Page 17

Seventeen

AIMES

Aimes has no freaking idea what the hell just happened. Actually, this is pretty much how Aimes feels most of the time, so nothing new there. But this time, as she takes in the horrific sight in front of her, the dark red paint that looks so much like blood, and those hateful words scrawled across Vera’s beautiful sign, there is a lot more panic exploding all over her mind. Her thoughts are basically a mess of OMG who did this, are they still here, are they watching us, do they know? DO THEY KNOW I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON?

“Vera—” Aimes starts to say, not knowing what’s actually about to come out of her mouth, when Millie squeaks.

“I have to go.”

“What?” Aimes says.

“Sorry, I have to go.” Millie is already running off. Aimes would’ve gone after her, except Aimes can’t possibly think of leaving Vera alone right now. Damn, Millie is a lot more heartless than Aimes had expected. What the hell?

She shakes herself and shifts her focus back to Vera. Her rib cage feels like it’s squeezing her lungs. Her breath comes out shallow and fast, and she has to remind herself to breathe. It’s her fault. She doesn’t know who did this, but she knows whoever it was did it because of her. “Vera, are you okay?” Her voice comes out with a significant quaver. God, she hopes she isn’t about to cry.

Vera nods. She turns slowly to look at Aimes, and Aimes steps back without meaning to. Vera is probably the sharpest tool in the drawer, and she would totally see the awful truth lurking behind Aimes’s eyes. “I think maybe I don’t sleep here tonight,” Vera says.

“Yeah, I think that’s a smart choice. Um, do you have somewhere to stay?” For a horrifying second, Aimes wonders if Vera is about to ask to stay at her place. She gets a flash of her place, the endless mess that dominates all of her space except for her bed and couch. Fake it till you make it , Vera had said to her, and Aimes could sob with the accuracy of the saying.

“I do.” Vera takes out her phone and dials a number. “Julia, something happen to my shop. No, it’s okay. Just, someone vandalize it, and this time, that someone is not me. Yes, I’m okay. But I don’t think I want to stay here tonight. Yes. Thank you. Sorry for bothering you.” She hangs up and slides the phone back in her purse. “Julia will come and pick me up.”

“Okay, good.” Aimes looks up at the vandalized sign once more and then looks sharply away, her gut souring.

“Why you look so upset?” Vera says.

“What? Because your shop was vandalized, that’s why,” Aimes cries. “It’s a really upsetting thing.”

“Yes, quite. But is not your shop, is my shop. So why are you so upset, Aimes?”

Aimes gestures wildly. “I don’t know, because you’re my friend, and it’s really upsetting when bad things happen to my friends? That’s such a weird question to ask, Vera.” But is it? Aimes knows she’s being a lot more upset than called for, but it’s not like she can tell Vera the truth, that she has a horrible suspicion that this was really aimed at her. And because of it, she’s now gaslighting the old woman to throw her off the scent. Oh man, Aimes really is the worst person ever.

“Thank you for being so caring. You are like what they say, you know, the person who can feel what other people feel. The path—pathy—pathetic.”

Aimes laughs, although it comes out more like a sob. “Empath. Not pathetic. Well, I am pathetic. I’m not an empath. I just—I think seeing this being done to your beautiful shop would upset anyone. I’m really sorry that happened to you, Vera.”

“Oh, is okay, it means I am on right track,” Vera says.

Aimes gapes at her. “Vera, you can’t possibly keep looking into Xan’s death.”

“Why not?”

“Oh my god. I can’t—”

Just then, a car turns the corner, heading toward them. “There’s Julia now,” Vera says with a smile, her voice thick with affection.

Julia parks the car, climbs out, and closes the door gently. “Emma’s asleep in her car seat.” She hugs Vera. “Vera, you okay? Oof, have you been drinking?”

“Only whisky,” Vera says.

“Wow, okay, sounds like a good night. Hey, Aimes, right? You okay? Thanks for accompanying Vera tonight.”

“Yeah,” Aimes says weakly.

Then, finally, Julia glances up at the shop and stops smiling. Her jaw scrapes the pavement. “Oh my god, Vera, your teahouse!”

“I say to you, someone vandalize it.”

Julia shakes her head. “I know, I know. I guess I wasn’t—it didn’t really sink in. Oh man, this is bad.” She sighs, then takes both of Vera’s hands in hers. “Vera, I say this with all the love in the world, but what the fuck did you get yourself tangled up in this time?”

Vera at least has the grace to look somewhat ashamed at that, which kind of surprises Aimes, to be honest. But then Vera squares her shoulders and says, “I am solving a mysterious case. A case that looks like it involve the foul play, if this is any indication.”

“You need to tell Selena,” Julia says.

Vera glowers at her. “You know what she’s like, she will nag me to death and make me stop investigating.”

“As she should!” Julia says.

“I will tell her tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

Vera makes a noncommittal noise.

Julia groans out loud. “All right. I know better by now than to ask you to stop whatever it is you’re doing. Wait, how do you know that whoever did this isn’t still watching you right now? What if they follow us back to my house? I don’t want to put Emma in danger.”

My god, she’s right , Aimes thinks. How could Aimes not even have thought of the possibility that whoever did this might still be here, watching this whole time?

“Oh!” Vera says, and now, finally, she sounds scared. They all look around frantically. Vera pushes Julia away. “You go home right now. I won’t go back to your place, put you in danger. You lock all the door and window.”

“But what about you?” Julia says.

“I’ll stay with her.” It’s only when Vera and Julia look at Aimes that she realizes what she just said. Why had she said that? Argh! Take it back, quick! Except when Aimes thinks of Vera all alone in her little house, scared and confused and still drunk, she can’t bear to take it back. “I’ll stay with you here. I’ll make sure the doors and windows are all secured.”

“I don’t like this,” Julia says. “Maybe I should call Oliver or Riki to come stay with you.”

“Don’t be silly,” Vera says. “Why you are so drama? Riki has Adi, he cannot come stay with me, and Oliver snore. So loudly too. No, Aimes will stay with me.”

Julia looks like she’s about to argue, but then she thinks better of it. With a sigh, she pulls Vera into another hug. “Okay, but be careful. And call me first thing in the morning.” She pauses, then says, “Actually, don’t. Because you wake up at four thirty. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

“Okay, okay, stop worrying. You go home now. Sorry I make you come out here for nothing.”

“It’s not for nothing. And you need to call Selena and tell her about this, otherwise I will.”

Vera shakes her head as Julia drives off, then she says, “All right, we go in now.” She stops. Aimes can practically hear the cogs clacking in her head. She rummages through her bag and takes out something. “Szechuan pepper spray. In case vandal waiting inside my shop.”

“Oh my god,” Aimes moans. Then stops abruptly when something hard is placed in her hand. She looks down to see a box cutter. “What the hell? Where did you get this? Was this inside your bag the whole time? Do you walk around with a box cutter?”

“I am helpless old lady, I need to protect myself.”

“For the last time, you are not old.” Still, Aimes can hardly complain about the box cutter now, can she? So she holds it tightly as they approach the teahouse. Vera unlocks the front door. Still locked , Aimes thinks. That’s a good sign. Guilt overcomes Aimes, and she taps Vera’s shoulder and indicates for her to get behind her. Aimes opens the door carefully and steps inside. Should she go, “Hello”? But if there is indeed someone lurking in here, then they’d know that she’s here. Well, they would know she’s here anyway because she just opened the front door. Oh my god, why is this so much harder than it looks in the movies? She should’ve kicked down the door and shouted, “Hands up!”

When was the last time Aimes had been this fearful? She’s been scared plenty of times before, but she’s pretty sure she hasn’t felt fear like this ever. It’s a different kind of feeling, something shaved down to the bone, something to do with pure survival. Her blood roars in her ears as she creeps into the teahouse, jumping at the slightest noise. She swings the box cutter left and right, just in case, then, finding the shop clear, starts climbing up the stairs. Her heart is not so much thumping as it is whirring, going at such a high speed that it’s basically a constant whine. Aimes creeps into the living room, trying, and failing, to control her breathing. In every corner she thinks she sees a dark crouched figure. She stabs the air menacingly, then nearly jumps out of her skin when the lights come on.

Vera stands by the light switch, looking sheepish. “Sorry, I thought maybe turning on light will help. You want me to turn off again? You look like you having such fun.”

“I’m not having fun,” Aimes cries. This is too much. All of it. The party, that glamorous crowd, the red paint. The adrenaline rushes out of her, leaving her shaky and empty. The box cutter slides out of her hand, and Aimes slumps to the floor. “It’s all my fault.”

“Oh, Aimes, what is it?” Vera rushes to her side.

“This, what happened to your shop, I think it’s my fault.”

“No, you were there with me the whole night, how can be your fault? You so silly.”

“I didn’t do it,” Aimes wails. “But I think someone did because of what I did to Xan.”

“Oh, my dear girl. What you do to Xander? You hurt him?”

Aimes opens her mouth to say no, to cover everything up with yet more lies, but what ends up coming out is the truth. “Yes, I did.” Sobs wrack her body. “He came to me for help, and I turned him away.”

“Why?” Vera’s voice is gentle, and Aimes can’t stand it because she doesn’t deserve gentleness, she deserves cruel judgment.

“Because he wasn’t even my real boyfriend!” Aimes cries. And there it is. The ugly truth. Aimes is nothing but a fake. How laughable that Vera had thought she needed to teach Aimes to fake it till she makes it, when literally nothing in Aimes’s life is real.

“Oh, my dear, I think you need to start from beginning,” Vera says. “You sit down. Come. Give me box cutter. I will make you tea.”

Aimes lets Vera lead her to the sofa. She curls up on it, shaking and crying, while Vera bustles into the kitchen and gets a kettle going. Time passes, and a steaming mug of milky tea is placed in Aimes’s hands. She takes a sip, and it is magical, rich and sweet and hot. Despite everything, Aimes calms down, just a little.

Vera sits down next to her and pats her on the arm. “Okay, now you better tell me from the start.”

And so she does.

···

Aimes has always been good at most things. When she was little, she was a natural at everything she tried her hand at—piano, tennis, math. “She’s a natural,” her teachers would say, and she would beam with pride and chug along merrily. She only ever had to do the bare minimum to get good grades. Life was good. Life was easy.

Then she went to Berkeley, and she found that she was surrounded by other naturals. But worse than that, the other students hadn’t gotten used to just coasting through life. Most of them weren’t just talented, they were hard workers. For the first time in her life, Aimes wasn’t above average. She was average. Then she was below average. And it was awful. She’d never realized how much she’d taken being above average for granted. Now, she felt like she was thrashing crazily in the water just to stay afloat.

The thing about Berkeley is that there is no humanly possible way to get through all of the reading that their professors handed them. Each professor happily assigned ten hours’ worth of reading each week, seemingly forgetting that every student was taking at least four classes, which meant they ended up with forty hours of reading to do each week, in addition to essays and research papers that they had to turn in. Aimes pulled all-nighters. She managed to just about scrape through her classes, ending up with a B average at the end of the year. Meanwhile, it seemed like most of her friends were scoring As. Then, come senior year, they scored internships and jobs, while Aimes continued floundering.

By the time she graduated, Aimes was burned out to nothing but charred bones. She felt like she hadn’t slept in four years, hadn’t had a single break when she was able to fully let go of the stress of college. The thought of applying for competitive internships or grad school or whatever made her want to hide in a cave. She got a retail job instead, something that made her ache physically but provided some respite for her mind. And she started posting on social media. Just random photos at first. She had a good eye for making things look pretty. At first, she assumed that it was something most people were good at, but then she noticed that her accounts were growing at a rate that was much better than most of her friends’. An above-average rate.

That term, “above average,” rekindled something in her. A small part of her that shivered back to life. And so Aimes dived into the world of social media. She embraced the role of content creator. Except, the truth was, Aimes didn’t have much content to share. Her life was pathetic, there was nothing fun or interesting about it. While her fellow Cal alumni were working at places like JPL or getting law degrees at Georgetown, Aimes was…well, not doing much, really. And it was so incredibly, painfully embarrassing. She plodded along, learning how to do her hair and makeup so she looked enchanting on camera, learning how to capture the golden light by playing with her phone camera’s features, learning this and that and growing her accounts at a consistent rate. Slow but steady, and meanwhile she was withering inside, watching her friends soar.

Then along came Xander. Aimes had liked a few of his photos on Instagram, and somewhere along the way, they’d started DMing each other. Casual messages at first, then somehow, their conversations deepened. Maybe they had sensed something in each other. Some kind of brokenness. Aimes had definitely felt it in Xander. Here was someone who might actually understand her. They often DMed till the wee hours of the night, until Aimes fell asleep with her phone in her hand. When she woke up, the first thing she did was DM Xander. Maybe she was a little bit in love with him. Or maybe she was just in love with the idea of him.

She asked him to meet up. Of course she did. How could she not? And, crushingly, he said no. He told her he wasn’t looking for anything real, and he was sorry that he had led her on. Aimes felt heartbroken. Then she felt angry. Then she felt stupid. Why would someone like Xander, who had over five hundred thousand followers on Instagram, want to spend any time with her? She only had about ten thousand followers at the time. She should’ve just been grateful that he even deigned to DM her. She slunk away, licking her wounds.

The thing with Xander, though, is that he was a genuinely nice guy. He must’ve felt bad for her, because he reached out and apologized, and then he said, “I can’t be your boyfriend IRL, but maybe I can be your online boyfriend?”

She didn’t understand at first. She thought maybe he meant they could date virtually. Maybe he wanted to sext? She was at a low enough point in her life that she would not have turned it down.

But what Xander suggested was something completely different. Something far more valuable than companionship—a partnership. He pointed out to Aimes that cute couples posting fun, relatable, romantic content about their relationships got a ton of likes. And they could create so much content with minimal effort. Nothing fancy required, no expensive meals or flashy outfits or brand-name goods. Just the two of them having fun in front of the camera before going their separate ways.

Aimes was horrified. Then curious. Then, after some research, she was in. Xander was right, photogenic couples were a hot commodity. And the amount of content they could do was endless, and it could all be done in a small space. In her tiny apartment, even. And so they did end up meeting in person after all, but with very clear boundaries. Xander was somewhat less attractive in person, but so was Aimes, and so was every other influencer out there probably, so she didn’t hold it against him. He was courteous but also kept his distance, and she understood that for Xander, this was purely a business agreement. In a way, it made Aimes feel good. She had a professional relationship, which surely meant she had…a profession, right? Anyway, she treated it as one.

They met every Monday at four in the afternoon, and each of them would prepare three different scenarios to act out. Six in total. They ranged from cute wake-up kisses to funny kitchen pranks to little inside jokes. Sometimes, in the spur of the moment, they’d eke out a couple more scenarios. They’d act them out in two hours, switching outfits between each scene, and then Xander would leave. They posted one video or photo each day. Aimes was also still taking tons of beautiful photos of her food, her coffee, and her makeup, and all of a sudden, she had a whole slew of content to share. Her follower count exploded. So did Xander’s, and she was so happy for him when he hit one million followers. For the first time in years, Aimes felt good. She was doing something tangible, something that wasn’t just treading water and hoping no one would notice her. In fact, she was being noticed. Brands were reaching out to her. A swimwear company, about a dozen makeup companies, even a travel company that wanted to offer her and Xander a couple’s trip to somewhere “exotic.” Xander said no to that, telling Aimes that going out of the country was out of the question for him. She tamped down the frustration, telling herself they didn’t need to travel, they were doing just fine shooting in her tiny apartment.

Everything was going so well. She was on her way to a million followers. She had found her niche. She could face her college friends once more, and when they asked her what she did for a living, she could say she was a content creator without any guile.

Then Xander dropped a bomb on her.

“Oh dear,” Vera says, “that sound like abuse.”

“No, not like that. A figurative bomb. Like, bad news.”

“Ah, I see. I like this phrase, dropping bomb on head. Okay, sorry. What did he say?”

Aimes takes another sip of her tea but finds the mug empty. She sets it down on the table and bites her lip before finally blurting out, “He wanted to come clean. He wanted to do a live video where we’d tell everyone the truth, that our relationship was fake, and that in fact, we knew next to nothing about each other. He said he had a huge secret that he’d been hiding, and he couldn’t live with it anymore, and he wanted to expose it with my help.”

“What is this secret?”

“I don’t know,” Aimes sobs. “I told him he was being ridiculous. I said no. He begged me. H-he cried.” She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling hot tears stream down her cheeks. “He said what he had to say was so much more important than a follower count or anything. We got into a fight. He called me—we called each other horrible names. He told me I was a soulless fake, and I told him he was just as fake as I was, and I said—” She can’t. She can’t say it out loud.

“It’s okay,” Vera says, stroking Aimes’s arm. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I said if he ever dares expose our fake relationship, I would ruin his life. Oh god.” She buries her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t think I did, anyway. I don’t know. I was so furious and so scared. I was terrified. By then, I’d built this amazing community on Instagram—followers who felt like they knew me. Some of them had become friends. We chatted every day. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing them. I knew that I’d gone overboard with Xander, so the next morning, I DMed him, apologizing. He didn’t reply. I thought maybe he was ignoring me. Days later, I saw the news about him dying.” Aimes chokes on her tears. “Maybe I could’ve prevented it if I’d just been brave enough to do what he wanted me to do.”

Vera sits there quietly, taking a deep breath. Oh god, she must hate Aimes now. And although Aimes has known Vera for only a short time, she’s terrified at the idea of losing her.

“Do you hate me?” Aimes says in a small voice.

Vera looks surprised. “Hate you? Why can I hate you?”

“Because…” Aimes flails. “Because of what I just told you. All of the lying I did, the ‘fake it till you make it’ bullshit. My whole life is fake.”

“Ah.” Vera grimaces. “I know one thing or two things about being fake.”

“You? No way. You’re, like, the most authentic person I’ve ever come across.”

“Well, last year change a lot of things for me. Before I had good luck of man dying in my teahouse—”

“I really don’t see how that’s good luck,” Aimes says, sniffling.

“I explain to you some other time. But trust me, is very good luck. May you find dead man in your shop one day.”

“Nope, that just does not sound right.”

“Okay, anyway, before that happen, I was very sad. I felt like you, like my life not going anywhere. I had nobody to talk to, nobody to cook for.”

Aimes tries hard to imagine Vera as a lonely individual with no one to cook for, and the image is so heartbreaking she immediately pushes it out of her mind. How can that be possible? Vera is so outgoing, larger than life, how could she possibly have ever been isolated? Maybe she’s just saying this to make Aimes feel better.

“But I don’t tell anyone how sad I am. I pretend like everything is okay. I go for morning walk, I see same people, and I say hi to them. I never once ask, ‘Hello, would you like to come to my place for tea because I am very lonely?’ No. I just wave and smile like everything is fine. I send message to my son, do I tell him ‘I am so lonely I cry sometimes, for no reason, just in the middle of day, suddenly a tear come out’? No, I don’t do that. Instead, I text him and tell him to drink more water or exercise more to keep virile.”

Aimes can’t help but smile at the thought of Vera’s poor son getting a text from her with the word “virile” in it. She reaches out and grasps Vera’s hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Is okay. It make me strong. Give me different understanding of life. I feel like I can understand you better because I go through it myself. So when you ask me, do I hate you? No, Aimes. I see you. I understand what you go through. We are exactly the same. Except my breasts are bigger than yours.”

“What?” Aimes blinks, then bursts into laughter. “Vera!” How does she do that? How does she make Aimes cackle at a time like this?

“Don’t worry, is because I breastfeed, so they get bigger. If you breastfeed, yours will get bigger too.”

“Oh my god.” Aimes wipes her eyes and smiles at Vera.

“You’ll be okay, Aimes. So, maybe you struggle in college, so what? Doesn’t mean you are bad person. My niece Sana, she drop out of CalArts, but does that mean she is not good artist? She is earning well over six figures a year doing art now, you know,” she says with obvious pride.

“That’s amazing.” Aimes kind of hates Sana a little now. Who makes six figures doing art these days? And, if Aimes were to be perfectly honest, she also hates that Sana has an aunt like Vera. If Aimes had an aunt like Vera, life would probably be very different. She wouldn’t be such a mess, for one. But it feels less bad being a mess, having told someone about it and not been judged for it. She takes in a shaky breath. “Thanks for listening.”

“Of course. I’m very good at listening. Okay, so you don’t kill Xander? Just making sure before I cross you off the list.”

And somehow, Vera has whipped out a notebook and a pen and is watching Aimes expectantly.

“There’s an actual list?”

Vera looks affronted. “Yes, of course. I take my job as private investigator seriously.”

“Okay. Well, no, I didn’t kill Xander. I might as well have, turning him away like that, but I didn’t physically kill him, no.”

“Okay, that’s one suspect down.” Vera crosses Aimes’s name off with a flourish. “And now I think we should go to bed, get some beauty sleep, yes? You can sleep in Tilly’s old bedroom.”

For the next few minutes, Vera shuffles back and forth, handing a new toothbrush and extra blankets to Aimes. Aimes takes each item obediently. She’s too exhausted to say or do anything else. Then, next thing she knows, she is being tucked into Tilly’s old bed as though she were a kid again, and it isn’t the worst thing in the world. Vera puts a blanket over Aimes and gives her a quick pat on the shoulder before padding softly to the door.

“Don’t think too much, just go to sleep,” Vera says, turning out the lights.

And for the first time in as long as Aimes can remember, her mind does not spend the next few hours ruminating on every little thing she’s done wrong. Instead, she turns over, closes her eyes, and drifts off into a deep, dreamless sleep.