Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture Andy Cohen (nice books to read .TXT) 📖

in her closet were perfect; leftovers from a junior high school trip to Tucson—suede and cheap and full of fringe. She attached a lot number on a Minnie Pearl tag and marked it $300. Within a week the bundle of carefully crafted crap was headed straight for suburban terror.

My mother called the moment they arrived. “CBS,” I said.

“Do you know what I just opened?” She sounded part amused, part amazed, and part pissed off.

“No, what?”

“The UGLIEST pair of SHOES that YOU supposedly BOUGHT at some auction.”

“What? What shoes? Wait. How did those get THERE? You got my Navajo Raindance boots?”

“Oh, yeah, WE GOT ’EM!” She howled. “And WHO is LAUREN?”

“Who?”

“LAUREN. She wrote you a little note. There’s a LETTER here, too, you know.”

“Oh, LAUREN! I love her. What does it say?” My nonchalance was killing her.

“Your BOOKS that you ordered will be in soon. Andy, how much money are you THROWING AWAY on this? You spent THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS on these KIDS’ COWBOY BOOTS?”

I was silent.

“This is RIDICULOUS! Do you realize that? YOU HAVE GOT TO GET OFF THIS! YOU ARE NOT AN INDIAN! WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE?”

She actually got to me. I was rattled and remorseful for the first time since we conceived of the whole thing. My mom genuinely thought I was crazy; she was worried. So was my dad, and when he called baffled about the boots, I felt like I’d gone too far, which often happens when you carelessly hatch a silly plan. Graciela agreed. “We have to end it,” she said.

I had been a Shawnee for months, and now the game was up. I was scheduled to go home a few weeks later, and I’d be there over April Fools’ Day. When better to break the news?

“That is too perfect,” said Graciela. “This is going to be the April Fools classic of our time. I need to be there.” And she was right, it would be something. But I had to do it alone.

Before I could make it home, the tide turned.

“Well, you’re never going to believe what happened today.” It was my mom on the phone. This was a common opening line, and I braced myself to hear who she’d outed me to from my childhood. Would it be Nardie Stein, my camp director? A former babysitter of mine, perhaps? My mom LOVED to out me to people. “Does Andy have a girlfriend?” someone would ask her unassumingly.

“A BOYfriend?” she’d say. “No, he hasn’t met the right GUY. He’s GAY!”

“I was at a tea at Helen Kornblum’s house,” she said this time. Right down the street, the Kornblum home was a veritable hub of the great liberal minds of the Midwest. She continued, “She has the best photography collection. You really should go by there when you’re home. Just to see it.”

“So you keep telling me,” I groaned. “What? What happened?”

“Well, you know Helen has a house in Santa Fe and collects quite a bit of art in addition to photography, and Andy, I’m NOT KIDDING: I want you to go see this photography when you’re home. IT’S REALLY SOMETHING!”

“The more you tell me to go, the more I’m not going to. What happened?” I was the one irritated this time.

“Okay! Jesus, you are a PILL, you know that? Anyway I met this woman who Helen knows from Santa Fe and I told her about those Navajo boots and—”

“Wait, you did what?” I interrupted.

“I told her you bought those boots at an auction and you know what she said?” Mom was gleeful now. “She said you probably got a good deal for them for three hundred dollars and that that stuff is really hot right now. Everything like that is going for big money down there!”

I was floored. She was actually EXCITED about my boots now and thought that I was on to something. She continued.

“But you know, she’s not the first person who told me that. I was telling Cheli about the whole Shawnee thing the other day.” Cheli, mom’s manicurist, knew more about me than most of my relatives did. “She said that Indian stuff is all over the place right now. And she said she knew someone who was Shawnee…”

As my mom continued, my heart was wrenched.

Acceptance. The last thing I ever expected from this whole mishegas stupid joke. My mom was beginning to accept, or at least adapt to, the lie I had been hammering into her head for months, and furthermore, she was working so hard to be okay with it that she was starting to TELL people about it. She had begun outing me as an Indian! She had accepted my being gay and now, in her way, was accepting my being an INDIAN—or at least THINKING I was one.

Do I have the best parents in the world? And do I deserve them?

On April Fools’ Day, I brought the fraudulent Navajo Raindance boots into the kitchen and set them on the counter. My parents were settling into their ritual 6 p.m. glass of J&B on the rocks when I asked them what they thought of the boots.

“Well, I STILL think they’re pretty ugly. But what do I know?” Mom said. “I mean, Helen’s friend did say you probably got a great deal on them. I guess it’s an investment?”

“Dad?” I implored.

“Well, I just don’t know what you’re gonna do with them. You say you’re putting them out for display, but then what? I just don’t see any use for them is all.” That’s my dad: reasonable to a fault.

I broke it all with a big breath. “It was a joke,” I said.

“What?” my mother asked. “What was a joke?”

“Everything. The Shawnee thing. I don’t really think I’m a Shawnee.” I was not feeling good about myself. It seemed too big—or stupid—to explain.

“What do you MEAN it was a joke??” my mom asked. “Which part? The shoes are a joke? You’re telling me that these SHOES are a JOKE?”

“Not the shoes. Well, yes, the shoes.