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“Michael? That sounds fine.”

“It’s spelled M-a-i-k-e-l.”

“Ah.” I sigh. “She didn’t spell mine correctly, no.” I walk over to my luggage and unzip it pointedly. This should be a hint forKiki to leave. It’s not that she’s being unpleasant, exactly, but I’m so tired, and I am desperate for a few minutes to myself. What time is it in LA? Maybe Michie— Oh. It’s around four a.m.

“Mum says you got knocked up.” She says this so casually, with her pert little chin in her pert little hand like she’s asking me about the weather.

I straighten up so fast I get dizzy. “Excuse me?”

Kiki shrugs. “My mum. She says you were sleeping with some American boy and got pregnant, that’s why you’re here.”

“Jesus.”

“Not true?” Kiki gives me that calculating glance I’m fast becoming very familiar with. “You don’t look pregnant.”

“I’m not—god. Fuck your mom.”

We both gasp. I didn’t mean to say that. Oh my god. What is wrong with me? Why do I do this? Why am I all fight and no flight all the time?

But then Kiki’s mouth quirks into a grin, and before I know what’s happening, she’s laughing uproariously. It feels like the first true thing I’ve seen ever since I got here, and the relief is so immense it floods through my entire body and I start laughingtoo.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you said that!” she cries between cackles.

“I know, I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head, still laughing. “It’s fine.” She takes a deep breath and composes herself. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think Mum believes it herself. Well, actually, I don’t know.I never can tell which lies Mum believes and which ones she pretends to believe just so she can tell everyone about it. She’s a bit of a c-u-next-Tuesday, you know?”

Whoa. Okay. And here I thought I had a difficult relationship with my mom. But I have never called my own mom—or any other woman—the c-word and I have to say, it’s pretty shocking hearing it from someone who looks like Kiki. I plop down on the sofa next to her.

“So. Not pregnant. Why’re you here?”

I shrug. “Am I not allowed to visit my mother’s homeland? Don’t tons of our cousins visit here?”

“Yeah, the ones in the US and UK come back once a year, usually. Ones in Aussie come back twice a year. But you,” she says, pointing a finger at me, “have not set foot in this country in the entire seventeen years you’ve been alive. So everyone is just a tad curious about why you’re suddenly here.”

This sends a shot of dread crawling down my spine. “Everyone?”

“The family. You know.”

“I don’t know, actually. Um. How big is it again?” I mean, I know Mama has six siblings, and each of those siblings had more than two kids, and some of those kids—my cousins—are grown-up and have gotten married and produced their own kids…

“Big. Last I checked, there are sixteen of us in our generation and—I don’t know—maybe seven in the next gen? I’ll have to check if Ci Genevieve’s given birth yet.”

Sixteen of us. Fifteen first cousins. Good lord.

“And they’re all wondering and, like, making up stories about why I’m back here?”

“Not all.” Kiki rolls her eyes. “I mean, some just don’t care. Like Ci Genevieve, she’s all about her firm. And her babies. Ah, good ol’ Ci Genevieve, always making the rest of us cousins look bad. This will be her third child, you know, and she still hasn’t taken a single day off work.”

“What does she do?” I vaguely know of a family business in…real estate? Plastics? Pipes?

“Private equity. She didn’t go into the family business. She’s making it all on her own and setting the bar way too high for the rest of us.”

“Ah.” Great, so the only person who doesn’t care is some ancient overachieving cousin. “So, Genevieve doesn’t care—”

“Cici Genevieve. You can’t just call her by her name, that’s so rude. She’s older than us by like, fifteen years.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. It’s like this all over Asia—age matters a lot, so if you’re older, the younger person needs to call you by a title and definitely not just by your name. “So Ci Genevieve doesn’t care, but everyone else does?”