Swimming Naked

by Sims, Stacy (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780670032907
• ISBN10: 0670032905
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Summary

Despite a lifetime of ambivalence about her mother, Fay, thirty-year-old Lucy Greene arrives in overheated Florida to take care of her mother as she lies dying of cancer. In this novel about growth and transformation, Lucy, a hard-living, droll, and self-aware young woman, finds herself in strange, new emotional territory and begins sizing up her life by setting the past against the present.She shares the story of her family’s history—including the stunning signature events of one fateful summer when a violent storm results in a freak accident that literally shatters her family. Afterward, the father seemingly disappears and the mother and her daughters move forward on a very different course. It is Lucy’s one treasured memory—a midnight swim with her mother—that reminds her there is grace in her graceless world, a fact that helps her to forgive her mother and, ultimately, let her go.Uplifting but unsentimental, compelling and remarkably moving, Swimming Nakedis an unforgettable debut that will resonate with daughters, mothers, and anyone who’s ever searched their past in the hopes of finding a future.

Author Biography

Stacy Sims has worked in advertising, public relations, and graphic design, and writes a monthly column for Cincinnati Magazine. This is her first novel.

Excerpts

Every summer, my family rented the same small house on the same mosquito-covered lake in the same small town in Canada, several hours north of Toronto. The idea was to drive all the way in one day, packing the station wagon the night before so that we could leave at 4:00 a.m.My older sister, Anna, and I would crawl into the back of the wagon, still half asleep, wearing our pajamas and our untied gym shoes, which had been put on our feet before we began our zombielike walk to the car. Anna walked a few steps ahead of me, both of us carrying our pillows. The only sound of the start of the journey was the crunch of the gravel in the driveway under our feet as we shuffled to the car. We lay down on top of our sleeping bags, which had been unzipped and spread out one on top of the other; hers Tony-the-tiger striped and mine a jumble of blue and yellow daisies. My parents were completely silent as they loaded a final bag of towels, a cooler, my mother?s purse. They were often silent. It just seemed more noticeable against the quiet of the night. They were exciting in their own way, the moments that marked the beginning of the trip: the smell of the coffee rising from a thermos in the front seat, the sound of the lighter popping out of its hole, glowing hot to light the first of my parents? many cigarettes. We fell back asleep almost immediately and woke up a couple of hours later in a different state. Anna and I opened our eyes at the exact same time, blinking hard and taking each other in for a second before looking around to remember where we were: trapped in our parents? silent, smelly car. We were desperate to go to the bathroom and sat up, suddenly wide-awake, clamoring for my father to stop the car. I don?t remember my mother ever driving on vacation. My father finally stopped, passing, as always, at least one via- ble exit before giving in. We ran clumsily to the bathroom, trying to avoid stepping on our untied shoelaces. When we finally got there, I went into my own stall, dutifully pushing the rusty bolt into the rusty lock. Anna shouted, ?Don?t sit down!? I said, ?Okay,? then sat down on the toilet, anticipating the moment when the pee came rushing out, warming my insides and sending a shiver through my body. I wiped and then got another piece of toilet paper to wipe my legs and bottom where they had rested against the porcelain. Anna made me wash my hands. I wiped mine dry on my pajamas and waited an eternity for Anna as she dried her hands under the loud air dryer. Finally, we ran back to the car, our legs flailing out crazylike, exaggerated and goofy, around the flying shoelaces. We climbed into the back again and sat Indian-style, facing front, Anna behind the back of my father?s head and me behind my mother. The backseat created a barrier between them and us and was filled with our luggage, since Anna and I took over the serious storage space for our travel bedroom. Last year my father had attempted to tie the luggage to the top of the station wagon. It was an unpleasant memory for all of us, Anna in particular. We had been driving along for hours, well into the trip to the lake. The cigarette smoke had commingled for hours with the smell of Dentyne gum and my farts. ?I can?t help it!? I would maintain, each and every time. The windows were up because it was raining, keeping every stinky odor trapped inside the car. Anna was teaching me a trick with string, something far more complicated than Cat?s Cradle and likely made up and not a real trick at all. We heard a scraping noise then a thump on the top of the car. We looked back to see several pieces of luggage flying and a colorful jumble of clothes swirling in the rain. This was seconds before the luggage and the clothes hit the grille of a huge truck behind us. By the time my father pulled the car to the side of the road, the truck was long gone and with it went most of Anna?s favorite summer clothes. She had insisted on packing her thi