Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

I was starting to feel strange. Not with Roy, but just the general feeling that something very odd was happening. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been around gardens before—it’s true, I hadn’t done this that often but hello, once you’ve seen one bush or one orchid jungle, do you really need to see more? Is each one really that different? I mean, of course if I had bothered to go on one of those school trips to Malaysia to go camping or some shit I might know a bit more about wilderness lah. But please—ask me to spend money on these kinds of toot things? Might as well ask me to buy ticket to see an opera or some useless crap like that. It’s not as if I’m printing money.

But I quickly realized what it was that made me feel like something was off—the silence! Roy wasn’t talking; neither was I. And while there were people around us—joggers, couples, the occasional family—everyone was fairly quiet, just slowly strolling, looking at flowers. I even heard birds. My god, I couldn’t remember the last time I heard birds just chirping at each other in Singapore—actually, maybe like in the 1990s, when for a few years it was quite happening among old uncles at the kopitiams to buy parakeets or other small songbirds and put them in pretty little round bamboo cages and bring them to the coffee shop early in the morning to show off. Back then, I tell you, this trend became so popular that kopitiams all over Singapore actually started creating sections of their terraces where there were hooks on the ceilings for these Ah Cheks to hang their birdcages.

Don’t ask me why this was fashion. Please—these are really old uncles we’re talking about. Who cares? But if I have to guess, I think it’s maybe something quite symbolic, that if their real birds cannot perform anymore then they might as well buy birds to rear and compete so they can at least feel better about one thing in their pathetic lives. You know how guys are lah—no more good bird to fight also still want to fight.

I guess that’s why when it was so quiet that I could hear birds in the air—immediately, I felt like something was wrong. After all, we definitely weren’t in a 1990s kopitiam!

“Shall we sit?” Roy suddenly said, bursting my kopitiam uncle-bird memories. We had come upon a bench in the shade. I looked around—Roy wasn’t bad. He had managed to pick the only bench all around us that was nicely painted and not speckled with birdshit. (Although if my mum was here, she would say, “Bird shit—very lucky!” Not that she would actually dare go near a bench that was filled with bird shit, of course.)

Roy quickened his step a little before getting to the bench, taking out a packet of tissue from his pocket, pulling a sheet out and wiping down the bench before looking over at me. Tilting his head a little, he waved his hand with a big flourish, like those emcees onstage before introducing a singer or some shit.

“My lady?” he said, smiling and bowing a bit. OK lah—this move, even I have to admit, is quite can. It’s stupid lah. My god. So stupid. But I couldn’t help but smile.

We sat quietly for a bit, just sipping our coffees—lattes from Starbucks, mind you. (The thought of Seng buying me kopi at the kopitiam popped into my head all of a sudden. I was trying to imagine him asking me out on a coffee date like this in the park. My god, the guy would confirm show up with those old coolie-style clear plastic bags filled with kopi and then tied together with fluorescent pink plastic string into a loop so you can hook the hot bag of kopi on your finger and bring back a whole bunch, one for each of your Ah Beng friends. That’s just what happens when you buy takeaway kopi from a kopitiam. I wondered if Seng had ever even been inside a Starbucks and actually laughed out loud.)

“What’s so funny?” Roy asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” I said, feeling a bit embarrassed. When he still looked a bit curious, I figured I should say something. “Just happy to be here.”

Roy smiled. “Good, I’m really glad, Jazzy,” he said, taking a long sip. “You know, I asked you out here today so we could maybe get to know each other in a slightly more relaxed setting. I was starting to think maybe we’d started out on a bit of an intense footing, with, you know…” He looked over at me, slightly embarrassed.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he continued, “it was lovely how things began. You were so lovely. But it’s just not how I usually go about things. I’m really not like that back in England. I just… wanted to slow things down a little. See where things go.”

Interesting. In all my years of dating—especially with ang mohs—I had never heard such a speech before. Usually when guys reach the promised land, they like to stay there. No need to go anywhere else type. But here Roy was saying he wanted to get to know me outside of clubs and the bedroom? I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this piece of information. But then I remembered that he did just move to Singapore not too long ago. The scene probably hadn’t corrupted him—yet.

So I just smiled and said, “I’m glad.” From the slightly relieved smile on his face, I could tell it was the right response.

“You know,” Roy said, leaning back, draping his arm around my shoulder and looking out at the trees, the pond, the swans in front of us, “in some ways, I feel I was destined to come to Singapore. When I was ten, one of my dad’s friends who had come here on a business trip gave me this Singapore five-dollar bill and it had this drawing of the bulbul on it—do you know what that is? No? It’s a small tropical bird that you find in various parts of the world. It’s nothing very special to look at but it’s a songbird… Anyway, I was just getting really into bird-watching at the time and had just been reading about the bulbul—the idea of it being on a five-dollar bill, wow. I couldn’t get over it! I guess Singapore has been on my mind ever since…”

Bulbul? Bird-watching? This guniang was definitely in new territory here. If it had been any of my friends telling cock stories like this I would have just laughed and whacked them on the head and said, “You talking what cock? Don’t pretend to be deep lah!” But I remembered Roy’s car. And how tenderly he wiped down the bench for me, for us. And I decided to just be quiet a bit. Let him talk. See how. And actually, by the time we finished our coffees and walked back to the car, I was feeling like maybe—just maybe—even if the oil refinery career is not quite part of the big plan, even if he has that bloody hairy nose, maybe Roy has real potential.

Just thinking about our walk while at Studemeyer’s with Fann and the guys was still making me smile. That’s how happy I was, I guess. I took out my phone and thought about texting Roy, wondering what he was up to tonight. But I thought, I just saw him earlier today. Just let it rest for a bit. See how. I put my phone back in my clutch.

At that moment, Kelvin pointed to the small oblong podium in the middle of the dance floor that was, as usual, jammed with four or five people trying to action for everyone to see. When Studemeyer’s first opened and they were still trying to be a bit atas, they actually selected podium people—sexy sexy girls and guys who actually know how to dance, dress well and also look quite steam lah. At that time, those podium people were quite inspiration—you see them dancing like in those music videos (sometimes even making the exact moves—this was especially effective with Janet Jackson songs), it just makes you want to dance harder and look sexier. Everybody feels good. But as I mentioned before, their standards really dropped after the Ah Bengs started coming. Now, they just anyhow let people go on the podium and dance. Good clubs—how can they let such things happen? No wonder all the serious clubbers don’t really like coming here anymore.