Starry Starry Lunch

I had lunch with a star yesterday.

She’s an actress. You see her face often on tv. Soft spoken, pretty, tall, hitam manis and everything sugar and spice. As a popular person, it is only right if I name her by one letter from the alphabet, so I will call her Miss N (not her real name).

Our fathers were in the TUDM and so by default, our families were friends. Miss N was a childhood friend of my sister. My sister is only a year older than me, but at 10, she was all ladylike and grown-up. The two ten-year olds never wanted to play with me. I must have spoiled their appearance. They both had long hair, tied with ribbons that match the colour of their dresses and they both liked the mirror. I had boy-like haircut. Was always in shorts and singlets. Hated to shower. Comot like heck. I was more rumble-roll buddies with Miss N’s brother. We would be playing war and being in Sarawak that time, there were many places perfect for such game. Ambush attacks were easy to plan and how many times he killed me and how many times I have killed him in return, I have lost count. Miss N and my sis were in an entirely different world from where I was. There was no violence in their world, hehe.. plenty in mine.

I read about her once in a while in the weekend newspaper inserts. She was married to a certain rich guy, had a divorce and now being gossiped with a certain Dato’ R (bukan nama sebenar) which she vehemently denies.

Apart from occasionally reading about her, I never kept in touch. We moved from Sarawak when I was 10. I heard my parents talked about her parents occasionally – divorces, promotions, health etc. And that was it.

My mother managed to track Miss N’s mom a few years ago. And from there, my sis and Miss N started sms-ing each other.

And so when Miss N sms-ed me saying, ‘let’s do lunch, dahling’ because she was in the neighbourhood, it was only proper for me to say okay. She should have warned me earlier and i would have gone to some hospital and have plastic surgery. Not enough time to look good!

We agreed to meet at a Vietnamese restaurant near my place. I was early. A star must come late and so she was late. And oh-my oh-my, when she did appear, what an appearance it was. Huge dark glasses, very groomed, perfect hair, perfect muah-muah left and right of my cheeks and perfect way of scoffing the heat and traffic! Beside her, I felt like that 9 year old baddie comot boy-wannabe lass of yesteryear. I felt fat (I am fat), ugly (that I am), clumsy (wanna bet?) and so-very-not-glamorous-at-all!

We ordered a few dishes with rice and she probably ate 5 grains of rice AT THE MOST! I easily finished my bowlful of rice and felt bad afterwards. Beside her, I felt like kerbau pendek!

And she received many phone calls throughout lunch. From Kavita Kaur lah (nama sebenar), from a drama director lah, reporter lah etc. And the subjects she talked about were, ‘what’s the name of your fashion designer?’, ‘I like what you wore that award night’, ‘I am busy, tengah shooting kan?’ and other starry starry subject. Common comot girl didn’t receive any calls at all. The few sms-es that I did receive, was on some dry boring stuff from prune-dried people, like me (no Dr Bubbles, DITH, you did not sms me during lunch. Would have made my day!)

Later that day, when I spoke to Yamtuan, I lamented to him that I don’t get calls from the likes of Kavita Kaur. Yamtuan told me not to believe what I heard. There are many Lawyer Lingams out there, he said. I should have called him and pretended like I was talking to the President of PAPITA himself or even Angelina Jolie (Hajah Esah Jolie ke…) if I could pull it off.

Ha-ah ek? I should have.

But this I must say. Despite her being up there on the sky, twinkling beautiful and bright, she was in actual very down-to-earth. And lunch was interesting if not fun. She was after all just Miss N – a childhood friend.

And a bit gossiping here, she came with Dato R! Mwahahahaha! Mereka hanya kawan biasa sahaja. Yamtuan and i are ‘kawan biasa’ too, by the way.