Only Uni (23 page)

“Come sit down, dear.” Red Sweater gestured to a seat where several of them had re-gathered. “What’s your name?”

“Trish.” She was beginning to feel distinctly guilty for assuming the people in this place were just cheerful but quiet Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. Plus, she’d enjoyed hearing about the K-dramas way too much. She was supposed to be following rule number two, tell others about Christ. Here was a perfect opportunity. “So ladies, did you know that just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, so are there spiritual laws — ”

“Are you married?” Red Sweater leaned forward in her seat.

“What? No.” What a question. “Um, there are spiritual laws which govern — ”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. Spiritual laws — ”

“Are you lesbian?”

“
No.
” Man, get old enough and people feel entitled to ask anything.

“Good.” Red Sweater sat back in her seat.

Uh, oh. Not a good sign. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m Clara.”

“Martha.” “Sumiyo.” “Eliana.”

“Nice to meet you.” She would forget their names in the next second.

One shriveled Asian woman sat nearby, not quite in their conversational circle. She scowled, not saying a word. How rude.

Clara leaned close to Trish. “She’s deaf as wood. We don’t even know her name.”

“Ah.” Trish smiled at the deaf woman, and the woman frowned back. She almost expected her to hiss and bare fangs.
Woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning, did we?

“Are you coming back next week to watch with us?” Sumiyo (at least, she thought that was Sumiyo) asked. “You should come half an hour earlier so you can watch the whole show.”

Oooh, goody. “Okay. I’ll come at three-thirty.”

“It’s going to be a good episode. The doctor’s estranged father is coming back into town. I think he’s going to kill him.”

“You’re so melodramatic.” Clara didn’t quite roll her eyes, but if she’d been a few decades younger, she probably would have. “I don’t think it’s anything that bad.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m president of Young-Soo’s online fan club. I would be the first to know if they’re going to cut him from the show.”

“The actor has a fan club?” And this old woman was savvy enough to go online?

“Where’s your keychain?” “Show her your keychain!” Both Sum-iyo and Eliana flapped their hands at Clara, who smiled like a cat in the cream (or a rat in the stinky tofu).

She brandished her keychain, which didn’t actually hold keys — just dozens of fobs all picturing the same Korean actor. Oh, he
was
a hottie. Did rule number one count if Trish was looking at a picture of someone she’d never meet?

Eliana pointed to one of the fobs. “When he was in San Francisco, my niece went to his hotel and waited in the lobby until he came out.”

Can we say, stalker?

“She got a picture of him.” Eliana sighed dreamily. “I had it blown up into a poster in my room.”

“
My
nephew tapes every episode for me on his TiVo and burns it onto a DVD.” The fourth woman — Martha? — lorded it over the others for a brief moment as they all looked
wasabi
green with envy.

“My son’s father-in-law watches these too.” Sumiyo leaned in close. “He bought the entire season — had it shipped from Korea — and it cost a hundred dollars per DVD.”

Trish felt her tonsils wave in the breeze through her wide open mouth. “Shut
up
!”

All four women — with the exception of the nameless deaf one, who hadn’t heard her — drew themselves up straight in their chairs. “What did you say?” Clara had turned as red as her sweater.

Oops. “Sorry, it’s a figure of speech. It means, uh . . . ‘no way,’ or ‘I can’t believe it.’ ” Internet fan club notwithstanding, she had to remember these ladies weren’t her coworkers or her cousins.

They relaxed. “You shouldn’t use that term, dear. It’s very disrespectful.”

“I won’t.” At least not around them.

“Trish, time to go.” Christina came up to their group. “Hi ladies.”

They nodded hello.

She turned to the deaf-as-wood woman and raised her voice. “HI DEBORAH!”

Deborah glowered and turned her head away. Trish wasn’t sure she actually heard Christina, but at least now she knew her name.

“Huh? Who’s Deborah?” Clara looked around.

“Bye, ladies.” Trish rose.

“No, wait!” Clara reached out and grabbed her hand. Man, the woman had a grip like a falcon. “I want you to meet my nephew. He’s coming in a few minutes.” Clara beamed at her.

Oh, brother. She was as bad as Grandma. “That’s so sweet, Clara, but I’m sure he has a girlfriend already — ”

“No, he doesn’t.”

The other ladies nodded to affirm that yes, he was a single male under the thumb of the family matriarch, who obviously wielded power even from her assisted living facility.

“Maybe next time, then.” Christina managed to yank Trish’s hand out of Clara’s death grip. “Bye!” They escaped.

“Thanks, Christina.” Trish rubbed her bruised wrist. Clara had a superhuman grip on her like Grandma — maybe old age gave them manacles of steel?

“I didn’t do you any favors, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean? I avoided her nephew.” They exited the building.

“This week. Next week, you can be sure he’ll be here.”

Oh, no. Well, maybe he won’t be cute. What if he was boring? She’d have to sit and listen. Or maybe she could make an excuse to watch the K-drama with them. It seemed kind of interesting . . .

“Not only that.” Christina sighed. “The other ladies will make sure their nephews, grandsons, and any other single men remotely attached to them by blood will be there.”

Oh, brother.

She gave Trish a twenty-four-karat grin. “See you next week!”

NINETEEN

T
rish had that same premonition —
Today is going to be a really bad day
— when she went to church on Sunday. It didn’t help that she’d overslept and was racing to get to Sunday school on time.

Once again, the Sunday school coordinator, Mrs. Choi, met her at the door.

“Such a wonderful idea about bringing their pets.” Mrs. Choi didn’t quite look Trish in the eye when she spoke. “I know you’ll make sure no one gets hurt?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Excellent.” Mrs. Choi hightailed it out of there when Trish opened the yellow door to the classroom.

The sound alone should have penetrated the walls to reach the sanctuary, but maybe the architects had been intelligent and put extra insulation in between the drywall. Next came the crashing wave of putridity that made her gag.

Cages lined the rainbow-colored walls, and a few more were outside the back door in the playground area. Some kids hovered protectively over their pets, others flitted from cage to cage to annoy the residents within. It didn’t look like there were as many cages as children, so apparently some had forgotten, and some probably hadn’t been allowed to bring Precious or FiFi to Sunday school.

Griselle’s hair had become a bush again, but she lighted up when Trish came through the door. Then alarm flashed in her eyes. “No, Bobby, it’s not time to leave — Trish, the door!”

She slammed it shut before Bobby squirmed past her legs on his attempted prison break.

“Sorry I’m late, I oversl — ”

“At least you’re here now.” Griselle tried to smile, but it looked a bit more like a tortured death mask.

“Okay, everyone, sit down and we’ll start show and tell.”

The class took some time to assemble. Good — the more time they wasted, the less time each child had to show off their pets. The less show time, the less time said pets would be out of their cages.

“Who wants to go first?”

Hands shot into the air.

“Bobby, you go first.”

Whines rose like a symphony, then abruptly stopped when Griselle waved her finger.

Wow. How’d she get that to work? The magic finger.

Bobby got up, went to his glass cage, and emerged with —“This is Sammy, my snake.”

“Oooh.” “Aaaah.”

Ewwwww.
Trish tried to stealthily back away.

“He eats mice.”

One girl shrieked and dove for her cage, where she wrapped her body around it. Hmm, one guess what her pet was. Trish had a vision of Sammy eating Mousey to the sound of wails and cheers.

Nope. Not while Trish had breath in her body and legs that ran faster than a snake.

“Thanks, Bobby. Next?”

Susie got up with a terrified kitten. “This is Kitty, my kitten.”

These kids weren’t too good on the originality scale.

“She eats mice, too.” Susie crossed her eyes at Mouse Girl, who started to sob.

“Ah, thank you, Susie.” Griselle had a pretty firm arm — she managed to manhandle Susie from the front of the room before she could wreak more havoc.

“Sara, you’re next.”

She snatched something from her cage, then hustled to the front of the room with it cupped in her hands. “This is Hammy, my baby Russian Dwarf hamster.”

Where?

Ooooh, it was super tiny, fitting with room to spare in Sara’s hand. Aw, what a cute little ball of fur —

“Eeek!” Sara jerked and dropped him.

Oh no. Poor guy, was he okay? Trish dove for the little waddling fuzzball.

“I’m bleeding!” Sara extended her hand to Griselle, where a river of red streamed down onto the carpet.

“What happened?” Trish cradled Hammy, who was only a little longer than her thumb, glad she’d gotten it before a child had accidentally stepped on it or —

“Yow!” A battery of stabs into her hand made her jerk it open. Hammy dropped right into a child’s lap.

The hamster had bit her. Several times. And Trish was bleeding like Sara.

Hammy went on the rampage, taking a chunk out of the leg of the unfortunate girl he’d landed in. She screamed and kicked, sending him flying into another child’s lap.

The boy picked him up.

“No, don’t — !”

Too late. Hammy sliced at the kid’s finger tendons. “Aaaaaah!” The boy shook his hand, but Hammy hung on.

Tenacious little bugger. Ignoring the blood dropping down her hand, Trish reached for the flapping hamster, but Hammy let go and flew into the crowd of children.

They’d figured out Hammy wasn’t as cute as he seemed, and they scattered. Which would have been good except that they prevented Trish from reaching the child whose lap the attack hamster had fallen into, Matthew.

He picked it up.

“No, Matthew — ”

A kid flew into Trish’s legs, and she toppled to the floor. She almost landed on another child except she shoved her arms out like a push-up to prevent herself from doing a WWF body slam on the unsuspecting victim.

She crawled forward, getting kicked in the head and torso by screaming children, half of whom didn’t even know what they were running from.
Must . . . get . . . Hammy . . .

She reached Matthew. Who sat there calmly, smiling up at her with his shining dark eyes. He had a tiny prick of blood on his lip.

Hammy was gone.

No way.
He didn’t. He couldn’t. His mouth wasn’t big enough, was it? Granted, Hammy was very small. Also, Matthew had been a python lately and swallowing everything, but . . .

Matthew burped.

Griselle dropped to the ground beside them, blood smeared on her cheek. She stared at Matthew, then at Trish. “Oh, no.”

“Oh yes.”

“Maybe Hammy is around here somewhere . . .” Her gaze darted at the carpet around them.

“I don’t hear any more shrieks of pain, do you?”

Griselle bit her lip.

“What’s going on?” The male voice cut through the childish murmurs. Silence reigned, just like Griselle’s magic finger.

“Spenser!” And Trish with her wide load sticking straight up in the air. Lovely. She scrambled to her feet so he wouldn’t have to view it for longer than necessary. “Oh, close the door — !”

He shut it before Bobby made bail.

Griselle rose to her feet also, but she’d turned rather pale. Did she like Spenser or something? Not that Trish was jealous or anything. It wasn’t like he’d be good date material for Trish, but she could see how he’d be a fun . . . well, amusing date for some other girl. Funny, some sharp pains had started dicing up her stomach.

“What are you doing here?” Trish tried to discreetly wipe the blood from her hand onto her jeans.

“I heard the screaming and came to see if it was serious.”

“No, no problem.” Trish stretched her mouth in what she hoped looked like a real smile. “Just a few excited kids. A few pets.”

“Uh . . .” Griselle gave her a swift kick to the calf.

“What?” she hissed.

“Hey, buddy, how’re you doing?” He strode into the room, straight for Matthew. Aw, he was pretty good with kids. He must’ve thought Matthew was scared, and that was why he was sitting in the middle of a cleared floor with frightened children lining the walls.

He picked Matthew up. “What’s this cut on his lip?”

“It’s nothing. We’ll tell his parents later.” Ow, Griselle kicked her again.

He gave her a rather strange look. Actually, it was the kind of look of someone who knew something and was trying to decide if they were going to tell her or not. Trish didn’t trust Spenser further than she could throw him. “What is it?” she asked.