My mind spins. “So he knew you were using it and pretending to be me?”
“Of course not, you so silly! I keep asking you to use dating website, but you don’t want to, so finally I use it for you. I don’t tell Ah Guan. I just use it, and then wah! Hotel owner message me, and so kind, make such good match—oh.”
There it is, finally. Realization dawns on her face. Even Second Aunt pauses her Tai Chi movement to watch as Mama mentally digests what she’s just told us. Her face scrunches up like a ball of tissue, and her mouth drops open in an enraged wail.
“He trick me? Use me get to my daughter!?”
Big Aunt nods solemnly. “I hear about this kind of Internet scam before. Is called goldfish.”
“Catfish,” I say.
“No, I’m sure is call goldfish. Because pretend got gold, but actually just a fish.”
I know better than to argue with her. Second Aunt snorts from where she’s wobbling on one leg.
“What is it?” Big Aunt snaps.
“Nothing,” Second Aunt says, raising her other leg slowly.
Big Aunt turns back to face us. “Anyway—”
“Is just so typical,” Second Aunt says. “Because you always know best, right, Da Jie? Da Jie always correct. Who decide to put this Ah Guan boy in cooler? Is you. We just follow blind, don’t ask questions. Now turn out Ah Guan not dead, but we kill him by putting him inside cooler.” She pushes her palms out in front of her slowly, moving her feet in a gentle circle.
Big Aunt takes a deep breath. “Anyway—”
“Now you going to tell us again what to do, even though so obvious you don’t know also.”
Big Aunt rounds on her. “And you do, is it? If you know what to do, then you say lah! Don’t stand in corner doing Tai Chi; come tell us solution.”
Second Aunt pointedly ignores her and continues moving her palms round. I’m sure Big Aunt is about to explode when her cell phone rings. She picks it up, still glaring at Second Aunt, and speaks in rapid Mandarin. “Si Mei, you’re here already? Okay, good. Yes, I know it’s very early, but we have a problem. Come meet us at the kitchen. Just ask them take you down here. Now, yes.” She hangs up.
Fourth Aunt is here. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better to know that the whole family is here, even though realistically I know it doesn’t make much of a difference.
“We need to decide what we’re going to do,” I say quickly, before Big Aunt and Second Aunt can get into it again. “Now that we know Jake isn’t Jake, and the real Jake—Nathan—is still alive, that means the wedding is definitely going to go on as planned. Which means, like it or not, we’ve got to show up and do our jobs and pretend that everything’s okay.”
They’re all looking at me funny, and it takes a second to realize that I’ve just taken on a leadership role with MY AUNTS. Whoa. I quail under their gazes. “Um, sorry, that was just a suggestion, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you are right, Meddy,” Ma says, smiling fondly.
Big Aunt nods. “You right. The wedding continue on. We must get rid of body before guests come. If we leave body here, only matter of time before someone find. Okay, we think of plan. Sekarang jam berapa?”
I glance at my phone. “Quarter to nine.”
“I have to do hair and makeup for bride and mother and bridesmaids,” Second Aunt says.
“Aiya! My other flower suppliers all coming soon also,” Ma says.
“And I need to finish up welcome cakes,” Big Aunt says. “Meddy, what time you start photos?”
“I just need to be there to take photos when the bride’s makeup is nearly done, so I have time right now. I can take the cooler out and, um—get it onto a yacht and take it back to the mainland. I’ll drive it back to your bakery.”
“Okay, good, very good.” Big Aunt takes out the key to her bakery and hands it to me. “He quite heavy you know. You take Si Mei with you.”
I nod. Normally, I would hate to be such a bother to others, but I have enough self-realization to know I would struggle to carry Jake’s—dammit, Ah Guan’s—body out of the cooler and into Big Aunt’s fridge. I’ll need all the help I can get.
As though thinking of Fourth Aunt has summoned her, there’s a knock on the fridge door, and I look through the plastic curtains to see Fourth Aunt’s face peeping through the window. She waves at me, and I go to unlock the door and usher her through the plastic curtains.