Page 31 of I Did Something Bad
For a second, Pizza stops playing with his toy to let out a quick but loud affirmative bark, and we all laugh. “How long have you had him?” Tyler asks.
“A little over a year,” Patrick answers. “He was a stray on this street. We moved in and he immediately zeroed in on Thidar—”
“I’m a vet—” Thidar offers.
“—and she was feeding him twice a day and giving him all his shots. One day, she brought him home to give him a bath—”
“—he’d jumped into a giant mud puddle!”
Patrick chuckles. “I know, sweetheart. And she asked him if he’d like tostay for dinner—”
“It was dinnertime!” Thidar says defensively.
When Patrick leans over and kisses her cheek, my heart feels like that scene inThe Grinchwhere it grows three times larger. I peek over at Tyler, who’s also smiling at them, and I have a hunch he’s feeling the same thing I’m feeling. “I know, sweetheart,” Patrick repeats. “And then he just… never left,” he says, shooting a smile in the vicinity of the living room.
“Was it hard? To adopt a stray? Did he have trouble adjusting?” Tyler asks.
Thidar shakes her head. “Not really. Maybe a bit at first, but it helped that we have a large yard. Why, are you thinking of adopting?”
“I’m—” Tyler begins, but doesn’t finish. Instantly, my journalist senses start to tingle. “May,actually, is thinking of adopting,” he says after a short beat, which only makes me more suspicious. “Bringing them back to California with her when we go back.” Why did he catch himself there? What’s the big deal with May adopting a dog? Unless… He tries to cover himself—literally—with his glass, butbefore he can hide it, I see the mouth quirk. Unless heandMay are thinking of adopting a dog?Together?
Thidar nods and continues, “You definitely need to put in more work at the beginning, so I’d recommend making sure you really have the time before you commit to it. And the patience. But once you do, it’s the best thing in the world. I’ll give you my number! Pass it on to May, and tell her to call me if she ever wants to really do this.”
“Thanks, she’ll appreciate that,” Tyler replies. Unbeknownst to the other two, I could almost swear that his gaze shifts over to me for a nanosecond, that his spine straightens against the back of the chair before he grins down at his lasagna and says, “This is probably the best lasagna I’ve ever had, by the way. Mind sharing your recipe?”
Thidar lifts her glass at Patrick. “Your time to shine, babe.”
Patrick clears his throat and wiggles his shoulders like he’s been preparing for this moment his whole life. “Well, the secret is in the sauce.…”
At the end of dinner, Tyler insists that he’ll clear the table, load the dishwasher,andhand-wash the baking dish.
“He’sperfect,” Thidar whispers. Patrick has popped over to the living room to answer some last-minute work emails. I give a shrug that neither confirms nor denies the statement. “Khin, comeon,” she insists. “This is major Take Me Home to Mom vibes.”
I snort. “He’s polite.”
“He’s handling the dishwasherandhe knew you have to wash a Le Creuset by hand. Could hebeany hotter?” she asks, to which I respond with a drawn-out eye roll. “What’s it like?” she continues. “Being on a movie set. Is it as exciting as you envisioned?”
“Honestly? It’s kind of… boring.”
“Boring?” Thidar’s voice deflates with disbelief. “You’re on the set of Tyler Tun and May Diamond’s latest movie and it’s boring?”
“Well, for instance, they were shooting this night market scene, and I watched them order the same strawberry smoothieten times. I can literally recite their lines word for word. Watch: May goes, ‘Hmm, I’m thirsty. Do I want a smoothie?’ And Tyler goes, ‘Drinking on the job? My, my, I wonder what HQ will have to say about that,’ and May says, ‘I wonder what HQ will have to say about my fist—’” I catch myself at Thidar’s bemused expression. “You get the point,” I explain. “It’s either boring or tiring. Usually both. There’s no time for us to have any substantial conversations. I’m either waiting or rushing.He’sconstantly running lines or shooting scenes or talking to the writers or getting an outfit refitted or any of the million other things that leavemeexhausted by the end of the day, and allIhave to do is watch him.” I have to give Tyler and May credit—acting is a thousand times harder than I could’ve imagined.
“Huh, who would’ve thunk,” Thidar says.
After both men have finished their respective tasks, Patrick and Thidar take Pizza out on his night walk. “We need to finish our earlier conversation,” Tyler says. We’re in the living room and facing one another on the armchairs that bracket the large sofa at a slight angle.
“What conversation?” I ask, rearranging my curled-up legs.
“About how the guy knew your name.”
I stiffen as it comes rushing back. “It doesn’t matter,” I say, aware it’s a lie. Of course it matters.
I’m conscious how scheming this sounds and how big of a lying hypocrite it makes me, but, as with my park plan, I want to hold on to a piece of information that Tyler doesn’t have, just in case he tries to turn the tables on me. I don’t have the same resources as him, but it won’t hurt to have an extra trick in my back pocket.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” He puts his glass down on the coffee table and leans in, forearms resting on his thighs. “This guy knew who you were. He could’ve been targeting you.”
“Or,” I speak slowly, buying time to assemble a story, “hewashanging around on the set, heard some people mention my name and the word ‘journalist,’ and realized that the only woman running around and watching you while writing in a notebook must be the aforementioned journalist named Khin.”
