In the late 70s, I started working as a general clerk along Beach Street. It was a dream come true. I could take a direct bus from home and just walk five minutes to the office. The most exciting time was without a doubt, lunch time. I greedily counted all the kopitiams (local coffeeshops) I could lunch at. Hey, I could do a two-week circuit without repeating! That made me happy.
Barely eighteen was a wonderful time. No longer a child but not quite yet a woman. In those days until you marry, you are still a girl and can receive ang pow (red packets filled with money) during Chinese New Year.
My closest friend Mimmi was a few inches short of being a real 'va-va-voom'. She was an elegant, womanly 32 with short crop hair that framed an angelic face with ruby red lips. She had a figure that rivalled Mae West's - so small was her waist. She also often wore three-inch stiletto heels that let her sashay in her walk, always one foot in front of the other like a model. Her shoes were all shiny black pumps with peep toes that exhibited manicured nails of bright crimson blood-red.
Mimmi was very attractive and popular. Every time we were out for lunch, there would always be some guy who's lost and looking for directions. He would inevitably approach and ask her for help. I would get annoyed and screw up my face. Hey, buddy, can’t you see I’m starving? I’d ask loudly in my head.
These men have peas for brains, is what I’d complain to Mimmi endlessly. Why are they so stupid? We could be standing outside the Ban Hin Lee bank and they'd ask her to point them in the direction of where else? Ban Hin Lee. How stupid was that? Hellooo... anybody home in that noggin? Arrgh…I would get so agitated that I felt like slapping some sense into them.
Mimmi would simply smile her Big Sister smile and tell me to 1) eat less, and 2) to learn to smile benignly. What kind of smile is that, benignly? The only benign I know points to not having cancer. I would love to be able to say that under her tutelage, I blossomed into her twin. But most unfortunately for me, I have that Hakka stubborn streak. Nothing happened, no osmosis. All that grooming came to nought.
If she bought me pantyhose to wear, I’d rip them and create runs the size and width of railway tracks within the hour. If I feel that my mascara and eyeliner made me look like a raccoon, I rubbed them off. She tried rouge, but my skin flared and broke out. She gave me a crimson smile with kissable lips, I would blush red from my neck to my head and all the way down to my legs. My mouth would hang open with lipstick I think was heavy, thick and annoying. So off that came.
After many failed and foiled attempts, she left me alone. My straight waist length hair was jet black and shiny; I was slightly built and my hands were small and dainty; but my personality was just too huge for this kind of body. I love to laugh and crack jokes and generally be happy. That was the point of contention with Mimmi.
“Smile gently, sweetly. Don’t show all your teeth and please don’t ever show your gums," Mimmi would coach. “Walk straight and tall, stop slouching.” I then walk correctly for ten minutes before folding up my chest. My reason was, “Men stare at my boobies, it’s horrible.”
“They’re only admiring, Dee Dee. You need to show your assets and shine!” the same retort she would give. Yada, yada, yada.... I’d try to chant in my head to drown out what I know to be the truth she was speaking.
One afternoon in June, it happened. The bouquets came. I was at Reception and had to sign for them. It was addressed to one (Hey, I memorised this, okay?) Lovely Miss Mimmi. What kind of bad Engrish is this, I thought indignantly. But I kept my tongue in check when I saw how happy Mimmi was.
Oh, I thought, so no one died… and someone actually spent a lot of money to send her flowers.
The first was pink carnations all prettied up with ribbons and Baby’s Breath. And yes, Mimmi also gave me my lessons in flowers and their meanings.
The most intriguing part was that the card was signed 'Your Secret Admirer'. Whoa! What kind of idiot would spend so much money to remain a secret admirer? In my books that was pretty bad ROI, ahem, that’s Return On Investment (my girlfriend in Accounting taught me that).
The other department girls all gushed and fussed over the flowers and queried me to no end. “Did you ask who it was from?” Er, why should I care! Ha..ha.. Clueless is bliss as usual.
And then the next day and the next day and the day after and the day after that. All in all she received five bouquets. The last one was the most interesting. It was all blood-red roses with only a single white one in the middle. No ribbons, no Baby’s Breath, nothing. Mimmi stopped with her lessons on flowers and their hidden meanings.
Sometime after that, a most annoying man started to show up during lunchtime. Mimmi by then was dating up a storm with a guy named Romeo. Unbelievable, I know, but things just happened, as they often do. Without a lunch partner, I decided to eat in. Besides sometimes when nice Romeo takes Mimmi out and over orders, they’d bring a doggie bag back for my teatime.
“Phang’s interested in you, Dee Dee,” Mimmi (and Romeo) would encourage. “Why?” I’d ask, horrified by the thought. “He’s like so old, he’s twenty seven!” Mimmi winched at that. Oopsie… “Just befriend him, Dee Dee. Please?” she’d plead.
Phang came every other day after that just to watch me eat my sandwich. He’d sit and talk and I’d eat quietly. I thought to myself then, Pretty soon, he’ll run out of things to say and one hour is only 60 minutes. I’ll live!
But Phang had a lot to say and wouldn’t shut up. He’s Teochew. He spoke bad Engrish, passable Hokkien, incomprehensible Mandarin and the amazing thing was he would sing songs to me. That was very, very weird. He’s tone-deaf like me and couldn't carry a tune to save his life. Yet, he’d go on and on unabashed.
Mimmi called him my little boyfriend. I’d cringe and stare-daggers at her. My life was getting pretty awful. That lunch hour became torture. No one would eat with me, as it was already known in the grapevine that my so-called boyfriend would come a-calling. I was miserable.
That fateful Thursday, I summoned up all my courage and told him in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. Told him I hated the sound of his voice, his dressing... that slacks with white sports shoes and checkered shirt was all wrong. That he couldn't sing and that his voice was jarred and irked me to no end. With that I touched him for the very first and last time. I placed both my palms on his shoulder and shoved hard. I kept pushing until he was out of the door and I guess, out of my life.
He left crest-fallen. I watched him walk out dejected. I was happy again. Around 5pm that afternoon a phone call came for my boss. He took it in clipped tones and then walked into the general office and looked straight at me.
“Phang had an accident. It was a hit-and-run on Carnarvon Street. Someone said he had just finished his lunch and was just stepping out of the kopitiam when it happened.” I put a hand over my mouth, shocked.
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