Page 22 of Four Aunties and a Wedding

“Ada apa, Meddy? Is time for hair and makeup?”

I shake my head wordlessly, and Ma peers closely at me.

“Aiya, you just come back from club? Aduh, so late. Tomorrow you get eyebags, you see later, you will regret it.”

Eyebags. Tomorrow. I give a shaky laugh at the thought. Right, because tomorrow’s my wedding day, and I should be worrying about things like eyebags and definitely not things like the mafia.

Ma must have realized that I’m barely holding on to my sanity, because her face suddenly turns serious. “Meddy, what is wrong? Ayo masuk.” She takes my arm and ushers me into her dark room, pausing to turn on the lights.

Second Aunt sits bolt upright in her bed. “Wha? Time to do makeup, is it?”

“No, Er Jie,” Ma says. “Meddy is here, I think something happen.”

Second Aunt exchanges a look with Ma. “Oh no, who you kill?”

“What? Nobody!”

Second Aunt shrugs. “Last time you show up middle night looking like this, is because you kill date. Who know, maybe this time you kill groomman?”

“No, nobody died, okay?”

“Oh no. I know what happen!” Ma says, her face contorting in sorrow. “Even worse than Meddy kill somebody. Nathan call off wedding, right?”

“No! Also, how is that worse than me killing someone? Could you guys just—I need a minute.” I rush to the bathroom, turn on the faucet, and splash some icy cold water on my face. I fill a glass with the cold water and gulp it down, then fill another and gulp that as well. My reflection stares back at me, eyes bleary, cheeks splotchy, and hair resembling a bird’s nest. I’m a mess. But the cold water revives me and I take a deep breath. I’m okay. I’m fine. This is fine. I’ve handled worse before. Like that night I killed a guy.Accidentally.

By the time I come out of the bathroom, I’m only half-surprised to find Big Aunt and Fourth Aunt in the room as well. All the lights are on and Ma is cutting up a mango while Second Aunt makes tea for everyone. Where did she even find a mango at a hotel in Oxford?

“Wedding is off,” Second Aunt is saying in a hushed voice.

“The wedding isn’t off. I wish we could call it off, but we can’t.”

Ma gasps. “Meddy, why you say that? Why you would wish for that?”

“I don’t—I’m not wishing for it—I just—” And then it all comes out in a torrent of tears. The night of clubbing, me forgetting Staph’s gift, me overhearing her on the phone, and her awful revelation. “And then she said if we called the wedding off or told the cops or anyone else, she’d tell the cops about how we killed Ah Guan and they’d throw us all in prison.”

Four stunned faces meet the end of this statement. The silence stretches for what seems like an eternity, and then Big Aunt stands up and shuffles over to the desk.

“Big Aunt, what are you—” I stop when she picks up the electric kettle and starts pouring the hot water into respective cups.

“Tea. Tea good for you, help you think,” she mutters.

Second Aunt stands up and immediately dives into a Tai Chi pose, while Ma jumps up and fetches the plate of mangoes. Fourth Aunt studies her nails—she has forgone the feathers in favor of rhinestones that run down the entire length of her fingers. I should’ve expected this reaction from my family, but seeing it actually happen is still pretty unreal.

Second Aunt pauses mid-pose. “So whole family is mafia? Is include Hendry also?”

Big Aunt side-eyes her cunningly. “Of course is include Hendry. Your boyfriend,” she says triumphantly, “is no good.”

“Not my boyfriend,” Second Aunt spits out, lunging aggressively into a different pose.

Big Aunt snorts. “Oh? Not boyfriend? Then what you call going to eat, just two of you? So hussy, later people talk.”

“We just run into each other at Starbuck,” Second Aunt hisses, pronouncing it “set-tar-buck.”

“Since when you go Starbuck, ah?” Big Aunt says.

“Um, could we focus on the whole mafia part instead of the boyfriend-or-not-boyfriend thing? They do illicit things for a living and, uh, kill people who get in their way. And they’re using my wedding as an opportunity to kill someone. You got that part, right?”

“Yes, yes, I know what mafia do,” Big Aunt says, handing me a cup of tea. How did she recover so fast from the shock of what I just told them? “Daigu bilangin ya. When I little, mafia big problem in Jakarta. Waduh, every night got shouting here and there, and then morning will have dead body on street, right outside house.”

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