Page 54 of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Vera flaps a hand at her. “Aiya, what rubbish.” But she has to bite down really hard on her lower lip to keep from grinning. She looks pointedly at Riki, who’s chewing on an egg roll. “How is it?”

Riki tears his eyes away from Sana. “Huh? Oh, yeah, this is really good. As always, your cooking is amazing.”

Vera gives a satisfied grunt. Between the three of them, the food is soon demolished amid companionable chatter. When they’re done eating, Vera gets up and takes a stick out of the trolley. It’s a narrow bamboo pole about three feet high.

“What’s this for?” Sana says when Vera hands her the stick.

“It’s your new paintbrush.”

“What?” Sana gapes at her.

“Get up,” Vera says in herdo not even think about refusingvoice.

Sana does so, still looking confused.

Vera gestures at the beach. “The sand is your canvas. Nothing you draw will be permanent. So you don’t have to feel scare about making the mistake or drawing something bad. The sea erase all of it.”

Sana stares, wide-eyed, at the bamboo stick, then at Vera.

“You go and draw now,” Vera orders. “Riki and I tidy up and chat some more. Oh yes, Riki, I forget to tell you, Sana does not have a pot catch, she is artist. One of the many artist that Marshall swindle, and ever since then she cannot draw.” She turns to Sana, whose jaw is scraping the sand. “And, Sana, Riki is not a Buzzfeed reporter.” Vera pauses long enough to glower at Riki. “You make me so excited about that. I think to myself: Wow, he is reporter, he can do article about my teahouse!”

“I’m really sorry,” Riki says, not knowing whether he should be apologizing to Vera or to Sana.

“Anyway, Riki is programmer who is swindle by Marshall. So. There you go. Both of you are Marshall victim. Now, go draw.Go,” Vera barks like an army general, and Sana jumps up, meerkat-like, and scampers away. Vera turns back to Riki, who’s still looking stunned. “Why are you sitting there like a frog? Help me tidy.”

Riki starts gathering up the Tupperware containers. “Sana’s really an artist?”

“Yes, very talented too. Her paintings are very good.” Vera is happy that this revelation has stunned Riki. He must be very pleasantly surprised by what a talent his future girlfriend is. But when she glances up at Riki, he doesn’t look at all happy. In fact, he looks like he’s about to cry. “What’s wrong?”

“I wrote a bot that helped Marshall scam people into overpaying for his NFTs. His NFTs were stolen art from various artists. I knew about it and I never—I just—I stayed quiet. And now you’re telling me that Sana is one of the artists he stole from, and because of him she hasn’t been able to paint. I was part of his whole shitty business.”

Vera isn’t sure that she’s following everything he’s saying. Allof this technological jargon is so hard to follow. She waves at him. “Aiya, is not as bad as you think. You are both victims, yes?”

“Well, sure, but I’m not exactly innocent either. Sana is, though.” Riki sighs. “God, I’m a fucking asshole.”

“Tch, don’t be so drama!” Vera snaps. “Move past it. Put it behind you. Marshall is dead. You and Sana are healing after what he does to you. Maybe you do something slightly bad, so what? Now you learn from it. You have a better judgment now. Better morals, because you learn from your personal mistake. This what life is about, Riki. No one is perfect, making right decisions all the time. Only those who are so privileged can make right decision all the time. The rest of us, we have to struggle, keep afloat. Sometimes we do things we are not proud of. But now you know where your lines are. You are good boy, Riki. You have good heart. That is all that matters.” She smacks him firmly in the middle of his chest. “Good heart! You remember that.” Then she turns away and finishes putting away the containers in the trolley, satisfied that she has done her job very well indeed.

Sana ends up drawing for more than an hour, and by the time she’s done, Vera has grilled Riki about everything from what his favorite food is (something called terong balado, she will have to look it up on the Google so she can make it for him), what his mom’s favorite food is (grilled fish seasoned with sweet soy sauce, sensible woman), where he works (some startup doing something too complicated for their own good), what Adi wants to be when he grows up (a physicist), and so on. She wishes she could help ease some of Riki’s financial burden, but she can’t think of a way to do so, aside from maybe robbing Winifred’s silly bakery. But Winifred probably doesn’t have twenty-five thousand dollars lying around.

“That was amazing,” Sana says. Her hair is wind-blown and her cheeks are red from all the effort of carving the stick through moist sand. Riki gazes up at her with a tortured look that makes Vera roll her eyes. These young boys. Always with the drama.

Vera stands and squints into the distance, where Sana has been drawing. From here, she can’t tell what Sana has drawn, but she can see the whorls spread across the sand in fluid strokes. She smiles at Sana. “Good, you can draw. Tomorrow morning you will come here and draw some more. I will bring Emma. And more food, of course.”

For a moment, she thinks Sana might protest; young people always like to protest for the sake of protesting. But then a slow smile takes over Sana’s flushed face, and for the first time since Vera has met Sana, she looks young, the way she should at her age. It’s hope, Vera realizes, shining out of Sana’s eyes like two bright stars. The sight of it makes Vera’s heart swell. Sana will be okay. Then she glances at Riki and frowns, because he’s standing there looking sorry, no doubt still wallowing in his guilt. Well, no matter. Riki will be okay too. Vera will see to that.

TWENTY-NINE

OLIVER

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, and Oliver can’t think of anything better to do than spend it at Vera’s teahouse with Julia and Emma. Okay, well, maybe it would be better if the teahouse weren’t gouged to within an inch of its life. But he’s having the best time climbing up ladders to install new lighting fixtures and having Emma standing on tiptoes, reaching up to hand him a new lightbulb while Julia rips down the crumbling posters. Oliver is in his element, years of what he’d considered useless work finally coming in handy. He not only fixes up the ancient electrics in the shop, but also rejiggers the plumbing to ensure that everything works smoothly. By the time he’s done, although not much is visible on the surface, beneath that, Vera’s teahouse is basically a new, young thing, ready to get to work. Already, thanks to his newly installed lighting, the shop is looking brighter, more vibrant. He can’t wait for Vera to see how different a simple change in lighting can make a space look.

“Well!” Julia says, stepping back to admire their handiwork.She’s ripped down all the posters, most of which had been molding, and the walls are now a dirty off-white with scraps of leftover posters here and there. Objectively, it looks awful. But because they’ve worked so hard on it, to Oliver, it looks like a space that’s slowly coming back to life. “Pretty good,” Julia says, echoing his thoughts.

He smiles at her and gives Emma a fist bump. “Vera mentioned that Sana’s a painter, so I think the wall painting can be her responsibility? What do you think?”

Julia grins. “Awesome idea. Yeah, I saw some of Sana’s work; she’s pretty freaking amazing.”

“Sana draws birds,” Emma says with quiet confidence. Yesterday afternoon, Sana had come over for teatime with Vera and had apparently doodled with Emma while Julia did another photography shoot.

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