arms. “Are those for you to try on, Mary Jane? That’s a sexy little suit you got there.” She glanced at me, and then winked at Sheba.

“Here, doll,” Sheba said in her make-believe voice. She handed me the pile and nodded toward the fitting room. I walked inside and Sheba closed the door. “Lovely to see you, Ms. Jones. You take care now.” There were two footstools in the room; I dropped the pile of clothes on one and started taking off my clothes.

“Should we have cocktails on the beach tonight?” Beanie Jones said from the other side of the door.

“Ah, malheureusement, my husband and I are leaving this afternoon. But give my regards to Mr. Jones.” Sheba cracked the fitting room door open. I knew she wanted an escape.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Jones, uh, Beanie.” I backed against the wall, as I was mostly undressed.

“Well, then maybe we can have a drink next time you’re in town?” Beanie Jones said to Sheba.

“Certainly. Bye now!” Sheba said, and then she wedged herself inside the fitting room and pulled the door shut behind herself.

“Bye bye!” Beanie Jones said.

I stood there in my underwear and bra. Sheba and I stared at each other in silence, waiting for Beanie Jones to leave. After a minute or so, Sheba cracked the door open again and peered out. Then she pulled it shut and sat on the empty footstool in the corner. “My god, that woman is haunting us,” she whispered. “Try on the suit first.”

“Okay.” I picked up the suit. Was I just going to take off my bra and be half nude in front of Sheba? If I turned my back, would it be rude? I took a deep breath, pretended nothing was unusual, unhooked my bra, and put on the bikini top. Then I pulled the bottoms on over my underpants.

“Finally something that shows off your gorgeous figure.” Sheba made a paddle of her hand and flicked it, meaning I should turn in a circle. Which I did. “You have to get this suit.”

I looked at the price tag. It was equal to two weeks’ salary. I’d never spent my own money on clothes and couldn’t imagine starting with something as expensive as the suit. “I think I should find something less expensive,” I said.

“No!” Sheba waved both hands up in the air. “Mary Jane! I’m rich. I’m buying you the suit and anything else you like. No arguing.”

“Okay.” I laughed with relief. Once I knew I could get the suit, I allowed myself to admit that I loved it. It felt weirdly powerful to wear something so showy. Though I couldn’t quite imagine being brave enough to wear it in public.

“Now put this on.” Sheba handed me a beautiful yellow sundress. It was sunny. Happy. Something my mother would approve of. I slipped it on over the suit.

“Gorgeous. Next.” Sheba handed me a white terry-cloth romper that was similar to the red one I’d seen her in. I climbed into it through the neckline and then zipped up the front. It clung to me like Saran Wrap.

“Gorgeous again,” Sheba said.

We went on like this for a while. Between Sheba’s assessment of each outfit, she told the story of losing her virginity. She was fifteen and the boy was nineteen. He was the son of a “very famous” actor I’d never heard of. When Sheba’s mother found out—she’d walked in on them in Sheba’s bedroom—she took a pair of scissors and cut up every article of cute clothing Sheba owned. “The only things she didn’t destroy,” Sheba said, “were my winter corduroy pants and my thick Fair Isle sweaters.”

“Wow,” I said. The clothes Sheba was buying me were the first ones I’d owned that I could imagine my mother destroying. “I’m worried my mother will take these clothes away from me if she sees them. I don’t think she’d cut them up, but . . .”

“Yeah. Wow.” Sheba sighed.

There was quiet for a moment as we both stared at me in a backless tie-dye dress. I was turned, looking over my shoulder at my backside in the mirror. The dress was too long and baggy; it was definitely going in the reject pile.

“Can I ask you a question?” I whispered.

“Yeah?” Sheba whispered too.

I turned toward Sheba and then leaned in close to her ear so no one outside the dressing room could hear. “Why did Jimmy check his back to see if he made love to girls and why did he sniff his fingers?”

Sheba took a deep inhale. I thought she might be on the verge of laughing. It was like I was Izzy and she was me. Even the question sounded like something Izzy would ask.

“Because women scratch men’s backs when they make love to them. And I don’t think he really sniffed his fingers, but men make jokes about the smell of a woman’s vagina, so he was pretending that he sniffed them to see if they smelled of vagina.”

The words smelled of vagina clanked around in my head. I had wanted to ask her about posing for Playboy, too, but felt too stopped up by what I’d just heard. Did my vagina smell? If it had, I’d never noticed.

The car smelled like pizza. Or was it vagina? There were four of them in the station wagon.

“We saw that Beanie woman again,” Sheba told Mrs. Cone.

“Jesus Christ! I knew we’d bump into someone. Half of Baltimore summers in Dewey or Rehoboth.”

“Beanie Jones?” Izzy asked.

“The one and only,” I said.

“I heard the Joneses have a house here somewhere,” Mrs. Cone said. “Hopefully she’ll stay the rest of the summer while we’re back in Baltimore.”

“Did she give you cake?” Izzy asked. “She makes good cake!”

“No,” I said. “No cake this time.”

On my lap was a shopping bag full of clothes paid for by Sheba. I had been worrying about how I was going to get any of them past my mother. Even the sandals Sheba bought me seemed sexy; they were made of black leather and had a woven ring that went around the big toe.

“No one knows where we’re staying,” Mrs. Cone said. “So she won’t be dropping in with any cakes.”

Sheba sang, “Beeeanie Jones, Beeeanie Jones, when she enters the room, there are hollers and groooooans.”

We all sang the line and then Sheba went on, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, first she grunts and then she moooooans.”

We repeated that line and then Izzy came up with, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, the telephone rings ’cause she’s on the phones!”

“Good one!” I hugged Izzy and felt a rush of pride.

Mrs. Cone sang, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, she storms into town like a trail of cyclones.”

“Your turn, Mary Jane!” Sheba said.

“Okay . . .” I bit my lip, thinking. “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, her body is flesh, then there are bones!”

“Bones, bones, bones,” Sheba sang. “Beanie Beanie Jones. Bones, bones, bones, she hollers then she moans!”

We all repeated those last two lines, with Sheba taking melody and me on harmony, for the rest of the ride home.