The Assistants(31)

Staring down at this full-page spread of charred meat on a brioche bun made me realize something vitally important: Emily and Ginger were going to run their scheme with such moronic ostentation that they would get themselves caught in a matter of days, possibly minutes. And then I would be caught because the paper trail of forged documents would lead right back to me.

“Don’t you like it?” Emily asked.

I took the issue of Millennium Foodie from Emily’s outstretched hand, closed it, and set it down on the kitchen table. “You have to stop this,” I said as gently as I could. “Don’t you think if the two of you start showing up to work draped in blood diamonds and Birkin bags that people are going to start asking questions?”

Without warning, Emily grabbed the nearest issue of Ultimate Houses and chucked it at my feet. “I picked that burger out for you myself!”

“I appreciate that, Emily, but I can’t let you do this. You’d be putting me at risk. Even if I don’t cooperate with you.”

I ducked out of the way of a soaring glitter pen, then a glue stick, and, most egregiously, a pair of scissors. In Emily’s defense, they were at least safety scissors.

“You put yourself at risk when you cashed that check!” Emily Frisbeed a double issue of Fine Wines straight for my forehead.

Fortunately, I was a seasoned flying-object dodger on account of my parents, so Emily had yet to land a blow. Ginger, meanwhile, was calmly cutting the crotch out of another picture of Glen Wiles. It was a known Titan fact that Glen Wiles was a serial sexual harasser, so I could only imagine what it was like for someone with Ginger’s cup size to be his assistant—but still, she was a little too entranced by rendering him a eunuch.

“You’re killing our good-energy vibe in here,” Ginger said without looking up. “I think you should take your negativity elsewhere.”

A box of crayons ricocheted off my collarbone and I knew I had no choice but to go. Only after I slammed the door shut behind me did I realize I’d just been driven out of my own home.

My cell phone tinged and I was sure it was Emily calling me, to tell me that her psychotic break had ended and it was now safe for me to reenter my own apartment without a helmet.

Instead, it was a text from an unknown number: I’m waiting for you—WenDi.

How did Wendi Chan get my cell phone number?

Immediately following that text came another: I’m still waiting.

Then a third: Still waiting. I’ve got all night.

Lucky for Wendi Chan, I had nowhere else to go anyway.





13




WENDI CHAN LIVED in Bushwick, Brooklyn—Williamsburg’s grittier, less gentrified younger sibling. (It should be noted that given the warp speed of gentrification in present-day New York, Bushwick is already becoming a coveted neighborhood on par with the city-as-luxury-good at large—but trust me when I tell you that Wendi’s apartment building was an enduring, gentrification-resistant hellhole.)

No wonder she was so ornery. She worked all day in the creepy Titan basement surrounded by computer screens, doing god knows what with zeros and ones, and then she came home to here, the bowels of a broken building on Knickerbocker Avenue. I was surprised the doorbell worked when I pressed it.

She buzzed me in and I descended the stairwell, following the sounds of drums and screeching to the only apartment door that was propped open. I was free to let myself in to what I realized was band practice.

There were four of them, all Wendi look-alikes, set up in the middle of the living room. Honest to god, they could have passed for an Asian gothic version of Jem and the Holograms.

I stood awkwardly, straining not to cringe as the singer hit her high notes. Then Wendi called cut.

None of the girls acknowledged my presence before disappearing into one of the two bedrooms.

“You all live here together?” I asked as Wendi propped her bass up against the wall.

She nodded. “Four Chinese girls from Flushing living in a Bushwick basement.”

“That should be your band name,” I said.

Wendi made a sour face. “Our band name is I’m Not Chun-Li from Street Fighter but I’ll Still Fuck You Up.”

“You’re right,” I said. “That’s totally better.”

We each sat down on a vintage Marshall amp. Wendi reached into a red cooler filled with ice, pulled out a soaking can of Budweiser, and offered it to me. It was emblazoned with stars and stripes, a leftover from the Fourth of July.

“I love this American can, don’t you?” Wendi said in her gruff voice and slight Chinese accent. “Don’t you feel such freedom drinking from it?”

I cracked it open, causing a small volcano of foam to erupt onto the already sticky floor, and nodded.

Wendi tossed me an open bag of Lay’s Classic to go with my beer. “I didn’t think you would show.”

Neither did I, but now that I had a cold beer and salty chips, I would have stayed forever if she let me.

“I only came to tell you that whatever Lily Madsen told you, it isn’t true.” I crunched on my chips and avoided Wendi’s searing eye contact. “I don’t know anything about . . . about anything, really.”

“Stop embarrassing yourself,” Wendi said, cutting me off. “Have some dignity; don’t be a liar.”