“Not today, thankfully. That’s on Thursdays. You remember how I said I was an expert in disappearing?” I tucked my hair back behind my ear, giving her a sly smile. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight. My agent booked me for something last-minute, but I’d told my best friend Estelle I was coming here, so… I made it work. But my agent doesn’t know.”
“And from the way you’re talking about it, I’m guessing the agent doesn’t often not know.”
“Well, you read mytell-all, but truth be told, even that’s heavily filtered. The reality never comes out in those kinds of behind-the-scenes exposés because the reality is mundane and boring. Linyue has been managing my schedule, my bookings,my social events, and sometimes even my dates, since I was fifteen.”
“Yourdates?”
I nodded gravely, sipping my wine. “My first date, back in high school, was planned like a school event, which, to nobody’s surprise, didn’t impress him much. Linyue let up alittlebit after that, but she still wants me to check in on the details of my dates. And sometimes she offers suggestions or corrections or, God forbid, a way to work a date into a potential networking activity.Oh, you have a date? Bring them to the event in Midtown,” I said, mimicking Linyue’s familiar cadence. “And I have to tell her, no, ma’am, my date does not want to go to a transcontinental shipping logistics convention. Yes, I know they serve good catering.”
She snorted into her hand, covering up laughter, and just when she’d recovered, she broke again, laughing harder, both hands over her face. I made a show of pouting at her.
“I’m not exaggerating, that is what she suggested as a date one time.”
“I don’t know, it sounds romantic to me,” she said, recovering slowly. “If someone took me on a global-trade-route themed date, I’d be on my knees.”
“You’ll be shocked to know my date wasn’t of the same mindset.”
“Some people just don’t know how to have fun.”
I laughed, shaking my head as I drank from my glass. “So, yes, it’s rare for me to be somewhere Linyue doesn’t know about. And I feel like I’m doing something wrong by being here. But…” I set the drink down and put my hands up. “Screw it, you know?”
“I’d drink to that if I hadn’t already taken my entire glass of wine like a shot.” She clinked her glass to mine.
“I’ll pour you another once I’m sure you’re not going to pound that one too.”
“So why this?” she said. “I mean, if you’ve got Linyue breathing down your neck, what made this party worth playing escape artist for?”
She seemed to be relaxing after having the wine. Guess she really did need that whole glass. “Nothing in particular,” I said. “It was more about me than about the party itself. I’ve wanted for a while to get away from everything my father does and explore the tech startup world here, and it just finally broke through the surface today, got to the point where I wanted to do something about it. Estelle—you saw her with me and Mr. Cheng at the door—she was able to get me an invite, and I was supposed to have a free evening today, so it seemed like the stars aligned.”
“And you finally got to your long-awaited party, and you decided to spend it by chasing down a wannabe escape artist.”
I laughed, tossing my hair back and taking a bigger sip of wine. “If you walked into a party,” I said, “and a stranger turned around and said they really appreciated your work with one specific piece you did three years ago that nobody ever talks to you about, and then turned and disappeared before you could even ask her name, wouldn’t you be a little curious too?”
She scratched her head. “Okay, I guess that was a little weird on my part.”
“You just know how to get someone’s attention.”
She snorted, a look down at the counter like I didn’t even know the half of it, but I figured she was safe to pour a little more wine now for. I was enjoying talking to her a little loosened up. I took the bottle and uncorked it, and I poured her a glassful again, topping mine back up.
“So what does your father do?” she said as she took the glass, and I frowned.
“What?”
“Oh, uh. You said you wanted to get away from stuff your father does. So I’m assuming it’s not this. You know, rooftop parties with beautiful models and chardonnay.”
“You don’t know?”
She blushed fully now, looking everywhere but at me. “Oh, well, I, uh… I might have heard a thing or two but I don’t know if I can place it, but I… I mean, well, if I’m being honest, no. No idea. I don’t even know his name. Did it come up in your interview? I’m usually not too interested in, you know, what someone’s parents did as much as what they did, you know,” she said, fully rambling now and clearly genuinely embarrassed.
The last thing I’d expected at an event like this was for somebody to know me from my modeling and not even know who my father was. It was actually flattering. But I’d always liked to cause trouble, so I raised my eyebrows at her and said, “Well, I’m sure you’ll have heard about my mother Rebecca Ann Warrick.”
“Oh, yeah, uh, of course. I mean, yeah.”
I smiled wider. “Have you?”
“No,” she groaned, slumping against the counter. “I have literally never heard her name once in my life. Do you want me to go now? I can go now.”
“Wow,” I said, before I kicked one leg up over the other and leaned back in my seat. “Well, that’s probably because she deliberately doesn’t get involved in the public eye, so nobody knows who she is. I’m just giving you a hard time.”
