Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
But why would my mystery guest be fascinated with this particular art piece when I had hundreds more pricey and less secure lying around the house?
She could’ve picked the figurine right next to it. Unlocked. Unguarded. In plain sight. It would go for double the price, too.
The pendants must’ve meant something to her.
Or, at the very least, one of them did.
“…come to terms with the fact that she is blonde, but I won’t accept an unschooled harlot for a daughter-in-law.” Mother droned on in the background. “In fact, I won’t make promises to accept her at all. Oh, this is horrible. Why couldn’t you have taste?”
“Because then he’d be fun.” Celeste Ayi, who’d long advanced to her third drink, slammed a bottle down at the whiskey cart, guzzling another glass like it was water. She squinted out the window with the tumbler burrowed into her chest. “It’s just my luck to have the most boring nephew possible. A fortune-teller told me so when I went to Hawaii for that bachelorette party. You know the one. She said he’d be nothing but a headache. And you know what? I do blame him for my Advil addiction.”
Neither Mom nor I paid attention to her.
I sifted through mental images of all the art I’d purchased this year until I reached the pendant. Sotheby’s. Newly widowed housewife.
I’d contacted the seller privately and offered far more than the evaluation before the auction even began, refusing to entertain a bidding war.
Not when Dad had wanted to complete the his-and-hers collection.
I remembered the seller. Fifties. Stocky. Bleached hair. Too much plastic in her face for anything that wasn’t a cheap garden chair.
She talked a mile a minute and kept offering to introduce me to her daughters. Daughters that could include the little octopus.
They didn’t appear genetically related, but perhaps the father compensated for the cotton candy the mother had between her ears.
There was only one way to find out.
“Are you listening? Zach? Zachary?” Mom snapped her fingers in front of my face. “I’m taking you to Shanghai next month to find a match. I will not be—”
Her voice sunk in the turbulent ocean of my thoughts.
I knew I’d promised myself not to seek her out, but that was before I found out she’d tried to steal from me.
Now, the peculiar encounter transformed into something else completely.
Little Octi needed to be taught a lesson.
And I was an excellent teacher.
1 Translation: Aunt.
Ari:
So? Got the pendant?
Farrow:
Nope.
He caught me.
Ari:
HE CAUGHT YOU?
Ari:
ZACHARY SUN CAUGHT YOU?
Ari:
HOW ARE YOU SO CALM?
Ari:
Do I need to get there and post bail?
I’ve always wanted to do that. It looks so cool in the movies.
Farrow:
He let me go.
Ari:
That’s… charitable of him?
Farrow:
This man wouldn’t perform a single act of charity if the future of the continent depended on it.
Farrow:
He caught me snooping, not stealing.
Farrow:
It was bizarre.
We somehow ended up playing Go.
Ari:
I’m confused and slightly turned on by this chain of events.
Ari:
Did you at least win?
Farrow:
We never finished the game.
Ari:
You left without giving him your number?
Farrow:
He chased me down his front yard and tried to stab me.
Ari:
I see.
Ari:
Good thing you didn’t give him your number, then.
Ari:
Did he actually try to stab you, though?
Farrow:
He tossed a knife at me.
Farrow:
I can still smell the steel, three days after.
Ari:
Clearly you left an impression.
Ari:
Do you think he knows who you are?
Farrow:
Hard no.
Farrow:
My own family barely knows who I am, and I live under their roof.
Ari:
So, what are you going to do now?
Farrow:
Find my way back in there and get the pendant when he’s out of the house.
Farrow:
It’s going to take some leg work, but I can do it.
Ari:
You’re crazy.
Farrow:
Crazy, but lucky.
Farrow:
I might not have won at Go, but I won at Catch.
Like all calamities, mine came to me at a low point.
I scrubbed leftover lasagna, the brain-like texture soaking into my sweatpants when the doorbell rang. Tomato paste brushed across my face like war paint.
Tabby had decided the family’s cleaning business, Maid in Maryland, was not for her. She’d started pursuing a career as a food blogger.
The fact that she was a terrible cook did not deter her one bit.
From the second floor, Reggie’s voice pierced the veil of an Olivia Rodrigo song. “Someone get the door.”
Sometimes I wondered if she was twenty-two, like me, or twelve.
“Too busy.” Something collapsed in the dining room, followed by Tabby’s loud groan. “Ugh, stupid superlong selfie stick.”
“Farrow.” Vera cranked up the living room TV. The Real Housewives of Potomac. She once cornered the producer at a bar and begged for a cameo. “Do something useful with yourself and get the door.”
I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to yell past them. “Cleaning.”
Your grown ass child’s mess.
One of Tabby’s Le Creuset dishes hadn’t made the journey from the oven to the island counter.
The beginnings of candy-red bruises coated my knees from twenty minutes of scooping Bolognese from the kitchen tiles into a bucket with a spatula.