It’s not that I don’t like Louis—of course I like him a lot. But he’s been my good friend for how long? And now he wants to try this kind of thing with me? Obviously I shouldn’t mind—he’s not bad-looking for a Singaporean guy, after all. And obviously he’s fucking loaded. But something is just not quite right with what happened last night.
Normally, when this kind of thing happens, the first thing to do is call a meeting with the girls and discuss discuss, see how to solve problem. But I can’t even do that! Imo confirm will don’t friend me anymore—and Fann will probably copy her. (Even though she was the first one to be two-faced one, snogging Louis and all. Kani nah.) And Sher, well, she’s out of the picture. But of the three of them, she would probably be the only one to understand what happened to me, who might even be able to convince the other girls to forgive me. But no point thinking about her—she made the decision to fuck off out of our lives with her Ah Beng husband and leave us behind.
Even if I wanted to tell them, obviously I couldn’t because I can’t betray Louis. So in the end, I’m just left like this. Can only suffer alone. And Alistair—aiyoh, Alistair. I don’t even know what to do about that one. He really couldn’t take a hint—after my nonresponse, he was texting me a bit less now, so I guess he wasn’t really a stalker. But he was still texting, asking when I’m free, when he can buy me coffee. As if all he wants is to do is watch me drink coffee. What does he think I am—born yesterday, is it?
Roy—got potential. Of all the guys I’ve met recently, he is really the only decent one. Yes, we started out by hooking up. But meeting people is sometimes like that—you cannot judge everything on how you first meet. Since then though, he has seemed nothing but nice, quite genuine, not lecherous, never pressurizing me to go home with him. Good guy lah, even if he hadn’t texted me since our date at the botanical gardens. I wondered what he did last night.
Sometimes I just really don’t understand. Why do I have such bad luck? Look at Fann—so fast can find ang moh boyfriend already, and one who treats her really nicely, inviting her to brunch to meet his friends and all. And Imo, even though Louis has his flaws, at least he is faithful to her—at least emotionally. Even though he’s quite the flower prince, obviously he really cares about Imo and genuinely wants her to be happy—otherwise why would he insist that I keep last night a secret from her?
But me? What do I have?
Watching the uncles made me feel a bit more calm at least. Today they were damn happening, with four games going at once—one table even had four uncles playing doubles, fierce fierce type, pushing each other aside to hit the ball and all. I watched the balls go back and forth, back and forth, sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other side wins. In the end, who cares? If only life were really that simple.
What was I going to do?
Aiyoh, Jazzy. Better stop moping here otherwise confirm will start crying. Crying will only spoil my eye makeup and make my cheeks puffy—what’s the point? Hallo, guniang, time to buck up! Well, time to meet the girls anyway. And who knows? Maybe today I will meet my Prince Charming at the Shang!
When Jazzy gets married, it’s going to happen at the Shang.
This one, I long time ago decided already. There are many atas hotels in Singapore of course—first, there’s the Raffles. And now here, we had even gotten those American-branded hotels like Four Seasons and Saint Something or Other—don’t play play! But the Shangri-La was the first really atas modern hotel in Singapore. Classy classy, with a big white lobby, high ceilings, gigantic crystal chandeliers; plus, the gardens all around it were just like the botanical gardens, all lush and green. Bloody relaxing.
The first time I saw the Shang was when I was in primary school—at that time my mum’s brother was driving a taxi for a while so sometimes on Sunday he would come and bring us out for a joyride. We never went far—hallo, do you know how expensive petrol is? — but he always tried to bring us to places that we didn’t normally see. So one Sunday we were driving along Nassim Hill, looking at all the bloody three-story, four-story mansions when we passed by the Shang.
“Kuku,” I said, tapping on my uncle’s wooden-bead seat cushion. “What’s that?”
“Oh—that one is high-class hotel, one of the most high-class! Ah Huay ah—when you grow up ah, if you ever can go and eat inside the Shangri-La Hotel ah—you confirm succeed already.”
“Aiyoh—please don’t go and put these kinds of funny ideas in her head, make her think too big!” my mum said, turning around to look at me. “These kinds of places, Ah Huay—they are not meant for everybody, you know.”
I remember fasterly kneeling on the seat, at first staring staring out the side window, then as my uncle passed the hotel, desperately trying to look out the back of the taxi window to get another look at the Shang, but by that time we were too far away already. But my kuku saw me looking disappointed, I guess, because he made a U-turn so he could take us back.
As we got closer to the gate, kuku slowed down a bit—then he turned into the Shang!
“Aiyoh,” my mum said, sighing. Guniang over here was so happy I wanted to roll down the window so I could poke my head out! (But then I decided I’d better not—see, even when I was eight, guniang here already knew how to act a bit cool.)
The driveway, I remember, was very wide—like those big roads leading to old English castles I’d seen on the TV. And since kuku was driving slowly, as we approached the big white hotel, the building very very slowly got grander and grander each second. Through the large glass walls in front, I could see the sparkling white lobby inside with its bright chandeliers. A tall Indian man wearing black pants, a red Indian-style long tunic and a black and gold hat with a tall black feather sprouting out of it started waving at my kuku as we got closer to the entrance. So my kuku slowed down. I guess the guy wanted us to stop.
Once kuku pulled on his handbrake, the doorman opened my door, smiled at me and bowed. Wah! Guniang had never felt so special before.
That lasted all of one second—that’s when I heard my kuku frantically rolling down his squeaky window. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” he said to the doorman, bowing his head a few times as he talked. I remember thinking, What the hell is he doing? It’s not like we are those Japanese tourists or sumo wrestlers who spend half their lives bowing to shit.
“We are at the wrong place; not dropping here,” my uncle said. “Sorry, sorry. Very sorry to waste your time.”
I could see the guard’s face suddenly change for a second, especially as his eyes quickly moved down and he noticed what we were wearing. I don’t remember exactly what I had on but it was probably just shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops. (Later on when I got older, I understood the guard’s look—it pretty much said, “Bloody hell.”) But it was just for a bit, then he went back to smiling.
“Of course,” he said in a British accent, softly closing the taxi door.
Nobody said anything as kuku quickly drove away from the Shang, but I could see my mum in the front seat crouching down, not looking out the window, just looking down.
To this day my mum has never set foot at the Shang. But I—I of course am a different story. It’s not like I come here very often but sometimes I do have to follow Albert when he comes here for business lunches. And there was that one time that Gavin took me here for dinner—of course, it was the dinner where he broke up with me lah. But still, I’d once had a boyfriend who was atas enough to take me to dinner at the Shang! Now, once in a long while, if there’s a special occasion, the girls will book table for drinks or high tea.
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