“Um, now? It’s not even eight o’clock yet.” Riki had gone to bed at two in the morning and he feels like he could use another five hours of sleep.
“Aiya, the early morning light is best for photographs, how do you not know that? No wonder none of your article has gone viral yet. Get up, young people should not be sleeping their youth away. Take a shower and come here for breakfast, there’s a good boy.” With that, she hangs up, leaving Riki blinking at his phone, half wondering if the call actually happened or if it had been a dream.
He lies back down, and as soon as his head hits the pillow, the flashback attacks.
You listen to me, you slimy piece of shit. Pay me, Marshall, or I will fucking kill you.
The animal rage in his own voice is so palpable it turns the words almost physical. I will fucking kill you.
Riki shoots straight up in bed, breathing hard. He rubs his face several times, trying to shake away the flashback. He’s never lost his temper like that before. Never, not once in his lifetime, not even when he was a hormonal teen and Adi was annoying the shit out of him. Not even when he found his college roommate in bed with Riki’s then girlfriend. But Marshall had reached deep into Riki’s subconscious and triggered some kind of fight-or-flight response and Riki’s fury had been so strong he had scared himself. And now Marshall is dead. Why in the world did Riki even go to Vera’s tea shop? If anything, he should go to Marshall’s house, or maybe Marshall’s office, to find what he’s been looking for this whole time. But no, he’d gone to Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse, and now here he is, having to go round to her shop and pretend to be a reporter.
The thought of keeping Vera waiting is somehow terrifying, so against all his survival instincts, Riki gets up and takes a cold shower in the hope of sharpening his mind. When he gets dressed, he notices that his fingers are trembling slightly, fumbling a little with the buttons of his shirt. There’s nothing to be nervous about, he reminds himself. You did nothing wrong. Nothing at all.
Problem is, he’s never been any good at lying to himself.
* * *
• • •
Back in Indonesia, Riki’s parents had taught him to never show up at someone’s house without bringing a gift, so before arriving at Vera’s, Riki stops by at the French bakery next door. He has no idea what Vera would like, so just to be safe, he gets an assortment of pastries, both sweet and savory. He tells the nice old lady manning the store that he loves French food, which seems to please her greatly.
When Riki walks into Vera’s tea shop, she doesn’t even look up from behind the counter, where she’s got jars of herbs and dried fruits out. “Ah, finally you are here. I am making a special brew for you.” Then she looks up, and to Riki’s bewilderment, when she catches sight of the bag he’s holding, she actually glowers. “Is that—”
“Um, I brought some pastries from the French bakery next door? I thought you might like—”
“Hah!” she snorts. “French bakery? That is a Chinese bakery.”
“Oh, um . . .” Riki looks at the paper bag, which clearly says: winifred’s french patisserie, délicieux tous les jours. “I don’t speak Chinese,” he admits, “but this looks French to me?”
“Hah!” Vera says again. She seems to be getting louder and angrier, and Riki has no idea why. She strides toward him from behind the counter, and he has to resist the urge to throw the bag down and run away. It’s like watching a shockingly fierce Jack Russell terrier come charging at you, baring its little fangs. She snatches the bag from him—Riki doesn’t even bother resisting—and takes out a pastry at random. The pastry is wrapped in plastic and on the plastic is a sticker that says: petit pain à la crème. “Hah!”
Are the “hahs” supposed to mean something? Riki wonders but keeps his mouth sealed. He gets the feeling that he’s stumbled upon some long-lasting grudge, and back home in Indonesia, he has enough aunties and uncles to know that the best thing to do when they get like this is to shut up and hope you magically learn how to turn yourself invisible.
“Petit pain à la crème!” Vera snorts. “This is custard bun!”
“Yes . . . I think that’s what it says in French as well?” Riki ventures.
“I bet it does. I bet that silly woman just look on Google Translate and change everything into French.” She reaches into the bag and pulls out yet another offending pastry. “Brioche aux oeufs salés.” She snorts but takes the time to unwrap the bun and rip it into two halves before announcing, “Just as I think. This is salted egg yolk custard bun.” She seems like she’s about to launch into another tirade, then she sniffs at the bun before taking a small bite. “Hmm.” She chews thoughtfully. “Not enough salted egg yolk. Skimping, such a cheapskate. Still, now that you buy it already we might as well eat it, mustn’t waste food, you know. Sit.”
Riki obeys, taking out the rest of the pastries with no small amount of trepidation. Vera takes out a few plates and Riki meekly places the buns on them. He chooses to place them upside down so that the French names aren’t visible.
“So,” Vera says as she settles down across from him and pours out tea for both of them, “what is the holdup? Young people should be moving fast, take the world by its male genitalia, and so on.”
“Um . . .” He shouldn’t be taken aback by the use of the term “male genitalia.” Vera strikes him as the kind of person who says whatever the hell she wants at any given time. But since the current given time is barely past eight thirty in the morning, Riki is only half-awake and very much not ready for words like “male genitalia” being lobbed at him by a savage old lady. He sips at his tea slowly, trying to buy more time, then is distracted because, gosh, this tea is really good. It’s bitter but in a surprisingly refreshing way, like it’s cleansing his insides and leaving nothing but pure sweetness behind. He picks a pastry at random and bites into it, and savory-sweet salted egg yolk custard fills his mouth. Eaten with the bitter tea, the bun is so comforting he feels his muscles relaxing after just one bite.
“Is it really that good?” Vera says, biting into the other half of the bun. She sniffs and answers her own question. “It’s not half-bad, I suppose. Anyway, so why is my article taking such long time?”
“Oh, um. Well, I have to polish it, and after that I’ll have to send it to my editor and, uh, wait for her to, you know, edit it? And then, um . . .” He has no idea what other steps are involved in the process of publishing Buzzfeed articles, but he prays hard for there to be a multitude of obstacles along the way.
Vera is shaking her head. “Oh, this is more inefficient than I think. Dear me, you young people want everything fast, but when it comes to your work, you do everything so slow.”