by Lauren Ho
Rage was making me talk out loud, but because it was a law firm and people mutter out loud all the time, like right nutters, not one single person I passed on my way to Mong’s office gave me a second look, including a few of the more hard-core mouth breathers— I mean, juniors pretending to work.
I found myself standing outside his office, wild-eyed.
No one was in. It hit me that I had never seen it in its current state: pitch-dark, empty, its overlord away for the evening: Mong didn’t exactly believe in personal time off, much less holidays. He was always working.
The door was ajar, so I slipped in to look around, curious, having never been in his office for more than a few minutes at a time and only to receive his instructions on a file. I turned on the antique brass reading lamp on his desk and lowered myself into the chair gingerly, almost as though I was afraid he would pop out from the shadows and say, in his laconic way, “Boo.”
Mong’s office was a study in minimalism. Behind him were the shelves of expensive books from the foremost legal experts, local and international, in different areas of law, that I’d fleetingly contemplated incinerating. The two framed pieces of art were Japanese wood-cut prints, of single men at study. His desk was conspicuously bare except for a few of his favorite awards, those chintzy crystal trophies that told the world how much he was worth, and a yellow legal pad with actual important words on them, not doodles. No pictures of his family, nothing remotely personal, although this was the one place he spent the most time and was probably the one place he felt truly at home. It wasn’t because he was a private person, exactly. It was just a true reflection of who he was: married to his work, everything else second. This wasn’t just his job—it was his identity.
I had a morbid image of Mong’s funeral, and how everyone there was from the firm and, worse, dry-eyed. For some reason I’d been tasked to give a eulogy about Mong’s life, and all I could do was read out a list of case law in which he’d triumphed over his opponents, and made his clients very happy and rich.
And what about me? How was I any different?
I didn’t love the law, not this way. Yet I was spending almost as much time as he was at work. Perhaps, a voice inside me piped up hesitantly, I should take this as a sign that I had the wrong priorities?
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head angrily. I deserved to be in that seat. It was the only thing I knew, and I was good at it. One of the best. And didn’t Eric tell me that life was about compromises, that in the beginning he hadn’t wanted to take over his family business, and now here he was molded to it and it to him, and he’d learned to accept his path, to make peace with his birthright, and now he was glad he did?
I called him and told him about what the firm had apparently decided.
“Honey,” he said, “as soon as I’m back from Vietnam this weekend, I’m going to make things right.”
“Whah you mean,” I said, helping myself to the contents (emergency whiskey) of my hip flask.
“I’m going to take my business away. And I’m going to tell all my business partners to stop using your law firm, going forward. They aren’t the only players in town.” Steel entered his voice. “And then, we’re going to launch an anti-discrimination lawsuit against them.”
“Yeaaaaargh!” I said, excited and possibly drunk. “Sue them! Sue them!” (Even though there was a remote chance that there was another female candidate on that list, although I couldn’t think of anyone else, male or female, who deserved this promotion more than me, if we were looking at merits.)
“And you can set up your own law firm with the business we’ll channel to you. I’ll make you managing partner of your own firm. How does that sound, my love?”
“Yas that shounds amazing,” I slurred. “Are you sure about this?”
“Andrea, you are my future,” he told me. “I want you to have everything, anything you’ve ever wanted. The world will be yours.”
“You’re the besht!”
“I love you,” he said.
“I do you, too,” I told him exuberantly. “I need a nap now.”
So I took one.
12:30 a.m. Woke up, head throbbing, then the events of just now came rushing back. A sour mix of injustice, anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge fizzed in my belly. I felt betrayed by the firm, which had dangled a promotion in front of me for two years.
But now, Eric was providing me with redemption, no matter what.
No matter—
“Ding!” A pop-up notification. A red-hot jolt of adrenaline: Suresh had just published another TLTS strip.
In a motel, Rhean and Water broke apart, naked, trembling, returning to themselves. Changing back. It’s happening faster now.
The kills just keep them on a shorter and shorter leash.
There are two bodies on the floor beside their bed. A pimp and his business partner, their faces twisted. In horror. They were young, in their late twenties. Maybe they weren’t even pimps. Water realizes he doesn’t know anymore.
Water turned to Rhean. “I can’t stop myself.”
“Neither can I,” she admits.
He knows this. This had gone on long enough.
He gets up, shaking, walks to his kill bag. Retrieves a syringe marked “W.” With a swift jab to his thigh he injects himself with the lethal cocktail of drugs he’d concocted for this purpose. You die fast when that happens. Unless . . .
She cries out when she sees what he is about to do. Leaps off the bed and runs to him, too late.
He’s already on the floor, already dying.
“Rhean,” he says, with difficulty.
She’s shaking her head, beating the floor, unable to hold him toward the end. “Why?” she asks, even though she knows.
“My North Star . . . ,” he whispered. His nickname for her. “Do you remember w-why I chose it for you?”
Rheans nods, weeping. Between tears, she manages to finish his words for him. “You don’t have to be the brightest star in the sky, but you’re the one I look to when I need direction.”
“I love you, Louise,” he says, fading. He remembers everything now.
All of a sudden a dam inside me burst. I couldn’t stop crying. From exhaustion, from confusion, the gnawing realisation that I was stagnating even as I was moving, from the shape of things unknown in my new future. But it was time to move on from the ill-fitting life I’d made my own for too long. I needed to redeem my own true self, whomever she was, and Eric could not be part of that journey. I would never have to ask the hard questions in the life Eric envisaged for me, a life where all the texture and sharp edges would be sanded away by money and privilege. That was not a life, at least not one I wanted to live. The time for safety nets was over.
“YOLO,” I whispered, blowing my nose with pieces of Mong’s legal pad. The snowflakes had it right, after all.
Part V
THE LAST TRUE SELF
51
Saturday 15 October
1:20 a.m. Just checked TLTS. Suresh is now at 718K followers on Insta! And there’s a heap of reaction videos on YouTube of people crying and most of it is of the positive kind where no one threatens the creator of TLTS for ending Water.
It’s official—Suresh’s bold move to kill Water has broken the internet—ish.
* * *
—
Visited Mong at the hospital. He was asleep, which was good. For lack of a good gift idea, I wrote him a card and told him that VizWare was in play again. Usman had written in to tell me this morning.
Also brought him a super boring new edition of some collection of essays from a super boring constitutional law expert from America, so he’d have something light to read.
Then I called Eric.
He met me at Les Deux, the very first restaurant we ever dined at together (“first date” seemed too juvenile a way to put it when it came
to Eric). I wouldn’t let him pick me up from my place, preferring to meet him there directly.
There was champagne, a vintage bottle, chilling in a bucket, and dozens of red roses. He was sipping a glass of his favorite Burgundy red. I sat down and refused the menu when offered—I wouldn’t be staying.
“So, here we are,” he said.
I bit my lip and said nothing; I literally could not speak, so clenched was my jaw.
“I think I already know what this is about,” he said after several uncomfortable moments had passed; his tone was cool, his face expressionless.
I slid the beautiful ring in its box back to him. “I’m sorry, Eric. I just . . . I really thought I could, but I can’t. I’m so, so sorry.” I looked at him and looked away. The words were trivial compared to the visible impact it had on him.
He pocketed the box and gave me a small, sad smile. “It’s fine. I was afraid that was what you were going to say the moment you told me you wanted to meet in public. But I was hoping”—gesturing at the champagne, roses—“that my instincts would turn out wrong this time.”
“I wanted so much to mean yes,” I said, feeling worse and worse. “But I would have been making a big mistake. You are a good man—just not for me. I’m so, so sorry, Eric—for taking it back.” I tried to return the Charles Bukowski book, even if it had become such a prized possession to me in such a short time.
He flinched and pushed it back to me. “Please keep that—it was a gift. It’s fine, really. I knew this was the likelier outcome from the moment I saw you hesitate when I proposed. When a woman tells you she needs time to mull over her reply to your marriage proposal . . . well, the odds are definitely not in your favor. Even when you said yes to me in front of your mother, I thought you . . . you seemed . . . unsure.”
“Why did you agree to wait, then?”
He held my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I guess I wanted some more time to endear myself to you, in hopes that one day you’d be convinced to keep me by your side.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he placed it gently on the table. “Goodbye, Andrea.”
“Goodbye, Eric.” It was taking all my willpower not to burst into tears at the wounded look in his eyes. I stood and walked away, but not before I paid the tab on our table (an eye-watering sum for his wine and the uncorked champagne). It was not a Power Move, but it was the right thing to do.
Monday 17 October
8:30 a.m. Went to work and put in the Face Time. There’s still a chance Kai’s spies are wrong. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
Still . . . what a chore.
Sunday 30 October
5:30 p.m. Just came back from KL after visiting my mom over the weekend. She’s recovered remarkably quickly, even if the heart attack had been a minor one. Turns out Eric was right: finding out that I was engaged had indeed hastened her recovery.
I did try to tell her, really; I had it all written down. How I recognized what a good man Eric was and how wonderful our life would be, but one without the surprises, the discovery, and yes, even the struggle, that make life Life. Choosing Eric meant choosing to study medicine when I really wanted to study pharmacy, however ridiculous that analogy was. Choosing Eric meant not ultimately choosing Me.
But I still couldn’t. I saw her wan face light up whenever she talked about wedding venues and dates, and I couldn’t do it. She may end up waiting on the longest engagement ever.
1:05 a.m. OMG. What will happen to me when she finally finds out? When Auntie Wei Wei and the whole clan find out??? Will never hear the end of it. I’ll have to change my name and move to Japan, where people have given up on reproducing and have turned to much more enlightened, spiritually renewing social activities, like viewing blooming sakuras, bathing in onsens, etc. And maybe at one of the onsens I will, while in top physical shape, run into the divine, utterly age-appropriate Takeshi Kaneshiro, who is still, as far as I can google, single, and we shall fall hopelessly in love.
Mmm. Takeshi Kaneshiro.
1:35 a.m. Texted Linda about possibly moving to Japan.
1:45 a.m. She texts back: Try learning kanji then tell me how you feel about Japan in an hour.
I rolled my eyes. I speak Mandarin, bahasa Indonesia, English, two Chinese dialects, and Spanish at B2 level. How difficult can Japanese be? Challenge accepted.
3:05 a.m. Forget Japan.
Monday 31 October
7:15 a.m. Terrible MRT ride. Blond cyborg cyclist was back and weirder than ever. Why, God, why, are men not arrested on public indecency if they wear Lycra suits? Why? It’s so unfair!
9:20 a.m. Must . . . not . . . hurl . . . myself . . . out . . . of . . . building . . .
10:15 a.m. Ooh croissants!
1:20 p.m. Have decided to embark on a self-imposed season of sobriety. Much as I hated to admit it, I think I drink a bit too much. I have to stop using (so much) alcohol and Angry Birds/Candy Crush as ways to self-medicate. Abusing alcohol and mobile phone games is not allowing me space to develop the clarity of mind needed to identify and understand the root cause(s) of my problems so that I could truly solve them, according to a listicle I found on a mental health website today.
3:15 p.m. OK, it’s maybe premature to lump mobile phone games with alcohol. Angry Birds, for example, promotes problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination. It’s the key to keeping the brain young, unlike alcohol, ruiner of brains.
7:05 p.m. Maybe will just have a wee bit of Malbec.
1:03 a.m. Oof.
Saturday 5 November
Exercised today. Ran 3 km on a treadmill.
Fine, power walked.
Fine, walked.
But still—it’s a start.
52
Saturday 12 November
Today is Valerie’s Big Day!
I got ready with the enthusiasm of a detainee going to a forced labor camp. This wedding was going to be an extravagant snore fest. Valerie’s friends were super boring tai-tais, the kind that had been so successfully declawed by their ceaselessly unsurprising life of comfort and luxury that the only thing that stimulated them was the consumption of luxury goods and being profiled by one society magazine or the other. I could only hope that Ralph Kang’s friends turned out to be raging drunks, professional clowns, or charming intellectuals.
Ralph’s friends . . .
The blood drained from my face. I had totally forgotten that Eric would be attending the wedding!
I contemplated flinging myself off a tall building but then reality reasserted itself and I sighed. I would likely see Eric again eventually so why not now in the civilized setting of five hundred of society’s Who’s Who. I would be like the Dude in The Big Lebowski, Zen as a Japanese zephyr on Valium.
By the time I arrived at One Fullerton I was sweating so hard that I was worried it was showing through all the gold lace of my favorite (and only) Valentino gown, a vintage piece I had chanced upon one day in a boutique in Chelsea, London. But I needn’t have worried because the sheer amount of bling on display (and the concentrated glory emanating from such a tight clutch of egos) was far more distracting than my sweat stains, plus the lighting was flattering. I downed a couple of glasses of vintage champagne, breaking my season— I mean, week of sobriety, alas, and immediately felt better, so that by the time Linda arrived, herself plus-one-less (Jason, who had been invited, was down with flu), I was in a significantly upbeat mood. As usual, she looked amazing; she wore a fitted mermaid gown in a deep oxblood red satin that set off her fair skin and jet black hair to maximum advantage. She wouldn’t be dancing alone later, that much was for sure.
She gave me a hug as soon as she saw me and said, “You’re lucky I’ve got spare deodorant. Come with me.”
I looked at her tiny cigarette clutch and said, “How—”
“It’s best you don’t ask too many questions,” was her cryptic reply.
Someone rang a gong and everyone else drifted to their respective tables, decorated in the autumnal white-and-gold color scheme of the wedding with centerpieces of faceted crystal vases filled with sprays of white ostrich feathers, gold branches, and soft white flowers. I glanced around to see who else I knew in the crowd, and had to stop myself from bolting when I saw Anousha, seated at a table nearby with the managing partner of my firm, Evan Bilson, along with a few of the senior partners and their plus-ones. I had almost forgotten that the firm had been invited, Ralph being a long-standing client; I guess Anousha and Evan must know each other from before, some London connection perhaps. I found myself wishing Suresh was there, but I knew he was still in Jakarta.
I was just morosely thinking to myself that the wedding couldn’t get any worse when Eric made his appearance, dashing in a black tux as he entered the ballroom with his arm around the waist of none other than Anne, Diana’s mom. They made a splash as they wove their regal way to their table; Anne’s one-shouldered canary yellow gown stood out from the crowd. She looked fabulous, but I had a feeling that her smug smile had more to do with her society debut on the arm of Eric Deng, who had hitherto kept her existence hush-hush, than her exquisite dress.