by Sarah Kuhn
FIVE
“Get in here.” Rory grabs my free hand and tows me inside, her face scrunched into a look of extreme determination. “Belle’s creating a diversion,” she hisses as I slip my shoes off and she leads me down the hall toward our living room.
“A diversion?” I say. In spite of my current state of total confusion about . . . well, so many things, I can’t help but smile a little. Rory’s in what Belle and I call Super Sleuth Girl Detective mode—so single-minded in her pursuit of whatever goal has captured her fancy that she starts going all Nancy Drew and shit.
“Yes.” Rory gives me a curt nod as she continues stomping down the hall. “So we can have a Sister Conference.”
“You didn’t tell the Aunties, right?” I say, momentary worry skittering through me.
After I’d given Belle and Rory a blabbery, incoherent version of my conclusions over the phone, they’d told me to come home immediately so we could discuss. But I’d insisted they not say anything to Auntie Suzy and Auntie Och, because . . . well. I didn’t even know where to begin.
I mean, if my theory’s correct, Auntie Suzy has basically lied to me all my life about who my mother is and, you know, the fact that she isn’t dead, and—
Ugh.
I can’t think about any of this without my brain spiraling in a million different directions, my kaiju-temper threatening to flare up and destroy everything around me. No, I can’t ask the Aunties about this yet. I feel like I’ll explode.
“Hi, Moms!” Rory says loudly, stomping her way into the living room. “Rika’s back. She has food.”
Auntie Suzy and Auntie Och look up from their respective TV trays. Since our living room is also our dining room, everyone has their own TV tray, although we’re not actually allowed to watch TV during dinner (an issue Rory vehemently protests every chance she gets). I meet Auntie Suzy’s gaze and immediately look away. All I see now is that girl from the photo, smiling like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Leave food here,” Auntie Och says, tapping her TV tray. “Belle-chan needs you. She’s in her room.”
“Needs . . . me?” I say, my voice tipping up at the end.
“She is having some kind of crisis,” Auntie Suzy says, her brows drawing together. “A teenage crisis. That she couldn’t talk to us about.”
“So dramatic, ne?” Auntie Och says with a snort. “Everything is crisis. When I was younger, we shove it down, act like everything is okay. Then started plotting revenge on whoever wronged us.”
“Come on,” Rory tugs my sleeve, waggling her eyebrows at me meaningfully. They’re bouncing up and down so much, they look like overcaffeinated caterpillars.
Oh—this must be Belle’s diversion. So we can have a Sister Conference. Or Sister-Cousin Who Just Found Out Her Mom Is Possibly Alive and Also Possibly One of the Most Famous Movie Stars on the Planet Conference.
I allow Rory to drag me down another narrow hall in our apartment, to Belle’s bedroom. Belle whips the door open just as we arrive. Nak comes trotting up to me, barking his tiny head off. He’s wearing a pink doggie sweatsuit that’s identical to the human-sized one Belle is wearing—probably part of an Instagram shoot. Belle is on a quest to make her dog an influencer and nobody’s going to stop her. Except maybe Nak himself, who objects to the multitude of outfits and photo shoots his would-be stardom seems to involve. Even now, he stops barking for a second to gnaw at his sweatsuit’s tiny sleeve.
“God, Rika!” Belle exclaims, pulling me and Rory inside and slamming the door behind us. “Rory and I had to work overtime to make the moms believe you hadn’t been murdered or something. And then we had to set everything up just right.”
“Set everything up for what?” I say. “I thought we were just going to talk—”
“Mostly, yes,” Rory says, her eyes darting back and forth. “I have to go do one thing.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” I say, slumping on the bed as she stomps out of the room.
“Let me see,” Belle says, holding out a hand.
I fish the photo out of my pocket and hand it to her. Her eyes get all big.
“Holy shit,” she says. “That is totally Grace Kimura. And Mom.”
She stares at the photo for a moment, her expression shifting as her world adjusts. After all, this means Auntie Suzy lied to her, too. Unless . . .
“You didn’t know about this, did you?” I demand.
“Rika-chan.” Belle’s face goes deathly serious, and she sets the photo to the side. “Of course not. I would never.” She reaches over to the nightstand and grabs the family iPad—a gadget of questionable repute that Auntie Och won in an eBay auction. Nak, apparently forgiving her for trying to make him a star, snuggles up next to her. “Also, do you really think I’d be able to keep my cool over the fact that I might be related to Grace Kimura?”
“Point,” I murmur as she unlocks the screen.
It is weird, though, the way the whole family is obsessed with Grace Kimura. Did Auntie Suzy do that on purpose—like, get Belle and Rory way into those rom-coms at a young age so she could follow her sister’s illustrious career? Does Auntie Och know about this, even? I mean, she must . . .
I guess that explains why my mother’s death was so shrouded in secrecy, why there was no funeral, why it was like she just disappeared. Because she did just disappear—only to be reborn as Asian America’s sweetheart.
What the hell?
I can’t even begin to think of the level of planning that went into this. Maybe Auntie Suzy is a witch after all.
“Okay,” Belle says, gesturing to the iPad. Her expression has shifted again—now she’s all business. “We need to discuss your future.”
“My what?” I look at the screen. Belle has assembled an Insta-worthy aesthetic collage of Grace Kimura photos. Grace in one of her most famous movie roles, running through the rain, eyes full of fake tears. Grace on the red carpet with a posse of other Asian American movie stars, smiling her most dazzling smile. Grace done up for a photo shoot as an actual princess, tiara sparkling against her raven hair.
These photos orbit the main attraction, though—a giant photo of me that Belle has placed in the center. She of course couldn’t find one where I’m smiling or even making a borderline attractive face. I’m looking at something off to the side, my face twisted into a scowl. I am the grouchy sun in this thoroughly weird solar system.
That has not stopped Belle from photoshopping a tiny crown onto my head.
“Rika,” Belle breathes, her voice reverent. “Don’t you see what this means? You’re Hollywood royalty. An actual princess. Which is hilarious, since you’re so opposed to all things princess—”
“Yes, ‘hilarious’ is definitely the word I would use,” I mutter.
“Grace is going to bring you into her world, you’ll be swept into the upper echelons of Asian Hollywood,” Belle crows. “That’s your happily ever after!”
Her eyes are lit with glee as she runs her bright pink nails over the collage, and I know she’s picturing all of this in her head, the sequence unspooling like the third act of her favorite movie. My skin airbrushed, my eyes wide and shiny with happy tears, my wardrobe suddenly brimming with fancy designers and diamond-encrusted headwear.
Before I can ponder that further, Rory stomps back in and triumphantly waves something over her head.
“Found it,” she says. “Proof.”
She marches over to the bed and inserts herself between Belle and me, passing me the two scraps of paper clasped in her hand. Nak grunts in protest, resettling himself.
One of the scraps is another faded photo—teenage Grace again, not much older than she is in the picture I stole from Suehiro. But this time she’s wearing a blah hospital gown instead of a yukata, and she’s holding a tiny smoosh-faced baby. She’s still smiling, though, that Grace Kimura dazzle on display even though
she looks tired around the eyes. The other is a crumbling piece of paper that appears to be my birth certificate.
And right there in the mother column? Grace Rakuyama. Because of course Grace was once a Rakuyama, like us.
I feel light-headed again, the letters and numbers on the certificate blurring in and out.
“Where did you find this?” I finally manage.
“The locked drawer where Ma Och keeps her weed stash,” Rory says, sitting up proudly. “I taught myself how to pick all the locks in her dresser last week. Figured that most forbidden drawer is where the moms keep their most top secret documents.”
“Nice work, Aurora,” Belle says, giving her an appreciative nod. “Now that we’ve determined the facts, we need to talk about Rika’s future.”
“My future?” I spit out, my voice twisting on that last syllable. “Y’all, this is not . . . not . . .”
I shake my head, frustration welling in my chest. How do they not get that this isn’t some kind of fun game for me? It’s not a mystery for Sleuth Rory to solve. A fairy tale for Queen Belle to preside over. It’s learning that my entire existence is a lie. That the foundation of my life is something totally different than what I thought it was.
It feels like there’s an earthquake in my heart.
Once again, that wall goes up between me and my sisters. Cousins.
They’re exchanging looks now, looks that say they don’t understand why I’m freaking out, but they know they have to play it cool. They have to handle me, because I’m being difficult, as usual. Their undeniable connection snaps into place. They belong, as always, to each other, and communicate all of this through their sister telepathy.
“I don’t want to be a Hollywood princess,” I say, trying to make my voice measured, even. Still, it cracks. “I just want to . . .” To what? I gnaw on my lower lip, considering.
“To talk to her, right?” Rory says. “Get all the answers about the mystery of your existence.”
“Something like that,” I mumble.
“Then let’s figure that out,” Belle says, her demeanor back to all business. She gives me a sidelong look, like she’s trying to gauge my reaction. She still doesn’t understand why I’m freaking out. I guess if Belle found out Grace Kimura was her mother, she’d be too busy celebrating and posting Insta collages to think about anything else.
“Hmm,” Belle says. “That’s odd.”
“What?” Rory leans over, peering at the iPad in Belle’s lap. Belle has navigated away from her Asian Hollywood Royalty collage and is now tapping her way through various social apps so fast, her fingertips are a blur.
“All of Grace’s feeds are gone,” Belle says, her eyebrows drawing together. “No Insta, no Twitter. The usernames don’t exist anymore.”
“Maybe her, uh, people took them down,” I say. “After today’s disaster, doesn’t it make sense to go dark on social?”
“Go dark, yes,” Belle says, tapping her way over to TMZ. “But usually that means posting a hiatus message and leaving it be. Maybe locking, if you want to get extreme. But not deleting entirely.” Her brow furrows further as she scrolls through various news stories and paparazzi footage. “Even weirder: Grace’s reps still haven’t issued a statement. No one’s seen her since she fainted at the parade.”
“So she’s missing?” Rory says, her eyes widening at the hint of yet another mystery.
“Probably just lying low, but all of this is bizarre,” Belle says. “There should have been a statement by now, at the very least. Something about how she was exhausted and the sun got to her and she’s resting, can everyone please respect her privacy at this time. Blah, blah, et cetera.”
As she and Rory continue discussing the particulars of this weirdness, I take the iPad from Belle and focus on the story she’s pulled up. It features a single photo from earlier in the day, someone’s phone camera shot blown way up. It’s actually pretty clear—maybe one of the dancers took it? Grace has that wild woman look again, her eyes desperate, her hair swirling around her.
I flash back to right before Grace collided with me, her eyes locking with mine. That moment when I felt so connected to her. Like we were communicating with our own version of telepathy.
I have to find her, I realize. Even if she’s lying low, even if she’s gone into hiding, even if she’s deleted all her social accounts and wants to pretend like Grace Kimura, Movie Star, doesn’t exist.
And not just to unravel the mystery of my past. I have to find her because for that brief moment when her eyes locked with mine, I felt a flash of connection with another person that was so powerful, it brought tears to my eyes. Maybe, like me, she doesn’t belong to anyone.
Maybe we could belong to each other.
Once upon a time, a peasant girl lived in the quaint village of Little Tokyo. She was a tragic orphan, an oddity people whispered and gossiped about. She tried to blend in as best she could and to perform various tasks as a dutiful member of her remaining family. Then, one day, she discovered her mother was in fact a beautiful and beloved queen, and the peasant was orphaned no more. There was much rejoicing throughout the village, and the peasant felt that perhaps she had finally found answers to questions she’d harbored all her life.
However, the queen suddenly disappeared without a trace, not even having the courtesy to leave an away message or a forwarding address or an “on hiatus” tweet.
Seriously, what the hell, Mom?
SIX
I’ve come up with the worst plan ever.
I should have known it was the worst plan ever, because it hit me at like three a.m., well after Belle, Rory, and I had exhausted every other possibility. We’d tried calling Grace’s agency—no answer, it was the middle of the night on a Saturday. We’d scoured the internet for further hints—but Grace was still MIA, no statements from anyone, just tons of speculation, most of it involving some form of rehab. Belle started a #WheresGrace hashtag and got it to trend locally. But even with her infinite Belle powers, we hadn’t gotten any clues as to where Grace had gone.
I’d tried to sleep, but it was impossible, and I’d ended up staring into the darkness. My bedroom is covered in various drawings Rory and I had done of yokai—Japanese monsters—when we were goofing around one afternoon, and I couldn’t help but think they were gazing back at me, trying to help.
So I’d gotten my phone out and scoured the internet again, trying to find some morsel—any morsel—that would lead me closer to Grace Kimura. I’d come across a lot of articles about her latest movie: another big, splashy rom-com called We Belong that was set to come out next summer. They were almost done filming, but Grace was still on the job, still had a few more weeks of shooting to go.
Said movie is the one co-starring Mr. Not a Vandal, Hank Chen—who my extensive research tells me is seven-teen, the same age as Belle and me. He’s nabbed himself a “potentially scene-stealing” role as Grace’s irrepressible younger brother. Much is being made of the fact that this is Hank’s first “real” acting role, the first time he’ll have to do something other than look cute, smile, and dance. It’s apparently kind of a surprise that he got the role in the first place, and the more uncharitable entertainment gossip sites are salivating at the idea that he’s about to totally mess up and make a giant fool of himself and be banished to endless rounds of being a coach on Dance! Off! before fading into the obscurity reserved for all the Disney kids and boy band stars who never manage to shed their former image.
My brain hooked into this part of the Grace Kimura saga, and it was ultimately the genesis of my terrible plan. It led me to looking up Hank’s Instagram and sending him a delirious-sounding three a.m. message, and that’s why he’s now sitting across from me in a cramped booth at Katsu That, my Aunties’ katsu restaurant.
I have to admit: when I woke up this morning feeling less delirious, I thought there was no way I’d hear back from h
im.
But here he is.
He still looks too cute, that bit of inherent smugness impossible to suppress. But there’s something less assured about him today—a wariness that creeps into his dark eyes every now and then. Or maybe people just look different when you’re not crashing headfirst into them and getting all tangled up in your own yukata.
An unexpected warmth flashes over my skin as I think back to our meeting the day before. I shake it off.
“So explain this to me,” Hank says. “You need to find Grace Kimura because—?”
I fold my hands on the table and school my features into what I hope is a starstruck look.
“Because I am definitely her biggest fan ever, and when she ran into me yesterday at the parade, her bracelet got caught on my yukata and I need to get it back to her. And it would be amazing to really meet her, you know? Without the crashing-into-each-other part.”
He stares at me for a moment, studying me intently. Then he lets out that laugh again, the one that’s snort-adjacent.
“That,” he says, “is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
“Excuse you—” I huff, indignant.
“You are an interesting person and a terrible liar,” he interrupts, cocking one of those too-cute eyebrows. “You were so insistent yesterday about not being a princess. And anyone who’s that averse to being called a princess is most definitely not a Grace Kimura fan. She’s princessdom personified.”
“Really?” I say, a little too quickly. Something stabs at me, a burst of pure longing. “What’s she like? I mean, in real life.”
“Oh no,” he says, raising a finger. A bit of that mischief has crept back into his eyes, that infuriating smugness on full display. Like he’s just so amused by everything. “You are not getting any more information out of me until you tell me what this is actually about.”
