Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture by Andy Cohen Page B

mean? You’re JEWISH! You’re RUSSIAN and POLISH! How do you think that happened? Do you think your grandfather had an AFFAIR with an INDIAN??”
    “I don’t know. You never know. What about YOUR grandfather?”
    “WHAT?!?!?! LOU!? Are you hearing this?”
    My father rejoined the land of the living. “I hear it. I don’t really understand it, but I’m listening. Andy, do you think you could be an Indian, really?”
    “I don’t know. I’m just thinking about it. Is that really crazy? I mean, first this guy that looks like me and now this book.”
    My mother broke in. Obviously, my dad was doing no good by reasoning with me.
    “The GUY who LOOKS like you has nothing to do with anything,” she said. “I don’t think there were Shawnees in Southern Illinois. I think they’re something else.”
    “But you don’t KNOW, Mom. I don’t know either. I’m just thinking about it.”
    “Okay,” she relented. “You’re an Indian. What do I know? Your grandfather Allen had an affair and you’re one-fourth Indian.” She chuckled as though she was going to humor me, but I knew the truth: Inside, she was in knots of fury.
    Grac and I were in rotten-kid heaven. I had slowly, deliberately gotten under my parents’ skin with the most ridiculous notion since someone gave Pia Zadora a contract.
    A few days later I lobbed this:
    “You know what I realized? And it’s ironic, actually. You can accept me completely for being gay but not for being Shawnee.”
    “WHAT?!” She screamed loud enough to rattle the ASK ME ABOUT MY GAY SON button on her lapel. “Oh my god, that is RIDICULOUS.”
    “Well, it may be true.”
    Brilliant. Mean, but brilliant.
    This silliness had gone on for months when one day a new bolt of inspiration hit me during our afternoon uptown-downtown kill-time-at-work chat.
    “We have to do something that gets to them in their home,” I said. “To bring the whole thing to Biltmore Drive.”
    “Okay, here’s something,” Grac mused. “We should send them a letter or something from a fake, shady Shawnee organization thanking you for all the money you’ve given them. That’ll get them going: Money that you’ve spent. Wasted money, Andy. YOUR wasted money.”
    My parents’ biggest fear in life has always been my sister and me “throwing money away.”
    Another spoiled egg of a plan was hatched: Out of fervor for my hidden ancestry, I’d bid on a pair of Navajo Raindance boots at an auction benefiting some Displaced Navajo cause. Because now, one of my pet causes was inter-tribe unity, and I was a representative of goodwill from the Shawnee. The twist was that the boots had been mailed to my parents’ house in St. Louis because the woman who took my check wrote down the address on my driver’s license, which still had the Missouri address. The explanation was VERY iffy, but it wouldn’t get much of a second thought.
    Graciela’s packaging was genius. She mocked up some letterhead using Wite-Out, scissors, and a Xerox machine and soon was “Lauren” writing from “Cause-Effective,” a nonprofit who-knows-what of which I was a “booster.” Between the words “Cause” and “Effective” was an arrow. Nice touch. The typed letter thanked me for my generous bid toward the boots and my endless enthusiasm for the organization. She handwrote and signed a PS: “All our books on Shawnee are being reordered—I will contact you when they arrive—Lauren.” The boots Grac found 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