Chapter 20
20
Saturday 2 April
4:05 p.m.
Went to the office to work on the contract that I should have been working on during the week. Was not surprised to see Suresh there, looking a little rumpled and bleary-eyed, like he’d not gotten a lot of sleep. We greeted each other by grunting, then lapsed into companionable silence, broken only by furious typing and the occasional call. We’ve developed this unspoken routine where we take turns making his famous chai. Sometimes sharing an office with him isn’t so bad.
8:15 p.m.
Found a lull in work and exploited it to send a text to Linda asking her out for lunch next week. Haven’t seen her in a while.
8:30 p.m.
Linda texted me back to tell me she was in the Cayman Islands with “a client.” Hmmm.
9:10 p.m.
Speaking of bad news, my mother’s friend’s son just texted me to introduce himself and ask me out for dinner next Friday at a swanky meat place called Ho Sek.
I googled him and almost fell out of my chair.
Someone Up There was having a laugh, a very dark one, at my expense.
Monday 4 April
It’s my mother’s birthday today. Dialed her number and let it ring twice before hanging up like a coward. Decided to send her a WhatsApp message instead, then promptly muted all notifications on the chat in case she replied. Have already sent her a birthday card over the weekend and sent it via international priority mail to her place in Kuala Lumpur. The art featured a cute, harmless penguin holding a bunch of flowers. I drew a cross on its chest and wrote “Have a blessed birthday, Mom! Jesus loves you!” in perfectly spaced capital letters and black ink. She should not be able to find any fault with this year’s card. I hope.
Tuesday 5 April
7:15 a.m.
This just came in from my mom:
I know Jesus loves me, but do you? You know what I want for my birthday. *emoji of a wedding dress* *emoji of a couple* *emoji of a three-person family unit*
Her emoji game is on point.
She followed up with another text:
Good luck with your date this Fri. Remember, God is watching.
Gotta give her credit for being consistently annoying. And omniscient.
1:15 p.m.
Called Linda, who was back from the Caymans, and told her my mother had strong-armed me into accepting a blind date.
“What’s his name? Age? Occupation?” Linda said, presumably already in Google stalk mode.
“Chuck Tan Ka Seng. Forty-seven. MD.”
“Dear God.”
“I know.”
“He chose—?”
“Yup. I’m pretty sure he chose the name ‘Chuck.’ As in Chuck Norris, not Chuck Bass.”
I heard frantic tapping and a gasp. I knew exactly what she had found because I had had the very same reaction.
“It’s going to be fine,” Linda said, with barely suppressed laughter.
“Is it, though? Is it? How will I ever look at him with a straight face?”
“Diazepam,” she said immediately.
“Thanks, but I prefer to keep my stash for when my mother turns up.”
“Speaking of names, I almost wish I were back in Hong Kong,” Linda said. “At least people there were creative. I mean, I’d give an actual kidney to meet a Pegasus or an Aristotle again. Or even just a boring old Handsome. At least I can abide by ‘Handsome.’ It shows a certain confidence, an assuredness of being.” Slurping noises. “I envy you, Andrea. I really do. Blind dates and fertility deadlines sound so fun.”
“Shaddup,” I said. Linda was lucky: her parents, who were in the timber and mining business, were usually busy arranging for “accidental” land clearings instead of blind dates. Anyway, she didn’t have the same, or any, external reproductive pressures. Although she’s an only child, her father has what she euphemistically calls “backup children.” Several, in fact. Furthermore, at the rate he was accumulating wealth, there was no issue about her marrying “up” to help the family. If Linda were to marry one day, she would, quite likely, be doing it for the right reason: fear of dying alone.
Wednesday 6 April
10:15 a.m.
Ooh! Flowers! A massive bouquet of showstopping rich purplish-maroon peonies was delivered this morning, and they were not for Kai but me!
10:30 a.m.
They were from Eric Deng, actually. He sent them with a card saying, “I’ll be back in town. Will see you soon.” I knew he would know how to find me. Which sounds creepy but is really not.
When I brought the flowers into the room Suresh promptly started sneezing. Turns out he is allergic to beauty. Anyway, have left the flowers outside with Kai on her desk, so that I can see them.
Val, who’s an expert in beautiful things, told me that these are Black Beauty peonies, upon my sending a pic of the flowers to her. So there’s another layer to the flowers, since I told Eric that
Black Beauty
was the first book that moved me to tears.
Thursday 7 April
11:35 a.m.
Got a text from my blind date, Chuck, that literally said he was reminding me that we were meeting tomorrow. Not a “Can’t wait to see you!” type of message, just a reminder to show up. What a total contrast to Eric’s flowers. Anyway, Chuck’s text came at a good time since I had totally forgotten about the date. Am tempted to cancel as I’m handling a difficult closing, deadline today. Consulted the group chat. Everyone told me to stick with it. Linda posited that since I haven’t been on too many dates in a while I should take this, just to stay sharp. Val concurred that I needed all the help I could get (thanks). Ben and Jason, probably eager for the entertainment value they will surely derive from this, begged me to go ahead. Begged.
Am a little nervous about Friday. What do people say on dates these days? Do they even talk anymore or just scroll through their smartphones in companionable silence, waiting till they stumble upon a suitably benign news story or Instagram feed to share with their date? Will have to read up on what’s trending and hope that he’s equally ignorant on what makes young people ill these days.
On the off-chance that my mother’s blind date might turn out to be the love of my life, I went and got an emergency cellulite massage and wax session at my favorite Vietnamese place. Which, by the way, is run by the same family that runs the deli downstairs.
Friday 8 April
6:45 p.m.
Left the office muttering about a networking event I had to attend, to which Suresh gave a grunt of acknowledgment. Felt guilty since I have some follow-up from the closing to do, but as Linda reminded me, I’ve given enough of my youth in the service of faceless corporations to justify leaving so early.
I went to the date with the enthusiasm of a carnivore to a PETA conference, even though the restaurant, Ho Sek, was a well-regarded fixture in the local gastronomic scene, specializing in roast meats done in a variety of ambitious styles.
Chuck was already seated at the table, his back facing me as I walked slowly toward him. He was dressed in a light blue denim shirt, beige trousers, and tan moccasins. Since there was an off-chance that he could one day use my (legal) services, I had put on one of my LBDs (Lawyerly Black Dresses
*
) and black ballet flats.
Both of us were making as much polite effort as possible to not dress to impress.
I circled the table and said hi, just as he pulled his chair back and extended his hand in a handshake. We shook hands, which never bodes well for romance. I made a mental note to sanitize my hands under the table even as I gave him a quick once-over. He was a firm 6.5 in looks, but given his professional choices, I could only raise his overall score to 4.
“Thanks for coming out tonight, Andrea,” he said, in perfect accentless English. I raised his score to 4.5. Still, too little, too late. There was, on my side at least, no chance I would ever want to exchange any kind of fluids with him. I suspected he thought the same, as he was not doing the eye dip that most men unconsciously perform when confronted with cleavage, even inordinately modest ones.
We exchanged some pleasantries and quickly moved on to the Dating Small Talk. He was a skilled, easy conversationalist, but we both knew we would have to discuss our professions sooner or later. I for one was dying to ask him many, many questions, but I knew he had to broach the topic first. I prayed that I could hold it together when the time came: we needed to get through dinner so we could report to our parents about a suitably grave physical/mental flaw discovered during the course of the date that would imperil the bloodlines.
“So, Andrea,” he said, at last, after we were done with our main course (mine a lovely barramundi swimming in browned butter, served with broccolini and roasted leeks, his a pork tenderloin paired with new potatoes and some kind of salsa), and we had to make a decision whether or not to ask for the bill or order dessert. “Why did you decide to be a lawyer?”
“Ally McBeal,” I said. “I mean, justice, pencil suits, courtroom drama, and all that, yadda yadda yadda, but enough about me—what about you?” The entire sentence was said in one breath.
“I like big butts and I cannot lie,” he did not say. Instead, he launched into a long story about some poor uncle dying of
colorectal cancer while he was in medical school. I deflated. Dear Diary, I realize that I am a juvenile individual with a puerile sense of humor. But God, a proctologist? Of all the specializations in the world?
I am certain that proctology is the only medical specialty that a Chinese parent would prefer not to brag about but to keep in the dark. And the poor proctologist can come from Harvard Medical School, but he’d still be the butt of jokes.
Haha. Butt.
“Andrea,” Chuck said, just as I had begun composing an amusing limerick about butts.
“Yes?” Had I been speaking aloud without realizing again?
“I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“What?” I said. “Already?”
“I have a surgery,” he said, looking apologetic. “Tonight. At SGH.
*
It’s for a state minister, so, you know, I have to run.”
He had agreed to a date on a night he’d already scheduled a surgery? What a douche. That state minister had better be on his deathbed.
Still—he hadn’t even thought I was worth it enough to meet me on a night off?
We split the bill in silence, dispensing with the check dance.
It was 9:05 p.m. when I called Linda for commiseration from home. The first thing she said was, “You know he could have been lying, right? Why so many details?”
“That did come to mind, but I had to reject it as a possibility since my self-esteem would not take it otherwise.”
She said it was OK. She said knowing me, there was no way he would have been worth it. “I mean, you could never talk about work with him, and once the romance is gone, and you’ve already figured out each other’s political and religious beliefs, finances, and sexual history, what else is there to talk about?” Loud mastication
of something small, with fragile bones. “Just think about it, him telling you how a colonoscopy went. Or how best to beat hemorrhoids.”
I sighed. She was right, of course, but still, the idea of him pulling an imaginary surgery out of his ass just to get out of a date with me still felt like a shitty move on his part.
OK, Diary, I’ll stop now.
10:25 p.m.
Told my mother that Chuck told me he had failed a year of med school, even after getting a tutor assigned to him. Worse, he had graduated bottom of his class. She will never bring him up again.
11:15 p.m.
Still . . . another one bites the dust. Dating is
tough.