melani by Jasmine Low
This piece is about two online lovers who meet for the first time. Ooooh the tension!Draft 3: First written 15 May 2004. Re-written 9 December 2006.
Drifting away from the conversation, Melani sits up, adjusts her blouse and looks up into vacant space. Sara is still talking away. Melani watches her lips move and purse up once in awhile. She's a nice friend. Nice lips.
‘I’m sorry, Sara.
I’ve got to go,
Ashley arrives today,'
Melani breathes, heaving a sense of relief as if her telling Sara would help alleviate her mounting headache and stop her palms from glowing. Sara’s languid presence was getting to her. How can a person just sit there and talks and talks and talks! Doesn't she care about what I may be going through?
Melani and Ashley met on the internet. Today, the Puerto Rican from Phoenix, Arizona arrives at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The two had been seemingly engaged in a tumultuous affair - from a distance. A wide distance. Occasionally, Melani would log onto googleearth and stare into the blank. Wondering about the existence of this person who professes love. Both had been ‘going out’ for 6 months prior to this auspicious date of meeting in the flesh. Neither had believed that a cyber relationship could ever result in the flesh. Today is testament to that meeting of the flesh.
‘Ash! Over here! It’s you! It's really you?!’
Ashley, tired from the 31 hour flight looked over to see her five-footed dark eye-browed friend. They embrace a tight embrace, passionately kiss for the first time, oblivious to the loud thunderous claps as the moody skies reverberate in their ethereal presence. Six months of connection in cyberspace and now, finally, in the skin.
Ashley wipes Melani’s sweating forehead with the back of her hand and kisses it and looks over to her lover, ‘Ai....mami! It's so hot here. C'mon, let's get out of here’.
Ashley loads her backpack into the boot of Melani's Toyota. They drive in a moment of silence until Ashley breaks.
I just want to stare at you, Mel.
I just want to stare at your gorgeous dark eyes...
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Can I really tell you honestly what I think?
Ashley slowly draws her breath.
I hate all those doubts I have in my head about you
I should just stop.
No.
I should just tell you…..I’m going to….
Melani looks over to her. Her insecurity overflows like hot rice on the stove. A psychology student, she should have known.
To her surprise, Ashley cups her face and corners her with her brown eyes.
Soon, you will know.
Ashley indicates her to pull over. As the metallic blue hugs the emergency lane, Ashley bends over and kisses Mel. Their first kiss had left a hard trail to follow but this one, this one....
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The two walk into the Madam Kwans, an upmarket café in the trendy ‘burb’ called Bangsar. Kuala Lumpur (KL) has transformed over the years into a hive, attracting Wallpaper magazine enthusiasts, metrosexuals from all over the world, the good, the bad and the not-so-pretty.
Melani was picture framing her childhood and was in the process of sorting it out.
What shall I tell her?
Twenty years ago, Bangsar was just a stretch of shophouses. One stretch housing the essentials — Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mini-Mart (a local general store which stocked everything from skateboards to superglue), Long John Silvers, Rocky’s corner coffee shop and several hairdressers which promised that they only used Wella products. That was in the 80s when Bangsar was already hip. Now in the 21st century, Bangsar is still hip but also nipped and tucked. Some corners apparently demand up to RM18,000 rental per month. It was here where Mel got her mum to buy her her first skateboard. The first time she watched porn in a friend's house on Terasek 8. The first time she watched sweaty boys play football topless. The first time she got drunk.
So, tell me about your Bangsar.
Ashley looks around at the posh café which seemed quaint. In her world, the fusion menu price list translated to 20% of the typical local diner fare in American dollars. In Melani’s world, the menu was ‘affordable’ to the standards of young Malaysian wannabes.
Haha! We used to get picked up by Mrs. Busman at 6.30 in the morning, only to be dropped off at the petrol station while she went around to pick up some more kids? The station was our playground. That one we passed up the road. We played hopscotch…’
What’s that? It sounds so English!
Oh, it’s a game where we draw squares seven on the ground and hop from one square to another. The fastest way to progress each square is to throw a rubberband and jump! Oh! I must show you how it’s played. Maybe later?
to be continued...
Ends
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