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“Auntie! Can we not slut-shame women, please?”
She shrugs, not contrite in the least.
“Anyway,” Ma says, “it doesn’t matter. It’s okay that you’re terrible at dating, because this boy, oh, he is so in love with you, Meddy. He knows all your flaws and how awkward you are in person and everything, but he says it makes him like you even more!”
“Whoa, whoa,” I raise my hands. “Hold up. Okay.” I take a deep breath. “There is so much here. Can we please switch back to English? Because I’m pretty sure I’m misinterpreting everything. First of all, he knows all my flaws? What the f—what gives, Ma? How does he know any of this stuff about me?”
“She met him online!” Fourth Aunt cries, triumphantly. I guess she’s been bursting with the secret this whole time, because her entire face is shining with excitement. “Your mother went online, to a dating site, and has been chatting with him for weeks!”
“What?!” Oh my god, so it’s not a loss in translation. She really did go and find me a random guy to go out on a date with. “Ma, is this for real?”
“Yes, very good idea, right? This way, you and him get to know each other before the date, which is tonight.”
“Tonight?” I squawk. “But Idon’tknow him! I know nothing about him, aside that he’s been chatting with my mother for weeks. I mean, good grief, that is some messed-up shit, Ma.”
“That why I tell you now,” Ma says, completely unfazed. Meanwhile, my cheeks are so hot they’re practically melting off my face. “Oh, he is such a good boy, so respectful of his elders.”
“How would you know?” I realize how loud my voice is when heads at the next table swivel round. To be loud enough to attract attention in a dim sum restaurant during the lunch rush is damn near impossible, which just goes to show how fucking pissed I am.
“He buy his parents house! A mansion in San Marino, very good location.”
My three aunties nod solemnly. San Marino is basically my family’s Holy Grail—close enough to SGV for those late-night Taiwanese bubble teas, far enough to be surrounded by non-immigrants. Ma and her sisters have had their eye on San Marino ever since they immigrated here.
“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 asme?” 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.