Page 18 of Well, That Was Unexpected

“Aduh, Mami, of course I don’t know him. We don’t even go to the same school.”

“Papi’s fault,” Auntie Janice says immediately. “I told him, ‘Send her to Xingfa School, that’s the biggest, most famous school in Jakarta. Traditional Chinese schools are the best!’ Butdid he listen? No, he wanted you to go to a smaller, new school, so now here you are in Mingyang. Is there anyone famous there? No, of course not.” She turns to face me. “Anyway, Sharlot dear, you must meet this boy.”

“Not if it’s dangerous,” Mama snaps.

Auntie Janice and Kiki stare at her. “Why would it be dangerous?” Auntie Janice asks.

Mama shrugs, her face turning red. Auntie Janice has a way of speaking that isn’t, like, overtly rude or anything, but makes it clear that she thinks you’re not on par with her brilliance and she’s having to accommodate your lack of intelligence. I feel protective of Mama, which is a really weird feeling to have. “You hear many thing about these super-wealthy families,” Mama says in a small voice. “They hiring military police, escort them everywhere…”

Military police? What the hell?

“Oh, military police,” Auntie Janice says with a laugh, waving Mama off.

I relax a little. Okay, so I wasn’t overreacting. Mama’s just exaggerating. As usual.

But then Auntie Janice says, “We employ them too. Just a handful. Roni, our driver, is a retired colonel!”

My mouth drops open. “What?” I think of the tight-lipped, broad-shouldered chauffeur who drove us from the airport and my mind goes: Does not compute.

“We had Roni and his old platoon mates escort us to the hotel for cousin Lyonel’s wedding,” Kiki pipes up. “They helpedus clear the traffic and stuff. It’s pretty common here. I think most Chinese families here have at least one or two of them employed full-time.”

Holy what?

“Kiki’s right,” Auntie Janice says. “You’ve been away from Indo too long, Qing Pei. Things are different now, not like they were in the nineties. Jakarta is very safe now.”

Mama nods slowly, though she doesn’t look fully convinced.

“Right, so we’re all agreed that Sharlot will have a coffee with George Tanuwijaya,” Aunt Janice says. Kiki nods eagerly.

Mama chews on her bottom lip. “If you say it’s safe…”

My cheeks heat up and all my frustration blurts out: “Hells no!” Mama looks at me with wide eyes, and Auntie Janice looks slightly miffed but mostly bored. “Sorry, but you guys don’t just get to peddle me out like I’m a piece of meat to some rich asshole! Maybe that’s the done thing over here, but it sure as hell isn’t acceptable where I come from. I’m a person. Don’t I get a say in this whole thing?”

“She doesn’t mean that—” Ma says. She’s scrambling to smooth things over because I’ve just done a huge no-no: talked back to an elder.

Auntie Janice’s gaze crawls over my face and I resist the urge to run away and hide. She just has this effect on people, like she’s always calculating their worth and finding them lacking. Worthless. Her gaze says, Hello, little cockroach, let’s see you run around, then. Mild interest combined with mild revulsion, like she can’t believe we’re somehow related.

Then her gaze moves to Mama. I’ve always thought Mama aformidable woman, but under that horrible, dehumanizing gaze, she quails. A silent conversation happens between the two of them. I can practically hear the unspoken words flying back and forth.

Auntie Janice: Are you really going to allow your daughter to speak to her elder and better like that? What a failure of a mother you are.

Mama: NOOOOOO. (Sob.) I am not a failure.

Auntie Janice: Shame on you, Qing Pei. Shame. SHAME.

Mama: Oh god, I must prove to everyone that I haven’t failed as a mother.

By the time Mama turns back to look at me, I know my fate is sealed. She’s got this look of determination written all over her face. I prepare for the fight.

When she speaks, her voice is quiet but deadly. “Sharlot, if you do not meet up with George, you are never go back to California.”

I can’t believe this. Or I guess I can, since the fact that I’m being chauffeured to some dumb mall to meet up with a stranger my mother’s fooled isn’t even the craziest thing to have happened this summer. It doesn’t help that Mama, Kiki, Auntie Janice, and Li Jiujiu are all in the car with me. Each one has made up some inane reason for “needing” to go to the mall—Mama wants frozen yogurt; Auntie Janice wants a dress; Kiki needs a haircut; and Li Jiujiu had stared blankly at me for a bit before saying, “I need a…shoe?” Not “a pair of shoes,” just “a shoe.”

So here we are, packed into Li Jiujiu’s humongous minivan, driving into what Li Jiujiu proudly calls the Sudirman Central Business District area, or SCBD for short. It’s actually really well-built, with shiny glass-and-steel skyscrapers among well-manicured greenery. A lot more impressive than the gray buildings in downtown LA, that’s for sure. But I would rather die before admitting to Mama that Jakarta’s a lot different from what I’d envisioned.

We arrive at the mall and—okay—like the whole of theSCBD, the Sudirman Plaza Mall is exceeding all expectations. Starting with the lobby, where employees wearing uniforms complete with white gloves and hats open the doors for us and say, “Selamat datang di Sudirman Plaza Mall.” Everything is shiny and glittery. I am very much regretting my choice of outfit: a ratty-jeans-and-T-shirt combo that I thought would seem cool in a very I-don’t-give-a-crap way but instead feels dowdy now. I should’ve listened to Mama when she tried to persuade me to wear something nicer before we left. Of course, I would rather eat a live snake than admit that now.

As soon as we get out of the minivan, the sweltering tropical heat slams into us and we all hurry up the steps and into the cool refuge of the mall.

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