Sarong Party Girls (25 page)

“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 fact 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.”

I took out my wallet and left eighty dollars on the table, looked around at the girls and pretended to cough. “Sorry, Keira,” I said. “But I'd better not make your baby sick anyway. You take care ah?”

Keira just nodded, so I fasterly got up and left. I looked back once as I was leaving—­the three girls on one side, back to oohing and aahing over the baby. Sher was the only one looking at me as I walked away. I bet she was wondering whether she should chase after me to make sure I could get home OK or just talk a bit.

I just pretended I didn't see her and quickly turned around.

Once I left the restaurant I started to feel a bit better. But still not OK. Every time I closed my eyes or felt distracted, I could see Louis's face on top of me, feel Louis in me, hear Louis talking to me. And the more it happened, the more I thought that I really was a damn shit friend to Imo. At least I know that's what Sher would say. And I know that yes, I'm not friends with Sher anymore. But still, of all the ­people I know who truly understand any situation, she is the best. So, yes, I really was a damn shit friend.

It's not that I wanted to fuck Louis, you know. The exact opposite! But hallo, even if Sher was the one in that situation, I think she confirm would have said yes to him. You know how Louis is. No one is allowed to say no. No one. I mean, you can. But the consequences—­confirm is not fun. And I felt I couldn't just think of myself in that moment, I had to think about the good of the group. You know, harmony, free drinks and all that shit.

There was suddenly some music in the lobby—­soft, so it didn't seem to be coming from within the lobby. I followed it outside and saw white ribbons and big bows all over the gazebo in the center of the garden. On one side there were these old Chinese guys in tuxedos, sitting up straight and playing violins or some shit. On the other side was a few rows of chairs. ­People were still talking talking among themselves so I guess the bride and groom weren't coming down so soon yet.

Quickly, I snuck over toward the side of the courtyard where I knew there were a few benches and picked one that confirm had a good view of the gazebo. The Shang's garden is damn atas—­I mean, most hotels that charge these kinds of prices surely have atas gardens but this one was damn super atas. Each bush, each tree—­their gardeners spend every day trimming them until all perfectly round or oval type. Sometimes they might even make special shapes and all—­one time for Chinese New Year, there was even one with a giant dragon shape. Don't anyhow play!

Guniang was quietly sitting there, looking at the guests, trying to see who was wearing what, carrying what handbag, when all of a sudden someone was talking to me.

“Jazzy?”

Kani nah. Of course it was Sher. I didn't say anything.

“Come on, don't be like that,” she said, sitting down next to me. Of course she would have figured out that I might come here. The first few times we came to the Shang, we always came to this garden. If there was a wedding happening, we would come and sit for a bit and stare, imagining. The thought of that made me feel a twinge. At least for me, now, I still have a chance to imagine. For Sher, her SPG life and dreams were over.

“Jazzy, I think we need to talk,” Sher said, leaning out now, like she was trying to block my view. Babi.

“Talk? About what?” I said. “Please, everything is OK. We have nothing to say.”

Sher opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something more. But then she closed it again. I didn't want to look at her, but from the side of my eyes I could see her smoothing down her skirt over her knees—­walao, guniang married for such a short time only already started wearing these long auntie skirts, covering knees and all. If I didn't already feel like throwing up, then now I confirm would start to feel it.

I was considering getting up to leave, even though the wedding hadn't even started yet. But then a waiter came up to us, holding a tray.

“Ladies,” he said, bowing a bit and smiling. “Would you like a glass of champagne?”

Aiyoh, maybe he thinks we're here for the wedding! OK, maybe Sher's auntie-­length skirt at least had some use. Sher just smiled at him and took two glasses off the tray, handing me one.

“Cheers!” I said to the waiter as he bowed and walked away.

I looked at Sher and Sher looked at me. Then we both clinked our glasses and laughed.

After we stopped laughing—­and after a few sips—­Sher leaned back and crossed her legs.

“Jazz,” she said. I could feel her watching me so I tried to keep smiling, even though I didn't really want to anymore. I don't know what she was about to say. But hallo, today the gardens were so nice, there was an atas wedding about to happen, the two of us had just laughed together for the first time in god knows how long, why did she have to ruin it?

“Remember Eugene?” she said.

Yah, Eugene. Once I thought of him I couldn't help but smile a bit bigger. Who didn't like Eugene? That guy—­my god, that guy—­he really was one of the best. We all knew him when we were quite young. I think, twelve or thirteen? He was a few years older—­I think fifteen or something at the time. And even though we—­and all the girls in the neighborhood—­were all damn steam for him, we were all so young, we all confirm had no chance with him. You know how it is when you're that age lah—­even a year or two age difference feels like five or ten years sometimes.

But we all lived in the same area, hung out in the same community center, went to the same kopitiam, and on Saturday, Sunday we would see each other with our mothers in the same wet market, that type of thing. So Eugene knew who we were. (He knew that we existed, anyway.) We actually even became friends. Sometimes if Sher and me were alone in the kopitiam he might ask us to join him and his friends, maybe even buy us a plate of chicken rice if we were feeling hungry.

The funny thing about Eugene was that he was the biggest tough guy Ah Beng around. Not the hard-­core kind though—­just slightly enough of an Ah Beng that he was still cool. He was big on skateboarding then—­but since he was quite Ah Beng, he was part of Ah Beng skateboarding group, not the cool ang moh skateboarding teenagers we sometimes saw near Holland Village. And when he was with his gang, he would always be damn act tough—­throwing third finger and kani nah around all the time and shouting “Oi, brudder!” to his fellow Ah Bengs a lot. But when he was alone with me and Sher, buying us ice Milo or kaya toast at the kopitiam, he was totally different—­sweet sweet one. He always asked us how was school, which boys were trying to chase us, tell us toot jokes to make us smile, sometimes bringing us small boxes of those cute Japanese chocolate cookies shaped like pandas and shit like that. We all knew—­even though he's a smelly Ah Beng, whoever ended up marrying Eugene is confirm win lottery one. This guy maybe to the outside world is a tough asshole but at home, no matter what, he will always treat you like a princess.

At that time, Sher and I hoped one of us would end up being the lucky one. We were so young—­not SPGs yet. But then after Eugene went to the army, we never saw him again. I don't know why.

“Yeah,” I said. “That Eugene really was number one.”

Sher smiled, but just a little bit. “Well,” she said. “I don't expect you to understand, but Jazzy, Ah Huat is really my Eugene.”

Wah, guniang here—­stunned. I guess I never really thought about it. In fact, I hadn't thought about Eugene in many donkey's years. And when I thought about it now, I guess I could understand. Back when we first became SPGs, Sher and I would discuss Ah Bengs and we always said yes, Ah Bengs are Ah Bengs but a guy like Eugene, is actually a sexy Ah Beng. He has the best of the Ah Beng qualities—­that swagger that makes him act tough to the rest of the world but at home, with ­people he really cares about? He's just a big cuddly teddy bear. And the sexiest thing though is that you know that whoever he cares about, he cares about fiercely—­he'll do anything to defend and protect them. When you think about it, that really is damn bloody sexy.

Although I still wasn't fully convinced, I lifted my glass and smiled at Sher. I'd have to think about this a bit more but for now, sitting in the Shang, a glass of champagne in my hand, I really missed my old friend. I really missed our moments like this.

“Cheers,” Sher said—­my god, her eyes were watering a bit and all. I figured I'd better fasterly change the subject before this turned into a Taiwanese soap opera.

“So,” I said, sounding a bit serious—­which I was. “I don't want you to worry. But something happened.”

Sher's face got damn serious. Obviously, Sher was now worrying like crazy. Since I almost never begin any conversations like that.

“Are you sick?” she said, grabbing my knee.

“Aiyoh, my god—­no!” I said. “Hallo, auntie, sometimes there are worse things than cancer and shit, OK! No, no, no. Just . . . there was this weird situation with this guy, and I couldn't say no, I really couldn't, and now I just feel damn . . .” I didn't even know how to finish my sentence. But I looked over at Sher and I could see that she understood perfectly.

Sher looked concerned. She sighed and took a long sip, then waved her index finger over at the nice waiter and made the “two” sign. The guy jumped up and brought his tray over, lowering it so we could pick up fresh glasses.