Desperation Reef

38

The next evening Jen attends the Monsters of Mavericks awards dinner in the Oceano Bar and Grill.

Her bruises and cuts pulse dully, her neck aches, and her wheelchair is cold steel. Can’t quite get warm. Her right eardrum is broken, but no bones. A miracle, they said. Her balance is way off when she’s standing or getting out of the chair. She’s still a bit hazy on what happened, but the doctors in San Francisco say her traumatic, short-term memory loss will probably return. Bed rest. Set your alarm or have someone wake you up once every hour. Oxycodone if you need it. You’re one tough woman, Jen — you’re the Monster of Mavericks.

She picks at the rice and teriyaki chicken, half listens to the MC — actor Robin McKenna from the streaming drama Legends of the Wave. She’s in a short silver dress with a bow across her breasts, looks like a present to be opened. There’s a huge screen behind her, vivid with film and video:

Stupendous waves that look even bigger through telephoto lenses.

Off-the-lips, barrel burials, bottom turns.

Wipeouts.

The old seventies Five Summer Stories music plays beneath the amplified boom of the waves.

“Let’s start off with the awards that hurt!” Robin McKenna announces. “But we have happy endings here! The women’s worst wipeout — no surprise — goes to Jen Stonebreaker!”

Casey, his reef-scraped forehead almost hidden under his thick yellow hair, wheels her to the stage but there’s no ramp so Robin McKenna slinks down the steps and hands Jen an acrylic-and-gold-look trophy shaped like a wave. Her wipeout unfolds in slow motion on the screen. A ripple of cold numbness wobbles through her. She watches it intently, with little recall of the event.

The actor pecks Jen with a brief kiss, plants a longer one on Casey, then offers Jen the microphone and a white envelope with blue foil trim.

Jen waves away the mike and takes the envelope; Casey turns her chair around and Jen smiles to the cheering audience.

“There’s five hundred dollars in that envelope, Jen,” says Robin. “And some fantastic shops right across the alley. And an open bar ’til midnight! Enjoy! Wow, we’re glad you’re still here!”

Back at the table Jen lets her vision drift from Casey and Brock and Mahina, to her mother and father, Pastor Mike and Marilyn, and Bette Wu.

They look different to her. She’s never seen them in this way before, never been stolen from them, then returned. Plucked from their world, then drop-shipped back.

Casey’s to her left; she touches his face. Brock to her right, likewise.

Funny how they’re all looking at me the same way right now, she thinks. Eve Byrne wipes her eyes, and Jen’s tough, good-hearted former police chief dad sets a hand over his wife’s far shoulder and squeezes. Looks at Jen as if he’s the happiest man in the world.

She settles on Bette Wu’s pale face. Gets a small smile, no teeth, just a cupid upturn of her lips. Bette’s wearing the same seafoam-green leather pantsuit that Jen noted the first time she saw her, in the Barrel bar with her pirate crew, trying to get Casey’s attention. Funny, Jen thinks, how easily that moment comes to mind — weeks old — when wiping out on a fifty-foot wave face just yesterday is only a dark, gloomy snippet.

“...the worst men’s wipeout goes to Tom Tyler... we’re all real stoked to have you with us, Tommy!”

Jen watches nineteen-year-old Tom Tyler bounce up to the stage in his plaid flannels, shearling boots, and red sequined tails, throwing punches like a boxer. Blond hair to his shoulders. He’s about the cutest boy she’s ever seen, right behind her own. Wants to adopt him.

The next time Jen looks for Bette, she’s not there. Then Jen feels a hand on her shoulder and hears Bette’s voice behind her. Jen tries to turn to her but her pain-frozen neck won’t let her.

“I know you hate me but I’m happy you’re still alive,” Bette says. “That wave will haunt my dreams.”

“Mine, too.”

The MC asks the next winners to stay put until all the awards have been announced. Starts to read from an Oceano bar napkin, holding it close:

Ruby Kaiawalu and Tom Tyler get best rides.

The crowd goes bonkers. Someone raises a beer pitcher to his mouth but drops it. Explodes when it hits the floor. Shrieks. Rene Carrasco slides through the glassy beer in his Ugg boots, arms out, knees bent.

Flip Garrison gets big-wave rookie of the year.

Bonkers again, and loud: “Flip! Flip! Flip!”

Maya gets women’s first place and the $50,000 that goes with it. Then Ruby Peralta and Connie Arnett.

Jen doesn’t podium. Doesn’t care. Knows she couldn’t have surfed any better, and she had the luck — until the wipeout, at least — well, enough luck to live through it.

She’s survived what even her most private dreams had promised would kill her.

Everyone’s standing and hooting, bottoms up and shots down. Jen feels like she’s in a dazed version of high school again, when she won everything in sight and everybody adored her and she was falling in love with John. Before she grew up. Before their blissful Garden and his terrible end. Happy in this moment, as she was then. Blessed by life and smart enough to know it.

Jen is so lost in her memory she zones through the men’s second- and third-place winners, then:

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, girls and dudes, masters and grommets, kooks and locals — it’s time for the winner of Monsters of Mavericks men’s overall. As you all know, it’s based on three waves, judged on points for maneuvers, degrees of difficulty, and style. Style, baby!”

Jen watches Robin take a patient swallow of what looks like a sponsored Pacifico longneck, which brings a horny roar from the crowd.

“Men’s overall — Casey Stonebreaker! This year’s monster man!”

Casey and Brock each take a wheelchair handle and push Jen through the bodies to the base of the stage again. Mahina and Bette and the moms and dads are already there. The other winners and most of the audience flood in, hamming it up for the cameras, selfies galore, “Wipeout” twanging and thumping loud from the PA.