Cheryl Tan - Sarong Party Girls

And today, one of our secondary school friends Keira had just come back from England with a new baby, so she called us all to come out and see her at the Shang for tea.

I don’t really know Keira that well—last time she was a lot closer to Sher and Imo, not me and Fann. (I always had the feeling that it’s because she thinks Sher and Imo are more chio, so she prefers to associate with them more. This one is not confirmed lah—just my dirty feeling.) But old friends are old friends—since she hadn’t been home in a long time, we were all happy to come out and see her. Must remember to call her Keira though. Our whole life we knew her as Xiu Ying—or Ah Ying usually. But when she met her boyfriend—now husband—at some SPG bar and started hanging with his friends from London then suddenly her name became Keira. “Keira Knightley is so happening what,” she explained.

I remember telling her, “If you’re going to pick a celebrity’s name, why choose the one with flat-flat tetek? Why not choose some big-boobs actress so the name at least has some good karma?” My god, this comment made her angry. But it’s true! If you want to give yourself some new ang moh name, must at least be a bit smart lah. Keira? It’s just a damn cock name.

Anyway, now we’re all good friends—especially since Keira had successfully married an ang moh and moved to the UK. So who knows? Maybe she has some kind of on-the-ground connections to help us find boyfriends.

Fann, Imo and Keira were all there already by the time I got to the Shang. Three of them were sitting close together, bending their necks, oohing and aahing. Ah—baby.

“Hi hi!” I said, remembering to smile and then waving at all of them.

“Jazzy! Thanks for coming!” Keira said, waving back at me. The other two didn’t even look up; they were both just in a daze, staring at the fat whitish baby in Keira’s lap, pinching its legs.

“Jazz, say hi to Charles,” Keira said, propping the baby up on her lap and holding his chubby hand up to wave at me.

“Hi!” I said, waving back. I tell you—I know the goal is to have a Chanel baby. But babies are actually damn fucking boring. What to do or say to them? I also never know. But still, I felt I had to find something to say.

“Eh, Keira, your boy has so much black hair!” I said, saying the first thing that came to my mind. “Very Asian, no?”

Silence. Keira stopped smiling.

“Choi!” Imo quickly said, violently flapping her hands as if to wave away the bad luck I’d just introduced with that notion. “Don’t listen to her, Keira. If you ask anybody, confirm they will tell you they can’t even tell he’s half Singaporean.”

Imo. Aiyoh—seeing made thoughts of Louis in my bedroom last night pop right back into my head. I felt like I couldn’t look her in the face. But bloody hell, if I act weird, she might suspect something. Die die must act normal.

So I just giggled. “Yes, yes, Keira,” I said. “Just joking!”

The girls had ordered the all-you-can-drink champagne high tea so we already had glasses sitting on the table.

“Come, come—cheers first!” I said, trying to make Keira smile again. It worked of course. Some things never change. If there’s alcohol, Keira’s always happy. You can take the sarong party girl out of Singapore…

After we toasted each other, Fann said, “Imo—tell Jazzy about the present!”

My god, what present? Don’t tell me we were supposed to bring Keira present? Kani nah—she is the one coming back from far away. She’s supposed to be bringing us all presents!

Imo just looked down a little and blushed. I leaned forward. OK, this must be something interesting.

“Aiyah,” she said, smiling a bit more. “It’s nothing lah. Louis just sent me a bouquet of flowers this morning. Sunday delivery, you know—more expensive!”

“Some more it’s a dozen roses, you know,” Fann said, jumping in. “Red ones!”

“Stop it lah!” Imo said, laughing. “I’m sure it’s only because he wanted to cheer me up because I was sick.”

Fann just snorted. “Please—use your brain!” Fann said. “The guy has never given you flowers before but suddenly—on a Sunday, his day at home with Mary—he sends you a dozen roses? Maybe he’s finally getting serious.”

Imo was really blushing now. I wanted to vomit.

“My god,” I said. “Girls—please! If you want to jinx things then please, go ahead and keep talking about it.”

After that, they immediately shut up the topic. Partly because at that time someone else joined us—Sher! My god. As if my day couldn’t get any worse.

The only available chair was the one next to me. Of course.

“Hi dear!” Keira said, almost squealing. “I’ve missed you so much!”

“Me too! Me too!” Sher said, looking only briefly at Keira and then looking over at me.

“Jazz,” she said quietly. Her eyes were a bit sad all of a sudden. “How are you?”

Good god. After ignoring all her texts and not even bothering to listen to her voice messages or read her emails since she came back from her Ah Beng honeymoon, I really didn’t want to talk to her. But this was Keira’s party; I must show her face.

“OK lah,” I just said, forcing out a smile before looking back at the girls across the table. “Same same.”

After we got another champagne glass, we all did a cheers together, then it was down to the gossip. Since Keira was the only one who had managed to achieve the SPG dream—so far—wah, that guniang was suddenly acting like an expert. When Fann filled her in about Melvin, she just nodded and smiled, telling her she’s doing well—on the right track! Keira even gave her a thumbs-up sign when Fann mentioned the brunch invitation. I didn’t want to say much—definitely not about Alistair, confirm not about Louis and especially not the fact that Roy, my only real prospect, works on oil refinery—so I just said, “Well I met this sweet British guy—but it’s still early! I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much.”

Keira and the other two just nodded; Sher looked like she wanted to ask me more but decided to keep quiet.

I had to admit that Sher looked good—she looked a bit darker so she probably went to some beach resort on Batam for her honeymoon. I couldn’t even bother to ask her which one. But Keira of course asked, so I had to hear the long story about how they stayed at one of those family resorts so it was a bit noisy but still quite nice, the food was not bad—Ah Huat complained a bit that the dishes were not as good as those at Singapore hawker centers and damn expensive but they did taste nice. Blah blah blah. For most of the conversation, I actually stoned out a bit, not because what they said wasn’t interesting—I don’t mind hearing about Keira and her life in England, even if I don’t know where the fuck Hackney is. (Hallo—if you’re going to England to live, if you’re not living in London then you at least must live somewhere that people have actually heard of before, like Liverpool or Manchester or Aston Villa. Come back to Singapore and tell people you live in Hackney? Might as well say you’re living in Ang Mo Kio—if people have never heard of this bumfuck place before, then it is confirm quite LC.) But Fann and Melvin—boring lah. I already heard that long story over lunch yesterday. And I definitely don’t want to hear anything about Sher and her cock life.

The more I looked at Imo, how happy she seemed that day, how she has no idea what I did, the more I felt sick.

“Jazzy, are you feeling OK?” Sher asked.

Of course she’s the only one who noticed. But now that she said that, everyone suddenly looked at me, a bit concerned. Escape plan!

“I might be coming down with something,” I said. “Maybe I’d better make a move first.”