How was I supposed to react to this news of supposed infidelity? Perhaps just a brave, upset face would be good enough. “Oh,” I stared at my shoes. There was an odd, squeezing sensation in my chest.
“I’m sorry.” Koh Beng drew a little closer. “If there’s anything I can do—” He put a hand on my shoulder.
“Ji Lin!” It was Shin, coming down the hallway. “Why’d you go off like that?”
Koh Beng dropped his hand.
“He was giving me a tour.”
Shin slid his arm around my waist, and I stiffened. Noticing my reaction, Koh Beng smiled awkwardly as he turned to go. “Let me know if you ever need any help.”
* * *
“What sort of help was he offering you?” asked Shin.
“Nothing,” I shouldn’t have been annoyed. Koh Beng’s well-meaning advice had nothing to do with my situation. I slipped out from under Shin’s arm. “We don’t have to pretend right now. There’s no one else around.”
Shin gave me a searching look. Sometimes, I wondered just what was going on behind those quick dark eyes. When he smiled, they crinkled up at the corners, and he smiled a great deal more nowadays than he ever had when he was younger. I wasn’t sure whether I liked that. He’d learned to use his face to his advantage.
“I’ve something strange to show you,” he said after a pause.
“Did you find it?” But there were loud voices, the clatter of footsteps. It sounded like a crowd was coming through the corridor; certainly it wasn’t a good place to examine mysterious stolen packages. Besides, I didn’t want to risk running into Y. K. Wong again.
Shin tried a door. It was locked. The next door opened into a storage closet, with a small window that let in faint grey light. We ducked inside while the voices chattered:
“Such a horrible thing to happen! Who was she again?”
“That small nurse. The one involved with a married patient.”
“I’d have thought she’d have more sense.”
“Perhaps the wife put a curse on her.”
The voices moved farther down the corridor. I discovered that I’d been holding my breath and let it out in a rush.
Shin said quietly, “It was inside the vase in the common room.”
The storeroom was cramped and dim, but felt safer than the hallway, especially if Shin really had taken something. He started to unbutton his shirt.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“I hid it in my shirt,” said Shin, surprised. Then he grinned, “Oh, were you hoping I was going to strip?”
“Who wants to see you take your shirt off?”
“You should talk. You used to go swimming with almost nothing on.”
“I did not! I barely went in the water. I can’t swim well—you know that!”
“I’ll teach you if you want.” He leaned closer, warm breath against my ear. For a wild instant, I wondered if he was going to kiss me.
* * *
I’d been kissed before. By a boy I didn’t really care for. It was the year before Shin left for medical school, when I was still pining hopelessly after Ming. Ming had a friend named Robert Chiu, a boy from a wealthy family who lived close to Ipoh, and as I always wanted to be near Ming, I couldn’t help running into Robert a fair amount as well.
It was Robert who kissed me, on a bench outside the watch repair shop. Shin was off somewhere with yet another new girlfriend and Ming had been called away. I didn’t understand why Robert was always around. If I had a grand house with a long driveway and a shiny black car parked in it, I wouldn’t spend my afternoons down in a backwater like Falim, but he turned to me. Abruptly, as though he’d made up his mind, he seized my shoulders. His mouth was wet and hot and insistent; I couldn’t breathe. There was nothing heart-pounding about it other than the sheer panic I felt in getting him off me.
“I’ve liked you for a long time,” he said. “I thought you knew.”
I shook my head. My face was scarlet, my hands trembling. The last thing I wanted was a heart-to-heart talk with Robert but he’d clasped my hand in both of his and I couldn’t see any means of escape without shoving him off the bench. It was flattering yet horrific, like a slow-moving accident.
Fortunately, Ming emerged at that point. I felt vaguely ashamed, yet hopeful. Now was the time for him to burn with jealousy, since Robert was still holding my hand, but he only looked at us in his mild, reasonable way, and said to Robert, “Oh, did you talk to her already?”
I jumped up, snatching my hand away. “I’m sorry,” I said to Robert. “Thank you very much, but no thank you.”
He looked astonished. “You mean it’s no good?”
“No. Not at all.” And then I fled.
Irrationally, all I could think of was if I married Robert, then I’d be mistress of a large house in Ipoh with a Victrola, on which I could play as many popular songs as I liked. Tempting as that might be, it also meant fending off his sticky embraces. I recalled the girlish bloom on my mother’s face soon after she remarried, when I’d caught her sitting on my stepfather’s lap. There’d been something about that man that she liked, even now. But whatever it was, I wouldn’t find it with Robert. I was quite sure about that, though when Ming came to talk to me in his quiet, concerned way, I unexpectedly burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly. “Did he frighten you?”
I shook my head, pierced with sorrow. Ming didn’t care for me in that tight, aching, can’t-live-without-you sort of way. He was just being kind, like an older brother.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s not a bad person though.” And he’s a good catch. Though Ming had too much delicacy to voice that. Unlike Shin, I thought bitterly, who’d probably urge me to hurry up and marry into money. I said as much to Ming, but he seemed surprised.
“No, Shin doesn’t know about this. And don’t mention it to him, will you?”
So we hadn’t. But whenever I thought about my first kiss, all the painful squeezing feelings of heartbreak and disappointment churned up. Not for poor Robert but for myself, because that was the day I truly understood that Ming would never love me.
* * *
Later on at the May Flower, there were so many times that men tried to get fresh that I’d learned to twist away at that telltale lunge. So when Shin got too close in the broom closet, after teasing about taking his shirt off, I panicked and shoved him back so hard that he hit the door with a thud.
“Ouch! What did you do that for?”
How could I possibly say that I’d thought my stepbrother was going to kiss me? It was ridiculous; besides, Koh Beng had just confirmed my suspicions that Shin had a girl in Singapore. And yet, there’d been an odd flutter in the pit of my stomach when he’d leaned in. As though a thousand moths were gathering around a candle that had silently and mysteriously been set aflame.
It was only because Shin was so good-looking, I decided. I was tired of dancing with paunchy old men and underage schoolboys, and now I was finally appreciating what I’d taken for granted across the dinner table all those years. This was such an outrageous thought that I started giggling hysterically. Working as a dance hostess had clearly ruined my morals.
The door opened abruptly. We both froze, blinking in the sudden light.
“What’s going on in here?” A sharp, spiky voice with the flattened intonations of a foreigner.
Shin turned swiftly, all laughter gone. “I’m sorry, Matron.”
So this was Matron. I felt sick. All my hopes of applying to the nursing program, with its requirements of good moral character, would be shattered if she happened to remember later that she’d caught me with a man in a broom closet.
“I hope that isn’t one of my nurses behind you,” she said, clearly not amused as we stumbled sheepishly into the corridor.
Shin said, “No, ma’am.” There was an awkward pause. Then he blurted out, “She’s my fiancée.”
“Your fiancée?” Her disbelief was palpable.
“I just proposed to her.”
“In the closet?”
I could almost see the little cogs turning in Shin’s head. It was hopeless, I thought. A made-up tale with nothing to validate it. But to my amazement, he put his hand into his trouser pocket and produced a small velvet-covered box. The ring inside was a simple twist of gold with five tiny garnets set like a flower. Slipping it onto my finger, he grinned triumphantly at Matron.
She was so taken aback that she could only smile weakly. “Well, Mr.… Lee, is it? Please refrain from such behavior on hospital grounds. But congratulations!”
Shin ducked his head, looking as pleased as though he’d performed a magic trick. For it was indeed magic. All suspicion and censure evaporated as Matron softened up. She shook hands with both of us, wishing us the best. Shin was deliberately charming, which was good because I was dumbstruck.