Maybe he kick pigeon and it kill him
Big Bird
Oliver because he is only one who knows about bird allergy!?
But why he die in my shop??
Maybe he know he is having allergy reaction, and he think, Ah, tea will help because tea is good for health.
Poor Marshall. Why he don’t call out to me to make him tea?
Oh yes, he cannot talk because throat closing up.
OH, STUPID CASE!
FIFTEEN
RIKI
Riki can’t remember the last time his body has been this tense, all his instincts shouting at him to run. Well, okay, he can. Unfortunately, that was also the day that Marshall died, so maybe it’s best not to recall that particular memory.
For a while, he and Sana walk down Julia’s street without talking. Sana seems to be deep in thought. He notices that she chews her lower lip when she’s deep in thought, which is kind of cute.
Kind of cute? What the hell, brain? Just—god, just keep it together, will you?
“Are you calling an Uber?” Sana says.
“Huh?” Right, they’d come here in Oliver’s car. Riki looks around him, trying to get his bearings. He’s somewhere in Laurel Heights. Getting an Uber all the way from here to Twenty-third Street is going to cost him. “No, I’ll probably just take the bus. You?”
She nods. “Same. Where are you headed?”
He tells her, and her face lights up. “Oh hey, that’s where I live too. I’m actually not too far from Castro.”
“Cool, that’s just a few blocks away from me.” He can only afford his place because it’s an old studio right above a nightclub. He wonders how Sana can afford her place. Prices there are notoriously high.
As though reading his thoughts, she says, “My mom is rich. She helps me out with my rent. I have a roommate, though.”
“Oh, cool.” Riki often gets tongue-tied when he’s nervous, and he’s finding that he’s increasingly nervous around Sana. Back home, his mother teased him about not being able to talk to pretty girls, but he’d been so sure he’d managed to shake off that shyness. Maybe it’s the whole “one of them is Marshall’s killer” thing? That’s definitely a mood killer. As they walk, he searches for something to say. “Is your mom a techbro?”
Sana snorts. “Hah! You know, maybe that would make her less obnoxious, actually. But no, my mom’s an author. You might have heard of her. Priya M. Singh?”
“I’m not a big reader,” Riki says apologetically. Saying this to the daughter of an author feels wrong. His insides are burning with embarrassment.
“Ah. You heard of the HBO series The Spice Ladies?”
“I don’t watch it, but yes, I’ve heard about it.”
“My mom wrote that.”
“Wow.” He’s honestly impressed. The show isn’t a blockbuster like Game of Thrones, but it’s successful enough to trend on Twitter every time a new season comes out. “That’s amazing.”
“Eh.” Sana shrugs and blows a stray lock of hair off her face. “It’s honestly not that great. I mean, the money is fantastic, and I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong,” she says hurriedly. “But . . . my mom’s this ridiculously driven person. She publishes like four books a year and is super productive and she’s always like, ‘There’s no such thing as a writer’s block, darling. It’s all in your mind. If you want to create art, go ahead and do it.’ ”
Riki nods, mulling her words over quietly. He’d never once considered the challenges that someone raised in an affluent family might face. He’d assumed that if you had money, then surely all your problems were very easily fixed. If not by throwing money at them, then by the sheer privilege of having all the time in the world to spend on tackling said problems.
“I never thought of how tough it might be, growing up with such an accomplished parent,” he admits. “Do you think Stephen King’s kids feel the same way?”
Sana snorts out loud, the pleasant surprise evident in her laugh. When she glances up at Riki, her eyes look more lively than he’s seen them before. “Probably? But his son is actually a very successful writer too. Also, everything I’ve heard about Stephen King makes him sound so down-to-earth. Not at all like my mom. She’s just so obnoxious about it, you know? She’s like, ‘Sana, it’s all mind over matter. Artists and their mental blocks, I swear! It’s all just in your mind.’ ”
Riki cocks his head to one side. “Do you get a lot of blocks when you’re writing material for your podcast?”
“Oh,” Sana says, seemingly a bit taken aback. “Yeah. Yes, I guess so. Yeah, like the words are hard to come by sometimes.” She looks down at her hands for a while. “I can feel it inside me. I want to create something—something wonderful, but . . .” She sighs. “There’s a block. I can’t explain it, but I know my mom’s wrong. Blocks definitely happen to writers and artists and all other creatives.”
“Yeah, I mean, just because she doesn’t experience them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. That would be like saying just because you’ve never had a migraine, they can’t happen to other people,” Riki says.
“Yes!” Sana cries. “Exactly.”
Their eyes meet, and Riki swears it’s like their minds are connecting. He feels warm and—dare he say it—happy. He can’t remember the last time he felt this way. It’s been months, ever since . . . well, ever since everything went down with Marshall. The thought of Marshall sours his mind, weighing on his shoulders like a deadweight.
As though sensing the shift in Riki’s mood, Sana says, “What—what do you think that cop found out? It has to be pretty important for her to show up in person, right?”
Riki isn’t sure what to say. What would a real journalist who is completely uninvolved with the case say? It hits him that that’s basically what Sana is—she’s not suspicious of him, of course not, she’s only asking for her podcast. He needs to start thinking of himself as her counterpart and nothing else. Right. He can do that.
“Yeah, we should’ve stuck around,” he says with false confidence. “You know, to ask questions and such.”
“We should’ve,” Sana agrees. “I guess I just didn’t want to be disrespectful, like in case whatever the cop had to say was sensitive and really affected Julia . . . I thought she might have needed some privacy.”