“I wish it were yesterday or tomorrow but not NOW.”

"That's foolish, Nikki," Ruiz said. But at least she had said it in English not French.

"Now is so in-between. Now is just nothing," she said.

He turned from the painting to say more to her. She was fondling the gun, her finger in the barrel and waving it around.

"Put the tree down," Ruiz said, "It's not a toy."

"You said tree," Nikki said. She laughed, though slightly annoyed at his mistake. Then she looked at the tree in her hand and flung it away.