“Or your massive theater program,” Rei says.
“Or your cool uniforms,” Wyatt adds. We all look at Wyatt. “I like wearing ties,” he says sheepishly.
“You girls should all have gone to St. Agatha’s.” X pauses, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. She goes to St. Agatha’s. We would have been classmates.
“The only reason X went to King’s Prep is because our eighth-grade teacher, Mr. ‘Bow Ties Are Cool’ Bautista, went to bat for him,” I tell Wyatt. “Mr. Bautista showed up at X’s house and told his parents that they had a prodigy on their hands, and that if they didn’t send him to King’s Prep, they would be doing a disservice to humanity.”
“Stop,” X says, blushing.
“It’s true,” Rei says. “We’re big fish in a public pond, but X is a legit prodigy.”
“You’re not big fish in a small pond, Rei,” X says. “You’re going to freaking Juilliard. And Wyatt, you’re going to Stanford. Everyone at this table is a fish of unusual size.”
“Well, except me,” I say.
A silence falls.
“You just don’t know what you want to do yet,” Rei says eventually. “Your dad won’t shut up about your SAT scores.”
“If I hear the number sixteen hundred one more time, I’m going to lose it,” Trinity says with a smile. “He thinks sixteen hundred is God’s triumphant thumbprint on your forehead or something.”
“It’s impressive. You should be proud of yourself,” Wyatt says.
I shrug.
“Please. Miho’s always been a genius. Did you even study?” Trinity asks me. I shrug again. “See?”
It wouldn’t be cool to admit this, but I did study. You’re supposed to make being smart look effortless, but I studied hours every night for months with a book I got from the library. I even listened to this free SAT prep podcast I found, trying to make sure I could do my best. An SAT prep course is hundreds of dollars. I worked with what I could get for free. And it paid off. But it scared me how hard I had to work.
Wyatt looks around the table. “You guys toss these things off because you know you’re smart. You don’t have to be so…so…disaffected all the time.”
“You’re so sweet,” Rei says. She kisses him on the cheek.
Trin snorts. “So what, you want her to hang her score above her bed or something?”
“That’s where I keep my Boy Scout badges,” Wyatt says.
“This I have to see,” Rei says. Wyatt blushes. I’m a little surprised she’s never been to his house. He’s been to hers tons of times.
“Oh, I know,” Trin says. “We should put it on a bumper sticker! Like one of those white ones in an oval you always see. What are those for anyway?”
“Race distances,” Wyatt says. “Like marathons and stuff.”
“That’s the ticket. Then your dad can put it on his truck.”
Bumper stickers. Numbers. My brain refuses to think of it. 13.1, 26.2…1600.
I didn’t apply to college, so it’s not like I actually failed. You can’t fail if you never try. But not trying is failing too, in its own way.
“How are you doing?” Lani asks me hesitantly.
“I’m going in the water for a minute,” I say before I start crying.
* * *
I swim out as far as I can as fast as I can, past what’s safe, farther than I’ve ever gone. In the evenings, this beach is crowded with surfers, and I should definitely not be out here. The waves try to slap some sense into me. I wish I could keep going forever.
Behind me, X is calling. I stop. I stare at the horizon and tread water. It’s ridiculous to be looking for comfort in the distance when I know it’s right behind me. I swim to shore, but it’s the horizon I’m thinking about as I make my way out of the water, back to my friends. I have that annoying song from Moana playing in my head: …there’s just no telling how far I’ll go.
How far will I go?
140.6 miles?
Is that far enough to feel better?
And then, it’s like when the chain on my bike winds itself into gear. Something has shifted, and my brain is grinding up a hill, finally making progress.
“I’m going to do an Ironman race,” I say when I make it to the picnic table. The words just happen, my mouth calling the shots.
“The triathlon?” X asks.
“140.6 miles,” I tell him. “Swim, bike, run.”
My friends look at each other for a moment. Then they burst out laughing. All except Wyatt.
“So let me get this straight. You, who won’t run a mile in PE even to pull yourself from a D to a C, who sat down in the middle of the floor during a basketball game because you didn’t like running, are going to run 140.6 miles? In one go?” Trinity asks.
“No. I’m going to run 26.2 miles. After I swim 2.4 miles and bike 112 miles.”
Trinity is laughing so hard she’s crying.
“Why?” asks Rei.
“The universe pointed me to this race,” I say. And it’s more than that, I know. But it was a sign. Literally a banner.
“You feel like she pointed you to this race,” X clarifies. “I saw her Instagram too, Miho. Basic.”
“It’s not…”
“Oh, it’s not something you saw on her Instagram and immediately decided you needed to do to prove to your Scumbucket ex-boyfriend that you’re just as good as the girl he was two-timing?”
“No,” I say, though…that sounds kind of accurate? Except it’s more like, I need to prove it to the whole world, not just him. To all the Scumbuckets.
“Couldn’t you just pull a Wild or something?” X asks.
“We’re on an island, X. What am I going to do, walk in circles for four months?”
“You could climb Everest,” Lani says, looking at her phone. “The internet says Ironman is a poor man’s Everest.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a poor man, and we’re nowhere near Everest. But we are very near an Ironman race.”
“It’s like a thousand bucks even to get in,” Trinity says.
I gasp, then I put it aside. I have to believe this is possible, even though I haven’t seen a thousand dollars in my whole life.
“No, no, no,” X says. “This is a dangerous and stupid idea, Miho. You can’t do this.”
“Yes I can. You said I was a fish of unusual size.”
“Even fishes of unusual size have limits! You literally can’t run a mile, Miho!”
“I mean, sorry, but I don’t believe that,” Wyatt cuts in. “Someone who can bike one hundred miles and then get up and deliver pizzas for six hours the next day can definitely run a mile.”
Rei turns to him. “Wyatt, sweetie, you don’t know Miho. She is all-caps Not A Runner.”
“How do you know? Maybe it’s my hidden talent,” I say. “I mean, I’ve never failed because I’ve never tried.”
“Okay, fine,” X says. “Run a mile in under ten minutes and we’ll say you can do it.”
He smirks at me. I hate him sometimes.
* * *
I am down, lunging like that’s some kind of magic power stance that will help me. The water laps up on the sand in front of me, making it solid enough to run on. On instinct, I take off my slippers, like that will make a difference.
I don’t listen as my friends count down from three. I don’t listen until the word “Go” strikes like a match on the lighter fluid flowing in my veins. The world swirls around me in strokes of blue and gold and I am off, unthinking, running as hard as I can.
To the tree and back. It’s only to the tree and back.
My brain whispers that I don’t know how to run, that I have no idea what I’m doing, that I look ridiculous. But I don’t have time for that. I clear my mind of all doubt as my feet hit the sand, my toes digging in, my arms pumping hard. I force my
shoulders down, force air into my lungs, and think of nothing but the next step. It is my one and only thought.
I touch the tree, and it’s a half mile back.
I don’t think about how I’m slowing down.
I don’t think about my heart, and how it hurts.
I don’t think about her Instagram account full of moments she shared with the love of my life.
I don’t think about how he probably doesn’t even wonder about me, the way I wonder about his every moment.
I don’t think about him forgetting me. I don’t think about his wedding, and how he will look in his suit, and whether or not she’ll carry his favorite flowers. I don’t think about his swoopy hair, his eyes, his hands. His hands on me, him lying next to me, all the while lying to me.
And then I’m lit up by rage, barreling full power down the beach. My tears and sweat make the stars dance. They’re alive the way Van Gogh saw them. I barely hear my friends yell. Everything is anger and pain.
But then I’m running past X, and I realize that was the finish line.
I did it. I don’t feel anything at all.
* * *
“I can’t believe it,” Rei says. “Seven minutes in the sand.”
“Okay,” I say, panting. I am still on my knees, unable to stand. “Now you guys have to say I can do it.”
“I mean, we can say it. But that doesn’t make it true,” Trinity says. “I’m all for saying it. But have you thought about what it would take to do it?”
“We’re talking about weeks where you train for eight-hour days. We’re talking about a race that takes a lot of people almost seventeen hours to complete,” Rei says. “I looked it up while you were running. It looks extremely hard.”
“And do you honestly think that doing this will make you feel better?” X asks.
“I don’t know. I think so,” I say. “I’m picking a ‘positive outlet’ for my heartache. Isn’t that exactly what you’re supposed to do?”
“Not sure if a vengeance race fits the definition of ‘positive outlet.’ ”
“It’s not a vengeance race,” I say. I scroll through a few pages on my phone. “Look. It says it right here on the Ironman website. ‘Redefine possible.’ That’s what I want.”
“It seems so…not you,” X says.
“Who says what’s ‘me’?” I exclaim. “I want to do this. I want to try something different.”
“You could do a million different things. Why her thing? Why are you jealous of her cruddy life? She’s marrying a cheating pretentious bucket o’ scum, and this all seems like a way of avoiding the fact that you’re still in love with him. I mean, do you honestly want that beady-eyed little toadstool’s Anthropologie wedding right out of the basic bitch catalog?” X asks.
“No,” I say.
“So then why do you want her race?”
“Forget it,” I say. It’s like I’ve lost a race I never started.
“We could go egg her house instead,” Trin offers.
“It’s not about her.”
“…we could go egg his house?” Trinity tries.
“Seconded,” Lani says.
“Thirded,” Rei adds. They start to stand, presumably in pursuit of eggs.
“I think the race is a good idea,” Wyatt says.
“What? Why?” I ask. Everyone sits back down.
“It sounds like a fun project,” Wyatt says. “It’s something we can all do together.”
“We’re not all doing an Ironman,” Rei says.
“Count me way out,” says Trinity.
“No, no, only Miho will do the race. But it could be a fun way for us all to…like…hang out and stuff,” Wyatt says, growing more sheepish with every word.
“How will we do it together?” asks X.
Wyatt turns the piece of notepaper he’s been scribbling on around. It’s a bunch of lists. At the top, it reads, “Miho’s Ironman.”
“Well, it takes a lot of support to do a race like this. Miho needs a training plan, probably a nutritional plan, probably a new bike, there’ll be lots of data from her workouts…”
“Oh, I totally call building the bike,” Trinity says.
“I call nutrition, obviously, because Miho eats like a trash goat,” Lani says.
“Well, Wyatt’s got data, and I could build a training plan,” Rei says. “If I taught myself to tap-dance for Anything Goes, I can definitely teach someone else to do a triathlon.”
“What would I do?” asks X.
“You’re the most important part. You’re the coach,” Wyatt says.
The air is humming. Something is about to happen.
“Oh, what the hell. I’m in,” Trinity says at last. “This sounds like more fun than burning time until college. I could pass calc in my sleep.”
“But are you sure you want to do this, Miho?” Wyatt asks. “You have to be completely sure. Absolutely sure.”
“I am,” I say. It’s true.
“This is such a bad idea, but I’m excited,” Lani says.
X squeezes my hand and leans over to whisper to me.
“I don’t want you on the wrong side of ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ ” he says. “No shame if you want to stop. Just say the word.”
I think about it. My heart is racing in anticipation. I don’t know if I can do this, but I can’t stop. I feel so light, like I’m flying. Maybe it will kill me, but right now, I feel stronger.
chapter eight
The next Saturday it’s raining. Normally the rain passes quickly; the weather here changes every five minutes. But today it’s raining like the island is conspiring with the sky to keep me off my bike.
Uncle Tua’s is deserted. It’s just me holding down the fort, and by holding down the fort, I mean watching paint dry. I have already done an accounting check on the till, wiped every surface, rolled all the silverware, even filled the little glass shakers with red pepper and fake parmesan. Now I’m getting paid eleven bucks an hour to sit here trying to balance a straw on my nose.
The boys are here too, of course, but the boys don’t count toward fort-holding because they are idiots. In the best possible way, of course. When Tua isn’t here, I’m in charge, even though they’re all older than me. I get why. While I’m out here being responsible and not breaking the “no phones at the counter” rule even though I’d never get caught, they’re in the back in their aprons and hairnets gathered around a phone, shooting a video for the latest Snapchat viral challenge. It’s something involving a clapping game and lemons, and hopefully no one is getting hurt.
I give up on the straw and instead dig out all the chunks of fake cookie dough from four solid inches deep into the restaurant-sized tub of ice cream, exactly the way Uncle Tua has repeatedly told me not to. I knead the worthless vanilla back into a solid flatness for the tourists, then take my bounty out into the doorway, where I can still hear the phone in case I have to send one of the boys out in a car on delivery.
I’m bummed I can’t be the one on deliveries today, but the rain is so beautiful and strange. I can’t imagine how I used to live anywhere else. The colors here are magic, or maybe it’s the light, because colors are made of light. Greens are more green. The sunsets demand the palette of a god. Even the lines are beautiful: the mountains are sound waves on the horizon, the trees are veins. This place is alive, speaking.
I wish I belonged here.
But I’m not Hawaiian.
I think about that every time I start to love this land or think I belong here. Even now, I feel like I’m a poser when I use Hawaiian slang or say I’m local. This could never be my home the way it’s my friends’ home, and I could never be Hawaiian the way Trin or Uncle Tua are Hawaiian. I only moved here in middle school after Dad had to take me in. But then, it’s not like there’s anywhere I really be
long. Where would that be? California, where I was born? Which city? My mom and I moved so much, I was always on the outside. Plus, I’m mixed. I’m not Black like Lani, not Japanese like Rei, not even a drop Hawaiian, not whatever else is mixed up in there from my mom’s side. I’m the one who doesn’t belong, no matter where I am.
Well, that’s not totally true. I look behind me into the restaurant. I look at all the tables ready for customers. I listen to the boys yelling; they must have gotten a good take.
I belong here.
I belong at Uncle Tua’s. I belong to my tiny group of friends. I belong in the Trailer Park. But we all live in the real world too, and it’s so complicated. Sometimes I wonder if we all belong to people and not to a place. If my tiny world got picked up and moved to Alaska, would we all feel at home? Or is part of what makes this home the ocean, the wind, and the rain?
The phone rings, and I thank the pizza gods for giving me an excuse not to think. Time for the afternoon rush.
Later, Tua comes in to help with the dinner crowd. Delivery starts to pick up, but Tua makes one of the boys do the deliveries because it’s still raining so hard. I take care of a couple of families, regulars I know. I convince a couple of tourists to try my Heathen California Niece—named after me!—and suggest a few good hikes. A bunch of guys on my school’s football team come in, and I help Tua shove a big table together for them. They don’t recognize me, or even notice me, which is a relief. It’s not that I’m embarrassed to work here. I wear my work shirt to school all the time, leave the pizza sign on my bike. It’s more that when people think you have a connection, they try to get you to give them free stuff or alcohol, and I don’t even do that for my friends.
In the best corner with the window, there’s a big table of four couples who arrived in two matching Jeeps. They look like something out of one of the catalogs Rei always has spread all over her bed. Like somehow, wherever they go, massive bohemian tents and floor pillows and Moroccan-themed barware appear out of the mist, and they sit down to Instagrammable feasts, and then go on their merry way to the next forest or meadow or whatever is hip right now while the invisible ones clean up the mess they’ve left behind. I set out their plates and the pizza stand and notice their guidebook. Our restaurant was in Lonely Planet once, so we get a lot of these hip tourists from the mainland who want to feel local. I answer questions about the menu. The girls squeal at even the idea of Spam pizza. They ask Uncle Tua about secret bars, hidden gems, things “off the beaten path.” Like we’re stamps in the passport that proves they’re really authentic.
Fierce as the Wind Page 5