. . .” yada yada “. . . found each other . . .” yada “. . . new road ahead . . .” yada. “I know about fifteen guys who, as of tomorrow, will be sobbing in their beer at the thought of Penelope with a wedding ring on her finger . . .”
The toast continues with a story of the couple stuck in a Jamaican hurricane, declarations of their love in the face of catastrophe, and closes with a wish for a hundred years of health and happiness. Penelope goes gooey with a thank-you and blows Jerry a kiss.
They seem like the perfect couple: Penelope, blond and pixie cute with a bubbly SoCal personality, a biology degree, and a brain Einstein would envy, and Paul, fresh out of the corps, taking on med school like he’s charging a hill. I’m truly happy for her, but I must admit to a tinge of envy. If I could ever get a relationship to take hold I wonder what a wedding would be like for me. Daddy blames himself for my relationship woes, since being raised by the Pentagon meant we never laid down roots anywhere. He holds this notion that maybe if I’d had a normal childhood—you know, growing up in the same house on the same street with a dog or cat with a gaggle of friends, actually having personal things (a stuffed animal collection or a bicycle, maybe)—and if I hadn’t had to pack up every six months, I might actually fit in somewhere, bleed all the salt from my veins, and be able to connect with a guy for longer than a few dates. But I think it’s more about what happens to a guy’s ego when he learns that I rode the Cortes wave that crushes any ideas of a first date. And the Olympian thing? Oh my God, talk about a repelling force field, which is pretty darn bad for a gal who gets a crush on any cute guy that walks by.
Anyway, there’s a big syrupy awwww before everyone stands, cheers, and clinks glasses. The skinny kid next to me, swallowed inside a blue suit, is Penelope’s seventeen-year-old brother, Nixon. We’re paired together in the wedding party. He’s sweet and cute, but tying a tie is clearly not his thing. On the flipside, his loopy brown curls, this untamed ’fro cascading off his head and dropping to his jawline, taking on a life of groovydom is wild, wonderful, plush, and ooh! I just want to dig my fingers into it. He’s computer-geek innocent, but though I’ll come to learn that he’s part Swedish, Guatemalan, and Chinese, his face is shocking white even in the dim candlelight.
Nixon clinks his glass against mine hard enough to slosh the champagne.
“Sorry,” he says with a nervous laugh. He clinks his glass on a few others, lifts it to his lips, then glances across the table to his father, who nods, it’s cool. He takes a sip and winces. We sit down.
“You like champagne?” he asks, setting his glass in front of him.
“It’s OK.” I say taking a sip. “The bubbles get me drunk super fast. You?”
“Of course,” he says, “Who doesn’t?”
There’s an incredible vulnerability in his soft brown eyes when he tells me this.
It’s weird, but he knows all about me, I mean, not just the public stuff. He knows my pizza preference (Hawaiian) and that I’m into the band Junk Bees. He knows that I have a penchant for mango-and-pineapple ice cream, that I’m a Pisces, and that my favorite earrings are a pair of little silver turtledoves. But the most interesting detail he knows is that I’m named after an atoll in the Maldives archipelago, a lonely little eyelash of an island in the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a ring of cerulean blue. I figure that Penelope briefed him so he wouldn’t feel awkward sitting next to me with nothing to say, but lack of conversation isn’t a problem.
“So, how long have you known my sister?”
“Five years,” I say. “You and I met when you were younger, but you just ignored me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, but you’re forgiven.”
I give Nixon the top line—became friends at UCSD, dated the same guy (who turned out to be a total cheat), both had a crush on our biology teacher, went to Cabo together for spring break—and leave out the part where we got drunk and ran down the beach at night completely naked, only to lose our clothes and use palm fronds to cover ourselves until we got back to the room. And also that I was there when Penny broke her ankle in the Veterans for Animal Rights 10K.
“I hear you’re now into gaming or something,” I say.
“Sort of,” he says, “I’m a pro gamer. I won the Amazon.com World Challenge in Tokyo last fall. Put me at number three in the world rankings. I’m shooting for the top spot, but the competition is pretty gnarly.”
“I know how that can be.”
“The Olympic hopeful thing is sick.”
“Number three in the world isn’t too stupid either,” I say.
“I won enough money to buy a Ferrari.”
“Really,” I say, genuinely impressed.
“I’d offer you a ride, but the law says I have to wait a few more weeks. It’s out in the parking lot. You can have a look if you want.”
“I’ll just take you up on that.”
“Insurance is like a zillion dollars, but my dad’s cool about covering it.”
Nixon breaks off a piece of bread, smearing it and his fingers with butter.
“So, where are you from originally?” he asks, taking a bite.
“Everywhere and nowhere,” I say. Nixon’s face scrunches. “I’m a navy brat. I was born in Guam, but I’ve lived all over: Florida, Tokyo, Italy. Ping-ponged around. Never long enough to call anywhere home.”
“I’m adopted and haven’t met my birth parents, so I can kind of relate—on the roots thing.”
“Do you want to meet them?”
“Yeah, I guess. Someday. But this is my family,” he says, gesturing around the table, “and they’re really pretty cool.”
Penelope’s family has a genuine pride and love for Nixon. Even though he’s not blood, he’s treated as such, which is what’s in store, I guess, when the baby of the family claims dizzying success. I have the same love and pride but without a huge group creating a tight love-circle around me when things go to hell. At best, I had some semblance of a family unit when Mom was alive: she, Daddy, and Pac. Small and nomadic is what navy life taught me. Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder what a big family would be like instead of an ever-shrinking unit. Now, with Mom gone, and Daddy off to wherever his mind takes him, I’m beginning to feel more and more alone.
“I think it’s totally cool that you rode that wave. You know, I like the smell of neoprene,” Nixon says.
“Whoa. Not sure what to react to, the wave or the neoprene.”
“The wave. Must have been pretty intense.”
I walk him through the whole experience, and we talk about competition at a world-class level—the pressure, expectation, and loneliness—and there’s a nonverbal connection, a link, and thrill that only elite competitors can understand.
In the parking lot, the night is still and starry. I can make out warships outlined in lights across the bay. I smell the diesel fuel, the tarry decks, and at once I’m back
