Camy Tang - Sushi for One?

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.”