Soy Sauce for Beginners Read online

  In front of the door, I laid a hand on Frankie’s shoulder, hoping to coax some of her positive energy up through my palm.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I turned the doorknob and watched the door swing open.

  Inside, the house was filled with people dressed in varying interpretations of the party’s “Roaring Twenties” theme—chosen to commemorate the end of Kat’s own roaring twenties. There were a couple of flapper dresses and Louise Brooks wigs, but the majority of the crowd was simply dressed up: girls in sequins, guys in blazers and jeans. They spilled out of the living room and onto the patio and garden surrounding the swimming pool; they clustered around the outdoor bar and the long table laden with finger foods: dumplings in bamboo steamer baskets, assorted sushi rolls, chicken satay made onsite by a hired cook—a wizened Malay man who’d brought his own mini grill and pandan-leaf fan. All around us, people laughed and hugged and talked in frenzied voices over the ambient trance music streaming from surround-sound speakers.

  “I’m way underdressed,” Frankie said, anxiety shading her face for the first time. She smoothed her black tank top over the waistband of her jeans and undid her ponytail.

  “You look fine,” I said, pleased that at the last minute I’d abandoned trying to look like I didn’t care, and changed into a silk top that hung from the thinnest of spaghetti straps.

  Frankie didn’t need to be told to kick off her sandals and nudge them next to the other pairs lined up by the door, as I did with my heels. Stalling for time, I paused before the hallway mirror to check for mascara smudges. Frankie joined me, combing her fingers through her hair, and the sight of our reflections gave me another jolt. All at once, my cheeks seemed too full, my jaw-line too prominent, everything about me too short and squat.

  I turned away from the mirror. “Shall we?”

  “I guess,” she said, tugging again at the hem of her top.

  My envy faded. “You look great,” I said.

  She nodded but seemed unconvinced.

  At the far end of the living room, the birthday girl stood by the bar in a sparkly tiara and a dress made from tiers of silver fringe. In one opera-gloved hand she carried a long cigarette holder with an unlit cigarette; in the other, an enormous bouquet of orange tulips. I’d been so focused on myself, I’d forgotten to bring a gift.

  “Zar boh,” Kat cried when she spotted me. She thrust the tulips at her husband Ming and hurried over. “Where the hell have you been? Why haven’t you returned my calls? My own mother had to tell me you were back in town.” She scanned the length of Frankie’s new body before refocusing on me. “You’re lucky there are too many people around for me to wring your neck.”

  I tried to laugh away her words. “It’s great to see you,” I said. I didn’t blame Kat for being upset. She was the only Singaporean friend I’d kept in touch with through my years abroad, and I’d done a lousy job of it these past months. When Paul moved out, I’d emailed her the news, and then had failed to respond to her increasingly frantic messages.

  Kat wrapped a satin-encased arm around Frankie. They’d met once before during Frankie’s first visit to Singapore. “Welcome back,” Kat said evenly.

  I could tell she was trying to decide whether to mention Frankie’s weight loss. She was about to say more when a tall, well-built man, his face already flushed, backed into her.

  “Hello, watch where you’re going, you big oaf,” Kat said, only half kidding.

  The red-faced man found his balance. “Sorry, my dear,” he said with a gallant bow.

  Shaking her head in mild disapproval, Kat explained that he was her husband’s army kaki, a friend from his mandatory military service days.

  He was already taking Frankie’s hand. “Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Frankie blushed and ducked her head, and for an instant, with her newly chiseled face hidden, she was my college roommate again—the girl I had to beg one of Paul’s friends to take to the Screw-Your-Roommate dance, and whom he promptly abandoned on the dance floor for the skinny redhead who lived above us. That evening, I left Paul with his boorish friends, and she and I, still clad in our strapless dresses, biked downtown for a late-night ice cream cone.

  “Aiyah, Seng Loong, get out of here,” Kat said, playfully shoving the red-faced man. She led Frankie and me to the bar where she handed us each a champagne flute. “Ming,” she called to her husband. “Look who’s here. And come meet Frankie.”

  Unlike his wife, who floated about the room, waving her cigarette holder as if it were a natural extension of her arm, Ming shuffled over in the three-quarter-length dinner jacket and high-waist trousers that Kat must have picked out. A bead of perspiration trickled down the side of his face, and half of his dapper little moustache had come unglued and now dangled limply by his mouth. Ming was small and bug-eyed and had always looked slightly stunned behind the thick glasses he’d traded for contacts after he met Kat. When they first started dating, Paul and I placed bets on how long they’d last.

  Now I hugged Ming and told him how great it was to see him. I was about to introduce Frankie when we heard a loud pop. The trans music–spewing speakers snapped off, and a series of arpeggios rose from the back corner of the room. At the grand piano sat a short, bald man in a three-piece charcoal-gray suit. He inhaled dramatically before breaking into a flashy rendition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” filled with improvised trills and glissandos. The dim lights glinted off his clean-shaven pate, and I recognized the classmate with whom I’d once performed a four-hands piano duet at our primary school’s National Day concert.

  “We should have Gretch take a turn,” said Frankie.

  “We should,” Kat agreed.

  “That’s right,” said Ming. “I forgot you played.”

  “Maybe after a few drinks,” I said to shut them up. Even though my old piano still stood in my parents’ living room, I hadn’t touched a keyboard since I’d sold my Steinway upright to a classmate last month—for extra cheap because she let me stack boxes of music books in her basement storage unit. The one thing I did bring home was the bulky, old-fashioned, wooden pyramid of a metronome I’d owned since college, but it sat forlornly on my night table, reduced to a large, impractical paperweight.

  The pianist played on, each verse more ornate than the last. Lyrics filled my head: They said someday you’ll find / all who love are blind / Oh, when your heart’s on fire / You must realize / Smoke gets in your eyes.

  As the piece came to a close, the pianist segued niftily into something from West Side Story. Two girls clutching at least a dozen silver heart-shaped balloons squeezed past us. They were dressed almost identically in slinky halter tops and tight black pants.

  “Happy birthday, Kat!” they chimed in unison, unclenching their fists.

  The balloons shot up in the air. The crowd let loose a chorus of “ooooo’s” and “ahhhh’s.” One enthusiastic guest started to sing “Happy Birthday,” and then his voice trailed off when no one else joined in. The pianist played on without missing a beat.

  Kat said, “Those two are too much.”

  “Where are we?” Frankie whispered in my ear. “The Great Gatsby?”

  Somewhere nearby a girl screamed with laughter.

  I took Frankie’s wrist and wondered when its slightness would stop surprising me. “Let’s go outside.”

  Before I could step through the patio doors, Kat’s hand clamped down on my forearm. “Give us one minute,” she said to Frankie as she dragged me to a corner.

  “What? What did I do?” I said, trying to sound jovial.

  She folded her arms across her chest and studied me. “How are you?” she asked, managing to turn the question into an accusation. When I opened my mouth, she said, “No, really. How are you?”

  “I’m doing great.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. She took my face between her palms and pulled me so close our noses almost touched. “I never liked him, you hear me? He was never good enough for you.”

/>   I jerked away, stunned by how instinctively I still rushed to defend Paul. I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Okay,” she said, releasing me. “Go have fun.”

  Still choked up, I backed away.

  Outside by the bar, the red-faced man had already tracked down Frankie.

  “I didn’t get a chance to properly introduce myself,” he was saying. “I’m Seng Loong. I also go by Pierre.” He flashed two rows of yellow teeth.

  I almost laughed out loud, but Frankie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled shyly. “Hi, Pierre. I’m Francesca.”

  She never used her full name.

  “Francesca. Are you Italian?”

  She nodded. “On my mother’s side.”

  Neither appeared to notice as I stepped away to refill my empty champagne flute and cram a plate with as many sticks of satay and sushi rolls as it could hold. I retreated to the far side of the pool, away from the lights and the people.

  From my new vantage point, I watched Pierre tell Frankie a story, the climax of which involved him getting down on all fours and crawling around her in a circle. She threw back her head and laughed with her throat stretched long, her hair a shimmering sheet of gold.

  It was as though Frankie had shed her former self like a heavy coat. What had she done with the solid, sturdy girl I’d seen only seven months earlier, the afternoon she’d urged me to give up on Paul? Recalling my obnoxious response to her advice, I felt her dismay and humiliation afresh. And yet, how many admirers had she accumulated since then? What new insights into love had she gained?

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and whirled around so quickly the champagne flew from my glass.

  “Good thing I brought you a refill.” There, standing before me, champagne flute in one hand, Heineken in the other, ridiculous fauxhawk and all, was James Santoso.

  “What’s a nice man like you doing at a debauched affair like this?” I set my empty glass on the ground and accepted his full one.

  He pointed to the red-faced Casanova, who had cornered another hapless girl by the buffet, and explained that he and Pierre were former business school classmates. “So you see, I came with the most debauched of them all.”

  I scanned the patio for Frankie, and figured she must have gone inside. Meanwhile, James was eyeing my full plate. He pointed at the little dish of soy sauce in its center. “Ms. Lin, you are the last person I expected to find out here, dipping anything in that swill they pass off for soy sauce.”

  I shrugged. “Haven’t you ever craved a really greasy slice of pizza? Or popcorn drenched in that awful synthetic butter?”

  His mouth twisted in mock disgust. “Never,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I eat only organic, all-natural, whole foods.”

  I picked up a sushi roll with my fingers and made a big show of dunking it in the sauce before popping it in my mouth.

  James clicked his tongue against his upper teeth. “The horror, the horror.”

  When I finished chewing, I said, “The trick is to hold your breath.”

  He let out a big laugh, and I felt the stress seep out of me.

  Across the pool, guests swirled about like schools of colorful fish.

  He followed my gaze. “Do you know any of the one million people at this party?”

  As a matter of fact, I did. Over there, seated on a deck chair, was Cindy Lau, my childhood second-best friend. When we were nine, Kat, Cindy and I had purchased identical fake-gold, heart-shaped pendants, inscribed with the words Best Friends. We’d vowed to wear them forever—except I kept accidentally wearing mine in the shower until all I had left was an illegible black lump of oxidized brass. Beside Cindy was her husband, Terrence, who spent most of his time at the Island Country Club, lifting weights and playing tennis while his wife worked long hours as a corporate lawyer. That tall, skinny girl with the purple feather boa was Liwen Poon, who I heard had given up her venture capital job to release an album of pop songs. Coming through the patio door was Mark de Souza, the boy every girl in my primary-three class had had a crush on, and beside him, with her hand in the back pocket of his jeans, was his current girlfriend Lakshmi, a former computer programmer turned restaurateur.

  “So if you know everyone, why are you out here all by yourself?” James held my gaze, a wry smile on his lips.

  Something about his expression or his American accent made me think, Maybe I could try to explain, maybe he would get it. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Frankie making her way over, and disappointment poured through me.

  She said, “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “How’d it go with Pierre?” I asked.

  “So, you’re the one he was going on and on about,” said James.

  I introduced James and Frankie to each other, explaining that he was Lin’s newest client and that she was about to be Lin’s newest employee.

  “So you moved all the way here to pursue your love of artisanal soy sauce?” he asked.

  “Not quite,” said Frankie. “I moved all the way here to pursue my love of Singapore, though I’m more than willing to get acquainted with artisanal soy sauce, too.”

  I watched them exchange grins.

  From across the pool Kat called my name. She was waving her arms and crying that I couldn’t possibly be planning to hide out here all night. I shot Frankie and James an apologetic look.

  “Don’t worry about us,” James said. “I’ll give Frankie a crash course in the art of soy sauce brewing.”

  I followed Kat inside.

  The crowd in the living room had thinned. My childhood duet partner was still at the piano, and a group had gathered around to sing a Mandarin ballad I didn’t know.

  “Drinks off the piano, please,” Kat said as we swept past.

  The silver balloons had spread across the ceiling like an ominous pattern on a weather map. Occasionally their thin black ribbons brushed the tops of guests’ heads, causing them to look up in alarm. Kat approached the group lounging on the circular couch, and I trailed behind.

  “And so I told him, if I’m going to give up coffee, you better do it, too,” Cindy was saying. She pecked Terrence’s cheek and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “It’s true,” he said. “That first week, she kena caffeine withdrawal, I didn’t dare take breakfast with her.”

  “Just be glad you’re still allowed to drink champagne,” said Cindy. She turned to me. “Gretch. Finally decided to show your face.”

  Only the slightest mound of a belly protruded from beneath her slim red dress, but I’d already heard the news. “Congratulations!” I said, straining to imagine how it would feel to inhabit a body that was no longer solely mine. Out of nowhere the weight of Paul’s accusatory stare bore down upon me. You don’t have that much time.

  I assured my friends that I was doing well and happy to be home, and they tactfully refrained from questioning me further. When Ming appeared with a tray, I gratefully accepted another drink. After that the conversation turned to the group’s annual Bali trip, the wedding they’d attended the month before, the bar in Robertson Quay opened by a mutual friend. At first I listened intently, trying to visualize the people and places they mentioned. But soon I gave up. I gulped down the rest of my champagne. Perhaps it was time to collect Frankie and go home.

  The pianist and his off-key chorus reached the end of their song. When the group had dispersed, the pianist started up again, this time with the opening broken chords of an aria from Phantom of the Opera.

  Two bars in, a high, clear voice floated in the air, silencing the room.

  “Think of me, think of me fondly, when we’ve said goooood-bye.” There was Frankie, perched on the piano bench. Face serene, eyelids at half-mast, she sang the words from memory in that silvery soprano I remembered so well.

  Glasses froze in midair; canapés congealed on plates; punch lines went unsaid. Terrence put his arm around Cindy and stroked her belly with his free hand. For once Kat looked genuinely impressed, and she
caught my eye and mouthed the words, “Oh my God.”

  The old Frankie would have never gotten up before a room full of strangers, no matter how tipsy she was. The new Frankie acted like it was no big deal. There was an insouciance to her performance, a hint of a shrug—as if she understood she had an obligation to share her gift. Indeed, her voice had acquired a new suppleness, a sparkling coquetry enhanced by flashing eyes that were all the more prominent in her narrow face. My thoughts drifted to the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, whose dramatic weight loss was said to have caused the decline of her voice. What kind of desperation drove someone to swallow a tapeworm?

  When Frankie reached the end of the song, her final note hung suspended in the air. The entire room erupted. Someone cried for an encore. Others called out requests.

  Frankie ducked her head, brushed off the compliments and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Your friend is so lovely,” said Cindy.

  “So talented,” said Terrence.

  “So pretty,” said Lakshmi.

  All around me, everyone was talking about the beautiful ang mo girl with the enchanting voice.

  Truthfully, I was proud to have Frankie by my side. Her performance had finally made me understand her affection for my homeland. Here, in Singapore, she was novel, exotic, something of a curiosity. But instead of increasing Frankie’s self-consciousness, the attention was liberating. Forced to engage and entertain, she could try on different personas; she could be confident, gregarious, relaxed—all the things she wasn’t back in America.

  After a while, the pianist and the two identically dressed girls who had brought the balloons came around to rally the remaining guests to go out dancing.

  “I have my car,” slurred one of the girls as she leaned on her twin to hold herself up.