Only Uni

by Camy Tang

She managed to shove the lamp aside and saw Venus lifting a walkie-talkie to her mouth. “We’re here, Lex.” Venus turned her head toward her. “Aiden gave her his walkie-talkies when he heard we were caravanning to your new digs.”

  “Oh. That was smart.” Trust a guy to think of something practical like that.

  “Hey!” Lex’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. “Ask Trish about her mom.”

  Venus reached back between the lamp and a box of kitchen appliances to hand the walkie-talkie to Trish.

  “Uh . . . hello?”

  “So how’s your mom?” Lex asked.

  Trish put the walkie-talkie close to her mouth. “She’s okay. She almost looks like she’s back to normal, except she looks a little tired sometimes.”

  “How’s your dad?” Jenn asked from the front.

  Trish didn’t answer immediately. The thought of him still made her stomach gurgle. Or maybe that was the breakfast burrito she ate this morning.

  “So how’s your dad?” Lex asked through the walkie-talkie.

  “He’s fine, I guess.” Then she realized she had forgotten to press the button, and she had to repeat it for Lex. This was just a weird conversation.

  “Did you hear any more about him and Alice?” Lex asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you talk to him about it?” Venus turned to look back at her.

  “Are you kidding me? He’s my father, and he’s Asian. We’ve never had a deep, serious conversation in my life.”

  Jenn sighed. “Not all Asian men are uncommunicative, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, my father is. He made Mom give me the sex talk — which I totally didn’t understand because Mom kept not finishing her sentences, she was so embarrassed — and when he didn’t like my boyfriends, he always made Mom talk to me rather than telling me himself.”

  “He does love you, though.” Jenn sighed again, and Trish’s annoyance dimmed as she remembered Jenn’s heartache at the sporadic visits from her father after her parents’ divorce a few years ago. And Venus’s dad was cold and aloof, giving his approval sparingly — at least Trish’s father had always been warm and welcoming to her and her friends.

  “I can’t talk about it with Mom when she’s still so fragile.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. “Have you seen him since then?”

  “No, just talked with him on the phone. We always talk about Mom and keep it short.”

  “Maybe he and your mom are working it out themselves.” Jenn twisted around to check behind her as she switched lanes.

  Venus snorted. “Do you honestly believe they’re talking about it?”

  “Well, he’s been really attentive to Trish’s mom. It’s not just guilt. That does say something.”

  “That’s true.”

  Trish wanted to believe it and yet she was afraid to hope.

  Silence reigned in the car except for Trish giving directions every few minutes. Finally Jenn asked, “How’s your MDiv thing going?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of volunteer work lately.” Like helping young children swallow hamsters and watching Korean soap operas. “In a few weeks, I’m going to ask people for references. Then I can finish the application form and send it in.”

  “See, Venus? She’s really serious about it.” Jenn sounded satisfied.

  “Well, she still hasn’t done it, so you haven’t won yet.”

  “Excuse me, I’m right here. You bet on me?” Trish shoved the lamp further aside. She could see the outline of Venus’s cheek, which had reddened.

  “We didn’t exactly bet on you . . .”

  “I’m sure you’ll do it.” Jenn exited the freeway. “Your motives are different this time — you’re not just looking for something new to do.”

  “Turn left, then go straight down Camden past two stoplights.” Trish re-read her notes, scribbled down when Mrs. Choi had given her the directions. She sat back in her cramped seat. Were her motives different? She hadn’t really thought about them very much when she first started doing the whole MDiv thing. Well, actually, she’d wanted to prove to her cousins she was serious. But hadn’t she also wanted to prove it to herself?

  “Okay, turn right here.” Her heart pounded as she drove down the quiet, tree-lined street. Jenn let out an envious, “Ooo, what a neighborhood.”

  Beautiful houses paraded down the block. Although small in size and a bit old, all of them flaunted manicured lawns and preened with the sharpness of conscientious care.

  “Okay, turn left here.”

  The side street bore houses not quite as well-kept, but still respectable. Oh, except for that hideous house at the end of the block . . .

  Ominous premonition tugged at her. Her gut quivered and her throat tightened. Please don’t tell me. . .

  They came to a halt in front of the dilapidated wreck. “Number 5271.” Trish wanted to howl.

  Paint peeled from the siding in long jagged strips. Waist-high weeds crowded the front yard, and crawlers spilled into the cracked sidewalk where an ancient tree drooped dead branches over the street. Weeds dripped from the rain gutters, and a flat basketball slumped on the roof. Oil stains lay like bombing practice targets on the driveway, while the garage door cracked open at the bottom. Trish doubted it would open at all.

  They parked on the street and climbed out of the cars. To reach the front door, they swam through the weeds on stepping stones drowned in the sea of vegetation. Cobwebs clothed a small, dingy front window and the rusted screen door next to it.

  Lex pulled a handful of weeds and swept the cobwebs from the window. They peeked through gaping holes in the curtain but couldn’t see anything. A twist to the doorknob confirmed the lock worked.

  Trish stumbled back to the truck and sagged against it. She felt like Cinderella, radiant in her new gown on the night of the ball, entering the palace . . . to find everyone had gone home already.

  They went back to the cars. She wanted to drip down the side of the truck, but Jenn rubbed her shoulder. “Cheer up, Trish. It’s only temporary until you find something else.”

  “I don’t think I’ll even be able to live here.”

  An old, gigantic town car pulled up to the house and Mrs. Choi emerged, stunned and dismayed. “Oh my goodness. Trish, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the house was like this.”

  Trish let out a sobbing whine. What could she do? Where could she go? Things couldn’t get any worse.

  Then a white Toyota Avalon coasted into the driveway. Oh, no.

  Trish’s mother had shown up.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mom, what are you doing here? You drove from Morgan Hill?” Why did you have to be here to witness this, the supreme example of your progeny’s stupidity and plain bad luck?

  “Your dad drove me into San Jose for the planning meeting for the Obon dance.”

  Oh, yes. There was the slimebucket now, sitting in the driver’s side. “Are you okay to be doing so much so soon after your . . . you know?” Trish had been going by how Mom dealt with the whole thing, and since Mom had yet to say the words “heart attack,” Trish followed suit.

  “Of course. I wanted to see your new place, considering you waited until yesterday to tell me.”

  Ah, no disgruntlement in her tone, not at all.

  Trish’s petite mother studied the ramshackle building. Her mouth wrinkled in distaste, and she raised a trembling hand to smooth down her hairdo — permed, ultra-short, and a mahogany color too brilliant to be real, although she’d been too ill to get it touched up so the gray roots were showing. “Is the address correct?” Desperation tinged her voice.

  “Yes, Mom.” This was the frosting on the cake. Why did her mother have to put in an appearance? Trish already felt abominably stupid in front of her cousins and Mrs. Choi. She didn’t want to have to deal with Mom’s rolled eyes and Oh my goodness, what kind of baka daughter did I raise? looks.

  Mom would needle her until she discovered that Trish had taken the place sight-unseen, and then she’d never hea
r the end of it. You didn’t look at the place before you agreed? Triiiiiish!

  But Mom didn’t say anything like that. “Maybe it looks better inside?” She gave an over-bright smile, but was so much more reserved than Trish expected that she almost fainted with relief.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  After introducing a wary Mom to an apologetic Mrs. Choi, Trish appropriated the key, marched up to the front door and hauled the creaky screen door aside. She fumbled to undo the bolt lock.

  Venus sniffed. “Do you smell something funny?”

  Trish paused. She smelled mold from the eaves, moss from the cracked stone front step, and a hay-ish scent from the weeds on the front lawn. “No.” She shoved the door open with a shuddering groan.

  The smell assaulted them in a whoosh. Mom scrambled back a few paces while Trish gagged, paralyzed in the doorway.

  Decomp.

  Trish recognized it from work, but it didn’t make it any more bearable. She ducked sideways and stared hard at the weeds peeping from the base of the exterior wall. She wondered if she would hurl her lunch. Venus, who had been the next closest to the door, had retreated a few feet away, face white and eyes closed. Jenn, Lex, Mom, and Mrs. Choi had backed up almost to the sidewalk.

  After a few minutes, the smell lessened enough to allow them to peek inside. The light streaming from the doorway revealed a long hallway. On the left was a rather nice archway into the living room, where various dark stains dotted the carpet.

  They inched down the hallway into the kitchen, dimmed by curtains on the window over the sink. She shook them open in a cloud of dust. Sunlight filtered through the grimy glass to reveal walls patterned in faded avocado-green and burnt-orange. To top it off, the light illuminated the puke-yellow color of the curtains.

  There was the culprit. The smell of decomposition came from an unfinished hamburger on the counter — George’s trash, probably. Maggots overran the paper plate, and a few flies buzzed.

  “Eeeewwww! Ewewewewew!” Venus ran shrieking from the kitchen back into the hallway. Her screams warned her other cousins to stay back, although Mrs. Choi peeked in with trepidation.

  Sissies. Trish called to Jenn, “Give me that extra plastic bag you always keep in your purse. And a few paper towels.” She went to the window and flung open the glass. She managed to knock out the screen frame and started gently fanning it to get the flies and the smell out of the house.

  Jenn dug into her gigantic tote bag purse and handed the bag and towels to Trish with an extended arm, not getting any nearer to the kitchen than she had to.

  Trish got the plate and maggots into the bag. “Outta my way!” Women scattered. She headed down the hallway out the door.

  She started when Dad met her at the front step. His face had screwed up tight. “What’s that smell?”

  Intent on her mission, Trish didn’t have time to feel awkward. “Old hamburger. Out of the way, Dad.”

  “Oh. Give it here, I’ll take care of it.” He reached for the plastic bag.

  “What? No, this is gross, Dad.” It startled her, although it shouldn’t. Dad always took care of the dead squirrels and birds in the backyard, the dog poop in the front yard, even that possum roadkill on the street when she’d been twelve years old.

  It was just weird, seeing him be so normal when things should be horribly abnormal between them.

  He snatched the bag out of her hand and headed toward the old garbage can on the side of the driveway. “Might be bleach under the sink,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Trish stood there a moment, watching him. Then she turned back into the house.

  Sure enough, a dusty bottle of Clorox under the kitchen sink, along with a stiff sponge. Trish turned the faucet handle over the stained porcelain sink. The water flowed brown at first but lightened to clear. She wet the sponge.

  Dusty beige tiles ran in rows on the countertop, and missing grout left dark rough crevices between. She poured some bleach over them and scrubbed with the sponge.

  By this time, her mother ventured into the kitchen and grimaced at the grease-coated cabinets. Lex glanced up. “Eew.”

  Trish followed her gaze to the ceiling, stained dark and dotted with rounded blobs of grease. While they took in the horror over their heads, the kitchen light flickered on, blinding them.

  “Moooom!”

  “I wanted to see if the electricity was turned on.”

  “Oh, it should be.” A smile trembled on Mrs. Choi’s mouth. “Until he flew to Missouri a couple days ago, George lived here.”

  “He did?” Trish tossed the sponge into the sink.

  At that moment, the refrigerator rattled violently like an old asthmatic man clearing his throat, then hummed. Lex opened the door before Trish could shout a warning.

  Luckily, there wasn’t anything living inside. A couple soda cans and a Hostess fruit pie — George refrigerates his fruit pies? — but the rubber sealing around the edge of the door caught Lex’s attention. “What’s this?”

  They both peered at an icky brown substance slathered into the folds of rubber, cracked with age. Then a distinctive smell teased Trish’s nose. “Peanut butter.” They slammed the door shut.

  Trish scurried from the kitchen but tripped over a lump in the hallway where the carpet bunched up. She slammed into the wall, and her hand came away sticky. She glared at the carpet. “Great, it’s loose.”

  Venus glanced down. “Humph.” She bent to look closer. “Hardwood floors underneath.”

  Trish didn’t care. She hesitated at the door to the bedroom before easing it open.

  George had camped out here. Literally. A North Face tent sat in the middle of a rather clean shag carpet, but there was no other furniture. The sliding closet doors revealed wire hangers dangling from a dusty, sagging wooden beam.

  Emboldened by the marginally habitable room, Trish pushed open the bathroom door — which opened a foot before stopping with a clunk against the toilet. “You’re kidding, right?” She squeezed in, but had to step into the open shower to close the bathroom door.

  An old-fashioned sink crowded the toilet, with a teeny mirror that sported a narrow shelf. Talk about no counter space. She tugged at the mirror, relieved to open a rusty but somewhat clean medicine cabinet, although it missed one of its shelves.

  She glanced down to inspect the linoleum — old, browned, and curling at the edges. But something small and white lay near the door and the edge of the shower. Trish stared hard, then realized that where the linoleum curled away from the wall, a mushroom grew in the floor.

  A faint drip reached her ear. She folded in half to squint in the dimness under the toilet. She heard the clunk of the bathroom door against the toilet bowl and Jenn’s voice. “Trish?”

  “Is there a light switch near the door?”

  The sound of fumbling, then the buzz of the light and a coughing chug from the electric bathroom fan. She found herself staring at a puddle of grimy water under the toilet. The drip came from a loose valve. She reached to see if she could tighten it, then heard a bloodcurdling screech.

  Trish jerked and smacked her head against the toilet bowl. Rubbing, she peeked up at Jenn, then the ceiling.

  At first she thought someone had painted a mural on the flat ceiling, using designs of dark-colored oil paints in subtle shades of grey, brown and forest green.

  Then she realized it was a huge layer of mold.

  She shrieked and leaped over the toilet, but her action slammed the door shut. The giant mold seemed to snicker threateningly. She screamed again and jumped into the shower so she could yank open the door. She shimmied out of the bathroom.

  She and Jenn cried and clung to each other for a moment. Still panting, Trish turned when her mom called her from the door to the garage.

  The stale airless smell enveloped her at the same time as the cool dimness, but the crack at the bottom of the slightly open garage door shone a narrow strip of white. At a flick of the light switch, a bare bulb buzzed to life
. A cockroach scuttled away, and she noticed dusty cobwebs, dead leaves and tiny black pellets along the walls.

  Venus noticed them too. “Ew, rats.”

  “But the smell in here is stale.” Mom snapped off the light. “They may be old, and the rats might be gone.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.” Mrs. Choi wrung her hands. “If you don’t mind staying here while you look for a new place, I won’t charge rent.”

  Trish ran her eye over the dingy walls, into the danger-zone kitchen, and glared at the closed bathroom door. But she could use George’s tent in the bedroom. She could bathe at the showers at work. As for the toilet . . . well, the green monster was only partially over the toilet, so if she had to, she could sneak in, do her business, and sneak out without disturbing it.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Choi.” She didn’t really have much choice — she was friends with the security guys at work, but they couldn’t turn a blind eye on boxes in her office any longer. They’d transported the boxes here, and she had no where else to put them. “The only thing is my futon bed.” No way was she putting it inside this house.

  “Why don’t you run it over to our home?” Trish’s mom raised her penciled eyebrows as if to say, Isn’t that the obvious solution?

  “My bed isn’t going to fit in the house.” Not that it fit all that well in the puny living room at Venus’s condo. She’d used that men acing growl of hers as she made Trish promise to have the bed out in a week.

  “You can put everything in the garage, and we’ll park the cars in the driveway until you find a place.”

  Her mother’s calm voice and sensible suggestion eased Trish’s worries. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Why don’t you all come on over now and stay for dinner? I made chicken hekka.”

  “Yummmm.” Lex and Trish both smacked their lips.

  At Mrs. Choi’s inquiring look, Trish translated, “Japanese country-style chicken stir-fry that’s actually kind of soupy.”

  Jenn rolled her eyes and turned to head outside. “Trish, you could make sashimi sound complicated.”

  She followed her cousin down the hallway. “Well, sashimi must be complicated even though it’s just raw fish, since the sushi chefs in Japan have to train for years before they can work — ”