by Ho, Lauren
In all honesty, the casual indifference of wealthy Singaporeans to what I would deem basic precautionary measures and, quite frankly, the sheer lack of initiative shown by local burglars never failed to amaze me as a Malaysian. Even I could have picked this place clean with no trouble or special training whatsoever. All I would need is a couple of duffel bags, maybe a sexy black leotard, a pair of sunglasses, Chanel thigh-high boots, a French accent …
“Are you daydreaming again?” Linda’s voice broke my reverie, in which I was back-flipping over a field of laser beams à la Catwoman (circa Michelle Pfeiffer).
“No. Why?”
“You’re just standing there, drooling. Get in.” She pushed open the front door, which had been left ajar.
I stifled a sigh of envy as we made our way to the reception room. Despite it being the umpteenth time I’d stepped into her home over the years, I was impressed. The mansion, with its black marble floors, high ceilings, and bespoke wallpaper, whispered of entitlement and the power to buy politicians. Auntie Wei Wei had had the place decorated in chinoiserie of the highest order. It was hard not to gawk at the fine detailing on the antique porcelain vases and lacquerware, the elegant scrolls of Chinese calligraphy and ink paintings, or to refrain from touching the dancer–shaped blooms of the rare slipper orchids flowering in their china bowls and the stuffed white peacock, with its diamond white train of tail feathers, perched on its ivory base in one corner of the room. All that was missing were some casually scattered gold bars.
It was apparent that every (official) member of our clan had made the effort to Show Face: man, woman, legitimate children, and domestic help; although it was almost 1:00 p.m., three hours after the gathering had officially begun, the place was still packed with close to fifty people. As per usual with such gatherings, everyone was dressed to the nines with their most impressive bling. You could hardly look around without a Rolex, Omega, or Panerai, real or fake, nearly putting your eye out. Key fobs of luxury cars faux-casually dangled or peeked out from pockets. Most donned red, an auspicious color for the Lunar New Year. Many Tangs were also red in the face from the premium wine and whiskey they were knocking back like there was no tomorrow, courtesy of their host. A free-flow bar can bring out the reluctant alcoholic in any Chinese, Asian flush and stomach ulcers be damned. But for me and Linda, boozing Tangs are not usually the problem: it’s the sober ones we had to be wary of, the ones drinking tea as black as their stony hearts, their beady eyes looking for fresh prey. I had vivid memories of being forced to recite the times table or some classical Chinese poem in front of these raptors, their breath bated as they waited for me to make a mistake so they could run and get my parents—that way, we could all be shamed together. That’s how they get off.
At least the food looked amazing; I would have expected nothing less from Auntie Wei Wei. In one corner of the hall was a long buffet table laden with drool-inducing Chinese New Year delicacies such as whole roasted suckling pig; at least four different types of cold noodles; steamed sea bass; beautifully crispy Peking duck; fried spring rolls; pomelo and plum chicken salad; and niangao. On a separate table, the desserts: a huge rose-and-lychee cake flanked by two different types of chocolate cake; assorted glazed mini-cupcakes; macarons the perfect red of cherries; trays of golden, buttery pineapple tarts; bowls of pistachios, cashew nuts, and peanuts; platters of cut tropical fruit; and bright pyramids of mandarin oranges and peaches. It was too much food, but by the end of the evening everything would be gone. Gluttony, after all, is a Chinese art form and we’ve had millennia to perfect it.
Over the din of Chinese New Year songs blaring from sleek Bang & Olufsen speakers and drunken chatter, Linda and I looked for Grandma Tang so we could pay our quick respects before joining our single, pariah peers. Linda, being a head taller than my five foot three, scanned the room and found a queue waiting to greet Grandma Tang, who was wearing a crimson batik cheongsam and all the imperial jade in the world. Someone had seated her in a thronelike high-backed chair in one corner of the hall on a makeshift pedestal, where she could peer imperiously (but blindly) down at the crowd. She was so old and wizened that when we got to her and wished her the standard Chinese New Year greeting of a long, prosperous (never forget the “prosperous”), and happy life, she grunted in derision, which is the old lady equivalent of “hah!”
I get my sense of humor from her, of course.
After wishing her thus, we waited for a few uncomfortable seconds before realizing, to our growing horror, that she had no intention of giving us elder singletons ang paos. And so, to the chorus of jeering children, we made our shamefaced way to the other end of the room, where a herd of our similarly luckless-in-love cousins were huddled together for safety. The swiftest path to them, however, brought us by some sober aunts who were stationed by the bar, simultaneously haranguing and groping a terrified waiter. There was no way we would be able to avoid them.
“Walk fast,” I hissed, gripping Linda’s right palm in mine so that she wouldn’t canter off in the direction of the bottles of Johnnie Walker Black lined up on the bar’s countertop. “And don’t look around.” We pretended to be deep in a discussion, laughing maniacally as we scurried by the aunts, but to no avail. One of the women, deep in her seventies and dressed in an ill-fitting burgundy cheongsam, detached herself from the gaggle of vultures, I mean, aunts, and lurched over, grinning at me. It took me a while to recognize her as she had slathered on a Beijing opera mask of makeup, and by then it was too late. Leering at me was none other than Auntie Kim, the tyrant who used to make me recite the times table in front of all the Tangs when I was a wee preschooler. I say “auntie,” but to be honest, even though I see her at every single Tang gathering, I have no idea if she’s really my aunt or if she is even related to me. In many parts of Asia, it is perfectly acceptable to call anyone above the age of forty, be they relative or not, “auntie” or “uncle” in lieu of ever learning their actual names—the grocer, the taxi driver, the retired accountant who does your taxes, the local pedophile—anyone. Unless, of course, you are about the same age or older. Then you’re just asking for a good old slap in the face.
I scanned the room, looking for an open window, a friendly face, or a hatchet, but there was none. I tried to catch the attention of my unmarried cousins, clustered a few steps away. Two of them waved before averting their eyes. Cowards.
“Andrea Tang Wei Ling,[fn1] why so late?” Auntie Kim shouted in Singlish to all and sundry as she scanned me from top to toe, ignoring Linda (Linda was right: she had effectively been forgotten by our family). “Why you here alone? No one want you issit?” She chuckled. “Aiyah, I just joke only, but maybe also true hor, hahaha!”
Everyone within earshot was smirking. Someone’s loser kid chimed in in a singsong voice, “Auntie Andrea doesn’t want to get married because she doesn’t want to give us ang pao because she’s stingy!” This outburst was greeted with laughter. The loudest laughs came from my feckless single cousins.
Normally Linda would have left me to die in the proverbial gutter by then, but Linda had KPIs[fn2] and she was not one to disappoint. Without hesitation, she shoved me aside and clasped the woman’s papery hands in her own. “Auntie Kim, don’t you worry about ol’ Wei Ling here. She’s doing very well. It took some time, but she’s finally found herself a man!”
I wished she wouldn’t say it with such gusto.
“Really, ah? Who?” Auntie Kim was incredulous.
“Henry Chong. Oh, he’s such a darling, way too good for Wei Ling, really. Very smart. Very handsome. Very big, er, shoulders.”
“Hen-Ree?” Auntie Kim mused, sucking on the vowels like they were her missing teeth. “Hen-Ree where right now?”
“Not here,” I said petulantly, my arms crossed to hide my sweating pits.
“Oh, he’s always flying here and there, that busy bee,” Linda said. “Henry’s a partner in a big law firm. Very big. Two, three hundred employees.” She leaned close to Auntie Kim and stagewhisp
ered, “He’s very, very rich.”
“A lawyer?” Auntie Kim exclaimed. “Rich some more … good, good. And he is Chinese, right?”
“He can trace his Chinaman lineage all the way to the first caveman Chong to have carnal knowledge of a woman, Auntie,” Linda said, poker-faced.
“Wah?” Auntie Kim’s grasp of English was as strong as Britney Spears’s vocal range.
Linda tried again. “Henry is one hundred percent Chinese, pure as rice flour.”
“Oh, like that, ah, good lor. Make sure you keep this one, Wei Ling, don’t let him fly away, can!” said Auntie Kim, mollified. Having received all the information she needed, she handed us each an ang pao and lurched away, her ropes of gold chains clanking, this time heading in the direction of my terrified twenty-nine-year-old cousin, Alison Tang, who’d just arrived and was about to slink into a corner. The trooper had worn pink lip gloss and styled her hair in pigtails to appear younger. Alas, Auntie Kim, despite her decrepit condition, was not so easily fooled. “Alee-son! Alee-son! Where are you going? Why nobody with you again? Why—”
“Let’s go,” I said, dragging Linda past a trio of red-faced men exchanging loud and drunken reminiscences till we reached the singles posse. Our presence was acknowledged, barely; nobody wanted or dared to break eye contact for too long with their phones. Most were legitimately working (Not even the most important holiday for the Chinese can stop me from slaving for you! was the subtext they were channeling to their bosses), while some were Facebooking or surfing mindlessly. The most brazen one of all, Gordon, was browsing Grindr profiles. I watched him text-flirt with one guy after another and wished I could do the same and put myself out there in all my mediocre glory.
To my horror I realized, when Gordon started laughing, that I had spoken out loud without meaning to, which tended to happen when I was under stress. “Andrea darling, just do it! It’s really easy. Want me to set up a profile for you? On Tinder, of course. Or that hot new location-based app everyone’s talking about, which is like Grindr but for straight people. You know the one: Sponk!”
I demurred; Tinder and Sponk heralded the death of romance to me. As if you could reduce the search for the all-important Someone Who Won’t Kill You in Your Sleep to a thumb-swiping exercise based (mostly) on photos. And since I had no Photoshop skills to speak of, I didn’t stand a chance—everyone knows that you had to have a hot profile photo or at least one where you looked like you hadn’t given up in order to get any matches. These days I resembled a slightly melted, sun-bleached garden gnome, no thanks to my punishing schedule at work. Maybe if—
“Why, look who it is, my favorite niece, Andrea!”
I turned and saw Auntie Wei Wei, resplendent in a sunset-orange silk baju kurung and dripping in diamonds, striding toward us. My stomach clenched; I knew why Auntie Wei Wei was coming over and it certainly wasn’t to praise my sartorial choices or make small talk. She always had an agenda when it came to members of the clan; she stuck her nose in everyone’s affairs and gave unsolicited advice or orders, but nobody dared to contradict or stop her.
“I’ll pay you five hundred bucks if you come out to Auntie Wei Wei right now,” I whispered in desperation to Gordon. When I didn’t receive a response, I swiveled my head and saw that Gordon and the gang of smartphone-wielding cravens had somehow migrated to the far side of the drawing room and were all texting as if their lives depended on it.
I turned back around and found myself face-to-face with the matriarch of the family. Behind me, I heard, rather than saw, Linda sidling away like the traitorous lowlife she was, but alas for her, the gin from earlier in the car was already working its dulling magic.
“Linda Mei Reyes!” Auntie Wei Wei said in her loud, commanding voice. “The prodigal niece herself. Now isn’t this a lovely surprise to have you grace us with your presence at long last.” She gave Linda a dismissive once-over. “Huh. Still as hipless as a snake. Where have you been hiding all this time? Did your father finally decide to cut the purse strings?”
Linda froze. This was the only chink in her armor—her financial dependence on her father, despite what she proclaimed to the world. “I’m the partner of a law firm and my boyfriend skis in Val-d’Isère,” she said weakly to no one.
“Well, good for you, working with Daddy’s pals. I’ll say this for José—he always took care of his children, which is more than I can say about my sister.” She shook her head and tsk-tsked. “As for you, Andrea”—Auntie Wei Wei turned her attention to me; the blood in my veins ran cold—“are you sick? You’ve lost a lot of weight. I can see right through you.” She waggled a finger at me. “You need to fatten up or you’ll lose what’s left of your figure. Men don’t want to marry scrawny women, you know.”
I gave her a rictus grin to match my loser, non-childbearing hips. Last year I was too fat, this year I was too thin: Auntie Wei Wei could give Goldilocks a lesson or two. “Gong xi fa cai, Auntie Wei Wei. You look well,” I said, lying. Auntie Wei Wei looked like she had crossed the Botox Rubicon in the dark.
“It’s the exercise and regular facials, you should try some—I can park a Bentley in one of your pores. Anyway, did you come with Linda? What happened to Ivan?”
“I have a new boyfriend,” I said, after I’d successfully fought the impulse to pluck out Auntie Wei Wei’s eyeballs. “His name is, ah, is—”
Auntie Wei Wei cut me off. “If he’s a no-show, he’s not serious. You youngsters these days.” She sighed. “You know you’re wasting your best years being a career woman, right? The Tang women tend not to age well, I must say, speaking from a personal standpoint only, of course.” She gave me a pointed look.
Don’t cry! Distract her! Distract her! “What about Helen, then?” I blurted before I could stop myself. I felt kind of low bringing up her still-single daughter, who was turning thirty-eight this year.
“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Auntie Wei Wei’s frozen eyebrows gave a heroic spasm of joy. “That’s our big announcement this Chinese New Year: Helen’s engaged! She’s marrying a banker, Magnus Svendsen—isn’t that a lovely name? Mag-nus! So regal!”
“What?” I squeaked, most eloquently. Helen Tang-Chen, who I knew for a fact to be openly gay to all her contemporaries, was getting married—to a man? What sorcery was this?
Auntie Wei Wei couldn’t have looked more self-satisfied. “It’s a little bit of a whirlwind romance, I must admit, but who am I to stand in the path of true love? We’re having the Singaporean reception at Capella in May of next year, just after my big sixtieth birthday bash. That’s more than enough time for you, and Linda, to find a date, I’m sure. And maybe”—she gave me another pointed look—“both of you could get a more flattering outfit this time, something less … off-the-rack?”
I tried to find my voice but my throat was closing up.
Auntie Wei Wei’s tone conveyed the pity her eyes couldn’t. “You know, I always thought my daughter would be the last to marry among all the Tang women of your generation, but it looks like that’s no longer the case.”
A wave of nausea overwhelmed me as the realization broke: for the first time in my life, I would indeed be last at something.
“You traitor,” I said for the umpteenth time.
We were sprawled on the couch in Linda’s penthouse apartment in River Valley, performing the postmortem on Auntie Wei Wei’s party with a little help from a bottle of tequila and a bag of Doritos.
“I had to, Andrea, I had to. You saw what she was like!”
“You betrayed me. Just left me alone in hostile territory!”
Linda yawned and stretched. “Oh, quit your histrionics. You would have done the same. Besides, she got her claws in me anyway. I’m still smarting.”
“Can you believe she only gave us fifty dollars each as ang pao,” I said feelingly, “when she was way, way more vicious this time?”
Linda shrugged. Money talk bored her—what excited her was winning. At everything and anything. And status. And designer bags. �
�I don’t get it. When I saw Helen in Mambo last December, she swore to me that she was never, ever getting married until gay marriage was legalized in Singapore. And now she’s marrying a man? What gives?”
I was stalking Magnus Svendsen on my smartphone. “Have you seen how hot this Magnus looks in his photo? And it’s, like, a photo from an annual report. Nobody is supposed to look hot in those—you can’t even openly use filters on LinkedIn.” I squinted at the photo. “Look at that face! He’s so … so … symmetrical.”
Linda glanced at the offensive photo in question and made a face. “Urgh! How unfair. The very least she could have done was take one of the wonky-looking ones off the market. Maybe he’s also gay?”
“Does Auntie Wei Wei know that Helen is gay?” I asked hopefully. Not that I was planning to throw her under the bus, of course.
Linda rolled her large hazel eyes. “Of course she knows. Don’t you know that she once caught Helen messing around with her tutor in their house? But Auntie Wei Wei just pretended like it never happened.”
My stomach growled; I had barely eaten at the gathering from all the pretend-texting and one bag of crisps was not enough. “I’m hungry. Pass me the Doritos?”
“We’re out of Doritos.”
I fell to my knees in mock despair. “Dear God! Can anything else go wrong today?”
“My Netflix is down,” Linda added. She checked the bottle. “And we’re finally out of tequila.”
I curled into a fetal position on the carpet. Clearly this day could get worse.
“Wait.” She disappeared and came back with an opened bottle in her hand and a glass. “Here. Have some of this cooking wine. Not sure if it’s still good, it’s been sitting in the fridge for about three days since Susan made spag bog for me”—Susan was Linda’s part-time help—“but you have plebian taste, so.”