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Celeste Ayi was a total nutcase, and I said that with as much sympathy and admiration a man like me could possibly muster.
She’d moved into my childhood mansion a few homes down the road to help raise me when Dad passed away and never bothered moving out after I left for college.
Seventeen years ago.
The sisters still lived together but could not be more different.
My mother was a straitlaced, PhD-holding former professor, who dedicated her life to raising me to be everything society expected me to become.
Successful. Put-together. An impeccably mannered overachiever.
Celeste, however, was a thrice-divorced, childless singer-songwriter who made infrequent visits to China to perform, cash in, and fuckoff with a new boy toy in the country of the day.
She inhaled more conspiracies than she did books, considered malls to be an extension of her closet, and cared a little less about what others thought of her than she did about color coordination.
Ayi tore up a picture, tossing the remnants behind her. “Too much like Tao’s mistress.”
Tao—one name only—and Celeste were the Sonny and Cher of China, only uber-sexualized.
Once upon a time, newspapers hailed Celeste Ayi as the nation’s most provocative, controversial female singer. She’d framed the articles, as if they were something to be proud of.
Then, she caught Tao in a hot tub with three women. Two months later, he went from second husband to second ex-husband.
Now they merely tolerated one another in public long enough for the occasional concert or photoshoot.
Ayi tapped a picture with a long, painted nail. “What about this one?”
Mom shuddered inside her fashionable suit. “Absolutely not. Her dad went to jail for tax fraud. Now her family lives in a tiny, rundown home in McLean that barely Zillows at 1.3 mil. The entire neighborhood petitioned the city to condemn the thing.”
The poverty didn’t bother her.
The problems that came with it did.
Sure enough, Mom snatched up the picture and tossed it onto the trash pile. “I don’t even know what it’s doing here. Remember, Zachary—you inherit the problems of your in-laws, so choose wisely.”
I yawned, ignoring the dozen or so texts Ollie bombarded the group chat with. “Sounds like the solution is to not have any in-laws.”
“And this one?” Ayi pointed at another photo, squinting. “She’s pretty enough. Round eyes. Milky glass skin.”
“Are you describing a goat?” I missed the tennis ball. It bounced off the desk, onto the hardwood, and then to the coffee table, where it rolled until it covered a Polaroid. “On second thought, a goat would require less maintenance than a wife. Carry on.”
They ignored me.
Mom’s lips twisted down. “She’s beautiful, yes, but she’s aninfluencer.” She punctuated the word with bunny ears. “That is not a proper job.”
“That’s not a job at all,” I interjected. “It’s a hobby you get paid for until the algorithm changes and you lose your clout.”
I absolutely despised social media. The only upside to it was that it seemed to bringus one step closer to the end of civilization.
“Oh, this one is a great option.” Mom plucked another Polaroid from the table, holding it to the natural light sifting through the curtains. “She’s a doctor. A neurologist.”
“At twenty-two?” I watched from the corner of my eye as Mom scurried toward me with a folder. “A perfect age for a brain doctor—before hers has fully formed.”
“She’s your age.” Mom ignored the quip, setting down a background check in front of me. “Not ideal if you’d like four children, which is frankly the bare minimum.”
This is not a daycare. I don’t need a full roster of babies to keep myself afloat.
I opened my mouth, then clamped my lips shut, thinking better of the words. Anything to do with death triggered her.
