Chapter 55
55
Friday 18 November
7:00 a.m.
Woken up by alarm and was confused until I recalled that I was due to fly to KL in less than two hours to visit my mom so that I can reveal how far I’d chosen to fall from her ideals. Oh God.
12:35 p.m.
Arrived at my mother’s condo in Bangsar and knocked on the door, having discovered I’d forgotten my keys. She answered, dressed in a sleek long-sleeved jade cotton-silk top on gray linen slacks, looking fully operational, even if she still had a sallow undertone to her skin.
I decided to dive right in. “Hi, Ma, don’t yell, but I’ve resigned and I’m not getting married,” I said in a rush. Why not just face the music all at once? I would no longer be a prisoner of the tyranny of anyone’s expectations, even if it meant I might not live to see another day.
She surprisingly refrained from yelling at me. “So I can see,” was all she had to say.
I slumped onto a bar stool at the kitchen island and waited for her to begin the onslaught.
She stood and looked at me for a long time while I avoided her gaze. I felt her taking in the state of my unkempt hair, my bloodshot eyes, the cloud of tobacco and alcohol stink that must emanate from my pores, the weight I had gained from McDonald’s and Nando’s deliveries.
“You don’t look too good,” she observed in less harsh terms than she would normally use. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve made a mistake,” I began. I looked at the countertop, biting my lip as I fought to control a surge of tears. “I’ve made many mistakes, and now I think I’ve lost the one good thing in my life.”
“You’re not talking about Eric Deng,” my mother stated matter-of-factly. It was her way of asking an open-ended question.
I took a deep breath and plunged right in. I told her about Suresh: who he was, where he was from, and what had happened between us; I didn’t hold back on the details. It was the first conversation that we’d ever had about a love interest of mine, and when I was done I was both elated at the disclosure and scared of her response. I could already hear her thoughts:
My daughter, the one I raised with milk from my own breasts, the last of my single children, rejected a billionaire . . . for an Indian comic artist/former lawyer?
“Oh dear,
what
a mess,” she said with a sigh as she wearily took a seat at the bar. Suddenly she looked much older than her age, and I felt guilty for unloading my troubles on her so soon after her health scare. “Why are all my children insisting on sending me to my grave early?”
“Mom, why do you always want us to suffer just to make you happy?” I cried, hurt by her response.
“What are you talking about? I don’t
want
my children to suffer for my sake,” she said, affronted. “How can you say that? Do you even know what goes on in a mother’s heart when she sees her children running toward a cliff with only rocks to greet them below?”
She reached for the pitcher of water and poured herself a glass. “On the contrary, I only want my children to have the best, and to make the choices that save them from suffering. When you told me about Eric, I was so happy for you; I could see he was mature, he had made it in life, he was stable, and he really cared about you. These are all the qualities of a sensible choice. Plus I didn’t even know there was someone else. But I’ll be honest, Andrea, even if
I’d known that you were in love with this Suresh person, I would probably still have advocated for Eric because when you reach my age you will know that love doesn’t conquer everything, and that someone you respect and honor, who respects and honors you back, can bring you more long-term happiness than a hot, sweaty affair.” She made a moue of distaste, as though sexual attraction was merely a good-for-nothing afterthought.
“Suresh is a good man,” I said defensively. He might be in New York and out of my reach, but that didn’t mean I’d sit by and let my mother malign him.
“Maybe,” my mother said. “I judge on the overall facts presented to me. Young people are always so ruled by their passion that they forget the realities of life. You can’t live in a couple bubble forever. We grow, we age, and sometimes we grow apart. Don’t forget I was one of those young people, too, once upon a time, believing that love was all I needed. And look where it got me and your father.” Her eyes clouded over. “There was love between us, once. You know that we met at university, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. I had the vaguest recollection of some political rally or something that they attended for the heck of it; I was ashamed I knew little else, mostly because when I was younger it had seemed a little obscene to me to ask my parents how they met and fell in love, when all they did was hurt each other.
“We were introduced by mutual friends and became sweethearts at university, although we were an odd pairing even in the beginning. My family was quite comfortable, respected, politically connected. I was raised in comfort, if not luxury, while he was a transplant from Kedah, a scholarship kid with little money of his own, an orphan raised by his uncle and aunt. But he was smart and I liked the way his hair fell into his eyes; we dated other people but always came back to each other; I couldn’t imagine my life without him, and he thought I was the only woman for him. So what if my family hated him? So what if my father threatened to cut me out of his will?
Your father and I were in love. And for some time, it was enough. We were so happy in the beginning I couldn’t imagine it being any other way. I never thought that one day, twenty years later, he would cheat on me several times, the so-called love of my life.”
“What?” I was incredulous. I had not known this. I had just assumed that they were wrong from the beginning—and when he got cancer, my mother had just accepted him, to care for him, until he’d passed on . . . “Why didn’t you say anything to us?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, and what happened between your father and me is our business, that’s the way it is with our generation—I saw it as my burden to carry,” my mother said heavily. She sighed. “And then our friends, those that ‘settled’ because they made sensible, family-approved choices, they’re still married, still together. So can you blame me when I hope my children make better, safer choices in life? Especially your sister, who, once married to a Muslim Malaysian, has to convert, and has to be OK with the fact that, in Malaysia, he can legally take a second, third, fourth wife if he wishes, without consulting her?”
I had never thought of it that way; I had always assumed that my mother had just been, well, racist. “I see your point, Ma. But maybe these are the things you need to tell Melissa, so she can assure you that Kamarul is the kind of man who would never do that to her. And maybe spend some time with Kamarul before you condemn him. You and Melissa have made such progress since your heart attack, after all. I mean, you’re actually answering her texts!”
She bowed her head and was silent for some time. “I’ll need to think about this,” she said at last.
I hugged her. That was progress, it really was. “He’s a solid guy, Ma. Don’t let prejudice kill off any hope of reconciling this family.”
She held up her hand. “Baby steps, Andrea, baby steps. But coming back to you and Suresh, you’re right. What happened between me and your father isn’t the rule for all love marriages. I won’t let
my bitterness cloud your decisions anymore. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what’s important after the heart attack, and I’ve changed my position on some things. I loved your father, and we were so happy once. Maybe that kind of love is worth all the potential pain you open yourself to? Maybe . . . Ooh, I was young once, and I would have chosen a chance at love over anything”—her voice grew pensive; she was thinking of my father—“so I’ll say this, darling: if Suresh makes you happy, then I’ll step aside.”
“Thanks, Ma,” I said, awkwardly giving her a hug. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was likely too late for me and Suresh; it was enough, for now, to know that she believed in my ability to make good choices. She patted me briskly on the back but didn’t pull away from my embrace. We weren’t a very expressive family, usually. But if my mom can change . . .
“Anyway, what do I know, he might be the best thing ever and you might turn out to be the
Titanic
. I mean, the things I found in that underwear drawer of yours . . .”
I released her at once. “Thank you for your vote of confidence,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Just promise me one thing.”
“What, that I’ll look for a job?”
“Well, yes, that is still very important, but what I wanted to say is: go after what you want. I support you.”
I made a noncommittal noise. If only it could be that easy.
Friday 2 December
My sister called with good news: she’s pregnant, all of ten weeks! And she and Kamarul went over to my mother’s, told her the news, and everyone involved is still alive! In fact, Ma is over the moon, although she wants them to get married ASAP, which means there
will be a big, fat, multicultural, multiracial wedding on the horizon, with lots of color and potential for drama and, more important, it will be held
before
Helen and Magnus’s: in short, the perfect wedding to kick-start next year.
Can’t say what the aunties will think about this, but, dear Diary, that’s my mother’s problem, not mine, mwuahahahahahahah!
The only low point in all of this is the fact that once again, Linda will be my plus-one.
Friday 9 December
Amazing news! *wipes tears of joy and snot, the latter which incidentally sounds way better than
nasal mucus,
its proper term, from face* Water is NOT dead! Or at least he has revived! Suresh just teased a strip where Rhean, in embracing a dead Water, discharges a blast of energy through her touch. And a finger twitches . . .
Is it weird that I’m so invested in a couple that exists only on paper?
Saturday 10 December
12:00 p.m.
Another beautiful morning of me waking up to a Saturday that is entirely mine. No law firm. No man. No Hunger Games to win.
Paradise.
I can’t explain how good it feels to be the boss of me, myself, and I, living on my own terms, my mother having been muzzled by news of my sister’s pregnancy, so am now totally, utterly free to pursue my passions and my hobbies (whatever they may be) with no
job to cushion me and my ass, my soon-to-be-thirty-four-year-old ass that is still as soft as an old pillow, even with all this free time on my hands where I could be working out.
Oh God.
It’s OK, it’s OK, need to learn to take it easy, #YOLO, otherwise what kind of millennial am I if I can’t take a career sabbatical? Also I’ve managed to sell almost all of my bags, which netted me a small fortune, and am renting out my spare room on Airbnb. Val helped me with the pictures and everything, incorporating filters that make my apartment exude a
hygge
vibe (i.e., the kind of apartment where Danish uber-waifs would prance around making cloudberry waffles with Stevia sprinkles while yodeling), which I am told is very in and ill, all at the same time, which explains the 80 percent occupancy rate, so I’m not
totally
adrift. Le mortgage is covered and all.
Am also interviewing for a job as head of legal at an international nonprofit working with urban refugees in Kuala Lumpur. The work is meaningful and interesting, exactly the kind I’d gotten into the legal profession to pursue. I’ve done two rounds of interviews and the chances are looking good. If I get it, I will have to move back to the motherland, something I’m apprehensive about; it’s been a while since I’ve lived there. To relearn the serpentine roads and the fractal skyline, snarling traffic jams, raintrees, and roadside vendors; the snatch-thieves, hawkers, buskers, beggars; the smog, heat, bustle, and wet chaotic beauty of KL—it should be interesting.
At least I will be close to family.
Family is, after all, almost everything. But not quite.
Friday 16 December
Linda and I were scheduled to fly to Chiang Mai for a Tang family hen party/retreat for Helen, sponsored by Auntie Wei Wei (Helen’s
wedding registration is scheduled for 31 December). Linda had volunteered to organize it, promising that it would be a whole bunch of fun but which Linda had, for some unfathomable reason, booked at a silent retreat. A luxury, six-star silent retreat, but still: no alcohol, no tech, no talking. And she was going to spring this fact upon the unsuspecting bride-to-be and the wedding party (three other cousins we didn’t like, no Melissa because she’s still so early in the pregnancy) at the last minute (when we arrived, essentially).
“Revenge,” Linda said when I questioned her motives. “For when she called us a bunch of loser spinsters.”
“She never said that,” I told her.
“Her eyes did.”
“It was Auntie Wei Wei. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t say it in those exact words, either.”
“Same thing. The sins of the parent shall be visited upon their children, haven’t you learned anything from
Game of Thrones
? The other Tangs will just have to be collateral damage.”
Dear God, Linda was a right nutter.
“Besides, this way we won’t have to talk to any of them.
En plus
, I got a sweet discount for the trip through my connection, and you, my dear, will not have to pay a single cent. Consider it an advance birthday gift. Well, except for the ‘respect’ deposit, you’re on the hook for that. But that’s for your own good, since we do need some way to rein in your destructive tendencies.”
I gave her a hug. Linda was many things—but she was mostly my dearest, kindest girlfriend.
—
After a turbulent flight, am now in Chiang Mai surrounded by dejected or wild-eyed corporate types in a silent retreat. The resort looked like something out of a Condé Nast feature, all wooden-villas-in-the-middle-of-a-decorative(?)-paddy-field pretty, and posh to boot. How posh, you ask? The girls and I were issued pure
linen resort wear (as standard uniform), pure organic cotton pajamas; everything was organic and locally sourced; the drinking water was “energized” with semiprecious stones and infused with herbs and flowers; proper king-size beds in every room, complete with a heated hot tub in each bathroom for “reflective evening soaks”; there was a resident yogi who was of some international renown; and every evening, angels were summoned to bless the dreams of the residents. Linda did not slum it, even when she was on a revenge mission.
Unfortunately, despite its twelve-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton luxury, it was also one of the stricter retreats, where guests were supposed to spend
ten days
in “blissful,” strict silence, practicing yoga, meditating, staring blankly into space while composing haikus/bucket lists, the like. There were some group meditations and yoga sessions, but we were not even allowed to interact then, as eye and any other form of contact between guests was strictly prohibited. Writing notes to the staff was allowed, but that was it. Breaking the vow of silence had expensive consequences: you could have your “respect” deposit forfeited—something I couldn’t afford. To nip any temptation to reach out to the evil modern world, there was zero tech on the compound, unless you count the stupid old-school phone at the reception that was only to be used in case of an emergency. No modems, no Wi-Fi, no mobiles, not even any books or music, just our naked thoughts, desires, dreams, bodies, merging with the universe.
Fuck. That.
Helen and the other cousins quit after the second night and presumably flew home, or so the note from the reception said. I laughed—silently. Until I remembered that I was still stuck on the resort.
By the fourth day I was ready to escape the compound or pay good money for ten minutes on the internet. I was even willing to use dial-up internet. Anything!
By the fifth day I was literally shaking with desire whenever I thought of my phone, even my work phone. I couldn’t remember why I had quit the firm if it meant I couldn’t type on that lovely, tactile keypad. I missed my phones. I mean, I couldn’t even play Candy Crush (which I am by no means re-addicted to).
By the sixth day I was begging Linda, who was oddly enough serene in the absence of all tech, to take me home, in sign language, whenever we were alone in a community room. She would give me her Evil Eye but keep mum, not because she was afraid of losing the deposit but because the rest of the guests were pretty hard-core. I had seen them gang up on another woman who, on the third day, had started muttering at the portrait of the venerated guru, shushing her so vigorously (and perhaps releasing their own pent-up frustrations) that she burst into tears and was escorted off the premises, presumably never to see her deposit again.
So far, so bad: Linda wasn’t caving in, and I couldn’t afford to crumble.
Here’s what was happening chez moi. We were supposed to meditate and keep a journal of our thoughts at the end of the day, to catalog them, which apparently helps clarify them and thus nudge our brains into resolving emotional conflicts. In reality I found myself doodling and composing long, rambling poems to Suresh. In the poems I would explain how I really felt about him, how I regretted pushing him away every time he tried to make a move, until it was too late. Then at the end of the night I would mouth the words before I’d shred them methodically into long strips, deriving a kind of weird satisfaction from the destruction of my truest thoughts, my innermost feelings, in such a tangible way.
Not that I would ever show Suresh those poems anyway: they were terrible. Most of them rhymed.
On the seventh night, desperate, I ignored house rules and rapped on Linda’s door, shaking with the need to talk to someone.
She opened the door in what was most definitely not standard
issue silent retreat wear: a racy black silk negligee. Not surprisingly she was holding a smartphone, and the screen was showing a semi-naked Jason modeling equally racy boy thongs. I was too far gone to bother quizzing her how she had managed to smuggle these things to her room—instead, I lunged.
“Gimme,” I rasped, my first word to another human in days. She raised the phone high, grabbed me by my robe, and pulled me into the room as I flailed for the phone.
“Gimme,” I moaned, scrabbling for the phone in desperation.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, “or we’ll get caught.”
“I’m out,” Jason said, above my head. “Call me when you’re alone again, lovebug.”
Linda shoved me onto the bed. “Stay there or I’m throwing the phone down the toilet bowl and you won’t get to use the phone at all.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I breathed, winded and incredulous. But of course she would: it was an Android. Plus she probably could get a replacement at the snap of her imperious fingers, no problem, no consequences. I stayed down.
“What do you want with the phone?” she said pleasantly.
“Suresh. Call!” Apparently I’d forgotten how to string sentences together out loud.
“Nope, no can do.” She waggled her finger at me. “Remember you’re here to detox, to figure out what you want. You have to go through the program, stay off-grid, be silent.” Said the woman having FaceTime sex!
I grabbed her arm. “Not leaving till I speak to Suresh. It’s important. Wanna tell him,
now
, how I feel about him.”
She studied me, arms akimbo and frowning. “Are you sure you know what you want? You just rejected a marriage proposal after seriously considering it.”
I nodded and forced myself to enunciate every syllable. “I want to speak to— I want Suresh. I’ve never been surer of anything else
in my life—I’ve just spent a week meditating on it, for the love of sake.” Fat tears pricked my eyes and dripped down my face. They dislodged the ice pick up her ass.
“All right, if you feel so strongly about it, I’ll sort something out for you, but not tonight. Wait for my Bat-Signal.” She shooed me out of the room. “Now get going before they do the night rounds and we get caught together. My reputation will never live that down.”
And with those parting words, I found myself out in the corridor and staring at her locked door, wondering how it was that I wanted to punch her in the mouth and hug her at the same time. There was poetry in that tension.
I padded back to my room, the beginnings of a limerick brewing in my head.
—
The next day I was clearing up the dining room after breakfast (we all have chores here. How could I have forgotten to mention this? Posh people paying for the privilege to serve their equals—there was nothing posher than that) when one of the orderlies, I mean, male attendants came up behind me and whispered, “Follow me to the New Awakening Meditation Courtyard,” before walking away. I turned and saw Arjun, the resident palm and aura reader (yes, I know, it’s a thing), who, upon catching my eye, winked at me.
I briefly toyed with the possibility that he had been soliciting a sexy encounter before dismissing it outright. Arjun was close to ninety. He would probably dislocate a hip. But what could he want to say to me so badly that he would break the sacred vow of silence? Maybe I had a moldy aura or a misaligned chakra that he hadn’t wanted to point out in front of the others. Or he had looked into my future, seen something disastrous, and needed to warn me about it.
I am a very positive, glass-half-full person, obviously.
I stepped into the courtyard and drew a sharp breath.
There, standing in the dappled shade of a copse of mango trees, half-hidden by a tree trunk, was Suresh, dressed in beige chinos and white polo shirt, which left nothing to my imagination (I was already starved from all stimuli). He looked lotus-flower fresh. In contrast, I looked like I had been living under a bridge, having not used a hairbrush or makeup or deodorant since the moment I entered this hellhole retreat.
Then I recalled that I used to work in the same office as him and he’d seen me take cookie crumbs out of my bra. My sports bra. The one I would wear whenever I ran out of proper bras. So . . .
I shrugged and approached Suresh’s hiding spot, stopping a few feet away out of respect for the resort rules and his olfactory faculties.
“Enjoy,” Arjun said before skipping away. The crafty, limber old sprite!
“Hi,” I said after a long pause where we drank each other in. “What brings you here?” Ever the elegant, subtle one I was.
“You,” he said simply, ever succinct.
“How did you find me? I went off-grid. This place is unlisted. Only my mother and sister know where I am!”
“And that’s exactly how I knew where to find you. Your mom, she DMed me, via Instagram.”
“What?”
“Yup, she told me she was a big fan of
TLTS
, which she discovered while she was performing her due diligence on me”—a pointed look in my direction, to which I responded with an innocent
Who, me?
shrug—“but that she had a daughter who was an even bigger fan of mine, and that she was with a bunch of ladies in a silent retreat in Chiang Mai with Linda and I should go find her and be happy. So here I am.”
I couldn’t believe it—my mother was on Instagram? Also she was
helping
me and Suresh get together—so that I would be
happy
? Was this the Upside Down?
“So you didn’t come because of Linda?” I said faintly, trying to make sense of my off-kilter world.
“Nah. She texted me yesterday around midnight, but that was after I’d arrived at my hotel here. Her text said that you had something you needed to tell me in person, though.” He cleared his throat. “So here I am, Andrea—what did you need to tell me?”
“Ah, well, you see, I had this case I needed to discuss . . .”
Good Lord, I just couldn’t help joking even at this pivotal moment. I tried again. “It’s, y’know, about us.” I was blushing up a storm.
So was he. “Just so you know, even if you hadn’t contacted me I would have sought you out anyway. I’m sorry for the radio silence after the last time we saw each other in the office. I was really hurt by your accusations and I thought you were engaged to Eric, and as soon as I got to the States, I’d blocked you on all the channels, changed my number, etc., hoping to erase you from my life.”
I nodded. I completely understood why he’d blanked me. “And did it work?”
“Yes, it did, at least in the beginning. I threw myself into the editorial process of the graphic novel, but as much as I love
TLTS
, I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about how we left things. Finally it became clear to me that I needed to see you, to straighten things out between us, or nothing I do will ever be right.”
“Why?” I said, needing to hear it from him.
“You know why—I like you.”
“Since when? And how?” He’d hinted in his note, but I was in full lawyer mode: I mean, I’d seen Anousha’s butt in a tight dress.
Suresh’s gaze was on the mango tree behind me. “I know this sounds lame, but I’ve had feelings for you for some time now,” he confessed. He turned his gaze on me. “Something about the way
you type, slightly cross-eyed and the top of your tongue sticking out—it’s sexy.” He shuffled closer. “On a more serious note, the more time I spent with you, the more convinced I was that you were the person I wanted to end up with, because you challenge me, you keep me on my toes, and you make me miss you when you’re not around. You’re my North Star.”
Oh my God, this is the kind of nerd romance stuff I never thought I’d be swayed by, but here I was, tears in my eyes like a proper sap.
We’d been inching closer and closer to each other the whole time, and suddenly my nose was touching his chest and his arms were around me.
“So your Eric phase is officially over?” he whispered into my ear.
I nodded. Every fiber in my being nodded. “Completely over,” I whispered in the direction of his shoulder.
“Who ended it?”
“I did.”
“Why?” He drew back and looked me in the eyes. He was very beautiful in the soft morning light; I couldn’t believe he was mine.
“Because I have feelings for you, too,” I told him, blushing as I said it. Funny how the simplest words become so hard when you’re afraid of being rejected.
“Is that so.”
I nodded, very nonchalant, very Catwoman-esque. “Yup.”
“Double confirm?” he teased, lapsing into Singlish.
“Shut up,” I said. And by way of shutting him up, I leaned over and kissed him. There was a moment of hesitancy as our lips touched; he pulled back and whispered my name like he couldn’t believe we were finally doing this, but then I tugged him back and kissed him with the entire force of my being until I felt him give in, returning the kiss with an intensity that matched mine. We
wrapped our arms around each other, the kissing getting more frantic with every second, our lips—
“Andrea!” someone screeched. “You won’t believe this, but I’m—we’re—getting kicked out of the resort!”
“What?” I said, shoving Suresh away guiltily. Was (silent) kissing allowed on silent retreats?
It was Linda, being frog-marched down the path by two male attendants and a porter following behind with what looked like the entire luggage collection by Louis Vuitton.
“Phones are not permitted on the retreat, Miss Andrea. Not only did we catch her with one, she was conducting a lewd FaceTime conversation on it,” one of the attendants said, looking hassled, “and right in the middle of the Serenity Yoga room and right under the gaze of our guru!”
I groaned. “Linda, for fuck’s sake! Could you not keep it in your pants?”
“It was just a nipple, the uptight bastard,” Linda shouted, waving her right fist, which was clutching a mini bottle of rum.
“It was an entire breast,” the man said, looking like he was close to tears.
“I’m going to sue!” Linda shouted, as she was escorted off the premises by browbeaten employees. “I want my money back. I don’t feel any more energized and look how downtrodden my friend still looks!”
“Wait a second, this man is not from the retreat,” said one of the attendants, the larger one built like a tank, pointing at Suresh. It wasn’t a difficult deduction, since Suresh was wearing “outside world” clothes. The attendant let go of one of Linda’s arms and ambled toward us with a snarl. “Hey! You there! You’re trespassing!”
“Oh shit, let’s get out of here,” Suresh said, grabbing my hand and tugging me down the driveway, trailing the still struggling
and shouting Linda and her band of orderlies. I fought to contain my giggles—who the hell gets booted off a silent retreat?
But first—
“Kiss me, Suresh Aditparan.”
He smiled, drew me close, and we kissed again. And Diary, it felt just
right.