Page 28 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

“Oh my god, Big Aunt, stop.”

“Just let her knocking on the door,” Ma mutters to me. “Nothing get her more angry than some kid making her wait like this.”

As Big Aunt pulls her fist back for another round of aggressive knocking, the door clicks open and out comes Rochelle, wearing a half-bored, half-annoyed expression. She gives us all a deliberate once-over before saying, “Yeah?”

“Hey, Roche.” Annabelle rushes forward. “This is—um, this is my family. They’re visiting from LA. And they’re here about the red packet.”

Rochelle crosses her arms in front of her and leans against the door frame. A small, smug smile plays along her lips. Unlike Annabelle, who carries herself with that awkward gait that so many teenage girls have, Rochelle oozes confidence. She’s pretty, and she knows it. She wears a plain white T-shirt and ripped jeans, but somehow, she looks like she would be completely fine strutting into a fancy restaurant. Her gaze is sharp as she takes us all in, obviously unimpressed by Ma’s, the aunties’, and even Abi’s disapproving frowns. And in one hand, she holds a very official-looking document. I don’t even need to see the words printed on it to know that it’s the title deed.

When she sees us staring with open desperation at the deed,she flips her hair over her shoulder and says lazily, “I told you I’m not giving it back.”

I can practically feel the temperature among Abi, Ma, and the aunties rising. “It’s really important—” I begin, but am interrupted by Second Aunt’s pterodactyl screech.

“Aiya! You dare to go against your elder ah? Who raise you become so ngga bener? Hanh? We telling you now, you give us back red packet, or else.”

Even though her rage isn’t directed at me, I can’t help but wince. Annabelle looks like she’s ready to bolt. But Rochelle looks entirely unperturbed.

“Sorry, lady,” she says, clearly not sorry at all, “but it’s actually kind of rude ofyou.”

“What?!” Ma and the aunties yelp in unison.

“Yeah, I mean, I was given the red packet. You can’t just give a gift to someone and then demand it back. That’s really rude. I mean, I would be embarrassed, if I were you.”

My mind is blown. I blink at Rochelle, seeing her in an entirely new light, because this is the point where I realize that we’re not dealing with a normal teen—we’re dealing with an evil genius. Using the threat of embarrassment, and therefore losing face, against Ma and the aunties is like stealing their ultimate weapon and then pointing it back at them.

Sure enough, Ma and the aunties are standing there shell-shocked, mouths agape, looking like they’re one step away from having aneurysms. They’ve wielded the threat of losing face so often to me and to others around them, but never, not that I can remember anyway, have they had someone—especially a younger person—use it against them. How are they going to deal with it?

Luckily, before they can explode, Abi snaps his fingers andpoints excitedly at Rochelle. “I remember who you are now. I’ve been standing here trying to recall because you look so familiar, but I couldn’t place it—” He takes a dramatic inhale, then says, “I recognize you from a wedding photo that was published in the Chinese-Indonesian newspaper last month. It was a photo of Kristofer Kolumbes Hermansah’s family at the wedding of his youngest son.”

Rochelle smirks, entirely unperturbed by this. “So you know who my grandfather is, old man. Now you know you shouldn’t fuck with me.”

Ma gasps. “Why you think we want to f—fudge with you? We don’t want to f—fudge with you. Why your mind is so pervert?”

For the first time, Rochelle looks unsure. “Uh, I didn’t mean it in a literal sense. It means like, to screw with someone.”

Second Aunt narrows her eyes. “I hear this ‘screw’ quite a lot. I know it also means having the sex. Why you say that about us? We are not here to be having the sex with you.”

“No,” Rochelle groans. “It means like, don’t fu—don’t mess with me!”

“Ah.” Ma, Big Aunt, and Second Aunt nod. Then they mutter to one another about how awful the younger generation is, to use such foul language so unnecessarily.

“Okay, they got distracted again,” Fourth Aunt says. She turns to Rochelle. “Who’s your granddaddy?”

Rochelle quirks a smug eyebrow. I don’t actually know if eyebrows can technically be smug, but hers definitely are smug. They’re the kind of brows you just want to take a razor to, because there’s way too much smugness in them. “Why don’t you tell them?” she says sweetly to Abi.

Abi frowns, his expression turning dark. “Julia, Kristofer,and I are the top three conglomerates in Indonesia. We own the three largest corporations.”

“So you’re rivals?” I ask.

He nods. “Well, the thing is, it goes beyond professional rivalry. Something bad happened years ago. We got into a terrible disagreement. We’d been friendly before that, but after that, the three of us became enemies.” He scoffs bitterly. “There have been plenty of times where we’ve gone out of our way to sabotage each other. We’ve each taken bad deals that we know we’d lose money on just to anger the others.”

“Tch,” Second Aunt tuts. “Why like that? Why you all so childish?”

Abi’s chest puffs out with apparent indignation. “I’m not the one being childish. The number of times that Julia and Kristofer have stabbed me in the back—” He stops himself and takes a deep breath. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. What matters is...” He glowers at Rochelle. “You need to give us that title deed, child.”

Rochelle’s mouth twists into a sneer. “Child? Oh, you think I’m a child, do you? Would a child be able to steal your precious title deed?”

There’s a collective gasp, and we all stare at her in shocked silence. Then Annabelle says, in a small voice, “Roche, what are you talking about, steal? You were given the red packet by mistake.”

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