Page 11 of Well, That Was Unexpected

“Yes. I wanted to come inside from the beginning, but Eleanor said not to.” He pats Eleanor on the head with obvious pride, and she gives him one of her I’m-such-an-adorable-precocious-sweetheart grins. He’s no match for her. Then again, I guess I’m not either, because, wow, she got me good.

Papa holds out his hand. “Give Papa your phone.”

I snort. “Uh, not a chance.”

“George Clooney.” He uses that voice, the one that probably every Asian kid knows, the one that reaches deep into our central nervous system and makes all our senses prick up. There’s so much weight behind it—disappointment, quiet anger, and an ocean’s worth of expectation that threatens to crush me.

“No!” I say again, but I already know it’s useless. Whenever I watch US or British TV shows, it always strikes me how free the kids are, how rebellious and how daring, especially toward their parents. I wish I could be more like them. But nope. I’ve been raised all my life tonevergo against my elders. All Papa does is glare at me, and my hand moves, as though of its own accord, to take my phone out of my pocket. I watch helplessly as he takes it from me and gives it to—

“You’re kidding me,” I hiss. “You can’t give my phone to Eleanor!”

Papa frowns. “She’s just helping me navigate this app you kids use.” But as a compromise, he says to her, “Don’t snoop into any of gege’s apps, okay?”

She nods obediently. “Promise, Papa.” Then she types in the unlock code—how the hell did she even know my unlock code?

“How did you—”

“It’s your birthdate,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s, like, literally the first thing I tried.”

I sit back, defeated.

“Don’t worry, gege, I swear I won’t snoop into your emails or anything. I am doing this from a purely professional standpoint.”

“You’re thirteen years old. That’s, like, the very definition of nonprofessional!”

She levels a stern gaze at me. “Stop being such an ageist.” Then she turns to Papa with a grin and says, “Okay, here we go. Opening ShareIt. It’s what’s called a social media app…”

I stare in mild horror and disbelief as my little sister gets our dad up to speed on ShareIt, an Indonesian app that’s pretty much a knock-off Instagram. She scrolls through my feed and points out my various friends. Papa listens to her with the gravity of a serious business merger.

“So if I ‘Like’ this photo, it means I like the person?”

“No, just the photo. Technically. But obviously, Papa, if it’s someone you’ve had some tension with, then they’d probably notice you liking their post.”

Oh my god. Someone kill me now.

“And now, let’s open up the search settings. This way, we can look for someone appropriate for gege.”

Papa nods and the two of them tinker with my ShareIt settings for a while, muttering stuff like, “Location…age…”

I have no idea what to do now. “I don’t think you can do this,” I say, but my voice comes out weak and they both ignore it easily. “Seriously,” I add.

Papa looks up from the phone, his face lined with disappointment. “Son,” he says. Uh-oh. He’s switched to English. Now I know he’s being serious, because his English is terrible and he only ever uses it when he really needs to get through to me. “You are what you call it, hmmm.”

Eleanor and I wait for it. He’s going to say something like “privileged” and then go into a whole lecture about don’t I know how fortunate I am to be his son, etc.

“Loser,” Papa says.

“Excuse me?”

Next to Papa, Eleanor is raising her brows and obviously trying not to laugh.

“Yes, you are what you call this ‘loser.’ Every day just in your room, playing games. Not out doing sport.”

“Doing sport?” Sports aren’t a huge part of the Chinese Indonesian upbringing. They’re there as extracurricular activities, definitely not something to be taken too seriously, and this is what’s been drilled into my head from the start of kindergarten. “Have you forgotten that you’ve brought us up tonotdoany sports? I mean, you give me such a hard time every time I swim laps or hit the gym!”

Papa fidgets in his seat. “Yes, you are right, sport is waste of time when you should be studying. But you know what I mean, George!”

“I really don’t.”

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