Indian Island

"A. J., you float your little fanny right back to this dock."

"Comin', Mama," I yell across the water. I think we have a family matter we're about to deal with here. Our family tends to have a lot of family matters. If you ask me, it comes from havin' too much family history. There are times I just want to say, "Ix-nay the istory-hay." Nix the history.

For starters: We are a Roman Catholic Italian family, and none of us are allowed to forget that. Anyone who puts that identification in jeopardy is dealt with severely. I was nearly disowned for trying to change my name to Dorothy Jones at school.

To make matters worse, there are two rumors I've had to live with my entire life. One is false. The other true. Contrary to what my sister has told everyone since the day I was born, my parents did not win me in a Mississippi bingo hall when I was a baby. And yes, my real name is Angelina Juliana Degulio.

I am a living legacy of two grandmothers who insist on preserving our rich Italian heritage. My name was settled in a coin toss. The dispute was over whose name would be first. Grandma Angelina won, but was accused of cheatin' by Grandma Juliana. They fight about it to this day.

The name Angelina, I am often reminded, means "angel," and I am the lucky child who gets to bear it. So, whenever someone asks me my name, I say, "Just call me A. J."

I'm workin' my way back to the dock, paddlin' with my arms over the bow of the boat. Once I'm in drift mode, I like to stay there. "Still comin', Mama ..."

The one thing I've gotten away with up to this very moment has been my self-imposed Southern accent. My mama is just beside herself right now from hearin' me yell, "I'm floatin' down yonder, Mama." I'm the only one of her kids to call her Mama instead of Mom or use words like y'all and yonder. I don't do it to make her mad. I just picked it up from those old Western movies I watch. I'm still tryin' to figure out why they call them Westerns when everybody's talkin' Southern.

I think Southern is a beautiful language. I'm almost fluent now, but I have to watch it around Mama. Tends to get on her nerves. The closer I get to the dock, the more sure I am that "down yonder" must've really hit a nerve. You always know when you've gone too far with Mama. You can see the blood rise in her face like a thermometer on a hot day. And it just keeps risin' 'til her true Italian temper kicks in. Like right now ...

"Angelina Juliana Degulio ..."

That's the next clue–she yells the whole embarrassing name.

"No full-blooded Roman Catholic Italian child raised in the Northwest can possibly have a Southern accent. You stop that Southern garble right now before I march you into the confessional at St. Peter's, where you can tell Father Sharpiro how you're dishonoring your family." That's my mama's way of sayin', if I want to stay out here on the water, I'd better zip it with the Southern lingo. If there's one thing I've learned about Mama, she plays life by her rules. You either follow them or you're out of the game.

Her name is Sophia, and she would like everyone to believe that she is The Sophia Loren from Hollywood. When she does herself all up, she comes pretty close. She has those same dark Italian eyes and adds that little swoosh of eyeliner. She even makes a point of getting her hair styled exactly like the actress's.

Mama's favorite game is to fool people into thinkin' she is Miss Loren. She can only go so long before she decides she just has to play this game or she will go nuts. If there's one thing Mama cannot tolerate, it's boredism. We'll all be layin' around the dock readin' or fishin', when suddenly, out of the blue we'll hear, "Miss Loren is goin' to town." Then she hauls us all off the island to go to town with her. We usually go somewhere real crowded, like downtown Squawkomish.

First off, we hit the corner across from the local hangout, Big Daddy Burger. Mama puts on her dark sunglasses, dabs on her Poppy Pink lipstick, and hands me a notepad and pen. "A. J.," she'll say, "after I get over there by that crowd, you all come running up to me holding out that notepad, yelling, 'Sophia, Sophia, can we have your autograph?'"

Adriana is so embarrassed she pretends she doesn't know us, but my brothers love this as much as I do. And, boy, do people fall for it. The next thing you know, everyone is swarmin' around my mama. Folks are pullin' anything they can out of their purses and pockets, even old gum wrappers, to get that autograph. The best part is, Mama says it's not even a sin because when people ask for her autograph she only signs her first name. She also says, "It serves these people right for being so gullible as to think that the real Sophia Loren would be spendin' her time at Big Daddy Burger, in downtown Squawkomish."

After she's done gettin' everybody riled up, we all pile into our turquoise Thunderbird convertible and laugh all the way to The Spaghetti House. Everyone, that is, but Adriana. I guess you can't expect a sixteen-year-old Prom Queen to think that's funny.

I'm watchin' Adriana right now from my boat. I can't believe how much time she spends just tryin' to get tan. That is really all she does all day–just lays there on that dock, with her iodine-tinted baby oil. It really makes no sense to me. She was born with a tan, for Pete's sake. She is already so dark, if you put a red dot on her forehead people would think she's from India.

Sometimes when I look at her, I wish I had dark hair and eyes like she does. I'm the only blondie in the bunch. People talk about Adriana with words like beautiful or striking. I only hear words like cute or names like Freckles when people talk about me. I also have this gap between my two big front teeth that makes me look like the guy on the front of Mad magazine. Mama says, "Who wants a white picket fence for a smile anyway?" The only good thing I can say about it is, I can squirt water between my front teeth farther than anyone I know, which comes in handy when you're livin' on a lake all summer.

I float past the dock pretendin' to be a fountain statue, squirtin' a stream of water straight up in the air. That really grosses out Adriana, which makes it even more fun.

"Take your big fat beaver teeth and go build yourself a dam," she yells.

My sister loves to torment me about my bingo hall beginnings and says that's why I look and talk different from the rest of the family. "What more could we expect out of a Mississippi bingo hall, than a sappy...