“And he loves cooking,” Ma says, with a pointed glare at me, “very good because no matter how many times I teach you, you still don’t know how. How can you be good wife, you can’t even cook rice?”
“Stay on the topic,” Fourth Aunt says.
For once, Ma listens to her. “He has two dogs. You always want dog. Now you can have two! They are so well-groom. Look!” She brandishes a photo of two glossy golden retrievers that are so golden and so perfectly shaped they look like they could be some pet magazine models.
“I tell him, I say, ‘I’m wedding photographer,’ and he say, ‘Wow, so impressive!’ and I say—”
“Wait.” I have to take a second to let the words sink in. “Did you just—Ma. Did you—go on a dating site as me?” I sit there with my mouth open, not breathing or blinking or anything.
“Of course she did!” Second Aunt says. “How else can she meet the boy? If she say her real age, fifty-six—”
“Fifty-three,” Ma interjects.
Fourth Aunt snorts.
“If she say her real age, then she will matching with men her age,” Second Aunt explains very slowly, nodding and smiling at me encouragingly. “You see? Is why she has to pretend she is you.”
I can’t even right now. What is my life? While my mind sputters to catch up with the situation, Ma regales me with more of the deep, soulful messages that Jake the hotel owner has sent me. He’s seen my pictures and apparently finds me “breathtaking.”
“Do you have any photos of him, at least?”
“I ask him, but I think maybe he a bit shy,” Ma says.
“You realize that means he’s a complete troll?” Fourth Aunt says.
Ma waves her off. “I think is because he so handsome, he don’t want show off photo, he wants to make sure you falling in love with him, not his face.”
“Also, he’s Taiwanese, so his Mandarin very good,” Second Aunt says. “Maybe you can improve your Mandarin with him. Whenever you speak Mandarin, aduh, give me headache.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I’m so flustered by everything they’re throwing at me that I don’t know how to react. “I need to—can I see these chat messages?”
“Aduh, no time for that,” Ma says. “You trust me, okay, this one is very good boy. Very good. If you don’t go, you miss out.”
And, to my horror, despite the awfulness of everything, part of me is being won over, which clearly means I have lost my damn mind.
But the last time I went on a date was . . .
Last summer? Last fall? Christ on a cracker. Has it really been that long? And don’t even get me started on the last time I got laid. As my best friend Selena likes to remind me, “Girl, you need to get some before that thing closes up shop for good.” I look down at my lap, at that “thing.” Why can’t Selena just say “vagina”？ You’re not gonna close up shop for good, are you?
Okay, I have just started talking to my vagina. Maybe Ma’s right. I desperately need to go out on a date. And so what if it’s been set up in the weirdest, most awkward way ever?
“Must go, ya,” Ma is saying, unaware that I’ve quietly talked myself—and my vagina—into agreeing.
“Must not cancel,” Big Aunt says. “If you cancel last minute it so offensive, you know.”
“So offensive,” Second Aunt says. “But we know you not do that. You are nice girl.”
“You’ll jeopardize the wedding weekend,” Fourth Aunt says. “You must go, be your lovely, sweet self. He’ll fall in love for sure.”
I stare at my mother and my aunts. They stare back at me, smiling and nodding in that way cats do when they’ve cornered a mouse.
“Fine.” I sigh. “Tell me everything I’m supposed to know about my date tonight.”
2
Sophomore Year, Seven Years Ago
“You are NOT putting cut-up hot dog and kimchi in yours,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“Oh right, you can put that panda thing in yours, but I can’t put hot dog and kimchi in mine?” Nathan says, stirring his bizarre mug cake batter.
“Pandan is a legit cake flavor, you caveperson. What kind of mug cake has hot dog and kimchi?”
“The best kind,” Nathan says easily. “You know mine’s gonna come out tasting way better than yours, and then you’re just going to end up eating it all.”
“Not. Possible.”