Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

“Fann,” I said, “let’s go.”

“Thank god,” she said, quickly picking up her handbag and getting up. “Bloody boring here, man.”

“Andrew,” I said, giving him a hug. “We make a move first.”

As Fann and I ran out, I gave a quick wave to Kelvin, Seng and Richard. They all looked a bit blur. I could see them wondering if we were going to the toilet or leaving for good. Whatever, lah.

Once we were outside, Fann said, “Eh, I think I’ll go home first.”

“Home your head lah—it’s only eleven P.M.!” I said. “You think I don’t know where you going—to see Melvin, right?”

At least Fann had the decency to look a bit embarrassed.

“Aiyoh—it’s Saturday night!” I said. “Come on, woman—this is not nice.”

“Jazzy,” she said. “Weren’t you the one who told us that we must be focused on our mission? I am being focused! Melvin is a good catch. Things are going well,” she said, smiling as if she was remembering something about him, and then giggling a little.

Watching her made me feel bad. It’s true. I shouldn’t lose sight of the mission. If Fann has a chance to be happy, then I really shouldn’t be so selfish. I guess this is how it is lah—when people have wings already, they know how to fly. You cannot hold them back.

“Aiyah, OK fine—just go and give your backside to him lah!” I said, smacking her pantat one time and smiling.

Fann pointed her third finger at me. “You? What are you going to do?”

“Don’t worry—I’ll join Louis at Inferno,” I said. “The night is still young—maybe I’ll meet my ang moh billionaire tonight!”

There was a unicorn at the door when I got to Inferno.

Of course, not a real unicorn lah. But some tall, buff guy dressed like a unicorn; the horn at the top of his mask was even long and sharp—sharp enough to seriously hurt someone, probably. Wah, I thought, if there’s a fight here tonight, this guy no need to carry parang also can win. Nowadays in Singapore, you cannot be too careful. Just last month, some guy was walking by the McDonald’s near the cinema on Orchard Road minding his own business when some Ah Beng gang thought he was acting too ya ya or some shit and whacked him with a parang! That guy was slashed with that machete I don’t know how many times, go hospital all; blood all over the place. There were even kids all around watching this happening—the Ah Bengs just didn’t care.

Ah Bengs these days—really getting to be too much. That’s why I don’t really understand Seng. Picking up all these Ah Beng habits is a slippery slope, you know—one day you are growing a long fingernail to dig your ears and saying “jee-lo” instead of “zero” and the next day you may find yourself holding parang and whacking innocent people on the street just because you think they’re staring at you. All I know is, guniang here better just stay out of it all.

Inferno is safe though—this kind of club, confirm will have no Ah Bengs. Since it opened last month, it’s not only one of the hottest clubs in Singapore, but actually, in the world! Just yesterday, the New Times wrote a big story that the Perth Tribune called Inferno the “Best New Bar in Southeast Asia,” all. If a newspaper in Perth is actually saying that then this club is confirm happening!

Once the unicorn ushered me into the club, a tall and pretty Eurasian girl in a sexy black dress—short, yes, but with a classy classy cut—welcomed me and led me to a reception room. “And you are with?” she said in a British accent, pulling out an iPad wrapped in zebra skin. I was quite impressed—I whole life never see this kind of iPad cover before. I wanted to ask her whether I could touch it or not but thought, Jazzy, please, wake up your head. You cannot be so LC!

“Louis,” I said. “Louis…” Babi, I was blanking on this—what was his surname again ah?

But luckily I guess either Louis spends enough here or is considered rich enough that they definitely radar him. So, I didn’t need to say his surname at all.

“Ah, yes,” she said, smiling more broadly now. “This way, please.”

I followed her to a small door hidden in a dark corner of the room, which was damn quiet until she pressed a button next to the door and half the wall slid open. Wah! All of a sudden there was house music and lights flashing flashing all over the place.

Not bad, I thought—now, tonight is confirm on!

The room overall was quite dark, even with the laser lights shooting all across it, except for a fluorescent pink glass walkway that cut diagonally across everything. The walkway was a little raised and on each side there were people dancing or drinking at big cushioned booths.

The hostess led me to the back of the room, where there was a grand glass staircase where each step was a glowing white light. At the top of the stairs was a thick neon pink velvet rope. The bouncer let us through immediately and Louis’s VIP table was in a corner—it was a dark spot but it had a terrific sweeping view of the whole room.

“Jazzy! Finally!” he said, getting up when he saw me. From the way he was wobbling a little, I could tell he was already a bit mabuk.

After I double-air-kissed him, he introduced me to the two ang moh guys with him. “Francis, Benedict—colleagues from Hong Kong,” he said. “And this is Jazzy, one of my closest friends.”

Wah, “closest”? I had known him for how many years and had never heard him call me that before. How mabuk was he? Or maybe he meant it? Guniang actually felt a bit touched.

“Come, come—Jazzy, you are definitely not high enough,” he said, grabbing this atas-looking tall glass bottle that said “Diva” in cursive on the side. In the center of the bottle there was some kind of long tube filled with shiny red and pink stones. Louis poured everyone one shot and poured me two.

“This vodka—don’t play play! There are Swarovski crystals inside,” he said, pushing the two shots in my hands. “You’d better catch up—bottoms up!”

After the first two shots, Louis just kept pouring, ordering more bottles of Diva whenever we ran out. Even though I was high, I wasn’t so high that I felt sick—I guess because we were dancing like crazy in between shots. At one point the boys even cleared away some of the bottles off the leopard-skin (“Real one,” Louis whispered to me. “The owner says he even shot some of these buggers in Africa himself so he had enough for his VIP section.”) table so that Francis and I could climb on top and dance for ten minutes.

I felt the stresses of Seng and Andrew facing off—and my god, being even remotely associated with Seng’s super Ah Beng friend Richard in a club—all of that, I felt it fading. After all that action, and my night with Alistair, which was still making me cringe whenever I thought about it (and every time I felt my phone vibrate), I felt like I earned one night where I could just have some simple fun. Drinks, dancing—checking out a new club, the richest hottest club in Singapore—this was just the right medicine. I wished Fann and Imo—and yes, Sher—were here but this was fun anyway. I looked over at Louis, feeling grateful that we were friends—one of his closest friends, in fact! In life, it’s true lah—you are nothing without good friends. I raised my glass and caught Louis’s eye. He smiled and winked at me.

All of us didn’t talk much as all this dancing was happening—the music was too loud. This was a pity because on my way here, I had been thinking about work and Albert’s hints about the circulation department and all, and I was thinking of asking Louis for some career advice, maybe tell him that I was thinking of switching jobs, maybe trying something I was actually interested in like event planning or something. Besides the loud music though, Louis was probably too mabuk to have any conversations like that. Although, as mabuk as he was, the other two guys were even more gone and mostly just closed their eyes and danced like possessed mediums in those dusty Chinese temples. Suddenly, the music got more quiet and all the laser lights focused at one spot near the center of the room, where there was a shiny white dentist’s chair with silver handles.