Chapter 40
40
Saturday 24 September
4:15 p.m.
Eric called. “I’m outside your house. Get dressed and come down.”
I bristled a little at his tone. “Order much?”
“Sorry, but I’m just—well, I think today is the day you should meet Diana. I’ve been waiting for the right time and now that I know we’re serious about one another, it’s time to introduce you to her.”
“What?” I panicked. “But I haven’t shav— I mean, I need to iro— I mean, I need time to get dressed. I’m a lady,” I said, drawing myself to my full height.
“My darling, my daughter doesn’t care how you look. She only cares about meeting you. I’ve told her so much about this wonderful woman that I’m dating, who’s quirky and adorable and intelligent and just so funny.”
“Go on,” I said, pleased.
“Andrea, come down. I’m going to introduce her to you. Right now.”
“She’s in your car, right now?” I panicked.
“No, I’m going to bring you to her mother’s place. Get dressed.”
—
He drove. That, in itself, was an anomaly that spoke of the secrecy surrounding the situation, as I knew that Eric hated to drive. My heart was in my stomach the entire ride. I was finally going
to meet his daughter. It was a big, big deal for me, and for him as well.
When we arrived at the gates of the condo in Bukit Timah, I was quite frankly drenched in sweat, despite my best efforts to calm myself down by imagining myself frolicking on a beach full of golden retriever puppies. (Effective, isn’t it?)
He called the apartment to let her know we had arrived, then he tapped the keycard and brought us to the penthouse. He knocked on the door and a young, slim Chinese woman answered.
“Hi, Maria,” he said. “Where—”
“Hi there,” I interrupted, sticking my sweaty palm out and enthusiastically shaking the hand the surprised woman proffered me. “My name is Andrea. It’s so nice to meet you and your daughter at last. I—”
“This is Maria, Anne’s helper.”
“Oh.” I blushed, releasing Maria’s hand. She smiled reassuringly at me as I muttered my apologies. We followed her into the living room, which was decorated in stark, minimalist style in shades of gray and off-white.
There, seated under a painting of a pastoral Italian countryside, were the women of Eric’s life: Anne and his daughter, Diana.
Anne was nothing like what I had expected. Dressed in simple black jeans and a sleeveless tank top, she was small-built, voluptuous, Indian; young and pretty, but not exceedingly so. I estimated her age to be mid-thirties. I had been expecting a tall, thin, twentysomething Chinese supermodel for some reason. I was relieved.
“This is Anne,” Eric said. Anne and I nodded at each other. “And this is Diana, my daughter.”
“Hello,” I said, shaking both their hands. “It’s very nice to meet you,” I said to Anne before repeating my greeting slower to Diana, not sure how else to communicate my pleasure at finally being introduced to her.
“Let me,” he said. Then he turned to his daughter and began
signing. His daughter smiled and nodded at me before signing her reply. I watched in fascination how swiftly they conversed in a language I knew nothing of. Anne watched the conversation with a pleasant smile, but I could tell she was not pleased to see me; when she caught me staring at her, she met my gaze squarely, with icy displeasure evident in her eyes.
“She says she’s glad to meet you and she’s doing great, now that she’s met Papa’s future wife,” Eric told me with a grin. I glanced quickly at Anne and saw her flinch.
“Girlfriend, just girlfriend,” I blurted. Eric’s lips thinned.
Anne stood up. “I’m going to give you all some space,” she said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“All right,” Eric replied. Anne kissed Diana and then gave Eric a very possessive hug before leaving.
“She’s nice,” I said, lying.
Eric shrugged. “You’ll get along soon enough,” he said with an unconcerned air.
“Anyway, now that you’re here, feel free to ask her any questions you want. I’ll sign it to her. I can’t guarantee the veracity of my responses if Diana here bad-mouths me, but . . .” He winked at me, an incongruous move on his part, and I laughed.
So the next hour flew by as Diana and I conversed with Eric as the middle man. It wasn’t even strange, after a while. Mostly I watched them signing to each other. There was so much love in his face that it showed me a whole new, very desirable side to Eric Deng, a side I wished I could see more often, this vulnerability and openness. This Family Man side of him.
It’s kind of hot.
8:30 p.m.
When he suggested going to have dinner at a friend’s restaurant, I told him that I didn’t want dinner, which I must say is unusual for me. I placed my hand on his thigh and said I wanted to show him mine.
My room, that is.
“But you’ve never offered to show me your room before,” he said, surprised. “You wouldn’t even let me have a peek at your Fourth of July party.”
“That’s because back then, no man who’d seen the size of my closet would have wanted anything to do with me. But ever since Jason gave me a book by Marie Kondo, I’ve gotten much better with stuff. Besides”—I moved that hand all the way up, up—“I don’t intend to spend a lot of time in the closet.”
He floored that Maserati (as much as one can “floor” a Maserati in Singapore) and we were together alone chez moi for the first time since we started going out. I led him straight to my bedroom, where we did nothing new; yet, somehow, everything between us was different. Maybe because I didn’t hold him at arms’ length emotionally, maybe because I finally saw what kind of man Eric was—a lovely Shrek-y onion man made of layers of contradictions and complexity, but interlaced with tenderness. The physicality of the act was wrought not just out of mechanical passion, but tempered with new respect and understanding.
At the end of one particularly intense moment, he paused, looked deep into my eyes and asked me to say yes to being his forever.
“I’m yours,” I said. And I meant it.