Sarong Party Girls (9 page)

Charlie just rolled her eyes and sighed, leaning over to put out her ciggie in the ashtray. “Please lah—­cut the crap,” she said. “I naeioo you how long already—­no need to bullshit me. You just want to naeioo my secrets, just admit it.”

I could see Fann's face was starting to turn black—­I knew she never really liked Charlie. Charlie just blinked again at Fann and looked back at me.

“You want my advice?” Charlie said. “Then listen. Stop being so desperate. Please—­you girls keep going to the same places over and over, meeting the same groups of guys over and over. And when you go there you're always in the middle of everything, chitchatting with the same arses each weekend, dancing with them, going home with them—­or not going home with them but then seeing them the next weekend anyway. Aren't you bored? If you want ­people to notice you—­really notice you—­then you must hang back a bit, be in the shadows, let the guys discover you and want to naeioo you. These ang moh guys, hallo, all they want is the chase. If they want to run after you—­let them run! The harder they have to run, the more they want you. Even after you get married, must still make them run! When they stop running is when they run away.”

Wah, this was the longest I had ever heard Charlie talk. But it made sense. I was thinking about that guy I just pok'd—­what was his name? Obviously, that one was a mistake. Even though in the end he seemed like maybe a decent guy, at this point, guniang here cannot start over with him again. My flower—­all give away already. I even stayed over on the first night! The chase hadn't even begun but everything—­aiyoh—­everything was over already. If the guy didn't have such a hairy nose I might feel a bit sad. But my god, that nose!

“Hallo, Jazzy, are you even listening?” Charlie suddenly said. So I made sure to look back at her again.

“Also,” she said, looking around at all of us and scrunching her nose, “language, ladies. You and I know how we always talk. But kopitiam chitchat is different from ang moh chitchat. Guys don't like it. Even if they think it's a bit exotic, they in the end will think that you are just too LC for them. Want them to take you seriously, then you must give them the impression that when they bring you back to Melbourne, Chicago or whatever shit longkang like Manchester they came from, that you also can fit in and be the perfect wife. So yeah, among yourselves, you can talk talk however you want but when you want to hook ang moh guys, you must sound more atas.”

This one is true. When we get to the point of hanging out with ang mohs and their friends, whenever we talk, they sometimes catch no ball, asking us to repeat what we said—­slowly. Quite embarrassing. Charlie was right. If they cannot see us fitting into their world, then confirm we have no serious chance.

“Plus, this”—­Charlie started saying again, pointing her second finger at all of us, making a circle in the air—­“I can tell you, is not going to work.”

“What do you mean?” Fann said. Her dark face came back again.

“You three are too similar!” Charlie continued. “You think this one is what—­army is it? Everyone all the same one. No, your approach must be different—­your role model should be girl bands. See, even though they are one group of girls, all around the same age, all chio, you can always tell them apart. Each girl has a distinct personality—­got Posh Spice, Sporty Spice, Baby Spice . . . I'm not saying you should dye your hair different colors and wear costumes or some cock shit but maybe each one of you can find something to play up.

“Like you,” Charlie said, taking out another ciggie and waving it at Imo, “pretty face, nice clothes—­maybe you are the atas one. So maybe talk less, be standoffish a bit. Jazzy, you are more of the spunky type. Many ang moh guys like daring girls.”

Charlie gave Fann a hard look—­we could see her eyes going from her hair to her face to her body and back up. “You,” Charlie said, “you—­aiyoh. OK, I'm sure if you really put your mind to it, you can find something interesting.”

The bartender had come over with another vodka green tea for Charlie. All of us were sitting right in front of her and none of us had noticed that her glass was almost empty but somehow the guy managed to arrow it with his eyes from the other side of the room and fasterly make a new one for her. After he set it down, he lit her cigarette, waiting for her to take her first puff and smile sweetly at him before he walked away.

Charlie was quiet now. Her advice was good but it was a lot to think about—­things to practice. Maybe must even go shopping. But tonight—­tonight was still early. I guess maybe we could hang around a bit and have some drinks. It wasn't even 11
P.M.
after all—­although this was quite late for Harry's. Usually ang mohs like to go there for after-­work beers or earlyish drinks and then run home to their wives before it gets too late. If not for Charlie, who knows the whole staff at this Harry's, we wouldn't be here. We didn't like this particular Harry's bar, in Boat Quay, because it was very touristy. And all SPGs know tourists are like sailors—­in and out so quickly, confirm will have no results. My whole life I only knew of one guniang who managed to hook an American sailor on shore leave who wrote her love letters for six months then came back and asked her to marry him. Wah, that one is damn lottery! Now she lives in some chee bye little town in Virginia lah—­boring military wife and all. But still at least she managed to make it out.

Tonight though, the ang moh crowd at Harry's was older; many of them had wives or girlfriends by their sides so it was all a bit pointless. Just when the Filipino band started playing “Wonderful Tonight” and we were wondering whether we should go somewhere a bit more lively, some short Malay guy popped up by our table, winking at Charlie and all. We thought this was quite funny—­even Fann started smiling. If Charlie doesn't even want Chinese-­Singaporean guys—­Malay guys where got chance? But Charlie just laughed and patted the cushion next to her and he sat down.

“Rahiman—­girls; girls—­Rahiman,” Charlie casually said.

Rahiman jumped back up, leaned forward, smiling and shaking all our hands quite hard, asking each one of us what our names were. Even though we were quite stunned, we managed to be polite.

“Babe,” Rahiman said to Charlie, “drink?”

Charlie nodded and waved him away. The three of us just stared with our mouths open as Rahiman ran off to the bar.

Imo was the first one to ask. “Charlie, who is he?”

Charlie just shrugged. “Auntie tonight too tired to work hard—­this one, always eager, always shiok,” she said, bending closer toward us, cupping one hand by her cheek to whisper. “Big tongue.”

Three of us didn't care about being polite now and started stretching our necks to get a better look at Rahiman, who was at the bar chatting with the bartender. Every time his mouth opened, all I could think about was what was inside.

“Eh, girls,” Charlie said, snapping her fingers to get us to look back at her. We had been staring at Rahiman for so long that he was already picking up the two vodka green teas and heading back to our table.

“Advice session over,” Charlie said. “Now bugger off.”

 

chapter 7

I was still thinking about Big Tongue when I woke up the next morning.

After Charlie chased us out, all of us were so depressed we decided to just go home. We didn't even have the heart for supper. Charlie was our hero, you know. And she's secretly screwing a Malay guy? We never would have imagined it. She's so pretty—­she has her pick of all these ang moh guys. Good quality ones some more! So wasted. What would her parents think?

But when I woke up, I understood. Needs are needs. As long as Charlie is not so open about it, fooling around with Big Tongue maybe won't affect her chances so much. But if it was me, I really don't know if I could somehow bring myself to do it. Even if no one knows, you yourself will always know. So, somehow you must always maintain standards.

I still remember when we were teenagers and Marina Square was just built—­my god, the air-­con was so powerful, the cinema was so big, the Isetan there had so many floors and one whole section was filled with all the best makeup counters (Dior, you know—­don't play play!). Sher and all of us just started going there every weekend. At first, it was still quite high-­class—­mostly families (Singaporeans lah, but at the time we were not so focused on ang mohs yet so it didn't matter) and teenagers like us. Sometimes the American schoolkids would pop up also, but at that age, they always stuck to themselves and were not so interested in making friends. In fact, if we even said hallo to them they always looked at us a bit shocked, probably wondering how come we don't understand that we're too LC to be trying to talk to them. Only the Ozzie international schoolkids might be a bit friendly. But that's usually because the boys thought we might be an easy snog or something. (Which Fann more than once proved to be true lah. But that's another story.)

After a while though, all these Ah Bengs started taking over Marina Square! These gangs of guys with their spastic gelled hair and baggy pleated pants and their Ah Lian girlfriends who, even though they're already sixteen or seventeen years old they're somehow still choosing to wear Hello Kitty hairclips, just started showing up everywhere. If you go and see a film there, you confirm will find Ah Bengs in the last row talking loudly in Hokkien throughout the show. Sometimes in the food court there were even fights for tables and all—­especially near the famous chicken rice stall. So low-­class!

We were already considering not hanging out there anymore, especially since the
New Paper
started doing reports on “Marina Square Kids” after not only Ah Bengs but even their Ah Lian girlfriends started having quarrels and fights all over the place there. When Ah Lians fight, it's not as happening lah—­mostly a lot of shouting about wanting to “whack your face” and then pulling each other's spiro-­perm hair until the Hello Kitty hair clips fly. But some of the Ah Beng fights were actually quite serious—­one time, according to the
New Paper,
one of the guys even pulled out a Swiss Army knife.

But still, habit is habit. So on a Saturday afternoon, if we had nothing to do, then we didn't mind meeting at Marina Square. One Saturday, Sher and I were sitting outside McDonald's waiting for Fann. I think we were maybe seventeen years old at the time? Sher was looking chio as usual; me, not so much—­I still had a few pimples back then (must carry paper to blot my skin, type). At the time, none of us had handphones, so when Fann didn't show up after one hour, we panicked a bit. Call her house also got no answer. So we tried calling her pager, which meant that we ended up having to sit next to one of those old orange coin phones to wait for her to call us back. Normally, we didn't really mind waiting like this. Fann was very often late and Sher and I always could find nonsense to talk cock about for hours. But this time because we had to sit next to the coin phone outside McDonald's, we were right in the middle of foot traffic. Not only that, it was Ah Beng foot traffic! Normally when we see them we just try to stay out of their way. But McDonald's is like a giant Ah Beng magnet, man. And if you have two nice-­looking girls sitting outside McDonald's—­walao, Ah Bengs confirm will suddenly damn steam. After the fourth oily Ah Beng asked Sher, “
Xiao jie, yao bu yao zuo peng you
?” I finally couldn't keep quiet anymore. I know he and his friends and his parents all probably speak Mandarin or Hokkien to each other all the time lah but hallo, doesn't he have eyes to see that Sher and I were more atas than that? Yah, I mean, my parents still speak Hokkien to each other at home when they don't want me to understand what they're saying, but even they know that English is the future. That's why we always try to speak proper English!

“Be your friend?” I said to the Ah Beng, blinking at him and then quickly looking away sideways before looking back, like you see those bitchy girls do in all those Cantonese TV serials. “Who wants to be your friend? You think we what? Desperate, is it?”

Wah, Ah Beng became damn angry. After his face turned color a bit, he turned around and used his finger to signal his friends to come over from their McDonald's booth. And once they all stood up, even without hearing the sudden rumble of many many chairs, I realized they were quite a big group. I was a bit scared but I knew that there is one golden rule—­unless it's your own girlfriend, Ah Bengs don't hit girls. (If this guy had an Ah Lian girlfriend there, then I would really be scared. Girls can always whack other girls, even if it's not their fight. That's fair game.) Even though this Ah Beng was angry, I could see that he suddenly remembered that, so he knew he had to back off. Sher stepped in to do what she always does. “Um, sorry ah,” she said, smiling very sweetly at the Ah Beng. “My friend today a bit moody lah. You know, the usual girl stuff.”

Ah Beng was quiet for a bit—­his friends were all surrounding him now like idiots, not knowing what to do because they weren't quite sure what was going on. (I tell you ah, the brainless group mentality of Ah Bengs is always amazing to watch. If I ever meet a professor at Harvard I confirm will tell him to come to Singapore and do a study.) Then Sher extended her right hand and said, “Come, OK, let's be friends.” Ah Beng's sour face suddenly disappeared. Now, happy lah—­even though it had to come to this, he finally got what he wanted. The fucker smiled and quickly shook Sher's hand, asking, “What's your name ah?” Sher just said, “Oh, we are waiting for our boyfriends.” Then, like that Ah Beng lost interest—­he just said “Orh” and then walked away, his friends all following behind.

When we discussed it later, Sher actually said, “You know, that Ah Beng was not bad-­looking for an Ah Beng.” It's true lah—­when I thought about it, he was tall, skinny, had a Cantopop nose and his hair wasn't so stiff and poufed up, like all his friends'.

“Aiyoh, Sher—­come on lah,” I said. “Ah Beng is still Ah Beng. Once you go with one, you are nothing better than an Ah Lian.”

Which is why, even if it's a secret, I don't know if I can ever sleep with a Malay guy. Must always maintain standards.

And this was clearly something Sher never understood, considering the Ah Beng she ended up marrying.

Not that I had a lot of time to sit around thinking about big tongues and Ah Bengs that Sunday morning. Kin Meng this week was on holiday so, feeling super free, he decided to organize a brunch. At first, I was not so interested—­his friends are all quite snobby. And they are all Singaporean! If some of them are ang moh, then they at least have some reason to be snobby. But when he told me where they were brunching, I said, OK—­set.

By the time I arrived at Relish, the place was already damn happening. I had only been here for dinner once before, on a weeknight some more, but even then I already knew that this one was a potentially good place to meet guys. Bukit Timah neighborhood is where all the expats live, after all—­so if you want to meet an ang moh, must sometimes come and just casually hang out where they go and makan, pretend like you always hang out there. No pressure, just smile sweetly, act like you belong, then maybe you can make some friends. And Relish is one of those places—­casual restaurant with good pastas and burgers. Both of those things are what ang mohs like to eat, so confirm Relish is a good place to go. The one time I went, Sher and I decided to just go and have girls' night dinner by ourselves—­the scene was quite slow; some more it was mostly filled with families or ­couples. “Maybe lunch or brunch better,” she whispered to me, after we spent all night looking at cute guys who, if we met them at Harry's or Clarke Quay maybe would buy us a drink, but with their girlfriends or wives around? Forget it—­please, they confirm don't even dare look at us.

Kin Meng and his friends all live in Bukit Timah—­all born rich, Anglo-­Chinese School boys lah—­so they were all regulars at Relish, usually for dinner with their wives. When I got there, they were all at their usual table all the way in the back—­good spot for ­people watching. From that back center table you can see everyone who walks into the restaurant—­and then you can quickly decide whether you want to make eye contact and say “Hi” or not. The restaurant is on the second floor of this old colonial townhouse so the windows are quite big, got a lot of light type—­very easy to spot anyone you want to talk to. Some more in the center usually there's a display of cakes or some shit so you can use that as an excuse to get a closer look at ­people at the restaurant—­and I guess, the cakes also lah.

I've only known Kin Meng a few years—­he's an old friend of ­Louis's. Once Kin Meng got promoted to managing director of his shipping company then he started having to travel and entertain clients a lot and go to KTV lounges all the time. After going to a KTV lounge, he said, regular clubs at Clarke Quay were boring lah! It's so much easier after all to be able to pay a chio girl to sit with you for a few hours, listen to you talk cock and laugh at all your jokes. No strings attached. So we stopped seeing him so much after that. But he and I always got along quite well so I don't mind keeping in touch, even though he's married (and Singaporean).

Kin Meng stood up when I got to the table so he could give me a hug and a kiss. “Hi babes, how are you?” he said. Wah, this uncle today was damn stylo—­wearing loose, tailored white cotton cargo pants, brown Gucci sandals (got logo all) and a tight white V-­neck T-­shirt. His hair, as usual, was only slightly gelled and combed all the way back like Chow Yun-­Fat in
The God of Gamblers
.

“Eh, where's your wife?” I asked.

“Mah-­jongg,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I don't know how much she's going to lose today, man. Fuck.”

Kin Meng's wife ah, is really mah-­jongg queen. She started playing when he got promoted and had to travel a lot—­everyone needs a way to pass the time, that's what she said. So even though Kin Meng told her that hallo, there are other ways to pass time—­for example, maybe she can be like other bored tai-­tais and take a flower-­arranging course or volunteer at some bullshit charity? Or maybe she can get pregnant? But his wife doesn't want to lose her figure—­or freedom—­yet. So even though they talk about having a kid nonstop also in the end, it's all lumpah pah lan. Balls bang your cock until both stop motion—­no matter what you do, there's no movement anywhere, the outcome also the same. In the end, nothing happens. Just frustration. So, like that lah. No kids, but got lots of mah-­jongg. And from the way Kin Meng talks about it, also got lots of money exiting his bank account.

Kin Meng sat back down at the table, in the center of everything as usual. I said hi to Ramesh and his wife, Heidi, some American-­born Chinese that Ramesh met at uni in California and somehow managed to persuade to come back to Singapore with him. George, this guy who's the fucking snobbiest one of them all, was there also. He works for some theater company or some shit—­and he even has a power British accent all, calling it “theea-­TAH” instead of “tear-­TERR.” His wife, Susan, was there also—­not that it mattered. I think in all the years that I've known her, I've only heard her voice three times. Each time for some stupid cock reason like, asking me if I can pass the chili sauce or something.

I got there so late that everybody had ordered already—­Kin Meng even ordered for me, said he remembered that I like eggs Benedict or some shit. I don't really care lah. Unless it's at a hawker center, food is just food. All ang moh food is quite the same to me. No matter what it is, put chili sauce on top, then everything will be shiok.

At least that is my strategy now. The first time I went to an ang moh restaurant I still didn't know this because I was quite young. It was Imo's birthday and we were all in Primary Two. Her mum had this idea to bring us all out for a nice lunch at the Dynasty Hotel on Orchard Road after school—­at the time I didn't know anything about such places. Imo had been to places like that before lah—­not often but at least once or twice with her parents. But the rest of us were still quite toot. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether my parents have still ever been to a Western restaurant in an atas hotel—­got cold air-­con, use fork and knife to eat type of place.) From the moment we walked in though, I wanted to walk out. The restaurant was so beautiful! Everything smelled like air freshener—­and not the cheapo metallic kind that really hits your nose if you get too close to the dangling Christmas tree in taxicabs, but like actual roses or something. In fact, the restaurant had vases of flowers all around so after a while I wondered, eh, maybe it wasn't even air freshener. Until that moment, I hadn't even considered that there are some flowers that actually can smell like perfume.

I remember it being really hot that day, so hot that my school pinafore and white blouse had that thick, sour smell from morning sweat drying then mixing with early afternoon sweat. Even my ponytail was greasy. So greasy that I could taste it when I chewed on the tip of it—­something I only did when I was nervous. But that day I was damn fucking nervous.