Sushi for One? (28 page)

THIRTY-THREE

A
iden thought sitting in the front pew with Spenser would make him a target for the full force of the pastor’s sermon, but the man barely glanced at him.

The message aimed at hearts more than minds. It contrasted with the talks Aiden had with him the past couple weeks, where Aiden asked and the pastor responded with logic.

“God gives us freedom.” He studied his notes and sipped some water before continuing. “But freedom isn’t the same for everybody. Freedom could be from physical prisons or mental prisons. Freedom from inadequacy and hiding.”

Aiden wondered if that was a message to him. They’d talked about his tendency to hide behind his impassive mask, to always seem calm and in control.

From the pulpit, he swept a pointing finger at the congregation. “God wants to free you. He cares about each of you, individually.”

Aiden had a hard time believing that. The pastor had told him to set out a fleece, but Aiden wasn’t sure how.

One thing the pastor had said still resonated in his mind.
Aiden, you don’t need to have all the answers before you step out in faith.

Listening to him now, Aiden struggled with the fact that he didn’t have enough to go by, and that
that’s
what faith was.

Okay.
He sat back. He wasn’t sure how to open a channel to God, but he assumed He’d hear him.
Okay. Prove Yourself to me. I’m not promising to believe, but I’ ll listen, for a change.

That’s it.

No thundering revelation. No fireworks, no surge of emotion.

Well? He didn’t feel any different. Was he supposed to?

The pastor suddenly glanced at Aiden, paused in his sermon. Then he picked up his sentence and continued.

That seemed odd.

Spenser turned in his seat, gave him a long look. He turned back around.

Hmmm.

Then Spenser leaned sideways. “Let’s go fishing after ser vice.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been talking to your pastor.” Aiden cast his line into Calero Reservoir. The hot day didn’t say much for their chances of catching anything.

“He’s a nice guy.” Spenser cast out his line and moved a step farther away.

“I like the picture on his wall.”

“Me too.”

Aiden’s lure stuck on something. “Aw, man.” He tugged, but no dice.

“Stuck?”

“Yeah.”

Aiden cut his line. It had been a cheap lure anyway. He selected another one and started stringing it. “I’m starting to understand this Christian ity stuff.” He didn’t look up at Spenser.

“Great.” Spenser didn’t say anything more, just kept jibbing his lure. Aiden looked at him.

Spenser smiled. It wasn’t brilliant, or startled, or even different from normal. But something about it . . . Aiden somehow felt that now he knew Spenser better than he ever had before.

He cast his lure. Yeah, maybe this was right.

“So this snooty guy comes up and says, ‘Welcome to Green Pastures Church. Are you a visitor today?’ And I was like, ‘Well, duh.’

And then he asked me if I was a Christian, if I went to Bible study, blah, blah, blah. And then he started harping about how I needed to learn Greek. Greek!” Lex shoved at the leg press so hard, her foot caught air.

She could tell Aiden tried hard not to be amused. “Greek is a worthy study.”

“Oh, don’t start. So then I told him — ”

“Hey, Aiden, where were you, man?” Ike walked up to Lex’s leg press. “Hi there, Lex.”

She stifled the urge to knock him to the mat, the two-timing flirt. “Hi, Ike.”

“So, Aiden, me and Lindsay waited twenty minutes for you, and then we just went inside to order.”

Aiden had gone still — so subtle, Lex almost didn’t notice it. He shrugged. “Sorry. I tried calling you, but my cell phone died.”

“No prob, no prob. Next time. That Chinese restaurant was great.”

Lex almost didn’t pick up on Ike’s words except that Aiden’s mask had subtly shifted at “Chinese restaurant.”

“When were you guys supposed to meet?” She paused at the top of her rep.

Aiden cleared his throat. “This past week.”

He was never vague. Lex’s eyes narrowed.

“I think it was Wednesday, right?” Ike patted his stomach. “That restaurant on Bascom.”

“You set me up!” Lex swung off the machine. The weights crashed down.

“Whoa, whoa!” Ike backed off. Lex ignored him, advancing on Aiden. His face had become fluid, flowing from shock to calculating, from guilt to regret.

“You wanted me to see Ike with Lindsay.”

“You saw us? What?” Ike paled to paste. “Oh, man.”

“You — ” She whirled and advanced a step at Ike, who backed into the freeweights shelves — “are a dork. You never had a chance. And you — ” She turned to stalk Aiden — “are just as bad as Grandma.”

She stood there, nursing a strong urge to knock
him
to the mat instead of Ike. She had never thought Aiden would trick her. Aiden was the one person she had thought she could trust to be honest.

Wasn’t that one of her original points on her Ephesians list? Honest?

Not manipulative?

“It’s true, I did know Ike and Lindsay would be there, and I took you to see them. But I didn’t make them start macking.”

“You saw that?” Ike plopped onto a gym bench. “Oh, man.”

“You had to have known what he’d do with a pretty female in a dark parking lot.”

Aiden’s mask dropped and shattered. “Do you really want to date someone like that?” He flung his arm at Ike.

Lex had never seen Aiden upset like this — even on the volleyball court, she’d never seen him so mad — but anger fired through her veins too. “It’s not your business. You took that choice away from me.”

“You don’t like not being in control of everything.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Guys.” Ike stepped between them and extended an arm to each.

“Now, you’re just getting snipey. Let’s try to keep communication open — ”

“Shut up!” “Stuff it.”

“Okay.” Hands up, he backed away. “I can see I’m not wanted.”

“I don’t like being manipulated.” Lex wanted to grab something and brain Aiden, but the weights were a little too lethal.

“You’d rather be manipulated by the player over there? I was trying to protect you.”

“I — ” Lex ground her teeth. That was actually kind of nice, but she wasn’t in a mood to appreciate it. “You just keep out of my life.”

She marched down the ramp and turned left to the waiting area.

She ruined her exit by coming back to get her purse from the women’s locker room. She gave Aiden a heated glare when she passed him the second time.

With nose pointed straight up in the air, Lex stormed out.

THIRTY-FOUR

H
ey, Lex, meet my friend — ”

“Not now, Rich.” Lex stomped through Grandma’s front door, past Richard, who held it open, and past his skinny male “friend.”

“Hey, hey.” Richard snagged her arm before she got too far.

“I need to say hello to Grandma.”

“She’s talking with Jenn’s mom. She can wait. This is — ”

“Hi.” Lex stuck out her hand. Mr. Skinny shook it with his own slimy one. “I’m Lex, and I’m not interested, no matter what Richard told you.” She turned toward the kitchen.

“Lex.” Richard caught up with her, thankfully leaving Mr. Skinny in the living room. “Come on, you have to be nice to me today. It’s Boys’ Day.”

“No, it’s May fifth. Technically it’s Children’s Day, not Boys’ Day, which means I don’t have to be nice to you ever. What’s up with all the guys?”

“What guys?” Richard suddenly found the linoleum fascinating.

“You’ve turned into a one-man male escort ser vice.”

“What?” Apparently the jab at his masculinity pricked him. “I have not. I’m
sociable.
Something you need to learn to be.”

“And you’re trying to teach me by introducing me to the latest Loser from the Street? You hardly know these guys.”

“How do you know? We could be best buds.”

“I’ve seen all your friends. They’re all like you. You wouldn’t be seen dead with Mr. Skinny in the living room, or that Food Leech at Uncle’s birthday party, or — ”

“I’m trying to find sensitive men who would appeal to your feminine sensitivities.” Richard raised a hand to cover his heart. “I have only your interests in mind.”

Lex laughed in his face, the first non-depressed feeling she’d had since her fight with Aiden that morning. “Try another one.”

Richard tried to think fast, but instead gaped like a goldfish.

“While you’re coming up with something, I’m going to say hi to Grandma before she disowns me.”

She heard Grandma before she entered the TV room at the back of Jenn’s parents’ house. “Oh, Trish, your boyfriend is so nice. He has such a wonderful accent when he speaks Japanese to me.”

Lex entered the room, already milling with cousins, aunts, and uncles. Grandma perched on an overstuffed wing chair in the corner, Trish sitting beside her on the couch. Jenn sat rather dejected on her other side, while Venus leaned against the couch arm, looking bored.

The sight of Jenn and Grandma unleashed the dam of anger and betrayal. The sound of praise for Trish’s boyfriend — who’d been influencing her to stay away from church — made Lex’s body go rigid.

Why couldn’t Lex find a nice guy? Why’d Grandma throw all those losers at her? Why couldn’t Grandma leave her alone? Why’d she turn Jennifer against her? Why was she so nice to them and so horrible to Lex?

“Hi, Grandma.” Lex stood a few feet away and spoke through clenched teeth.

Grandma gave her a cool smile. “How’s your girls’ volleyball team?” She said
volleyball
as if it were
Ebola.

Then it clicked in Lex’s head, like the difference on the radio between the 670 AM and 680 AM KNBR station (“
The
sports leader”). Grandma didn’t want Lex playing volleyball with those girls
at all.

“What do you have against those girls?” Lex took a menacing step forward. Her outburst caused the noise level in the room to drop.

Grandma’s nose went straight up in the air. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What is so wrong about me coaching that team?”

“You’re always coaching that team. Every time I call you, you’re out coaching them or playing with your friends.”

“So, you shut down my team?”

“Not at all.” Grandma had a good facade of reason and sweetness.

“I said I’d keep up funding if you found a boyfriend.”

“I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“Now, that’s just silly — ”

“And I’m tired of being controlled and manipulated.” Lex had started breathing hard. “First you, then Aiden. This is
my
life! What I do with my time is my business.”

“You play volleyball too much. It’s unfeminine.
You’re
unfeminine.”

The words had stung when Lex’s girly cousins taunted her as a child. They hit her like a slap to the face now, coming from her coiffed and perfumed grandmother. “I’m fine the way I am. There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“Lex!” Jennifer’s mother stepped up to bat. “You don’t talk to Grandma that way.”

“She shouldn’t treat me this way!”

Grandma’s eyes blazed, causing the flush in her cheeks. “Grandma’s treating you the way you should have been treated years ago.

Your father spoiled you. You turned out wild and uncouth just like your mother.”

Jennifer, Venus, and Trish all sucked in gasps.

A red film fell over Lex’s eyes. “You shut up! Don’t you talk about Mom that way!” She lunged.

She actually
lunged.

Grandma flinched back in her chair. Jennifer jumped in surprise and fell off her seat. Trish and Venus leaped into Lex’s way, holding her body back while her grasping arms still reached for Grandma’s pearled neck to wring.

“Lex!” “Lex, calm down!”

Her cousins’ alarmed voices brought her back from the wildness that shook through her limbs. She had actually yelled at Grandma. She had told her to shut up, even. She looked at her hands. She had acted on her fantasies and tried to strangle Grandma. No, that hadn’t been her, had it? She had . . .

She sagged against Venus, who grabbed Lex’s arm to keep her from falling. “It just isn’t fair! There’s nothing wrong with me! My mother was beautiful and feminine!”

Lex grabbed her head. “I was trying really hard, but they were all dweebs! My List is so long! I’m going to grow old and die without anyone because I can’t kiss a guy! And the one I want to kiss took me to see Ike kiss Lindsay, and he’s such a slime! And if I can’t find someone else in three weeks, Grandma is going to let innocent girls suffer!”

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “And my body is falling apart! I’ve probably lost six inches from my vertical jump! Everybody thinks I’m a big, dumb jock, and no one could ever be attracted to me! And they’re right! I’m only good for college sports tickets!”

One of her cousins zipped in front of her, his ears perked up.

“Tickets?”

Lex stared dumbly at him, but Venus lanced him with a look that should have stopped his heart. “Don’t. Even. Think it.” She shoved him away.

Lex erupted in another chorus of caterwauling.

Venus grabbed her chin and rammed her mouth shut, stopping her mid-cry. Lex barely missed biting her tongue.

“Come on, I’m taking you home.” Venus pulled at Lex’s arm to haul her toward the open doorway.

“But you didn’t drive.” Jenn handed her Lex’s purse and her own.

“I’ll drive Lex’s car. Where are her keys?”

They exited the eerily silent living room. Lex didn’t even glance at Grandma. A remote part of her realized she’d be in the doghouse for life, but she really didn’t care.

Venus settled her into her junk-mobile. After a few false starts, the engine caught and they rumbled away from Jennifer’s parents’ house.

Lex stared at her cracking dashboard. The tears still stained her face, although she’d stopped crying. She didn’t feel anything anymore.

Then a bomb exploded under the hood.

Well, maybe not a bomb, but something exploded. The
boom!

jolted through the car, but no fireball engulfed them. Smoke poured out from under the hood like gray floodwaters. Venus pulled over.

Lex and Venus escaped from the car — after all, she’d seen enough cars explode in movies not to take any chances. They couldn’t get close enough to the hissing hood to lift it up.

Lex coughed. “Think it’s bad?”

Venus just looked at her.

“You don’t understand. I . . . can’t afford to pay for it.” She’d lost all shame — why not advertise her penniless state? “God’s got it in for me.”

“God does not have it — ”“Yes, He does. Grandma’s probably going to charge me with assault and send me to prison. Without my club team, my junior high girls will descend into drugs and prostitution. I’ll become fat and get high cholesterol and diabetes, and I’ll have a heart attack and die.”

Venus crossed her arms. “Are you done now?”

“No, I’m not. God’s being mean. Was I so bad a Christian that He had to punish me like this? Why is He punishing my volleyball girls? He’s not the God I thought He was.”

“Why are all Grandma’s actions God’s fault?”

“It’s not just Grandma’s actions. Why can’t I just find a nice guy? How hard is this supposed to be?”

“Lex, singles in the entire Bay Area are asking the same question.”

“But I used to succeed in everything whenever I gave my best. Why not in finding Mr. Right too? Or at the very least, a sponsor?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re complaining because you, like practically every woman in the United States of America, can’t find either Mr. Right or Mr. Rich? What planet are you living on?”

“But I’ve been trying so hard — ”

“I’m not a super spiritual person, but even I know that sometimes you just have to stop trying.”

“That’s stupid. If you stop trying, then nothing happens.”

“No, it’s like . . .” Venus thought a moment, then snapped her fingers. “It’s like Indiana Jones and that cliff, remember? You tell Him, ‘God, I just trust You to help me do whatever You want me to do. If You want me to fall, then I’ll fall. If You want me to succeed and find the grail and start that massive earthquake, then I’ll succeed.’ ”

“He didn’t start the earthquake, that blonde chick did.”

“Whatever. It’s that whole ‘walking off a cliff ’ thing.”

“So . . . walk off the cliff, just like that?”

“Sure. If you could see the bridge, it wouldn’t be faith, right?”

Lex didn’t realize she’d been leaning against the car until the heat began toasting her buns. She scooted away. “Venus, I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Well, if it were easy, everybody would be obeying God.”

“But I mean . . . not moving forward, not giving my all, not doing anything? Just waiting for . . . whatever?”

“Maybe that’s what God’s asking you to do.”

“That just seems wrong.”

“Did you even pray when Grandma started getting all Big Brother on you?”

“Uh . . . sort of.” More like
no.
“I just . . . acted on it.”

“You didn’t wait for an answer from God about what He wanted you to do?”

“I never wait.”

Venus rolled her eyes. “That’s your problem.” She coughed. “Hey, the smoke’s cleared.” She reached to lift the hood, making sure it wasn’t too hot to the touch.

Wait on God? Lex didn’t want to wait. She didn’t want to
ask.
She didn’t want to hear God say no when she really wanted something. She’d never be able to accept that.

She needed time to wrestle with it.

Venus didn’t look too hopeful as she stared at the blackened engine. “It had a good life. It went out with a bang.”

“Literally.”

“Look, Lex.” Venus’s cynicism melted away into a serious, loving expression. “I know you hate charity, but I can pay for a used car for you.”

“No.” Lex stuck out her chin.

Venus gave a sigh that sounded more like a frustrated howl. “You just admitted you don’t have the money.”

She did, didn’t she? Tears stung her eyes as she stared at the mess under her car hood. Must be the smoke fumes. What had happened to her? She always could take care of things herself. But now, she was gimpy, weepy, and dirt poor.

Venus coughed. “I’ll even charge you interest.”

Lex perked up. “Really? You’d charge interest just for me?”

Venus closed her eyes a moment. “You’re such a weirdo. Yes, I’ll charge interest since it’s obvious you’re not sane enough to accept the cash.”

“Can you help me find housing too?”

“I’ll ask. Actually, the person you should talk to is Richard. He has more contacts than I do.”

“Rich, it’s Lex.” She adjusted the cell phone as she tried to cram another pair of shorts into the cardboard box.

“Yes, sister dear?”

“My apartment building is being sold. I need housing fast.”

“Oh. Well, there’s George.”

“George, as in, the dweeb you set me up with a few months ago who shafted me with the dinner bill?”

“He’s a good real-estate agent.”

“He’s also a big, fat no.”

“Okay. There’s a guy I know, although not very well. He mentioned his sister needed a roommate for her town house.”

“Who?”

“You’ve met him. Oliver. He was at Hot Pot Town when you . . .uh . . .”

“Yes, the night is pretty clear in my memory.”

“He actually called me afterward to see how you were doing, since he was there when you . . . you know.”

“Can you manage not to bring it up every ten seconds?”

“I’ll have to find Oliver’s number. When do you need it?”

“I’ve got to move out soon, Richard.”

“Well, I do have one other lead.”

“What?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Why?”