Page 45 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
“And I think we should be grateful for that.” He said “we,” but I knew he meant me.
“I am very grateful for it. It’s very generous of them.”
“And I think your parents should be more reasonable about their guest list and stick to under one thousand guests on their side.”
My mind whizzed furiously, trying to find a way to please both Parker’s family and mine. “How about if my parents paid for the difference? Anything over a thousand guests on their side and they can pay for it. Nobody has to know.”
“I’ll know.” There was no mistaking the anger in his voice now. “I have integrity, Maggie.”
When I look back on this moment, Izzy, I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if I’d picked up my glass of wine and splashed it across his integrity-filled face. But of course, I didn’t do that. Because the thing is, I wasn’t sure how I felt. For one thing, I felt really freaking stupid. Parker was right, his family was being incredibly generous, and I should be grateful. And anyway, 1,500 guests did seem like a lot of people. I didn’t even know anywhere near that many people. Of course Mama and Papa could cut down their guest list to a thousand. American weddings often had less than a tenth that number, and they were just as wonderful. It wasn’t a big deal. Be grateful and stop making it a big deal. This was a favorite refrain taught to us girls:Be quiet, be grateful, stop making a fuss.In the end, I nodded and told Parker that I would relay the information to my parents. He smiled at me then, the first smile from him that whole evening, and my heart melted at the sight of it. I really did love him, you know. Still do. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving your grandfather.
• • •
About two months after Parker proposed, we all got another huge surprise. Iris announced she was moving back to Indonesia. Actually, she announced it by simply hopping on a plane and showing up at the house, with four huge bags behind her. When I ran to the door to see what all the commotion was about, she grinned at me and said, “Hi, Sis. Heard you’re getting hitched. Hope he’s better than the last douche you dated.”
I could only stand back and stare as Iris strode inside the house, head held high as usual. Even though she hadn’t been back for years, and I’d lived here for the last four years, it felt as though the whole place was once again hers. How did she do it, even now? March in and claim the entire space, just like that? Already the living room smelled of her scent—the ginger shampoo she always used and a new perfume I didn’t recognize but was somehow so very Iris, and underneath it all, the smell that I’d come to think of as Older Sister Looking Down Her Nose at Something.
Mama and Papa were torn between surprise, shock, joy, and I don’t even know what else. They hovered around her, brows furrowed, peppering her with questions. She only answered one of them: How long are you staying? “A while.” Then she said, “Look, guys, I’ll answer everything after my shower, okay?” Then she trounced up the stairs, leaving the three of us in gaping silence.
With a sigh, Mama asked me to help her put together some snacks and brew some tea. I made a million mistakes brewing the tea. Seeing Iris after all this time was a complete mind fuck. And what was most earthshaking of all was the fact that thesight and smell of her had, weirdly enough, brought back memories of Ellery. I suppose it made sense; after all, the whole time I was friends with Ellery, I was living with Iris. The two of them were inextricably linked in my mind.
“I wonder what’s gone wrong in California,” Mama said. She gave a little gasp. “Oh no, what if she’s pregnant?”
“Oh, Mama. I doubt it.” Actually, I did. With Iris, you could never tell.
Mama gave me a look, like she was thinking the exact same thing. “If she is pregnant, what would Parker and his parents say?”
I almost said,Who gives a shit, Mama? It’s your daughter. Fuck what Parker and his parents might say.But you know what? Although part of me thought that, another part of me was squeaking,What WOULD Parker and his parents say? What would EVERYONE say? Would I also be disgraced?When I tell you that purity culture is insidious…
By the time Iris came downstairs, her hair damp and her skin rosy from the shower, the coffee table was groaning under the weight of all sorts of foods: cakes, pastries, fruits, tea, coffee, juice.
“Dang,” Iris said. “You guys must be really nervous, huh?”
I squeezed my mouth into a thin line. She wasn’t wrong.
“Iris,” Papa said gruffly, “how are you?” It was clear from his tone of voice that he didn’t actually care how she was doing; he only wanted to know what brought her here. I looked at him, and it was as though I was seeing him in a new light. Have my parents always been this aloof? This cold?
Iris plopped down on the sofa next to me and picked up a slice of kue lapis with her bare hands. She peeled the rich, dense layers of cake into thin strips and popped them into her mouthone by one, taking her time to reply. “I’m okay,” she said finally. “I’ve spent enough time climbing the corporate ladder, trying to find the next big tech start-up, et cetera. I’m ready for the next chapter in life.”
Mama drew in a sharp breath. “Are you getting married?”
Iris somehow rolled her eyes without rolling her eyes. “Not everything has to do with finding the right man, Ma.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve been seeing reports from places like Credit Suisse and PricewaterhouseCoopers about how Indonesia is the next emerging market to invest in. A rising middle class, untapped resources, and of course, we do have over two hundred million people here, many of whom are fine young programmers looking for work. In California, I’m just another woman of color trying to make it in tech. But here, I could be an entrepreneur.”
I gaped at her. My insides churned. This whole time, I’d seen my time here as purgatory. A career dead end. I’d blamed my lack of a career solely on being in Indonesia, telling myself that there were simply no opportunities to be grabbed here. That it wasn’t my fault I’d spent the last four years of my life doing menial tasks at the clinic, because what else could I have done? But now here was Iris, telling us that Indonesia was, in fact, the next great boom. And wasn’t that just so typically Iris?
“I—” Mama began, then paused. It was obvious that she had a million words fighting for space in her mouth. She started again. “What you’re saying sounds promising…”
“But the thought of a young girl—a single girl like you,” Papa said, “diving into the tech industry here…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Even I could see what a ridiculous thing it was.
“If you’re not careful,” Mama said, “you’re going to make a fool of yourself. And your failure will make your sister look bad. She’s about to get married, you know. To a good family.”
I had to consciously tell myself not to shrink back when Iris’s eyes slid over to me. Under her gaze, I felt all of sixteen years old once more, a little kid who had just arrived in a foreign country, lost and alone. But that wasn’t the case now.Sheshould be the one feeling lost and alone. I’d made a life for myself here; I had friends and a fiancé, for god’s sake.
“Yes, I know she’s getting married. Congratulations, by the way.” Nobody in the history of the world has ever said “congratulations” with so little congratulatory joy. “Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way of planning the most perfect wedding ever.” As she said, “the most perfect wedding ever,” Iris clasped her hands and pressed them to her cheek.
