“Phoenix claw,” a fattish young man said in a scolding tone, his head tilted, his mouth twisted, gnawing one of his own. He was pale and jowly, with a clammy face, in a flower-patterned shirt.

“My brother Winston,” May said, but the man looked away and kept eating. “And this is my mother.”

The older woman said something, but Sharkey could not hear it over the racket. She fluttered the fingers of one hand, and with one finger of her other hand was encircling a bowl of poi, gathering a purplish clot of goo on her finger. She poked it into her mouth and wiped it on her tongue.

“Dis so ono!” she shrieked—he heard that—and dipped her finger into the bowl again.

As he sat and scanned the table, he saw two other women, one in a hairnet and green scrubs, the other in a stained sweatshirt, with wild hair. They were dabbing at the platters with chopsticks as Sharkey said, “Aloha.”

“My sisters,” May said, and tapped the arm of the woman in scrubs. “Winnie, say hello.”

“I’m on call,” the woman said, tugging at her green shirt.

“I’m Wallis,” the wild-haired woman said. “Did Wendy tell you I’m the lolo sister?”

Leaning closer so that he could be heard, Sharkey said, “Wendy?”

“That’s me,” May said. “I got sick of the rhyming names—Winston Wong, Wendy Wong—so I decided to call myself May.”

“It means beautiful in Chinese,” Wallis said, and ran her fingers through her hair. “My problem is I got no kala. No money. My life kapakahi. Wendy beautiful, Wendy got plenny money, Wendy got haole boyfriend.”

“Joe’s not my boyfriend. He’s my surf instructor. And I got money because I got a job, Wally.”

“I want to go to the Olympics,” Wallis said, looking up at the TV set. “See some real snow.”

And Sharkey realized that it was the Olympics being televised, the skiers still speeding down the snowy slopes. As he watched, one of the skiers fell and skidded and spun into a net fence.

“He done a huli!” Wallis said.

May was still introducing Sharkey to the others at the table: a solemn Chinese man—“My brother-in-law, Kenton, Winnie’s husband”—and four small children—“Nieces and nephews”—whose names were lost in the noise.

One of the small girls was kneeling on a chair with a boy standing next to her, both of them giggling and taking turns as they jammed handfuls of rice into a drinking glass half filled with water, while another boy lay on the floor kicking the legs of Sharkey’s chair.