I still remember the night when everything went to shit.
Of course I didn’t want to go to the wedding banquet. Sher, if she could actually bring herself to give a flying shit about our donkey’s years of friendship, should have known that. After everything that happened, after everything we discussed over the years and everything we planned and tried for, and then everything just going to hell at the end because of some cock decision she suddenly made—just the fact that she was asking me to come to her wedding was damn bloody daring.
But then she texted me one day, and then that night, and then the next day asking—no, actually, begging—for one small favor. “I need you there, Jazzy. Sit at the reception desk, Jazzy. You don’t have to do anything, Jazzy. Just smile and greet people and be there for me, Jazzy. How long have we been good friends, Jazzy? You know you are practically my own sister.”
That last bit was the part that made me feel bad lah. I don’t have that many people I still know—or care about enough to actually text and see—who have been my kaki since primary school days. Or people who were there with me at Zambo until 3 A.M. in the morning on so many nights, holding my hair back as I’m throwing up into a longkang by the side of the road after a really good night out. At the end of the day, I have to honestly say I have never had a better friend than Sher. Friends like her are really A-plus-plus, man. Long long then will come one time. This, I always knew—and I always assumed we would be best friends until we were old fat aunties sitting in our rocking chairs looking out at our colorful English gardens, sipping tea or whatever it is they drink over there.
So, I felt a bit bad. After all, even though Sher changed her mind and abandoned the three of us in the end, I couldn’t ignore the fact that we used to be good friends.
I remember when we first started really hitting the SPG bars—Studemeyer’s was one of the first places everyone used to go. Right when the club first opened awhile ago it had all these good-looking ang moh guys hanging out there on weekends. But then very quickly all these Ah Bengs in their old-fashioned pleated baggy black pants, shiny silk shirts and overgelled blow-dried hair starting rushing in and taking over the club on weekends. Aiyoh—when I see those guys I just want to throw up. I know these Ah Bengs are Chinese-Singaporean guys who probably feel like they need to action a bit more to stand out—but I don’t understand how people can actually want to look so low-class! Even so, Sher wanted to see Studemeyer’s and we’d all never been. So somehow we ended up there on a Friday night—Louis had started reserving a table there on weekends the moment it opened, so we had a VIP spot. I didn’t mind going for that. Otherwise, I confirm won’t go.
When Louis saw me at Studemeyer’s, he was nice as usual, holding up the bottle of Chivas after we double-kissed. “Better faster get high,” he said, starting to pour even before I could find a place to put my handbag. “Where have you been? We’ve all been here since eleven drinking already. You’d better catch up. No fun being sober when we’re all so high.” After that, he just kept pouring. Every time my glass was even half-empty he would bring the Chivas over. I can’t remember whether he was also pouring so much for Sher, Fann and Imo. He must have—I think—but then in the end, it was only me, about one hour and six double-shot whiskey sodas later, who was suddenly feeling like not dancing anymore.
“Ehhh,” a voice came, so close to my ear I could feel a sticky hotness. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. I could feel him already, the front of his bulky jeans rubbing against my bum. Sher and Imo were convinced that Kelvin stuffed his crotch with socks—no way someone so short could be so big. “Aiyoh, please lah,” I said, turning my head around to shout so he could hear me. “Guniang here mabuk almost to the point of throwing up already and you still want to be like that.” But he just kept rubba-ing and didn’t go away. By the time I fully turned around so I could actually push him back, I could see from his saggy lids and big smile that he was quite gone. Kelvin just blinked and stumbled off to try his luck with some fresh girls near the next table.
“Jazz, you OK?” Sher had finally come back from wherever she’d gone. Neither of us had seen Imo—or Louis, for that matter—in a while.
“You look a bit… too high,” she said, cupping my face.
“No lah, I’m OK. Don’t worry. I just need some air.”
I turned back around again, leaning against the cool stainless steel railing that kept us from falling over onto the sprawling dance floor beneath. I could feel Sher rubbing my back. It felt good. Her face leaned in next to mine. We both looked over at the floor beneath us, filled with bodies jammed next to each other. I couldn’t remember the last time we went to a club and didn’t have a VIP table—we were all getting older already lah. Going clubbing on the main levels is for the youngsters—us old birds have no energy anymore to push and squeeze and get noticed in such a crowd. Sher was pointing at something below, a group of Ah Bengs in a small circle with one of them in the middle. Each one stood firmly in a spot, holding on to his pleated pants waistband with his right hand, as if trying to steady himself while he rocked violently from the waist upward. The other hand was raised up high waving above his head. Even though we were one floor up, we could hear them shouting, “Yo ah yo! Yo ah yo!”
Aiyoh—this phrase so old already still want to say! Back in the eighties everyone was lousy at dancing lah, so the main way was just to yo back and forth to the music and shout “Yo ah yo!” Nowadays, everyone knows much more about dancing, but these Ah Bengs somehow are still out there doing this nonsense.
“Oi!” Sher suddenly shouted, leaning over slightly as she waved and pointed at the group. “Yah—you, Ah Beng! This one not 1985 anymore, you know. You still Yo ah yo? Lau pok lah!” The Ah Bengs stared up, looking confused. When they saw Sher waving her third finger at them, they started to whisper to each other, holding their hands up to cover their mouths as they talked. Typical brainless type—we are so far up, how to hear anything?
My god. It was too much. I started laughing, at first just a little bit, but then when Sher started laughing also, we held on to each other and just started laughing louder and harder. I even slapped my hand on my thigh so hard I could feel it getting hot from how painful it was. But then suddenly I started to feel something else—it began in my chest. A burp, I thought? Next thing I knew I was leaning over the railing, shooting crap out of my mouth like one of those big fire engine hoses—I could taste Chivas, and some green tea mixed with bits of the noodles my mum made me eat before coming out.
I remember two things happening as it started—Sher’s left hand catching my shoulder as I bent over, and her right hand quickly grabbing and holding back my hair. She waited one minute for all of it to really finish before saying, “Eh, we’d better faster siam.” When I opened my eyes, I saw the Ah Bengs all staring up at us, pointing and shouting. A few of them were touching the tops of their heads and then pointing even more. I could hear myself start to laugh again as I wiped the corner of my mouth, making them point even harder. Then one of them pointed toward the staircase and they all started to move. Sher grabbed my hand, swiped my handbag from the booth and we both started running for the secret back VIP exit, not even stopping to see where Louis was so we could give him his two air kisses goodbye. We didn’t stop laughing until we reached the roti prata stall ten minutes away.
“Aiyoh, Jazzy,” Sher said as she clinked her mug of hot ginger tea to mine when we had laughed until there was no more sound coming out and we actually had to buy a twenty-cent packet of tissues to wipe our tears dry. “You tonight ah,” she said, “were really number one.”
So, when it came down to it, when Sher begged me to come to her wedding, after all the nights we’d been through over the years, how could I not give her face?
Outside the wedding banquet hall, Imo, Fann and I were standing around, looking chio and dressed in gold just like Sher texted us to, and saying hallo to her relatives all. “Auntie, congrats ah?” I said when I saw Sher’s mum.
Auntie looked like she’d lost some weight, maybe to fit into the turquoise and gold cheongsam she was wearing. She looked at me a little bit sad, like she wanted to say something. I felt bad lah. I had seen her almost every week since primary school, though I had been avoiding their place for months. But we both knew that now wasn’t the right time. So she just smiled sweetly and squeezed my hand. “I think Sher wants us all to line up right on the inside by the door,” she said, leading me through the large double doors to the ice-cold banquet hall and pointing to the area just to the right.
The music started the moment I took my spot. I almost started to cry—I only needed to hear five beats to know what it was: Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting.” Sher and I used to sing it all the time in secondary school. And then also after that lah—but by then the song was not so happening anymore, so we secretly sang it, like, only when we were in the house type. (Outside the house, if we hear people singing it, we’ll just blink and stare at them as if they are bloody kampong idiots. Which is true lah.)
After I didn’t do so well in my A levels and I applied to uni in Australia, Sher would always say, “Just think of Richard Marx and this song. We will always be best friends even if you go. Don’t cry, don’t cry.” In the end, something lucky happened—I failed the entrance test, so I kena stuck in Singapore anyway.
But why would Sher purposely play this song at this moment?
The lights dimmed and a small, sharp spotlight came on, swirling around the room in big loops before stopping at the doorway. The circle of light got larger and larger until suddenly two figures stepped into it. Everyone in the room started clapping.
Sher was glowing in the dress she had eyed for five years now, the one that was slim and silky, designed to look exactly like Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s negligee-style wedding dress. “Marry an ang moh prince must have ang moh — style princess dress!” she had said when she showed the magazine photo to us a few years ago and we all told her the dress looked too plain.
In the end, Sher was right about the dress, of course—when I saw her stepping through the door to her wedding banquet, she looked just like a princess. Her hair was done exactly like the photos of Carolyn that she had cut out and stuck on her mirror—tied in a loose bun in the back with some of her fringe draping across the side of her face.
I saw her looking around the room to the sides of the door, looking for someone. Looking for me. But just before she caught my eye, I turned away.
Ang moh princess, my foot. I couldn’t see her husband yet but I knew who he was. Mr. Lim Beng Huat. Black spiky hair, oval wire-rim glasses when he wasn’t wearing contacts, bumpy button nose. Rolex watch, one gold tooth. Typical Chinese guy.
I couldn’t even look at Sher. I just kept thinking over and over, There goes her Chanel baby.