Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  But hallo, this one is good strategy lah—­I looked so good and was so wide awake that when I got to work even Albert was happy, telling me I was looking damn chio. Boss good mood; everyone good mood. I was just happy that things were back to normal with Albert after our weird chitchat the other day. Things had gotten a little strange for a bit—­yes, of course because of the chat about circulation and all, which made me try to look a bit more hardworking than usual. (If Albert wanted anything done, I would quickly jump up and say, “Yes, boss!” A few times I even gave him a fake salute. He thought it was being damn toot at first but now he just laughs.)

  But also, I guess I was getting a bit distracted by our SPG ­mission—­I mean, for years we’d already been on this quest, though not in any focused way at all. Now that we had spelled things out a little bit and were being more analytical about it, I was really kicking myself for not thinking of this earlier! Although, the way things were going with Roy—­it was a good beginning. Who knows how long I would need to be on this mission? I had to keep stopping myself from thinking too much of this though—­better don’t jinx things! (And besides, Albert had already caught me once or twice this week when I was deep in thought and come over to tap me on the head, saying, “Excuse me, I pay you to sit here and daydream, is it?”)

  After work that day, Louis was already almost done with his first martini by the time I got to Mezza9—­not usually a bar I’d hang out in on a Thursday night. (It’s one of those atas hotel bars that boring middle managers and tourists go for happy hours. But the drinks are really cheap during those happy hours and you do get some ang mohs there, so we don’t mind going sometimes.) But whatever Louis says always goes—­he’s buying all the drinks, after all.

  “Hello, hello,” he said after we finished the double air kiss. “I didn’t ask them to unlock my bottles since the happy hour martinis are quite shiok. What you want to drink? Crème brûlée martini? Lychee?”

  “Er . . . just a champagne,” I said. “Those martinis—­all too strong for me.” Louis wiggled his index finger at a waitress, who ran over and wrote down his order for a bottle of Veuve.

  “Whole bottle?” I said when she left. “Crazy, is it? I’m the only one drinking! How to finish?”

  “Aiyah,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll have a bit. Cannot finish then cannot finish—­just give it to the waitress. Who cares? Anyway, Andrew is joining us in a bit. If we have a bottle of anything already open, he’ll just drink. The cheapskate doesn’t care—­as long as he doesn’t have to pay.”

  Louis seemed to be in a good mood—­he was even looking over the catalog of cigars on the menu and wondering out loud if we should ask for a table in the smoking room instead. (I was hoping not—­this smoking “room” was more like cancer closet. It had a short banquette and two small bar tables but every time I’d been in there, each seat was full and everyone was chain-­smoking. If you look through the glass wall from the outside, sometimes all you can see is clouds and clouds puffing around ­people’s heads. Like those old Chinese paintings of the mountains and scenery like that—­except the clouds there were probably more healthy.)

  “Eh, Louis, I think Andrew doesn’t smoke, right?” I said.

  “Good point, good point,” he said, closing the menu.

  Louis picked up his glass again and finished his martini in one long sip. As soon as that happened, a waiter appeared to clear it; our waitress was right behind him with the Veuve.

  “So?” I said, as she poured out two glasses. “What’s so urgent?”

  Louis leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “You heard about what happened with Fann last weekend, right?”

  My god—­I had known that this meeting was probably about that bullshit crap but part of me had really been hoping that it had blown over.

  “Yah,” I quickly said. “But don’t worry about it! Clubbing is clubbing—­all kinds of things can happen. Everyone knows that. Don’t worry! Come, come—­let’s cheers.” I smiled and held up my glass. Louis frowned a bit but then grabbed his flute to tap it to mine anyway.

  “The thing is,” he said after taking a sip and putting his glass down again and running his hands through his hair to flip up his floppy fringe, “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want any of that childish secondary school pettiness in our crowd. If I want that kind of shit, I can go home for it. Please, I don’t need that outside. I know everything is cool with Fann—­it was nothing, after all. She, of all ­people, should know that. Look at her! But Imo is the one I’m worried about. She was so upset about it! She was texting me angry messages and all; calling me to cry. This kind of thing, Jazzy—­it’s damn uncool.”

  “Aiyoh,” I said, suddenly feeling very bad. “I didn’t know about any of this.” I guess I should have known that Imo was more affected by this than she wanted to show—­she’s quite proud, always thinking about face and appearances. (Whereas Fann, Sher and I always have been a bit more heck care about that. If ­people want to think something of us—­go ahead! Who cares?) I guess because of all that weird shit with her dad having a secret second family—­excuse me, with her family being the secret second family—­she wants ­people to think that she has this perfect perfect life, where everything is pretty, everyone is happy. And I also know that even if she doesn’t want to admit it, she probably wants to be Louis’s girlfriend. Like, the solo girlfriend; no other girls—­besides his wife, of course.

  But even if we cannot blame Imo for getting upset, this is all too much. Hasn’t she listened to anything I’ve tried to teach her over the years about how to handle men?

  “Look,” Louis said, “you know I like her. And I want her to be happy. Hell, I like making her happy! I love seeing her smile—­you know that. She’s a very sweet girl. But she needs to understand her place, OK? I don’t want things to get even more awkward. If things get to that level, then what’s the point? No fun lah. And I really shouldn’t need to be sitting here having to tell you all this.

  “Jazzy,” he added, “if you want what’s best for her—­for all of you—­please, control your friend.”

  Louis didn’t seem angry or upset as he was saying all this. In fact, his face was very calm—­as if he was simply holding a business meeting.

  “Come,” he said, throwing back the rest of his champagne and grabbing the bottle. “Enough serious talk—­boring lah! Andrew just texted that he’s parking the car so he’ll be here soon. Jazzy, bottoms up! I’ll pour another round.”

  By the time Andrew showed up a few minutes later the Imo topic was long forgotten—­by Louis anyway. He had already moved on to planning our chionging this weekend and what new clubs he was hearing about that we might like. I guess now it was just up to me to settle the Imo situation. My god—­I hope this wasn’t going to be too hard. If Sher was here, she would be the one who would know exactly how to handle it. Bloody hell—­why was everything now my responsibility?

  “Hallo! Welcome back, old married guy!” Louis said, standing up and loudly whacking Andrew on the back. Andrew just smiled and gave him the third finger.

  “Fucker—­don’t be a chee bye!” Andrew said, lowering his voice. “Please—­not so loud. There might be chio girls around—­don’t spoil the market!” Both of them were laughing damn loud now. So I also laughed.

  I didn’t know Andrew very well—­in fact, tonight was the first time I saw him before 1 A.M. Usually when I see him, he’s already fucking mabuk from chugging Kilkennys from happy hour until clubbing hour and then coming out to find Louis wherever he is at midnight. So, even though guniang here has known him a few years already, I never knew what he’s like when he’s not trying to rubba me, smack my backside while dancing or stop himself from throwing up. But, from what Louis was now saying, I guess he just got married.

  “Eh, thank you! You get married never invite me, is it?” I said, whacking him on the arm.

  “Aiyoh—­Jaz
zy, I don’t invite you is for your own good lah,” Andrew said. “Saving you from the red bomb! You should thank me.”

  It’s true lah—­weddings these days are all bloody terok. Hotel banquet halls now charge so much, if you get stuck with a wedding invitation—­my god, you must give the ­couple a really big red packet. And these days you can’t just anyhow guess. For Sher’s wedding, Fann even showed me some website to check to see what the proper market rate for red packets are based on what hotel the banquet is in. If you get invited to a wedding at the Raffles—­my god, the red packet can eat up one week’s paycheck just like that. And if you somehow give wrongly, you’ll get scolded for years. (Or the ­couple’s family and friends will just gossip about you behind your back. I don’t know which fate is worse.) And at the end of the day, you confirm will see a few hundred dollars go out just for one boring evening of eating lousy shark’s fin soup and cock dishes like Buddha jumping over the moon or some shit. No thank you. The big red bomb is always better to avoid.

  “So? How was the honeymoon?” I asked. “Where did you go?”

  “This guy—­I tell you—­just spoiling the market for the rest of us,” Louis said. “He cannot go on his honeymoon in normal places you know—­must go holiday in bloody romantic, expensive places. Milan lah, Paris lah—­London also. Kani nah. Andrew—­since Mary heard about your multi-­city honeymoon she’s been pestering me to take her back to Europe for shopping. Thank you!”

  Aiyoh—­Andrew was really spoiling his new bride. The funniest thing is—­he married a China girl! These girls—­the ones that you directly pluck from China, that is, not the ones who hook you here in Singapore—­usually don’t expect shit! They’re just grateful to be brought to Singapore and out of their own longkang of a country. It’s usually only after some time in Singapore that they learn the ways and start insisting on the branded handbags and all that crap.

  Even so, when Andrew first met his wife we were all damn worried. I don’t know what her Chinese name is lah, but many of those toot Chinese girls like to pick some name that they think sounds cute or has some special meaning in English so when this girl came to Singapore, she asked everyone to call her “Moony.”

  Andrew is quite handsome, you know—­fair skin, very tall forehead (which means he’s very smart; look at Lee Kuan Yew—­very big forehead!) and actually, he’s quite smart also. Even though he’s only thirty-­something, he’s already chairman of his dad’s furniture import-­export company. And their business is all over Asia—­Brunei lah, Hong Kong lah, Philippines also got. So, the business is bloody happening. And since the business runs so well on its own, Andrew is damn free to sit down and shake his leg all the time. Even if he hardly goes into office also every month got a big check coming in for him and his mum. His bank account has at least $50 million since he inherited everything when his dad died ten years ago. Even if he sells off the company and doesn’t work for the rest of his life, Sher once calculated that the interest from his bank account would be more than enough for him and his mum for the rest of their lives. He could even buy her a Prada handbag every month some more. I tell you—­Andrew is the super jackpot.

  “Brother—­I think maybe you were right lah,” Andrew said to Louis. “Maybe Europe as our first big trip together was too much. That girl really knows how to shop! I tried to bring her to all those places I know she’d never been before—­Eiffel Tower, the gardens in Versailles, all those damn happening churches in Milan, Big Ben. But all she wanted to do was go shopping. We spent an entire day at Chanel in Paris! The sales manager there served us champagne all day, even catered in a big lunch from this super atas bistro nearby because Moony was taking so long there. I think she bought everything in the Chanel spring collection—­some pieces of clothing, we even have two or three, different color versions and all. By the time we got to London I gave up. I had my bank make her her own credit card and just sent her out. I got to spend a lot of time watching football with the blokes in pubs though. Eh, Louis, I should have texted you to fly out for a few days of boys’ time with me.”

  Louis was laughing like mad now. “Serves you right!” he said, pointing both index fingers at Andrew, who just used his hands to make the “fuck you” sign.

  I didn’t find anything funny though. I couldn’t even imagine how much money this China girl had spent in each shop, in each city, on the whole trip. Kani nah. Probably her shopping bill on their whole holiday was the equivalent of what I make in five years! I know Andrew is in a different world lah—­being so super rich and all. But Moony was nobody! Before she met him at some bar in Shanghai, she was just a receptionist at some kampong textile company! Who is she to come in and start blowing his inheritance like that the moment she becomes Mrs. Yap?

  What is funny though is that when Andrew first started seeing Moony, we were quite surprised because he had never shown an interest in Mainland girls before. His girlfriends before were all Singaporean, all damn chio, all damn funny and fun to go chionging with. But when we met Moony and she was so (fake) demure and quiet, I actually asked him, “Um, this girl—­a bit different from your usual type, right?”

  I still remember his answer. “Jazzy, when it comes to dating, yes, it’s fun to date the happening, damn daring, outgoing girls,” Andrew said. “But when it comes to choosing a wife, I want someone who is quiet, who, when I have my friends come over for drinks or to watch a football match, she will just quietly let me be. She won’t talk too much or challenge me—­she’ll let me do the talking. My dad always said that’s the recipe for a happy household!”

  Now though, it looked as if Andrew was wondering whether he ended up marrying one of those daring girls anyway. I almost laughed.

  “I had no choice but to let her shop lah,” Andrew said, shrugging. “Shopping was the only time Moony was happy on the honeymoon! She didn’t even like all the restaurants our concierge arranged. In Italy, she insisted on eating only Chinese food after the first few days. She said the Italian food there was terrible. She actually called over the manager of this super atas restaurant in Milan and complained that their way of cooking pasta was not right—­too hard. He was very nice and tried to politely explain that the noodles are meant to be nicely al dente, but she kept telling him that if the restaurant charges so much for a plate of pasta they should at least know how to cook it properly. And that if he wants to really learn how it’s done, he should check out these Italian restaurants in Shanghai—­she even listed some of them for him! I was damn embarrassed. But what to do? Married already!”

  As cock as I think his situation is, I can’t blame Andrew for being so blind. I knew the kind of girl Moony was from the first time I met her. When he first brought her back from China—­at that time on some temporary visa and he was just trying to see if she liked Singapore (not bad) and if his mum liked her (no). Andrew told everyone she was not like most China girls, that Moony, though very pretty and sophisticated-­looking, was actually very humble, came from a simple background and wasn’t interested in any branded goods or going to nice restaurants. In fact, when he wanted to buy her a Marc Jacobs wallet because her old Flying Horse or some shit brand plastic wallet finally pecah she begged him not to, saying that all she needs is a cheap cheap one from the Chinese Friendship store.

  “She even looked at it in the Marc Jacobs window longingly but refused to go in and touch it, you know!” he told us. I remember thinking at the time that this lumpar story makes me want to laugh and vomit at the same time. (Of course when Andrew secretly went and bought the wallet—­together with a nice new Marc Jacobs handbag—­Moony didn’t say no.)

  When Andrew finally brought Moony out to meet us, she was very shy and polite with everybody—­even covering her mouth and bending her head down when she laughed. But this was only when she was around the guys and atas girls. Around ­people like me, Sher, Fann and Imo, she confirm was very heck care about what we think—­she never talked to us, never smi
led. This kind of attitude is very hard for us Singaporean girls to swallow, you know. Especially coming from a Chinese girl from China. Hallo, doesn’t she remember that our ancestors thought China was such a longkang that they risked their lives to jump on boats and sail to Singapore?

  “Louis,” I remember saying at the time after meeting Moony. “You better tell Andrew to watch out. This girl Moony—­I have a bad feeling about her.”

  Louis just laughed and said. “Oi, don’t be jealous, Jazzy—­not pretty lah. Andrew’s not even your type anyway. Why you bother to care so much?”

  Crazy! As if I ever would like Andrew. But see lah, now that Andrew finally married that girl and her true colors came out—­who was the one who was right from the beginning? (I thought about whispering something about it to Louis but Andrew looked so stressed I thought, maybe I’d better not.)

  I guess the interesting thing to watch is how she plays her strategy from now. Now that she’s married—­and probably will get her permanent resident card soon—­she has two options. If she wants an even bigger fish than Andrew after that (because let’s face it, that’s how these girls all think—­look at Wendi Deng and Rupert Murdoch! Ultimate success story, that one), that’s also possible. But if Moony wants to seal her place with Andrew, then she’d better fasterly pop out a baby boy. I know that even though they’re now married, Andrew’s mum still probably hates her—­so this Moony had better have a boy soon. Until then, his mum still has the power.

  “Aiyah,” Andrew said, gesturing to the waitress to bring another bottle of Veuve out. “Money is just money lah. Doesn’t matter in the end.”