The Odds Are Good But The Goods Are Odd

Sun­day after­noon I had cof­fee with ST, when her mother called and asked to meet her at a shop­ping cen­tre nearby.

ST asked me to accom­pany her for a few min­utes. I thought noth­ing of pre­tend­ing to be her boyfriend for a while so her par­ents can think that yes she’s not loaf­ing around tak­ing drugs. I was intro­duced to her mother and her aunts and one of her aunts kept look­ing at me for the longest time.

That aunt asks me whether I am Hainanese and whether I live in Lee­don Park. I say yes, how you know? She asks if I know a LJW. I say yes, she’s my ex from 15 years ago or so. ST’s jaw drops with a clang. LJW is her cousin. That aunt of ST is also LJW’s aunt and she remem­bers me very well.

Appar­ently, I have met ST before in that pre­vi­ous life. In that life, I was a scrawny teenager who had a rela­tion­ship with her cousin that was both tumul­tuous and hilar­i­ous. In that life, ST was a bratty 8 year old girl who ran riot around her grand­par­ents’ house which I stayed over at on occasion.

I have not seen LJW since we broke up and I swore never to con­tact her again. Looks like another grand plan got thwarted, and the ghosts of Christ­mases past have been haunt­ing me all this while. I should have known. Any­way, that aunt said to me, “If you think Jee Wei was bad, this one is worse”, to which I said, “Don’t worry, I know, and I’m not dat­ing her any­way”, to which she said, “Don’t worry, I don’t inter­fere with her affairs”.

That few min­utes turned out to be an hour plus, as that aunt started telling all and sundry about how I was like when I was 18 and 19; about how LJW used to tor­ture me; about how she had to drive me home because I stayed too late; about how I snuck over and stayed over think­ing she didn’t know, but she did and kept our secret; about how I used to paint t-shirts and how one of those t-shirts she saved and gave one of her grand-nephews to wear last year; about how I uncer­e­mo­ni­ously ended the rela­tion­ship when I found out LJW was see­ing some­one else.

All this while, ST was pick­ing up her jaw from the floor and try­ing to see if the Cartier watch was nice enough to buy.

All this while, I’m think­ing, if this was some elab­o­rate and dia­bol­i­cal plan to tell me this rela­tion­ship was one meant for the ages, it cer­tainly was elab­o­rate and diabolical.

My head is still spinning.