31. Stevens

THIRTY-ONE

Stevens

I never saved anything for the swim back.

~ Gattaca

I took the main ferry over to Ventura this morning, lugging an oversized garment bag with my costume for tonight’s fundraiser. The World Coral Restore Corps is hosting a gala of sorts. Only, instead of tuxes and gowns, I was informed we needed to come up with a costume representing an animal or part of a habitat impacted by coral reef degradation.

I chose the bolbometopon muricatum, or as it is more commonly called, the green humphead parrotfish. These shallow ocean water fish are vulnerable. And ugly. They have a protruding forehead and the appearance of buck teeth, which is really one gigantic tooth attached to their jawbone which they use to chip algae, bacteria and microbes off coral. Mom made me a costume, and it’s … ugly. But in the best of ways.

My costume looks just like the parrotfish with its pinkish tint on the front of the face and a bulbous forehead framed in light chicken wire and filled with light stuffing under the scaly fabric so it remains upright when I put on the costume. The buck teeth on the beak of the fish really are the capstone of the costume.

Thankfully, I’ll be surrounded by a bunch of science nerds who will (1) immediately identify what animal I represent, and (2) appreciate why I chose this particular fish. Not only is the parrotfish dependent upon the reefs, but his excessive excrement helps contribute to the regeneration of coral. What a guy!

I spend the day in LA, having lunch with an old colleague—a man I knew during my fame for the sea hare article—and then I take some time driving around Hollywood. I know Alana’s here somewhere, and the idea of us being near one another, of me being in her habitat, so to speak, makes me happy. I see billboards, studios and theaters through new eyes today.

Just before dinner, I pull into a low-cost gym that has locations all over California. I have a membership for when I travel. I use their restrooms to change into my costume, and then I walk out through the lobby with my scaly head held high, avoiding eye contact with the abnormally buff guys walking past me as I exit and get back in my car.

To say driving is a challenge would be an understatement. There’s a reason fish dwell in the ocean. Fins are not good for gripping steering wheels. Thankfully, the gym is only a few blocks from the event, which is held in the ballroom of a high-end hotel in the middle of West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip.

I park my car with the valet, who gives me a quizzical look that stymies me since he must be seeing all manner of crustaceans and chondrichthyes parking here for the event. I walk through the lobby and heads turn. It must be the costume. Mom knocked it out of the park. Sure, I could have rented a lobster outfit from some Halloween store online, but I wanted to represent an animal pertinent to the cause we’re raising funds for tonight.

I was initially asked to be the keynote speaker talking about coral restoration and my specific project, but a PhD from St. Thomas is coming in—an expert in this particular field of marine biology.

I take the elevator up with an elderly couple. The woman scoots to the other side of her husband when I say, “Good evening,” to them. She keeps giving me furtive looks, and not the kind a woman gives a man when she’s interested. I don’t know what danger she fears a man in a fish costume could pose to her, but I keep my fins to myself the whole ride up to the tenth floor.

The ballroom is through a fancy bar area which serves as a foyer and entry to the event. The floor is lined with large black and white checkered tile and the whole room is paneled in dark wood. Very high-end. I waddle past a group of men in tuxedos. Maybe there’s another event here. Or they could simply be enjoying a drink at the bar before they go on with their evening. Women’s heads turn. Women in stunning gowns. So far no one else is wearing a fish costume—or any costume for that matter.

I walk into the main ballroom.

Not a fish in sight. No crabs. No mollusks. Not even an anemone.

You know those dreams where you show up to school or work buck naked and your feet are superglued to the floor while all eyes turn toward you? No? Only me? Well, I’m living the dream. Not that dream, but the fishy version of it.

How did I misconstrue the dress code as “costume party” attire? I know I saw those words along with the description of what types of costumes might be considered as options. I’ll double check the invite later. It really doesn’t matter since I’m here in all my scaly glory and everyone else is definitely sporting formal wear.

As if this night couldn’t get worse, people are discreetly raising their cells and snapping photos of me. The lone parrotfish in a sea of well-dressed penguins.

And then, I see her.

Alana.

She’s wearing a red ball gown. Its form-fitting satin shimmers in the light with her every movement. She’s the image of elegant grace. Her hair is up in some sort of twist with a jeweled comb holding all her usually wild curls in place. Only a few tendrils frame her gorgeous face. Her makeup is done more heavily than usual, black lines drawn tastefully above her lashes to accentuate her crystal blue-gray eyes, and lipstick the color of her dress on those lips I kissed less than twenty-four hours ago.

This ? This was her fundraiser? Why didn’t she tell me she was going to a coral regeneration gala?

The only mercy I see in this whole situation is the fact that I’m wearing a fish suit, so my identity is partially cloaked. But, my mother, as proficient a seamstress as she is, can’t create a costume that rivals a theater production. So, the buck teeth of the humphead parrotfish fall just over my forehead. My face is visible through the gaping mouth of this pisces.

I’m staring at Alana long enough that she senses me—and turns. When she turns, the man standing next to her, who happens to be Rex Fordham, also turns. And so does the older woman to her left, a woman who looks so much like an older version of Alana that she must be her mother.

And now all three of them are staring at me. Directly at me. At me, in my fishy suit.

Rex bends toward Alana and says something into her ear. She pivots toward him and answers him. Her mother must have the ears of a fox, because her brows raise, and then the three of them are walking in my direction while the rest of the room stares at me like I’m a floating turd in their silver punchbowl.

I consider turning tail and swimming for safety, but I know they saw me. And, I’m here for the cause. So I stay, awaiting my fate. This isn’t exactly the “meet the parents” moment I had imagined when I dared think about meeting Alana’s parents, but sometimes life picks for you and you just have to flow with the current.

“Stevens?” Alana says to me.

“Yes. Hi.”

“I thought you must know one another the way you were staring at her,” Rex says .

He’s tall and imposing, but not in an overly egotistical way, just in a way that says he’s so successful he doesn’t have to even try to make an impression. Whereas my presence says something more like, I need to retreat behind a kelp bed and reconsider all my life choices.

“So, how do you two know one another, exactly?” Alana’s mother asks.

“I’m … her … well, I …”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what Alana wants me to say.

Despite looking every bit the movie star she is, Alana stutters. “We … uh … actually … Stevens is, um … my yoga instructor! Yes. He’s my yoga instructor.”

Her mother sizes me up, and while she’s doing that, Alana looks straight through the mouth of the fish costume, past the buck teeth, into my eyes, and mouths, “Sorry,” to me.

I get it. She’s trying to protect me. We hadn’t planned for me to be publicly known as her boyfriend yet. And certainly not dressed as a coral chewing, sand spewing fish with a bulbous forehead and protruding dental formation.

“ This is the yoga instructor?” Her mother sizes me up. “The one I heard over the phone?”

Ah. Yes. That is what Alana told her mom when I showed up with tacos. If only she could have met me then.

“Yes. Yep. This is him.” Alana nods a little too emphatically.

“Hi,” I say to Alana’s mother. “I’m Stevens the … uh … yoga instructor.”

I then make the mistake of trying to bend my knees and extend two finned hands into warrior one pose. There’s the distinct sound of ripping fabric right up my backside. It appears I’ve split a tail fin.

“Well,” I say, looking from the horrified face of Alana’s mother to the pitying faces of Alana and Rex. “I think that’s my cue to practice catch and release.”

Practice catch and release? Ugh .

I back away from them and continue to walk backward until I’m at the double doors leading from the ballroom into the bar/foyer area. Then I turn and head out of the event venue as fast as a man in a fish suit can go.

I wake in my bed after chartering a private boat home and doing the golf cart drive of shame to my house, garment bag in tow. I want to burn that costume. The first thing I did when I got in the house was to check the invitation I had hung on my fridge.

I was right. The gala had been a costume party. At least it started out that way. The invitation I had posted in my home was one sent out four months ago. I checked my email after double checking my fridge, and sure enough, I found two emails in my spam folder stating that due to the high-profile celebrities they had arranged to invite, the event had been changed from costumes to formal wear two months ago, and confirmed as such a month later.

I went to bed trying to shake off the memories of the evening, but I had dreams that I was officiating an underwater wedding between Alana and Rex. I was a fish. The o-fish-iant. I chuckle. It’s come to this: private, unspoken dad jokes.

My head swims with thoughts of Alana and how perfect she looked standing next to Rex while I struck a pose and ripped a seam in my fish costume. If Atlantis were habitable, I’d consider relocating. I’m not jealous. But I am shaken, and not only a little. After about an hour alone with my thoughts, I’ve had enough. I head out the door and over to Kai’s home. He’s still living on this side of the island until he and Mila get married.

I knock on his door and he pulls it open with a cup of coffee in his hand and a casual smile on his face.