“Fine—” The woman had thought better than to fight, but she was still spitting, crying a little, because she had apparently really loved the man. “And you can tell his bitch wife he hates her.”
“She’s the one paying us,” Lan said sweetly, patting the waitress’s shoulder. “Okay, go now, and don’t make us come find you again.”
“You act like you’re better than me now, Gan Wai Lan.” She sneered at Lan’s surprise. “You don’t remember me? I was too lowly for you? We were at the disco together. Everyone knew you were the lead server because you were opening your legs—”
Lan had hit her across the face; her lip had split. “So?” Lan said. “I was doing that for money. I’m doing this for money, too. I am better than you, because I have this—” A shaving of fire from her finger, which she brought near enough to illuminate the tip of the woman’s lashes.
“Anyway, you should be the worried one,” Hwee Min said. “I’m sure they’d love to know you were having an affair with a sergeant.” It had even been the picture they’d shown her, to confirm his identity—his headshot from the police force, cap and all.
“Everyone’s looking for rats these days,” Mavis chipped in. “Maybe it’s you. Who knows? Handsome older man, buys you lots of gifts, tells you he’ll leave his wife for you, if you just tell him what you hear…”
Pek Mun would probably have called them juvenile. Tian let the bullying carry on a little before they sent the waitress off and decided to go hang around one of their usual spots. Lan had to go back to her overcrowded family, but Tian pulled her aside before she could head home. “You got Rong yet?”
“Ah—she’s in KL. Back this weekend, maybe day after. Depends on her parents. I’ve told her you want to see her.” Lan chewed her lip. “About—what, again?”
“None of your business.” Tian released her, and as she and Adeline trailed behind the others, said, “Fuck it. Let’s go to Bugis.”
Ghost month was for putting on shows. Getai stages had popped up on every corner in Chinatown and beyond, wailing to the spirits that filled their empty first rows. For the bawdier party, though, and for the living instead who were hungry, revelers flowed toward Bugis Street. It was the city’s biggest attraction for tourists and soldiers on stopover from Vietnam, drawn by the late-night party and the special women. It was also a potential hive of gossip: the dolls interacted with different gangs and different customers, and people from all over dropped by. Tian had been wary because Three Steel had their presence there, too. Loyalties there could be as fluid as the workers, money changing hands like homes. But you didn’t need cash loyalty if you had friends. While waiting for Rong, Tian grabbed Christina to make a night out of it for Adeline.
You heard the street before you saw it. When one did finally lay eyes on it, you first saw the lights, soda-blush iridescent strings between shophouses. Then you saw the revelers, knee to beer-wet knee around the dozens of folding tables, American and Singaporean and British and Australian alike, not a few still in their fatigues and white sailor caps.
Then, finally, like an unveiling: the women weaving between tables, willowy or curvy, long-haired or blond-wigged, legs to heaven, lips to hell’s ear. Men said the beautiful ones weren’t real, but wanted them anyway, had come all this way on their few nights off from the war because they heard about this street in this former British port where fantasy collided rock-hard with tangible desire, all for the price of a few island dollars.
Everything moved and shone. Tian, grinning, tugged Adeline off the bike and toward the lights.
Raucous, off-key voices made Adeline look up, a move sheinstantly regretted. A line of white sailors was singing on the rooftop of a low shed, with bottles in their hands and their pants around their ankles. But Tian was laughing, so Adeline saw the humor in it. More importantly, she saw the scene for herself, and not for how her mother might have occupied it. “How long were you working here?” she called at Christina.
One of the sailors started to moon the cheering audience. “Four years?” Christina replied. “I was fifteen, told everyone I was eighteen, but I’m sure they didn’t believe me. But we get kids all the time. When you know from the start there’s something different about you, it doesn’t take long for you to need somewhere that’ll take you. Besides, my dad threw me out, and lots of men like you younger. Come on, then!”
This was clearly still home to Christina, and it recognized her just as well: friendly calls, waves, a cheeky slap on the ass from another woman who ducked past grinning. A boy who couldn’t have been older than thirteen tried to sell themPlayboyand suspicious-looking love potions out of a box. Christina, who’d left the house out of place in tall heels and an ethereal orange dress that matched her makeup, now melted into the dazzling crowd. Tonight of all nights promised to be longer than usual. The next day was to be a national holiday; Singapore was turning seven. At some point someone dropped a fake tiara, and Tian swept it up and stuck it on Adeline’s head.
Rearranging the jeweled plastic in her hair, Adeline got distracted by a flare of fire out of the corner of her eye. The sailors on the roof had acquired rolls of newspapers, which they’d proceeded to set alight. They were now attempting to stick the dry ends up their asses. One of them had stripped off his shirt and was completely naked. Burning newspapers clamped between pale cheeks, the soldiers started waddle-racing each other across the roof, fire waggling behind them, and limper, more unpleasant versions waggling ahead.
Adeline was so revolted she didn’t realize she’d lost Tian and Christina until a brown-skinned woman in a pink wig and orange boa materialized in front of her, asking, “You okay? You new?” And then, pinching her face to look closer, an outburst of laughter. “Alamak! You’re not from here, is it? Where you come from? Ah—ah, those your friends?”
Tian and Christina were shouting Adeline’s name from an empty table. With a noise of delight the woman followed Adeline to where they were sitting, under an overhang lit by fluorescent tubes in alternating yellow, orange, and green.
“Ang Tian, lama tak jumpa!”
“Candy.” Laughing, Tian accepted a boisterous cheek kiss and returned one. “Maaf, sayang.”
“Manis mulut lah you. Who’s your new friend?” Candy asked as Christina hailed a round of beer. “New Butterfly?”
“Adeline,” Christina replied as Tian cracked the bottles.
“Mm, Adeline, cakap melayu?”
Catching the word formalay, Adeline guessed in context it was a question about her language. “No, I don’t speak.”
Candy grinned and whispered something in Tian’s ear. Tian shoved her, jokingly affronted. “Kawan je lah.”
“You say one. Dia cantik.”
Tian let out a short laugh. “Diam. Oi. We were talking about Three Steel, right? Candy, you know—a girl from Desker Road died a few weeks ago, after she attacked a Butterfly.”
Candy’s painted eyebrows shot up. “What happened to your class, Ang Tian?” she murmured. “Talking about the dead on a night like this. Of course I know. After that the girls stopped going onto the street.”
It became clear—in a mix of English, Hokkien, and Malay that Adeline caught the gist of—that as teasing as the smiles were, as bright as the lights and painted faces were, everyone who spent any time out here was too aware of their own fragility. The women ofthe night seemed unreal: some who smelled like salt on their long silvery hair, others as long as deer or who seemed carved from the moon. They changed faces and men and people came here just to look. But all of them had stories of being hurt by the men supposedly enraptured by them. Everywhere in the red lights beauty was a paper screen you could put your foot through. They relied on the power of pimps and mercenary gods to stay safe, or, barring that, be avenged. Worse, still, for the foreign girls who didn’t even speak the local languages, had no friends and no way to make them should trouble arise.
