Excerpt
Twin Tides
Chapter One
Aria
“Hello, miss. This is Officer Gordon Badiou calling from the Les Eaux Police Department. I would like to discuss information regarding the disappearance of Xuân Giang Nguyen. Please call me back at your earliest convenience. It’s okay if it’s after hours— I understand you are busy. This number should forward any new messages to me directly.”
The officer’s voice plays in Aria’s mind, and she shakes off the gnawing anxiety caused by ignoring his voicemail. It’s the kind of call Aria’s been waiting and praying into existence for the past fourteen years. But when she heard his voice, Aria could process the information only matter-of-factly, like she was learning about some politician on TV or a stranger she’d read about online.
In this moment, Aria wants to pretend the news this officer has is innocuous, like he’s somehow found the ID card she lost in middle school. She tells herself all she needs to do is survive the day. So she hasn’t called Officer Badiou back. Instead, she continues her walk toward Kim’s Laundry and Dry Cleaning in disbelief that it’s already that time of year again.
Every year, around December especially, a bone-deep yearning returns. It’s a missing that no words can explain. It usually crushes Aria, but she can’t afford to let that happen anymore. Between school, taking care of Aunt Thu, and barely holding it together, there isn’t time to wallow. Inside the organized box in Aria’s head, she tucks away Officer Badiou’s message into the missing mom folder. Aria becomes fully numb, as she always does on the anniversary of her mother’s disappearance.
“Hey, Ari. Your dress is ready,” a voice calls from beyond the drying machines. Aria’s sitting on an orange plastic chair in a neat laundromat, looking toward the back hallway that snakes behind the stacked white coin dryers. The room is monochromatic, with white laminate floors and white painted walls. Mrs. Kim says it’s easier to keep everything clean when she can see every spot. But with the sun shining through the plastic blinds and reflecting off the colorless surfaces, everything is too bright, too pure, and too clean. Aria’s eyes hurt today.
She stands, letting her backpack fall into the plastic chair’s seat with a thud before following the voice coming from the back room. She rubs her eyes, the gritty sensation of two-day-old eyeliner smearing under her fingertips, as she turns the hallway’s corner. On the other side of the ajar red door to Mrs. Kim’s office, Philip stands with a wry smile on his face and a garment on a hanger draped over his skinny arms. He’s uncharacteristically dressed-up today, wearing black slacks with a waffle-knit white button-up.
“What’s the occasion?” Aria asks, moving to take the sheathed dress hanging from his arms and lightly jabbing him with her elbow. “Do you have another blind date to go on?”
Philip smiles, the edges of his lips curling. He pauses for a second, clinging to the dress before letting it go.
“You think I’d go on a date looking like I sell insurance?”
Aria chokes out a laugh, the tension of the day and the unanswered voicemail dissolving the tiniest bit. Philip’s face finally breaks into a genuine smile, his front teeth fully exposed in the goofy way Aria adores. He leans back onto Mrs. Kim’s desk and crosses his arms.
Philip is about a head taller than Aria, making him both taller than the average Korean kid and short enough that Aria knows he still lies on his dating-app profiles. His black hair is lightly styled, ear length and falling away from his face to expose a tanned forehead. Staring at his pouting lips and hooded dark brown eyes, Aria can’t help thinking of the girls in high school who’d squeal about how much he looked like their favorite drama actor. Suddenly it dawns on her that all the ramen bags in her house have this specific actor’s face on them, and the realization makes her cheeks heat up. Is she subconsciously surrounding herself with different iterations of Philip?
“No? Then dare I inquire if you have a job interview? Or a college interview?” Aria says, averting her eyes and pretending to scan the length of the dress in her arms.
“Aria, stop with that,” Philip says.
“Stop what? Encouraging my terribly talented but devastatingly unambitious best friend to quit being afraid of success?”
Aria silently applauds herself for diverting Philip’s attention away from her blushing face. The second allows her to get her bearings, and she sneaks a glance back up at him. His gaze is fixed at a spot on the wall, his eyes downcast and lips held taut.
“I mean it, Philip. I don’t get it.” Seriously. Aria doesn’t get it, but she has a suspicion of where he’s coming from.
Philip’s dad abandoned his family when Philip was barely standing on two wobbly legs. On occasion, Aria catches Philip searching for news about Gabriel Kim’s latest Silicon Valley successes (she does her part by pretending not to notice).
Aria knows that Mrs. Kim keeps her brother—Philip’s father—abreast of Philip’s life through sporadic voicemails. As far as Aria knows, Philip’s father has never returned a call.
She wondered what Mr. Kim would think if he heard that Philip and his childhood best friend both got into Georgetown. Though Aria was currently the only one at first-year orientation because Philip declined his spot, claiming he had to keep handling things for his aunt Mrs. Kim (both the business of the laundromat and the business of keeping her company). Philip had told his aunt he didn’t get accepted and begged Aria to maintain the lie.
A lifetime of friendship, and Aria has never been able to say no to his pleading face.
“I know you’re not talking. I thought you said you were going to stop your little side hustle,” Philip says, his tone clipped. His voice drops to a whisper as he gestures at the dress in Aria’s hands. “I shouldn’t be enabling this. You’re going to get caught, Ari.”
“I’m not,” Aria says, unsure if she’s mustered enough confidence to convince Philip she’s right. She glances down at the garment in her arms. The clear plastic bag encases a silky asymmetrical cocktail dress, pastel blue with a slit edging precariously high. There is a gold pin near the collar—a delicate enamel tulip. It’s a dress that costs more than a three-credit class at Georgetown and all the required textbooks. A knot of jealousy mixed with awe grinds inside Aria, so she shoos it away.
“What does the tulip mean?” Philip asks, pointing to the pin on the dress. It’s an abrupt question that catches Aria off guard.
“Fortune. Notoriety, even. You know, you don’t have to ask me that every time you see a flower.”
“But I enjoy asking you about flowers.” Philip smiles at her. She doesn’t know when his goofy grin changed, but now it makes her feel twenty emotions at once.
“I know you don’t care about flowers . . . You’re lulling me into a false sense of security so you can lecture me some more,” Aria says, pretending she’s unaffected, before returning her attention to the dress. It has pockets, discretely sewn so as not to interrupt the structure of the dress, and in one is an envelope. Aria pulls it out, the thick weight of the cash in her fingers triggering a slight thrill. She counts to make sure everything is there—exactly eight hundred bucks and a note. On it are the initials F.M. and the scribbled words: Thanks, you’re a lifesaver. See you next semester.
“Thanks, bud,” Aria says, slipping the envelope back into the pocket.
Felicity Mackey, a girl who lives a few doors down in Harbin Hall, needed someone to take her Principles of Microeconomics final. Felicity claimed to have the flu last minute, allowing Aria to take the exam via the remote portal. Somehow Aria pulled it off. It’s not like Aria didn’t have her own tests to pass, but the bill for Aunt Thu’s last hospitalization had come in, and there was an extra digit they weren’t expecting. Aria already needed to pivot, anyway. She used to be able to sustain her business on essays and term papers, but then AI arrived on the scene. While Aria is undetectable, AI is cheaper.
Turning Philip and Mrs. Kim’s business into the unsuspecting front for a fraudulent academic consulting gig wasn’t originally Aria’s intent. Heck, she didn’t even intend to be part of this scheme herself.
It happened by accident, when, earlier this fall semester, Aria’s roommate begged for Aria to help her. Aria’s insides had screamed no, but she couldn’t ignore how upset Stephanie was.
Too soft for your own good.
That’s what Aunt Thu always says.
Aunt Thu’s health had been declining since Aria was in middle school, and her aunt had used the rest of her savings to pay for the part of tuition that Aria’s scholarship didn’t cover. Aria daydreamed about ways to rescue herself and Aunt Thu from their financial black hole, with most scenarios involving Aunt Thu’s sudden recovery or discovering a suitcase brimming with cash. Of course, Aria was asking for too much. After Aunt Thu had given up everything for her, Aria felt it was only fair to return the favor.
It was just one paper, and her roommate’s offer was for more money than Aria had ever seen in her life at one time. Aria’s knee-jerk reaction was to use the laundromat as a safe liaison point. It was a reaction probably borne from nerves. Philip’s favorite theory was that the side of Aria’s brain responsible for academic work had stolen all the wrinkles from the other parts of her brain.
Before he’d become a curmudgeon over it, being a part of the scheme had thrilled Philip, back when it was still new, and all Aria had to do was write a single short paper on Locke or log into someone’s student portal so they wouldn’t get dinged for an absence. It was quite a seamless system. Students in the know would message Aria via an encrypted app and ask her for a dry cleaner recommendation. Then all communications and money exchanges would happen far from campus, through Kim’s Laundry and Dry Cleaning.
The truth is, operating out of the laundromat protects Aria’s pride on campus. She is her honest self in class, in front of her professors . . . or at least, she can pretend she is her honest self— a minor victory in the grand scheme of things. Her totally-normal-college-freshman cosplay. There, she is simply any old college student and not this distorted version of herself.
Philip follows Aria as she walks back to the main room of the laundromat, dress and ego barely in tow.
“Thanks again. I’ll . . .” Aria says, flustered by Philip’s presence behind her. It’s been happening more often lately. His closeness, that is. And Aria’s annoyed by the thought of Philip treating her the same way he did when they were ten years old, like he’s a big brother who needs to protect her. Is she the only one whose feelings are changing?
“Not so fast,” Philip says, grabbing Aria’s free arm and swinging her around to face him. “That tree is still blocking your mailbox, so the mail guy dropped it all off here.”
“I’ll grab the mail later—” Aria starts, but she’s already too late: Philip has darted off. Damn his long legs.
Instead of leaving as she planned, Aria drapes the dress over a chair. The row of drying machines rattles in front of her, hunched and vibrating against the stark white backsplash of the laundromat and a wall of meticulously arranged celebrity photos. Well, “celebrity” might be generous. Aria kicks her feet against the laminate floor and sinks into the plastic chair, letting her eyes glaze over as she scans the images. They are cursed relics, a literal time capsule pulling Aria back to a place she’s doing her best to avoid.
