Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
SANA
Sana has never been so nervous in her entire life. She feels light-headed. She’s never felt light-headed before. She didn’t even understand what it means to “feel light-headed,” couldn’t even imagine it, and now here she is. It feels a lot less pleasant than it sounds. She’d thought that maybe it would feel like her head was weightless, but no, actually, it feels like the insides of her head have been replaced by nothing but water and everything is now sloshing around and she feels like she might either faint or puke or both.
Officer Gray is going on and on about how irresponsible they all are for not reporting the break-in to the police, especially since a death occurred in the shop not long ago.
“But you guys said Marshall’s death was an accident,” Sana hears someone say. To her horror, she realizes a moment too late that the someone was her. Stop talking, mouth. But her mouth has grown a mind of its own and continues blathering. “Vera said so.”
“Oh, Vera said so, did she?” Officer Gray throws her hands up. “And is Vera a cop?”
The three of them are silent.
“Is Vera a private detective, maybe?”
Riki raises a tentative hand. “I think she counts as an amateur sleuth?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Officer Gray turns her back on them for a second, taking in a deep, frustrated breath. Then she turns back around to face them. “Let me make this very clear. Vera does not have any authority to do or proclaim anything about Marshall Chen’s death, you hear me?”
Sana feels her head nodding mechanically.
“So when something like this happens,” Officer Gray continues, “I don’t want to hear about it from her neighbor.”
“Her neighbor?” Oliver says.
“Probably the owner of the bakery next door,” Riki says.
“Oof, Vera’s not going to be happy about that,” Sana mutters, recalling Vera’s vitriol about the French bakery next door.
“Are you three musketeers done? Yes, Winifred next door was the one who called us to let us know that it seems like everything inside Vera’s shop has been smashed up.”
“Winifred must’ve been peeping through the window,” Riki says.
“She would’ve had to press her face right up against it,” Sana says. “It was so grimy before I cleaned it, there was no way she would’ve been able to look inside unless she was, like, this close to the glass.” It’s starting to dawn on Sana why Vera might not like Winifred, even though Winifred’s French pastries are decent.
“Well, thank goodness she did,” Officer Gray says, “because otherwise, we wouldn’t have known about it. And now thanks to you three, it seems like all the evidence has been swept up and...”
“Thrown into the recycling bin,” Oliver says helpfully. “The bins are right outside. I can show them to you if you want.”
Officer Gray takes a breath through her teeth. “I’ll let the team know.” She looks around the shop and closes her eyes for a moment. “Did any of you see anything suspicious?”
“Aside from the whole shop being smashed up?” Sana feels like she’s being disrespectful somehow, but she swears she’s not trying to be. She’s honestly, sincerely—okay, maybe not sincerely—trying to be as truthful as she can. But she can’t deny that everything about this does seem a bit shady, and that’s when it hits her that it’s not just her acting shady. Oliver and Riki are obfuscating too, and why? She’s already guessed, deep down, that Riki is very much not a Buzzfeed reporter, or any reporter, really. But what about Oliver? What’s he hiding?
She can only watch quietly as Officer Gray walks around, inspecting the teahouse and grumbling to herself about having to call “the team” in and how much she hates “those nerds.” Finally, Officer Gray tells them to not touch anything else in the teahouse, then she’s off, leaving behind her a vacuum. Sana, Riki, and Oliver stand there, not quite knowing what to say. The air between them is thick with suspicion. Sana takes out her phone, coming up with an excuse to leave, when she sees that there’s a text from Vera. It says:
Meet me now. I know truth between you and M!!!
···
By the time Sana gets to the meeting place Vera suggested, down one of the less popular piers at the wharf, she is so out of breath she thinks she might die. Or maybe she might die because she’s panicking, not because she’s out of shape? Either way, it’s not a great feeling. The old woman is already there, probably having chosen the most ideal position to look more mysterious and wise. A few paces away, Emma is drawing on the pavement with colored chalk.
“Vera—” Then her breath hitches, and to Sana’s horror, she finds herself bursting into tears. Oh no, no, this isn’t supposed to happen. The whole tram ride here, Sana has gone over what she will say to Vera. First of all, she will obviously tell Vera that she’s mistaken. Then Sana will take a page from all the gaslighting assholes she’s known in her life and insist that Vera imagined everything. Hey, if there’s ever a silver lining to dating college frat boys, it’s learning how to gaslight with the best of them. But then she sees Vera’s slight frame against the vast ocean, and the way Vera’s Asian perm blows in the sea breeze, and something about it cracks her apart. She can’t lie to Vera, not like this. Not ever.
As Sana weeps, hands envelope her. Vera hugs her tight. “Aiya, why you cry?” Vera mutters, patting Sana’s back. “So dramatic, you young people.”
“But you—your message—” She’s gasping too hard to form a coherent sentence.
Vera pulls away so she can look Sana in the eye. “Just tell me, you kill Marshall? Is it you? You give him pigeon?”
“What—no!” Sana cries. Thank god the pier is deserted at this hour, because that came out a lot louder than she intended. But even if there were people about, she wouldn’t care anyway, because it is imperative that she make Vera understand this. “No,” she says again, in a stronger, more level voice. “I did not kill Marshall. I wished him dead, so many times, but no.”
Eons pass as Vera regards Sana silently, her sharp eyes cutting through Sana’s skin and flesh and bone, straight into the depths of her heart. Then Vera sniffs. “Okay. I believe you. For now.”
Sana sags with relief. Emma toddles over to them and Vera hugs her before taking out a bottle of warm milk from her bag. Emma accepts the offering with a solemn nod and goes back to drawing on the pavement.
Vera turns her attention back to Sana. “But now tell me, why Marshall has a folder with your name as title?”
Immediately, Sana’s entire body is abuzz with electricity. “A folder? What folder? Where did you find it?”
“In Marshall’s laptop, of course.”
“How did you have access to— You know what? Never mind. What’s inside?”
Vera raises her eyebrows. “You tell me.”
“Was it—” Sana swallows thickly. The hope is too much, turning and turning inside her, surely it will kill her. Her voice comes out thick with it. “My paintings?”
Vera nods. “They are quite good. Maybe not amazing, but not bad.”
A part of Sana wants to laugh because this is such an Asian mom way of giving a compliment—never give too big of a compliment, always remind the child that there is room for improvement. But most of Sana is awash with relief, a plethora of it. Maybe now that she can get her art back, she’ll finally be able to get over her block. But the thought of the block is still very real. The part of her that Marshall damaged isn’t going to be repaired magically.
“Come, you sit down.”
Sana lets Vera lead her to a bench. Vera reaches into her bag and pulls out a thermos and two cups. She pours steaming-hot tea into one and hands it to Sana. Sana wraps her hands around the cup, warming her fingers. The tea’s fragrance envelopes her as she raises it to her lips, as comforting as a warm blanket. It tastes faintly sweet and seems mild at first sip, but its fragrance lingers in her mouth long after.
“Chrysanthemum with dates,” Vera says. “I don’t think you need caffeine.”
“Oh Vera.” Sana half laughs, half sobs.
“Now you tell me what happen.”
And she does, going way back, because somehow, Sana knows that Vera is here to listen to everything, not just the thing that happened with Marshall, but everything. And she wants to tell someone. She’s been hungry for it ever since she was a kid.
“When my mom was growing up, my grandparents—they’re your stereotypical Asian parents—”
Vera’s eyes narrow, and Sana hurries to add, “Which isn’t necessarily bad. But it really didn’t do any good for my mom. They pushed her hard to study engineering. She hated it; she wasn’t very good at math or science, and she was always disappointing them. Anyway, she dropped out of college, and they basically disowned her. She was homeless for a while, sleeping on friends’ couches, but that whole time, she was writing a book. And when she finished, the book found an agent, and then a publisher. It didn’t sell for much, but my mom wrote another book, and another, and now she basically has an empire built on books, and my grandparents couldn’t be prouder.”
“Oh, well, good job to her!” Vera seems genuinely delighted.
Sana sighs. “Yeah, good job, Mom. I’m happy for her, I really am, and I think she’s amazing. But because she went through such a hard time, her motto is now: ‘If I could do all that while I was literally homeless , then everyone can do anything they set their mind to.’ From when I was little, she’d always tell me how lucky I was to have a mom who isn’t a stereotypical Asian mom. To have a mom who understands and values the importance of the pursuit of creativity, who doesn’t just expect me to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer. Actually, given my mom’s background, I think she would’ve been disappointed if I’d told her I wanted to do any of those things.” Sana gives a bitter laugh. “But luckily for both of us, like my mother, I gravitate more toward being creative rather than analytical. I chose art. She was so happy. I think—” It’s a struggle to find the right words.
“Sometimes, I feel like the fact that I chose art is my mom’s achievement, not mine. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Whatever the roots, I chose art. I was good at it. I got accepted to CalArts. My mom was always boasting about it to our family, always telling the aunties and uncles, ‘See what happens when you don’t keep trying to squeeze your kids into such narrow lanes?’ It was kind of annoying, but whatever. I was happy at CalArts. I had good friends, I was doing well in my classes. My teachers liked me. But my mom’s voice was always at the back of my mind. Her expectations that I couldn’t just do ‘well’; I had to be like her. The top one percent of people in her career. She releases like four books a year because she has to be the best at publishing. And she wanted me to be like that, to be the best artist at CalArts.”
Vera nods thoughtfully, her eyes looking sad. A few times, Vera sucks in a breath like she’s about to interrupt, but then she manages to stop herself and sip some more tea instead. At some point, Emma totters over, rubbing her eyes, and Vera scoops her into her lap. Within minutes, Emma has settled her head on Vera’s shoulder and fallen asleep. Sana can’t help feeling a stab of jealousy at the simplicity of the kid’s world. Draw on pavement, drink warm milk, take a nap. She gives herself a little shake. How pathetic to be jealous of a toddler.
“Anyway, there was so much pressure, and I knew—I just knew I wasn’t ever going to be the best. I’d have classes and in every class there’s always that one person who’s just so ridiculously talented, you know? And that person was never me. And the pressure kept building, and I was starting to panic—I was one semester away from graduating and I still hadn’t made a name for myself, and there was my mom with all her expectations and hopes, and then... I met Marshall.”
At this, Sana has to pause, because the memory is so painful. So raw. “We’d just had our spring show, and I was watching my top classmates getting approached by gallery owners who walked right past me and my paintings. Like, they’d just glance at my paintings and their eyes would slide away. Hundreds of hours I’d poured into them and it took less than a second for the pros to tell that they were worthless. But then Marshall came up to me and said, ‘Are you the artist of these paintings?’ I said yes, and his eyes shone like he’d just hit the jackpot, and he said, ‘Wow. These are exactly what I was looking for.’?”
Sana glances at Vera, embarrassed. “You probably think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
Vera frowns. “I think this Marshall is very cunning, and I think you were under lot of pressure.”
Sana’s mouth twitches into a sad smile. “Thanks, Vera. Yeah, I was. Anyway, he told me he’s an NFT collector.” Sana snorts at the memory. “I didn’t even know what an NFT was. Then I thought it was only for virtual art, but Marshall told me that it could be anything, even art in the physical world. Even sculptures. He said that the NFT world was a lot more diverse than these stuffy art galleries, and he could tell that there was something special about my paintings.” Her voice wobbles then. “I guess I wanted to believe in him so badly. More than anything. He explained more of the technical details to me, but by then, I was so desperate, so eager to believe him, that I would’ve agreed to practically anything. I didn’t understand most of the technical details; I didn’t really bother to. He had me sign all these agreements that I didn’t really—I tried reading them, I did, I swear, but it was all in legalese and there wasn’t a chance in hell that an arts student like me would’ve understood them.”
“What is this ‘legalese’? You mean like Chinese?” Vera says.
Sana laughs despite herself. “No, Vera. It’s not like Chinese. Well, it might as well have been Chinese for all that I understood, but it just means, like, really complicated language that you often find in legal documents that only those who’ve had training in legal terms would understand.”
“Hmm, yes, I see. Legalese.”
Sana half wonders if by this time next year Vera will have taught herself to be well-versed in legalese. She wouldn’t put it past Vera. “Anyway, long story short, it turns out that in signing those documents, I signed away all of my rights to my own art. It all belonged to Marshall. As soon as the papers were signed, he basically fuc—uh, sorry, he basically ghosted me.”
“Oh, I know this ‘ghosted,’?” Vera says proudly. “I often hear it on the TikTok. It means when someone disappears very suddenly, like a ghost.”
“Um. Yeah, that’s right. So he ghosted me, and meanwhile, I was watching my paintings on the marketplace and I saw that one of them had sold for a few hundred dollars. It wasn’t much, not compared to some of my classmates’ stuff, but it was something! I mean, I created that out of nothing. I poured everything inside me into the paintings; the whole time I was working on those pieces, I ate and breathed and slept in this fog because I was so consumed by them. And to have them stolen from me like that...”
“Hmm, yes. I can see how that must be very painful.”
“It felt like he had stolen a part of me and left me with this gaping hole. And the worst part is, when I told my mom about it, she just laughed and said, ‘Oh, sweetie. Move on. Do you think I haven’t had my work stolen before? The literary world is just as full of thieves. Plagiarism everywhere. I once told a friend about a book idea I had, and next thing I knew, she’d written a book with exactly that same idea. You know what I did? I moved on. You are more than just one idea.’?”
“Well,” Vera says, “I agree, we are all more than just one idea. But having our very first idea stolen, before we have even plunge into the water, is devastating.”
“Yes, exactly!” Sana cries, so loudly that Emma twitches a little. Sana winces, hoping she hasn’t just woken the poor kid up, but after a few moments, Emma settles back down. “Sorry, I’ll be a bit quieter. Anyway, when I couldn’t move on, my mom started getting frustrated. I got the sense that she was angrier at me for not being able to just shake it off like she would’ve than at Marshall for actually thieving it in the first place. She kept telling me it’s a good lesson to learn early, and to stop moping, and to ‘just keep swimming,’ and the more she said that stuff, the worse I felt. I became blocked. I couldn’t even bear to pick up my paintbrush for a while. And even after the hurt stopped being so raw, I picked up my brush and I stood in front of that blank canvas, and there was... nothing. My mom told me that she often wrote her pain into her books, especially when she was homeless. She told me to use this pain as fuel for my art. But I couldn’t. I just felt numb. I felt blocked.” Sana laughs bitterly. “Blocked. My mom doesn’t believe in blocks. She says that’s just us being indulgent.”
Vera pats Sana’s arm. “I see. It’s a terrible thing that has happen to you. But why do you come to my teahouse? Pretending to have a pot catch?”
Sana’s breath releases in a long, exhausted sigh. “It all built up after a while, my resentment, my anger. I tracked Marshall down to the Bay Area. I rented a small studio and I was following him. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I just felt like I needed to be close to my art, and that meant being close to Marshall. Does that sound ridiculous?”
“Yes. But it’s okay, I do a lot of crazy things too.”
“Ha. Well, one night, he spotted me and called me out. Told me to get over myself, that most of my pieces hadn’t even sold. They were worthless. That I didn’t have any talent. All the stuff I’d always been so scared of about myself. It was too much. I lost control.” Sana’s voice breaks. “And I—I attacked him. I scratched him.” She looks down at her hands, shuddering at the memory of Marshall’s skin being raked under her nails. Nails that should have paint under them, not blood.
“But you don’t kill him?”
Sana shakes her head. “No, I told you, I didn’t. He shoved me away, told me he was going to call the cops. I was so horrified by what I did—I’ve never attacked anyone like that before—I turned and ran away. I was so scared. For the next couple of days, I kept waiting for the cops to—I don’t know—break down my door and storm my apartment. But they never did. Then I read about Marshall dying. He died later that same night I’d scratched him.” Sana’s eyes are haunted. “I had to come to your teahouse to—I don’t know—I just—you won’t believe how awful I’ve felt ever since that night. I don’t even know why I went to your place. And—this is going to make me sound like the worst human ever—I’m still not over my stolen art! God, you must think I’m horrible, but even after Marshall died, I’m still hung up on the art. I still want to find it and reclaim it.”
Vera squeezes Sana’s arm, and when Sana finally meets her eyes, there is so much compassion in them that Sana feels the tears coming. “Oh, silly girl. Of course I don’t think you are horrible human. No, horrible human are people like Marshall. Come here.” And with that, Vera pulls Sana into a hug. The kind of hug that only a mom could give. Sana surrenders to it completely, feeling every wall she’d painstakingly built over the years crumbling. She cries until there is nothing left, then she cries some more, and the whole time, Vera strokes her hair with all the patience in the world. When they’re done, the sun is setting and the air is biting cold.
“Well, it’s been a long day. Come over to mine,” Vera says, grunting as she stands with Emma still dozing in her arms.
Sana wipes at her puffy face. “You mean to Julia’s?”
Vera tuts. “Nobody likes a pendant, Sana.”
Sana almost tells her it’s “pedant,” “not pendant,” but thinks better of it.
“You come to dinner now, then when I am next free, you are meeting me at the beach.”
“The beach?” It’s the last thing Sana expected to hear. “Why?”
In answer, Vera just gives a secret smile and walks on ahead, leaving Sana with no choice but to hurry after her.