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“When did you…?” Her dad reached the back of his chair and turned around. “Oh, when he went to the bar. Clever.”
I could see Piper gear up to argue on behalf of who exactly was paying for the bill, and I slipped in the next question into the conversation. “So, archeologist, I get. But what’s a marine biologist doing in Oklahoma?”
“Oh, no, no, Adam—” Piper started to say but her mom beat her to it.
“Aquatic biologist, not just a marine biologist,” her mother corrected me. “And Oklahoma may be landlocked, young man, but it contains more than a hundred lakes, over seventy-thousand miles of rivers, and a wide variety of indigenous species. The biome diversity alone…just because you can’t see what it offers on a highway, doesn’t mean there aren’t worthwhile studies to be conducted.”
I’m starting to see where Piper gets it from.
“You got me.” I held up my hands in surrender. “Piper loves ocean animals, and I was trying to figure it out.”
“We didn’t always live in Oklahoma,” her dad said. “We’ve lived wherever our grants and teams have taken us…Galveston…Mexico for a bit—”
“San Juan Island.” A little smile tugged up on Piper’s face. “San Juan Island, Washington.”
“I have pictures.” Her mom assured me and slipped out her phone.
Piper tried to reach for it across the table. “Mom, please, no.”
“Please, yes.” I laughed. “Is this baby Piper?”
“In Mexico and Galveston, Piper was obsessed with the turtles,” her mom said, shooing Piper’s hand away no matter how much she tried to grab the phone. “But when we went to San Juan, there was bioluminescent plankton—”
There was a lot of jargon thrown around. I should’ve studied for this.
I tried to sound it out. “Bio—biome?”
“Bioluminescent,” she corrected me.
“Glowing plankton,” Piper said. “It’s an evolutionary defensive tactic against predators.”
“And when you say they glow…?”
Her mom held up her phone, and I saw the craziest sight in the world. It was clearly a photo taken of an old Polaroid photo. The picture itself was pretty grainy. But there was a tiny Piper in a pink bodysuit, with her mouth wide open for a huge smile on the beach in front of…actual glowing water.
“Holy shit.” I chuckled. “That’s fucking crazy.”
“She wanted to wear it,” her dad laughed and Piper groaned again. “She did! You did, Piper—you did. It was her favorite thing in the whole world. She’d just sit out on the beach for hours, waiting for it. But our Piper’s always been a romantic. Where did she get that from?”
“Clearly switched at birth.” Her mom shrugged. “We must’ve picked the wrong one.”
Piper gave her an exasperated look. “I look exactly like you, mom. Please.”
“Ah, but is that nature or nurture? Who’s to say?”
“Blood tests.” Piper snorted. “That’s what says it.”
I shook my head. “Piper, you should be nicer to the folks that took you in from the fire station.”
My RA rolled her eyes enough that it must’ve hurt, but her parents burst into laughter and clinked their drinks with mine, buzzing with excitement that I joined in the game. And that’s what it was. There was no way they would’ve kept up the jokes if it didn’t annoy Piper and that’s what tied us together. Just irritating the shit out of her.
It was pretty great. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
“You know…” Her mom tapped her chin. “What a little romantic we raised. I do remember something about…first kisses being…magical…? She used to write all these little poems about the theory—”
“Mom!”
“In fact, I’m sure I have a picture of one somewhere around here—”
