Page 42 of Behind Frenemy Lines

“My father is not working anymore, but he was a—er—government servant.” That was another term I didn’t know in Cantonese, so I said it in English. I added, “My mother looked after me.”

Auntie’s expression suggested she was not impressed. A pearl necklace was draped around the collar of her cheongsam, and she had sparkling bracelets on both wrists. I was no expert, but I had a feeling they were real diamonds.

Was Charles a Crazy Rich Asian? I’d known he was well-off, but there was “my dad had a good job and we could afford overseas holidays” kind of money, and then there was “our family travels to our overseas holidays by private jet” kind of money. I made a mental note to check Charles’s LinkedIn profile to see if it said which school he’d gone to.

“Working for the government, that’s very decent.” Auntie made it sound like an insult. She raked me with a look, from top to toe. “You’re a big girl, aren’t you? Charles’s friend, the old one, she was very small-sized.”

That stung, but there was also something funny about it—the flash of the claws. As though this auntie could say anything worse to me than pretty much everyone around me had alreadysaid, multiple times in multiple languages, before I’d turned sixteen.

The most annoying thing I could do was make it clear I didn’t care what she thought.

“Yes,” I said peaceably.

Auntie’s gimlet stare drilled into me. “His mother and I, we were starting to think maybe Charles is not interested in getting married.”

I recognised this sideways language. My relatives spoke in a similar way about the LGBT people they knew. They didn’t have any of the vocabulary. Though given Auntie’s own daughter was gay, her refusal to learn had a stench of wilful ignorance to it.

“Nowadays many people don’t like to get married,” I agreed. “Auntie must be happy about Loretta getting married. Hayley is very pretty.”

Auntie’s face twitched. “Yes, she’s very pretty. I don’t know why she wants to marry Loretta. A pretty girl like her, she could marry any man. Even Loretta, even though she’s so fat, she could find a husband if she tried.”

I couldn’t tell if this was a deliberate jab—Loretta was notably smaller than me—but she couldn’t hurt me anyway. I’d already decided Auntie’s good opinion wasn’t one I valued.

“I told Loretta she just needs to look harder to find a husband. But she didn’t want to try,” said Auntie. Her mouth pulled into a disconsolate moue. “That’s how it is these days. Children don’t want to listen. You can say everything, but they don’t care about their parents.”

I thought of the absurd rigmarole that had led to me being here, at this wedding of two strangers, purely because Loretta wanted to please her mother. When I spoke, my voice was gentle—not for Auntie’s sake, but because I was thinking of Loretta and Charles.

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “Loretta’s so happy youcame. It’s great you are accepting. Even if parents and children don’t agree, it’s not that they don’t love each other. Being together is important.”

At least, that was what I tried to say. Given the longest conversation I’d previously had in Cantonese had been about how many sar kok liew I wanted to purchase, and whether I wanted a second bag for them or not, I wasn’t sure how much of my intended message I’d succeeded in conveying.

“Hmm,” said Auntie, which didn’t tell me much. She looked around the room.

Charles and Loretta were whispering together. Auntie’s husband was talking to Hayley and her parents. Auntie raised an imperious hand and flagged down one of the bridesmaids, a white woman in a suit, with an undercut.

“Em, can you take a photo of me and Charles’s friend on my phone?” said Auntie, in perfect English. “I must send it to his mother. She wants to see what does Kriya look like.”

Once my image had been captured (it felt like my soul had gone with it), I was graciously dismissed, with another wave of that beringed hand. Charles came up to me, looking worried.

“Sorry, Loretta wanted to speak to me about—uh, about wedding stuff. Was it all right, with her mum?”

“I might take a while to recover,” I said. “I have to say, Loretta is incredibly well adjusted, all things considered.”

“That bad?” Charles grimaced. “What did my aunt say?”

“Nothing that terrible,” I said. “I now know your last girlfriend was much thinner than me, though.”

Charles looked horrified. “I’m so sorry. That’s obviously not—I don’t—I mean, it’s completely unacceptable. I’ll talk to her.”

“Honestly, don’t worry about it. I’ve experienced worse,” I said. “It’s not like she’s my first Asian auntie. But you should know she does think I’m your girlfriend, and she’s sending a picture of me to your mum.”

Charles waved this away. “I’ll handle things with my mum.She’s the easy one. That’s what Loretta says—she got the good dad and the nightmare mum, and I got the good mum.”

I noticed the fact he didn’t mention his dad. Either absent or nightmare, then. Probably both, but perhaps he was sensitive about it.

“We should be making our way down,” said Charles. “Loretta says you can leave your stuff here, if you want. She’s passed me a spare keycard, so we can get back in if you need anything.”

“Great,” I said. “I’ll hang on to my clutch, but the tote can stay here. Shall we go?”

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