Last Tang Standing

by Ho, Lauren

  We chatted comfortably for a bit until we were summoned by a little dinner bell. I shook my head at Eric and made a face, which he chuckled at.

  “The overlords await,” I said wryly.

  “Come, fellow serf,” he said, taking my arm. “Let’s go eat some more atas[fn2] mollusks.”

  “A man after my own stomach,” I said, ecstatic. “What’s the point of having primo seafood if everyone is on some kind of diet? And those desserts!”

  “I’ll ask Hiro to pack all the cupcakes and macarons to go. Most of the people in there are gluten intolerant anyway.”

  I nodded, half-listening, my eyes on the island of food, especially the glistening ice tray of oysters. I was ready for action, but it was not to be. DeeDee was motioning for the group to be seated. Reluctantly, I strode past the beckoning food and took my seat with the rest of them on the large leather couches. Eric and I sat ourselves next to Valerie and a tall, emaciated blond woman in a silvery dress. There was an expectant buzz as copies of A Little Life were fished out of bags. I appeared to be the only one with a Kindle, which was surprising. I didn’t care. I turned the Kindle on and pulled out a two-pager cheat sheet of the book. Now, Valerie had told me to read the book, which obviously I hadn’t, but I had read the summary and made clever shorthand notes for each character; I had even taken down some choice quotes in case things got seriously granular. I knew how anal retentive the ultra-rich could be from dealing with them at work. When you’re not working, you probably have time to memorize quotes.

  DeeDee began. “Welcome once again to the Baca Buku club. I believe we have two new guests tonight”—she smiled in Valerie’s and my direction—“so can everyone introduce themselves to the room with your first name and a few words about yourself before we start the discussions?”

  One by one, we complied. The introductions were pretty sober; no one made any jokey quips (the group knew each other too well, I supposed), so I was obliged to swallow mine about being an alcoholic desk-bound paper pusher. Instead I said, “Andrea, lawyer and oyster fan,” to the mirth of Eric, who followed with the simple, “Eric, entrepreneur.”

  “I hope you’ve all read Hanya Yanagihara’s new tome, A Little Life, the book we will be discussing tonight. It’s such a gem and Michiko darling says—”

  “Michiko who?” I whispered to Eric.

  “Kakutani, the literary critic,” Eric whispered back. “You know, of the New York Times.”

  “Ooh, are they friends?” I was dead impressed.

  Eric smirked. “I think they met once at some New York soirée, and now she follows Miss Kakutani on Twitter.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Rashidah’s a good woman who’s unfortunately stricken with low self-esteem,” he said. It took me half a beat to realize he was talking about DeeDee.

  DeeDee was prattling on. “But of course, I can’t go further without acknowledging the hospitality of our host, who not only allows me to throw such book appreciation parties and whatever fanciful fete my little heart desires, but is also generous enough to let me stay at his sumptuous summer residence for the months in which I must serve out my time as tax resident on this island”—a twitter of mirth from the audience, many of whom were no doubt doing the same—“until I return to New York, where, of course, the action is, as we all know.”

  “Wow, what a sweet arrangement! I’ll bet she’s banging the brains out of that old fart,” I whispered.

  “She does seem like the type to take advantage of a hapless man,” Eric agreed, grinning. “Although I’m curious to know what makes you automatically assume that he is older, and not younger, than DeeDee, and more pertinently, what makes you think she’s his type at all?”

  “—but enough moaning about the paltry art scene here. I’ve hardly been suffering in this gorgeous place in the company of such gracious folk, and none more gracious than my host and my old friend, the generous, inimitable, the one and only—Mister Eric Deng!”

  I could feel the blood draining from my face as I swiveled once more to look at Eric, who was smiling down at me now as he stood and waved to acknowledge the cheering audience. As the applause died down he sat back down and whispered, “We should definitely have lunch together if I’m not too old for your tastes, what say you, Andrea?”

  13

  11:20 a.m. A barrage of texts from Valerie, which helpfully, in lurid detail, chronicled everything that had transpired last night.

  *Eric Deng!* she marveled.

  Eric Deng, Indonesian luxe hotelier and real estate tycoon. You snagged yourself a *tycoon*

  The way she described it, we were on our way to buying a ranch together and making a flock of little Erics and Andreas, instead of staying back exchanging maybe two hours of casual chitchat after discussing the finer points of A Little Life while I vacuumed the rest of the Fine de Claire oysters into my mouth, which I reasoned would have died for naught if left to expire, uneaten and unappreciated, in some dump. We’d done a little drinking (Valerie and I also stayed to help finish the champagne with DeeDee and Ralph Kang, one of Eric’s friends, while Eric drank water—he was cutting down his alcohol intake on orders from his physician, on account of Eric’s gout), and a little flirting. Ralph is gaga for Valerie, although she’s doing her best to ignore it. She met him while I was hanging out in the garden with Eric, who was leaving the next day to spend some time in Vietnam for the launch of his newest hotel. There was this slightly awkward moment when we were saying our goodbyes and Eric had leaned over to air-kiss me (I think), but I was so startled that I jumped three feet back into a wall, which of course killed any hint of sexual tension. We ended up giving each other handshakes. Handshakes are what you give accountants and aunts you don’t like very much—you know, the ones that give you five-dollar ang paos during Chinese New Year and ask you how long you intend to be alone and/or barren, before driving off at the end of the night in their latest Mercedes.

  Valerie also provided me with a one-liner bio for Ralph Kang, which wasn’t much (somehow, I don’t think he had always been named “Ralph Kang”). He was a cousin of her original target, the white suit she had mistaken for Wilson Lam, a famous Hong Kong actor. Apparently, Ralph was some hotshot tech multimillionaire in his mid-fifties, but Valerie is not impressed by money. She’s way more superficial than that: she is impressed by good looks and class.

  Yet somehow Ralph had cornered her into agreeing to have dinner once he got back from San Francisco, where he’s got a couple of start-ups he’s mentoring.

  “Please come out with us the next time he’s back in town,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to say no to Ralph and I don’t want to hang out alone with him. I need a wing person and I can’t ask Lin—I mean, you and I had a blast together, didn’t we, and I introduced you to Eric and now you’re going to see him again, aren’t you? By the way, you owe me one hundred and fifteen bucks for your half of the two Grab rides, and what did you think about that house?”

  “Wha—?” I said, lost in the slipstream. Then, “One hundred and fifteen?” in shock.

  “Yes, because of surge pricing and premium charges. Now stop trying to change the subject,” Valerie said, blithely changing the subject. She grabbed my wrist. “And just tell me if you would be up for having dinner together. Eric is Ralph’s friend and investor, isn’t that a lovely coincidence? Say you’ll do it,” she rasped, digging her manicured fingernails into my wrist.

  I said I would. This way I would have a plan B to meet Eric again, since I realized once Val and I left that he’d never actually gotten my number after asking me out in front of everyone. He struck me as a man of his word; still, it was always good to have a backup plan, just in case.

  2:35 p.m. Have spent a pleasant lunch hour looking up, OK, stalking, Eric Deng. There is very little information about him online, and almost zero social media footprint. His LinkedIn profile has a decent headshot from some annual report, basically says he’s an “investor,” and shows that he has less than fifty connection
s. The lack of freely available information, even if it’s curated to death like the best of whatever is available online these days about someone, is very worrying. How will I know what type of music he enjoys, if he thinks Pollock is art (yuck), if he is a cappuccino or flat white or espresso kind of guy? What are his political views? His religious views? And, more important, is his mother still alive?

  I guess I’ll never know.

  2:38 p.m. Of course, I could ask him. But where’s the fun in that.

  Wednesday 9 March

  7:45 a.m. Got a text from Orson asking me out to dinner tomorrow. Am tempted to say yes, even though I know he’s too young for me.

  8:15 a.m. Dilemma. Called Linda for advice. She got mad and told me to save myself for the wonderful age-appropriate men she’d vetted from the Tinder slush pile that she’d been painstakingly chatting to for the past three weeks, or else. Honestly, Diary, she’s starting to sound a lot like my mom (but maybe I’ll wait till I have access to my Facebook and Tinder accounts first before I tell her that).

  9:25 a.m. Texted Orson and agreed to a dinner date, just not tomorrow as I have to set aside sufficient time to exercise feverishly over the next few days in preparation for potential shag. Have instead proposed dinner next Thursday.

  Orson agreed to the date and suggested we meet at some swish new cocktail-and-tapas bar that has just opened at the revamped National Gallery.

  Decided not to tell Linda about the date in case she talks me out of it.

  8:45 p.m. Met Linda for dinner at Lau Pa Sat for Tinder handover. It’d been another long day at work, but I did not succumb to the usual temptation to eat a large portion of greasy char kway teow; instead I downgraded to a small serving of char kway teow, shared with an unusually focused, silent Linda, who was texting feverishly with what I assumed were my Tinder matches.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said, after she came up for air. Without waiting for a reply, she continued. “Would you date a married man if he was separated from his wife?”

  “Err …,” I said, jolted out of my own reverie by her question. “I don’t know. I think I would need more details.”

  “Let’s say they are in the midst of a divorce.”

  “Always a convenient lie to fall back on,” I sneered. “Beloved by cheating scum all over the world.”

  “They live apart.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything. Lots of husbands live apart from their wives temporarily, especially if they’re posted abroad.”

  “They are both Singaporean, and they’ve been living apart for a year,” she said. “Anyway, whatever. It’s not important.”

  I made a halfhearted attempt at prying more information out of her but got nothing. Not that I was terribly interested, to be honest. I wanted to daydream about Orson.

  She sighed. “Anyway, just as I promised, I’ve distilled your options down to the four worthiest candidates. Your log-in details for your Facebook and Tinder profiles are posted on our private chat. Enjoy!”

  I opened WhatsApp and saw that she had set both passwords as Iwannawang.

  10:35 p.m. Settled down on my couch with a glass of wine and launched Tinder. Looked at my four matches and read the chat histories. Linda mimicked me so well I was a little worried. Am I that predictable?

  Some of the opening gambits from the four men were quite novel. The first match asked if a beer and a whisky drinker could ever truly mix and that he was “hop-ping” to find out. Another couldn’t believe that I checked so many boxes on his perfect mate list so he was hoping to take me out and see if I were a genetically modified being from the future sent back in time from his desperate mother in an effort to lure him away from his work as a senior investment banker (show-off, but quirky). Then there was the opener from the third, which went, “I’m sick of being a sexy, intelligent third wheel. Help me end this nightmare now!” The fourth one said I seemed like someone that even a hardened serial killer would spare for the sake of humanity, and he was looking forward to sparing my life in person (I liked this one best). They all had nice, witty, or cute profiles, were decent-looking and age-appropriate, and responded well to Linda’s version of my oddball humor, which boded well for our dates if they happened at all. There was potential here. It made me wonder if I really was missing out. I’ll just take this app for a trial run, see if there are other contenders that Linda might have missed.

  11:55 a.m. Oh, hey, Filipino Jason’s on Tinder. Maybe he’s straight? Or looking for a platonic friendship? Or beard-hunting? His family is pretty Catholic. I’ll swipe right just for fun.

  12:05 a.m. Ha, we matched. Sent him an eggplant emoji as a joke. Wrote:

  Isn’t it way past your bedtime?

  12:17 a.m. He wrote:

  I do my best paralegal work at night *stalk stalk*

  Jason had a sense of humor. Who knew.

  Maybe I’ll swipe right on a few other profiles, just to see what happens.

  12:35 a.m. Yikes. So many dick pics. So many unimpressive dick pics.

  12:40 a.m. Complained about Twitter wasteland to Suresh, the only person I knew who would be awake at this hour, because work. Somehow, since our last after-work drink, we’d become friendly, if not friends.

  He replied:

  It’s 12:40 a.m.—what were you expecting? And call me old-fashioned, but I’d prefer a good setup by friends or a work romance to online dating.

  Well, he can talk; he’s got someone waiting for him at home, even if it’s across the globe!

  12:45 a.m. Interesting that he mentioned work romance. I would never go there, but that’s because I have principles. And common sense.

  14

  Thursday 10 March

  8:02 a.m. Woke up with a start and saw what time it was. Farrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!

  8:05 a.m. Must have slept through alarm because was up so late scrolling through dick pics and telling off sick senders of dick pics!!!

  8:45 a.m. So I realize that I might have a slight problem with impulse control. Especially with technology.

  9:10 a.m. Arrived at work really late and panicky, as I have to walk past Mong’s office to get to mine, before I realized that Mong was still incapacitated by dengue. Rejoice!

  9:13 a.m. I mean, not rejoicing because he’s deathly ill, but you know.

  9:45 a.m. Mong was in our, I mean, my office, chatting with Suresh, when I burst in. I gasped when I saw him, and my mind went blank. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Suresh smile beatifically. Urgh, great, Suresh was winning in front of the boss.

  Mong gave me a look of disappointment. “You’re late,” he said, wheezing.

  “I, ah, you see, my phone—”

  “How was your client meeting?” Suresh piped up.

  “Very, um, full of … potential,” I managed to say, confused, before I realized he was trying to help me out.

  Mong’s eyes focused on me, laser-sharp. “With?” he asked suspiciously. He always wanted details of meetings.

  I straightened up and mentally composed myself. A flash of inspiration struck. “I’ve, ah, developed a lead with, ah, the Dulit Group. With Eric Deng.”

  Mong’s eyes flew open, which was always startling since they were shot through with broken capillaries, now more so than usual. “That’s great news, Andrea,” he said warmly.

  “Er, are you still supposed to be at home resting? After dengue?” I said, desperate to change the subject.

  “I missed the office.”

  Of course.

  He ambled off with difficulty and I breathed a sigh of relief. Grudgingly I thanked Suresh for helping me out.

  He grinned and said, somewhat playfully, “Did I really, though? Or did I allow you to entrap yourself in a lie you now have to extricate yourself from?”

  My God, he was an evil genius!

  Saturday 12 March

  11:30 a.m. Success! Woke up today completely fine, not hungover at all. A miracle, considering all that had happened yesterday.

  Went out for the usual post-work
Friday shenanigans with the usual crew (plus two junior colleagues of mine, both female and married) to a swish whiskey bar. We were supposed to meet at 8:00 p.m., but somehow everyone except Linda was there by 7:00 p.m., even me. (Suresh and I now have an unspoken Office Face-Time Battle truce on Fridays, where we both leave at about the same time from work; while I usually have no idea what he does after work, today I got a glimpse: I overheard someone on speaker asking him to make up the numbers for something called Kah-Tan, which is probably code for “swingers’ party where people dress as MMA fighters.”)

  When Linda continued to be a no-show at 9:30 p.m., Jason started to get concerned since Ben had told us on group chat that he was buying (celebrating his bonus, a real whopper) and money was “no object” and Linda, who’s still Chinese enough at heart, would usually take advantage of such an offer (not that she isn’t generous when it comes to her own cash; she’s cool like that).

  “She’s not replying to my texts, and I know she can’t be working. Linda would never prioritize work over drinks, plus she’s known as the queen of delegation at her law firm. And her WhatsApp time stamp says that she’s not looked at her phone since sevenoh-eight. That’s unusual.”

  I shrugged. “She’s an adult.”

  Oh, yeah, the reason I was restraining myself drinks-wise—at 9:00 p.m. or so I was meeting up with one of the Tinder matches, Alex the beer pun guy (he had the most attractive profile pic), at the whiskey bar for a quick drink. Meeting IRL was fun and he got along well with Val, Jason, and Ben, but my heart wasn’t really in it and I didn’t feel a strong physical pull toward him, so much so that when he proposed a second date I immediately rejected him, after which he showed his true colors: he switched targets and started hitting on one of my colleagues, the sole teetotaler of the group, who’s in her early thirties and the mother of twins. I was surprised when I saw them leave the bar together around 1:00 a.m., his hand unmistakably on her ass and her lips fastened to his. I thought she was happily married and a staunch Muslim—at least that’s what her Facebook profile told me.