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“I think if only problem so far is you don’t know how to buy bra for your daughter, I will say you doing just fine.”
TJ gives a watery laugh. “God, I sure as hell hope so.” He takes in a deep breath and sighs. “Vera, what are you hoping for with us?”
Vera senses the undertones in the seemingly innocuous question and chooses to blithely ignore them. “Hmm? Well, today just buying a bra, that is all.”
“No, I meant about this whole Xander Lin thing. Why are youso”—TJ searches for the right word—“committed to the details of his death?”
It takes a moment for Vera to mull over the question. “When I see you, I know you are young person in need.”
“Do I really appear that pathetic?”
“Yes.”
“Oof. I can’t say that didn’t hurt.”
“Call it mother instinct. I know immediately you need mother attention. And Robin, she desperately need grandmother attention.”
TJ looks down at his feet. “My parents are on the East Coast. We see them once a year, twice at the most.”
“Must be hard on you and them. But is okay, we do the best we can try. Now, I was saying, I see Millie, she come to me for advice on Xander death. And I see, oh, this is also young person needing my help.”
TJ frowns. “Millie thinks his death wasn’t suicide?”
Vera studies him from the corner of her eye. She likes TJ, and it would really be a shame if he turns out to be a killer. “Maybe?”
TJ grunts. “Vera, there’s something you need to know about me—”
“Grandma, I’m hungry!” Emma calls back.
“Me too,” Robin says.
Vera groans and shoots a hard look at TJ. “What is it? You tell me now.”
TJ’s mouth opens and closes. “I—uh, I’m hungry too?”
Vera grits her teeth, then she wags a finger in TJ’s face. “TJ, you know I will get truth out of you even though you try to hide it. You are very bad liar.”
TJ gives her a sheepish grin and scurries away, throwing an arm around Robin’s shoulders as he goes.
Vera follows them with a thoughtful frown on her face, her mind tick-ticking along, patiently picking at all the odd angles of the case. If there is indeed even a case to be found. Still, when it comes to maybe-cases, there’s no one more well suited to cracking them than Vera Wong.
Much later, Vera is back at her house, and Emma and TJ are finishing up their afternoon snack while Vera has wrangled Robin into helping her record her next viral video. Winifred had popped in bearing a tray of pastries, and the others were so delighted at getting free pastries that Vera hadn’t had a chance to drive Winifred and her nosy self off.
“Come help me make the viral video, Robin,” Vera had said, to which Robin had replied, “Bold of you to assume it’ll go viral.” To which Vera had replied, “Robin, why you insist on failing before you even try?” To which Robin had had no reply, and so here they are, with Robin shooting Vera from all angles as she prepares drunken chicken for tonight’s dinner.
Behind them, Winifred hovers, clearly jealous of all the attention Vera is getting.
Robin’s style is very different from Aimes’s. Aimes had focused on Vera as a whole as she made the tea, but Robin chooses to focus on Vera’s hands as she rubs the chicken with aromatics.
“You not getting my face,” Vera complains after a while.
“Yeah, because what you’re doing is really interesting.”
“I think she is trying to avoid getting the wrinkles on your face,” Winifred pipes up snidely.
Vera ignores her. “Nothing more interesting than my face. You stand farther back so you can catch my whole body. I work very hard to keep in shape, not to hide from camera.”
Robin rolls her eyes but listens to Vera’s request and takes twosteps back. Vera watches her with a sharp eye, and when she’s satisfied with the angle Robin is shooting at, she takes a deep breath and smiles, transforming from stern grandmother into a loving, jolly one. She pretends not to see Winifred rolling her eyes. Vera preps the drunken chicken and accompanying herbs and vegetables, places them into a large clay pot, and puts it on the stove, all the while wearing that comforting smile on her face.