PETITE YVETTE

The ringing was, a bit muffled, indicating that the phone must have dropped under the driver’s seat but having searched numerous times under it together with pawing through the front passenger side, the hunt was futile. Papa has lost count as to how many times HRH, The Prince Fellow tried to locate the elusive handset by dialing papa’s number, each time registering the suppressed signature. Until papa decided to- think ‘out of the box’ and peeped under the car. Lo and behold it was lying there all along, about a foot inside, must have dropped out from the side of the driver’s seat when papa opened his section of the vehicle.
The club ‘Bisik’ was a bit- darkly lit, resulting in papa finding it a bit of a task to make out Kemmi from the four voluptuous girls prancing on stage. Upon, careful scrutiny, she turned out to be the one singing the upbeat number, the moment papa and The Prince Fellow entered the singing hall. She acknowledged papa and The Prince by waving at them but papa doubted if she had really recognized, him, as the illumination was quite subdued. However, when she came up close and shake hands with the two compatriots, papa could discern albeit slightly the word Dato’ or was it ‘Abang’, papa just could not be sure. It; was at, this juncture that Zan set foot into the lounge, sensing that he must have noticed papa and company sitting, not ten feet away, papa, expressively gesticulated, at Zan. He immediately recognized papa, and, moments after, sauntered to his table, He gestured at Kemmi to come join papa and gang. She complied and soon they were trying to make each other heard amidst the loud music, alongside, the, much spirited- singing.
The girls were good but the scene was not quite papa’s cup of tea, it was much too youngish and cha- cha and dangdut would seem to be out of place if they were to be included in the troupe’s repertoire, the reason, the genres, were not heard- being played at all. It was an entirely different: club atmosphere. Nearing twelve, the whole show was over, and papa, along with, The, HRH Prince had only been there much less than the good part of an hour. As the girls were tired, having played there from seven thirty in the evening, together with, the club, about, to close- only half an hour onwards, papa and Prince Fellow decided to jam somewhere else. Where exactly, could only be decided after the two of them had a drive around the seedier side of the city, being papa’s unquestionable- contention.
It was a veritably ‘amazed’ Prince Fellow, when fixing a gaze, at papa and Mummy Mimi whilst they were literally ‘nitpicking’ over the expected ‘cost’ for a ‘memorable’, evening-singing wise, that is- at Santana Karaoke Lounge. Knowing her ever since the early nineties when Mimi was only fresh out of school and heartily belting dance numbers in dangdut halls across the city, papa and her were literally quite ‘buddy- buddy’. Somewhat like papa being the, all knowing, elder from dangdut lore, Mimi could not really bluff him around. Anyway, papa, had, just to be sure that he, would not be fleeced indeterminately considering his miserly three hundred odd ringgit entertainment budget he, managed to scrounged from his overly tight- for the month’s- allotment. Without a whimper, the intense haggling ended, when Mimi, of, whom; only moments before, was furiously fingering, her incongruously large, hand held calculator, nonchalantly exclaimed “three hundred or three fifty- tops”! Ha- ha- ha: what fun it was!
The Karaoke room that Mimi chose for papa and Prince was situated along a corridor somewhere, after the much twisting and turning around the hall. The, place, can be said to be, not unlike, a medieval ‘maze’ to the extent of, the, The Prince, even, getting hopelessly lost, trying to locate the men’s room. However so, upon seated on the comfortable sofa like seating arrangement, a brightly painted door was conspicuously visible towards the side of the room. It was the toilet, much to the relief of the, Good Prince, whose, perceptibly, off contoured, countenance could not, at all, belie his torturous ‘discomfort’. Strange but the toilet must only be given its proper nomenclature; being in the strict sense of the word the ‘men’s room’. The reservoir was much higher up with the bowl albeit smallish and discernibly designed for male ‘genitalia’ only, situated about three feet above the floor. The mind boggles as, to how a, lady or a vertically challenged male person would have utilized the facility, papa should only guessed, they could only spray it all out, onto the floor, should the bladder not resist it any more. The, strange things, one, encounter these days!
It was only a few minutes later when, in tottered, Mimi with two, heavy set, girls in tow, citing they, were the only ones left, as it was already a bit late when papa and gang arrived at the club. Papa was just about to choose, as, regards, to who, amongst the two to sing with when Mimi suddenly remembered quite one more who has not been called yet. She was Yvette: it’s only, papa, just, embellishing, things, but, this time, adding the bit of the ‘French’ twist. Without waiting for an affirmative ‘yes’ from papa and The Prince, Mimi instantaneously entreated the two girls, to skedaddle back to the lounge’s main hall, leaving, only, little Yvette, behind.
She is in reality a ‘ubiquitous’ salary person, partaking in the hostess vocation on a part time basis due to constraints, as she had acclaimed: in the financial realm- what was with, a mortgage to pay, the car loan and a school going child to support, further to that- she is a divorcee. What can papa and The Prince, say except that Kudos to her for facing her realities ‘head on’ and pushing aside, altogether, the phantoms, of her, past. The, veritably palpable, albeit, ‘invisible’- inner strengths- of a woman. Contrary, to, what is, believed to be, she dances the cha-cha and dangdut, very well, fluidly reciprocating the multifarious steps that papa, set in motion, to the extent of following through gracefully; the difficult- slow cha- cha maneuver. Undeniably also, there was the something in her eyes that emitted the latent yet irrefutable corporeality, truly so, inwardly, within her being. In other words, her eyes would not lie: they were sincere, with, ne’er, a, glint- that, ostensibly, portrayed the, charade or the pantomime, inside- she was not acting.
The, reality that, she has, the ability, to converse, in commendable, English, did not escape, papa’s and The Prince’s, mindfulness. As, papa found it quite a task to choose songs from the much seasoned book listing the titles of song together with inputting into the computer the songs associating numbers, the reason being, he had forgotten, to include, his reading glasses, on the way out, of the house, The Prince had quite a field day chatting up Petite Yvette. It was then that The Prince hollered to papa the fact that little Yvette plays golf.
In less than no time, he pulled her aside, jotted down her number into his phone’s keypad and promised to ring her, in a weekend or two, ahead, for a spot of golf or an hour or so ‘swinging’ at the driving range. The notion that she could be a single handicapper did not enter his mind at that particular moment. Should that be the case then she could be his quintessential Golf Pro, coaching him the finer points of the ‘elusive’ golf swing, thought papa- upon realizing the possibility of the circumstances- the while later. Beside the fact that he is the embodiment of the ubiquitous- ‘homeless’ cum ‘hopeless’- golfer
The screen stopped playing songs, the corridor lights brightened up and the waiter entered the room bringing warm towels for the patrons to freshen up. It’s, time, to, go home. Even, so papa did envisage himself, The Prince and Petite Yvette sipping tea at the ‘club’ next to KBU, after a round of 9 hole golfing at the public course, the fleeting moment, whence, Yvette, sent the two, of them off, at the club’s, main entrance.
So, what: if, she; is a karaoke worker, by night, because, by day, she is still, an, Executive. Besides, papa and The, Prince, are not into the, relationship part, just, the buddy-buddy aspect.
For it is not everyday that an old fart, like papa gets the opportunity to strike a friendship with a young lady executive who plays golf, regardless, if she is a hostess by night or the Secretary General of The U.N. by dawn!