“You ran away, Michelle.”
Michelle still did not look at May-Lin.
“Just when I could hear the printing sound. The machine said wait, couldn’t you read the screen, it told us to wait, it was printing out our baby. You were laughing, and you kept saying it was all so crazy. I thought you were the one who was crazy. You wouldn’t let me go back and see the print-out. You pulled me to that stinky toilet then you said you needed it. But all I could think of was that baby in the booth.”
“Please, it was just paper,” Michelle said.
“Why didn’t you want to even look at it? We could just take a look at it, and if you didn’t like it, I could just burn it, you know, destroy all evidence.”
“Angela asked me out tomorrow night. Do you think I should go? I don’t want to seem too eager, you know. I don’t want to give her the impression that I’m dying to be around her. Should I?”
“Are you listening to me? Were you afraid it would turn out ugly? Then maybe we could have used the concealer on its face, make it look better.”
“It was paper.”
“It wouldn’t have turned out ugly, Michelle. If the baby came out at least a bit like you, it wouldn’t have turned out ugly.”
Michelle turned to look at her best friend. All this while she had been looking at the space that the two waiters had already vacated. She placed a hand on May-Lin’s shoulder.
“You heart is in the right place.”
“What does that mean, Michelle?”
Michelle smiled.
“What does that mean? Or did you just say it because you like the way it sounds?”
Michelle was still smiling. Then the two girls decided to walk to the MRT station. Along the way, May-Lin stared hard at Michelle from the back. She was glad she stared from the back because the look she had would have scared Michelle. Then May-Lin said in a voice that was so hard and wounded it surprised even her, “What have you done to me?”
Michelle turned back and glanced at her. “What did you say?”
May-Lin had her palms at her elbows so she looked like she was freezing. Above them, the stars were barely visible. The pavements were wet and slicked with the molten light that spilled from the street lamps.
“I didn’t say anything.”* * *The next morning Michelle was hysterical. She was sobbing helplessly over the phone. When she got back from HMV the night before, she had received a page from Angela. Angela had told her that she was going to Europe. Michelle’s heart had sunk then. But worse was to come. She was going with Michael, because his sister had fractured her leg and he needed someone to take over the air ticket. Michelle often wished that the guy’s name was anything but Michael. It sounded so much like her own. Like she once told May-Lin, “It’s like we’re the same person, except that he’s got something hanging from him down there.” Angela had told her about how Michael was going to teach her to ski, how they were going to take the London bus, and come back with snapshots of the Eiffel Tower. It was as if Angela was talking about Europe as one big country, borderless, honeymoon capital of the world. And then Michelle had asked, “So how are you and Michael?”
“What do you want to know about us?”
Angela had used the word “us”. Michelle knew everything was almost over. But she had to still hang on to the telephone; she had to witness its death.
“Yah. You and Michael. Is he still sleeping around?”
Angela sounded offended. “Was he sleeping around? I don’t know anything about that. And I don’t think I’d want to bring it to his attention. These kinds of things, they’re private, don’t you think so? All that matters is that I’m going to spend three weeks with him away from here. Can you imagine that? Three weeks in a foreign country with only Michael by my side.” And then Angela got defensive. “Anyway, you sleep around too. You always keep telling me about all those encounters you have with all those pretty girls you pick up from those bars. But I never ask you too much about them.”
“So you and Michael are finally together?”
“I’m just hoping for the best.”
“You must be very happy.”
“Michelle, if you were here right now, I’d squeeze your hand really tight. I’m so excited about this trip.”
But Michelle already felt that squeeze, and it was nowhere near her hand. It was somewhere in the proximity of her chest. It was at that point that she decided to put down the phone without saying goodbye. She instinctively dialled May-Lin’s number.
“It’s over,” she began.
“I know,” May-Lin replied. “It was over a long time ago, Michelle. It never started. Nothing started.”
“Is there anything wrong with me, May-Lin?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then what went wrong?”
“I’m not sure, Michelle.”
“It was wrong timing,” Michelle went. “The timing was all wrong.”
“Yes, it was wrong timing,” May-Lin went. “If you like the way it sounds, so be it. Wrong timing.”
“May-Lin, I feel so lost right now. I don’t know what to do anymore. Will you meet me tomorrow? At HMV. We don’t have to buy CDs. I’m broke anyway. I just need someone to cuddle me. I just need a little tenderness right now.”
“I’ll see you, Michelle.” When May-Lin put down the telephone she heaved a sigh that broke into a smile. She had been waiting for this day for a long time. She knew exactly what to do; it had been rehearsed in her head during those dull hours of longing. Tomorrow, they were going to make love, and for the first time, free from Angela’s shadow looming above them like a terrible angel. Or in Michelle’s scheme of things, a jealous one whose will was steadily crumbling, watching the two girls embracing each other, up till that last moment when it decided to turn
