Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  Louis held up his glass and said, “I’ll cheers to that.” So we all clinked glasses.

  “More importantly,” Andrew said, “who is that girl over there? Tight jeans, red blouse, long straight hair, fair skin. Louis, look!”

  I wasn’t sure where to look but tried to follow Louis’s eyes. “Ah,” he finally said, after looking around at the banquettes around us and then at the bar. “At the corner of the bar, is it?”

  Andrew nodded. “But I can’t really tell,” he said, “got gap or not?”

  That’s right. Louis had told me once that Andrew only goes out with girls with a gap between their thighs when they stand up. If there’s no gap and the tops of the thighs actually touch each other, the girl is too fat.

  Louis had the best view of the girl so he squinted hard, looking looking.

  “Got, got!” he said, winking at Andrew. “Go lah, brother—­what are you waiting for?”

  Andrew waited for the waitress, who just came back, to pour him a full glass, then he smoothed down his hair with his right hand like those guys in Cantopop music videos, grabbed his glass and got up. Louis and I didn’t say anything as we watched him casually walk over to the bar and start talking to the girl. I guess he said something funny because she laughed right away, then let him buy her a drink.

  “Good for him lah,” Louis said, picking up the cigar menu again and flipping through. “After that nightmare honeymoon he deserves a bit of fun.”

  chapter 12

  How to control my friend?

  I guess if I think about it, I know I should be angry with Louis. Kani nah—­I don’t care how much money he has. How can he tell me I have to control one of my best friends? Treating me like one of his servants, is it? But on the other hand, Louis is so good to us, he never cares how much we drink, what we want to drink, always never thinks twice about ordering whatever we want to make us happy at clubs. This—­this is really true friendship lah. I should try to listen to him.

  I remember one time when my mum saw Louis sending me home in one of his more expensive cars—­wah, the old lady got damn excited. Finally—­a Chinese boy sending her daughter home! In a nice car some more!

  The next morning, before my eyes could even fully open, my mum was by my bed with a small bowl of bird’s nest soup. “Ah Huay, come—­I got this from the market this morning,” she said, cho-­cho-­ing me to sit up so she could spoon some of it into my mouth. “It’s still quite warm—­better eat it quickly.”

  At that moment, I was still so blur that I had forgotten that Louis had sent me home. (It wasn’t just me lah—­he sent Imo home too. Thank goodness, he’s never tried anything funny with me. Awkward!) So I was quite suspicious of my mum and her morning bird’s nest soup. (Bird’s nest is fucking expensive, you know!) What did she want from me? But since she rarely starts my day without some lecture of some sort, I figured I’d better just enjoy this rare occasion. Long long time then come once—­better don’t argue. Just sit up and savor!

  The soup was actually quite good—­not too sweet, not too clumpy. After a few spoonfuls I began to look at my mum a little, wondering why she’s just sitting by my bed staring at me eat. Hallo, guniang here how old already? As if my mum is not tired of seeing me stuff food in my mouth after twenty-­six years?

  “Ma—­what?” I asked about halfway through.

  “Who’s that boy?” she immediately asked, even sitting up straighter. “He seemed nice.”

  Nice? I don’t know how she could tell. I know we don’t live on a high floor but could she really have been looking out the window at the exact time in the early early morning when Louis popped out of the car to give me a double kiss and hug goodnight? From the looks of it—­and the big smile on her face—­I guess so.

  “Aiyoh, please!” I said. “This one is married lah! You want me to go and steal other ­people’s husbands, is it?”

  My mother’s smile vanished. I actually started to feel a bit bad. I know she and I don’t wish the same things for my life—­but at the end of the day, I do love her.

  “Then what are you doing going out with him until odd hours of the night, having him send you home and all?” she asked. “Ah Huay—­you are a nice girl, you know. You cannot forget that!”

  “Ma—­please, don’t try and lecture me on things you don’t understand,” I said, putting the bowl aside now. Guniang here suddenly had no more appetite to eat. “Louis is just a friend—­a good friend who likes us girls to come out and hang out with him and his friends, drink drink, dance dance, talk talk, that’s all. Good clean fun. And he always buys us drinks some more—­so, everyone wins lah!”

  “You mean he buys you all drinks? All the time?” my mum said, shaking her head. I nodded.

  “What does he do? His family printing money, is it?”

  Actually, I wasn’t quite sure what Louis or his family did. I just knew that they were massively rich. I think his family is one of the original banking families of Singapore—­or something like that. Anyway I just told my mum I had no idea.

  “But why does he buy you all drinks? Doesn’t he want to save money and bring his wife on a nice holiday?” my mum asked, shaking her head again. I could tell that she was not only confused but also getting quite disgusted with this Louis character.

  “Aiyoh—­Ma, please don’t try and understand all these modern, young ­people things that you cannot understand,” I said. “Louis works hard during the week—­on weekends, he just likes to go out to clubs and have a good time with his friends. And when he does, he wants everyone to have a good time and drink and have fun. If you want to have an entourage come out with you wherever you go, I guess that’s the price you just pay. It’s just like that one. And it’s not like money matters that much to him or his family anyway. You compare the fortune god’s bank account with Louis’s—­I can’t tell you whose is bigger!”

  My mum was damn quiet now—­maybe she finally understood lah. Good—­the next time Louis is so generous to send me home again I don’t want to get another lecture or interrogation.

  I watched while my mum quickly got up to pick up the bowl of half-­eaten bird’s nest off my nightstand. Just before she headed to the door, she paused, however. I saw her thinking for a minute before opening her mouth again.

  “Ah Huay, I know you think your ma is old and useless,” she said softly. “But I do know some things—­and I also know that some things never change. Nothing is for free—­and if you think that it is, you’re just looking for problems.”

  She looked at me; I looked at her. Neither of us had anything to say so she just turned around and went back to the kitchen.

  Aiyoh—­I tell you. Some ­people no matter how old already will still never learn, I guess. I couldn’t think of any other way to explain this whole thing to her more clearly. Waste my saliva only. But who knows—­maybe one day she’ll see that she really doesn’t understand how the world works these days for us modern young women.

  Just when I was thinking about all that (while sitting at my office desk, headset on, shuffling papers around, trying to look busy because there was still thirty minutes to kill before lunchtime), the phone rang. Sher’s number popped up.

  Back from her honeymoon so soon? Cannot be.

  Should I answer? My first thought was, Of course not lah!

  The last time I talked to Sher—­like, really talked to Sher—­it was about a week after the proposal. After that cock proposal, I ignored her for a few days, which to us is sort of the equivalent of many months. Since primary school, Sher and I talked at least a few times a day. If we don’t talk for one day, it’s because we’re either on holiday with our parents or really sick, that kind of thing. But then, the more I thought about Ah Huat’s proposal, I wondered if maybe I’m approaching this the wrong way—­instead of ignoring Sher because I’m so shocked (and feel like vomiting blood), I should be proactive! Ma
ybe try and sit her down and explain why she’s throwing her life away if she goes through with this. Sher and I have been so close for so long—­surely she will listen to me!

  Things went well at first when we met for drinks that time. I’d asked her to meet me at this new tapas bar on Club Street. When we were growing up, Club Street was a bit shady lah—­not like Orchard Towers shady but even so, nice girls really didn’t go there. Not even to eat. It’s funny because it’s so near Chinatown—­and that area actually does have some good hawker stalls—­but even so, we never dared to spend much time in that area at night because long long time ago it used to be a red-­light district filled with Chinese prostitutes. This was during the British times lah—­I guess Raffles or one of his coolies decided that all the Chinese guys coming over to work in Singapore need some entertainment so, like that lah. All of a sudden there was a little red-­light district around Club Street just for those Chinese guys.

  These days though, that whole area is damn happening! Aiyah, Singapore is like that one. The country is so small, the government has to somehow keep coming up with new cool neighborhoods for ­people to hang out in. If you keep having new bars and restaurants and clubs open up in new little happening hubs then Singaporeans won’t get so bored and start thinking maybe it’s cooler to live in New York or London or some shit like that, after all. If we have all this here, no need to move anywhere! Singapore really is home sweet home in some ways.

  I asked Sher to meet me on a Friday night. Saturday night is also very happening, of course. But Friday night has a different energy lah. No matter what you do in Singapore—­or anywhere, too, I guess—­let’s face it. Most ­people hate their jobs. Who enjoys going to an office early in the morning and sitting in front of a computer for hours and hours, doing bullshit work for god knows who? But work is no choice lah. Must get paid, after all. So, just slog. That’s why by the time Friday rolls around, ­people have usually been waiting for it for so long, they have so much pent-­up energy, you can sometimes see guys just looking like they’re about to explode when they walk into a bar and see all the chio girls in front of them. Good formula for success lah, this one.

  The bar I picked was a new one so it was packed by the time we got there at 10 P.M.—­so packed that it took us forever to reach the bar to order a drink. (On the way some guy even sloshed his beer all over the front of my dress. Ang moh guy—­normally I would be quite happy but when I saw his face and how toot it looked and how drunk he was already, I just blinked at him and carried on. Tonight—­I had a mission!)

  Sher had somehow managed to score a small table by the time I got us vodka Ribenas from the bar. She always had a knack for stuff like that—­really pretty girls really do have a leg up in life sometimes. (Especially pretty girls who don’t think or act like they’re pretty.)

  I set the glasses down on top of the already soggy napkins at their bases and slid into the narrow cushioned booth next to Sher. The bar was so loud we had to really huddle together so we could talk without shouting. I always liked feeling Sher so close—­somehow it always reminded me of when we were kids, how freely we would just put our arms around each other or fall asleep on each other’s shoulders on the school bus. I mean, I know that we still care a lot about each other—­despite this toot Ah Huat business—­but somehow, it’s sad, but when you get older you just automatically get less affectionate with your girlfriends. I remember one time I was hanging out with Sher after school watching the guys at rugby practice. It wasn’t too hot a day so the scratchy concrete step wasn’t burning my backside like it usually does. At the time Sher had a small crush on one of the ruggers so we used to just go and sit there, sometimes pretending to do homework or read—­ha! As if—­while watching them practice. It was such a comfortable day, everything was fairly quiet off the field, and I guess I was feeling a little happy, which made me feel sleepy. So I just put my head on Sher’s shoulder; I felt her put her right arm around me and squeeze my shoulder as I started drifting off. I was just about to really fall asleep when I heard some Ah Bengs shuffling by—­you can usually hear them from a distance, all their lan jiao talk here and kani nah there.

  As they got closer though, they started shouting at us! “Eh, eh, eh!” one of them said, pointing pointing and all. I could hear some of the others laughing. Then another said, “Wah—­lesbo is it?” And then more laughter! Kani nah. I mean, who cares what Ah Bengs think? But anyway, I sat up straight and Sher took her arm away. “Just heck care them lah,” Sher whispered. I nodded. (But still, I turned around and gave them my finger.)

  “Come, come—­cheers,” I said, picking up my glass and clinking it with Sher’s. She smiled at me, relieved, I think, that I seemed to be in a good mood and wasn’t starting our evening by hantaming her for agreeing to marry Ah Huat. We sipped our drinks slowly, both not feeling eager to have to get up and get another round in that scrum again.

  Side by side, we looked out at the crush of ­people for a few minutes, not saying a word. “So . . .” we both started to say at the same time, before laughing, also at the same time.

  “You go first lah,” Sher said, turning to look at me.

  I took a long look at her and wondered where I could possibly start. There was too much to say. “Why?” I simply asked.

  Sher didn’t look surprised. From the way she took a small breath and immediately started speaking, I could tell she had rehearsed what was coming out. “Jazz, I know you don’t understand, but try to see things from my eyes—­”

  I cut her off. “You’re right—­I don’t understand!” I said. I could see her slumping down a little and looking at me, a bit worried. I could tell this was what she’d been expecting since she walked into the bar. “Sher, all I’ve ever done is see things from your eyes. We have the same eyes! Don’t you think I’ve always just wanted the best life ahead for the two of us? Have you thought—­really thought—­of what your life with Ah Huat is going to be like? What being an Ah Beng’s wife is like? This kind of life—­where got future? You’re going to find yourself living in some lousy government housing building in some dark flat where you’re chained to the kitchen making soup for your Ah Beng babies and no one is going to care about you. What about all our plans and dreams of living overseas one day, having beautiful Chanel babies? We are so close! Why give up now?”

  Sher sighed and looked away from me, staring at the guys hovering by the bar. I could feel Sher slipping away. And I felt a dull pain forming in my chest. The thought of not having her in my life, answering my texts, holding my hair back—­all of that, it was just too much. We had been through so, so much. Could she really be choosing Ah Huat over me? Over us? Over our future lives together?

  “Sher,” I said, really looking at her now, trying to get her to stop staring at the fuckers in front of us and just look back at me. I was almost begging now, from the tone of my voice. “You are so pretty—­you still have so much potential! Please, tolong, don’t throw it all away.”

  Sher looked hard at me, sighed, then took a large sip before slowly setting the glass down and looking out again at the crowd. She was quiet for what seemed like a long time—­though it probably was only actually a minute or two. I looked out at the crowd, too, trying to figure out what she was seeing. I was so busy scanning her field of vision I almost didn’t hear her voice.

  “I’m tired,” Sher said, so quietly.

  “Tired?” I asked, a bit disbelieving. “Of what?”

  “Of this, Jazzy—­this! All this,” Sher suddenly said quite loudly, waving her hand at the scrum all around us. “Aren’t you? We’ve been doing this for how many donkey’s years already—­since we were sixteen! That’s ten long years, almost half our lives! You still not tired?”

  I looked at the ­people around us. The setting didn’t seem any different from any of the bars and clubs we always went to on weekends. Singaporean girls, some Singaporean guys, lots of ang mohs—­what wa
s Sher’s problem? What did she expect? What did she want beyond all this? Life in Singapore is just like that, after all—­if you want to meet anyone good, you just have to do the bar scene. I don’t care how tired you are, you still must just go out there and chong. Otherwise—­do what? Stay at home and look at your mum; your mum look at you, is it?

  “Of course I am tired sometimes,” I said. “Of course I wish I was married already. But things that are worth it never come easily, hallo. We have to keep trying, Sher. Please? I mean, I get that OK, maybe ang mohs in the end may not be for you—­but an Ah Beng? Come on, there are so many better Singaporean-­Chinese guys out there than that. You can do so much better. If you told me you want to be Louis’s secret mistress, even I would support that more than this. You marrying Ah Huat—­it’s just so wasted! As your best friend, I can’t just stand by and watch you do this to yourself.”

  Sher turned away from me and was silent again. I tried to imagine what she was thinking at that moment. Usually, Sher and I were xin lin xiang tong—­hearts and minds perfectly aligned. But now—­now, after all the words that I had just heard out of her mouth, I couldn’t even imagine what she might be thinking. Something had shifted.

  “You know,” Sher finally said, “when I told my mum Ah Huat proposed, do you know how happy she was? I’ve never seen my mum so happy, Jazz. You know our parents—­they have so little to get happy about. But my mum, she was really really happy. All these guys we’ve dated all these years, I never even once thought about bringing them back to meet my mum because—­what could they possibly talk about? An ang moh guy in my parents’ little flat? They can’t even speak the same language! But Ah Huat—­he’s a good guy and he treats my mum well, always bringing her things to eat and renting her favorite Cantonese shows to bring to her. He’s going to be good to her. And I think he’s going to be good to me. And our children.”