Cheryl Tan: Sarong Party Girls

At this point I was a bit hungry but Fann and Imo were so quiet I thought I’d better carry on. I was starting to feel like I was giving one of those opposition rally speeches you see on the Internet. My voice was getting louder and louder, Fann and Imo were both sitting up, leaning forward, listening carefully to each word. If I waved a flag, I tell you, they confirm will shout “Merdeka!” (At least, this is what I was thinking in my head lah.)

“Last one: This one is not hard,” I said. “We should just know the places to go. We already know the bars—Hard Rock, Studemeyer’s, Chaplin’s, these are all good places to spot ang mohs. But we also must try and see them in normal situations—for example, ang mohs like brunch! And hello, I’m not talking about going eat roti prata or prawn noodles type of brunch. Pancakes lah, eggs lah—that kind of thing. Even if we don’t really like to eat that crap, we must also whack brunch. Cannot just whack the bars and clubs. Sunday lunchtime—must try.

“OK? Now, we must be serious a bit. If this is what we want, then we must really understand all of this. Cannot anyhow anyhow anymore.”

The two of them were very quiet and looked at each other blankly. “Jazzy,” Fann finally said. “I think this plan—we cannot be like that lah. Love and relationships must be natural, not so calculative. We cannot plan plan plan until like this. Otherwise, what does it all mean? We might as well be like our parents.”

My god, when she said this—this really got me upset. The whole point of my plan, of us trying so hard on all this, is exactly so we won’t end up like our parents. Fann of all people should know—when her father dropped dead her mother was actually happy! No one to kau beh and fight with her for the TV when she wants to watch her Cantonese serials anymore. No one to sit on her sofa, smoking and peeling dried skin off his toes for hours each evening. Finally—after all those lousy years, peace inside her own house!

“Fann,” I said, blinking hard at her. “You wake up your own head! If we don’t follow this plan, we will end up like your parents, my parents or even worse—Imo’s parents!” Even though I was angry, I felt bad about saying that last part lah—hello, this guniang here isn’t heartless after all. But when I looked over at Imo and said, “Eh, sorry,” she just shrugged.

“It’s true,” Imo said very softly. “We can’t end up like them.”

All this, I know, was a lot for Fann and Imo to think about. But you look at us—now, we are still chio, still happening. But twenty-six and twenty-seven is not young already, you know. Fann has always been a bit cannot make it lah, and Sher is a gone case already, but Imo and I still have a chance! Even then, I can already see, sometimes when I look at our old photos, that last year and the year before that, we were even more chio. So if we carry on like this, that means next year we will be even less chio! This matter of getting an ang moh husband—if we are smart—it’s best to try and fasterly settle.

“In fact,” I added, “I think we actually must hurry up a bit. If you are serious about this, then, come, we set deadline. Today is Feb first—by end of month, must try and confirm something.”

“Like what?” Fann asked. “You want us to be married in a month? Be engaged?” Imo joined in. “Crazy, lah!” she said. “That’s only a month! I’m very busy at work, you know. Our big Club 21 sale is happening this month!”

Aiyoh, my god. These people! Hadn’t they been listening to anything I said?

“Look,” I said, “no one is asking you to hold a wedding banquet in thirty days. All I’m saying is, by the end of the month, we should at least have an ang moh boyfriend—a serious one. If we really focus and put our minds to it—and follow the strategy—this one, I tell you, is probably can. So how? Set?”

Imo looked at Fann, who looked back at her for a moment. “OK,” Imo said, raising her glass and waving her hand at Fann to follow. Together, we clinked our glasses and said, “Set!”

I still remember the night when everything went to shit.

Of course I didn’t want to go to the wedding banquet. Sher, if she could actually bring herself to give a flying shit about our donkey’s years of friendship, should have known that. After everything that happened, after everything we discussed over the years and everything we planned and tried for, and then everything just going to hell at the end because of some cock decision she suddenly made—just the fact that she was asking me to come to her wedding was damn bloody daring.

But then she texted me one day, and then that night, and then the next day asking—no, actually, begging—for one small favor. “I need you there, Jazzy. Sit at the reception desk, Jazzy. You don’t have to do anything, Jazzy. Just smile and greet people and be there for me, Jazzy. How long have we been good friends, Jazzy? You know you are practically my own sister.”

That last bit was the part that made me feel bad lah. I don’t have that many people I still know—or care about enough to actually text and see—who have been my kaki since primary school days. Or people who were there with me at Zambo until 3 A.M. in the morning on so many nights, holding my hair back as I’m throwing up into a longkang by the side of the road after a really good night out. At the end of the day, I have to honestly say I have never had a better friend than Sher. Friends like her are really A-plus-plus, man. Long long then will come one time. This, I always knew—and I always assumed we would be best friends until we were old fat aunties sitting in our rocking chairs looking out at our colorful English gardens, sipping tea or whatever it is they drink over there.

So, I felt a bit bad. After all, even though Sher changed her mind and abandoned the three of us in the end, I couldn’t ignore the fact that we used to be good friends.

I remember when we first started really hitting the SPG bars—Studemeyer’s was one of the first places everyone used to go. Right when the club first opened awhile ago it had all these good-looking ang moh guys hanging out there on weekends. But then very quickly all these Ah Bengs in their old-fashioned pleated baggy black pants, shiny silk shirts and overgelled blow-dried hair starting rushing in and taking over the club on weekends. Aiyoh—when I see those guys I just want to throw up. I know these Ah Bengs are Chinese-Singaporean guys who probably feel like they need to action a bit more to stand out—but I don’t understand how people can actually want to look so low-class! Even so, Sher wanted to see Studemeyer’s and we’d all never been. So somehow we ended up there on a Friday night—Louis had started reserving a table there on weekends the moment it opened, so we had a VIP spot. I didn’t mind going for that. Otherwise, I confirm won’t go.

When Louis saw me at Studemeyer’s, he was nice as usual, holding up the bottle of Chivas after we double-kissed. “Better faster get high,” he said, starting to pour even before I could find a place to put my handbag. “Where have you been? We’ve all been here since eleven drinking already. You’d better catch up. No fun being sober when we’re all so high.” After that, he just kept pouring. Every time my glass was even half-empty he would bring the Chivas over. I can’t remember whether he was also pouring so much for Sher, Fann and Imo. He must have—I think—but then in the end, it was only me, about one hour and six double-shot whiskey sodas later, who was suddenly feeling like not dancing anymore.

“Ehhh,” a voice came, so close to my ear I could feel a sticky hotness. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. I could feel him already, the front of his bulky jeans rubbing against my bum. Sher and Imo were convinced that Kelvin stuffed his crotch with socks—no way someone so short could be so big. “Aiyoh, please lah,” I said, turning my head around to shout so he could hear me. “Guniang here mabuk almost to the point of throwing up already and you still want to be like that.” But he just kept rubba-ing and didn’t go away. By the time I fully turned around so I could actually push him back, I could see from his saggy lids and big smile that he was quite gone. Kelvin just blinked and stumbled off to try his luck with some fresh girls near the next table.