Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

The podium tonight was a perfect example of this—my god, the variety of losers on it were A-plus-plus, man. There was one classic Ah Beng with the gelled hair and lumpar face, two Ah Lians, both wearing sequin cheena dresses like those KTV bar girls, one fat ang moh guy who confirm is a tourist—must be American, some more, judging from his T-shirt and baggy berms. I tell you—sometimes being ang moh is quite the good life. When they go to a club, they’re not Singaporeans so they don’t need to watch the dress code. Whatever you wear also any club will let you in.

And then—wah, this one I actually had never seen on the podium before—there was one vainpot auntie up there, a bit chubby chubby but still damn bloody vain. Auntie looked quite old—maybe thirty-something? — but even so, somehow she was the most energy, the most action of all the podium dancers. She was wearing tight jeans—but not those fashion fashion dark blue one. Hers were light blue; the denim looked like those cheapo, buy from the “fashion” stalls at the wet market kind. And yeah, her jeans were damn tight on her—but I can tell you it’s not because the jeans were designed to be tight. Even though the dance floor was quite dark, I could see from here that her legs were blown up like two sausage rolls. But lagi best was her top—she wore this loose, a bit see-through white tank top with such big arm holes that you could see her lacy bra. And this auntie’s bra—don’t play play! Fluorescent orange! Plus, she danced until so powerful that her bra straps kept slipping, so every few minutes auntie had to stop dancing, catch her breath and pull up her bra. She would stop, rest for a few seconds and then—action again!

I tell you, the four of us watched her for a few songs—and we laughed until we almost fell over the railing, man!

“Ladies,” Kelvin said, raising his glass to cheers with us again. “Please—promise me that when you are that old I won’t see your saggy backsides up on that podium!”

Aiyoh, socks-crotch tonight was really quite daring—having the balls to arrow us like that.

“Eh, Kelvin,” I said, clinking my glass with his. “Thanks for the advice—I see you are listening to your own advice as well? You and auntie over there are both the same age but I don’t see you joining her up there on the podium.”

Kelvin stopped smiling—his face had this bang balls look. He gave me the third finger but Andrew, Fann and I just laughed and laughed.

Just when I started to be in OK mood, settling into the clubbing scene and not really thinking about texting Roy anymore or wondering what he’s doing tonight, I saw someone waving at me from the dance floor. Kani nah—it’s Seng! Why does he have to be so bloody GPS—know how to find me and all? I didn’t want to be rude, so I just waved back then looked away. But ten minutes later, the fucker showed up on our level and was standing next to me in our booth!

“Excuse me?” Kelvin said to Seng and the even bigger Ah Beng friend he had dragged up with him to the VIP section. “Sorry, but this is a private table that we have reserved.”

“It’s OK,” Seng said, giving Kelvin a big fuck-off face. “That one,” he added, pointing at me, “my friend.”

Kelvin laughed, then looked at me. “Jazz? Real or not?”

Seng look at me; I look at him. I felt quite bad, especially after thinking about what my mum told me the other day, about how he bought her and Pa breakfast last week and all.

“Yeah, yeah, no problems—he’s my old friend,” I said, feeling damn bloody embarrassed. “But this one—is from a very long time ago!”

Kelvin just shook his head and gave me a dagger look before going over to whisper to Andrew. Fann looked at me and mouthed the words: “Why is he here?” I had nothing to say.

“Jazzy—this one, my friend Richard; Richard—Jazzy, my neighbor,” Seng said. His friend was one of those really smelly-face Ah Bengs—the kind of face that always looks like he just ate something wrong. Richard just looked at me, tilted his chin up and nodded. When Ah Bengs say hallo—is like that one. They never shake hands.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Seng.

“I sometimes come here,” he said. “Studemeyer’s is damn happening!”

Aiyoh, my god. Of course Seng is the exact sort of guy who would think this club is still happening.

“Don’t angry lah, Jazzy,” Seng said. “Long long time never see you in club already. Let’s just dance a bit.”

I was trying to think about what to do when the deejay started playing Black Eyed Peas and everyone around us started dancing like crazy and singing, “I gotta feeling… that tonight’s gonna be a good night!” and all. I didn’t want to kill the mood so I decided to dance along, but each time I looked over at Seng and Richard, my blood would really boil. The Ah Bengs were just happily dancing along, ignoring the dirty looks that Fann, Kelvin and Andrew were giving them. Why on earth was Seng here? Isn’t it bad enough that he harasses me in my own neighborhood, he comes to my house when I’m not there, but now he has to talk to me in clubs when I’m with my atas friends? And he even dares to bring his mega Ah Beng friend along when bothering me! Please. He really doesn’t understand his place in life.

Halfway through the song, Andrew slowly danced closer to me, moving between me and Seng, who gave him a dirty look. Andrew leaned close to my ear and said, “This bugger—is he really your friend?”

I nodded but made sure to roll my eyes.

“He keeps giving me dirty looks—bodyguard, is it? Or boy toy?” Andrew said, purposely putting his arm around me now. I’ve never been Andrew’s type so he’s never done anything like this to me before—and I knew that this move tonight wasn’t about that, really. And I knew his strategy worked—I could see Seng glaring at him even more.

“Aiyoh, Jazzy,” Andrew said, getting closer and really whispering in my ear now. “We’ve been partying together for so long, why are you giving us no face by bringing an Ah Beng cock blocker? Want to make us jealous, is it?”

Andrew was rubbing his nose on my ear now and kept looking over at Seng to make sure he was seeing everything. This was getting out of hand. I don’t know what Andrew was playing at but guniang tonight had no mood to flirt with anybody. Not even with Chairman Andrew with his millions of dollars, thank you very much. After last night with Alistair and then today’s sweet walk with Roy, all I wanted tonight was some good clean fun—no hooking up, no drama. My god, that Alistair guy was still texting me! Guniang here just wanted to forget that it ever happened.

I sweetly smiled and moved away from Andrew. “No lah,” I said, smiling even more. “This guy is my teenage friend—from a long time ago. I also don’t know what longkang he came from tonight. Trust me—this kind of guy, I definitely didn’t invite him.”

I looked over at Fann, who had stopped dancing awhile ago and was sitting on the banquette, texting and looking grumpy. I looked over at Seng, who was staring at me and Andrew, probably trying to figure out if he should interfere and try to whack Andrew’s face or something. Like that—how?

My phone was in my pocket vibrating—actually, it had vibrated a few times that night but I didn’t care about answering since it was probably Alistair. But at this moment, I needed an excuse to take a break from all this manhood crap so I sat down next to Fann and checked my texts.

There were two texts from Alistair. I didn’t bother to look at them.

Then, from Louis: “Jazz—Inferno is damn happening tonight. You girls come here lah. I’m not going to Studemeyer’s.” After that he sent a few more saying, “Hello? Hello?” then “Coming or not?”