Holidays with the Wongs by Jackie Lau

Author:Jackie Lau [Lau, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jackie Lau Books
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

“By the way, I have a girlfriend.” Zach spoke nonchalantly as he dug into his fried rice, but he couldn’t help smiling as he anticipated his family’s reaction. He was at his parents’ place for Sunday dinner, along with his grandparents and Amber.

Sure enough, his announcement had quite an impact.

“You do?” Ah Ma said, practically shouting.

“How wonderful,” Mom said. “Who is she?”

“Jo MacGregor.”

“You two have been friends for a while, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and we decided…well…that we have other feelings for each other, too.” He wasn’t his smoothest today.

“Invite her next Sunday,” Ah Ma said. “I will make her a nice meal.”

Dad gave his mother a look. “You will scare her away with your horrible cooking.”

“I tease! You knew I was teasing, Zach, didn’t you?”

“I’m not having her over next Sunday,” Zach said. “She can meet everyone at Chinese New Year the following weekend, when Greg and Nick are in town.”

“Not that we haven’t all met her before,” Mom said, “but usually she’s examining my teeth when I see her.”

“I will get out my list of questions!” Ah Ma said gleefully. “Sixty-nine questions to ask future granddaughter-in-law.”

Zach choked on his rice. For multiple reasons.

“What is wrong?” Ah Ma asked.

“Sixty-nine questions,” Amber said. “That’s, um, an awful lot.”

“Sixty-nine. It is a good number, isn’t it? It always makes people laugh when I say it, so I think it must be a good number.”

Zach and Amber looked at each other.

“Um,” Zach said.

“Do you want to tell her?” Amber asked.

“No, thank you.”

“What are you not telling me?” Ah Ma demanded. “What is wrong with sixty-nine? Is it some weird sex thing?”

“I don’t know if I’d say weird…” Dad began.

“Ah, it is a normal sex thing?”

“It’s perfectly normal,” Mom said.

Zach was having flashbacks to the sex-ed talks his parents had given him when he was a preteen. He supposed he was grateful for those, but he didn’t really want to think about that now.

“In fact,” Mom continued, “Amber came home from school one day—I think she was eleven—and asked me what it was.”

Everyone looked at Amber, and Zach couldn’t help smirking, just a tiny bit, at his sister’s discomfort.

“You told her?” Ah Ma said. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“You can look it up on the internet,” Dad said.

“I don’t know how to use the internet.”

“I do,” said Ah Yeh, who had been silent up until this point.

“All you know how to do is order things we don’t need. You know what arrived yesterday?” Ah Ma pointed at her husband but looked at her son. “An avocado slicer, an egg slicer, and a cake decorating set. Why do we need those things? He doesn’t even like boiled eggs. Or cake.”

“I like cake.” Ah Yeh crossed his arms over his chest. “I just don’t like that dry vanilla cake you buy from the grocery store.”

“Wah, that is the best. So cheap!” Ah Ma said. “But this is just a distraction from my question. What is sixty-nine? I don’t want to use the internet to find out.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s best you don’t use the internet for that.

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