TWENTY-FOUR
OLIVER
The last thing that Oliver thinks he’d be doing two weeks after his brother’s death/possible murder is spending his Sunday morning going to Chinatown to tidy up a teahouse, specifically, the very same one that his twin brother was found dead in. But here we are, he thinks, as he parks up and finds Riki and Sana outside Vera’s teahouse. The sight of them is strangely nice, as though they’ve been friends for a while instead of strangers thrown together by tragic circumstances. He waves at them and they wave back, and when he walks out, Sana hands him a takeaway cup.
“Figured we could all use some coffee,” she says.
“Ooh, better not let Vera see this,” Oliver says, and Riki and Sana grin, which makes Oliver feel sort of . . . happy. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, but he likes it. He fishes out a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. He came by yesterday on his own to fit a new lock.
The inside of Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse is just as gloomy as Oliver remembers from the last time he was here. All that smashed glass, the overturned chairs. The three of them pause at the doorway, and Oliver senses their uneasiness at the sight of all that destruction. Then Oliver says, “Come on. I brought supplies.”
And he has. For the first time ever, Oliver is thankful for his position as a super. He only needed to buy stuff like trash bags and cleaning liquid, but everything else reusable he borrowed from the supplies closet. Cleaning gloves, brooms, and mops. Together, the three of them unload the things from Oliver’s trunk and get to work, lifting the furniture out of the shop before sweeping away the broken glass and herbs from the floor. Then Oliver starts mopping while Sana cleans the bay windows. Unfortunately, the gruesome outline of Marshall’s body doesn’t come off, which creeps him out.
“You’ll need to use some isopropyl alcohol on that,” Sana says. “And maybe toothpaste and baking soda.”
Oliver nods, shuddering as he turns away from the outline of his dead twin’s body. If only every bad thing in life could be removed just by mopping it away.
Riki returns after disposing of the trash bags, wipes his brow, and inspects the furniture they have removed from the shop.
“These are pretty good pieces, actually,” Riki muses, tilting one of the chairs this way and that.
“Oh?” Oliver doesn’t much care about furniture, but the way Riki is studying the chair is interesting. There’s a deftness to Riki’s movements, like he’s utterly comfortable working with furniture. “Are you into carpentry?”
“A little bit. Back in Jakarta my dad is a handyman.” There’s a note of sadness in Riki’s voice, but then he continues. “I think I could take out this part right here”—he points at the back of the chair, which is half falling apart with age—“and replace it with something more modern, add a cushion to it, give it a new coat of paint . . . it’ll look great, actually.”
Oliver can’t really picture it, but he nods along encouragingly. “Sounds good.”
Sana steps back from the bay window and looks around the shop. “Huh, whaddaya know? Now that the windows don’t have an inch-thick layer of grime, the shop actually looks bigger.” She hesitates. “Not to sound ridiculous, but before I cleaned the windows, the dirt seemed almost shadowy, like someone was watching.”
“Maybe the pastry lady next door?” Riki says.
“Maybe.”
The three of them look around. Oliver is surprised to find that Sana is right. The shop really does look bigger and brighter. He frowns at the lights in the shop. Even after changing the bulbs, the shop could do with better lighting. “I’ll get her more lights. A couple of those cheap IKEA light stands would do the shop a world of good.” Just saying it out loud makes Oliver feel better. He’s doing something, producing instead of staying inert and helpless.
Riki brings in three chairs and they sit down for a break, sipping their coffees in companionable silence.
“Do you know how Vera’s doing at Julia’s?” Riki says.
“I can’t imagine having Vera staying at my place,” Sana says. They all laugh.
“Surprisingly, Julia told me she kind of loves having Vera there,” Oliver says.
Sana and Riki gape at him. “Seriously?” Riki says.
“Yep, seriously.” Oliver takes another slurp of his coffee, savoring its smoky flavor. “She said Emma’s really opened up, thanks to Vera. And apparently Vera cooks a feast for pretty much every meal. I’ve been invited once or twice and those meals are to die for.”
“Oh man, that does sound good,” Sana says.
“I miss my mom’s cooking so much,” Riki says. “Back home, she used to cook all these huge meals for us too. Every Sunday, she’d make at least seven or eight dishes for us, and each one was amazing.”
Oliver smiles and nods. “What’s Indonesian food like?”
“Spicy,” Riki says with a laugh. “Everything smothered in different sambals—that’s chili paste. My favorite is terong balado, which is eggplant fried with the most gorgeous red chili and tomatoes.”
“Ooh, I love eggplant,” Sana says. “My dad is the cook in our family, and he makes this spinach and eggplant curry that is sooo comforting. It’s creamy and rich and to die for.”
Oliver thinks back to his mom’s garlic eggplant dish. It seems very weirdly specific to be talking about eggplant dishes right now, but somehow, it makes sense. There’s just something about eggplant that’s so comforting.
“So Julia’s eating well, huh?” Sana says.
“Yeah. The only downside is that Julia’s sleeping on the couch because she gave Vera her room.”
Sana laughs. “Of course she did. Poor Julia. I can just see Vera guilting her into giving up the master bedroom to Vera.”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t?” Riki says, nudging her with his elbow.
Sana widens her eyes. “Are you kidding? I am terrified of Vera; of course I would. And don’t even try to tell me you guys are not scared of Vera. You should see the way you two behave around her.”
“No, whaaat?” Oliver says amid laughter. “How do we behave?”
“Like schoolkids who know that they’ve done something really, really bad.”
Oliver’s laughter catches in his throat. Riki looks uneasy. Just for a moment—then they both force out their laughter. Oliver glances at Riki. What’s going on there? Oliver knows exactly what he did, but what does Riki have to feel guilty about? But the last thing Oliver wants to do is to start being suspicious of Riki or Sana, because he genuinely likes them. So he shakes off that uneasy feeling and tries to come up with an easygoing response that won’t ruin the moment.