Chapter 13

13

Abi takes charge of the minivan full of drugged caterers, driving it away from the Ritz and parking it someplace where no one would accidentally stumble upon the unfortunate load. Meanwhile, his chauffeur drives the rest of us in the catering van to Kristofer’s mansion. Along the way, we go over our plan. Once again, we come up with a list.

Go inside Kristofer’s house as caterers. (Check. Well, almost checked. We’re halfway to achieving this point, good job, everyone.)

Big Aunt takes care of the food preparation while the rest of us go through the house to find Second Aunt.

Find Second Aunt. (How? I don’t know, how I know? You have to thinking! Thinking very hard. If you are kidnapper, where will you keep the Denzel in distress? . . . maybe a cellar of sorts. A wine cellar? Ah, yes, good thinking. You see? You can do anything, just need to thinking hard.)

Give Second Aunt caterer’s uniform that we have saved for her and leave the premises as caterers. (Ooh, this very good idea, just like James Bun. James Bond. Yes, James Bun, that what I say.)

There is no step 5, but Ma insists that we can’t end with Step 4 because 4 is an unlucky number. (Is mean death, you want this to end with death?) Hence, Step 5. What is Step 5? (Step 5 is, you and Nathan make grandkids.) Focus, Ma.

“I feel good about our plan,” Fourth Aunt says. “A solid five-step plan, easy to follow.”

Nathan grimaces. “Well, except we don’t have any of the important details. Like how to find Second Aunt—”

“Like Meddy suggested, she’s probably in the wine cellar,” Fourth Aunt says with confident simplicity.

“Right . . . but then how would we get into the wine cellar without anyone noticing, and what if she’s not in there . . .” Nathan’s voice trails off as he takes in the myriad expressions around him. Fourth Aunt is sneering at him like, What kind of moron can’t find his way down to the wine cellar? Ma is looking like she’s this close to wailing, and Big Aunt is looking like a North Korean dictator who’s just been told that his parade was canceled due to bad weather. “Ah, you’re right. It’s a piece of cake. We’ll find her. Somehow.” He gives a half-convincing smile, which is enough to assuage Ma and the aunties for now.

What little confidence I have is shaken as we arrive at the perimeter of Kristofer’s estate. Like Julia Child’s estate, his is surrounded by impossibly high walls topped with barbed wire. But as the front gates yawn open to let our little van trundle in, I see that his has even more armed guards strolling across the grounds. There are at least a dozen of them, and I don’t care what Julia Child says, I can’t imagine these men carrying toy rifles. Those rifles look real as hell. I gulp audibly and have to remind myself to keep breathing. It’s okay, Meddy. It’s going to be okay. You’ve been a photographer for so long, you know that people in the service industry are next to invisible. You’ve seen how Big Aunt and Second Aunt and Ma flit through weddings, practically unseen by the hosts and guests alike. This is just the same. In your black caterers’ uniforms, you are all invisible.

We’re stopped as soon as we enter the gates. Two guards, one of them with a large German shepherd, approach the van, gesturing to the driver to roll down his window. As the German shepherd sniffs around the van, the first guard says, “Name?”

Big Aunt leans forward, putting her face close to the driver’s window. “Caterers from the Ritz.” She gives him her most motherly smile. “We’ve got the food for tonight’s feast.”

The guard nods and says, “Open the back.”

Nathan does so, and we all hold our breath as the German shepherd leaps into the back of the van and smells the foam boxes noisily.

“What do you have in there?” the second guard asks, standing behind the dog.

“Food,” Ma says.

There’s a pause. “Right . . . what kind of food?”

Oh god, just come up with something!my mind shrieks. But my mouth refuses to open. Apparently, the rest are just as tongue-tied when faced with a rifle-toting guard and a trained German shepherd. The pause stretches, and the guard shifts his weight, his hand traveling down toward his rifle. “You don’t know what kind of food—”

“Tch!” Big Aunt snaps. “How many times must I go over the menu with you useless lot? I’ve told you, tonight we are serving the roast suckling pig, yes? Did you lot forget that already? And to go with it, we’ve got pearl shrimp dumplings, and whole steamed bass, and garlic scallops cooked in their shells—have you prepped the scallops?” The barrage of questions is fired without any pause for breath.

“Um, ah . . .” My mouth opens, but nothing coherent comes out.

Big Aunt rounds in on me. “You see? Unprepared. That’s what you all are. Pay cut, all of you. Now, when we go inside, first thing I’m doing is checking the scallops, and if they’re not cleaned, one of you will be fired.”

Even the guards have leaned back, wearing the horrified expressions I know so well. “Um,” one of them says, “that’s . . . uh, well, everything looks to be in order. Go around the corner to the east wing of the house. You’ll find the service entrance there.” He shuts the back door of the van quickly and thumps on it twice to signal to the driver to go. We all breathe a sigh of relief.

“That was really quick thinking, Big Aunt,” Nathan says, wiping his brow.

Big Aunt sniffs. “Lucky for you all, I think very fast on my head. You see, this what you get when you working as head chef. Something go wrong—something always going wrong, no event has perfect record—the most important thing is, quickly think: How I solve this?”

Nathan gives her a sheepish smile. “I feel like I should’ve reacted faster, because you’re right, nothing ever goes perfectly, and being in the hotel business, I for one should’ve known that. But I just—I froze. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

Ma leans over and pats him gently on the arm. “Is okay, Nathan, is because you not use to breaking into other people house, ya? Because you such a good boy. But Meddy—” She levels her gaze at me, her eyes narrowing. “Meddy should know better. She seasoned criminal already.”

“What?” I cry.

Ma holds up her index finger. “Kill Ah Guan, hide his body, lie to police . . .”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“But Nathan, he innocent boy.” Ma smiles at him and pinches his cheek.

“Thanks, Ma.” He beams at her. The little suck-up.

The van stops and for a moment, we all freeze, expecting more guards to storm us. But the only person present is a harried-looking man dressed in all black, who rushes up to our van and calls out, “Ayo, cepat. Don’t block the door. Other vendors are due to arrive.”

Sure enough, behind us, another van pulls up, this one with the words “Bella Flowers” painted on its side in curly gold font. “Right, let’s do this,” Fourth Aunt says, and we all look at one another and nod. Nathan opens the back door, and we climb out and start unloading the boxes of food.

Big Aunt approaches the man. “We’re from the Ritz.”

The man gives an exaggerated sigh and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I can see that.” He frowns down at his checklist and draws an aggressive check mark. “Go through that door and to the right and you’ll find the kitchen. Do not go into any other room. Next! Flowers? Did you get my note about the hydrangeas—”

Big Aunt nods at us to follow her. We each carry three huge foam boxes, with the exception of Nathan, who’s carrying five to show off to my family. As soon as I step inside Kristofer’s house, the blast of AC cools me down, a reprieve from the sweltering tropical heat outside.

None of us breathes a word as we march as quietly and professionally as we can down the hallway. The boxes I’m carrying go right up underneath my eyes, covering half my face, and I’m ridiculously thankful for their presence. They feel like a shield, hiding me from any suspicious eyes. We pass by several doors, a couple of which are slightly open, and each time we near one, Big Aunt slows down and glances into the room. The first one is apparently a storage room filled with skis and surfboards. The second one is a pantry stocked with sacks of rice, beans, and the usual staples. The third and fourth doors are firmly closed. Big Aunt hesitates, stopping and staring at the third door until someone behind me calls out, “What’s the holdup?”

I startle and turn around to see a scowling florist, face red under the weight of a massive vase of flowers. “Hey, can you guys stop snooping around and just keep going, please?” she snaps.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Of course.” I move forward, nudging Ma, who is in front of me. Ma nudges Fourth Aunt, who nudges Nathan, who thinks better of nudging Big Aunt.

But just at that moment, the door opens and two women wearing servers’ uniforms walk out. They pause when they see us, and one of them says, “Are you headed for the kitchen? Follow me, I’ll take you there.”

Right, so these two rooms whose doors were shut are presumably the helpers’ bedrooms. We follow the helper, who leads us around a corner, and suddenly, we find ourselves in a magnificent kitchen. There are huge picture windows all around, as well as a skylight, and the entire room is bathed in glorious sunlight, the white and gray marble counters and floors gleaming invitingly. Big Aunt gives an audible gasp and stands stock-still. This is probably the kitchen of her dreams. We file around her and put down our boxes on the counter with relief. Behind us, the florists are led toward the living room to set up their floral structures.

“Dajie, don’t just stand there,” Ma says, patting Big Aunt’s arm.

Big Aunt starts. “Oh, yes.” Still, her gaze roams the kitchen with lascivious admiration as she puts down her boxes. “Look, they got all the best equipment.” She shakes her head slowly, her eyes wide. “Wah, La Cornue’s Château Line oven. You know, this one cost as much as Mercedes. And look, they even have wood burning oven.”

Sure enough, there’s a round pizza oven covered with emerald-green mosaic tiles in one corner of the kitchen. There are also two massive refrigerators, which Big Aunt tells us are “smarty fridges,” a cooker with eight stoves, and a humongous, gorgeous kitchen island with beautiful brass lamps hanging over it. Big Aunt rubs her hands together, her eyes glinting, a small smile playing on her lips. She looks like the oldest grandson on Chinese New Year morning, knowing he is going to get the biggest red packets from all the relatives. The tip of her tongue darts out, moistening her lips. I suddenly feel as though I’m intruding on a private moment.

“Okay.” Big Aunt claps once, with renewed authority. “Open the boxes.”

We all hurry to do as she says, and box after box is opened to reveal all sorts of delicacies. There are sea cucumbers, golden abalones as big as my fist, scallops in their shells (cleaned, thank goodness), tiger shrimp, lobsters, Kobe beef steaks, all of them pristinely packaged.

“Wah,” Big Aunt says with each reveal. “Wah. Wuuaaaahhh!” Her excitement increases as she studies the ingredients, the rest of us forgotten in the moment. Indeed, I wonder if she even remembers why we’re here in the first place.

“Hokkaido scallops!” she practically shouts. “Ooh, you know how long I have wish to cook these? They say they taste so sweet, almost like lychee.”

“Um, that’s great, Big Aunt. So uh, should we start looking for Second Aunt?”

Big Aunt’s mouth drops open, and for a split second, she looks as though she’s torn, like, Hmm, Second Aunt or Hokkaido scallops? Then she slowly, with great reluctance, lowers the bag of scallops, muttering, “Yes, yes, we should.”

“Actually,” Nathan says, “you should stay here and cook, Big Aunt.”

“I should?” Big Aunt says with naked hope.

Nathan nods. “Yeah. If we all went to look for Second Aunt, who would do the cooking? If the food isn’t ready on time, they’ll know something is wrong.”

Big Aunt’s head bobs forward and back so fast that it’s practically a blur. “Yes. Exactly. Good boy. Yes, very true!” She turns to the rest of us, not even bothering to hide her huge grin, and claps once. “Right. So, you all spread out and looking around—wait, you take this.” She bustles through the kitchen, opening cupboards. “Aha. Yes, here we going.” She takes out a whole stack of silver trays, places them on the kitchen island, then locates champagne glasses. “Champagen,” she says to us.

Nathan quickly locates a crate that we brought with us and opens it. Inside are dozens of bottles of champagne and wine.

“Ooh!” Fourth Aunt wiggles her eyebrows and pounces on a champagne bottle, but Ma snatches it out of her hands.

“No time for you to be drunk,” Ma scolds.

Fourth Aunt levels a flat gaze at her. “Really? You’re going to judge me for drinking alcohol? What was in that stuff you gave to the caterers, hmm?”

Ma’s mouth drops open in shock-horror. “I give that to you because I trusting you. Now you throw it back in my face?”

“I’m just saying, you’re not one to judge.”

They glare at each other until I pluck the champagne bottle out of Ma’s hands. “Cut it out, you guys.” We get a few of the champagne bottles open and pour them out into flutes and place them on the trays. Now we each have a tray of precariously balanced, fragile, priceless flutes of champagne. Great.

“Don’t carry like that,” Big Aunt scolds, tapping my right hand with a wooden spoon. “Not both hands like that, that not how server carry tray. You have to carry like this, see.” In one smooth motion, she takes the tray out of my hands and places it on her palm, as confident as though the tray were empty.

“Uh, yeah, unlike you, Big Aunt, I don’t have over forty years’ experience as a chef, so I don’t know if I can manage that.”

The others nod in agreement. “Yeah, and I don’t think this is something that will make or break our disguise, Dajie,” Fourth Aunt says.

Big Aunt tuts. “Everything worth doing is worth doing the Asian way—that is, with high accuracy.”

“That’s not how the saying goes,” I pipe up.

Big Aunt plops the tray back in my hands with a huff. “I tell you how to do things right, you all don’t want to follow, is fine. Don’t later come to me, cry-cry because your cover is blown away.”

“We’ll do our best, Big Aunt,” Nathan says. Of course, he’s somehow managed to carry his tray exactly the way Big Aunt has shown us. Big Aunt nods with apparent fondness at Nathan. I’ve never even seen her look at her own son with such affection before. How is Nathan so effortlessly, infuriatingly good at everything? If Second Aunt weren’t in danger right now, I would’ve been tempted to stick out my foot and trip him. Big Aunt waves us away, already turning her attention to her beloved scallops.

Nathan, Ma, Fourth Aunt, and I nod at one another and then file out of the kitchen together, walking super slowly to avoid the flutes from falling off our trays. It’s a lot harder than it looks, balancing these trays. My respect for servers has skyrocketed in the last few minutes. They’re not only heavy, they’re also fiendishly hard to balance. Every step I take, the champagne in the flutes sloshes around like a turbulent sea. A glance at Fourth Aunt’s tray confirms my fears; Fourth Aunt never just walks, she sashays. And all that hip-swaying has caused a third of her champagne to spill out onto her tray. God, I hope she doesn’t run into anyone who might take notice of her sloppy tray.

We all pause when we get to the living room. It’s stupidly huge, and calling it a “living room” feels ridiculous. It’s more like a ballroom, and it is so large that it doesn’t just have one chandelier but ten. Ten chandeliers. I’ve been in proper hotel ballrooms that can fit easily into this “living room.” The floors are made of patterned gray marble so shiny that they reflect the lights like a pristine lake, and hung up on the walls are oil paintings, no doubt priceless. The room is filled with people bustling about, carrying floral structures and vases, putting up exquisite draperies here and there, and red Chinese lanterns all around. Cherry blossom trees have been shipped in, eight of them placed throughout the room. They’re in full bloom, their branches covered in clouds of delicate pink flowers. Even though the decorating team isn’t done, the room already looks stunning.

As we stand there hesitating, a woman who’s unpacking a box of Chinese lanterns glances up and barks in Indonesian, “What’re you standing around for? These drinks for us?”

“Uh.” I hesitate. “No? They’re for the guests.”

She snorts. “Right, well get out of our way, please. Clearly you’re not supposed to be here. Go on out there to the garden. The boss is out there with some of his business partners.” She jerks her head toward a huge set of glass doors leading out to an expansive backyard. Outside, the Olympic-sized pool glitters in the bright sunlight, and I spot a handful of people swanning around.

“Thanks.” I nod to Ma, Fourth Aunt, and Nathan, and we walk away from the stressed-out decorator and into a far corner of the living room, away from the hustle and bustle. “Okay, so we should definitely avoid going outside because that’s where Kristofer is.”

“This house is a lot larger than Google Earth made me think it would be,” Nathan sighs, looking around us.

He’s right. I’d thought that Google Maps had given me a good idea of the size of Kristofer’s mansion, but coming inside is like entering a separate dimension where it’s much larger than it should logically be. As we glance around us, I can feel our spirits dropping. From our vantage point alone, I can spot three different staircases. There’s a grand staircase that winds up to what I would assume are the bedrooms, but next to the grand staircase are two others, leading down. My mind scrambles in increasing panic, trying to figure out where Second Aunt might be. Upstairs or down? To make matters worse, the surly decorator is still glancing our way and muttering to herself as she angrily sorts out the paper lanterns.

“We’re still being watched,” I mutter to the others.

“Okay, we gotta act fast,” Nathan says. “Ah, choose which direction to go . . . upstairs?”

“Aiya,” Ma says, “if we all go up, they will be wondering why. Better we split up—”

“Uh-uh,” Fourth Aunt says. “I’ve seen the movies. We are not splitting up. That’s how they kill us.”

“Why you so ridiculous?” Ma snaps. “We splitting up, only way. Come, Nathan, you with me.”

“Wait, what?” I have to stop myself from grabbing Nathan’s arm as Ma herds him away.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, “I’ll look after her.”

It’s not Ma I’m worried about, I want to say. But there’s no time to argue, and before I know it, Nathan and Ma are already halfway up the grand staircase and I’m left on my own with Fourth Aunt.

“Alright, well.” Fourth Aunt shrugs. “Let’s go, kiddo. Second Aunt isn’t going to save herself.”

I can only nod, not trusting myself to reply. Is it weird for a couple of servers to walk down to what must be the basement? I guess it is, but we don’t have many other options, and it’s not like we could turn around right now and go back up, not without attracting the attention of the decorator, who obviously hates her job. We walk as confidently as we can past the decorator, who frowns at us as we go, and together, Fourth Aunt and I walk down into the darkness of the basement.