Chapter 11
Wayward was sound asleep in his bed when a warm tongue suddenly darted into his nostril. “Gross, Jamaal, stop that,” he murmured
endearingly, still in a dream state of happier times under the Northern Lights. Then the tongue penetrated even deeper into
his nose, causing him to gag.
Wayward’s eyes shot open, and he found himself face to snout with the puppy that had been standing on his chest. With a shout
of surprise, he leaped up abruptly on his mattress, and Bindi was flung clear to the other side of the bedroom.
“What the—!?” Wayward wiped the drool from his face. “Bindi, that’s so gross!”
Unfazed and with his tail shamelessly wagging, Bindi bounded back onto the bed, ambling up to Wayward with a big-tongued grin.
Melting a little, Wayward reached out to rub the puppy’s third eye patch on his forehead as Bindi nestled next to him under
the covers.
“Now how did you get out of your crate?” he wondered as he looked around.
Then he saw it. Dotted all over his real hardwood floor were unmistakable little puddles.
With a defeated groan, Wayward palmed his forehead as Bindi stuck a tongue back into his nostril.
“Never thought of you as a dog person, to be honest,” Cristiano Baccay said, setting down a cardboard box stuffed full of
junk onto the pavement. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you once referred to pets as furry money pits.”
Wayward stuck his head out of the massive fifty-five-foot double-decker RV, a gleaming black 2.5-million-dollar behemoth that
had once belonged to Will Smith, holding yet another heavy box to hand to his best friend.
“Welp, people change, I suppose.”
They were standing in the loading dock behind the Sunfang Global Building in Century City, where this unreal mansion on wheels
was parked and rarely used now except as storage, especially since the Sun cousins had grown apart.
“Yes, people change,” Cristiano said, grunting as he grabbed the box from Wayward. “Like you did when you swapped our gym
sesh with this degrading, menial task. Why am I helping you with something that I’m not even invited to?” As he stretched
his brawny arms, he heard a mirthful whining and looked up through the open driver’s door, where Bindi was sitting on the
dashboard, humping the steering wheel.
“Hey, lifting is lifting!” Wayward stepped out of the RV, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Bounding out as well, Bindi begged
at their feet, waving his oversize paws at the two friends.
Cristiano smiled back at the puppy, charmed. “He definitely seems happier with you, Way. He was a ferocious little bastard
back in Malibu.”
“Dogs can change too, it turns out,” Wayward replied.
“Yes, when Roses makes one of her mandatory suggestions, everyone changes,” mused Cristiano. “Human and animal alike.” He
looked at Wayward pointedly.
With that, Wayward cleared his throat, sitting down on a stack of boxes to look up at his lifelong friend. “So about Roses’s latest mandatory suggestion, Cris . . .”
Cristiano sat next to him. “Damn, you always manage to get yourself into strange situations, old buddy.”
Wayward sighed. “So you know everything.”
“When you asked me about being a father last week, I started to put two and two together. That, coupled with Roses’s constant
talk of those damn hungry ghosts and Ape refusing to have another kid, I knew it was only a matter of time before you were
approached.”
“Those damn hungry ghosts,” Wayward repeated, shaking his head. “You can’t make this shit up.”
Cristiano cocked his head. “Do you believe in them, Way? Do you believe in hungry ghosts?”
Wayward shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Roses Sun believes in them, so they are the realest thing in our world.”
“Damn right,” Cristiano said, chuckling.
“How’s April?” Wayward asked. “Does she hate me even more now?”
Cristiano placed a hand on Wayward’s shoulder. “She’s never hated you, Way. She just hates the situation that she’s in. You
happen to be a part of that situation. That’s how family works sometimes.”
“And how about you, Cris? Would you be okay if I go ahead with this?”
Cristiano paused, thinking about how to respond. Finally he replied, “I would love to be the favorite uncle to any and all
of your future children. And I think you’d be an amazing dad.”
Wayward smiled, supremely relieved. “Only if I have you around to mentor me.”
“I’ll promise if you promise me something.”
“Anything, Cris.”
Cristiano looked up at the huge RV. “When you and Ape reunite in the desert tomorrow, promise me you’ll finally make peace with her. It’s been years of hurt between you two, and only you two can heal each other. I think it’s time.”
Wayward scooped up Bindi into his lap, nodding solemnly. “That’s definitely the plan. We need each other more than ever right
now.” He then grinned a bit naughtily. “If this desert party is anything like the cousin parties that we used to have when
we were kids, it should be hella good vibes. Nothing like some good MDMA for some good ole family bonding!”
Cristiano smiled back, though deep down he was worried to hear his best friend talking about drugs so cavalierly. “You’re
doing okay, though, right? I mean, I get a wild night in the desert for old times’ sake, but you’re taking it easy otherwise?
Sure, molly’s just molly, but you aren’t touching that other stuff, are you?”
Cristiano was no prohibitionist. Having grown up with the Sun cousins, he understood how certain children of privilege partied.
While there were lesser drugs that might be truly recreational, Cristiano worried about how they might be gateways to deeper
addictions, like the silver powder that had landed Wayward in rehab five years ago before he joined Sunfang Global.
“Yeah, yeah, of course not,” Wayward breezed, glancing at his watch. He stood up suddenly, knocking Bindi off his lap. “Shit,
I’m late!”
Cristiano got up as Wayward rushed off toward the parking lot. “I’ll be back in a couple hours,” Wayward called over his shoulder.
“You’re still good to watch Bindi while Meadow’s at her playdate, right?”
“Sure . . .” Cristiano replied uneasily, but Wayward had already disappeared around the corner of the Sunfang Global Building.
He bent down to pick up the whimpering puppy.
Bindi promptly sank his razor-sharp teeth into Cristiano’s thumb.
It was the grandest mausoleum in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
Big Boss Sun had always said that he would like to be laid to rest in his ancestral home near the Shanghai Bund, but that ancestral home had long since been razed and replaced by a skyscraper.
There were suggestions of scattering him instead in the nearby Huangpu River, but one look at its polluted yellow waters and his horrified daughters had refused.
Without a set resting place for their father, the biggest fight ever erupted between Roses and Iris. Each of the elder daughters
wanted to be the decider of her father’s final destination, and each one believed the other to be hijacking this mourning
period by making it all about herself.
Roses insisted that they transfer the ashes to Taiwan, since that was where she and her siblings all grew up, and she had
been advised by her new fortune teller that this placement would be good feng shui for the clan. Iris was disgusted by the
very idea that Roses would exile their patriarch’s remains to the literal opposite side of the world from his loved ones,
like some disgraced political prisoner. She offered to keep his ashes in her living room, and was loudly mocked by Roses for
preferring that Big Boss Sun haunt her “little condo” rather than find eternal peace.
The only time Roses and Iris took a breath from spitting at each other was when Hyacinth chimed in to nix a proposal that
would have buried Big Boss Sun on the grounds of his San Marino mansion, saying it would hurt the future listing price. She
quickly scurried out of sight when both her sisters turned their crosshairs onto her, accusing their little sister of already
counting her inheritance before their father was even in the ground.
Some people grieve by weeping. Roses and Iris grieved by warring.
When a mausoleum for their grandfather was finally erected in Westwood Cemetery nearly half a year after his passing, the Sun cousins breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The consecutive deaths of baby Lewis and Big Boss Sun had been enough trauma already, and they were grateful to see that an enraged auntie had not joined the list. Finally, they all said, their grandfather could rest in peace.
But what none of them knew, not even Lola, was something their generation could never know. Must never know.
Big Boss Sun’s grand mausoleum was in fact . . . completely empty.
Iris stood in front of her father’s mausoleum, holding a large bouquet of fragrant white lilies, their delicate stamens as
golden as the afternoon sun behind her. She reached out to run her fingers over the Confucian and Christian scriptures carved
side by side into the impressive black marble structure that had been designed by a renowned avant-garde sculptor from Singapore.
The Sun Clan had spared no expense in this monument for Big Boss Sun, including nine carats of impossibly rare red diamonds
planted in auspicious locations within its concrete foundation.
But despite all their efforts, Iris knew there was not enough pretty wrapping paper in the world to make up for an empty box.
I’m sorry, Father, she said quietly. She bent down to place the lilies in the planter below her.
“Funnily enough, I’m here to apologize too,” said a familiar voice from behind her.
Taking off her sunglasses, Iris turned around to watch Wayward approach, holding a large bouquet of sunflower buds, still
unopened. He stood beside her, placing them next to her lilies.
Also side by side, the mother and son looked at their patriarch’s grave in silence, before Wayward spoke again. “It’s been