Page 11 of Dial A for Aunties

Nathan stretches, yawning. “What’s up, funsize?”

“I fell asleep badly, and now my neck’s refusing to turn.”

He stares at me for two beats before bursting out laughing. “Are you secretly a ninety-year-old woman?”

“Don’t insult me, kid. I’m only eighty-seven. Ugh. I can’t meet your parents like this!” I gesture wildly at my slanted head.

“Calm down. Come here.” Nathan places a hand on the back of my neck and begins to massage it.

“Ow, ooh, ah.” Is it painful or is it good as hell? I can’t decide.

“Stop twitching.”

“Please put on your seat belts and face forward,” an air attendant reminds us with a pointed look.

We do as we’re told. Despite Nathan’s best efforts, my head’s still stuck at an angle. Whenever this happens, I usually have to wait until I can sleep it off before I regain normal flexibility in my neck. So. I really am going to meet his parents with a slanted head. Okay, that’s totally fine. I am not at all freaking out about that.

Once we get off the plane, Nathan tries again to massage some movement back into my neck and shoulders, then he says, “Well,this’ll be fun.” He laughs when I hit him, catching my fist and kissing it. “It’s so cute when you hit me with your teeny-weeny hand. It’ll be okay. They are going to love you so much they won’t let you go back to the States.”

And, despite the crooked neck, he’s right.

As soon as we get our bags and go into the arrivals hall, there’s a shout and suddenly his parents are right there. His mom, a beautiful tall blonde, gives me a quick hug, and his dad, an Asian man who looks like what I imagine Nathan will look like thirty years down the road, gives me one of those awkward hugs that my mom and aunts often do.

“Oh, it’s lovely to have you two here,” his mom says.

“Hi, Mrs. Chan.”

She pooh-poohs at me. “Call me Annie, none of that Mrs. Chan business. And that’s Chris.” She points at Nathan’s dad, who smiles at me.

“Alright then, son?” Chris says.

“Alright, Dad.”

Huh. Nathan does speak British after all.

When we walk outside, I gasp at the sharp, unforgiving cold, which slices right through my hoodie. Nathan takes out a jacket he’s brought for me, which is about three sizes too big but is delightfully warm and smells of him.

The drive from Heathrow to Oxford takes almost two hours, and by the time we get off the freeway—or motorway, as it’s called here—I’m exhausted. Though Chris and Annie are perfectly pleasant, they’re so different from Ma and my aunts that I’m constantly on edge, desperate to make the best impression possible. Conversation with them is somewhat stilted, and I wonder if this is what all English families are like, if they all use words like “lovely” and “delightful” instead of shouting and flapping like my family does.

It only cements the decision I’ve made about keeping Nathan from my family for as long as humanly possible. Which is getting tougher and tougher to pull off. Nathan wants to meet Ma. And all my aunties. It’s a bit of a sore spot in our otherwise perfect relationship. I’m so worried that he thinks I haven’t introduced him to my family because I’m ashamed of him. Why don’t I take him home with me one weekend? he’d ask. They’d be delighted, they would. And they would, if they knew about him.

But.

It’s not even just the stark differences in our families that’s holding me back from taking him home. My whole life, I’ve followed all of Ma’s rules. I even chose to stay in L.A. for her. I love Ma, but I also want to be separate from her. Even thinking it makes me wince; it feels so much like a betrayal. But I do. I’m a horrible, selfish person, and I know I need to keep that part of me buried. I know that after college, I’ll have to go back home, be with Ma. And for now, I just want Nathan all to myself. I want to keep him as separate as I can from Ma and my aunts. If that’s selfish, then let me be selfish, just for now, just until we graduate. I don’t want him to be swallowed up by my loud, overbearing family. I don’t want him to see me the way I am with them—quiet and benign. I want him to see the real me—the one on campus, where I can really be myself, free and sarcastic and sharp. A challenge instead of a shadow. Then, of course, there’s the curse. What if taking him home means it finds me even sooner than it had found my mom and aunts? I’ve tried explaining my reasoning for keeping him away from my family, but each time I just end up verbally flailing, and then the conversation ends with him hurt and disappointed.

His parents’ house is worthy of an interior design magazine. In fact, it has been featured inHome & Gardenmagazine, Nathan tells me when my mouth drops open once we walk inside.

Nathan takes me up to his bedroom, and I gape at how tidyand tasteful everything is. It has a navy blue color scheme, and I can imagine what a neat kid he must’ve been because everything is in its place. I think back to my own room back in San Gabriel and how, just last weekend, I’d found a forgotten coffee mug that had actual mushrooms growing in it. Not even mold but like full-grown mushrooms, with stalks and heads and everything.

“So this is my childhood home, and that’s my family,” Nathan says, dropping our bags on the carpeted floor. “You okay? I’m sorry, I know they can be a bit much.”

“Are you kidding? They’re amazing. And your house is amazing.” Not at all like mine, I want to say, but I don’t, because honestly, I’m embarrassed. Ma and my aunts are practically hoarders. They say it has to do with growing up poor. The bathroom, for example, has no fewer than twenty-seven bottles of face cream. I know, I counted them when I was fifteen, and the pile hasn’t moved in the last five years. They’re all almost empty. When I asked Ma why she doesn’t throw them away, she says, “Maybe one day I need, then how?” I guess a grower of mushrooms in coffee cups is not one to judge.

Nathan wraps his hands around my waist, his fingers brushing underneath my shirt. I shiver when he touches my skin. “Hey, none of that, not right now. Your parents are right below us,” I scold, smacking his arm.

He grins and kisses me. “I’m not doing anything,” he says, in between kisses. “I just love touching you here.” His hands splay across my back, and I melt against him.

“You’ve got your horny face on,” I say.

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