Page 3 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

“You shouldn’t waste money like that,” she snaps again, but she’s also grinning as wide as a hyena, probably already plotting how to drop the Hermès bomb on Fourth Aunt. She still hasn’t forgotten how Fourth Aunt cut her out of the family Louis Vuitton luggage set.

By the time we hang up, Ma is still beaming and muttering “Aiya, shouldn’t have wasted money” over and over. It’s like she’s stuck on a loop, torn between sheer joy and the Asian tradition of scolding your kids for spending money on you. My breath releases in a relieved huff, steaming in the cold mountain air, as I stuff the phone back into my jacket pocket.

Nathan is still smiling.

“What are you smiling about? We’re about to lose a small fortune in Ladurèe macarons. God, those things are so overpriced. I can’t believe she’s willing to spend money on them. This is the same woman who haggled with bus drivers to give her a discount on bus fares.”

He laughs and pulls me close. “It’s just—her glee over one-upping Fourth Aunt. Come on, that’s so funny. I love it.”

“Try growing up with it, then you wouldn’t find it so adorable.”

He leans close and kisses me on the tip of my nose, then grimaces. “I think I got a bit of snot there.”

“Yeah, don’t kiss people’s noses on ski slopes, genius.”

“Lesson learned. Shall we keep going?”

I gaze up the slope, toward the peak of the mountain, and sigh wistfully. “I wish we could just stay here forever.”

“What, on this slope? It’d get pretty cold.”

“Tch. I mean, do we really have to leave for Jakarta tomorrow? We could tell them we’re snowed in. That’s believable, right?” I gesture around us. “Look at this view. Look how bluethat sky is, and how fresh the air is. Every breath I take is like drinking straight from a mountain spring, it’s so refreshing. And I love skiing, and—”

“And you don’t want to see your family again.”

Smart-ass. I narrow my eyes at him. “Okay, that’s inaccurate. I love my family, I just—I’m not ready for our honeymoon to end.”

“Hey,” he says softly, putting his arms around me. Of course, we’re bundled up in so many layers that our arms can’t go all the way around each other. “It hasn’t ended yet. We’re going around Pulau Seribu, aren’t we? There’s still an adventure awaiting us.”

“True,” I admit. “But before Pulau Seribu, there’s going to be Jakarta and my family.”

“Your family is wonderful. Just like yourself.”

I shudder. “Okay, never, ever say that to me. I am nothing like my family.”

Nathan bites back a grin. “Really? You mean you’re not going to tell our future kids not to waste money buying you gifts and then give them a hard time when they listen to you?”

“Ugh, never!”

“Because I think that’s kind of really cute.”

“Oh god,” I groan. “Only you would find that cute.”

Nathan looks deep into my eyes, and despite myself, I melt against him. “It’s going to be okay,” he says softly. “I can’t wait to go to Jakarta and meet everyone and experience the whole Chinese New Year celebration with you, your mom, and your aunts. It’s going to be great.”

I want to remind him that when it comes to my family and big, over-the-top events, we kind of have a terrible track record. But I don’t want to spend the last day in Val Thorensarguing, so I close my eyes and lose myself in a long kiss, and I remind myself over and over that this time will be different. That this time, I have my husband (!) with me, and we will weather anything and everything together, as a single family unit.

2

The last thing I want to do after flying for eighteen hours is to meet everyone in my greasy-faced, matted-hair state (Nathan, of course, somehow manages to remain fresh-faced and smelling of clean laundry), but that’s exactly what greets us at the Jakarta airport. There’s Ma, hopping up and down and waving madly at us even though we’ve both waved back to indicate that yes, we saw her. And behind her are not only Big Aunt, Second Aunt, and Fourth Aunt, but about half a dozen of my other aunts and uncles.

“We could turn around right now and fly back to Paris,” I mutter as Nathan pushes our trolley, which is piled impossibly high with souvenir-stuffed bags, toward the gaggle of waving, grinning aunties and uncles.

“You’ll be fine. Look how excited they are to see you.”

“You mean how excited they are to seeyou?”

Nathan has just enough time to say, “Why would they beexcited to see me?” before we walk through the glass doors and are immediately swarmed by my family.

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