Page 1 of Dial A for Aunties

Prologue

Eight Years Ago

There is a curse in my family. It’s followed us all the way from China, where it took my great-grandfather (freak accident on the farm that involved a pregnant sow and an unfortunately placed rake), to Indonesia, where it claimed my grandfather (a stroke at the age of thirty, nothing quite so dramatic as great-grandfather’s demise but still rather upsetting). My mom and aunts figured that a Chinese curse wouldn’t follow them to the West, so after they all got married, they moved to San Gabriel, California. But not only did the curse find them, it mutated. Instead of killing the men in my family, it made them leave, which is so much worse. At least Yeye died loving my Nainai. The first one who left was Big Uncle. Then Second Uncle, and then—then it was my dad, who left without a word in the dead of night. Just up and disappeared, like a ghost. I woke up one morning, asked where he was, and Ma slapped down a bowl of congee and said, “Eat.” That was whenI knew the curse had claimed him. When my male cousins graduated, they left too, opting for schools like NYU and Penn State instead of any of the perfectly fine colleges in California.

“Ah, Nat, you sooo lucky,” Big Aunt says, the day my mom announces that I’ve applied to eight schools, all of them in California. The farthest one is Berkeley, and we’ve had countless arguments overthat.Ma thinks anything farther than UC Irvine is too far; she won’t be able to drop by randomly and clean my dorm and nag at my roommate to go to sleep early and drink lots of water. Big Aunt’s son, Hendra, is at Boston College and ignores 99.999 percent of her calls. The other 0.001 percent is when he runs out of money and has to ask her for more.

“Oh, so lucky,” Second Aunt says, patting her chest and smiling sadly, probably thinking of my cousin Nikky in Philly, who never calls and only comes back once a year. Her other son, Axel, is in New York. I last saw him two years ago, when he moved out.Finally,he’d said.When it’s your turn, Meddy, fly far and don’t look back.“Daughters never leave you. Girl is such blessing,” Second Aunt says. She reaches out and pinches my cheek.

Fourth Aunt grunts and continues shelling roasted, salted pumpkin seeds. Ma is her biggest nemesis, and she’d rather choke on a pumpkin seed than agree that Ma’s the lucky one out of all of them. But when Ma isn’t looking, she glances over at me and gives me a wink.I’m proud of you, kid.

I smile weakly. Because I sort of kind of totally lied to Ma. I did apply to eight schools in California, but I also applied to a ninth school. Columbia. I don’t know why I did; it’s not like I’d ever get in, and plus, how would we even pay the exorbitant tuition?

Months later, I hold the acceptance letter in my hand and stare, and stare, and—

I crumple it. Throw it in the trash. I’m not like my boy cousins.I’m not like my father and my uncles. I can’t just abandon my family. Especially not my mom. I’m not stupid enough to think that the curse will skip me. Years later, after my future husband leaves me, all I’ll have left are Ma and my aunties. So I tell them I’m going to UCLA. Ma cries. My aunts (even Fourth Aunt) whoop and gather around, hugging me, patting my cheeks, and bemoaning the fact that they don’t have daughters.

“You so lucky,” Big Aunt says, for the millionth time, to Ma. “She stay with you forever. You always have companion.”

Is it true? Am I doomed to stay with them forever, just because I’m the only one not heartless enough to leave? I force a smile and nod benignly as they fuss about me, and I try to look forward to the rest of my life, living here in the same house with my mom andaunts.

PART 1

♦

GIRL MEETS BOY

(There might be insta-love and also someone might die. We’llsee.)

1

Present Day

I take a deep breath before pushing open the swing doors. Noise spills out, a cacophony of Mandarin and Cantonese, and I step aside so Ma can walk inside before me. It’s not that I’m being nice—I mean, I am, but I’m also being sensible. Ma grew up in Jakarta’s Chinatown, a place heaving with people, and she knows how to make her way through a crowd. Any crowd. If I’m the one leading the way, I’d be squeaking, “Excuse me—oh, sorry, Ah Yi—um, could I just—I have a reservation—” My voice would never be heard above the din, and we’d be stuck outside the restaurant forever. Or at least until the dim sum rush died down, sometime around 2 p.m.

As it is, people surge behind Ma as she scythes a path through the throng of families waiting for their tables, and I would’ve lost her if I wasn’t keeping a death grip on her arm as if I’m all of three years old. She doesn’t bother stopping at the front desk. Shestrides in as if she owns the place, eagle eyes scanning the large dining hall.

How can I describe the chaos that is a dim sum restaurant in the heart of San Gabriel Valley at 11 a.m.? The place is filled with close to a hundred round tables, each one occupied by a different family, many of them with three to four generations of people present—there are gray-haired, prune-faced Ah Mas holding chubby babies on their laps. Steaming carts are pushed by the waitresses, though if you called them “Waitress” they’d never stop for you. You must call them Ah Yi—Auntie—and wave frantically as they walk by to get them to stop. And once they do, customers descend like vultures and fight over the bamboo steamers inside the cart. People shout, asking if they’ve got siu mai, or har gow, or lo mai gai, and the Ah Yis locate the right dishes somewhere in the depths of their carts.

My Mandarin is awful, and my Cantonese nonexistent. Ma and the aunts often try to help me improve by speaking to me in either Mandarin or Indonesian, but then give up and switch to English because I only get about 50 percent of what they’re saying. Their grasp of the English language is a bit wobbly, but it’s a heck of a lot better than my Mandarin or Indonesian. It’s yet another reason why I find it extra hard to order food at dim sum. More often than not, everything good is gone by the time the Ah Yi notices me and understands my order. Then all that’s left is the lame stuff, like the doughy vegetarian dumplings or the steamed bok choy.

But today, ah, today is a good day. I manage to get my hands on two lots of har gow, something that Big Aunt will certainly appreciate, and I even get hold of lop cheung bao—Chinese sausage rolls. Almost makes the whole ordeal of coming to weekly dim sum worth my while.

Big Aunt nods her approval when the Ah Yi puts the bamboosteamers down in the center of our table, and I feel an almost overwhelming need to beat my chest and crow. I got those shrimp dumplings! Me!

“Eat more, Meddy. You should keep your strength up for tomorrow,” Big Aunt says in Mandarin, plopping two pieces of braised pork ribs on my plate while I carefully place dumplings on everyone else’s plates and pour them tea. Second Aunt cuts the char siu baos into two each and places one half on everyone’s plate. The table being round means all the dishes are equally within reach of everyone, but Chinese family meals aren’t complete without everyone serving food to everyone else, because doing so shows love and respect, which means we all need to do it in the most attention-seeking way possible. What’s the point of giving Big Aunt the biggest siu mai if nobody else notices?

“Thank you, Big Aunt,” I say dutifully, placing a fat har gow on her plate. I always reply in English no matter which language my family is speaking because Second Aunt says listening to me struggle through Indonesian or Mandarin makes her blood pressure rise. “You eat more too. We’re all counting on you tomorrow. And you, Second Aunt.” The second-biggest har gow goes on Second Aunt’s plate. Third biggest goes to Fourth Aunt, and the last remaining one goes on Ma’s plate. That shows that Ma has brought me up well, to look out for others before ourselves.

Big Aunt waves off my platitudes with a heavily jeweled hand. “We are all counting on each other.” Heads of big coiffed hair nod. Fourth Aunt has the biggest hair, something that Ma is always complaining to me about in private.

“Always such an attention hole,” Ma said once, which was equal parts horrifying and hilarious. I asked her where she heard “attention hole,” and she claimed that she heard it from our neighbor Auntie Liying, which is such a lie, but I’ve had twenty-six years of living with Ma and I know better than to argue withher. I simply told her it’s “attention ho,” not “hole,” and she nodded and muttered “ho, like ho ho ho” before going back to chopping scallions.

“Okay,” Big Aunt says, clapping once. Everyone sits up straighter. Big Aunt is older than Second Aunt by ten years, and she basically raised her sisters while Nainai went to work. “Hair and makeup?”

Second Aunt nods, bringing out her phone and putting on her glasses. She uses her index finger to tap on it, muttering,“Apa ya,the name of that app—Meddy make me use for hairstyle. Pin-something.”

“Pinterest,” I pipe up. “I can help you find it—”

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