Six
“And… done!” Moh Moh, the makeup artist, announces with a triumphant smile after rubbing the makeup sponge across Tyler’s cheekbones one final time.
Tyler, still in his chair and facing the mirror, flashes a smile. “Thanks, gang,” he says. And then, “Hey, do you guys mind stepping out? I need five minutes with Khin.” When they exchange repressed smirks, he inclines his chin at my reflection and adds, “Your editor still wants to talk to us today, right?”
Once Tyler tightens his smile at my dazed reflection, I understand. “Yes!” I check my watch. “In fact, Clarissa should be calling any minute.”
“Right,” he says, standing and turning to face everyone. “We’ll be out as soon as we’re done.” Addressing Tun, he adds, “Please make sure no one disturbs us,” and the kid nods with such determination that I’m surprised he doesn’t add a little salute.
When they’re gone, Tyler locks the door and joins me on the other end of the couch.
The panic attack that I’ve been staving off since my shower this morning punches me right in the face. “Tyler,” I say, voice already trembling. I will not survive a police interrogation. “What are we going to do?”
“It’s going to be okay,” he says, so calmly that it almost hypnotizes me into believing him. “The fact that they’re interviewing everyone means that they don’t have any suspects.”
“But we can’t let someone else take the fall for this.”
He shakes his head. “Of course not. No one is going to take the fall for this. And no one is going to find out what happened.”
I hug my knees to my chest, fear tightening and twisting my nerves. “I killed a man. Oh my god, I really killed a man. We killed a man. But everyone knows I went home early. I was the only one who left.” My eyes start to widen, which is weird, considering my lungs are rapidly constricting. “I’m the only viable suspect.”
He slides closer to me and puts a hand on my elbow. “Even if that is true, as long as neither of us breaks, they don’t have anything concrete. But Khin.” His warm, soft fingers curl around my skin and, to my surprise, the gesture grounds me, preventing me from floating away completely. “You need to trust me, remember?”
I blink, really registering him for what feels like the first time today. “Trust you?” I echo, my body coiling tighter, so tight that it feels as if I’m going to snap clean in the middle.
He seems confused by my question, but nods nonetheless. “I’m not going to tell anyone. You have my word.”
I stare at him, sentences starting and finishing in my head.
“Khin?” Tyler tips his head, trying to get a better read on me.
The filter between my brain and mouth collapses. “We just met. I don’t know anything about you. You don’t know anything about me. We’re strangers! We could betray each other at any second!” I close then open my mouth. When a sob leaps out, I shutter my face with my palms. “I don’t want to go to jail,” I whisper.
“Khin,” he says, and tries to interlace his fingers through mine, but immediately I startle backward. “Sorry,” he says, raising his hands.
I swallow. “What if they break one of us?”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because we’re in this together.” And, as though he knows that by What if they break one of us, I meant to say, What if they break you, he adds, “I have things on the line, too, remember?”
My heart is pounding so hard, I’m worried a blood vessel is going to pop somewhere. “But—”
“I won’t break. I promise. You have to believe me, Khin.” His upper body straightens as he inhales. “The only way we’ll get through this is if we trust each other. Now I trust you completely. But I…” He pauses. “I need you to do the same with me, too.”
I study his face and body for the smallest tic, anything to indicate that he’s lying—but I get nothing. Either he’s very good under pressure, or he’s telling the truth. Or he’s someone who acts for a living and is transferring those skills over to his private life; there’s also that possibility. After all, I just watched him lie to Yasmin. He’s had no trouble playing it cool as a small team of artists cocoons him and does his hair and makeup, whereas I still want to scream anytime someone so much as brushes their arm against mine. If it weren’t for my panic attack, he’d already be on set right now, shooting scenes and hanging out with May.
But I also know he’s right. As much as I detest leaving my fate in someone else’s hands, we won’t get through this unless I trust him, even if it’s only the minimum amount required. All I can do is trust him and be wary of him— that’ll be fun, I think with a silent, rueful scoff.
To his surprise, in one swift and wordless motion, I stand up, walk toward the mirror, and brace myself on the vanity counter. My eyes are red-rimmed and my hair is a flat mess, although I do pat myself on the back for having the foresight to skip the mascara today. I undo my bun and shake out my hair. “He was going to rape me and then he was going to kill me. It was self-defense,” I say to my reflection.
Tyler nods. “It was .”
Straightening my posture, I start fixing my hair into a new neat bun. I’m scared and sleep-deprived and a little angry and, overall, exhausted, but I need to rally. Yesterday was the worst day of your life, I remind my reflection as I comb my fingers through my strands. You lived through the worst day of your life, and you’re still here. “We need a plan,” I say with newfound determination. “Starting with the pen. That pen is still out there, and I need to go back to that park and find it before they do.”
Tyler gets to his feet. “When—”
Several consecutive loud thuds on the door make us both jump.
“Yeah?” Tyler calls out.
“I’m really sorry to disturb you,” Tun’s voice answers, muffled by the door. “But they’re asking if you’re ready. May’s done with her scene.”
“Okay! Be out in a minute!” Tyler turns to me, briefly surprised to find me facing him now.
We don’t have time to come up with a plan right this second. I walk forward until I’m near enough to smell his fresh pine scent. I tilt my head up, noting that he is probably the tallest Asian person I know, before trying to find one last indication that he’s lying to me.
“Can I really trust you?” I finally ask when I don’t see anything, although it feels a lot like peering into a dark cave from the entrance and going, From this vantage point, I can’t see anything that could potentially kill me, so surely it must be safe.
“I promise,” he says.
If at any point during filming it hits Tyler that he’s now an accomplice to an actual crime, he doesn’t show it. At all.
I watch him nail his lines, cry on command, laugh at May’s character’s jokes. That’s weird, right? I want to pull someone aside and whisper. That he’s still this good at his job despite, you know, everything ?
But of course I can’t do that, so instead I stand in the shadows and decide that, hey, if Tyler’s doing his job, then that means it’s time for me to do mine, too. I reopen that plastic container from earlier and shove all this new information—the police, the investigation, Tyler saying with complete seriousness, I promise —into it and shut it once more. Flipping through my notebook, I land on my list of questions from earlier and—
“Boo!” A male voice in my ear makes me jump and I let out a small yelp, to everybody’s immediate and obvious disapproval. “Sorry!” I squeak, holding up a hand in apology.
When Yasmin commands, “Alright, let’s start again from the top,” people descend onto the set and begin rearranging the room in which Nanda and Mra had been having an intense argument that will eventually lead to their first hookup.
“Wha—” I hiss as I turn to the source of the voice, and stop, shock replacing my anger. “Jason!” I gasp.
“A little birdie told me you were here,” Jason says and wraps his lanky arms around me.
In a stiff motion like I’m hugging that uncle at a family gathering, I put my arms around his waist for two seconds before letting go. “No one told me you were here!” I sputter. “What are you doing here?”
“My job.” When I respond with a frown, Jason rolls his eyes and motions over at May, who’s running lines with her PA. “What, did you think any common makeup artist could blend neon blue and orange eyeshadow that seamlessly?”
I had been thinking earlier that May’s makeup looked incredible. “Wait. I didn’t see you yesterday.”
He waves a hand. “My flight from Mandalay got canceled and the next one out was this morning.”
“Oh,” I say. Jason looks like he’s waiting for me to say something a little… more . “I… see.”
His jaw works, and he squints at me as though double-checking that he has the right person. “You okay?” His initial enthusiasm has tapered. “You don’t look so good.”
Fuck. I throw my free hand in the air. “Sorry, this whole thing,” I gesture around us, “is still so bizarre to me, and my editor emailed me early this morning, so I’m… feeling the pressure.”
Jason’s face lights up with an Ah expression. “That’s totally understandable, but—”
I don’t know how long Tyler’s been standing beside us, but when he says, “Hey,” Jason and I both whip our heads at the same time.
Tyler looks at me and then at Jason before extending a hand. “Hi, I don’t think we met yesterday? I’m Tyler.”
I know that as one of the region’s most sought-after makeup artists, Jason typically does not get starstruck. Typically. But at Tyler’s hand reaching out for his, he lets out a giggle, reddens at the sound that he just made, straightens himself and tries to smile, and, after several awkwardly long seconds, takes Tyler’s hand. “I’m J-Jason,” he says, tripping over his own name in the last moment. “I’m May’s head makeup artist.”
“Hi,” Tyler says. With a half shrug in my direction, he asks, “You two know each other?”
Jason and I exchange a look. “I’m…” His smile stiffens. “Ben’s brother.”
“Ben?” Tyler asks.
Jason gives me another look to ask if he should take this one as well. “Ben is my ex,” I say, and add for context, “Husband. My ex-husband.”
“Ah.” Tyler nods.
“Yep,” I say.
“I know this one pretty well.” Jason nudges my shoulder with his. “I miss you! It feels like it’s been ages since we last saw each other.”
It’s my turn to draw my smile into something civil. “I missed you, too.” A part of me means it, but this is the first time I’ve seen Jason since he helped Ben pack up his stuff, and I really don’t want to be doing this here right now. I’m never a fan of putting my personal life on display for people to gawk at and probe, but I’m especially not into doing it in front of a film crew, each of whom undoubtedly knows someone who knows someone who knows about my and Ben’s divorce. Funny how cities are always big, except for when you need them to be.
“She’d even tag along to our shoots sometimes,” Jason continues, addressing Tyler.
“Shoots?” Tyler raises a brow.
“Ben was a photographer. Is. He’s a photographer,” I explain.
“Sorry, I thought you knew,” Jason says, oblivious to my dagger eyes. “My brother and I often overlap on shoots. And it’d always be a blast whenever Khin showed up. We always talked about doing a story together, the three of us, and then—” When he looks back at me this time, I know there’s nothing subtle about the way I’m flashing my teeth via my most menacing smile (but a smile nonetheless!).
“I mean—” he starts.
“Jason!” May calls out. She’s holding a coffee flask in her hands. “Do you mind redoing my lipstick? Sorry, this latte was speaking to me.”
“Coming!” Jason yells and sprints over.
Before I can make any small talk, Tyler takes a half step closer. “They want to talk to us,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“The police. They want to talk to us after this scene,” he says, body language cloaked in normalcy, like we’re chitchatting while crew members re-angle the paintings on the walls. “Immediately after.”
“You have to stall them. Throw a tantrum.”
“Over what?”
“I dunno, actor stuff!” I hiss. “Maybe you don’t like your outfit.”
A sound comes out of his chest but it’s muffled by him pressing his lips shut. I think it was meant to be a laugh but it translates into a low rumble. “You don’t think it’ll be suspicious if I stall the police? Police who are asking to speak to people about a murder investigation?”
“You’re the star of the show,” I say, contorting my mouth into a taut smile. “If you can get an assortment of sorbets stocked in your trailer, I’m sure you can figure this out. What is that about, by the way?”
“How do you know about the sorbets?”
“I checked out your rider.”
“You mean you snooped.”
“I’m a journalist.”
“Snoop.”
He’s technically right, but I’m not admitting that. “You’re missing the point,” I mutter, and crack my neck. “You need to stall so that we can coordinate our stories. Or else they might hear a discrepancy and get suspicious and press and one of us will crack.”
Out of the corner of my eye—because for some reason, we’re still not looking at each other—I see his shoulders shake lightly with a silent laugh. “Khin, I lie for a living, remember? I’m not going to crack,” he says. My eyes trail up to his face which, at last, turns to me. “Are you ?”
I scrunch up my own face in offense. “I wouldn’t crack if my life depended on it.”
He lifts a brow. “Didn’t you just have a meltdown in my trailer?” His tone is teasing, and instead of being mean or accusatory, the question comes out like a friendly jab, like the kind Thidar or Nay would give me.
“Nope, you must have the wrong person,” I reply with a sneer. His soft smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes, and in a short glitch, my heart goes light and jittery in my chest. “Why the sorbets?” I counter, breaking eye contact and peering over at May, whose hair team is spritzing her with three different sprays.
“I’m trying to go vegan.”
“What?”
Tyler shrugs. “Better for the environment.”
“But a vegan James Bond?” I gasp-whisper. “PETA is going to have a field day with that. They’re going to have a giant billboard of you cuddling bunnies in the middle of Times Square!”
“PETA is a racist and misogynistic organization and my team knows I will never work with them,” Tyler responds. After a beat, his eyes slide over to meet mine. “I would say you can quote me on that, but I should probably clear it with Bolu first. Just in case she needs to get a head start on the PR.”
“Too bad, pal,” I say, pursing my lips to the side. “No take-backs.”
He laughs, and for a split second, the sound grates over my skin in a simultaneously delicious and uncomfortable way. And then the next second, I’m slapping myself with an invisible ruler because that is so unethical and also because I’ve remembered why Tyler came over in the first place.
“I—” I start.
He seems to remember, too, because, expression sobering, he mutters, “Take off an earring.”
“What?”
“Your earrings. They look expensive.”
“They are . They were my thirtieth birthday present to myself. I got them at this little boutique in Florence.”
“Good. Now take one off. Quickly.”
“But—”
“Khin, trust me .”
“I—”
“Once that last pillow is fluffed,” he inconspicuously points his chin toward the set, where people are starting to scamper off and May’s strolling back to her mark, “we’re screwed. Lose one earring. Now.”
I tilt my head down so that my hair falls over my left ear. Then, pretending like I’m scratching the back of my neck, I remove the backing from my rose-gold-encased sapphire earring and drop it in the back pocket of my purse.
“Good,” Tyler says. “Now gasp really loudly. Like you’ve just found out SVU ’s been canceled.”
Unintentionally, I do gasp really loudly. I also jerk back and my face contorts with horror. “How dare—”
“What’s wrong?” Tyler asks, also loudly. He shifts to face me, and tucking his chin in so that his expression is hidden from view from the rest of the now-silent cast and crew, flicks his eyes at my left ear.
Oh, I mouth. “My earring!” I gasp, and feel around my lobe. “I lost my earring!”
“The family heirloom?” Tyler asks. His eyes are frantic as they start darting around at the floor.
“Huh?”
“The sapphire ones, right?” I’m lost, but Tyler’s act doesn’t falter, not even once. He looks up and widens his eyes. “The irreplaceable ones that your grandmother left you in her will? The ones that hold a lot of sentiment ?”
“Oh!” Right. Yes. “Yes!” I say and, for some reason, drop to my knees like someone’s kicked them from behind. The move is so sudden that Tyler grabs my shoulder, looking genuinely concerned.
“You good?”
“Everything okay?” Yasmin has walked over, and so have May and Jason. Wonderful.
“I lost an earring,” I say, now half crawling in a circle around their feet, only giving them the view of the back of my head. My face is fixed firmly downward because the second they see it, they’re going to know something’s up. “It’s a round sapphire set in rose gold.”
“It was her grandmother’s,” I hear Tyler explain. “Who… inherited it from her mother.”
I crouch lower, like I’m physically carrying the ever-increasing weight of our lies on my literal back.
“Oh no!” May gasps. “Everyone, we’re looking for an earring! Be careful, we don’t want to accidentally step on it! Get on your knees!”
And then, to my absolute, utter, inconceivable horror, everybody drops to their knees and starts crawling around. Including Yasmin and May. May Diamond, the first non-Angel to close the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, the newest face of Burberry, the fifth highest-paid actress in the world, is on her hands and knees, scouring the dirty floors of this massive set for an invisible heirloom earring that I inherited from my dead grandmother. I hear people whispering all around me. One person starts to yell “I fou—” only for someone else to say, “That’s a piece of gum, stupid!” My head hangs lower, and I don’t know if it’s with shame or because I definitely cannot let anyone see my flaming cheeks right now.
“Tyler!” I hear May yell. “Why are you standing? Start looking! What is wrong with men?!”
“Maybe you dropped it in the car,” Tyler says. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize he’s talking to me.
I look up to find Tyler’s eyes staring so fixedly at me I’m surprised he didn’t burn holes into the back of my head. “Yes! Good idea!” I scramble to my feet.
“Good call,” May says. I catch Yasmin pause and open her mouth to say something but May announces, “We’ll keep looking here,” and crawls a few feet away. Yasmin smiles, sighs, and crawls in the opposite direction.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper-yell when we’ve marched far enough away from the set.
“That,” Tyler whisper-yells back, “was me saving our asses. Now we need to think of a story.”
“We? I feel like you should be the one to think of a story since you’re so good at it, Mr. It Was a Family Heirloom.”
He presses the button on the keys that Yan had handed over on our way out. Once the car beeps twice, he opens one of the back doors while I angrily jerk the other open. We lean in from opposite sides, torsos hovering above the backseat.
“I didn’t think the expensive earrings you treated yourself to at a small boutique in Florence were going to warrant us pausing the entire shoot,” he says through gritted perfect teeth that I bet never needed braces. “Do you know how much a single delayed minute costs?”
“Do you ?”
“Of course I do! It’s my job !”
“Since when?!” I’m trying my hardest not to yell, but the burn of shame on my face is being replaced by one of growing annoyance. “All you have to do is show up and read the script and look pretty!”
Tyler’s creased forehead softens. That rogue smile tugs one corner of his lips upward. “You think I look pretty?” he asks, and bites the inside of his cheeks like he’s trying to hold back a cheeky comment.
“Uggggh!” I put a fist to my mouth. “Are you serious right now? May is right! What is wrong with men?! Focus! What’s our story?”
He holds up a hand. “You’re right, sorry.” A part of me feels bad when the creases on his forehead return. “Obviously Yasmin’s mentioned that you left early last night, so the police will probably focus on that.”
“What did you say? Food poisoning or period?”
“Period. We all ate at craft services, so it didn’t make sense that you were the only one who got food poisoning.”
I nod. “Smart. Okay, so my period got really bad. I took a walk to get some fresh air but when that didn’t work, I came and told you—”
“—because you needed my help covering for you if your editor asked how the shoot went—”
“—and I said I was feeling woozy, which is why you walked me to the car.”
“Did we see or hear anything?” Tyler asks.
I chew on my bottom lip as I consider it. “Would it be suspicious if we didn’t? But would we open ourselves up to questioning if we say we did?”
I don’t realize I’ve switched to thinking aloud until his cautious voice answers, “We thought we heard something as we were making our way to the car, but the set was so noisy anyway so we disregarded it. Maybe we saw the man, but people were also taking cigarette breaks, so even if we did, he didn’t catch our attention.”
A queasy sensation begins to sprawl across my gut. I know I should be thankful that he’s taking the lead, that while I’m losing my mind, Tyler is composed and has come up with what sounds like an actually plausible story. But it’s the way he came up with it—so easily, so quickly—that’s making me want to turn and run. I just watched him lie to his best friend and not even blink. All that his calm confidence is doing right now is giving me more proof that I shouldn’t trust him.
“You okay?” Tyler asks, head tipping to the side. “Does that… sound good to you?”
I nod because what else am I supposed to do? “Yes,” I say. “It does. It sounds great .”