“Isn’t it obvious? I want to see his face!”
“Aiya! You so disrespectful. People already dead, you want to see his face for what?”
“She’s right, Mimi,” Big Aunt says, gently. “We try not to disturb him too much.”
I have to turn away from the body. The sight of it brings back the trauma of the accident, and I can’t stop seeing flashes of Jake, again and again. Of him smiling, his hand on my knee. Now his hands are lying limply against his hips.
“Now what?” Second Aunt says, going through her Tai Chi moves a lot faster than they call for. “This boy so tall. How we get rid of him?” She shudders before going into a different pose with arms outstretched. “Maybe we can chop him up, cook some curry, then throw away bit by bit?”
“That’s a lot of curry,” Fourth Aunt says.
My stomach lurches. Calm. Down. They’re not being serious. They’re not. They’re just being their usual selves. Their usual murdery selves. What is going on right now?! Maybe one of the Chinese dramas they’re always watching is a crime show. Or maybe this is a mom thing: once you have a kid, you lose the ability to be truly shocked by anything. I mean, this is not normal, right? Right?
“No curry,” Big Aunt scolds. Second Aunt glares at her.
“You got better idea is it?” Second Aunt says.
Big Aunt sighs. “I think first.”
“Um,” I squeak, and they all look at me. I charge ahead before I lose whatever tiny bit of courage I have. “Maybe we should take him to the desert and bury him there?”
They mull this over. We’ve been on family trips to Vegas a couple of times; we all know the route well, the empty desolation between California and Nevada that people pass through and never stop at.
“Good idea,” Ma says, smiling with obvious pride at me.
Second Aunt nods. “Yes, very good.”
“Better than your curry idea,” Big Aunt chides. “Okay, we do that when we come back from wedding island. Definitely got no time to do tonight, we need to be at pier tomorrow by eight-thirty.”
Oh my god. In all the panic and confusion, I haven’t forgotten that we still need to work a wedding tomorrow, but I have forgotten the details of it—the fact that it’s at Santa Lucia and that we have to congregate tomorrow morning at the pier to catch one of the private yachts that will be taking us to the island. The thought of it exhausts me. Driving to the desert, digging a hole, filling it, and then driving back is out of the question for tonight. As it is, I can barely stay on my feet.
“We cannot leave him in trunk for whole weekend,” Ma says. “Later he will stink up my house, then will be very hard to get rid of smell.”
Big Aunt nods again. “We need to put him in fridge.”
Lord help me, we are literally talking about fridging the dude.
“My fridgerator not big enough,” Ma says.
“Only you got fridge big enough,” Second Aunt says to Big Aunt.
The only sign that betrays Big Aunt’s dismay at the realization that it would have to be her fridge is a flicker of displeasure, but then she nods and says, “Okay. Anyway, I will feel better with body in my fridge than if body in someone else fridge; who knows, maybe that person is not so responsible.” She gives Second Aunt the side-eye. Second Aunt’s nostrils flare and she opens her mouth to speak, but Big Aunt says, “We go now.”
“Um, could we move him into your trunk?” I say. “It’s pretty obvious my car’s been in an accident, and I don’t want us to get pulled over.”
“Okay. My car already in your driveway. Come, we move him.”
We all crowd around Jake’s body.
“We can’t carry him out like this,” I say. “What if someone sees?”
“Yes, cover him with something,” Second Aunt says. “Nat, you got big bag or not? You know, when Hendra go ski, he take his ski in this very big bag. I always think, wah, can fit me inside that bag.”
“Why you think that? Such unlucky way of thinking,” Big Aunt scolds.
Before Second Aunt can snark back at Big Aunt, Ma quickly cuts in. “No, Meddy don’t ski. Maybe garbage bag? Can it fit or not?”
We regard the body. “I think he’s a bit tall to fit in a trash bag, Ma,” I say.
“We’d have to cut him up first,” Fourth Aunt says, her eyes shining with what I can only describe as horrified glee. Has she always been this murderous? Have they always been this blasé about chopping bodies up?