‘Ma’am,’ she broke in timidly, ‘Ma’am?’
‘Call me Fran. Come on over and I’ll show you the room.’
‘Ma’am Fran, I can’t.’
‘Well, I know you can’t right now, but when you get a chance.’
‘I yam sorry, but I yam afraid of you too much.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You yell.’
‘I do not yell.’ I made my voice tiny.
‘You get angry.’
‘Oh, not very often.’ I made my voice tinier.
‘Your temper is bad, Ma’am.’
‘Do you like television, Imogenia?’
‘I yam sorry.’ Click.
Just as I hung up, astonished, stung terribly by the rejection and quite shamed to know that I wasn’t simply considered volatile-though-kind, the phone rang again.
‘I heard,’ said Jenny.
‘Yeah, some say I was too good and some say I was too fierce.’
‘Well, don’t start counting the votes, just move on. Sisteema has a friend who’s looking for a new job.’
‘Send her over! Tell Sisteema to say something nice about me and I’ll get her a cell phone.’
I vowed to be easier going, more pleasant, friendlier, caring … just, please God, get me a new maid.
The next day I met Sisteema’s friend, Susie. She wore jeans and a wide leather belt. Her hair was styled in a soft, short bob; it looked to be an expensive cut. Her nails were done. Her shirt was a relaxed jersey that fitted her beautifully. She was not ample. She had a big mole above her lip, perfectly centred, perfectly round. It was as if she had found a place to stick her spare brown M&M. She was animated but almost skittish. Her eyes darted around when she talked. She didn’t look the type to flatten a roach or scrape a toilet.
‘Do you do pests and toilets?’
She was puzzled. ‘Oh, Madame.’
Taking that for a yes, I said, ‘Call me Fran.’
‘I have a fiancé. I will be spending some nights at his place.’
She didn’t seem like a maid with her strong style, forthright manner … is that so bad? She was someone who might say, ‘Madame, I am pawning your diamond studs. But I will be back in time to babysit.’ I mean, that’s what matters. Trust. Babysitting.
Susie continued, ‘My fiancé and I are going to a week in France for a holiday tomorrow.’
‘Oh, that’s why you call me Madame instead of Ma’am, getting ready for the trip.’
‘Non se plus, Je yam from Francais. Mon mere birthed me der. Je mappelle is Button Lip in French you see der.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought you were Asian.’
‘Si si, French Filipino.’
I spied the kids. ‘Oh, Sadie, there you are, and Huxley, meet Susie.’
‘So cute. Cherries.’ She tucked her hands into her pockets and took a step back to lean against the wall.
I heard Frank come in and called him up to meet her.
‘Frank, this is Susie. I’ve got to get dinner started so just say goodbye on your way out, Susie.’
A few minutes later, Frank showed Susie to the door and said, ‘So we’ll see you in a few days. Have a nice trip.’
‘Au revoir, Sir, Madame.’
‘Frank, you hired her?’
‘I thought you did?’
We were hot and tired and didn’t want to run after her. Let her show up. It was fate. Nothing we could do. Out of our hands.
A week later, Button Lip came with her Prada tote bag. She said her other stuff was at her fiancé’s. Frank had meetings in Hong Kong and a couple of dinner parties, one was a big MTV party. I was invited. I decided I really couldn’t find anything to complain about with Susie – she wrote down everything I said, put Huxley’s diaper on the right way, didn’t burn the house down – and when the perfect dress waved at me from a window when I wasn’t even shopping, well, how many signs do you need? I was meant to go to Hong Kong, to an MTV party. It had been so long since Frank and I were away together, alone. We needed to connect. We needed enough time to go through all the phases that brought us together – flirting, sex, laughing, buddies. Lately, we made time for sex or laughing or flirting or talking. The days of having it all seemed to have been left on our old sofa in Apartment 3D in New York City.
What can I say about Hong Kong? That it has a giant bed, 25 feet of floor-to-ceiling glass and the biggest bathroom in the world. I didn’t leave the hotel room. Well, not once I got there. I went from the airport to the Regent in Kowloon. I saw traffic and fancy cars, tons of bikes, rickshaws, skyscrapers, alleys full of signs written in Chinese. I saw a man in a great-looking suit talking on a slim cell phone and then I couldn’t see him any more because another man peddled by carrying an entire, intact, dead pig with its tongue hanging out. I saw the jade centre and people of all shapes and sizes busily, madly, trying to get somewhere. I saw my lobby, my bellman, my bath, my bed. I got clean and decided to stay that way, so I got into bed, turned on the TV, called in for smoked salmon and toast and only moved to put the tray down. I kept the curtains open and had a fantastic view of the harbour and Hong Kong skyline. Our room was on one of the upper floors of the hotel and our window took up an entire wall; it felt like I could walk on the tops of the buildings. I could clearly see the men working on the new stadium that, by government decree, had to be built before the looming British–Chinese changeover. It was barely more than a foundation and a web of endless scaffolding. They were working as fast as humanly possible. When one worker dropped with fatigue and fell off the platform, another would pick up the jackhammer. That Tung Chee-hwa is good.
I had brought my laptop and thought about it now and then, but there was a good movie on and I was so, so comfortable. I couldn’t bear the thought of cluttering my head. I was here for one thing, us. And Frank had made it clear that he did not want me to bring work along. He could come in any minute and find me tap tap tapping and that would spoil everything. He was finished with work after today, except for the evening events. At last, I heard a key. I brushed the crumbs off my chest and the bed, and popped in a mint. I pulled the covers down a bit so they weren’t bunched up under my chin like I’d rather be cosy than sexy. I swung one leg out of the duvet entirely and lay on my side. I put my hair over my shoulder. My elbow was hurting and my neck was getting cramped. Enter Husband.
‘Ah, Madame, you are finished?’
It was room service. What’s with everyone calling me Madame?
Frank came in behind him as I was bunching all the covers back up. He put his briefcase down, stood still, gazed at me and smiled appreciatively nevertheless. Why do we look so much better in hotel rooms?
‘Come ’ere, cowboy.’ I sat up and held out my arms.
‘I’m just going to take a quick shower. Stay right where you are.’
What? With the outstretched arms?
If he could take a shower … As soon as the bathroom door closed, I jumped over to take a tiny, teensy, little peek at my computer. I slowly unzipped the case. I very, very quietly stripped off the velcro. I turned the volume way down so the squawking wouldn’t be heard. I carefully lifted the top. And screamed. I slammed it back down. Frank flew out of the bathroom, half soapy, as I flung myself over on it, hiding it, hating it, protecting it, mourning it, rolling and flailing on the bed.
‘What! What?’
‘Oh, God … Oh God … OhmyfuckingGod …’ I started chanting, hyperventilating, slapping my forehead like a nutcase. ‘I brought my fucking computer. You told me not to. Why the fuck didn’t I listen to you? I broke the screen when I dropped it at the airport. It fell off my shoulder. I should have put it down but I thought it’d stay on while I bent over. We have to get it fixed! Now! I mean, it’s just the glass part, right? Anyone would have a little piece of glass to put back in. What’s that face about? Do you have any idea how many emails I miss every day I don’t turn it on? They just keep piling up and piling up and piling up and piling up and piling up, until by the time I g
et home, I’ll have 500 and you’ll never see me. I had to bring it. I wasn’t going to let anything get to me, you know, like ruin my mood.’ (And I did tell myself: no dives into mortal dread, no plummeting like a meteor, keep it in perspective, keep it in perspective, they are 10,000 miles away. Even if you make a mistake or get fired again or told to call at 3 am – ‘IT’S URGENT’ like a book gets a heart attack – for a conference meeting about motion picture rights to a three-page manuscript about a cow … or anything.)
‘But now, this. I have to do something. What can we do? What will I do? What will become of me? We have to call the bellhop.’
‘I’ll be out in a minute, Fran. Calm down. I just have to get the shampoo out of my eyes.’ Frank retreated. ‘Bellhop?’ I heard him say.
‘Hurry up!’
I paced the room, naked, because everyone knows you can see them, but they can’t see you. Though my mom would disagree. One of her gifts, along with knowing when a hair fell out of my head and into the sink, whereupon she’d make me actually stop racing around getting ready for the biggest date of my life and march right in there and find that hair and remove it, was knowing when I was changing in front of an open curtain. She would bang into my room and snap the shade down, saying, ‘Mr Levin is looking at you.’
The busy bees on the stadium site stopped working. Then they started pointing. I waved and threw myself on the bed again.
Frank came out and slid into the bed. He held his arms out to me.
‘We’ll deal with it tomorrow.’
‘It has to be now. Emails are coming in all the time, every minute. I have to do it now. I can’t let it wait! I’ll jump out this window. Shit! Tonight and tomorrow won’t be good with your plan,’ I said, jumping up and getting my jacket on.
So we got dressed. Yes, I did leave the hotel after all. I lied before. I was hoping to change history by writing it all wrong. But it’s true that I didn’t observe anything of Hong Kong. My eyes were trained on locating anything remotely like a computer store.
‘Here’s a shop, Frank.’
‘It sells watches.’
‘Which are primitive computers.’
At last we got to a mall that had floors of computer servicing, selling and parts stores. I went into one that fixed things. Two young men with limited English stood before me as I opened up and turned on the computer to display the shattered screen. I felt very hopeful. I mean, Hong Kong is like where computers are from – Fujitsu, that’s Hong Kong, right? Sony. Toshiba. And this is just a little piece of glass-like substance. Get me one the same size, screw it in, I’m back in business. But they shook their heads and told me that the part would take days and it’d cost as much as a new computer. Goddamned hustlers. Putting up a ‘We Can Fix It’ sign and then trying to sell you a whole new system. The next five places had the same reaction and then Frank squared my shoulders and turned me to face him. ‘I tried to tell you. The screen is the most expensive part of the whole laptop. You have a four-year-old machine. We’ll get you a new one when we get home.’
‘Oh God, and then I have to get the data switched and get online again. It’s going to take weeks. I’m going to be up all night forever. Everyone’s going to think I ignored their messages. Oh, how could this happen to me? I cannot believe it. What will become of me?’
‘I’ll do it. It won’t take long. A couple of days to get you set up. You can’t keep worrying about everything. Things happen. You’ll be fine.’
He was there for me again. There for me again. I’d be fine. I had a great dress to wear and if I stopped crying now, my eyes wouldn’t still be puffy and we’d be meeting some really cool people. Frank hugged me, tightly, putting the pieces back together. And, if we hurried, we’d still have time for a romp at the Regent with the curtains wide open.
But instead, Frank spent the next hour reconfiguring his laptop so that it was mine now.
When we got home, the kids looked fine and Susie’s French had improved. Dishes were in the sink and toys were all over the place but since Susie was up to her elbows in papier-mâché, the kids and I cleaned up.
Now I’m feeling guilty that Susie is working out and I’m wondering what to say if the whole maid issue comes up today at Pearl’s. ‘Oh, her? She’s not a maid. She’s French! She’s Button Lip!’
We’re following Pearl’s detailed map of how to get to her apartment. I’ve driven past the fields of public housing, known as HDB, but never really through them. And certainly not hunting for a friend’s house. HDBs are projects – clean and graffiti-free, of course. They’d be more attractive without the garish colour scheme but tastes run that way over here. Despite the festive paint job, a haunting aura is emitted. Always situated in a nothin’-to-do part of town, clothes hanging off bamboo poles, eight kajillion units per block. Old men smoking to the filters over cups of tea and Tiger Beer in the eating houses below. Aunties in sanfoos and short, tight perms energetically tugging on grandsons’ arms in the playground.
Looking for Pearl’s apartment, 3886, #99–125, in a ghetto of orange and sky-blue sameness where every balcony whispers ‘Jump’, I am thrown off balance. On one hand, I recognise, with intensified appreciation, the miracle of there being such peace and harmony in Singapore. The complete distinction in this small, small country between the haves and have-nots has not stoked consuming fires of discontent. Indeed, Singaporeans, one and all, feel some measure of fortune, shelter and relative safety from the strife of most of the world, and of course, lots and lots of food wherever you look. So what if the rich eat sambal prawns in a restaurant for $45 – the poor get six more, minus the radish rose, in the hawker centre for $3. On the other hand, my industrious, ambitious, dogged, determined, laborious and crafty Pearl has nothing to show for all of that industriousness, ambition, doggedness, etc, but this: these monoliths, these cubbies, these pods keeping humans in storage. They scream for graffiti, some passion, some outrage. Something quelling the seductive cries to jump.
And less orange.
We arrive with our candy and ‘red packet’. Pearl is in her very best go-meetin’ clothes, jewellery and lipstick, grey roots tended to, clearly nervous to impress her client–guests. Her flat is two bedrooms, but only because she has hung a batik tapestry in the middle of a room. There is the room we entered, the family room, and if you keep walking a few steps, there is a kitchen. The family room is short and narrow and full of old, mismatched furniture. There are pictures on the wall of Pearl’s daughter, Emma, alongside gift-shop art. Pearl’s ruddy, cheerful but itinerant Portuguese husband, Bert, jumps up, knocks over his beer and pumps our hands. Pearl ushers me proudly to her sombre, disengaged Emmy for an introduction that frustrates her view of the TV.
There are some aunts and uncles and sisters and cousins chatting, laughing, breaking peanut shells. I’d like to be part of the real celebration. I’d like to share life stories. But Pearl wants to show us the red carpet. We’re scuttled off to the kitchen where the other clients are already seated. They include Anastasia’s mom, Anna, who is Russian with perfect, lustrous skin (no one has ever seen her husband but there is one), and a dissipated vampire family from Poland – the Something-skis – who chain smoke and sit miles away from the table, legs splayed, absently looking at the food with the same interest they behold the floor, their cuticles and their son, who has a heat rash and a gold chain around his neck that is making his skin turn green. Bert seems to be the only one, besides Pearl herself, allowed into the kitchen with us. She ignores her crowded living room full of loyal family and devoted friends, and hops from Frank to me, serving food onto plates before we’ve even had a chance to settle in. I feel so terrible. I can’t let her know that I hired a maid just as she’s dolloping out some dish she won’t even let her family have because the abalone is for clients only. Bert puts down cans of cold Carlsberg for the men. I give Frank a naggy look so he’ll remember we have a big party tonight. Irish Kell! Shangri-la! Dancing after! He thanks Bert.
When all of our p
lates are loaded and her pots are empty, Pearl drags a stool over to the far door and sits down, smiling a broad grin that doesn’t belie the anxiousness in her eyes. She nods for us to go on, enjoy.
The Polish couple light cigarettes for each other and spank and swat at their spotty child. I have a party to go to. At the Shangri-la! Dancing after! There are dozens of different dishes – beef rendang, ribs, fish cakes, spring rolls, vegetables, all of them warm, fragrant and filling. I can’t eat this. I’ll be stuffed and beached. The Polish couple, cigarettes still smouldering in one hand, taste the smallest morsel of rendang. Man-ski, exaggeratedly chewing, says to Woman-ski, ‘I expect there is a dog or two missing from the neighbourhood.’ He puts his butt out in a carrot.
I say to Pearl, ‘You have no idea how fantastic this smells. I’m starved.’
Frank, Anna and I clean our plates. The kids have been sitting on Bert’s knee and he hands them all red packets. We give ours to Pearl, kiss her and thank her. She smiles but it quickly falls off her face, bowing her head and bowing her head, she says her goodbyes and thanks for comings hurriedly, shifting from foot to foot, patting our backs and showing us the way to the main road. I can practically hear her falling into her spot on the sofa between her husband and daughter, surrounded by her friends. But tomorrow? What will become of her?
When we get home, there are just a few hours before we have to be at the Shangri-la! For Irish Kell’s farewell dinner! Dancing after! She’s invited over 50 people for a buffet. They are known for their buffets over at the Shangri-la.
I don’t want to go. After eating at Pearl’s, I think I’d rather just lie flat on the cool kitchen floor and wait until the noises in my stomach stop, but that might take years. I should make myself vomit, but that would remind Frank of his first girlfriend. What can I wear under these bloatsome circumstances that will be festive and fun, sexy and sharp but won’t push down on Pearl’s gift to my system? A nightshirt. I don’t want to go out. I want some quality sofa time. I want to cuddle my family. Come to me, children.
Tales From A Broad Page 24
