Page 54 of Four Aunties and a Wedding

We all just stare at her. The silence stretches on for eons. Big Aunt sighs and says, “San Mei—”

“Oh,fine,” Ma snaps. “We go bathroom.” She stalks off without waiting for any of us to reply.

Jesus, she has it on her right now? I was thinking we’d have to send her back to the hotel to get it or something. “You carry it with you everywhere?”

“Tch, I not want later maybe cleaner find it and steal it, then how?”

“How did you get it through customs?” I cry.

“I put inside tea box, and then put box inside check-in luggage. Very easy.”

She’s referring to smuggling drugs through customs as “very easy,”a small voice in my head gibbers. This is way too much for me to handle right now, so I shove the thought aside and rush after her. We crowd into the small bathroom. Everything in England is small and I swear my dress fills up the entire space. Ma goes into a cubicle and slams the door behind her. Big Aunt and Second Aunt take the chance to check their reflections in the mirror. We hear grunts, then the distinct sound of something ripping.

“Aduh!” Ma cries.

“Ma, do you need help?”

“I rip my pantyho.”

I wince, but as far as things go, that’s hardly a disaster. Plus, she’s in a floor-length gown, I don’t know why she’s evenbothered to wear pantyhose. There are more grunts, then Ma comes out, looking flushed and slightly worse for wear, her Komodo dragon all askew on her head.

“Nih,” she mumbles, slapping down a little plastic baggie onto the palm of my hand. It’s warm and slightly moist. Urgh. I do not want to know where this was kept. I hold the baggie up gingerly and Big Aunt and Second Aunt peer closely at it. It’s filled with coarse brown powder.

“What’s all this stuff?” I say.

“TCM,” Ma says. “I grind it all—the ginseng root, lah, the tree bark, the—um—Mary-Joanna—all grind up so take shorter time to cook, otherwise you have to brew for hours, waduh, how to do that in hotel?”

“Okay. Wow, you’ve put a lot of thought into this.” Which is good. The marijuana being in powder form means a faster reaction time. Probably. Good thing Fourth Aunt isn’t here right now. She’d definitely make some snide remark about how Ma is so thorough when it comes to her drugs. And, you know, she would have a point.

“We just put a bit in champagne, the bubbles will help react and then bam, they will pusing deh.”

“Okay, yeah, sounds like a plan.” I grip the baggie tight and head for the door before I pause. “Hang on, I probably won’t get a chance to slip this into the champagne without anyone noticing.” I keep forgetting I’m the bride, not the photographer who can melt into the background. “Maybe one of you can do it?”

“I do it,” Second Aunt says, grabbing it before anyone has a chance to say anything.

“Ahem,” Big Aunt clears her throat.

Ma and I stare at the two of them, neither of us wanting to get in between Big Aunt and Second Aunt, round VII. But Ican’t let this go on too long because it’s my wedding day and people will start to notice that the bride is hardly around, which is probably frowned upon or something. Plus, it’s a bit shitty to Nathan, given it’s his wedding day too.

“Um, maybe you two can do it together?” I say, and immediately kick myself. That is the dumbest idea a human has ever come up with. “Or, uh, let’s flip for it!” I pat my pockets, desperate for a coin, and belatedly recall that one, I’m in my wedding gown, and two, I completely failed to foresee the need for coins and do not have any hidden on me.

“No, no, I know how to do quietly, not pull all attention,” Big Aunt says, grabbing it. Except this time, Second Aunt isn’t letting go.

“Hanh!” Second Aunt barks. “You? Not pull all attention? Hah!”

Ma and I are frozen with fear as Second Aunt gives another “Hah!” for good measure. It’s like watching two countries escalate into a World War III situation.

“Maybe Ma could—” I squeak, then jump when the two wrench at the baggie at the same time, and with a horrific snap, the plastic rips and coarse brown powder spills everywhere.

“Aduh!” Ma cries. “You see, you see? Why you two must like that, fighting all the time? Now you waste my TCM! You think very cheap, ya? All the ingredients are so expensive. Like the dong chong xiao cao, that is not cheap okay! Wah, even the yu xing cao—what you call it, the heartleaf—so expensive, you know? I need for my hemorrhoids, otherwise so pain!”

Against all odds, Ma’s verbal diarrhea defuses some of the tension between Big Aunt and Second Aunt. They both actually look contrite as they brush the ground-up herbs off their fancy gowns.

Big Aunt can barely look me in the eye. “Big Aunt is sorry, Meddy. Now we not have no drugs.”

“Tch,” Ma says loudly, marching back into the cubicle and slamming the door behind her.

We stare at the cubicle door. We stare at each other. We shrug. We go back to staring at the cubicle door. Again, grunts come from inside the cubicle. And then little hops, as if Ma’s doing jumping jacks. Then a loud bang, which startles us all.

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