Page 54 of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

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 itin 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 herselfthey 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 fakerelationship, 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.”

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