style="font-size:15px;"> The partygoers drift down the illuminated walk lined with dwarf palms, say their good-byes, and slide into their cars, but not before reminding each other of the big day ahead.
Off at the far end of the lot, alone on the velvety black asphalt, is Nixon’s blue Ferrari 958 Italia hybrid. The sugary sapphire paint burns like a polished jewel under the lot’s cool lights.
“Are you on Facebook?” he asks as we meander toward his car.
“Yes and no. Who is anymore? I’ve been off social lately, but I jump on and off YouMee and Surfline social on occasion. You?”
“No,” he says, his face in ticks. “My parents use it. I’ve been diagnosed with social-sharing anxiety disorder, so Facebook’s not my bag—and it’s for old people. I mean, I have a page for the older gamers who follow me, but it’s like a party I’ve been invited to and I’m sitting in the corner of the room alone watching everyone talk with each other and have a good time. Besides, some dudes were writing junk about me. It really doesn’t bother me, though; I can take it, but my therapist advised that I stay off, at least for now.”
“I’ve got people writing nasty stuff about me, too. Doesn’t feel good, does it?”
“Negative.”
“Negative?”
“Why is that funny?”
“It’s not. But it’s used in the military a lot, and it just struck me, with my dad being a captain and all, or former captain. Anyway, I came to realize that I had twelve thousand “friends” and not a real one among them, so yeah.”
It occurs to me that talking to Nixon is a good step in supporting the growing trend to disconnect from social in favor of real personal relationships, and I think Nixon will help me get to that goal. He’s seven years younger, but I feel his sadness and isolation, and though I like to think of myself as a happy person with the stuff to punch a hole in the world, the little corner of sadness hanging out in my brain somehow connects with his.
“I’ve hacked my Facebook account into bot mode,” he tells me as we approach his Ferrari. “Recorded a bunch of phrases and put it through natural language processing so it answers my gaming fans with something funny. I even programmed some good comebacks for the trash talkers, which I’m not good at in real life. The AI is so good, nobody knows if it’s really me or not.”
“That’s so cool. I’d love to put my social pages in bot mode, too. I’m surprised you got away with it.”
“For now,” he says, opening his door with a click and a hush. “There aren’t any real person exchanges online anymore, anyway. So it’s kind of not new.”
“Whoa—nice ride, dude. The white interior is straight-up official.”
“Thanks. It’s pretty decent, I guess.”
“Tell you what,” I say. “Let’s go primitive. How about we exchange phone numbers?”
We bump phones to trade digits, and say good-bye. Soon, I’m in my Charger stopped behind Nixon’s Ferrari, its chrome stallion blinking orange in the light of his right-turn signal. Nixon turns onto the tree-lined boulevard, the car letting loose a throaty purr. You’d think it’d be all-out rubber and smoke. Instead, Nixon slides into the far-right lane and turtles along. I follow for fifty yards or so, then pull alongside him, hoping he’ll catch my eye and take my signal for a drag when I rev and lurch the Charger forward. But when I glance through his window, he’s hiked high in the driver’s seat, leaning forward with his hands at ten and two, driving like an old man ten below the limit. With a friendly honk, I smile and wave. Nixon smiles, too, a sweet orthodontics smile, and gives me a thumbs-up to acknowledge the Charger’s American cool.
Tomorrow’s an early one. I punch the gas and go.
7
One hand on her new hubby’s shoulder, Penelope trips the guillotine’s lever, and in a blink, the steel blade swooshes down and slices her three-layer wedding cake in half.
Stunned silence.
Applause!
Cheers!
And Penny’s hand-to-heart, wide-eyed shock says what everyone’s thinking: holy Christmas! That thing can take off a head! A hotel waiter lifts the plastic bride and groom and sets them on the table, shifts the cake a few degrees, and readies the executioner’s machine for a second slice. The reception is everything Pen-Pen wanted. And as of now, twenty hundred hours on Saturday night—that’s eight o’clock for you civilians—her Marie Antoinette–themed wedding has been nothing but c’est magnifique!
Four generations of family and friends are done up in white powdered wigs, and seventeenth-century Louis the XIV pageantry surrounds the bride and groom in the Parisian Rococo banquet room of the Hilton Hotel. I must admit, if you stop for a second and suspend disbelief—ignore the few invitees in modern-day suits and dresses and the Billie Joe Armstrong lookalike wedding singer—the scene could pass for all the royal avarice in the days before the French Revolution.
Penny is a giant puff pastry in her white lace gown. The bridesmaids were so worried she wouldn’t be able to get around with a five-foot-long train; I mean, her white wig alone is piled so high she has to duck through doorways. But she’s floating with happiness and managing just fine glazed in makeup, diamond drop earrings, and the big fake beauty mark that I drew on her cheek. She’s holding a slice of vanilla cream cake, and by the sly smile on her licorice-red lips, I can tell it’s about to end up on her new husband’s face.
I’m into the whole theme: the gilded Francophile trompe-l’oeil and floral place settings; the shit-faced men in waistcoats with ruffled cuffs, buckled shoes, and tricorne hats. But my corset, which needed the help of two bridesmaids to get into, is cutting—off—my—brea—thing.
I sit down at a far table, against a faux seventeenth-century mural of a couple picnicking in the French countryside. My petticoat smothers the chair as I fight off the room’s stuffiness with a few cool waves of a lace fan. The powdered wig is boiling my head. Sweat drizzles down my temples. Minutes later, a waiter sets down cake, and I pick at it, leaving the sickening sweet frosting to one side. What comes to me as I watch Penny’s two-year-old niece crawl onto the lap of her ninety-three-year-old great-grandmother two tables away is a picture of lineage and tradition—the Family Perfect, a stark contrast with my own.
I picture my dad’s only sibling: the childless mystery uncle in the Kentucky hills who makes his living crafting boutique bourbon, which he sells for resale to brand-name distilleries; and who, on his off time, shoots and skins possums and squirrels for sport. There was a time when Mom was alive—the vacant, lonely months when my dad was on secret missions at sea, long before her cancer or my Olympic dreams—when Mom’s sister, my aunt Brittany, would fly out to San Diego with my cousin Kate, an intellectually disabled thirteen-year-old who wore sparkly shoes, pooped in her pants, and drew me crayon pictures of rainbows and windmills and giraffes. Then she’d slap them in my hand and declare, “I made this for you! It’s pretty!” She’d smile and clap and go on, “It’s pretty! It’s pretty!” I’d tell her they were, mostly to settle her down, then post her pictures in my bedroom to make her feel good, but honestly—and don’t hate me for it—something deep inside me couldn’t wait for her to leave. When she did, my mom closed the door behind them, sighed, and said with heavy eyes, “Be happy with yourself.”
