Rent a Boyfriend Read online

  Living with another operative was a blessing and a G-D curse. Having a buddy to commiserate with was priceless and kept me stable, but he also noticed everything. Like yesterday, when I’d walked in the door fresh off the Wang job, Jason had immediately sensed I was off and wouldn’t let it go until I feigned diarrhea. (“Mom’s cooking, you know how it is,” I had said, and he’d nodded.) I’d spent the bathroom time trying to pull myself together, chanting not your prerogative waaay too many times. He’d let it go, but this morning, in the kitchen, as I heated water for green tea in a half-awake stupor, he side-eyed me once or twice and asked how my bowels were doing. I rubbed my lower abdomen and made a couple of faces. And I definitely did not tell him that I was this tired because I had lain awake last night thinking about whatever-her-name-was.

  Why her? Why was I so captivated by her type-A tendencies (an opposites-attract thing?), her perceptiveness (I mean, it was annoying when Jason saw through me), her part-selfless yet fierce personality (wasn’t that completely contradictory?). Maybe because all of that, together, added up to the most intelligent, driven, passionate, caring, yet strong person I’d ever met. It also didn’t hurt that she made me laugh (mooncake points to her!). The monologues I had given her parents weren’t just from training, but also because I felt like I knew her and truly believed she deserved all I mentioned and more.

  My defenses dropped when Jason left me alone to start his morning routine. Even though we didn’t have to (and in a perfect world I’d stay up all night painting), Jason and I tried to keep a “normal” schedule so the transitions during jobs were easier.

  I was setting the oven timer for a three-minute steep when my Rent for Your ’Rents app dinged. Well, more accurately, it went ba-boop-boop, alerting me with its unique notification of a potential job.

  “Yours or mine?” Jason called out from the bathroom, where he was washing his face with the door open. His phone was charging in the kitchen beside me.

  “Mine!”

  I checked the timing of the job: to start in a week (less prep time than average, meaning this could be a desperate and possibly volatile situation). Then I skimmed through the small block of information we receive to gauge our preliminary interest.

  The parents were Type A (ugh, it was extra draining for me to be affectionate) and Category 3, which rarely matched to me (Type C, Category 1, like the Wangs was my area of expertise). I continued scrolling to see what in this client’s file had made me the ideal operative for her.

  Ah, her parents were native Taiwanese and preferred the daughter be with someone who could speak Mandarin and Taiwanese. My Taiwanese wasn’t great, but I’d taken a few classes, and it was a skill few operatives had.

  I kept reading, and, oh boy. My heart started to hurt. Because under the why she had written: I’m not ready to come out to my family yet, but they’re starting to wonder why I’ve never had a boyfriend.

  “Well?” Jason said to me as he took a seat at the counter, a.k.a. our dining table.

  “It’s a tough one,” I said quietly.

  “Oh no,” he said, catching on. “What do you want to do?”

  “Don’t I have to take it? How can I not? If she’s not ready, she’s not ready, right? Or… am I just making everything worse for her?” I chewed on a fingernail. “WWJD?”

  “Jesus? Well, I don’t think you want to ask that,” Jason tried to joke, even though he already knew the J referred to him. “I don’t know, bud—there’s an argument either way. What about the rest of the info? Have you clicked interested yet?”

  I shook my head. “This is still the preliminary stuff.”

  He nodded. “You in enough to know more?”

  “Not yet. You know I don’t like to get more info unless I’m pretty sure.”

  He pursed his lips to one side. “I get that, but how can you decide if you don’t have all the facts? And it’s not like you know any identifying information at stage two.” We didn’t receive that until the job was booked, confirmed on both ends, and paid for.

  Jason and I had already had this discussion several times before. I was too tired right now.

  “I’ll decide later,” I said, setting a reminder on my phone. Right before I closed out of the app, I saw that Jing-Jing had rated me five stars.

  I retreated to my room with my green tea.

  When I’d moved in a year and a half ago, I’d lofted my bed so I could maximize my work space, which was small enough that it forced me to be organized and methodical. (I hadn’t decided yet if that was good or bad for my creativity.)

  The moon was usually my muse, and I was working on a paper treatment that created the texture of the moon’s surface (and maybe one day, Cháng’é willing, would be the thing to make me famous). But today, without thinking, I painted a silhouette that dissolved into a galaxy in which he didn’t belong.

  Art flowed through me, compelling me to create, but so far my creations were only for my eyes. Even after all this time, I hadn’t been able to share my paintings with anyone, not even Jason, not really. (I made myself show him only when I desperately needed feedback, and that was as painful as dragging a knife across my skin.)

  Once my parents had cut me off for dropping out of college to pursue art, I’d halted at the bridge connecting us, terrified to stomp on the last, already-splintered wooden plank. Terrified to actually go for it. Because if I tried to make it, if I shared my art with someone, then that would make it real, and it would be harder to go back. My parents had been the ones to break the other planks, but I still had control over that last one.

  Worse, what if I failed? What if I shared only to learn that I sucked at this and I’d thrown away my family for nothing? I had already fought and lost; I couldn’t lose again with the one thing I had left.

  That’s why I can’t stop thinking about her, I realized. Jing-Jing and I had a connection, not because of how her parents were with her (I’d seen that on every job), but because of how she was with them. She cared but was also fighting for what she wanted—a life without Hongbo.

  I was thinking about her just because of my own messed-up shit. Nothing else.

  I tilted my head and examined the painted silhouette from all angles. My art didn’t feel complete without a moon. So at the top I added a half-moon crying over the broken silhouette, unable to put the pieces back together.

  And then, like the fool I was, I texted her. Maybe because I had hope that she would understand me when no one else did, not even myself. Maybe because every time her face scrunched with worry and that little dimple appeared on her forehead, I felt a need to fix it, and that dimple had been front and center the last time I’d seen her.

  Maybe I just couldn’t help it, prerogative or no prerogative.

  November 30, 1:23 p.m. PST

 

  Thanks for the five stars

  Hope you’re ok

  December 1, 11:41 a.m. PST

 

  Sorry

  You don’t have to respond if you don’t want

  I know this is weird

  Erm, I’m making it weird

  I shouldn’t have texted

  Sorry

  Um, take care

  Drew CHAPTER 20

  HEAD BANGING

  December 3

  It was for the best that she didn’t respond. For her sake, for mine, even for her parents, who would most definitely not approve of Jing-Jing fraternizing with a starving artist side-hustling as a professional fake boyfriend. Though it didn’t keep me from banging my head against the wall as I checked my phone every five minutes for a few days until it finally sank through my thick skull that nothing was coming except more ba-boop-boops.

  Regret. Embarrassment. More head banging on the wall. I painted sad, blue, dripping moons.

  Soon, as always (given enough time), with each brushstroke came the memories.

  Drew, why you pick a career with no future? The best you can wish for is getting paid to draw silly distorted doodles of
tourists at the beach.

  Why can’t you be more like your younger brother? You’re supposed to be the role model for him, not the other way around.

  If we’d known you would just throw away everything we’ve given you, we wouldn’t have given you so much.

  Every swirl of paint reminded me how my parents were right—I was a failure. At school, at the very passion I had given up so much for, at everything except pretending to be someone else—a better, more put-together fake person that, ironically, they would have been proud of.

  I painted red, angry, fiery moons fueled by memories. Moons that no one would see except for me.

  Chloe CHAPTER 21

  A TEXT A DAY

  December 13

  I was considering removing text messaging from my phone. Or blocking my mother’s number. Because in the past week and a half, she had sent a flurry of nauseating texts, one a day to keep the joy away.

  December 3

  Don’t forget! No hanky panky!

  December 4

  Hongbo is very sad without you. His parents have never seen him so sad before.

  December 5

  Hongbo is worried Andrew is bad for you. He has a sixth sense about these things.

  December 6

  Did you know Hongbo is also a skilled martial artist? He has a black belt! He was so good he jumped all levels and got it in just one year! The first person to ever do that!

  December 7

  The Kuos are sending gifts to us every day. Their chef’s homemade sauces, the best peaches shipped from overseas, the rarest teas from Taiwan.

  December 8

  They gave us No One stocks today!

  December 9

  The Kuos are spoiling us. We are getting a taste of what it will be like when you and Hongbo are married. Maybe you can give him another chance? Can you at least keep your options open? It won’t kill you to send him a nice message. Hello. How are you. I’m thinking about you. Do it for me!

  December 10

  Kuo Ayi has been fighting off the other Bible study mothers. Remember Penny? Her two permanent front teeth came in first out of all you kids? Well Penny’s mother tried to talk up Penny to Kuo Ayi today and Kuo Ayi shut her down immediately! Because of you! Don’t you feel honored?

  December 11

  Oh and don’t worry. Hongbo’s parents do not know about Andrew. That’s why we were sure to tell Hongbo Andrew is just a friend. You know me. I’m always thinking five steps ahead!

  December 12

  Jing-Jing. Please.

  December 13

  Can you please say something back so I don’t feel like I’m talking to the Great Wall? Or a duck. A golden duck heehee. And so I know you’re alive? And so I know if you’re considering Hongbo like I asked you to?

  I’d been in brainstorming mode, trying to find an alternative solution for Christmas—some magical hidden option—but with these texts, I knew I had no choice but to hire Andrew again and keep up the lies, no matter the cost. Because if my mother was this bad now, thousands of miles away, what would it be like under the same roof with the impending proposal deadline and no Andrew? So I would have to scrounge up money I didn’t have, all of which should have been going toward tuition. My parents were dentists, but they lived and worked in Palo Alto, where the cost of living was not for the faint of heart. They were only able to contribute a small amount of tuition money each year, so I was on track to be paying back student loans for a long time—now even longer, thanks to Andrew’s exorbitant but necessary fee.

  I opened the Rent for Your ’Rents app and rebooked Andrew—quickly, so I couldn’t second-guess my decision. And as soon as the booking fee went through, the anger at my parents for putting me in this position consumed me as much as the guilt over what I’d let this become.

  I had successfully ignored Andrew’s texts up until now, but… he was the only one who knew what was going on. And, after lying awake night after night, spiraling into the abyss, I needed a lifeline like Hongbo needed manners.

  December 14, 2:31 a.m. CST

 

  Is there something wrong with me?

  How is my relationship with my parents so messed up that I’m renting a fake boyfriend AGAIN?

 

  There’s more than one person in a relationship

  I didn’t expect you to be up

  Sorry if I woke you

  I don’t even know why I texted in the first place

  Because I’ve seen it firsthand

  Yeah

  I’m here. You’re not alone, in that sense, but also in the sense that our company has no shortage of clients. I’ve already had 2 jobs since Thanksgiving

  What are the other clients like?

  No personal info of course because HIPAA or whatever code you all have

  There are underlying similarities but it’s still pretty diverse

  Some clients aren’t ready to come out to their parents, some don’t want to get married at all, some have significant others the parents wouldn’t approve of

  Yeah

  All that makes sense

  And some people do it to try to get rid of a disgusting suitor who isn’t actually into them

  I’m disappointed in the damselness of that

  You are no damsel

  I’m not but Jing-Jing sometimes is

  Brief pause.

  She’s really not

  But I think the underlying thing you’re circling is that you don’t feel like yourself with them

  And you always deserve to be yourself

  Another pause.

  I thought this was just going to be a couple jokes or some good ol’ Hongbo-bashing

  I’m not ready for real talk

  This can be whatever you want

  I know I just rebooked you but you’re not on the clock right now

  You don’t have to say things like that

  I know

  This can still be whatever you want

  If you were me, would you have hired you?

  After a minute:

  Still there?

  Yeah sorry

  Was thinking

  In my life I’ve always been myself with my family and someone else with everyone else

  But being myself with my parents was what made me lose them, so even though it wasn’t what I did, I at least understand why you hired me

  Maybe that’s the better strategy, who knows

  Another pause.

  I go back and forth all the time because some jobs are harder than others (I had a tough one recently), and I can’t tell if I’m helping or hurting

  So there’s just no right answer?

  If you pretend, you feel awful

  If you’re honest, you feel awful

  I’m sorry

  Do you get texts like these from all your clients?

  You’re my first

  Ha

  That’s embarrassing

  And nice perfectly timed banter there

  From your training?

  We’re trained to impress the parents, not the client

  I don’t think your mom or dad would be particularly charmed by bad innuendos

  A second later:

  Do you ever lie awake at night, worrying about everything in a downward spiral that goes so deep you think about embarrassing things from your past because even that’s better?

  And you just keep going and going until you whimper out loud, only to realize no one is there to hear or care?

  Because I don’t

  It was hypothetical

  Hypothetically, I don’t do the embarrassing past thing, but yeah when I can’t sleep I stress about stuff

  Doesn’t everyone?

  I have a hard time sleeping on jobs especially

  What do you do when you can’t fall asleep on a job?

  Midnight mooncakes help

  Well more the company than the mooncakes

  Seriously though? I remind myself why I’m there. Why the clien
t needed to hire me

  It doesn’t always work unfortunately

  And in those cases…

  I might count sheep

  Dressed in wild pajamas

  Omg

  I did not see that coming

  It’s as shocking as it is adorable

  What kind of embarrassing stuff do you think about?

  Right before I texted you, I was remembering how in high school I told the football star, Jerry (I’ll never forget his name), that I was impressed by how he lived up to the name of his position

  I thought he played defensive line and I was trying to thank him for backing me up to a teacher who wrongly thought I’d been cheating, but turns out…

  He was the freaking tight end

  Oh no

  You inadvertently told Jerry you like his ass?

  In front of like everyone

  Why do you think about stuff like that when you can’t sleep?

  Because it’s better than thinking about my parents and this sticky web I’ve spun myself into

  It’s not that bad. It’ll turn out ok

  Yeah? How do you know?

  Do your clients follow up with you after the fact?

  No

  But maybe that means all is well?

  You’re not helping

  Well in my experience, clients hire me because they love their family and they’re trying to make it work. Even though it’s not ideal, it’s not the worst place to start from

  I’ll try to think about that to fall asleep

  And maybe some sheep

  Good night

  Good night, sleep loose

  If you can

  Sleep loose? I love that!

  You sleep loose too

  December 15, 1:26 a.m. CST

 

  What kind of pajamas?

  I just keep thinking of red, orange, yellow, green

  Maybe a stripe or polka dot here or there

  But that’s it and it’s not helping

  I’m guessing it’s not working because I’m not thinking of the right pajamas?