Tales From A Broad (19 page)

‘Are you sure, Ma'am?' they all ask as the cabs idle.

‘Yes, go, go …' we say gamely.

‘… before I change my mind,' I hear someone say.

Later, we sit politely in the living room. The kids are sweaty and swinging on candy highs and lows and asking to watch television. No one unbuttons his or her pants, no one busts a gut. No one pierces his or her body, no one writes in blood, no one walks on fire, burns fake money or dances while wearing a scary dragon costume. No wonder Americans are ignored.

I might join the crowd.

Wednesday nights are for Fran and Frank staff meetings. First, we loosen up with an hour of tennis followed by two jugs of Tiger Beer and two bowls of palm-oiled Camel Brand crunchy nuts at the New Barrel Pub. We read the minutes of the last meeting, discuss old business, bring up new business, digress and meander, continue in a peripatetic fashion as we force the last half mug down, adjourn, go home, check on the kids and watch
The Practice
. I eat a tuna melt and Frank picks at a piece of buttered toast. We go to bed at 11.

This particular night, we dispense with reading the minutes of the last meeting because I remember it clearly and Frank remembers it wrongly. Let's just say I was right and leave it at that, shall we? My agenda had two items on it but I crossed out ‘try a new sandwich'. Frank hates my tuna habit. At the first sound of the can opener, he makes up the sofa bed; he screams at the sight of me peeling a hardboiled egg. I had trained myself to eat these things only on nights he was travelling but then I started to slip, to let go, and now, after being married for seven years, I am often spotted carelessly sitting cross-legged on the floor in a long, faded T-shirt and saggy briefs, flipping the TV dial, hunched over a bulging, smelly sandwich. I am going to try a new sandwich, soon – maybe not tonight, but soon. I need to make that commitment to the marriage. I need to try harder to like maybe just cheese. Did Cantor Donald not prophesise before our wedding that there would be many sacrifices along the path? He was so right. Just cheese, yup. And a shorter T-shirt. And tighter undies. Next thing you know, I might even brush my teeth before bed.

The remaining issue on my agenda is planning a vacation.

‘Frank,' I say, shifting my chair closer, ‘let's go away.' He is noisily eating his peanuts. He has this habit of popping them in one at a time and sort of coming down on them with a hard surprise attack – K-E-R-R-R-U-N-C-H – followed by a rapid-fire chomp, chomp, chomp. He couldn't do this in the US. Unlike American cocktail peanuts, these palm-oil-coated ones aren't greasy; they look shellacked. I watch his mouth hammer at a few more nuts before he feels he can leave it for a minute and turn his attention to me.

‘Sure, sure, sounds good.' He gulps down some beer and opens his leather-bound daily planner. ‘When were you thinking?'

‘Next week?'

‘I can't next week, I'm in Jakarta,' he says, pointing to the word ‘Jakarta' and the line drawn through the week as incontrovertible proof.

‘Okay, the week after?'

‘Alrighty. I'm in Taipei from Tuesday until Friday,' he says, tapping at the Xs on his daily planner and circling the word ‘Taipei' for me. Yes, exhibit B, indeed. ‘But after that I'm clear until Sunday.'

‘Great, so we'll go somewhere for a long Saturday. Let's book the living-room sofa.'

‘Just until I have to go,' he points, ‘to Bangkok.'

There was a woman I used to see at the pool who was somewhat unfortunate-looking. Suddenly, she wasn't there any more. Her husband sent her and the kids packing. I didn't have a chance to get to know her but now and then I had heard snippets of conversation about her between Valerie and Tess, who were her good friends. Apparently, she discovered her husband cheating. She caught him with his pants down at home. She was supposed to have been in a clinic getting some radical new treatment (for you-know-what – cellulite – the poor thing), but she chickened out.

Word is the husband just rolled his eyes and, somewhat bored of the game already, said to the closet, ‘Come out, Dorrie, gig's up.' Dorrie popped out.

‘Dorrie, I believe you know my wife?' He nodded from one to the other.

‘Hi Ma'am. Don't worry, I always change the sheets, Ma'am,' Dorrie said.

At first, he was extra careful, backed up his false alibis with sincere little scribbles in his Filofax, irrefutable testimony to his arduous travel, his dedication to home and hearth.

‘It's okay, Dorrie,' he'd whisper at some hotel in the city, ‘my datebook says I'm in Jakarta. I left it lying open.'

‘You left it out? Ma'am will think I don't clean the things away.'

I shake the image from my head. Not Frank, not us. We talk. We're friends.

‘What about over Christmas? That'd be a great way to celebrate, don't you think?' he says. K-E-R-R-R-U-N-C-H, chomp, chomp, chomp.

‘Can't. There's the children's party at Lisa and Roy's and Caroline's Christmas Eve cocktails and I'm on the planning committee for the expat Christmas Day party. It's in the function room. It's all sorted out.'

‘Sounds cosy.'

‘Wait, before all of that, you know, we have your birthday.'

‘God, you know what I want to do for my birthday?' Frank looks off, squinting dreamily. ‘I seem to remember some sort of promise …'

I squirm in my seat a bit. ‘Anyway, we're having a big dinner party at our house.'

‘Really?' he snaps back. ‘In fact, that is
exactly
what I want to do. I was just going to ask you if you'd mind inviting everyone we barely know over, doling out a fortune feeding them and getting them drunk, and spending the rest of the night cleaning up a big mess. Please, please promise me – because this is my 35th – that you'll also get really stressed out all day long and leave me with the kids.'

I nod and cross my heart.

‘You know me too well,' Frank smirks.

‘Um, then,' I continue, ‘we're all going to Anywheres for dancing.'

‘You are a mind reader! I love dancing. I
especially
love it in a group situation.'

‘Yeah, the Burnses, the Markses, the Hendricks, the Landrocks, the Tildons, the Stones and Irish Kell … everyone!'

‘Who is anyone!' A beat. ‘And then, Fran?'

‘What do you mean, Frank?'

‘I'm turning 35, Fran.'

‘Yeah, but we didn't really think you would, did we, Frank?'

‘But I am, Fran. You made a promise.' The good Cantor Donald also prophesised that if we did not keep our sacred oaths to each other, our marriage would falter.

‘Oh, look at the time. We gotta get home if we want to watch
The Practice
.' I call to our regular waitress, ‘Tanya, we'll settle up now.'

At home, I eat a cheese sandwich.

While Frank was in Jakarta, I caught up with work. While Frank was in Taipei, I shopped for his birthday, Hanukah and Christmas. He never called and he didn't leave me his itinerary. I wanted to talk to him but even his secretary didn't know where he was staying.

While Frank was in Bangkok, I marinated a brisket, made three different polenta pizzas, baked five dozen chocolate chip cookies and whipped up batches of dips. In all, I swam six miles, ran 100 miles, invented recipes for fried oyster falafel, crab-stuffed hushpuppies, anchovy puffs and beer-battered popcorn (don't bother, it's better with mayonnaise and white bread), caught the kids off the slide 500 times, pushed them on the swings 900 times, erected a kingdom of sand castles, wiped ice-cream off small fists until my hands became forever grafted with cheap paper napkins, and took the kids to the zoo, the bird park, the science centre and to see the ‘snow' at Tanglin mall.

I wished Frank were with us then. We stood there with a meringue of bubbles on our heads, surrounded by thrill-starved Singaporeans – children, adults and even disenfranchised youths – whooping it up together in the communal lather, pushing and shoving to get closer to the 90-foot-high plaster Santa whose pipe was the source of the white stuff. If you got real near, you'd get a blast like a pie in the face. A father and two boys about ten and 13 mowed Sadie down in their rush to experience ‘snow'.

‘Hey, asshole,' I shouted. I must have gotten the name right because he turned around. He looked at me innocently, curiously, his cheeks and nose inexplicably rosy. His expression turned impatient – the Santa was waiting, could I please finish my sentence? I couldn't. I forgot what to say next. Then I thought of something. I shouted it loud and clear. ‘It's soap, you moron! See?' I threw a snowball at him, which just glopped on my feet. I started to show him how futile it would be to build a lather-man. Sadie tugged my arm. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. Everyone looked at me. The mall music – ‘White Christmas', ‘Silent Night', ‘Jingle Bells' – came to a screeching halt. Santa stopped belching snow and fixed his plaster gaze on me.

'
Twas two nights before Christmas
,

And all through the mall
,

Not a creature was stirring
,

Not a sound in the hall
.

There came a pop, pop, pop
,

From the bubbles of snow

That made everyone happy
,

Till Fran let them know
.

It's soap, you moron … It's soap, you moron … The words echoed through the streets, into every village and every home. It's soap, you moron. I grabbed Sadie and Huxley and slid away to the parking lot.

After a while, once hot chocolate had been sipped and marshmallows dunked in the festive lounge of the Regency, the kids stopped crying. I tried to explain to them that in America, you call someone an asshole and they don't pause to wonder what possibly elicited such a rude reaction in a fellow man. They just say, ‘Yeah, well, screw you.' Right? So, Sadie, Huxley, I was out of my element, you know? Like when you find yourself in the wrong playground or something. Get it? Here, I don't know what's going on. They cock their head, look all perplexed, say ‘Sorry, sorry' and continue pushing the guy in front, who's pushing another guy in front. I mean, Sadie, Huxley, you tell me, are they really innocent or is it their strategy: to get you to feel too humiliated to continue firing away? Sadie tried so hard to keep up with me. She nodded her head and said, ‘Mommy? Is Santa from the US?'

‘There
is
no S … I mean, I don't think so.'

‘Mommy?'

‘Yes, puddin'?'

‘He might not like it if you call him an asshole.'

‘Let's not use the word again, okay?'

But the very next day, we were driving down a road that suddenly became one lane due to construction. There was no warning sign. I came head to head with another car. I happened to be in the correct lane. If I backed out, I'd be moving into the cross street and major traffic. He could have just pulled into a driveway. But he refused to budge. So did I. We sat there gunning our engines. Mortal enemies, only death could choose the winner. He sat, he gunned. I put the car in park and leapt out, pointing my finger at him. ‘Hey, idiot! Get the hell out of your damned car, you stupid asshole.' He rolled his windows up. I jumped onto his hood and did a little monkey dance. ‘Get the fuck out!' I screamed. Lots of passersby were rubbernecking now, plus two outdoor restaurants full of people. A second later, someone ran out of a nearby house and entered the man's car. My opponent rolled down his window and asked me to please get off his hood. I said, ‘Yeah, just as soon as you back up.'

‘Okay,' he said pleasantly, beginning to back up, with me on the car. I hopped down.

‘Yeah, it
better
be okay!' Walking back to my car, I threw in another ‘asshole' just because I had one on deck. Then I got limp. I mean, what was all that? Was he just waiting for his friend and innocently, albeit stupidly, thought I wouldn't mind waiting too? Maybe he finally realised I was too dangerous to push around. Or, maybe it was a solution – save face for him, show me for the lunatic I am and then we can all get back on the road. Whatever it was, it felt a lot like swinging hard and missing the ball. I was hungry for my next victim. I had no idea what to say to Sadie, who was searching my face for an explanation. I looked at her and then back at Huxley. ‘Come on … I'm sorry, but he was! Okay, okay. My holiday promise: Stop getting so mad. No more bad words.'

The day before Frank's birthday party, I put my brisket in the oven. I had told Prestons I'd need a big one. Since I didn't know the conversion from pounds to kilos, I thought ‘Australian' a good standard of meat measure.

‘There will be ten Australians,' I informed the butcher. He gave a low whistle. When I got there to pick it up, he solemnly unfurled the thing with respect and dignity, a veritable beefy flag ceremony. Then a couple of minions picked it up, hoisted it on their shoulders and paraded it down the aisle like they were carrying the Pharaoh's palanquin.