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“You were gone while the announcement hit Mom’s airwave,” Kaylinn said while they smacked their teeth against their respective food, “but Cousin Ruthie is getting married.”
Arianna almost dropped her takeout chopsticks. “Ruthie? Huh?”
“Oh, yeah, marrying that hotshot doctor she was dating off and on for a few years.”
“You’re kidding. I thought they broke up for good when she caught him cheating.”
“Me too! But you didn’t hear this from me, since I only inferred it from my phone call with Ma…”
Arianna waited with bated breath.
“There’s a bun in the oven with Dr. Preston Cheung’s name on it.”
This time, Arianna dropped her chopsticks.
“Right?” Kaylinn giggled and kicked her feet as if this were the most scandalous thing to ever happen to their family. In a way, it is. Their cousin Ruthie was the daughter of Pearl’s sister, and while she didn’t party as hard as Kaylinn had in her college days, she was the closest thing to a “wild child” anyone got in the Song family tree going back five generations. Nobody was surprised when Arianna turned out to be blissfully responsible and a little too self-aware. Ruthie dating a doctor and breaking up with him was the only thing Pearl talked about for six months. The consensus was that if you have a doctor on the hook, you don’t care who else he sleeps with as long as he keeps it quiet. Hearing that this might be a shotgun marriage… Arianna could hardly believe it.
“Your invitation will be in the mail soon enough if it’s not already there,” Kaylinn said. “Expect Ma to call you about it tomorrow. She’ll also give you the usual whine-and-pout about finding you a date.”
Arianna shook her head, loose hair almost falling in her food. “I forgot that’s an expectation in this day and age.”
“Me, I’m going to start hitting the apps hard this week so I can have someone lined up. We don’t get a long lead time for this wedding! Four months, tops. Maybe more, depending on how far along Ruthie is. Ooh, I hope it’s twins. I love more scandal.”
“Oh, stop. Ruthie doesn’t deserve a lot of grief.”
“The hell she doesn’t! She once made me eat beetles!”
“That was a very long time ago.”
“Fifteen was a long time ago?”
“When you were fifteen, I was graduating school and going off to be a Singapura Girl. Sorry I missed it.”
“Yeah, yeah, Arianna Song is perfect and can’t do no wrong.”
“Except for when it comes to getting married and making Ma proud.”
“That also deflects more heat onto me, you know! Could you like… find a fine piece of femme ass to marry already? Maybe the CEO of your new company? Someone so hot and powerful that Ma won’t lose a lot of face when it gets out you’re a tongzhi? You might have to move out of Singapore…”
“I would have to leave Singapore.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be rich with a hot wife. I need that so I have more time to find a suitable guy. I think Ma’s giving up on you.”
“You’re so rude sometimes.”
“It’s true. Her dreams of you marrying a fine pilot or someone from the accounting department of a hotshot airline are wisps in the wind.”
“Is that what she’s told you?”
“Either that or she thinks you’re too picky.”
“She’s told me that. And she’s not wrong! I am picky about any man I marry.”
“Sure, sure, the man you’d marry doesn’t exist.”
“Exactly.”
Arianna shoved more food into her mouth. Kaylinn was the only person in the world who could make her come undone like this. Hair down, PJs on, makeup off, and talking like we’re kids again. Arianna slurped soup and occasionally let out the most delicate belch when it was her little sister sitting across from her. None of my coworkers have heard me burp before. Nobody, least of all a stranger on the street, had heard her fart. It would completely shatter the illusion that Arianna Song was beyond reproach… even if she was chronically single.
