“You can’t just force someone to connect with you, Poppy.” Mimi doesn’t smile at the trays of macarons and seri muka as she usually does. The least she can do is pretend.  

Poppy appreciates Mimi’s on-the-dot arrival every Sunday at three in the afternoon but does she really need to say it out loud in order to earn a smile from her friend of five years? Isn’t it enough for Mimi to quietly know that her presence means Poppy can finally open her mouth and speak after a full week of zipping herself up, doing housework and work at the office studiously, like a good woman? Being with Mimi means she can drop that nonsense and complain freely about her inability to connect with her husband. Mimi should be flattered.  

“Eat the cakes lah, Mimi. Holding back for what? Since Beng Kooi has chosen to go out on the day of our anniversary, at least you can enjoy cakes on his behalf, isn’t it?” Poppy pushes the plate of macarons towards Mimi’s nicely moisturised hand, open flat palm down on the teak table Poppy spent all night cleaning while her husband Beng Kooi polished his shoes by the front door, a message for her that he was anxious again but was refusing to speak. Again.

“I’m feeling a bit full of sugar, Poppy. Bloated and all that. Listen, I need to talk too.” Mimi glances shyly at the pastel-coloured macarons and starts twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger. 

“The problem with people these days, Mimi, is that they’re too self-involved. I mean, look. Everyone is buried inside some ridiculous virtual reality, completely ignoring the needs of the people in their actual reality. Imagine Beng Kooi’s nerve, going out on our anniversary day. He said it’s Sunday so it’s Sunday Tea and he shouldn’t be around anyway.” Poppy squeezes a pale purple macaron into Mimi’s hand.

“No thanks. I’ve eaten too much sugar, my stomach needs to rest.”

Poppy stares at the plate of multicoloured macarons she baked specially for Mimi’s Sunday visit. She remembers creating the macaron batter while the silence from where Beng Kooi sat flipping pages of an automobile magazine in the living room pierced her stomach. He alternated between that and his phone. He had become gifted at ignoring her. So she made more macarons and filled her soul with the sweet scents of sugar. The seri muka she bought this morning from one of the Mak Ciks down the road because Mimi used to enjoy a Malay cake or two. At least she used to when they first started these Sunday teas.

“Here,” Poppy says, lifting a seri muka square with her first two fingers, “take a kuih too. It’s supposed to be good. The Mak Cik I bought it from makes the best Malay cakes. She just started selling.”

“Have you spoken to Beng Kooi recently?” Mimi’s voice is soft, almost non-existent. It irritates Poppy.

“You’ve not been listening to anything I’ve been telling you. Dreaming of what, Mimi? I mean, can’t you just pay some simple attention to me? Once a week, that’s all I ask. Is that too much? Have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

Poppy’s mouth grows dry; her heart drums fast against her warm chest. “Heard what? Heard what? You people are all the same! I’ve been telling you about how I spend every evening initiating connection and he replies by shining his shoes. Shining shoes! I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Mimi’s ring flies off her finger. By accident or intention, Poppy doesn’t know but she’s annoyed. Here she is, revealing the most intimate problems of her life and Mimi is performing monkey tricks for her own entertainment. The ring drops onto the floor and rolls around several times before stopping and revealing a sudden deep silence. It’s her own house but Poppy hasn’t heard this silence before and she hates it. She almost wishes to hear Beng Kooi’s footsteps approaching the kitchen, telling her, suddenly, that he wants to do something for their anniversary.

“I came here today for my own reasons too, Poppy. Not everything is about you and your problems.” Mimi bends down, picks her ring up and parks it beside the tray of sweets. The gorgeous macarons Poppy placed in her friend’s hand are partially crumbled on the table.

“You know, the real problem with the world today is that people don’t appreciate people. Nobody says thank you anymore. Nobody really values the things others do for them.” Poppy’s tears fall unexpectedly. She’s pleased the tears have come. Tears add believability; they attract sympathy and can bring interpersonal success.

“Pops, listen, I’ve been trying to tell you something for the past one hour but I’ve not been able to get a word in. I know you’ve been struggling to connect with Beng Kooi and you both—

“I sit in front of him and tell him to tell me things but that makes him want to read his automobile magazines more. You see what kind of rude, uncaring piece of—

“Did you ever wonder why Beng Kooi stopped wanting to talk to you? Did you trying listen—

“This is the problem with people today. Nobody has gratitude. Nobody cares. Nobody bothers to look at the person in front of them to try to understand what may be going on with them.”

The thick, horrifying silence returns. Mimi is looking past Poppy at the entrance of the kitchen. Her friend’s eyes are wet as though she has absorbed some of Poppy’s tears. That’s the magic of tears, they bring people onto your side, they soften even the cruellest intentions and make the world glitter. Mimi should be reminded precisely what her role is for Sunday Tea. They have been friends for five years and for three of those five, Mimi had been given scrumptious teatime things in exchange for Poppy’s company and the opportunity to comfort her. Mimi didn’t have any marital problems so it was only fair she gave space to Poppy to openly express her distress about Beng Kooi.

“Listen, Poppy, I really need to tell you something. It’s important.”

The silence returns. Beng Kooi’s little footsteps fill it up soon enough. Oh blessed day! The fool has repented. Maybe he has come with flowers, or a self-penned song which was her annual anniversary gift for maybe the first two years.

The footsteps pause just behind Poppy. She feels him close. It’s almost nice to have him there, without his face, his arms, his torso, his legs to look at. She senses him as a large warm cloud, breathing softly behind her. It’s so stupid how the memory comes but it comes and infects her head with images of their honeymoon in Pangkor when she reclined on a beach chair and he stood behind her, massaging her shoulders, her head, rubbing rose oil into her hair. She’d felt completely and utterly supported as though he were the real beach chair and the beach chair she was sitting on was merely an illusion. That feeling lasted a year. And then it faded. She’d tried to get it back which was why she pushed him to talk to her, to eat with her, go to malls with her, but nothing worked. She wanted her beach chair back.

“And that is why we’re going,” Beng Kooi says.

Poppy doesn’t turn around to look at him.

“What? Where are we going? To Pangkor again?”

“Haven’t you heard what I’ve said?” Beng Kooi asks.

Mimi gets up, dusts crumbs off her hands onto the table. The macarons and seri muka remain as they are.

“Okay, let me see if this will go through,” Mimi says, her voice strange and hard, “for weeks now I have been trying to talk to you. Beng Kooi too. I don’t know if this is going to go through properly or not but since it’s your anniversary, is there a chance you’ll listen?”

Poppy remembers also on their honeymoon the nights they’d spent counting stars and inventing stories for life on each star. They were such romantic storytellers.

“Mimi and I have made a decision to carry on our lives together,” Beng Kooi says, “she’s informed her husband. He has accepted it. We’re not asking for permission. We’re simply letting you know. I’m moving out next week.”

And there was also that time just after breakfast by the pool when Poppy looked into Beng Kooi’s eyes and saw a secret, silent galaxy. Then she promised him she’d spend the rest of her life finding out the terrain of that galaxy. If you let me, she laughed, and he said of course, of course, but she never saw the galaxy again. It wasn’t her fault if she kept trying to find something that was continuously hidden from her. It wasn’t her fault that people chose to be assholes. It certainly wasn’t her fault that people refused to acknowledge their problems and the glaring reality before them that the person they have chosen to marry is, in fact, a glorious, magnificent gift. Perhaps when the right moment arrives, she’ll try her luck again and see if that bastard Beng Kooi would be willing to reclaim his honour to be her beach chair, or else redeem his gift of having her witness his lost mysterious galaxy. It’s comforting at least that he decided to return home on their anniversary and god knows Poppy is intelligent enough to read an auspicious sign when she sees it.       

– Shivani Sivagurunathan