Sorry, Lex, but tickets have been sold out for a few weeks.”
Her heart dipped, but only for a moment. “Roger, I know most alumni associations have their own block of seats. You couldn’t spare me a couple?”
“Well, now.” Roger’s voice had started to drawl. “I might be able to.”
She knew it. “I could offer some discounted advertising rates.”
“Naw, we don’t really need more advertising.”
Shucks. “Not even a premium story on our home page? What would you like to highlight about UW?”
“Our baseball team is doing really well, but it seems we can’t fill up seats.”
“A home page story would do that for you.” She reeled him in.
“A few scouts at the next game might be nice too.”
Aha! That’s what he was fishing for. “SPZ has connections to many scouts.” She had ten of them to call back today about new high school team stats that had just gone up on the website.
“Well, Lex, let me talk to a few people and get back to you on those seats.”
“I’d appreciate it, Roger.” She hung up. She now understood the rush when magnates closed a deal, or when stockbrokers scored on Wall Street.
Lex reached for her water bottle. Empty.
She glanced at the silent phone. She had time to refill it before Roger called back. She hooked the loop in the Nalgene bottle’s cap and headed down the walkway toward the water cooler.
She sidestepped Grey’s long legs sticking out into the hallway as he sat in his cube, having some serious phone conversation involving San Jose State baseball. Jordan’s voice drifted from his cubicle -probably also on the phone – but too late, she saw his foot shoot out into the walkway in front of her.
Her arms flailed as she tripped. Thwack! Her water bottle connected with something solid.
“Ooomph!”
She thrust out her hands, but the flimsy wall toppled instead into Dan’s cubicle. Konk! Sounded like the partition collided with Dan’s head.
“Ow!”
Lex and the partition went down. She flipped over as Dan’s body slowed the wall’s crash. Her hand, which had still hooked the loop in her water bottle, swung wildly and suddenly let go.
Two things happened at once.
The cubicle partition slammed Dan into the ground. Her water bottle, free and flying out sideways, crashed into the top-heavy water cooler.
Down went the partitions.
Down went the cooler.
Water soaked through the thin office carpet and rushed at her like an ocean wave. It saturated her pants.
“Lex! Are you all right?” Grey appeared. He grabbed one arm, and Jordan, the other. They carefully hoisted her up. While grateful for their help, she disentangled herself from their hands as soon as she could balance.
Dan ran to upend the water cooler bottle and stop the office flood. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure you’re good?” Grey asked. “Nothing broken?”
Dan had a huge red spot on his temple, but he focused all his attention on her. “Yeah, are you sure?”
“For the last time, I’m fine. Dan, are you okay? Jordan?”
Jordan froze in the act of rubbing the swollen part of his jaw.
Oops, that must have been what her water bottle had first collided with. He flashed a Prince Charming smile. “I’m great.”
Okay, she’d walked into the Twilight Zone. “What is wrong with you people?”
Dan blinked. “What do you mean?”
“When did you all suddenly become nice?”
Grey lifted a hand over his chest. “Lex, we’re hurt. We respect you deeply as a coworker.”
“Since when?”
“We’ve heard you on the phone.” He passed her water bottle to her. “The AAs like talking to you. You’re doing a great job.”
His eyes seemed sincere. Lex warmed to his praise.
Grey pointed to some papers on his desk. “Their advertising orders are up by ten to twenty this week alone.”
She hadn’t thought they’d noticed. She shouldn’t have assumed they were all still having hissy fits about her getting the AAL position.
“Dan, get her a few more towels. Here, I’ll go to the next office and fill your bottle from their cooler.” Grey took her bottle from her.
“Thanks.”
“Jordan, you help her back to her office.”
“No, I’m fine.” She started back down the walkway.
“Here are some towels.” Dan looked so earnest, Lex feared he’d mop up the water from her derriere if she didn’t stop him, so she took the towels from his hand. “I’m good, thanks.”
“If you need anything, just ask.” Dan smiled.
“Thanks.” She turned into her office and closed the door.
Ugh, her butt was soaked. She sopped up her pants and dropped the towels onto her chair before sinking down.
They were actually pretty nice guys. She’d misjudged them. And really, they weren’t bad-looking. Plus, they knew as much about sports as she did. When she asked any of them about the Chico stats or the latest Pistons scouting report, they were quick to get her the info and even chat intelligently about it.
Maybe she’d find a boyfriend right here. Even outside of her group, there were tons of men who lived and breathed sports. She wouldn’t need to get into Wassamattayu to find a date she could talk to.
Not that she still wouldn’t be willing to give up her firstborn child to get into Wassamattayu.
The phone trilled. She almost snatched it up mid-ring, then slapped her hand. Don’t be too eager. She let it ring one more time.
“Lex Sakai, SPZ Alumni Association Liaison.”
“Lex, it’s Roger. We’re all go for the tickets.”
“Great! Thanks, Roger. I’ll talk to my scouts. I can get several to a few games in the coming weeks.” Yeah, she knew a few whose arms she could twist.
“That’d be fine. Thanks.” He clicked off.
Lex called a few scouts and left messages for them to call her back.
She had other things to do while she waited, but her mind kept going back to her favorite topic of the month, the Wassamattayu tryouts. She tossed a tennis ball in the air. “Am I high enough on the waiting list?”
The tennis ball dropped to earth.
“Who can I call to find out?”
The tennis ball remained silent.
“Who would know someone who works at Wassamattayu?”
“Wassamattayu?” Grey poked his head into the doorway and held out her Nalgene bottle. “Here’s your water.”
“Thanks. Yeah, they have an opening for women’s volleyball.”
“Oh. My cousin got asked to try out for men’s soccer.”
What luck! “Did he get in?”
“Naw.”
“Oh.” Rats.
“When did they open tryouts?”
Lex shrugged. “I heard about it a week ago.”
“They’re probably scouting the waiting list now.”
“They scout the waiting list?”
“That’s what my cousin said. They don’t invite anyone they haven’t seen play.”
Lex’s throat tightened. Her heart did a rapid thump-thump. The two Caucasian guys. At the tournament, at the Nikkei gym. Good thing she never went over to punch their lights out. The thought made her clutch the edge of her desk in horror.
“Thanks for the info.”
“Not a problem. Had a good weekend?”
“Yeah, watched lots of ESPN.” She’d done some weight lifting in front of the TV. If she didn’t get asked for tryouts, it would be for nothing. “How about you?”
He shrugged. “Nothing. Decorated the couch. But next weekend I’m visiting my cousin up in Berkeley.”
“You’re close?”
“He’s like my other brother.” Grey’s gaze wandered to her tiny window. “You haven’t, by any chance, talked with the AA for Cal recently?”
Lex knew she usually didn’t pick up on social cues, but the disinterested mask on his face, the twitchy way he drew patterns on the surface of her desk, made her narrow her gaze. “I talked with them last week.”
His eyes gleamed like gold fire. “Think you could score me some tickets to the basketball game this weekend?”
Lex felt… plastic. Not real. Like a thing. Grey didn’t move, but suddenly a gulf cracked open between them that made him seem not real either. And she realized she didn’t like being used. Imagine that.
“You can leave now.” She leaned back in her chair and stared him down.
“What’s wrong – ”
“You have three seconds before I throw this water bottle at your head, you slime.”
He scurried out.
The phone rang, her outside line. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Maybe she could let it go to the main operator. No… talking sports with someone might cheer her up. “SPZ Alumni – ”
“Lex, it’s Jennifer.”
Lex straightened in her chair. “What’s up?”
“I’m in your area – I had to drop Mom off at a friend’s house for Mahjong. Have time for an early lunch?”
What timing. “I’ll meet you at Union.”
“I’ll have the House Special Hong-Kong-style noodles.”
“I’ll have the same.”
The waitress bustled off, hollering in Cantonese through the doorway to the kitchen.
Jenn sipped her jasmine tea. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah, why?” Lex blew to cool her tea.
“Well…” Jenn twirled a lock of her long hair. “You don’t usually volunteer to go to Union for lunch.”
“What do you mean? I love Chinese food.” Lex rubbed at the clear glass covering the tabletop.
“Not when you’re training.”
“How’d you know I was training?”
Jenn’s eyes popped up, alarmed. “Was I not supposed to know?
I’m sorry. Richard told me – ”
“Relax, Jenn, it’s not a secret or anything.”
“Oh.” Jenn’s shoulders sank back to their normal hunched position.
Lex didn’t feel like nagging her again about her posture. She started playing with the spoon that went with the little condiment canister of spicy peppers in oil.
“So… is work going okay?” Jenn bit her lip. “Nothing… bad?”
Poor Jenn. She had an excess of tact while Lex had none. “Why?
Do I look extra stressed?”
“No… just that… when you’re training extra hard, you eat better than Denise Austin.”
Lex laughed, and her mood lightened. “So Denise Austin wouldn’t eat Hong-Kong-style noodles?”
Jenn’s sweet smile peeked out. “Are you really trying to tell me they aren’t unhealthy?”
“It’s just salty and saucy over deep-fried chow mein noodles.” Just saying it made her feel like fat was congealing in her veins and depositing on her hips.
Who cared – she was out and didn’t have to deal with Grey or any of those dorks. “The day was a little bad, but it got better when you called. We haven’t been out to lunch in a while.”
Lex unloaded. She kept talking even while they chowed down on their salty, saucy, and deep-fried lunch.
“I mean, Jenn, I knocked the partition on his head. Not even a grimace from him.”
“And that poor guy you nailed in the chin.” Jenn bit into a piece of broccoli.
“Exactly. They were all, ‘Are you all right?’ Not even yowls of pain.” Lex chomped on a crispy noodle. “It was all for the tickets.”
Jenn didn’t answer.
Lex glanced at her.
Jenn screwed up her face. “Well…”
Lex sighed. “That’s encouraging.”
Jenn shrugged and kept eating.
“I thought I’d look for a boyfriend at work. You know, for Grandma’s ultimatum. I only have three more months. But now I can’t tell the cools from the creeps.”
“Yeah, that’s tough.”
“I just don’t like being forced to date someone. What is it with Grandma and great-grandchildren?”
Jenn paused with a piece of char siu pork in her chopsticks. Her extra-large brown eyes leveled with Lex’s. “You don’t know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lex, for our parents and grandparents, children are their immortality.”
Lex was suddenly dipped into a bucket of ice water. Grandma favoring her right hip, that vulnerable moment when she’d looked so old and tired. Was Grandma feeling her age and working to increase her legacy? An extension of her own life?
“I also think… I hope this isn’t gossip…”
Lex waited. Jenn would spill eventually.
“I heard Grandma telling Mom that she stopped seeing her friend Mrs. Matsumoto.”
Mrs. Matsumoto had babysat each of the cousins. She was also Christian, and very vocal about it too. “Grandma and Mrs. Matsu-moto clash all the time. They’re too much alike – both outspoken.”
“No, this time I think it’s serious. I don’t know what Mrs. Matsu-moto told Grandma, but she won’t talk to her at all.” Jenn feverishly jabbed her chopsticks at her bed of crispy noodles. “I think that’s why Grandma’s after us. After you.”
“Huh? Speak up.” Jenn had a tendency to not only lower her husky voice, but to also talk to her chest.
Jenn looked up with a troubled gaze. “I don’t know this for sure, but… maybe she’s being hard on you because you’re always so adamant about dating a Christian.”
Lex blinked. Mainly, that had been a tactic Lex used to keep Grandma from throwing the sons of her Buddhist friends at her. “That doesn’t make sense. Grandma’s never liked the fact we four are Christian, but she’s never been outright hostile about it…” Until now.
Jenn went back to stabbing her noodles. “I’m wondering if Mrs. Matsumoto said something that really made Grandma uncomfortable.”
“And so she’s cutting off Mrs. Matsumoto and poking at us.
At me.”
Jenn nodded.
Lex sighed. That meant this whole thing could be so much more complicated. She hated complication.
“You know…” Jenn bit her lip again.
“What is it?”
“You’re not going to like hearing this.”
“I’m not going to bite your head off.”
“Well… those tickets are probably influencing men outside of work.” Jenn’s eyes radiated sympathy – not a pitying kind, but the kind that wished she could take away Lex’s pain.
“What do you mean?”
“Kin-Mun.”
She started as if a blast of air hit her in the face. “But he didn’t ask for the tickets. I’m the one – ”
“How did he bring up the subject?”
Lex thought back. Hi, Kin-Mun. Oh, new job. Yeah, going to Seattle. Wish I could go to the game…
Her lungs collapsed. Or maybe her heart caved in. Regardless, she felt a huge echoing emptiness in her chest.
“Well, now I’m just depressed.” Lex sat back in her chair. To add to the List: Must either not know about the perks of my job or not care about college sports events.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Jenn pushed her plate away.
“No, don’t feel bad. I needed to get my head out of the sand.” Lex stared at the steaming noodles and sighed. “I need a new strategy. I can’t really trust anyone who knows enough about my job.”
“That rules out your workplace, but not all volleyball guys.”
“And not Wassamattayu. I had planned to find another sponsor, but Grandma’s got her claws in practically the entire Japanese American community.”
“Oh, Lex. Grandma really does love us. She thinks this will make us happy.”
“Who are you kidding? Grandma just wants to make herself happy.”
Jenn’s eyes dropped. “It’s easier for you. She’s always at my parents’ place. Sometimes it’s just better to give in, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t. That’s not how I am.” Lex signaled for the waitress. “I’m not going down without a fight. Grandma can’t get at everyone – I just need to be more unconventional.”
Lex liked the beach but hated sand. It got everywhere, like it did now – into her shoes and socks, working into the waistband of her shorts and under her sports bra.
And like an idiot, she kept doing volleyball drills.
No, she wasn’t an idiot. She was dedicated. She needed to focus on the prize – getting into Wassamattayu, assuming she’d be invited to tryouts. She had to get into even better shape.
The Hong-Kong-style noodles for lunch yesterday hadn’t helped her any.
She finished her side-to-side shuffles and folded in half, panting. The breeze from the nearby business park cooled her and made the outdoor volleyball net ripple. The sun had warmed the sand, and it radiated heat like a toaster oven.
She set up for blocking drills at the net. Old and left out in the weather, it had been provided by the accounting firm from the business park, and it sagged toward her. Well, it hung between the two poles. Good enough for her. She squatted, then leaped.
The net slapped her elbow. Ow! She paused as the pain tingled and subsided down her arm. She wished she’d been more careful in self-defense class an hour ago. As long as the bruise didn’t affect her passing, she’d be fine.
Voices made her hesitate. Her back muscles stiffened.
In the large parking lot, a group of men all in their thirties, a mix of Asian, Indian, and Caucasian, headed toward the sand volleyball court. No, toward the basketball court nearby.
Most dressed in shorts and sneakers, but a few still had on business casual slacks and polo shirts. An evening pickup game, probably coworkers from one of the businesses. Nothing to worry about.
A few glanced at her. Were they really neutral glances?
Stop it.
There were a lot of them. What about mob mentality? Didn’t she read about that in Newsweek once?
You’re being paranoid.
She was by herself.
Now you’re just illogical.
Maybe she should get into her car and leave.
You need the training. They’re harmless guys.
Lex took a deep breath and stared at the gray, tattered net. She was such a basket case.
She squatted deep and leaped in a rapid series of three blocking motions. She sprinted a step to the side, then leaped into another three blocks. She continued all the way down the net.
She stood sucking in air by the pole, the net flapping against the metal in a soft, hollow ringing sound. The group of men had reached the basketball court and started stretching, practicing free throws. Very little chatter. Some good-natured ribbing and heckling.
It relaxed her. They looked and sounded like her brother or her male cousins and their friends. The pickup games in Campbell Park, her whining to be included and holding her own against them.
A movement in the parking lot caught her eye.
A tall, wild-haired Caucasian man, dressed in a cotton button-down shirt and slacks – both creased from a long work day. Staring intently at her.
She hardened her eyes to hide the violent shiver that shot from her neck to her lower back.
He wasn’t someone she knew. With his narrow face and scraggly beard, he reminded her of recording artist David Crowder, but since he probably worked for one of the tech companies in the business park, Lex wouldn’t be surprised if he had the IQ of Einstein and a couple PhDs under his belt. If only he’d stop staring at her.
Lex considered marching over there and getting in his face. He couldn’t stare at women and get away with it. She pursed her lips and stepped off the sand court.
A car horn. An SUV zipped into view and parked near the sand court. Her heart ramped up for a second, then Aiden got out. Funny, her heart rate didn’t slow back down.
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t start a fight with Mr. Santa Cruz.
“What are you doing here?” She shaded the sun from her eyes with her hand.
“I should have figured you’d be here. The people at the volleyball clinic suggested doing sand drills, and some players from Nikkei told me about this court.”
“Yeah, there aren’t many free sand courts in this area.”
“So do you mind if I join you?”
Why not? Maybe she’d push herself into an even longer, more intense workout. That would be great. She’d be in terrific shape for tryouts. “Warm up and get moving.”
They spent an hour doing sprinting, blocking, hitting, and diving drills in the sand. Aiden knew a few new drills he’d picked up at the Stanford Volleyball Clinic, which challenged Lex even more. She felt exhausted but great after they finished.
They sat on the grass bordering the sand court, sucking down water and toweling off the rivers of sweat pouring down their faces. Lex had a new respect for Aiden’s terrific lung capacity – at points, she’d been the one breathing harder. It must be from his running.
“How’s your new job going?” Aiden dusted sand off his bare feet.
A knot tightened at the base of her neck. Aiden had heard about her job when she’d been talking with Kin-Mun. “It’s okay.” It would come any minute now – Can you get me tickets for…?
“Different from engineering, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah.”
Aiden looked her directly in the eyes. “You and I are a few of the lucky ones. Doing exactly what we love doing. Being good at it.”
In the warm, understanding light from his gaze, Lex felt energized and relaxed at the same time. The knot in her neck melted away. “You love physical therapy that much?”
He nodded. “It’s a rush, seeing a knee surgery patient jogging on the treadmill, seeing a carpal tunnel patient up their weight on the gym machines.”
Lex had always thought about the injuries associated with PT, not the healing. “That’s neat.”
“And you get to talk sports all day. It’s as if the job was made for you.”
It was, wasn’t it? For the first time, Lex caught a glimmer of the hand of God in all the crazy turns her life had taken lately. She hadn’t been talking to God much, but He’d still been orchestrating things. It gave her a weird feeling – both comforted at being taken care of, but also antsy that she hadn’t been as independent and in control as she thought she was.
Before she knew it, they’d been talking for over half an hour. Lex left reluctantly to go home and start packing for her move. She had a lot of stuff, so she might as well start early.
It was only as she waved at Aiden and drove away that she realized he’d never mentioned game tickets even once.
Her cell phone chirped. Home phone number. “Hey, Dad.”
“I’m glad I got a hold of you, Lex. I just got off the phone with our real-estate agent.”
“She sold the house already?”
“Even better. We got a huge bid.”
“That’s great, Dad.” She tried to muster more enthusiasm.
“But one thing the buyer stipulated is fast escrow.”
“What do you mean? How fast?”
“I’m sorry, Lexie. We have only three weeks to move out.”