Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  Even if these uncles are all damn bloody toot—­I still find them to be very inspiration.

  I hadn’t been to see the Ping-­Pong uncles in a long time—­I guess that’s a good sign. That means life recently hadn’t been too stressful. But on Sunday in the early afternoon, the moment my mum started up with her nagging, I quickly left the house—­too early to meet the girls for high tea, so I went to community center to shake leg for a bit.

  When I got there, the Ping-­Pong uncles at first stared at me a bit. Usually I show up in shorts and T-­shirt, but today because I was going to the Shang for tea I was dressed up. Not like sexy nice, but heels and knee-­length skirt, carry fake branded handbag type of nice. Walao, one uncle stared at me until a Ping-­Pong ball almost whacked his face, man. But I just glared at him one time and uncle fasterly looked away. Pathetic.

  Since I was wearing a skirt today, I couldn’t fully prop my leg up and think, but just sitting there made me feel quite shiok. The whole morning had felt damn weird at home. At first, I wondered if my mum or pa heard anything last night, so maybe they were acting funny around me. So I purposely spent time with my mum this morning, helping her cook porridge for my dad and all. Usually these are her primo lecture times lah—­when she can corner me anywhere for more than ten minutes she confirm will start trying to tell me either some life story or her life lessons. (Either way, I also lose. Even when I’ve listened until my ears damn pain the woman will still keep talking.) But when my mum didn’t mention anything at all and even seemed a bit cheerful (perhaps thinking I’m turning over a new leaf after my obedient bean-­sprout-­peeling session in the kitchen with her yesterday), then I know she confirm didn’t hear Louis in my room last night.

  When I thought about it more, I realized why I was feeling so strange. Every time I was in my room, sitting on my bed or even just looking at my bed, all I could think about is Louis there, Louis on top, Louis . . . aiyoh, I didn’t even want to think about that. But how not to think? I wanted to change sheets but also cannot—­my mum confirm would scold me for making her wash the sheets when she just changed them a few days ago. (Plus, I figured it was better not to do anything to make her suspicious. Guniang here never paid any attention to housework, much less when my sheets are changed. If I suddenly asked her to change them out of schedule, she confirm would think that something had happened.)

  It’s not that I don’t like Louis—­of course I like him a lot. But he’s been my good friend for how long? And now he wants to try this kind of thing with me? Obviously I shouldn’t mind—­he’s not bad-­looking for a Singaporean guy, after all. And obviously he’s fucking loaded. But something is just not quite right with what happened last night.

  Normally, when this kind of thing happens, the first thing to do is call a meeting with the girls and discuss discuss, see how to solve problem. But I can’t even do that! Imo confirm will don’t friend me anymore—­and Fann will probably copy her. (Even though she was the first one to be two-­faced one, snogging Louis and all. Kani nah.) And Sher, well, she’s out of the picture. But of the three of them, she would probably be the only one to understand what happened to me, who might even be able to convince the other girls to forgive me. But no point thinking about her—­she made the decision to fuck off out of our lives with her Ah Beng husband and leave us behind.

  Even if I wanted to tell them, obviously I couldn’t because I can’t betray Louis. So in the end, I’m just left like this. Can only suffer alone. And Alistair—­aiyoh, Alistair. I don’t even know what to do about that one. He really couldn’t take a hint—­after my nonresponse, he was texting me a bit less now, so I guess he wasn’t really a stalker. But he was still texting, asking when I’m free, when he can buy me coffee. As if all he wants is to do is watch me drink coffee. What does he think I am—­born yesterday, is it?

  Roy—­got potential. Of all the guys I’ve met recently, he is really the only decent one. Yes, we started out by hooking up. But meeting ­people is sometimes like that—­you cannot judge everything on how you first meet. Since then though, he has seemed nothing but nice, quite genuine, not lecherous, never pressurizing me to go home with him. Good guy lah, even if he hadn’t texted me since our date at the botanical gardens. I wondered what he did last night.

  Sometimes I just really don’t understand. Why do I have such bad luck? Look at Fann—­so fast can find ang moh boyfriend already, and one who treats her really nicely, inviting her to brunch to meet his friends and all. And Imo, even though Louis has his flaws, at least he is faithful to her—­at least emotionally. Even though he’s quite the flower prince, obviously he really cares about Imo and genuinely wants her to be happy—­otherwise why would he insist that I keep last night a secret from her?

  But me? What do I have?

  Watching the uncles made me feel a bit more calm at least. Today they were damn happening, with four games going at once—­one table even had four uncles playing doubles, fierce fierce type, pushing each other aside to hit the ball and all. I watched the balls go back and forth, back and forth, sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other side wins. In the end, who cares? If only life were really that simple.

  What was I going to do?

  Aiyoh, Jazzy. Better stop moping here otherwise confirm will start crying. Crying will only spoil my eye makeup and make my cheeks puffy—­what’s the point? Hallo, guniang, time to buck up! Well, time to meet the girls anyway. And who knows? Maybe today I will meet my Prince Charming at the Shang!

  When Jazzy gets married, it’s going to happen at the Shang.

  This one, I long time ago decided already. There are many atas hotels in Singapore of course—­first, there’s the Raffles. And now here, we had even gotten those American-­branded hotels like Four Seasons and Saint Something or Other—­don’t play play! But the Shangri-­La was the first really atas modern hotel in Singapore. Classy classy, with a big white lobby, high ceilings, gigantic crystal chandeliers; plus, the gardens all around it were just like the botanical gardens, all lush and green. Bloody relaxing.

  The first time I saw the Shang was when I was in primary school—­at that time my mum’s brother was driving a taxi for a while so sometimes on Sunday he would come and bring us out for a joyride. We never went far—­hallo, do you know how expensive petrol is?—­but he always tried to bring us to places that we didn’t normally see. So one Sunday we were driving along Nassim Hill, looking at all the bloody three-­story, four-­story mansions when we passed by the Shang.

  “Kuku,” I said, tapping on my uncle’s wooden-­bead seat cushion. “What’s that?”

  “Oh—­that one is high-­class hotel, one of the most high-­class! Ah Huay ah—­when you grow up ah, if you ever can go and eat inside the Shangri-­La Hotel ah—­you confirm succeed already.”

  “Aiyoh—­please don’t go and put these kinds of funny ideas in her head, make her think too big!” my mum said, turning around to look at me. “These kinds of places, Ah Huay—­they are not meant for everybody, you know.”

  I remember fasterly kneeling on the seat, at first staring staring out the side window, then as my uncle passed the hotel, desperately trying to look out the back of the taxi window to get another look at the Shang, but by that time we were too far away already. But my kuku saw me looking disappointed, I guess, because he made a ­U-­turn so he could take us back.

  As we got closer to the gate, kuku slowed down a bit—­then he turned into the Shang!

  “Aiyoh,” my mum said, sighing. Guniang over here was so happy I wanted to roll down the window so I could poke my head out! (But then I decided I’d better not—­see, even when I was eight, guniang here already knew how to act a bit cool.)

  The driveway, I remember, was very wide—­like those big roads leading to old English castles I’d seen on the TV. And since kuku was driving slowly, as we approached the big white hotel, the building very very slowly got grander and grander e
ach second. Through the large glass walls in front, I could see the sparkling white lobby inside with its bright chandeliers. A tall Indian man wearing black pants, a red Indian-­style long tunic and a black and gold hat with a tall black feather sprouting out of it started waving at my kuku as we got closer to the entrance. So my kuku slowed down. I guess the guy wanted us to stop.

  Once kuku pulled on his handbrake, the doorman opened my door, smiled at me and bowed. Wah! Guniang had never felt so special before.

  That lasted all of one second—­that’s when I heard my kuku frantically rolling down his squeaky window. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” he said to the doorman, bowing his head a few times as he talked. I remember thinking, What the hell is he doing? It’s not like we are those Japanese tourists or sumo wrestlers who spend half their lives bowing to shit.

  “We are at the wrong place; not dropping here,” my uncle said. “Sorry, sorry. Very sorry to waste your time.”

  I could see the guard’s face suddenly change for a second, especially as his eyes quickly moved down and he noticed what we were wearing. I don’t remember exactly what I had on but it was probably just shorts, T-­shirt and flip-­flops. (Later on when I got older, I understood the guard’s look—­it pretty much said, “Bloody hell.”) But it was just for a bit, then he went back to smiling.

  “Of course,” he said in a British accent, softly closing the taxi door.

  Nobody said anything as kuku quickly drove away from the Shang, but I could see my mum in the front seat crouching down, not looking out the window, just looking down.

  To this day my mum has never set foot at the Shang. But I—­I of course am a different story. It’s not like I come here very often but sometimes I do have to follow Albert when he comes here for business lunches. And there was that one time that Gavin took me here for dinner—­of course, it was the dinner where he broke up with me lah. But still, I’d once had a boyfriend who was atas enough to take me to dinner at the Shang! Now, once in a long while, if there’s a special occasion, the girls will book table for drinks or high tea.

  And today, one of our secondary school friends Keira had just come back from England with a new baby, so she called us all to come out and see her at the Shang for tea.

  I don’t really know Keira that well—­last time she was a lot closer to Sher and Imo, not me and Fann. (I always had the feeling that it’s because she thinks Sher and Imo are more chio, so she prefers to associate with them more. This one is not confirmed lah—­just my dirty feeling.) But old friends are old friends—­since she hadn’t been home in a long time, we were all happy to come out and see her. Must remember to call her Keira though. Our whole life we knew her as Xiu Ying—­or Ah Ying usually. But when she met her boyfriend—­now husband—­at some SPG bar and started hanging with his friends from London then suddenly her name became Keira. “Keira Knightley is so happening what,” she explained.

  I remember telling her, “If you’re going to pick a celebrity’s name, why choose the one with flat-­flat tetek? Why not choose some big-­boobs actress so the name at least has some good karma?” My god, this comment made her angry. But it’s true! If you want to give yourself some new ang moh name, must at least be a bit smart lah. Keira? It’s just a damn cock name.

  Anyway, now we’re all good friends—­especially since Keira had successfully married an ang moh and moved to the UK. So who knows? Maybe she has some kind of on-­the-­ground connections to help us find boyfriends.

  Fann, Imo and Keira were all there already by the time I got to the Shang. Three of them were sitting close together, bending their necks, oohing and aahing. Ah—­baby.

  “Hi hi!” I said, remembering to smile and then waving at all of them.

  “Jazzy! Thanks for coming!” Keira said, waving back at me. The other two didn’t even look up; they were both just in a daze, staring at the fat whitish baby in Keira’s lap, pinching its legs.

  “Jazz, say hi to Charles,” Keira said, propping the baby up on her lap and holding his chubby hand up to wave at me.

  “Hi!” I said, waving back. I tell you—­I know the goal is to have a Chanel baby. But babies are actually damn fucking boring. What to do or say to them? I also never know. But still, I felt I had to find something to say.

  “Eh, Keira, your boy has so much black hair!” I said, saying the first thing that came to my mind. “Very Asian, no?”

  Silence. Keira stopped smiling.

  “Choi!” Imo quickly said, violently flapping her hands as if to wave away the bad luck I’d just introduced with that notion. “Don’t listen to her, Keira. If you ask anybody, confirm they will tell you they can’t even tell he’s half Singaporean.”

  Imo. Aiyoh—­seeing made thoughts of Louis in my bedroom last night pop right back into my head. I felt like I couldn’t look her in the face. But bloody hell, if I act weird, she might suspect something. Die die must act normal.

  So I just giggled. “Yes, yes, Keira,” I said. “Just joking!”

  The girls had ordered the all-­you-­can-­drink champagne high tea so we already had glasses sitting on the table.

  “Come, come—­cheers first!” I said, trying to make Keira smile again. It worked of course. Some things never change. If there’s alcohol, Keira’s always happy. You can take the sarong party girl out of Singapore . . .

  After we toasted each other, Fann said, “Imo—­tell Jazzy about the present!”

  My god, what present? Don’t tell me we were supposed to bring Keira present? Kani nah—­she is the one coming back from far away. She’s supposed to be bringing us all presents!

  Imo just looked down a little and blushed. I leaned forward. OK, this must be something interesting.

  “Aiyah,” she said, smiling a bit more. “It’s nothing lah. Louis just sent me a bouquet of flowers this morning. Sunday delivery, you know—­more expensive!”

  “Some more it’s a dozen roses, you know,” Fann said, jumping in. “Red ones!”

  “Stop it lah!” Imo said, laughing. “I’m sure it’s only because he wanted to cheer me up because I was sick.”

  Fann just snorted. “Please—­use your brain!” Fann said. “The guy has never given you flowers before but suddenly—­on a Sunday, his day at home with Mary—­he sends you a dozen roses? Maybe he’s finally getting serious.”

  Imo was really blushing now. I wanted to vomit.

  “My god,” I said. “Girls—­please! If you want to jinx things then please, go ahead and keep talking about it.”

  After that, they immediately shut up the topic. Partly because at that time someone else joined us—­Sher! My god. As if my day couldn’t get any worse.

  The only available chair was the one next to me. Of course.

  “Hi dear!” Keira said, almost squealing. “I’ve missed you so much!”

  “Me too! Me too!” Sher said, looking only briefly at Keira and then looking over at me.

  “Jazz,” she said quietly. Her eyes were a bit sad all of a sudden. “How are you?”

  Good god. After ignoring all her texts and not even bothering to listen to her voice messages or read her emails since she came back from her Ah Beng honeymoon, I really didn’t want to talk to her. But this was Keira’s party; I must show her face.

  “OK lah,” I just said, forcing out a smile before looking back at the girls across the table. “Same same.”

  After we got another champagne glass, we all did a cheers together, then it was down to the gossip. Since Keira was the only one who had managed to achieve the SPG dream—­so far—­wah, that guniang was suddenly acting like an expert. When Fann filled her in about Melvin, she just nodded and smiled, telling her she’s doing well—­on the right track! Keira even gave her a thumbs-­up sign when Fann mentioned the brunch invitation. I didn’t want to say much—­definitely not about Alistair, confirm not about Louis and especially not the fa
ct that Roy, my only real prospect, works on oil refinery—­so I just said, “Well I met this sweet British guy—­but it’s still early! I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much.”

  Keira and the other two just nodded; Sher looked like she wanted to ask me more but decided to keep quiet.

  I had to admit that Sher looked good—­she looked a bit darker so she probably went to some beach resort on Batam for her honeymoon. I couldn’t even bother to ask her which one. But Keira of course asked, so I had to hear the long story about how they stayed at one of those family resorts so it was a bit noisy but still quite nice, the food was not bad—­Ah Huat complained a bit that the dishes were not as good as those at Singapore hawker centers and damn expensive but they did taste nice. Blah blah blah. For most of the conversation, I actually stoned out a bit, not because what they said wasn’t interesting—­I don’t mind hearing about Keira and her life in England, even if I don’t know where the fuck Hackney is. (Hallo—­if you’re going to England to live, if you’re not living in London then you at least must live somewhere that ­people have actually heard of before, like Liverpool or Manchester or Aston Villa. Come back to Singapore and tell ­people you live in Hackney? Might as well say you’re living in Ang Mo Kio—­if ­people have never heard of this bumfuck place before, then it is confirm quite LC.) But Fann and Melvin—­boring lah. I already heard that long story over lunch yesterday. And I definitely don’t want to hear anything about Sher and her cock life.

  The more I looked at Imo, how happy she seemed that day, how she has no idea what I did, the more I felt sick.

  “Jazzy, are you feeling OK?” Sher asked.

  Of course she’s the only one who noticed. But now that she said that, everyone suddenly looked at me, a bit concerned. Escape plan!

  “I might be coming down with something,” I said. “Maybe I’d better make a move first.”