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Sixteen

VERA

If Vera were to be completely honest, she might say she is ever so slightly intimidated. Some might even say she is downright scared. But that would be ludicrous, because Vera does not do fear. Fear is for toddlers and tiny dogs, not for wise older ladies like herself. But then again, Vera would be hard pressed to explain the dryness of her mouth and the pitter-patter of her heart and the way her forehead has gone quite moist. Hot flashes , she thinks. Postmenopausal hot flashes. Yes, that would be it.

Also, for some reason, her legs are being rather difficult, refusing to climb the steps to the front door until Vera consciously wills them to. And then, when she’s at the door, her arm refuses to move until she mentally directs all of her willpower into lifting her hand toward the doorbell. Her heart lurches as she pushes on the doorbell and hears it ring somewhere inside the house, above the loud music. She licks her lips. Goodness, but they really are dry for some reason. She must be dehydrated.

The door swings open just as Vera is considering running away—not out of fear, mind you, but for health reasons, as doctors are always yammering away about how good jogging is for you—and the person who opens it is a young man who looks like he could be a freshman at college. “Yeah?” he says. He spots the Tiffin tower, over the top of which Vera is peeking. “Did we order Chinese takeout?”

“No,” Vera says, but already he’s turned his head to look over his shoulder, calling out, “Did someone order Chinese takeout?”

Another face pops out from behind the door. This time, it’s a young blond woman. Her eyes widen when she spots Vera. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you actually showed up! OMG!” She shoves the young man away unceremoniously and opens the door wide, stepping outside with a delighted squeal. “Vera Wong, I can’t believe you’re here. Okay, selfies now.”

Before Vera can even react, the girl’s phone appears in her hand and she puts an arm around Vera’s shoulders. “Say, Veraaa!”

Vera conjures up an awkward smile and the phone flashes, once, twice, three times.

“Let me take that for you,” the girl says, taking hold of the Tiffin tower. “Oof, it’s heavy. What do you have in here?”

Food. Food, Vera can talk about. The answer flows right out, and for the first time since arriving, Vera does not feel tongue-tied. “Chinese barbecue pork. Salt and pepper squid. Black pepper—”

“Shut up!” the girl cries.

Vera blinks. “What?”

“I don’t think she meant it in a bad way,” Aimes mutters.

“That sounds crazy good,” the girl says. “OMG, you are just so cute in real life, Vera. Can you adopt me please?”

“Oh,” Vera says, slightly taken aback. “Yes.”

The girl squeals and claps. “Yay! Okay, come on in. Rob,” she barks at the guy, “don’t just stand there. Help them with their containers. Sorry, Rob’s my younger brother and he’s totally a second child.”

“Wait, what is your name?” Vera says, hurrying after the girl. The music is almost unbearably loud, and the house is full of young people.

“Natalie,” the girl says. “Did I not tell you over DM? My bad.”

Vera glances behind her to make sure Aimes and Millie are following her, and sure enough, they are. Millie is looking around with big, scared eyes, and Aimes is also looking around with big, scared eyes, although she is at least trying to not look too scared. Vera squashes the urge to look around with big, scared eyes as well. Remember , Vera reminds herself, your ass is bad. Very bad. And that is a good thing.

As they walk through the crowded living room, Natalie greets other guests smoothly, saying, “Look who I have here! Vera Wong, in the flesh! Isn’t she the cutest?”

And the other guests turn, their eyes widening, their mouths opening into awed smiles, and Vera finds herself enveloped in a swarm of young people all clamoring for her to adopt them. It is somewhat nice, she supposes, in a bizarre way. “Okay, okay,” she calls out, “I will adopt you. Yes, and you also. You, no, I don’t like blue hair, you color back to normal, then I adopt you.”

Next to her, Aimes and Millie share a look with each other. Do they think she didn’t notice that? She’ll have to have a chat with them about it. They shouldn’t be jealous about her adopting these needy youngsters. Natalie shoos everyone away and leads Vera to the dining room, which has a massive hardwood table that can seat about twenty people comfortably. The table is laden with dishes, but Natalie waves at a server and asks him to remove all of it.

“All of it, miss?” the server asks.

“Yes, thank you.” Natalie heaves the Tiffin tower onto the table and says, “Phew! That was heavy, Vera. Okay, how do I undo this?” She fiddles with the top latch until Vera flaps at her.

“Aiya, you don’t anyhow play with it, later you break. Come, let me do.” Vera unlocks the tower and starts taking the containers out. She directs Aimes and Millie to put down their towers as well, then goes around laying out the containers on the table. Altogether, there are five containers, all of them stuffed to the brim with food. She’s only vaguely aware of movement around her, but somehow, when she glances up, a crowd has gathered around her, all of them staring with rapt attention.

“Tell us what each dish is,” Natalie says, aiming her phone camera at Vera.

“Oh. Um. Okay.”

Vera has always secretly thought that she would make a fine TV star. After all, she has it all—the looks, the grace, and the voice. But now, with all these phone cameras aimed at her, she feels strangely shy. When she speaks, her voice comes out meek and soft, very much unlike herself.

“Hang on,” Natalie says, “let me just turn that down…” She taps on her phone, and the song that had been blaring through the house is muted to a low volume. “Okay.”

“Um,” Vera says. She swallows, then points a finger at the nearest Tiffin container. To her surprise, the finger is slightly shaky. “T-this is claypot rice. I cook the rice in a clay pot over charcoal fire and put Chinese sausage and chicken in it.”

The audience oohs. “It smells so good,” someone says.

This gives Vera a little bit of oomph, and she speaks louder, pointing to the next dish. “This one is San Bei Ji. Three cup chicken. The name of the dish is because you just use the same cup to measure everything, very simple but very delicious.” She goes on to the next dish and the next, and before long, Vera realizes she is enjoying herself. She smiles at the cameras, flapping at them one minute and pointing sternly the next. She really was made for this. When she’s done with the final dish, everyone cheers, and Vera blushes all the way from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Applause from a roomful of people. My goodness. It feels so natural. She really is born for this kind of thing. She preens a little.

Natalie links her arm through Vera’s and waves at everyone. “Okay, everyone, dig in!” As the crowd descends upon Vera’s lovingly cooked feast, Vera leads Natalie away.

“I need to ask you question,” Vera says.

“Sure thing,” Natalie says. “We can go into my home office.”

“What is it that you do, Natalie?” Vera asks as they walk down a beautiful hallway that reminds her of a five-star hotel. “You are in finance? Or maybe drug dealer? Only heroin money can buy this kind of house.”

Behind her, Millie makes a choking noise, but when Vera turns around to glare at her, she averts her face and gazes up at the ceiling.

Natalie laughs. “No. Would you believe it, it’s YouTube money.”

“YouTube money?” Now Vera is truly and well confused.

“When I was, like, eight years old, my parents started a YouTube channel of me opening boxes and reviewing toys. It got really popular. I was basically earning millions every year. And now I’m a bit too old to review toys, so I moved on to TikTok and IG, and I review other things, but really it was mostly the toy review thing that made all this possible.”

“Review toy?” Vera echoes. Her head spins, trying to grasp the concept of a child reviewing toys and getting paid for doing it. When she recalls Tilly with his toys, all she can remember him doing was, well, playing with them. She never once thought of recording him and asking him to talk about the toys. Wow, did she ever miss out on a trick there! She’d been so busy making sure Tilly would become rich by going into engineering, medicine, or law, that she’d completely missed out on social media. Tch. Vera tucks this piece of information in her back pocket. She will bring this up with Julia later. Emma would be great at reviewing toys. Like Vera, she is devastatingly honest and articulate.

Natalie’s office is as beautifully decorated as the rest of the house. A big picture window overlooks an aggressively pruned backyard. There is a small working desk, but the rest of the room is filled with easy couches and lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

“Take a seat anywhere,” Natalie says, reaching into a cabinet and taking out glasses and a decanter. “Whisky? Vera, I can tell you’re a woman who appreciates fine whisky.”

Is she? Vera shrugs and nods. Well, she might as well launch straight in. “Natalie, how you know Xander Lin?”

Natalie hands Vera a glass of whisky, and Vera wrinkles her nose at the smell. Vera doesn’t much care for Western liquors. On the odd occasion that she drinks, she prefers Baijiu—Chinese liquor that directly translates to “white liquor.” It does smell like rubbing alcohol, but it gets the job done. One shot, bam, and you’re good for the rest of the evening. Nothing like this whisky thing, a wishy-washy drink if she ever saw one. She tips the glass up and swallows the whole thing in one gulp.

“Vera!” Aimes cries.

“Yes?”

“You’re not supposed to down it. Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” Aimes says to Natalie, who laughs.

“Hey, I don’t care how you decide to drink it. In fact, good idea, bottoms up!” Natalie empties her glass as well, then grimaces. “Holy shit, that burns. Wow. Okay, Vera, you’re an even bigger badass than I thought. I like you.”

“Thank you. And now, Xander Lin?”

Natalie takes a breath, setting her glass down on the table. “Yeah, so that’s the thing, Vera. That’s kind of why I asked you to come.”

Vera leans forward and, to her surprise, nearly falls out of the chair. Goodness, the whisky might have been a tad stronger than she expected. She recovers smoothly. Barely anyone notices. She hopes. “What you mean?”

“I don’t know Xander,” Natalie says.

“What?” Vera, Millie, and Aimes yell at the same time. Vera flaps at them to be quiet. Who’s the one doing the interrogating here? “What you mean you don’t know him?”

Natalie shakes her head. “What can I say? I’ve never met the guy.”

“But—” Vera’s head swims, and she’s pretty sure it’s not just the whisky. Maybe whisky isn’t as wishy-washy a drink as she’d thought. “There are picture, so many of them, of him partying here. I recognize your house from his photo. Aimes,” Vera barks, “show Natalie.”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” Natalie says. “You don’t have to show me, I’ve seen them. The thing is, in case you haven’t guessed, I hold a lot of parties. Like, literally every weekend I have a party, and midweek I have a party, and sometimes on Mondays I have a party. You know, to get rid of the Monday blues. Lots of people come to these parties, they’re really casual, and I let my friends invite whoever they want. I trust their taste. So maybe one of them invited Xander.”

“Why you don’t just ask your friend, ‘Hey, who here invite Xander to my house?’?” Vera says, mystified at Natalie’s lifestyle. Party after party after party. Aiya, terrible habit. Once Vera is done with the interrogation, she will lecture Natalie on having too many parties.

“I did,” Natalie says. “But no one would admit it. I don’t know, I think people are feeling really bad about it or something. Makes sense, I guess, since he died.”

“Then why invite us here?” Aimes says. “I mean, not that I’m complaining. I’m Aimes, by the way. Big fan of yours.”

Natalie smiles, but it looks more like a grimace. “Um, well, I kind of…only invited Vera, and then she brought you two along. Which is totally fine! But I’m just saying, I didn’t invite all of you. And I invited Vera because I was curious about this whole Xander thing and, oh my gosh, Vera, I love your videos and I wanted to meet you in person, and I figured I’d help you out with your investigation. I mean, this is totally like Only Murders in the Building and I’m Selena Gomez and, Vera, you’re that Charles dude. Or maybe you’re Oliver? Or both. You’re like both of them squished into one fabulous character. Ooh, maybe we should do a podcast about it!”

Vera shakes her head. “Aiya, you not making sense. I don’t want to do podcast, I want to find out what happen to Xander.”

“And you can,” Natalie says. “I’m sure that out there, among my guests, there must be someone who was close to Xander. This is your chance, Vera. Get out there and start talking to people. Get them to open up to you.”

“What do you get out of this?”

They all turn to look at Millie in surprise. Vera hadn’t been expecting that question to come from sweet, quiet Millie. Her hands twist in her lap, and she looks down and mutters, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Natalie says. “Totally fair question. To be honest with you, everything I do, I do for content. So obviously, I’ll be recording as much of Vera tonight as I can—she’s blowing up everywhere. The Internet adores her.”

Vera cocks her head to one side, studying this bright young woman in front of her. She can’t decide if she approves of Natalie. On the one hand, Natalie is obviously ambitious, which Vera, as a Chinese mother, admires. But on the other hand, Vera feels somewhat exploited, because Natalie is using her. But on the other, other hand, Vera also admires Natalie’s honesty and gumption. If she were in Natalie’s shoes, she would’ve totally done the same thing, except she wouldn’t have been so up front about it. Finally, she decides that she doesn’t particularly like Natalie, but she also wishes that Tilly and Selena were more like her. If they were, Tilly would be a named partner at his firm by now, and Selena would be chief of the SFPD for sure. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Natalie said the Internet “adores” her. As well they should.

“Okay,” Vera says. “I go and ask everyone who know Xander.” She stands and sways ever so slightly.

Aimes jumps to her feet and grabs Vera’s arm. “Please be careful,” she says under her breath.

“I am Chinese mother, I am incapable of being not careful. I know million and one ways that people can die in this very room alone.”

Aimes gives her a look. “You know what I mean, Vera. You can’t just ask random people if they knew Xander, that’s not going to get anything out of them.”

“I am—”

“Chinese mother, yes, I know,” Aimes says.

“Then you know no one can keep anything secret from me.” With that Vera marches out of the office with Aimes, Millie, and Natalie hot on her heels.

···

Over an hour later, Vera is very drunk and has zero answers. Or rather, she has an answer—the same one from everyone. That nobody knows Xander.

“But you all see his photo, yes?” Vera says to a group of young people.

“Yeah, of course,” one of them, a girl wearing a bright pink crop top, says. “I follow him, he’s amazing.”

“His life is amazing,” the girl next to her adds.

“But no one has met him?” Vera says.

“We haven’t. I actually tried reaching out to him, but he didn’t respond, so…whatever,” the girl in the pink crop top says. She notices Aimes for the first time, and her eyes widen. “Hey, you’re Aimes! Weren’t you his girlfriend?”

Aimes seems to shrink in size.

The girl turns to Vera and says, “Did you ask her about Xander? They were dating, you know. Tons of photos of them. You guys made a cute couple. I’m really sorry about what happened.”

Aimes nods and mumbles something under her breath. It’s clear, even through Vera’s buzzed gaze, that Aimes looks very uncomfortable. She should press Aimes, she’ll likely get some answers, but Vera finds that she doesn’t have the heart to do so.

Instead, Vera lurches away from them and locates her next victim. The same conversation is repeated. Maybe she’s too drunk to be doing this. Someone had offered her a test tube full of bright blue liquid, and Vera had said, “Chemistry is good for you” before downing the whole thing, and now she is beginning to question her life choices.

“I think we should take Vera home,” Millie says to Aimes.

“But I have not find Xander friend,” Vera says.

“I don’t think anyone here has met him in person,” Aimes says. “Or if they did, they’re hiding it for whatever reason.” She doesn’t meet Vera’s eyes as she says this.

“Why they would hide it?” Vera says. “He was famous superstar on Internet. I’m sure many people would love to meet him, and he has so many fans. Why are they hiding it? What are they hiding?”

“I don’t know,” Aimes says. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

What are YOU hiding? Vera wants to say to Aimes. But she recognizes that Aimes is probably not in the best mood right now, and perhaps pushing her for answers isn’t the thing to do. Vera is no longer a hot-blooded twentysomething-year-old. She is older and wiser, and she can afford to wait a bit before jumping down Aimes’s throat and demanding the truth from her.

“Vera, how’s it going?” Natalie calls out from the crowd.

Vera frowns at her. Is it just Vera, or is there something curious about Natalie? She claims not to have known Xander, but then why did she invite Vera here in the first place? Dimly, Vera remembers Natalie admitting that she invited Vera over for content. Right. Some part of her realizes that this probably means that Natalie has been filming her as she stumbles around and asks random people intrusive questions. She sighs. The night is a bust, and she has made a fool of herself.

“Thank you for having me,” she says to Natalie. “I will go now.”

“Aww, stay and have fun,” Natalie says. “Everybody loves you.”

“At this stage in my life, I know making early exit is better than making exit too late.” Or something to that effect, at least. She hugs Natalie, gathers her empty food containers, and then leaves the strange and wonderful party with Aimes and Millie by her side. Her ears ring. Outside, the air is bitingly cold, reviving Vera’s senses a little. She takes a deep inhale and sighs. “Well, that is strange peek into different life,” she says.

“You shouldn’t shout, Vera,” Millie says.

“I am shouting?” Vera shouts.

“Yeah,” Aimes says. “And you should stop. People who live here will think nothing of calling the cops on you.”

“Sorry,” Vera calls out to any neighbors who might have been watching. “Is very strange though,” she whispers. “I really don’t feel like I’m shouting.”

“God, she is such a talkative drunk,” Aimes groans to Millie, who cracks a sympathetic smile.

“Oh, I’m not drunk,” Vera slurs.

“Yeah, okay, Vera,” Aimes says. “Look, our car’s here. Come on, let’s get you home.”

Vera wants to tell Aimes off because if Vera knows anything about life, it is that she is the caretaker of others, and not the other way around. But her head is spinning and her tongue is fuzzy and she can’t quite remember what she was about to say, so she lets the two youngsters bundle her into the Uber. The driver greets them and begins to back out into the street. They zoom down a steep hill.

“Eh, slow down!” Vera snaps at the driver, her stomach lurching. “Later I vomit in your car.”

“Lady, do not throw up in my car. I swear to god,” the driver says.

“Then you better slow down,” Vera scolds. Huffing, she turns to Millie. “So, how you find party? You like it?”

Millie sighs. “It’s…different. I can’t believe Thomas—sorry, Xander—used to go to those things all the time. It’s like a whole different world.”

“Yeah,” Aimes says.

Millie cranes her neck to look at Aimes, who is sitting on the other side of Vera. “You must go to these things a lot too?”

Aimes shrugs. “Sometimes. Nothing as grand as that though. I don’t know that crowd very well. I’m not big enough to be invited to anything like that.”

“Don’t say like that,” Vera says.

“What?” Aimes says.

“Like you are embarrass or sorry. ‘Oh, I am just small influencer girl, I don’t deserve to go to fancy party.’ No! Sun Tzu say something very wise in his time. You know Sun Tzu? Famous Chinese man, wrote The Art of War . Anyway, he say, ‘Fake it until you make it,’ so you fake it. Act like you deserve to go to that party all the time, their loss for not inviting you.” Vera catches the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror and adds, “You too, Uber driver.”

He mutters something unintelligible. Aimes gives Vera a side-eye. “I don’t think it was Sun Tzu who said, ‘Fake it till you make it.’?”

“Are you arguing about Chinese history with me?” Vera says, affronted.

Aimes blanches. “Well—I mean—but—”

“I know Chinese history like back of my hand.” Vera holds up her right hand, then frowns at the number of age spots on it and puts it back down on her lap. Do her hands really have that many age spots? Maybe she doesn’t know them as well as she thinks after all. “Anyway, is good advice. I always try to live by that advice; that is why my shop is called Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse.”

Aimes gives her a wry smile. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll try to remember that old Chinese saying.”

“You do that.” For a while, everyone is quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Then Vera peers at Aimes. “But Xander never invite you to these parties? Is quite strange, especially since he is your boyfriend.”

Aimes shifts in her seat and turns to look out the window. “We didn’t date that long.”

“Yes, but surely he invite you to a party here and there,” Vera presses.

“I think he knew it’s not my kind of scene.”

The driver whistles and shakes his head. Vera narrows her eyes at him, but he keeps his gaze resolutely on the road. Vera turns her attention to Millie.

“And Millie, you say you are good friends, but he never invite you to party either?”

Millie shakes her head. “Never even knew this side of him existed.”

“You ladies been played by some guy,” the driver blurts out. “I know, none of my business, but I’m just saying, from a guy’s perspective, it’s pretty obvious this Xander dude is a walking red flag.”

“Thanks,” Aimes mutters.

“Walking red flag,” Vera muses. “I know what that means from the TikTok. You youngsters use it all the time. It means he is bad news.”

“Yep,” the driver says.

“He wasn’t,” Millie says, and the sharp anger in her voice slices through the thick alcohol haze. Vera raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. “He wasn’t bad news,” Millie says again. “He was kind, and we looked out for each other, and tonight made me feel like I lost him all over again.”

“Oh, Millie.” Vera puts her arm around the girl and hugs her close. “Is okay. It will be okay.” She thought Millie might be crying, but when she glances at Millie, the girl’s cheeks are dry. Millie is such an enigma , Vera thinks. She can’t quite get a read on her. Millie strikes Vera as very weak in many ways, but then there are times when she shows strength of spirit that surprises Vera.

“We’re here,” the driver says, lurching to a stop. He sounds very relieved.

They all pile out, slightly dazed, taking in the cold air as the driver peels away.

“Well, that is very interesting night,” Vera says. “Thank you for accompanying me to my first influencer party. I have a feeling I will be invite to more parties, and I will take you two as my plus-one.”

“I think the fact that it’s called a plus-one means you’re only really supposed to take one person with you,” Aimes says.

“Aimes, you are too young and pretty to be so irritating. Wait until you are my age, then you can nag people about this and that.” Vera pats Aimes on the shoulder. “Okay, I will see you two soon, I hope.”

They both say goodbye to Vera, and she turns to go inside her shop. Then she sees what’s on the front door, and a shocked gasp cuts its way out of her.

“Vera? You okay?” Millie places a hand on Vera’s back. “What’s wrong?”

Vera can only stare at her beloved shop front. Millie and Aimes turn to look at what she’s staring at, and they both gasp as well. My goodness , Vera thinks. Just how much alcohol did I drink tonight? “Did I do this?” she wonders out loud.

“What?” Aimes says. “No, Vera. What the hell? Your shop was totally fine when we left, and we were with you the whole night.”

“Because, you see, in order to investigate murder last year, I had to smash up my own shop,” Vera babbles. “And so I am a bit confused. Am I dreaming?”

“No,” Millie says, pinching Vera’s arm gently.

“Ouch.”

“See? Not dreaming. Somebody really came and did this to your shop.”

And for once, as Vera gapes at her store, which has dark red paint splashed all over its front, and the words I SEE YOU sprayed across the sign that says, Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse , she doesn’t know what to say.