THAT WEDNESDAY NIGHT... in THE REALITY SOAP: AFTER DAD'S FUNERAL

Alright, guess what I normally do when certain events in my life feel like a novel plot or a movie.

That’s right, people; I write a long entry about it, so here we go:

Despite the fact that I was still unwell and on the recovery process, I decided to attend Steph’s farewell dinner at Amigos, a Mexican restaurant in Bellagio Mall. It’s close from where I work, so I thought: why not?

I hadn’t planned to stay long, but I ended up going back to my rented room at around two in the morning! It turned out to be a hilarious night that I had no regrets at all. Tired? No problem, since Thursday was another public holiday. Sick again? Oh, well. I’d been a ‘bad girl’ and had to pay the price for it, hehe.

Anyway, I arrived there at seven. Too soon. I’d walked around for an hour before I checked the restaurant again. There, I spotted Blair, Steph’s fiance, sitting with two familiar-looking people. (Writers observe people...a lot. They rarely forget.)

I casually sauntered over. Before that Wednesday night, Blair and I had already met once – although we didn’t talk much. Still, I was confident enough that Steph had already told him all about her work colleagues and friends.

“Blair?”

The three people at the table looked at me. Blair got up as he smiled, despite the question in his eyes. We shook hands formally.

“Hi,” he greeted me politely. “I know you’re a friend of Steph’s, but...sorry I forgot your name.”

I laughed, already expecting it.

“That’s okay.” Then I told him my name. Blair asked me to sit down with them and introduced me to the couple – Johnny and Fairuz.

Johnny – I’d seen him quite a few times around the school lately. (He’d taken CELTA with Steph back then.) He was a cute lad despite the large, visible scar across his cheek.

And he was also so confident that night, which had made him more attractive and more interesting to me, hehe.

More people came to work after that. Steph, breathless from work. Andri, Arno, Johan, and Pak Arno from the school. Patrick. Girusi. Indri the new teacher.

Girusi and Patrick left early. Before leaving, Patrick invited me to his farewell party on Friday night. (Yes, he was leaving too.)

After that, we had a karaoke session. (Gary joined us there.) I’d only managed to sing three songs before my poor cracked voice finally gave out. But I still enjoyed other people’s performances, especially when Johnny often climbed and danced on the coffee table right in front of me. (Fairuz didn’t seem too happy about it, but her boyfriend didn’t seem to care, though.)

I’d cracked up the loudest when Johnny and Steph did a duet on Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like A Woman!” I thought it was hilarious. I didn’t even care that I had to take away some stuff off the table whenever he was standing on it. (The keyboard for the karaoke machine, the mouse, and even the beer cans. Haha!)

And Gary...whoa, it turned out that he was good at being a rapper! Whenever there were songs with the rap parts in them, we always handed the mic to him – and the handsome brunet was obviously enjoying it!

At last, we went our separate ways at two in the morning. I hopped on a motorcycle taxi (ojek) back to my rented room and fell asleep immediately, out of pure exhaustion.

R.