Eleven
“Tyler Tun’s Darling’s Dim Sum Debut,’” Clarissa says through the phone, enunciating each s and d . “‘Dim Sum and Chill.’ ‘Tyler Tun’s Dim Sum Dine and Dash, but Who Is His Accomplice?’”
We didn’t dine and dash, I retort in my head. Out loud, though, all I say is, “Clarissa, I can explain.”
“Please,” Clarissa says, and I can picture her unamused countenance as she swipes the headline tabs closed. Headlines that everybody I know—and their mother and second cousins—have been texting me since before my alarm went off. My phone log is a list of red: missed calls from my parents, Nay, Thidar, even Patrick (although I have a feeling this was Thidar trying to be sneaky). I hadn’t picked up a single one. Because I was busy getting ready for a 9 A.M. call time, because I am a professional, a journalist who is still on the job. Or at least, I hope I’m still on the job. Judging by Clarissa’s tone and the fact that she didn’t even respond with a “hello” when I’d picked up with my most effusive “Morning, Clarissa!” I might actually not have this specific job for much longer.
“We were having lunch—”
“With his family,” Clarissa clarifies for the record.
“Yes,” I state coolly.
“On a Sunday.”
“He invited me.”
A pause. “Khin. You know I’m not into bullshitting, so I’m going to come out and ask it. Are you and Tyler dating?”
“What? No!” I yell. Beside me, Tyler, who had otherwise directed his intense focus out the window since the start of this call, rolls his shoulders. The quiet back here is biting, so I have no doubt he can hear every word on the other line.
“Are you fucking?”
A mortified scoff escapes me. “No, Clarissa, we’re not.”
“Then why the hell—” She pauses, as though she’s also trying to temper her reaction. “Did a hundred cameras catch Tyler literally lying on top of you on the floor?”
“Clarissa, he tripped .” My tone is right on the edge of snappy, but the more I think about this, the more ridiculous this line of questioning is. “Has nobody seen a person trip before?”
This time, she’s the one to scoff. “Nobody’s seen Tyler Tun trip on top of a woman before, I can tell you that.”
“Clarissa, come on, those tabloids are chasing clicks.” Remembering that she is technically my boss here and has the ability to kick me off the job faster than I can say “Action,” I force myself to take a deep breath and hold it for three seconds before I speak again. “I know it doesn’t look good. But what happened was he tripped and I tried to catch him and then we both fell over. That’s literally it. I’m not dating Tyler. I don’t want to date Tyler.” To my left, I catch Tyler give another shoulder roll, but I can’t focus on him right now. “Clarissa,” I say. “You gave me this job because of my professionalism and because I am good at what I do. Why on earth would I jeopardize the biggest assignment of my career?”
I think I can hear a rhythmic tapping from her end, as though she’s clacking her nails against a laptop or tabletop as she considers my answer. “Khin—” She doesn’t say my name so much as she sighs it. “I have a board to answer to. We can’t be giving our biggest cover story to a journalist who might have a… personal bias. HR alone will be a nightmare, and I don’t even want to think of how much overtime PR is going to have to put in. And on a personal level, I will not be accused of being unprofessional and handing this story to you simply because you are Tyler Tun’s girl—”
I can see it slipping through my fingers like oil-coated grains of sand: this assignment, Vogue Singapore, my fresh start in a new city, my new post-divorce plan. “Clarissa, this is sexist bullshit.”
“Oh?” she asks, staggered into silence.
“People already assume that every time a woman interviews a male subject, we’re secretly hoping that they’ll ask us out. Screw the board! Why do we have to pay because a group of old men can’t stop hyper-sexualizing every single movement that a young woman makes? Since when did ‘tripping in the middle of a restaurant’ become a valid reason to fire someone?” Did I just tell her to screw the board of Vogue ? I push myself back into the leather seat, wishing I could melt into it and out of existence.
“Tell her we’ll release a statement.”
I fling open my eyes and turn toward Tyler. His stern frown is aimed not at me, but at my phone. “What?” I whisper, covering the mic with one hand.
“Tell her we’ll release a statement,” he repeats. “If the board fires you after that —”
“Khin—” Clarissa’s voice takes on an even firmer texture. “Is he there with you right now? Has he been listening to our conversation this whole time?”
Widening my eyes, I make a shushing motion with one finger at Tyler, and then to really drive the point home, also make a zipping motion across my lips. “No,” I lie. The absolute last thing I need right now is a statement from Tyler, because it would simply be more proof to Clarissa that I’m getting some sort of special treatment because I’m his girlfriend. “We’re on the way to the set, but he’s talking on his phone. He’s… talking to his publicist about all of this. He’s telling her what I’m telling you, that it was an unfortunate series of accidents. But that’s all it was. An accident.”
This time, the sound of her nails rapping is undeniable. “Fine,” she says at last, but the tension on the line hasn’t decreased a millimeter. “But Khin, don’t let this happen again.”
I nod frantically even though I know she can’t see it. “It won’t,” I confirm. “I’m grateful for this job, Clarissa, you know that.”
“Good.” For some reason, I can see her giving me a curt nod. “That’s also good to know because you’re working next Sunday.”
“Of course!” I say. At this point, she could’ve said, Make me the sole benefactor of your will, and I would’ve started texting my lawyer immediately.
“It’s for the photo shoot. Sunday was the only day Tyler was available. We’ve rented a studio. I think it’ll help you to start framing the story if you see what direction we’re taking the photos.”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“I’ll email you the details. We’ll speak soon,” she says, and hangs up as briskly as she started the conversation.
“Ready?” Tyler asks. “Or do you need a moment?”
“Huh?” I respond. My whole body is jittering, and I feel like I’ve lost my spot in the space-time continuum.
I look out when he nods toward the window. We’re at the lot already, although how long we’ve been parked here I have no clue.
“I can get my team to release a statement,” he says quietly. I turn back to him to make sure I heard correctly, and find him looking at me with complete seriousness.
“No, that’s okay, let’s just let this die out,” I hear myself saying politely.
Internally, though, my veins are pulsating. How can he be this ignorant? I was seconds away from losing this job and very possibly having my entire professional reputation tarnished as the girl who slept her way to getting this assignment—all because he wanted me to come to that stupid brunch to show me that he is the perfect son and brother. And that is, of course, on top of the fact that my coming to brunch also allowed him to keep tabs on me even outside of work.
“We should get going,” I grumble, and, ignoring the way his smile fades, open the door.
“Tyler!” Yasmin’s voice greets us before I’ve even come around to the other side of the car. My features freeze and tighten into something painful once she is in my line of sight, and I see who’s behind her. “You remember Detectives Zeyar and Htet, right?”
“Of course.” Tyler, still his usual collected self, gives them an acknowledging nod. “You were here last week. Can we help you, Detectives?”
Blood is thrumming in my ears. They saw us on Saturday. They were still keeping an eye on the park—like Tyler said, some culprits just can’t help but return to the scene of the crime—and someone clocked me. Then they ran all the plates in the parking lot, and saw that one of them was registered to the car service that everyone on this movie uses. Tyler and I are both going down.
“We’d like to talk to you again, Khin,” Detective Zeyar says. I look up and realize they’re not looking at me and Tyler. Just me. His tone becomes blatantly accusatory as he adds, “You failed to mention to us that you’ve had a run-in with the police before.”
“I… didn’t see how that was relevant to this case,” I say, trying to coax my body language into relaxed territory even though my escalating anger and anxiety are making me anything but. From a glass-half-full perspective, though, it doesn’t sound like they know about us revisiting the park.
“Well, from what we hear,” Detective Htet says, stepping in my direction. I brace myself to stop from flinching back. “You’re a bit of a troublemaker.”
Troublemaker? I open my mouth, ready to spit out something like, Now, now, your misogyny is showing, but then remember where I am, remember that Tyler and Yasmin and several crew members are also present. “Why don’t we let them”—I nod at Tyler—“get started with the shoot? I don’t want to be holding anyone up.”
Detective Zeyar opens his mouth but it’s Tyler’s voice that I hear first. “Do we need to call our legal team?”
“That depends,” Detective Zeyar replies to him, and I can tell that whatever he was going to say to me wasn’t nearly as polite. “In our experience, though, it’s only the guilty ones that require legal representation.”
“Or the smart ones that ask for it,” Tyler says with an innocent head tilt.
Both detectives exchange a look. “Of course Khin is entitled to legal counsel if she wants. But we just have a few follow-up questions. We don’t think it’ll be necessary.”
I know the responsible course of action here is to insist I’ll wait for a lawyer, but I’m too fixated on the disgusting, smug sneers on these men’s faces to remember to be scared. “It’s okay,” I say, fixing my own dauntless smile. “I’m happy to cooperate. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”
“Khin—” Tyler begins.
“Go. I don’t want to be the reason you guys run late today.”
“Right this way,” Detective Htet says, and turns to lead me toward their pathetic makeshift interrogation room, his colleague sandwiching me from behind like I’m some perp who might flee at any second.
“So the thing is,” Detective Zeyar says once we’re sitting at the wobbly wooden table in the storage room, the two of them huddled together on one side because that’s the only way they can both face and (I suppose) intimidate me. I hold back an eye roll as I watch them consciously make an effort not to rub shoulders because, of course, that’s too much physical contact for their macho (and most likely homophobic) personas. “A funny thing happened yesterday. A few of us were gathered at my place to watch the football game in the evening when my teenage daughter ran into the living room in tears. Do you know why?”
I shake my head.
“It turns out, Tyler Tun has a girlfriend now. And when I asked who it was, she showed me an Instagram video of Tyler on top of a woman. Now, of course, I’m sure you’re aware that that woman was you.”
“That was a misunderstanding. Tyler and I aren’t dating. We’re colleagues.”
“Right,” he says, his tone making it clear that he does not believe me. “I did remember you, though, and imagine my surprise when my buddy Zaw jabbed a finger at the screen and said, ‘I know her,’ even though he’s been nowhere near this case.”
I swallow. “Oh?”
At this point, Detective Htet leans in. “You see, it turns out he was part of an investigation that was looking into an article you wrote earlier this year? About an—” I know the pause is deliberate. I know what the article is about, and he knows I know. “Abortion clinic?”
I draw up the corners of my smile. “That investigation was closed. And like I said earlier, I’m not quite sure how that is relevant to our current—”
“Do you hate men, Khin?”
I give a small jump in my seat. “What?” I ask, and curse myself when both of them smirk at having caught me by surprise.
“It’s a simple question,” Detective Zeyar says with a nonchalant shrug. “Do you hate men?”
“I don’t see how that’s an appropriate question.”
“Oh, my bad,” Detective Zeyar says, shaking his head. “I forgot to tell you why we are here, because you’re right. We didn’t have a reason to come back simply because you were part of an earlier closed investigation and because you might or might not be dating Tyler—”
“I’m not.”
“Right,” he says, and I swear under my breath that if he says Right one more time in this conversation, I am going to choke him with the neon purple feather boa that’s draped around the mannequin behind him. He takes out his phone from his jacket pocket, unlocks it, and rotates it around to me, obviously having planned this big reveal hours ago.
“What’s this?” I ask with a bored sigh. “I don’t—” I stop once I take in what’s on the screen. In a daze, I grab the phone with both hands, zooming in and out of the photo.
“There’s more,” Detective Htet’s voice says. “Swipe to the left.”
And I do. And he’s right. There is more. So much more.
They’re photos of me. In front of my current apartment building. In front of my old house. At the park with Ben. At my favorite café, hunched over my laptop, wireless headphones atop my head. Inspecting a mug at a farmer’s market with Thidar and Nay. There’s a picture of me walking Pizza. Another of me and Ben leaving a restaurant after a double date with Thidar and Patrick.
The last dozen or so are of me getting out of a taxi in Chinatown on the first night I met Tyler.
When I put the phone down on the table, my hands are trembling.
“What—” I breathe, trying to speak through the rush of blood to my head. “What is this?” Who took these?
“ That, ” Detective Zeyar says as he retrieves and pockets his phone, “was what we found on the dead man’s phone. It washed up a few days later. We assumed it was useless due to all the water damage, but it turns out our tech department recently got quite the equipment upgrade. They also got us an identity.”
“Oh?” is all I can say as I try to stave off the panic attack, unsure which part of this conversation I’m panicking in response to.
Detective Htet nods. “Yes. His name is Jared Kirkwood. He’s an Australian citizen who’s lived here for eight years. Does that name ring a bell?”
I shake my head so hard I almost give myself whiplash. “I’ve never heard that name.”
“Interesting,” he says, furrowing his brows as though he’s doing some quick mental math. “But then… how come his camera roll is nothing but photos of you? We went through the whole thing. There are no pictures of his friends, food, holidays, nothing. It’s all… you. To be frank, it’s like he got a whole new phone just for you.”
Despite the thudding in my ears, I retrieve enough cognizance to repeat, “I… don’t know this man.”
“But he knows you.”
“But I don’t know him. ”
“Are you sure?” Detective Zeyar steeples his fingers and leans in. “All these photos, and you don’t know him at all? Maybe you ran into him somewhere? Went on a date with him at one point? Help us out here, Khin.”
At last, a voice inside my brain manages to cut through the jum ble of confusion and panic that’s swirling around. “Lawyer,” I say, remembering Tyler’s words.
“Now, Khin, we’re just having a chat here,” Detective Zeyar continues, his saccharine tone making this situation ten times worse. “But if you lawyer up, well, you can see why we might start to get suspicious.”
I steel my spine and swallow, pushing my despair and bile back down. If I’m going to buckle and vomit—either words, or the bagel I had for breakfast—it will not be in front of their ugly faces. “And I don’t appreciate you harassing me about a man who has clearly been stalking me,” I reply with a glare.
He sighs like I’m a child who won’t listen to reason. “Look, sweetheart, just because we’re doing our job doesn’t mean we’re harassing —” The “sweetheart” was bad, but when he rolls his eyes on “harassing,” like I’m now a child who throws the word “harassing” around without really knowing what it means, the anger from earlier resurfaces.
“I’m not answering any more questions until I have a lawyer present.”
“Kh—”
“Lawyer.”
They release me without any more questions, but not without a final subdued “You’ve made things very difficult for yourself.”
Tyler’s in the middle of a scene when I slip onto set. I grab an empty chair in the back, take out my notebook and open it on my lap so it looks like everything’s peachy and I’m working as always.
Obviously I have to resume looking into that man. Good news is, now I have an actual lead. I press the tip of my pen into the center of the page as I think it through. What was his name again? Jared Kirkwood. Australian. I write it down in the back of my notebook before I forget.
I have to find out who this Jared Kirkwood is, for two reasons. One, this random man whom I have never encountered apart from those ten minutes in the park was most definitely targeting me, and I want to know why. And second, I need to see how close the police are to finding me out; I need to track down the same leads that they’re inevitably going to, and, somehow, be sly about asking about Jared and why he might’ve been stalking a random woman.
The obvious course of action here would be to call Kira, but what would I ask her? Hey, did Charlie propose yet? Oh, and while I’ve got you, and not to be all “do all Australians know one another,” but do you happen to know a Jared Kirkwood who’s been following and taking photos of me for the past several months? But if I do that, I might as well also take a red Sharpie and write “Suspect Number One” on my own forehead.
Tyler was right—this wasn’t a moment of opportunity; this man was stalking me. A chill spreads across my arms as that last realization really settles: this stranger was following me around for literal months and I never knew. What was he going to do in that park? Did he come there that night to kill me? How long had he been waiting out there? My stomach starts churning like I had a big meal before getting on a roller coaster, but I’m at the top of the tracks now, and whether I like it or not, the ride has started.
“So are you going to tell me?” Tyler asks as soon as the car divider rolls up.
“Tell you what?”
“Khin, what’s going on?”
I give him a few innocent blinks. “Oh, the interrogation? It was fine,” I say with a dismissive shrug. “I did tell them I wanted a lawyer if they want to talk to me again, though. I already told Yasmin.”
Silently, he surveys me in that way I don’t like, that way from the first night as though, against my will, I’ve got my entire history etched all over my body and clothes for him to take his sweet time reading. “What did they mean when they said you’d had a previous run-in with the police?”
I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about that. You’re not a real journalist until you’ve had at least one brush with the cops.”
“Khin,” he says, voice going protective. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. They just had a few questions.”
“About?”
My face twitches, and I don’t hide the fact that I’m gritting my teeth to hold myself back from exploding. “My personal history is none of your business,” I reply politely.
He flinches, eyes quickly darting to the soundproof car divider to make sure it’s still up. “It is when it involves me. And the authorities. Look, I’m only asking because I wanna be able to keep an eye out for you. And I can’t do that unless we’re on the same page.”
“Oh really? Is that why?” I scoff.
“What does that mean?” Tyler asks, and the fact that he’s still keeping up this fa?ade is what pushes me over the edge. I know you’re supposed to keep your enemies closer, but why am I still acting civil and playing ignorant toward a man who keeps putting on this performance to my face?
It means that I’m aware you’re asking about my interview so you can gather more dirt to use against me if you get backed into a corner and want to cut a deal, I want to yell. So that if it comes to it, your team can point out that you are a law-abiding citizen with not so much as a traffic ticket to your name, whereas I actively write full-page features on illegal abortion clinics.
“It means that I’m not stupid, Tyler,” I snap, not caring an iota about professionalism anymore. “That night, you only agreed that we shouldn’t call the cops when I pointed out the repercussions it’d have for you, because that’s all you’ve ever cared about from the start. Which is, you know, fair. We all have our own priorities.”
“That’s not—”
“I said it’s fine . But don’t keep reiterating this nonsense about caring about me. You’re keeping me close because I am the only person in the world who knows something that could damage your otherwise faultless reputation.” And then, at the point of no return, it comes out like word vomit: “I also know you’re keeping something from me. You’ve been keeping a secret from me since the first night we met, so don’t keep blindly repeating that I need to trust you when we both know that I have a very good reason not to.”
His mouth opens but no sound comes out. He’s more than startled. Hurt. But I am so furious right now that I can’t even curtail my tears as I continue.
“I don’t need you to come up with any more lies that I’m coerced into playing along with. If my editor heard the police had interrogated just me, which, by the way, would not have happened if I hadn’t been at that damn brunch in the first place, not even a press release from you would save my ass. From now on, you do your job and I do mine, and I’ll clean up my own messes myself . We’re not a team. Let’s at least do each other the courtesy of admitting that we’re only looking out for ourselves. Regardless of what your big secret that you’re keeping from me is, and don’t you dare try to tell me that I’m imagining things because I know I’m not, stop trying to convince me that I should tell you everything when you won’t do the same with me. At least show me that modicum of respect.”
I snatch a tissue from the box in front of us and blow my nose. To his credit, he waits until I’m done dabbing my eyes and have somewhat recomposed myself before saying softly, “I’m sorry. I—” He cuts himself off. “I’m really sorry,” he repeats.
I shake my head, sapped. Of everything. “Stay out of my business. Please. I’ll take care of this on my own from now on.”