daddy for sale part 4

Two weeks after that, Sim got his SPM result. Sim was bright, it was not really a surprise that he scored all that was needed to be scored. Uncle H bought him an expensive watch and then proceeded with matters pertaining to Sim’s tertiary education. We were lucky that our late father had prepared for our future. If only he were here to shout ‘Hooray!’ for Sim, dance around the room with mother and us and then take us all out to eat satay Kajang. God, I missed my parents. I still do.

Nina came around and seeing us all high on excitement, asked about Sim’ result. She stared in wonder at Sim’s result slip.

“You have a lot of A’s.” She commented. “Way to go, man. If you could eat your A’s, you’ll never go hungry.” She said and laughed. Uncle H had returned to the office. We called for pizza delivery. You should see the way Nina called Domino’s pizza. She pretended to be someone from a rural village who did not know the first thing about pizza, let alone delivery. She was immensely hilarious, I had to give her that.

Later I discovered that the only thing Nina was interested in was languages, words, meanings and things beyond meanings. When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, as always, what she said took us by surprise. She said,

“Oh I could probably recite poems at fund-raising events, get someone to play guitar for me and then scream myself silly. Or I could marry one of you. Sim alone has 11A’s.” She laughed. Sim said okay. We ate pizza and watched TV and asked Nina to cook the same fried noodle that we had last two weeks. She did, after much coaxing and searching high and low for ingredients in our kitchen whose meals did not get pass Maggie instant noodle and eggs. Others were all bought, or coerced from the kids passing by our house. And because we had said that our bullying would end once Sim was off to overseas, that day Nina had even made us apologize to each and every one of the bullied kids and their mothers as well. We spent quite a while going around the houses because after apologizing, their mothers would then make us tea. We never knew apologizing could feed us.

Then we were back at our house, gulping cold air bandung with ice cream soda by the jugs. It was scorching hot.

“What else can we do today? It’s only 3 pm.” Sim said. I looked at Nina. She was about to say something.

“Well. I… um… I should tell you now that I’m leaving. My mom’s coming at 5. She’s on her way here.”

“5 pm today?” Yim said, annoyingly taken by surprise again.

“In her fancy car?” Fim perked up.

“Yeah. We’ll see if she had time for a ride.” She grinned. Her mother was leaving for Japan for a partnership in her company's new branch. Nina would follow.

“I don’t have a reason to stay." We were no judges for that but we were dismayed that she was leaving. There was the internet and all but Nina was fun to be around with. She was like those fireworks that you see on a night sky, its after-image lingering in your eyes even after it has ceased fire, its brilliance makes you wonder why it could not stay longer.

Nina was actually all ready to go. She had been packing last night. She had come to tell us this morning but because we were all buzzed up with Sim’s result, she decided that she wanted to steal some of that buzz so she spent the day with us. That was what she said, steal our buzz. Long after that, we still used that phrase whenever we want to join anyone’s trip somewhere. Especially me, when Sim has started to work and I always want to tag along for his out-station trips.

We went to wait for Nina’s mother at her house. Both her father and the girlfriend were not at home.

“Does he know that you’re leaving?” Yim said.

“Yeah. I told him last night. He said “Go where you like.”

“You never told us what was it that you did that had upset him.” I braved the odds. She turned to look at me. She did that half-smile.

“He wanted me to re-type the girlfriend’s resume, there was some typo in it. It was revolting, still is. I didn’t think he could do something like that to me, that’s betrayal. I felt really low, like because he’s my father, he could get me to do anything he wants because he says so to the extent that I have to help his girlfriend. I couldn’t do it. So I said I was tired, I’d see to it later and then later, I said I couldn’t do it, I didn’t know how to copy the resume’s format and all. Then he went mad and said hateful things.” She stared at the ceiling. Yim looked at me sadly.

“Sorry I asked.” I said.

“Naah, no big deal there.”

“Does it make you sad?” Wim said.

“I don’t know what sad is anymore.” She said, still staring at the ceiling. Then she started singing something, it was the same song that she sang the first day we met her, when she was walking away from us. I remember it now. It is Everclear’s “Wonderful”, the part that goes “I close my eyes when I get too sad, I think thoughts that I know are bad, close my eyes and I count to ten, hope it’s over when I open them.” I wondered how many tens Nina had been counting all these years, how many times had things gone okay again when she opened her eyes. Or if she had stopped counting all together.

At 5.30, her mother arrived. She was beautiful, she looked intelligent. She wore blue silk baju kurung and a pair of Scholl and greeted us warmly, as if she had seen us every day. Nina had something for us. She had bought a party pack of miniature Mars bars. She gleefully handed it to Sim and said "Here's my payment", grinning mischievously. Yim mumbled thanks and we wished her the best, the sort of things we heard in movies but this time, a real goodbye was happening.