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“You know how you have siu mai?” Thomas would say.
Yes, of course she did.
“Well, we have it too. We call it siomay Bandung, but ours is flat and made of shrimp and fish paste. No pork, because most of the country is Muslim. And we serve it with spicy peanut sauce. Like satay sauce.”
It sounded delicious. She’d lose herself in his words, wondering if there would come a day when he’d be able to take her to his hometown, where she’d eat Indonesian food and marvel at how similar and yet different it was to Chinese food. Everything about Thomas was like that—similar but different.
•••
“Wah, this sounds very delicious,” Vera says. “Wait, what are they called again? Siomay Bandung? I must ask Riki why he’s never mentioned them to me, that silly boy.”
Millie doesn’t have the heart to tell Vera she’s kind of interrupting her story. She watches obediently as Vera taps a message into her phone. It’s a painstaking process; Vera types with just her index finger, muttering the words as she does so.
“Riki—why you—don’t—tell me—about—Siomay—Bandung?Silly—boy. There.” Vera puts down her phone and looks up at Millie. “Sorry, where were we? Oh my, look at the time. You better hurry and tell me the juicy details before the shop is crowded with customers. It’s a very happening place these days, you know. Now, tell me, what happened to this Thomas?”
“Well I—that’s just it. I don’t know,” Millie cries. Her entire face feels like it’s burning. “The last few months or so, Thomas has been so different. Glued to his phone. Even when we spent time with each other, he’d be checking his phone most of the time and smiling to himself. I think maybe he met someone.” Her voice almost breaks then. “But he wouldn’t tell me who. He didn’t tell me anything. He just said, ‘Millie, it’s all about building the life you want for yourself. Fake it till you make it.’ ”
“This is actually not bad advice,” Vera says. “Okay, so you said he went missing? When was this?”
Millie kicks herself inwardly for the millionth time. Why had she said that to Vera? “Um. Well, I don’t know, he might’ve just left…”
“Okay, when was the last time you saw him?”
“Three nights ago.”
“And he didn’t say anything to you?”
Millie shakes her head.
“How about his apartment? Have you checked where he lives?”
“Oh, um…” Millie thinks hard. “Sure. Yeah, um, there’s someone else living there.”
“You mean there’s a squatter in his apartment?”
Millie shakes her head. “Someone else has moved in.”
“Just one day after your friend went missing?” Vera says. “Even for the Bay Area, that’s pretty fast. Did you ask your landlord about it?”
Millie’s insides clam up. “Um, sort of. They said he told them he wouldn’t be back.”
Vera narrows her eyes in that way of hers that’s starting to become familiar to Millie. Behind her glasses, her eyes are sharp and shrewd. “Why didn’t you report it to the police? I was just there reporting this scam that I—well, I wouldn’t say I fell for it, but I became involved in a phone scam—well, not involved as a guilty party. Okay, I fell for a phone scam, and that was why I was at the police station, and they were very helpful.”
Oh god. She knew it. She knew she’d made a mistake coming here. “I—I can’t. I tried, but I—there are things that I can’t…”
“Hmm.” Vera regards her for a moment, watching as she flails. Then she says, “You know, Millie, over the past year, I got to know a bunch of people. Young people, like you. And, oh my, the things they were hiding. Well, they thought they were very bad things, things worth keeping secret until their hearts festered with it. To be honest with you, their secrets were really quite tame. So, whatever it is you’re hiding, I’m sure it’s not that bad. Can’t be as bad as murder, eh?”
Millie’s mouth opens and closes like a fish on land. She certainly feels like a beached fish. “It’s not murder,” she manages to say.
“Of course not. What does this Thomas look like?”
Millie finds a photo of him on her phone and shows it to Vera. It is of her and Thomas, hanging out in his room. She’s sitting on his bed and he’s sitting on the floor, and they both look so young and so happy.
“What a handsome boy. You don’t often see such K-pop good looks,” Vera says. “All right, don’t you worry, child. I’ll take care of this. I solved a murder case last year, you know. I’m practically adetective by now. And I have access to information most people don’t.”
Millie doesn’t dare ask how an old teahouse owner like Vera has access to any sort of sensitive information, unless said information has to do with tea. All she does is give a weak nod and hope that she hasn’t just spilled the tea to the wrong person.
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