Rain Is Not My Indian Name Read online

  At school, the subject of Native Nations pretty much comes up just around Turkey Day, like those cardboard cutouts of the Pilgrims and the pumpkins and the squash taped to the windows at McDonald’s. And the so-called Indians always look like bogeymen on the prairie, windblown cover boys selling paperback romances, or baby-faced refugees from the world of Precious Moments. I usually get through it by reading sci-fi behind my textbooks until we move on to Kwanza.

  Being a retired science teacher, Aunt Georgia would get especially frustrated. “Too little improvement after too many years,” she’d say. Not that Aunt Georgia’s program was supposed to be like school. “Camp, not curriculum,” was how she’d described it. The focus was going to be on science and technology, her specialties—well, the science anyway. My brother would be lending a hand on the tech angle.

  Knowing full well Fynn was waiting for me to say something, I closed my empty email box and opened a season-two Mulder-Scully romance fic on an X-Philes site. Fynn got me hooked on fandom. He had almost every sci-fi show archived. We were into everything after the original Star Trek, and we used to have these all-day marathons, watching every episode in a series or season. Lately, though, he spent all of his time with his girlfriend, Natalie.

  “Rain,” he added, apparently deciding my brain had been sucked into the internet, “that means you still have time to sign up for Indian Camp.”

  I read the spoiler warnings and started the story.

  Hours later, I still sat at the table, painting my uneven fingernails Hot Noir and skimming the conversation in a Star Wars chat room.

  The highlight of my day had been receiving a postcard of the night lights of Las Vegas from Grampa Berghoff. He’d blown town earlier that week for his annual vacation.

  In scratchy scribbles, the postcard read:

  Dear Rainbow,

  Vegas sure beats the riverboats in Kansas City. Won $440 on the slots and met a sexy widow named Clementine at the hotel’s all-you-can-eat buffet.

  They have eight kinds of Jell-O.

  Wish me luck!

  XOXO, Grampa

  P.S. Take care of your brother.

  Maybe Fynn is right, I thought. Maybe I need to get out more.

  Splotchy clouds had softened my hometown, and afternoon sprinkles had chased people off the cracked sidewalks and pitted streets. All the better for avoiding those wreck-on-the-highway looks and the questions tucked inside of questions.

  Since Galen’s death, I’d quietly pushed away my choir and soccer buddies, my school counselor, and the youth pastor. Fynn and Grampa took my calls, and they turned away visitors.

  Aside from Fynn’s hints about Indian Camp, my family had never pushed. Eventually, other people backed off, too, and I fell out of my regular circles. But I knew folks were curious about how I was doing.

  Chewie tugged on his leash, but somehow he knew better than to walk me past Burnham Elementary, the Garden of Roses Cemetery, or Galen’s street.

  When Chewie and I arrived at Hein’s Grocery Barn, the parking lot was empty except for Bernadette Rae Mitchell’s pink Cadillac.

  Just then, Uncle Ed’s rusting pickup rumbled up the street alongside me. He leaned out the window and called, “If it isn’t my favorite rug rat!” Uncle Ed looked good. Not too pink. Not too puffy. Not since he’d gotten serious and regular about going to AA. “Doing a little shopping?” he asked.

  “Thinking about it,” I replied.

  “That’s my girl!” He saluted me and smiled, showing off his gold front tooth. “Take it one day and all that,” he added as the truck rolled on its way.

  A few steps later, I tied Chewie’s leash to the bike rack and vowed to start small on my first expedition to the store in months: dog treats and a Cherry Coke.

  The whoosh of the automatic doors alerted store clerk Lorelei of my arrival. Her eyebrows-high stare almost made me miss my camera. I could imagine her on the phone the minute I left: “Rain Berghoff sighting, aisle six.”

  Marching to Paper Products & Pet Food, I grabbed a box of bone-shaped dog treats and then turned up Frozen Foods. Before I knew it, Bernadette Rae had spotted me. She was resting one hand on her grocery cart and rummaging through frozen turkey pot-pies with the other.

  As I strolled by, Bernadette Rae gave me the once-over and said, “Your ends look a tad ragged, Rain. When’s the last time you were in for a trim?”

  “I’ll try to stop by the salon next week,” I answered, not stopping to chat.

  Only Lorelei stood between me and the exit. I wondered why I’d been so tense.

  That’s when I found myself standing at point-blank range in front of the one person I least wanted to see. If life had been a video game, I would’ve exploded in Frozen Foods. As it was, I almost dropped my dog treats.

  I’d spent the last few months trying not to think about Galen, only to run smack into his mother, Della Owen (Mrs. Owen, even to her grown-up friends), on my first excursion in months. She was holding a box of English tea and, as always, wearing tailored gray. Her blond hair looked professionally styled. It’s common knowledge that she never lets Bernadette Rae touch it.

  “Hello, Cassidy Rain,” Mrs. Owen said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  I raised one hand in a wave, trying to figure out why. I’d heard about her recent failed run for mayor, and I knew she had already begun campaigning for the rematch.

  But I hadn’t actually heard Mrs. Owen’s voice since her three phone calls to Galen on New Year’s Eve.

  My only consolation was that at least Mrs. Owen and I weren’t alone in the grocery aisle. I mean, what could she say with Bernadette Rae still within listening range?

  “Bernie,” Mrs. Owen added, glancing over my shoulder, her voice cooler than anything in the freezers, “if you’ll excuse us . . .”

  I should’ve expected that.

  After Bernadette Rae wheeled away, Mrs. Owen said, “Tell me about Georgia Wilhelm’s Native American youth program.”

  That didn’t faze me. Mrs. Owen had always been abrupt. And the way I had it figured, she was asking me about Indian Camp to be polite. It was something we could talk about besides Galen, and neither one of us was ready to mention his name yet.

  After all, I was the last person to see her only child alive. If Galen and I hadn’t gone out prowling that night, the accident never would’ve happened. If he hadn’t been with me, Galen might still have been alive.

  “It’s a camp, like a summer camp,” I answered. “That’s all I know.”

  “Surely you’ll be participating?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I replied, trying to come up with something safe to say.

  No use.

  “Got to run now,” I finally announced, taking a few steps around her. “Dinner.”

  It was only about two o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Chewie’s dinner, I mean.” I jiggled my dog treats, adding, “He’s waiting for me outside. Big dog. Big appetite.”

  I took off before I could make a bigger fool out of myself.

  At the checkout, I grabbed a plastic bottle of Cherry Coke from the minifridge next to the magazines and set it behind my dog treats on Lorelei’s counter.

  Between her bleached bangs and Salvation Army outfit—a checked halter top and faded cutoffs—she looked the part of her reputation. Around town, folks call her “the Lorelei Express,” and not because she’s fast at the cash register. Fynn had actually dated her, back when they were juniors in high school. He says she’s a lot smarter than what people think.

  “Paper or plastic?” she asked, scanning the bar codes.

  “Neither,” I answered, handing her a five.

  Lorelei tapped register keys and said, “I hear Fynn and the new girl are serious.”

  After shoving the receipt in my back pocket, I replied, “I guess.”

  “The new girl” she’d mentioned was Natalie, who’d first arrived in town last fall to work as the news editor for the Hannesburg Weekly Examiner.
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br />   Last December, Natalie had moved into my brother’s room, and they’d become “the couple to watch.”

  JUNE 27

  It’s a beautiful eighty degrees today here at Andersen Air Force Base,” Dad informed me, just like he did practically every time we spoke on the phone. Of course, it’s always about eighty degrees in Guam.

  That’s his idea of hilarious.

  Three years ago, the local air force base closed. Grampa Berghoff took early retirement, and Dad was transferred to South Korea (before Guam). At the time, we’d all agreed it would be best if Grampa rented out his house and moved in with us. I stayed in Hannesburg with him and Fynn, who was a student at the University of Kansas.

  Dad went on: “Your uncle Ed said he saw you out walking Chewie.”

  I nodded, even though Dad couldn’t see me lying belly-down on my bed. “We both needed the exercise,” I said.

  “Exercised your camera lately?” he asked. “Before Grampa took off, he was telling me how much he misses working with you in the darkroom.”

  Grampa was not a fan of shooting digital. He considered it “cheating.” I glanced at my camera, hanging from the back of the wicker chair next to my hope chest. “Dad,” I asked, trying to distract him, “do you want to talk to Natalie or Fynn?”

  The line fell quiet a moment, and Dad replied, “What do you really think of that girl, that Natalie? You think she’s all right?”

  “Sure,” I answered, trading good-byes, love-yous, and telling him to watch out for snakes. Just as I was about to hang up, Dad asked to speak with that girl himself.

  My Not-So-Secret Secret Identity

  FROM MY JOURNAL:

  Rain is not my Indian name, not the way people think of Indian names. But I am an Indian, and it is the name my parents gave me.

  They met for the first time at Bierfest, during one doozy of a thunderstorm.

  Mom used to call Dad her “rainy day love.”

  Mom had been into nicknames. She’d dubbed our family her “patchwork tribe.” I’m Muscogee Creek-Cherokee and Scots-Irish on Mom’s side, Irish-German-Ojibwe on Dad’s. Our Ojibwe heritage came from Gramma Berghoff, from her father’s people up in Michigan. Saginaw Chippewa.

  Not that Dad talks about it. I’m told that even Gramma Berghoff, who died the year before I was born, called herself “just Irish” or “black Irish” every day of her life.

  JUNE 28

  Two days after my adventure at the grocery store, rain rattled gutters and tapped the roof. If it had been a school day, I would’ve caught my share of weather jokes. I’d kept busy dusting every room in the house and was finishing up with Dad and Mom’s.

  Mom had first left Eufaula, Oklahoma, for Lawrence, Kansas, to study at Haskell, a school for Indians. Sometimes I wondered what Mom had dreamed of doing with her life back then. She’d had a cousin who filled out forms for the state of Oklahoma, a cousin who filled out forms for Indian Health Service, and a cousin who filled out forms for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Aunt Louise was a nurse. Uncle Leonard had worked a couple of years for the tribe, but by then, he was already driving a school bus. My grandparents earned their paychecks at Southwestern Bell.

  Mom left Haskell after her first semester, just before she married my dad.

  I touched her traditional tear dress. “Settlers’ cotton,” I remembered Mom saying, “torn in long strips.” A padded hanger on a brass hook held the long red calico, and its skirt fanned on the antique white wall.

  When she’d first hung up the dress, there had been a ribbon to fix. It was only supposed to have been there a day or two. But Mom’s time had run out.

  Now the dress looked wrong somehow, more like a museum piece than part of living. I hated that, but I didn’t want to change anything without checking first with Dad.

  It’s been six years since my mother died.

  As I put away my feather duster, thunder warned me that the storm had turned electrical. I noticed then that my grocery receipt was littering the kitchen table. Realizing the last thing I needed was one of Fynn’s lectures about fiscal responsibility, I unplugged my laptop computer and double-clicked the Quicken icon. After keying in $4.67, I skimmed our financial records. The last time I’d bought myself anything, including film, was my black fingernail polish on Valentine’s Day.

  Beneath Grampa’s deduction for my weekly allowance, I spotted a payment to Mrs. Georgia Wilhelm for Indian Camp (categorized as a “miscellaneous family expense”). The check had been written by my brother.

  Through the window screens, I heard his Jeep door slam and then a round of hoots, hollers, and whistles. I didn’t even have to look. The Hannesburg High junior varsity cheerleaders regularly cruise by the house to gawk at Fynn. In their Fighting Harvesters black-and-gold uniforms, they look like a six-pack of bumblebees. The fact that we live on a dead-end street makes it even more pathetic.

  I suffer in comparison to my handsome brother. Here I am, average height, average weight, with bottle-cap boobs and a pimple on the side of my nose.

  Only my mom had admired my so-called Kansas coloring. She used to say that my hair looked like waving wheat and my eyes changed color with the weather.

  Dishwater hair, I’ve always thought. Hazel eyes. I’m not the poetic type.

  My brother is the one who inherited Mom’s striking looks. Everybody besides him appreciates it, especially Natalie, Lorelei, and the pom-pom crowd.

  A slightly soggy Fynn strolled into the kitchen, carrying four grocery bags in each hand. One last whistle flew through the window into the kitchen.

  A waste of time. Everybody knew he belonged to Natalie.

  “Well,” I said, tucking in a grin, “if it isn’t Native American Heartthrob.”

  “For that,” he answered, in what had become his trademark quote, “you should be grounded, but it would be redundant.”

  “You can say that again . . . and again,” I answered.

  Fynn plopped the groceries onto the counter, ran a hand through his damp hair, and announced, “The news from the outside world is that I had a meeting upstate today with a new client, a Kickapoo blues band called Not Your Wild West Show. They hired me to design a promotional site, you know, where they can announce upcoming gigs and sell music. Nice bunch of guys.”

  “They any good?” I asked.

  Fynn slipped off his navy jacket, folded it over a chair, and replied, “Not particularly.”

  Lately, my brother had seemed like a different guy. In the past couple of months, he’d gotten a Jayhawk tattoo on his shoulder and then gone corporate. Good-bye shoulder-length locks, 501s, and marathon T-shirts. Hello corporate haircut, pinstripes, and fancy neckties. I wasn’t sure why.

  I closed the laptop and announced, “I saw the payment for Indian Camp.”

  As Fynn began restocking the kitchen, he said, “For dinner, we could hit Clifford’s Chinese Kitchen. It’s been months since your last moo shu fix.”

  I thought about it. My favorite dinner at my favorite restaurant on grocery day? In Lawrence? I wasn’t even helping him unload the food. Besides, Fynn hadn’t answered my question. My fingertips drummed the table, and I answered, “You hate Chinese food.”

  “Hate? Did you say ‘hate’?” Fynn’s voice warbled like a southern TV preacher’s. “Why, baby sister, I’d never, and I say never, discriminate against a community of food. That, I say, now that, you must believe.”

  He was definitely up to something.

  I rose to wash the dishes, waiting.

  “You know,” Fynn finally said, “Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp has a real science-technology slant. She recruited me to teach Web design.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned it. I rinsed out his mug and reminded him, “I already know Web design.”

  Last fall, he had taught Galen and me.

  Fynn shoved a bag of bagels into the bread box, grabbed a dishrag, and said, “I mailed the check in case you changed your mind. I thought maybe . . .”

  “We’r
e talking about two weeks,” I explained, scrubbing a salad plate, trying to make him understand. “I have to weed the lawn, walk Chewie, clean the house, and . . . so on.”

  “Hospitals are less antiseptic,” Fynn replied, drying the cutting board.

  “You’re so”—I shut off the faucet—“presumptuous.” It was the word I’d missed in the semifinal round of my fourth-grade spelling bee. It’s been my word of choice ever since.

  He had a point, though. The house had never gleamed so much, especially taking into account how I used to be on the messy side. And how Fynn had always embraced the messy side, at least pre-Natalie. And how Grampa, who prided himself on being the one to look after such things, was out of town.

  I realized that hiding out had become boring, that I longed for some sunshine. A person could get only so much satisfaction out of making the world lemon-fresh.

  When the doorbell buzzed, Fynn tossed his towel on the counter. “That’s probably Aunt Georgia.”

  As usual, she let herself in, dumped her leather backpack on the table, and traded a round of hugs. Since her last visit, Aunt Georgia had dyed her short graying black hair a tomato red. From a distance, nobody would have guessed she was a Muscogee Creek-Cherokee. Or, for that matter, a natural redhead.

  I wasn’t too surprised. Bernadette Rae had a tendency to get creative with her salon clients. But even so, Aunt Georgia’s new hue was really something.

  After pouring her a glass of iced tea, Fynn excused himself to work in his Domain, a home office that used to be our freestanding garage. On the way out, he said, “By the way, Rain won’t be able to make it to Indian Camp.”

  I was worried about having hurt Aunt Georgia’s feelings or having shown disrespect. But before I could say anything, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a journal with a crescent moon on the cover. “I picked up a few of these on sale,” she told me, sliding it across the table. “You used to like to write.”

  I thanked her and turned the journal over in my hands. I had liked to write, especially in fifth and sixth grades, before photography went from a hobby to an obsession.