Single Sashimi

by Camy Tang

  Smart chicks.

  Drake, on the other hand, took his place in the other team’s people blob and got another turn at the Jell-O Toe-jam. He didn’t smile, exactly, but his eyes lit up like a child getting a red envelope at Chinese New Year’s.

  He seemed so young. So juvenile. So un-Drake. Venus couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “What’s your name?” one of the teen girls asked. She flashed her blue-smeared eyelids.

  “Venus.”

  Their eyes widened so much, one girl’s fake eyelashes loosened. “That’s really your name?”

  She sighed, remembering hateful years in high school as the big girl with the ridiculous name. “Yup.” Teased by girls like these—cute, slender, made-up, feminine.

  But they didn’t know that. She forced a wider smile. “What are your names?”

  “Mika.” “Sarah.” “Rachel.”

  Names seemed to suddenly undam their mouths, and they began chatting away. “So are you going to be our new high school youth leader?”

  “Keiko’s been gone for so long.”

  “She broke her hip, you know.”

  “But it totally wasn’t our fault—it was Steve’s fault.”

  “We were playing Toilet Bowl Tag, where if you get tagged, you have to get on your hands and knees until somebody sits on you and flushes you, and then you’re unfrozen.”

  “It’s a really stupid game.”

  “Anyway, Steve sat on Keiko, but he slipped and broke her hip.”

  Ouch. “Is she okay?” Should Venus have signed some kind of personal injury waiver?

  “Oh, yeah.” Mika waved her hand. “She broke her arm before too, but that was Timmy’s fault.”

  Whaa?

  “We have a winner!” David had his hands in the air.

  Her team lost, naturally. By a landslide. A couple boys gave her mean looks. She tried to feel disdainful, but she couldn’t—when she’d been rising as a video game competitor in her teens and early twenties, she’d been told by enough people, “It’s only a game.” She knew that sometimes, it wasn’t just a game. It was the competition, the sense that only a factor or two kept her from doing better.

  Factors like squeamish youth leaders with sticky Jell-O feet. How was she going to get this off?

  Kids started streaming out the social hall toward the bathrooms to clean up. David stood wincing at the carpet. Luckily, it was that industrial strength short gray stuff, like in office buildings, so the Jell-O only formed small dark specks here and there.

  Kat lightly backhanded his arm. “You forgot to lay down the plastic garbage bags.”

  Venus and Drake, both still with greenish toes that they tried to keep off the floor, stared at the sticky mess. The kids had walked around, although most of the mess spread out from the two demolished baking pans.

  “My sister’s got a steam cleaner,” Drake said. “She lives ten minutes away. I can run over and get it.”

  “She won’t mind?” David glanced at the clock. Venus did too. Seven thirty.

  “No. She just used it yesterday when the kids spilled Kool-Aid.”

  Gerry owned and used a steam cleaner? Maybe the woman was as compulsively sanitary as Venus. Maybe she wasn’t so much prickly as wanting to clean every doorknob with antiseptic wipes or wash her hands every five minutes or spray Febreze before she entered a room. Not that Venus needed to spray Febreze in every room.

  Drake turned and hop-skipped out of the social hall. “I’ll clean up and then go.”

  “Venus, you can clean up too.” David pointed out the social hall doors. “Do you know where the bathroom is? We’ll start the worship as soon as the kids get back, but you can just slip in after we start.”

  Girls crammed into the bathroom like Vienna sausages in a can. A couple had their limber legs propped up on the sink counter with the water running full blast over their toes.

  Yuck. Something about feet in washbasins made her stomach curl.

  Didn’t the church have a kitchen?

  Venus limped further down the hallway, walking on her heel. She turned the corner—and ran smack dab into a junior high girl. The poor kid had been pulling a flamingo, but Venus sent her sprawling across the carpet.

  “Oh! I’m sorry.” She limped to her side and helped her up.

  “That’s okay.” Her cheeks had turned a ruddy pink, especially when she glanced sideways at a cluster of high school boys who’d already finished washing their feet and now loitered around talking. Otherwise, she looked fine.

  Venus peeked into the kitchen. Rats, even the kitchen sinks were clogged with green-toed kids.

  She waited until they’d finished—after all, she was the adult here, right? Finally it was just her and the girl, each at one of the two kitchen sinks. She wasn’t going to stick her foot in the basin—she’d dislocate her hip even if she wanted to try—so the paper towel dispenser on the wall above it was a welcome sight.

  At first, the girl tried to hook her leg over the edge of the large stainless steel sink, but her legs were too short and she had to unhook herself or else dangle from the edge. She leaped up to grab a paper towel from the dispenser, but the next piece had been jammed inside.

  “Here.” Venus handed her a wad of paper towels.

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “I’m Venus.” Rebecca’s eyes widened. Before she could say anything, Venus said, “Yes, really.”

  Venus took a long time cleaning her nasty foot—sticky and utterly black on the bottom despite her efforts to keep it off the floor—because, well, she was neurotic. But it seemed Rebecca was stalling, since she’d cleaned up her tiny foot several times already.

  “You’re missing worship.” Venus could already hear music from the social hall.

  “That’s okay.” Rebecca swiped again at her foot. “Herman’s leading today.”

  “You don’t like Herman’s songs?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “Chris and Eric usually lead, but Chris is in Japan on vacation with his family, and Eric’s at his cousin’s wedding.”

  Venus tossed her paper towels and slipped her feet back in her shoes. “I’m done. Are you ready?”

  Rebecca sighed, but tossed her shredded paper towel and followed Venus out. The young girl hadn’t brought her shoes, so she dirtied her feet as soon as she started walking.

  By the time they returned to the social hall, the lights had been turned out and music drifted from the doors, which were cracked open. She and Rebecca slipped inside and sat in the back row.

  Herman and Ronald played a rollicking worship song, one that she’d seen Sunday school children do with hand motions, but the kids sat lifeless. The song sounded kind of tinny with just a guitar and piano.

  And Herman had a terrible voice.

  Venus wasn’t a singer, but her back twitched at every off-key note. Kat sat at a small table near the front, where the projector flashed the worship lyrics on a pull-down screen. She moved the PowerPoint slides forward as the song stumbled on. The kids sat back in their chairs, numbly watching the PowerPoint as if it were T V.

  After the song ended, she leaned close to whisper to Rebecca, “Chris and Eric come back when?”

  “Not for two weeks.” Rebecca sighed a mournful sound.

  Venus wished she’d had a steam cleaner near church so she could miss this caterwauling. Drake had totally lucked out.

  Come to think of it, she hadn’t even known he was Christian. How had he heard of this youth group, this church? And why would he go to a church instead of a community center or something like that?

  The torture ended just as Drake walked into the social hall and sat next to her. “Where’s the steam cleaner?”

  “In my car. I figured we’d probably clean up after youth group, and I didn’t want to leave it lying around anywhere.”

  “Do you know what we’re doing next?”

  He shrugged.

  How weird to be here, together, bot
h completely clueless and doing something so far removed from work. Him seeing her in this awkward situation was almost okay because he didn’t look all that comfortable either. The lack of usual polish in both of them made her feel like they’d entered some alternate universe.

  David got up to make a few announcements, one about a video game competition in a few weeks. Interesting! Venus and Drake looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  He leaned closer. “It’s probably something kid-friendly like Super Mario.”

  “When’s the last time you played?”

  “Last week with my nephew.” A smug smile pulled at his mouth, and his eyes were half-lidded.

  “I played a couple weeks ago with my cousin’s kids.” For about ten minutes, until they started whining and crying at how Venus wouldn’t let them win, and so her cousin told her to stop playing against them. She only played kids’ games at family gatherings, where sitting in front of the PlayStation with the children was easier than nipping around, trying to avoid both Grandma and her mother.

  They stared each other down, dogs asserting dominance in the pack. Finally she held out her hand. “You’re on.”

  He shook it. “I still owe you.”

  She’d trounced him at a company party years ago, playing… Halo? SOCOM? She couldn’t remember. It was the first time he’d noticed she worked for him despite her presence at weekly department meetings.

  David finished his announcements. “One last thing. Meet our new youth staff workers, Venus and Drake. Stand up, guys.”

  Aw, man. Venus stood and tried to smile, but the kids only turned, gaped, and then sat back.

  Well, what was she expecting? A standing ovation?

  “Okay, high schoolers go with Herman, junior highers stay here.”

  Kids started tromping out the social hall doors. Venus caught David’s eye, and he motioned for her and Drake to go with them.

  They gathered in pews at the front of the main church sanctuary. When she joined Lex at church, it seemed like a closet compared to Venus’s church in San Jose, but now with the pews empty, the walls echoed with the teens shuffling into the room, laughing and joking. Like soldiers in an uneasy truce, Venus and Drake sat together in a pew just behind the last row of kids.

  Herman started handing out a sheet of paper. “We’re lucky to have Venus with us today, guys. Okay, separate into small groups and work through the questions. Girls with Venus, guys with me and Drake.”

  Wait a minute! All by herself while the other new staff worker got to team up? That wasn’t right. She wasn’t exactly experienced at this.

  Drake rubbed salt in the wound by giving her a jaunty wave as he rose to follow the guys to the other side of the sanctuary.

  She was going to pulverize him at Super Mario.

  The three girls she’d met earlier led the way as they collected in the seats beside and in front of her. Okay, only six girls. She could handle six girls. The high schoolers were heavy on boys, since Drake and Herman had at least twenty guys on their side of the room.

  Luckily, the girls were chatting—howling, really, about how fattening the double mint chocolate chip mocha was at the nearby coffeehouse—so Venus could scan the sheet of paper. Only five questions. Hey, even better! This would be a breeze. This was like Bible study, only with fewer questions to work through. She didn’t like the fact she hadn’t had time to answer the questions herself beforehand, but these seemed rather straightforward. It was for teens, after all. How hard could it be?

  She cleared her throat. “Okay, guys.”

  They kept talking. “I saw him put five pumps of chocolate in it!” “Well, that’s because you got the mucho grande size.” “Did not! It was just a medium.”

  “Guys.”

  “It’s even worse if you order the triple fudge brownie one. They have chocolate syrup they pour on top of the whipped cream.”

  “Guys!”

  One girl stopped mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open.

  “I’m Venus.”

  Silence.

  “Tell me your names,” she prompted.

  They looked at each other with wide eyes, biting their lips. Okay, maybe Venus’s tone had been a bit harsh. She was too used to dealing with programmers, not hormonal teen girls. She just hoped they wouldn’t start crying. “I already know Mika, Sarah, and Rachel. How about you three?”

  “Naomi.” “Karissa.” “Stephanie.”

  “Great. Okay. Uh…turn to Matthew chapter eight, verses twenty-three to twenty-seven.”

  The girls seemed a bit slow to grab Bibles tucked into the slots on the backs of the pews—due to a few inputs into the not-yet-finished chocolate syrup conversation—but eventually they turned to the right page.

  “Who wants to read?”

  The few girls still talking went dead silent.

  Well, that was a way to shut them up. “Anybody?”

  Six pairs of eyes stared blankly at her.

  “Nobody wants to read?” She certainly didn’t want to read.

  Finally, Mika sighed. “Okay, I’ll read.”

  The passage was when Jesus calmed the storm on the lake—short and sweet. “Okay, question one: What happened when the disciples were in the boat?”

  Nobody said a word.

  Venus stared at each of them. This was kind of a no-brainer. No one wanted to speak up? These girls knew each other—they weren’t strangers, they weren’t shy. They had plenty to talk about when it was chocolate syrup.

  “Anybody?” Bueller? Bueller?

  No bites.

  “Oh, come on.” Venus glared at them. “Tell me you’re not complete idiots.”

  Their eyes had popped open wide, and a few of their mouths had followed. Maybe she shouldn’t have called them idiots first day on the job.

  “Uh…” Rachel bit her lip. “There was a storm?”

  “Right. Next question: Why were the disciples afraid?” That seemed kind of elementary.

  “They thought they were going to drown.”

  “Good. Question three: What did Jesus do?” What? “Oh come on. Who comes up with this stuff?”

  The girls giggled, but too late Venus realized she probably shouldn’t have said that. For all she knew, Herman came up with the questions himself. She coughed. “Ahem. Well?”

  “Uh…what was the question?” Stephanie twirled her hair, reminding Venus of her cousin Jenn.

  “What did Jesus do?”

  “He calmed the storm.”

  “Question four: What should you do when you are in a storm?”

  “Go inside?”

  Venus stifled a laugh and almost choked. She hacked and gagged for a minute while the girls gathered around her with anxious expressions.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Do you want me to get you some water?”

  “There’s Kleenex in the kindergarten Sunday school room.”

  “I think it’s locked.”

  “You don’t have tuberculosis, do you?”

  “Of course she doesn’t.”

  “I’m learning about it in history class.”

  “I’m okay,” Venus croaked.

  “Oh, I have a history test on Monday!”

  “I have a chem test on Tuesday.”

  “My chem test was last week.”

  “I’m taking bio this year instead of chem.”

  “Who do you have? My brother has Mr. Kawanami.”

  “Oh, tell me again who you have for English? Do you have Mr. Jennings?”

  These chicks talked faster than an auctioneer. “Guys!”

  They stopped as suddenly as if she’d slapped duct tape on all their mouths, all at once. Twelve eyes stared at her for a moment, then one of them—Karissa?—blossomed into a grin.

  “So…” She leaned forward, eyes bright like black crystal. The other girls followed suit until Venus had twelve ears straining toward her.

  “So…” Karissa repeated, “are you and Drake dating?”

  “He’s sooooo cute.�
�

  “He’s kind of old.”

  “Yeah, but aside from that, he’s sooooo cute.”

  “I want Nick to look at me the way Drake looks at you.”

  “Ew, Nick ’s Mika’s brother ! ”

  “So? He’s cute!”

  “How long have you been going out with Drake?”

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  “Ooh, your kids will be really good-looking.”

  “Guuuuuyyysss!” Venus’s hiss sounded louder than their rapid-fire questions. She cast a nervous glance across the sanctuary at the boys’ group.

  Drake stared back at her.

  Oh, God, please won’t you have mercy and just strike me down dead?

  “Ooh, hey!” Karissa punctuated her squeal by leaning even more forward until she was almost hanging off the back of the pew. “Can we be your bridesmaids?”

  THIRTEEN

  Who was she kidding? She was terrible with children—with anyone under legal age, in fact.

  The church youth group hadn’t been that bad. At least David and Kat had threatened—er, said, “See you next week!” when they all left last night. They had also seemed a little worried about letting her go, almost as if they expected her to hightail it out of the country.

  Venus pushed back her plate. “That was great, Nancy.” She loved when Jaye and his wife invited her over for dinner. Being second-generation Indo-American, Nancy’s cooking had that sizzle of authenticity, tempered with health-conscious California flavor.

  Jaye’s wife dimpled and got up from the dinner table. “Did you want more?”

  “No.”

  “Still can’t picture you working with teens.” Jaye scooped up the last of his palak paneer with a piece of flatbread.

  “I’m not the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  “You’re close.”

  “Oh, shut up. They said hello to me at church this morning.” Although she suspected a couple of them had worn Wonderbras today. Was that her impact on those girls—inducing breast envy? “Besides, me working with teens isn’t as mind-boggling as Drake working with teens.”

  “Think it’s more believable, actually.”

  Venus sat back in her chair. “Et tu, Brute?”

  “Saw him once with his sister’s kid. Much better with kids than you. Although surprised he’s at a church. Didn’t think he was religious.” Jaye looked away.