Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  So, when it came down to it, when Sher begged me to come to her wedding, after all the nights we’d been through over the years, how could I not give her face?

  Outside the wedding banquet hall, Imo, Fann and I were standing around, looking chio and dressed in gold just like Sher texted us to, and saying hallo to her relatives all. “Auntie, congrats ah?” I said when I saw Sher’s mum.

  Auntie looked like she’d lost some weight, maybe to fit into the turquoise and gold cheongsam she was wearing. She looked at me a little bit sad, like she wanted to say something. I felt bad lah. I had seen her almost every week since primary school, though I had been avoiding their place for months. But we both knew that now wasn’t the right time. So she just smiled sweetly and squeezed my hand. “I think Sher wants us all to line up right on the inside by the door,” she said, leading me through the large double doors to the ice-­cold banquet hall and pointing to the area just to the right.

  The music started the moment I took my spot. I almost started to cry—­I only needed to hear five beats to know what it was: Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting.” Sher and I used to sing it all the time in secondary school. And then also after that lah—­but by then the song was not so happening anymore, so we secretly sang it, like, only when we were in the house type. (Outside the house, if we hear ­people singing it, we’ll just blink and stare at them as if they are bloody kampong idiots. Which is true lah.)

  After I didn’t do so well in my A levels and I applied to uni in Australia, Sher would always say, “Just think of Richard Marx and this song. We will always be best friends even if you go. Don’t cry, don’t cry.” In the end, something lucky happened—­I failed the entrance test, so I kena stuck in Singapore anyway.

  But why would Sher purposely play this song at this moment?

  The lights dimmed and a small, sharp spotlight came on, swirling around the room in big loops before stopping at the doorway. The circle of light got larger and larger until suddenly two figures stepped into it. Everyone in the room started clapping.

  Sher was glowing in the dress she had eyed for five years now, the one that was slim and silky, designed to look exactly like Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s negligee-­style wedding dress. “Marry an ang moh prince must have ang moh–style princess dress!” she had said when she showed the magazine photo to us a few years ago and we all told her the dress looked too plain.

  In the end, Sher was right about the dress, of course—­when I saw her stepping through the door to her wedding banquet, she looked just like a princess. Her hair was done exactly like the photos of Carolyn that she had cut out and stuck on her mirror—­tied in a loose bun in the back with some of her fringe draping across the side of her face.

  I saw her looking around the room to the sides of the door, looking for someone. Looking for me. But just before she caught my eye, I turned away.

  Ang moh princess, my foot. I couldn’t see her husband yet but I knew who he was. Mr. Lim Beng Huat. Black spiky hair, oval wire-­rim glasses when he wasn’t wearing contacts, bumpy button nose. Rolex watch, one gold tooth. Typical Chinese guy.

  I couldn’t even look at Sher. I just kept thinking over and over, There goes her Chanel baby.

  chapter 3

  Of all the bosses in the world, Albert is not the worst.

  He’s quite funny lah. But definitely not the worst. Sure, there was the time when he almost got in trouble for rubba-­ing the neck of a new NUS grad when she was on deadline one day. It wasn’t even anything special—­everybody knows he does that to everyone, after all. But this guniang happened to be one of those modern women types—­you know, those girls you are hearing about more nowadays, those who cannot take a joke. When she got angry and said she wanted to file an official complaint, he just laughed and explained to her that aiyoh, that’s just the way he is—­just being the fatherly uncle type, wanting to help ­people feel less stressed when they are on deadline so he just goes around the newsroom giving them neck massages. To make sure she wouldn’t really go and file a complaint, after that, for a while, Albert had to go around rubba-­ing various ­people around deadline, just to prove that he’s not lying. Older women, ugly ones, even guys—­everyone got his special neck rubba. My god, for a while we were all a bit uncomfortable, but really—­we had no choice. In the end, the girl had no case lah. And Albert took us all out to Front Page for big drinks when she finally quit and it was all over.

  That wasn’t even one of the funniest things he did. I still remember when I first started six years ago, he was a bit more daring then. One day, he was walking around the newsroom—­slow news day, nothing happening, so he was feeling bored lah. He sent out an email calling for a meeting in the middle of the newsroom. Since he rarely does that, of course we all took it damn seriously. I even wondered whether he was going to announce his promotion! Everyone had been waiting for years for him to become the publisher of the company. But that day, when the meeting started, Albert just started naming ­people. If you got arrowed, then you had to come to the middle of the news hub. Of course we started to realize something was going on when we noticed that he was only calling girls’ names—­moreover, he was calling up all the girls who were wearing a skirt that day. Once there were about ten girls up in the front he asked them all to turn around and said, “Eh, look at this. We have some of the most chio girls in the country working for us. We must show some appreciation—­come, let’s vote. Tell me who you think has the most happening legs!” OK, even I have to admit it was just a little a bit weird, but Albert is such a good-­natured guy that we all knew he meant no harm. It’s all good fun after all. So, the girls were all good sports, and in the end the whole thing was quite fun. (I don’t remember who won but we all had a good laugh about it at happy hour that night. That Albert really knows how to get everyone in a happy mood lah.) But these days, with more and more girls showing up like that NUS grad, even Albert knows he has to watch it a bit. So, life in the newsroom is not so much fun anymore.

  Usually at the start of the day though, Albert is in a very good mood. After spending the night and early morning with his wife and their daughter doing all those boring-­as-­fuck family things, Albert always cannot wait to come into the office and bother all of us. Sometimes he’ll even take the lift to the skywalk and cross over to the next building to flirt with the bimbo girls in circulation. He has such a big title at the New Times that even though he’s not good-­looking (mouse eyes, flat backside, a bit too skinny and walks a bit funny) the circulation girls always laugh at all his jokes and flirt back lah. I think one or two of them are a bit like his spare girlfriends, even though no one dares to talk about it too much. (No matter how good-­natured he is, Albert is the boss after all. We should never forget that.) Girls in the newsroom—­Albert knows they probably are a bit too smart for him to mess with. If you start going out with them, confirm will have trouble. When things don’t work out (and hallo, you know that is usually what happens), you still have to see the guniang’s face in your department every day. Like that, where’s the fun?

  Plus, especially now, when we all have to go to sexual harassment seminars and all, trying to pok girls in the newsroom really is a lousy idea. But the circulation girls—­they’re not as smart or bossy so you can count on them to not want or expect very much. (And I guess since they are technically not directly his staff members, it’s a bit more OK.) And his wife also doesn’t really seem to notice or care. He makes big bucks after all—­and has the atas title along with it. So when he tells his wife he has to work really late, she also knows she doesn’t have anything to say. That’s why from Monday to Friday—­those are Albert’s days for being really happening.

  Even though I was his assistant, he had so much to catch up on—­he always has to do a lot of hello hellos to the guniangs all over the building lah—­that he didn’t even notice me that much until after tea. “Wah, Jazzy, tonight hot date is it?” he said, suddenly ap
pearing next to my chair. He must have meant it because his rubba-­ing then was not just my neck—­I could feel his hand going down the back of my red silk blouse. “No lah,” I said. “Hot date? As if!”

  “Good,” Albert said, continuing his rubba-­ing. “By the way, on Monday, wear something nice like this. That night, I have to entertain some ­people at Front Page—­you come along too. Don’t worry, this will be early. I just need some pretty girls there for them to look at. Just drink, smile, listen, don’t interrupt—­you know how to do it lah. Just be yourself, Jazzy.”

  Even though Albert would never say so, I know that part of the reason he’s kept me on for so long is that I actually bother to show up at work looking nice. Before me, his assistants were all young young cute cute ones—­they’ll join him at twenty-­two years old; by the time they hit twenty-­four, Albert will have already moved them on to some bumfuck job somewhere else at the New Times. No one seems to know where they go because nobody ever sees them again. It’s not as if they mattered before, when they were Albert’s assistants, but after he shoved them off somewhere else, they really didn’t matter to anyone anymore. The point is, Albert was done with them. And they were now out of the way.

  Everyone knows that Albert likes his assistants young—­partly because he likes to bring them to all these industry things he has to go to, or when he’s entertaining visiting media types, having a chio little girl to smile and laugh at all these bosses’ stupid jokes, is a confirm win situation. But this guniang here actually likes this job—­and I know how to dress. And no matter how expensive those SK-­II creams are, I always buy them—­it’s an investment, after all. If I actually start getting wrinkles anywhere on my face, aiyoh, I know my job will be gone already. Also, whatever Albert asks me to do, I’ll always do it. No questions asked. I make sure that no matter what happens, he always knows that I have value.

  Of course, it also helps that I am actually good at being his assistant. Guniang may not be smart enough to be a lawyer but I am very organized. And Albert always has so many appointments, so many ­people to think about, he knows that if he doesn’t have me around to help him keep track of everyone, his life will be one big problem.

  “This week, you have a lot of things on, Albert,” I started to tell him.

  “OK come come come, let’s talk inside,” he said, finally stopping the rubba-­ing so he could quickly walk into his office and wave for me to follow. He’s very impatient, so whenever he moves I know I’d better fasterly move behind him. So I quickly grabbed my pen, notebook and his printed schedule and ran behind him.

  “Close the door,” he said after sitting down in his black fake leather big boss chair and leaning back a bit to get comfortable.

  Oh. It’s that kind of meeting.

  I closed Albert’s heavy door and went over to the wide bookshelf by the sofa. It’s quite funny that Albert has such a big bookshelf with so many serious books because everyone who works with him knows that he hates to read. “That’s why I went into newspapers,” he always tells us at Front Page after he’s had a few. “The stories are all short!” In fact, since he took over as editor of the New Times ten years ago the stories in the paper have only gotten shorter and shorter. (Except for the sensational ones—­anything involving politicians, rich men and sex, he’ll let reporters write as much as they can and he’ll put the stories all over the top of the front page.) But his strategy clearly works lah—­circulation has only gone up and up since he was in charge. I can only imagine that his salary is also the same story.

  I guess even though Albert doesn’t like books, he is the editor of the New Times after all, so his office must look respectable a bit. That’s why he has this gigantic bookshelf in his office with all the important books—­Margaret Thatcher’s collected speeches, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, and of course right in the middle, displayed facing outward, is Lee Kuan Yew’s The Singapore Story. One time, someone tried to give him that book that Hillary Clinton wrote about helping children or some shit but he just laughed and said to them, “Please. She’s a wife.” ­People should really know better lah: hallo, the editor of our country’s newspaper cannot look like he’s too open-­minded. Display this kind of ladies’ book on his office shelf? He might as well start wearing panties.

  I think I am the only one in this whole building who knows that of all these books he actually has only read one: How to Win at EVERYTHING, which he squeezes into one of the dark corners of the bookshelf. (Ever since the Hong Kong tycoon who wrote that book got jailed last year for embezzling, it’s now quite not fashion to read this book anymore.) But sometimes when I pop into his office to tidy up before going home, this is the one book that will be on his desk. I always know to quickly hide it away so no one sees it.

  The most valuable thing in Albert’s tall bookshelf is actually the cupboard he has at the bottom. Once you slide the heavy wooden door open—­there’s a full bar inside! Chivas, Grey Goose, Hendrick’s—­and if you want Japanese whiskey, he’s got all the expensive kinds.

  “Jazzy, it’s raining a bit so let’s try something mellow,” he said. “Maybe some Yamazaki—­the twelve-­year-­old one, not the eighteen. Today’s not anything special.”

  After I filled half a crystal glass with Yamazaki and brought it over to Albert, I moved the two chairs in front of his desk to one side and went to sit on the sofa. When I first started, it took a few weeks before I figured this out—­if I’m wearing heels and a tight or short skirt, then he wants me to sit on the sofa, not the chair. The sofa is lower. Albert always likes a good view.

  Even though my skirt that day was not that short, it was bunching up near my backside because his sofa was so low. I’m sure Albert could see my red panties! But aiyah, I didn’t care. I just leaned back and opened my legs just a very little bit—­not so much that it’s slutty, mind you. Just enough for a sneak preview. Let the boss look lah. Job security is always good, right? Besides, no matter what, I know Albert will never try anything funny with me. After having to deal with all the scandals from ­people pok-­ing each other in his newsroom over the years, he is the first one to tell everyone: “Please, don’t shit where you eat.”

  Even though Albert is damn lecherous with most girls, when it comes to me, I know that he just likes to window-­shop. He might be quite old—­although you can’t really tell since he dyes his hair boot-­polish black all the time—­he’s a guy lah, so if there are panties and legs for him to see, of course he’s damn happy. If you have to be stuck in an office doing some crap job, might as well try to have something nice to look at while you are doing it, after all. Some ­people hang nice art on their walls; others look at legs. Who can’t understand that? But at the end of the day, I know he actually feels protective of me, like he’s my uncle or something. Last year when some editor over at the Business Post kept bugging me to go out with him, the moment I mentioned it to Albert he went over to their newsroom upstairs, popped his head in and shouted across the whole office, “Hello, Cedric—­please control yourself. Leave my girls alone!” Wah, the guy was so embarrassed he doesn’t even dare to say “Hallo” to me now even if we are both queuing up for kopi in the cafeteria at the same time.

  From the squeaking of his chair, I could tell Albert was trying to lean back and relax a bit more. Since my desk had no window—­or wasn’t even remotely near a window so I can sort of peek out—­I didn’t even know it had started raining until I was in his office. Through the large wraparound windows of his spacious corner room, I could see that it was really coming down. All the sparkling glass condominium towers around were just blurry gray smears; fat ribbons of water were racing down Albert’s window. Despite the pounding machine-­gun rain, I could hear him sigh a bit. Good. A calm Albert was always better than the hyperactive manic one that the newsroom usually saw. He seemed to be in a solid mood.

  “Eh, boss—­focus!” I said. “Next week, you’re very busy. Monday is yo
ur mum’s death anniversary but don’t worry I already called the temple and donated eighty-­eight dollars for you. They said they would send their best sweeper to help your wife clean up her grave since you cannot make it. Just remember to mention it to Mrs. Lim later tonight so she knows you remembered. Wednesday is Mrs. Lim’s birthday—­I already bought a pair of pearl earrings for you to give her and one of those romantic cards she likes. Do you also want me to buy some of those handmade chocolates she likes from the Four Seasons?”

  “No need, no need!” he said. I could see his face suddenly turning black. In his mind, he’s probably kau-­behing over how he must now spend Wednesday evening with his wife just because it’s her birthday. Poor guy.

  “I tell you,” he said, really frowning now. “I don’t know what kind of food she’s spending her money on these days but that woman is really putting on weight. And not in the right places.”

  I figured I’d better quickly move on to the next topic. “OK, then on Thursday you have that lunch with the new minister for the environment and water resources,” I continued. “I booked a table for you at Iggy’s . . .”

  “Iggy’s? No, no, no—­no need to take him somewhere so nice! He’s only in charge of the environment—­not say, information and communications. Who cares?” Albert said. “Just book a table at the Shang and be done with it. Not the nice steak restaurant. Just do the Chinese one below it.”

  I could see that Albert was getting a bit impatient because all of this was stressing him out and not letting him enjoy his whiskey. So I very quickly went over the rest of his schedule, being very careful to not mention any other appointments that might really stress him out, and closed my notebook. When I got up to leave, he wiggled his second finger at me, asking me to come to his desk. As I got closer he waved his hand to get me to come around to his side.

  It felt weird to just stand there so I leaned back on his desk, which I guess was the right thing because he smiled and started to really look at my legs. So I decided to get even closer and half-­sit on his desk. His smile got even bigger.