Page 13 of Well, That Was Unexpected

“No, I don’t. She’s a complete stranger that you and Paare catfishing. Do you two realize how insanely inappropriate thisis?”

“What’s catfishing?” Eleanor says.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We watchThe Circletogether, El, you know exactly what catfishing is. It’s when somebody pretends to be someone else, especially online,” I add for Papa’s benefit.

They both look at me blankly.

Why do I even bother?

CuriousGeorge [4:17PM]:What do you do as a hobby?

SharSpy10 [4:18PM]:I cook! I looove cooking.

CuriousGeorge [4:18PM]:Wonderful! What kinds of food do you cook? Western?

SharSpy10 [4:19PM]:Oh no. Western food too easy—you just fry everything. No, I like to take good care of my family, make sure everyone well-nourished, so I cook Chinese food. A lot of bone broth soup, ginseng, etc.

“SON,” Papa cries, looking up from my phone in wonderment, “we have find perfect wife material for you!” Great, he’s speaking English again. The past few years, it’s become more in vogue for people to speak English instead of Indonesian—many here see it as a sign that they’re well-educated. So despite his broken English, Papa often insists on speaking it just to show that he can.

Next to him, Eleanor grins and nods so hard that her pigtails bounce wildly. “He’s right, you know, gege. SharSpy really does sound like the kind of girl you marry.”

I snatch the phone from their hands and scan the messages. Oh god. How many freaking messages are there? When they’d found SharSpy a week ago, I’d thought (and prayed to the universe) that they’d realize the ridiculousness of this whole endeavor and stop after an hour or two. But oh my god, I was so wrong. There’s like a novel’s worth of chat messages in here.

The messages have switched from Indonesian to English. And worse still, to Papa’s broken English. I glare at Eleanor. “Why didn’t you at least correct his grammar?”

She looks at me innocently and shrugs. “Her grammar is awful, too, so I thought I’d make her feel better by hiding my eloquence. It’s called empathy, gege.”

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, but Eleanor is right. For an ABC, SharSpy’s grasp of the English language is…somewhat wobbly. But I shouldn’t judge her for that, though Icanjudge her for everything else, like her cooking, for example.

SharSpy loves cooking traditional Chinese food. With ginseng. Eurgghh. Nothing against ginseng, but this is old-people food. Literally! It’s actually what Nainai eats every day—chicken, pork, or beef ribs stewed for hours and hours with Chinese herbs until the soup is milky and rich with nutrients and collagen from the bones. To be fair, it’s actually delicious, but again, it’s old-people food. Also, she sounds kind of judgy about it, like it’s something she believes a woman is supposed to do, which eurgghh.

“Can I just remind you both of how wildly inappropriate this is?” I say. “Also, really freaking creepy. Pa, you’re leading a teenage girl on. This is—it’s gaslighting!”

“What this gaslighting?” Papa says. “Lighting a fire?”

Eleanor rolls her eyes. “Gaslighting basically means lying. And we’re not doing that, because it’s your real account, and here you are, CuriousGeorge, a real-life teenage boy.”

“Yeah, but it’s not me sending those messages to her! It’s you, a thirteen-year-old kid, and you, a forty-year-old man, which makes this incredibly creepy and wrong.”

Eleanor waves me off. “Chill, gege. God, you’re acting like we’re asking her for her bank account or something.”

“Enough of this. Give the phone back to us,” Papa says. He’s switched to Indonesian, which means he’s trying to exert authority, which means he’s back to serious mode.

I take a step away from him, unsure what to do, but I don’t see Eleanor slithering up from the other side. She plucks the phone out of my hand smoothly and scampers to Papa’s side. They settle back down on the sofa, both wearing the same eager expression.

“Okay, now ask her if she’s ever had a boyfriend,” Papa says.

Eleanor nods and starts typing.

“Don’t ask her that! That’s just—no!” I’m getting shrill and I know it, but seriously. I start walking toward them and Papa looks up and shoots me a look. It’s a look that probably most kids know well. A look where he’s somehow transformed from loving, gentle dad to Old Testament patriarch. And I hate that it stops me in my tracks. Papa has never hit us, but we’ve beenraised with enough Asian guilt that I still can’t find it in me to go against him when his mind is set.

“She says ‘Of course not, I’m not a hussy,’ ” Eleanor announces.

Okay, first of all, that was really fast. Second of all, ugh, now she’s slut-shaming. Honestly, the more I know of SharSpy, the less appealing she is. Of course, I am still the less appealing of the two of us, given I’m standing here watching helplessly as my little sister and my dad deceive the poor, innocent girl.

Papa is nodding with much parental approval. Kind of like the way he often looks at Eleanor, I guess. “Ah, she is a very good kid, very good.”

Then Eleanor says, “Uh-oh.”

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