Page 43 of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

Vera opens her mouth to reply, but TJ rushes in with, “Anyway, I just don’t think an invitation from a complete Internet stranger to a strange party is the safest thing to accept.”

“You don’t worry, TJ. I bring my police-grade pepper spray. Homemade! I make from Szechuan pepper, not only sting butmake eyes go numb. Very effective. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law is in process of seeing if she can switch out the standard police issue pepper spray to mine.” When they all look skeptical, she at least has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “Well, I am sure one of these days she will realize my Szechuan pepper spray is better than their old one.”

Qiang Wen has been watching the exchange in a kind of stupefied horror so far, but now he finally snaps out of his daze and says, “Vera, I don’t understand. What is it that you are hoping to get from this party?”

“Information,” Vera says simply. “This is the kind of thing your grandson use to do all the time. I see on his profile he go to this party, that party, wah, very busy life. You don’t want to get to know his friends? People he spend so much time with? Maybe one of them know what happen to him.”

Qiang Wen’s stomach knots painfully. Nerves? Fear? Guilt? All of the above? It is a struggle keeping his voice even. “This subject is too painful for me,” he says finally. Next to him, TJ shifts on the stool, obviously uncomfortable.Good, Qiang Wen thinks. Grief should make others uncomfortable. It’s designed to drive others away so he can mourn in peace. Except that doesn’t seem to apply to Vera, who reaches out to pat his shoulder.

“I’m sure is very painful for you,” Vera says. “I cannot even imagine. But don’t you worry, Qiang Wen. We here to help. I promise you, I won’t rest until I find out what happen to your grandson.”

Nooo!Qiang Wen wants to wail.I want you to do the exact opposite. Rest without finding out what happened to him.

But that’s not the sort of thing that a loving grandparent could say, is it? He’s been backed into a corner now. He’s tried to stayaway, keep his distance from this whole thing, but clearly that tactic hasn’t worked. He’s like a fly obstinately buzzing into a glass pane over and over. Maybe what he needs to do is the exact opposite. Change his strategy. Instead of shying away, Qiang Wen needs to be like Vera and rush into this head-on. With a gulp, Qiang Wen meets Vera’s eyes and says, “Then I’ll do what I can to help you.”

Fifteen

MILLIE

Millie is good at looking good; it’s one of the few things she’s good at, actually. A long time ago—feels like a lifetime ago, in fact—Mother had given her a crash course on hair and makeup and choosing the right outfits. The kind of thing any loving mom would do when their daughter comes of age, really. Except maybe Mother’s lessons had been more…pointed.

A straight brow, she had said, while shaping Millie’s eyebrows,makes you look youthful and vulnerable. Men like that.

Okay, so maybe not quite the kind of thing a loving mom would do for their daughters.

Millie pushes the traitorous thought from her head. She doesn’t like having unkind thoughts about Mother and Father, especially after everything they’ve done for her. She owes them so much, and even if she worked three whole lifetimes, she would never be able to repay her debt to them. But she tries her best.

Today, for example, she takes care to pick her outfit. She goes for jeans and a dark green top, which makes her look even palerbut brings out the peach undertones of her skin. Most American men prefer tanned skin, but there is a certain kind of man that is drawn to pale, vulnerable-looking women, and these are the men Mother and Father have advised Millie to look for. Men who want to protect her. It’s good advice, Millie reminds herself as she swipes tinted sunscreen on her face. It’s advice that caring parents would give to their daughters.

Her makeup is kept simple; Mother said that too much makeup would age you, and society as a whole much prefers young women to older ones. “Young and vulnerable,” Mother had said, a mantra that has accompanied Millie for as long as she can remember. Just a layer of mascara, a light brown eyeliner, some blush, and a thin layer of lip tint. Millie steps back and studies her reflection. She looks so young, so much younger than her twenty-seven years. She looks like she could be a high school student. Exactly how Mother and Father said she should look.

She checks the time on her watch and grabs her purse. But when she opens the door, she startles, a gasp jumping out of her mouth. Father is standing right in front of her. How long has he been there? Was he listening to her getting ready this whole time? A hundred questions crowd through her head. Had she made any noises? Given herself away somehow? Does he know? What does he know? Is he angry? Is she about to be punished?

“Where are you off to?” Father says. Like Mother, Father is an immigrant, but you wouldn’t know it from his English. It’s completely unaccented, like a news anchor. Mother’s English is like that too. They’d taught Millie much the same, making her watch hundreds of hours of news channels and scrubbing her original accent completely. In her dreams, the people talk in newspeak, without accents or emotions of any kind.

Now, Millie tries her best not to squirm under Father’s gaze. “I’m meeting a—a date.” The moment she says “date,” she kicks herself inwardly. Oh god, why had she said that? She knows he would pry, of course he would, but she couldn’t say “friend.” He wouldn’t believe her. She should’ve said she was…was what? Nothing she does goes unnoticed by Father and Mother. That is the price she has to pay for everything they have done for her.

“A date?” Father says, his eyebrows rising ever so slightly. “Tell me about him.” Father’s tone is kind, but Millie knows him well enough by now to know that it can switch very easily, going from Santa Claus to Old Testament god within a split second.

Tread carefully, she tells herself. Not that she needed the reminder. “He’s nice. Very nice.”

“Good. Nice is good. What does he do for a living?”

“He is a writer.”

The faint edges of a frown appear on Father’s face, and Millie’s insides shrivel up. “A successful writer?” he says silkily.

Millie gives a vigorous nod.

“His name?”

She doesn’t want to give his name. It is a betrayal to give his name to Father. She tries hard not to even think it, in case Father senses it somehow.

“Millie,” Father says, and now the edge has reached his voice.

“Oliver,” she says. “Oliver Chen.” She didn’t put up a fight after all. She never does. Millie has been raised to be a good kid, the kind who never talks back or has secrets from her parents.

“And how did you meet him?”

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