Three

I can’t wait to see you tomorrow! Orchard Station, twelve o’clock?

Angel waits while her old friend Corazon Bautista answers her text, the three dots blinking as she types. The reply is a few squares and a goat emoji. Another message quickly follows: Sorry, I was trying to give you a thumbs-up! Angel smiles, recalling the things they used to laugh about while they waited, towels in hand, for their employers’ children to tire of splashing in the pool in Reverie Residences, the gated condominium community where they worked.

Angel pushes Mr. Vijay’s wheelchair along the walking trail until she finds a shaded spot. She gently pries his fingers open and wraps them around the handle of the badminton racket. They will repeat this action for the next ten minutes or so until Mr. Vijay grips the racket, and then Angel will show him how to swing it. One day, it will be effortless again. He had been playing badminton when the stroke seized his body. Doctors said it was due to an undiagnosed heart condition, but Angel believes it was grief over Mrs. Vijay’s death from cancer last year. It was a double tragedy, but doesn’t that mean that they are due for something good to happen? Whenever Angel watches physiotherapy videos on YouTube, she is drawn to the suggested clips of people rising to their feet after years of paralysis. Miracles are possible.

Angel’s sister, Joy, is more sceptical of miracles. Last night, she sent Angel this message: Flight for Riyadh confirmed. Angel sank into her bed, defeated. I will be with you wherever you go, she finally replied to Joy after many unfinished and deleted messages.

The air is tinged with the loamy scent of wet soil from last night’s downpour. A man wearing a fluorescent-yellow vest is aiming a high-pressure hose at the drain. The water jets out in a solid white blade, blasting away the dirt before it can settle. Angel exchanges a wave with Rubylyn, the new nanny from the floor above. She is walking along the trail with one napping baby slumped in a carrier on her chest and a toddler in a stroller picking apple slices off a contoured tray.

Mr. Vijay is making progress with grasping the racket. “Good, good,” Angel says, wiping the sweat from Mr. Vijay’s brow. Together, they trace the racket along a low, invisible arc over the sparks of honeysuckle flowers bursting from the crouching shrubs. He allows her to guide him. It was his wife who used to grumble when Angel made her do her physiotherapy routine. Sometimes she’d swear under her breath, and they’d both break into uncontrollable giggles. Mrs. Vijay would wag her finger: You started this. Cora used to give Angel that look of warning too. “Don’t make me laugh,” she would say, the corners of her lips already twitching.

Cora has been on Angel’s mind ever since she learned that Cora’s nephew Raymond died. She couldn’t believe it—Raymond, whom Cora returned to Manila to raise after her brother abandoned his own child. The wife had had enough of his drinking and had run off, and when Cora returned to the Philippines, she found that most of the money she’d sent home had gone towards gambling and seeding foolish business ventures that never materialized. Angel was shocked to hear that anyone under Cora’s wing could suffer an untimely death. He had been nineteen years old, the same age that Angel was when she arrived in Singapore. In those days, Cora had soothed her homesickness with comforting words and advice, and Angel felt safest in her care.

It was even stranger how Angel had found out. A friend of Cora’s had posted a message on Cora’s Facebook wall: My condolences for your loss, Cora. May God forgive Raymond’s sins. Moments later, Cora’s Facebook profile was gone. Angel looked up Raymond’s name on the internet but couldn’t find any information on his death. All she saw were school announcements about his achievements—his scholarships and prizes—and a small picture of him and Cora hugging at his graduation ceremony. There was also a news article about him and a classmate winning full scholarships to the University of the Philippines. That boy had so much promise.

Then out of the blue this morning, Cora had sent Angel a message: Hello, Angel, remember me? Is this still your number? It’s Corazon Bautista. I’m back in Singapore, working in Bukit Timah. Let’s catch up on your next day off. Angel wasn’t surprised to hear from Cora. This was how it worked when you thought of somebody; eventually that person reappeared in your life. The two women haven’t seen each other in over a decade, but Angel just knows they’ll pick up where they left off. Of course, Angel won’t ask Cora anything about Raymond, especially if she doesn’t want people to know. (May God forgive Raymond’s sins—was it suicide?)

No, Angel doesn’t have to know anything. She just needs to concern herself with Mr. Vijay, whose wrist is trembling slightly. “Too heavy?” Angel asks. “Come, we rest for a while, then we start with the other hand, okay?” Mr. Vijay’s forearm, the muscles atrophied, is limp and soft as a bird wing. “Okay, you’ve worked hard already,” she tells Mr. Vijay as she kicks up the locks on the wheels of his wheelchair. They take the longer route home, passing mesh nets tethered across an adventure playground and the tiered canopies of pulai trees crowded with creamy whorls of new flowers.

Mr. Vijay lives in an older private apartment complex on the park’s edge called Jacaranda Gardens. On the ground floor, there is a function room, a gym, and a two-lane bowling alley for residents. Outside, there is a tennis court covered in yellow leaves that look like tiny flames. At the gate, Hassan the security guard presses the buzzer to let Angel and Mr. Vijay in. “Hot weather today, Angel,” Hassan says, and Angel replies, “Really hot. Hope it rains.” Sometimes Angel wants to break the pleasantries and tell Hassan that she has no hard feelings about what happened last year. She knows it was a resident who saw her walking on the treadmill in the gym and made a complaint and that Hassan was just doing his job when he rounded up all the maids and scolded them on the building management’s behalf. “You have a nice day,” Hassan says, tipping his head towards Angel, which is probably his way of saying that there are things he cannot help.

 

On weekday mornings, the Mass Rapid Transit car is a silent sea of pressed shirts tucked into the sharp edges of waistbands and the soapy fragrance of the freshly showered workforce. The office workers and schoolchildren peer into phone screens or listen to earphones while staring into any slivers of white space in the crowd.

Sundays are different. Angel boards the train at Choa Chu Kang Station and feels it pick up momentum as it slices through the sun-bleached suburbs. Clouds of greenery billow beneath her feet, and she is brought to eye level with the silvery edges of the apartment buildings that loom over her throughout the week. On Sundays, Angel owns the city, and she’s not the only person who feels this way. A glance at the trimmed parks below shows women spreading out picnic mats, weighting the corners with tall steel pots and boom boxes. Dressed in their best clothes, they croon their favourite songs from home and serve buffets of home-cooked food, relishing the freedom of being outdoors. Angel knows she looks her best too. Her chin-length hair is brushed smooth of bobby-pin dents, and her small lips break into an easy smile. Watching her reflection in the train window, she turns her head from side to side to let her silver earring cuffs catch the light.

Two Burmese girls get on at Bishan Station. Their cheeks are streaked with tree-bark paste to protect their skin from the sun, and they hold on to each other as the train judders and picks up speed again. Construction workers arrive at the next stop, in checked shirts tucked into trousers, clutching their mobile phones. The carriage seems to rock to the chorus of this crowd, and Angel feels that she’s part of every conversation, even the ones in Bengali and Burmese. The suburbs peel away and the train plunges into the night of the underground.

Angel is spilled into Orchard Station with the crowd and she lets the surge carry her towards the escalators. She is early because she always tries to leave home promptly if the Vijays’ younger son, Raja, is on Sunday duty. Raja hadn’t paid much attention to Angel when she started working for the family three years ago, but something changed at Mrs. Vijay’s funeral. Angel had spotted him sitting alone on the steps of the crematorium and sobbing into his long shirtsleeves, so she’d held his hand and told him that the pain would get more manageable over time. Her own mother had died when she was in her early twenties, only a little older than Raja. Since then, he’s been lingering too close.

Police officers in bulky vests patrol the station entrance. “No loitering,” says an officer to a cluster of Indonesian women near the ticketing machines, and the women scatter like raindrops.

Angel pats her purse instinctively. She knows where her employment pass is if she needs to produce it. After the officers move away, she takes out her phone to let Cora know exactly where she is. Back when she and Cora used to have days off together, they would wait near the station control booth until all their friends arrived. Orchard Road was a glittery shopping district then, but now it is a wild competition of pulsing lights and frantic, churning crowds. New underground tunnels shoot like fireworks in every direction, fanning out into mammoth shopping malls.

There is a text from Joy: A picture of herself wearing a traditional Saudi abaya. The black cloak is unbuttoned and the sleeves flare like bat wings. The material swallows her up. The message says, Borrowed this from my friend Pilar, who worked in Jeddah for a few years. What do you think?

Looks like a graduation gown, Angel replies. Joy needs a cap with a tassel, then maybe the image will be easier to accept.

My real graduation portrait is gone, Joy writes back.

Is there anything that wasn’t destroyed by the flood last year? Angel had watched the news footage while frantically exchanging messages with Joy, who assured her that she was all right even as the murky water began to seep into her living room. Luckily the pictures of Joy’s kids survived because they were backed up online. And your diplomas? Angel types, but she deletes the message. No need to remind Joy of her business degree, the fact that she was running a company before disaster and debt swallowed her career.

Another wave of passengers comes crashing through the station. Angel spots a portly woman with short silver-streaked hair clinging to her purse. Angel waves and calls out in Tagalog and sees recognition wash over Cora’s face. “It has changed, huh?” Angel says after they hug.

“But you haven’t changed,” Cora says warmly, stepping back to look at Angel. “Not one bit.”

“Ay, don’t lie,” Angel says. In a few years, she’ll be forty, and she knows her body has become soft in places. “All of this has come out, and all of this has gone down,” she says, pointing to her tummy, then her chest. Cora laughs and hugs her again. Angel catches a whiff of Cora’s perfume and it brings her back to their days in Reverie Residences, when Cora would always leave for church first thing on Sunday morning, while Angel preferred to sleep in and go for a later service with the younger crowd.

“Are you back at Blessed Sacrament?” Angel asks as they navigate their way out of the station and into one of the malls.

“No,” Cora says. “I’m not really . . . I don’t go to church anymore.”

That’s a big change. Angel doesn’t attend church either, but it had never felt like a place for people like her. She waits for Cora to elaborate on her reasons, but when she doesn’t, Angel moves on. “What are your ma’am and sir like?”

“Just ma’am, no sir,” Cora says. “No other help either.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Angel says. “You don’t want to be fighting with someone all the time.” It was hard enough being hired by the Vijays after their previous maid, Erni, retired; Angel felt as if she were competing with a ghost. “You’re dusting the house now?” a bemused Mrs. Vijay would ask, implying that Erni dusted later or earlier in the day. Their daughter, Sumanthi, who had a corner in the pantry for her tubs of pea protein powder and Himalayan pink salt, once asked Angel to pick up a pack of keen-wah from the supermarket, and when Angel called her after pacing the aisles (was it a type of gourd? A brand of spice?), Sumanthi spelled it out for her: “It’s q-u-i-n-o-a.” Sumanthi laughed it off, but Angel was embarrassed, knowing that Erni had probably never called the Vijays on the verge of tears over a packet of grains.

“Is it a big house?” Angel asks, picturing Cora without any other help in a sprawling Bukit Timah compound.

“There’s a lot to do, but my ma’am still looks embarrassed when she sees me making the beds or washing the car. I’ve given up counting the number of times she has apologized for not being able to cook. Whenever I make a meal, her face goes red and she says sorry. And if she does have to ask me to do something, she pretends it took her by surprise. ‘Oh! Cora! Could you hand-wash these?’ ‘Oh! Cora! Do you mind going to the shops?’”

“What happened to her previous maid?”

“She’s never had one,” Cora says. “There were nannies for her daughters, who are grown up now, and then she just hired a weekly cleaning service and she’d spend all of Sunday at the spa while they did everything.”

Angel’s mind flashes to a memory with Joy and she begins to laugh. “Joy and I went to one of those fish spas last year when I returned to Bulacan.”

“Where the tiny fish bite the dead skin off your feet?” Cora asks.

“It was awful,” Angel says. “We screamed and screamed. It didn’t even hurt! She just started squealing, and that set me off, and the owner came and yelled at us for scaring away the other customers. We were in hysterics. We got banned from that spa for life.”

“How is your sister?”

Angel’s smile fades. “She’s going to work in Saudi Arabia,” she says.

Cora hesitates. “Good money,” she says.

“Irresistible,” Angel agrees. Her eyes bulged out of her head when Joy told her what her salary would be—more than twice what Angel made. Back when Angel’s mother started showing the first signs of lung disease, Angel had rushed to sign up to work in Qatar but it was Joy who forbade her. There were too many news reports about domestic workers there being abused by their employers. Every couple of years, the death of a Filipino in the Middle East sent shock waves through the Philippines, and women avoided the sweet-talking recruiters who tried to convince them it wasn’t so bad. But there were enough women who needed that kind of money to send siblings to college or pay off loans for their children’s medical bills, so they took the gamble.

Cora and Angel are still underground but now they also seem to be underwater. The domed ceiling is an animatronic aquarium. A shark sails over their heads, and neon spotlights swing to the pop beats throbbing through the walls. Cora is asking a question, but Angel can barely hear her. She points to a swatch of sunlight at an entrance on the first floor, and Cora clutches her hand as they weave their way to the escalators and stagger out onto the street. There is a rumble in the distance, but Angel isn’t sure if it’s from an impending storm or the giant billboard screen across the intersection, where an animated robot has burst into flames that are transforming into the words Coming Soon. Three women are taking selfies in front of a display of luxury cars in the sparkling atrium outside the Ion shopping mall, their phones angled from long wands.

“This way,” Angel says as they head towards the narrow underpass that will bring them to Lucky Plaza. Cora knows where it is; now she is the one leading the way, driven towards a place that feels like home.

Lucky Plaza is heaving with Sunday crowds of Pinoy women rummaging through clothing-store racks for pyjamas, shoes, and purses. Angel and Cora make their way through a corridor of money-changer windows with green and red lights marching around the borders of their signs. Passing a souvenir shop, Angel hears a woman asking about the price of a pair of plastic camouflage toy binoculars. “And this one?” she asks, holding up a snow globe, then a pack of scented soaps, then a silver picture frame. Her enthusiasm feels familiar. All the pasalubong Angel has bought over the years for her family could fill up this floor. On Angel’s first visit home, her father devoured a box of seashell-shaped milk chocolates, and her cousin shyly presented a traced outline of his right foot so she could buy him sandals that fitted. Pride bloomed in her heart, and when she returned to Singapore, she spent many Sundays collecting items for the balikbayan box that she sent home once it was full.

Most of the tables in the basement food court are already taken by this time, so Angel brings Cora to an eatery on the third floor. A frown comes over Cora’s face as she scans her options: deep silver trays piled high with crispy rolls of lumpia and rich oxtail stew. “I can’t believe how much they’re charging for the galunggong,” she says, nodding at the tray of fried mackerel. “And eight dollars for grilled liempo? Look at how small those portions are.”

“Your lunch is on me,” Angel says. They squeeze their way into the restaurant.

“Don’t be silly,” Cora protests. “You’re younger. I’m paying.” But Angel insists. She tells Cora to find a place to sit, then she chooses their dishes, puts them on a tray, and carefully navigates her way to their table.

There is a flyer on the table for Balik Express, a print of their signature glossy black tape stretched across the page as a banner. Cora’s eyes bulge at the rates listed there too. She holds up the flyer and shakes her head slowly.

“This is a premium balikbayan service,” Angel assures her. “The post office upstairs still does a good job, but Balik Express takes less time. They have all these fancy add-ons, like they’ll send you a professional video of your family receiving their gifts.” Cora is still thinking in pesos, a habit Angel falls into every time she returns to Singapore from a home visit and everything seems astoundingly expensive. She still has a stockpile of menudo sauce packets and Magic Sarap seasoning from her last trip home, enough for several more months of comfort meals.

Twirling her fork through her pancit bihon and watching the steam escape the fried noodles, Angel tells Cora about a Turkish drama series she’s been watching online—“Even without the English subtitles, you can follow the story”—and about the soap she bought to try to lose weight: “It’s called diet soap. I saw it in an ad. It washes away your cellulite.”

“That is nonsense. You bought it?”

“I believed it! They had a whole range of products. I wondered about the bubble bath, though.”

“You soak for two hours and disappear completely, is that the idea?”

Angel giggles. “I guess so. Anyway, it didn’t work. Big surprise.”

“You’re looking thinner these days than I remember you.”

“I lost some weight,” Angel says. “I had a bad breakup last year . . .” She hesitates. She could refer to Suzan as siya and then Cora wouldn’t know whether she was talking about a man or a woman. Before Angel came out to Joy, Joy made the assumption that Angel had a boyfriend. Angel never had to correct her as long as they were speaking in Tagalog, and she could hide Suzan’s identity behind a pronoun that had no gender. But it still felt like a lie, and Angel is done with hiding who she is.

“Suzan didn’t see the relationship the same way I did.” Although she doesn’t put any emphasis on the name of her ex, Angel hears it blasting through a loudspeaker.

Cora nods slowly. “It was a girlfriend?” she confirms.

“Yes.” Please don’t tell me I’m confused, Angel thinks. That was what Joy told Angel when she came out to her. It’s a phase, she said dismissively. Maybe Cora is thinking the same thing. Maybe she is wondering about all those men that Angel pretended to have crushes on at Reverie Residences—the lifeguard, the FedEx delivery driver who sang the only Tagalog song he knew to any Filipino working in the building.

“I’m sorry Suzan hurt you,” Cora says finally. “What happened?”

Angel is so relieved, she could hug Cora. “I met her around the time that I left my old employers, the Lai family, and started working for the Vijays. We were together for nearly three years,” Angel says. Her first days in the Vijay house coincided with falling madly in love with Suzan. On some mornings when she stands on the wide apartment balcony, the sight of kingfishers darting between the trees still reminds her of the quick flash of Suzan’s grin.

“She was everything,” Angel says. “We even talked about immigrating to another country and getting married.” She doesn’t want to look at Cora when she says this. “Then she met somebody new. A Pinoy guy who works in shipping.”

Was that the hardest betrayal to handle? Or was it when Suzan denied she had ever been a lesbian? Or was it when their friends began supporting Suzan, celebrating her choice, making it clear that they never believed the love between two women could be anything other than confusion or convenience?

Suzan had loved Angel. Their relationship wasn’t about the lack of available Filipino men or wanting to have sex without the risk of pregnancy. Angel had been with those sorts of women too, but those relationships didn’t go deeper than trysts in pay-by-the-hour hotels or quiet park corners. “We talked about how we were tired of hiding. I thought she meant she wanted to come out to her family. I didn’t know she was thinking of pretending to be who she wasn’t.”

Cora’s face brims with sympathy and she reaches out and grips Angel’s hand. “This is your first time talking about it?”

“I told Joy about Suzan,” Angel says. A fresh wave of pain washes over her. “She didn’t understand. After my last visit, Joy told me they didn’t need me to pay her daughters’ school fees anymore. She said that I needed to save my money for myself, but I think it’s because I told her I was gay. She doesn’t want me to influence her kids somehow.”

“It’s not such a bad thing to stop sending all of that money home, Angel. Remember when you first started working here? You were standing in line at the remittance centre every week.”

“Everyone needed help,” Angel recalls.

For the first two years she was here, Angel paid most of her mother’s medical bills, but after her mother passed, requests came flooding in from other family members. Her cousin Tito’s motorcycle needed repairs; could she help cover the cost? Her recently widowed aunt’s farm needed gasoline for the machinery; could Angel pay for that? Money for waterproof schoolbags, to fix a leak in a roof, to bribe an official—Angel said yes, yes, yes until Cora taught her to say no. “You’ll end up borrowing from loan sharks at this rate,” Cora had warned her. Cora had been working in Singapore for ten years when Angel arrived in 2001, and she had seen other domestic workers go into debt to try to please their families back home.

Angel can’t help noticing that Cora is different now, and not just because of the deep age lines that score the corners of her eyes. She used to show up in eateries like this with fire in those eyes, ready to distribute the free weekly newsletter that she wrote for Filipino workers. Everybody was eager to read those folded pink sheets for tips and useful information from a veteran worker. Around the holidays, she always included a special edition about packing balikbayan boxes, complete with diagrams on space-saving and tips on padding fragile items like Ritz crackers and souvenir shot glasses. She advised women about resolving conflicts with employers too, and she always included all the hotline numbers they could call for help. In 2001, there was a famous murder, and Marisol Concepcion, a maid from Nueva Ecija, was executed in Singapore for strangling her employer and her daughter. The Philippine newspapers reported that Marisol had been framed. Most women didn’t have computer access in their employers’ homes, so they began filling the cybercafés to read the news online until Cora offered to consolidate the information into an extra page for no charge.

Now Cora seems diminished. Sadness drapes over her like a cloak. Angel wonders who takes care of people like Cora, women who are so often depended on to take care of others. The thought of being bereft and alone unsettles her. “Your family is well?” she asks casually.

Cora nods but after a beat she says, “My nephew Raymond died.”

“I know,” Angel says before thinking.

Cora’s face seizes with panic. “Who told you?” she asks.

“On Facebook,” Angel says. “Somebody commented. I saw it just before you took your profile down.”

This information seems to bring Cora some relief, but Angel notices that Cora has dropped her hand and her fingers are clenched in a tight fist. What happened? Angel wants to ask, but the words don’t form. Cora looks too fearful, as if she might spring out of her chair and run away if Angel pries. Angel’s gaze settles on three women at the next table whose orders of suman malagkit have just arrived. “Dessert?” Angel asks. The women peel open the banana leaves to reveal rice cakes soaked in coconut syrup. Behind them is a display case of cassava cakes and fried skewered plantains.

Cora, still lost in thought, shakes her head. “Let’s take a walk, then,” Angel says, and Cora picks up her things slowly to follow her.

Outside, the sky has grown darker, and it looks as if the sleek silver skyscrapers are icicles dripping from the low clouds. A fat raindrop plops onto Angel’s head as they step out onto the boulevard. “This way,” she tells Cora. The downpour begins as they hurry towards the awning of a hotel lobby. A procession of blue and yellow taxis threads through the front entrance. Angel and Cora dodge the slow traffic and the sudden blooming of umbrellas as thunder cracks and the clouds shed the rain in a torrential rush.

“It’s freezing,” Angel squeals as they enter the lobby, where the fierce air-conditioning gives her goose bumps. Two doormen in tailored coats nod to greet them. Cora runs her fingers through her short hair. They wait and watch as the lobby begins to fill up with other escapees from the weather. Although Angel feels guilty for marvelling at any kind of storm after what happened to Joy’s home in Bulacan, the chaos is comforting to view from behind these wide glass windows and red awnings. The raindrops blur the dagger-sharp edges of the towers, and lights from the buses smear across the glistening black roads.

“I need to use the toilet,” Cora says. She and Angel walk towards reception, but a desk clerk stops them. He doesn’t greet them like the doormen automatically did. “The washrooms are for hotel guests only,” he says. The women taking the selfies outside the Ion mall earlier trot past them to the washroom entrance, boxy white shopping bags swinging from their wrists. Angel feels a flash of anger; they don’t even hesitate, and the desk clerk doesn’t give them a second glance.

“What do you think he would have said if we told him we were guests? If we had just made up a room number?” Angel asks Cora as they step outside again.

Cora wipes the raindrops from her eyes like they are tears. “He would have asked for more proof. Our keys. Our passports.”

“Our grandparents’ names,” Angel quips. “How much liquid we drank.”

They try to dodge the rain all the way to a sheltered bus stop, and then it’s a short sprint to another haven: Tangs department store. It’s a sale day, too busy for anybody to mind them. Customers flocking towards the racks are accosted by salesgirls with perfume spray bottles and invitations for free makeup trials. “I’ll be in the bra section,” Angel tells Cora, who nods and hurries to the washroom. Two saleswomen are folding bras and chatting animatedly to each other when Angel starts to look through the sports bras. “Come, girl, I take for you,” one saleswoman says. Her name tag reads mei. “What size you want?”

“Can you measure me?” Angel asks.

Mei nods and picks up her measuring tape. Her colleague smiles at Angel. “Day off?” she asks in Tagalog. Angel nods. “You get one a week?”

“Yeah,” Angel says. “Where are you from?”

“Iloilo,” the saleswoman replies. “I don’t usually work on Sundays either, but we’re getting overtime because of this sale.”

“Lots of customers?”

“The rain always helps to bring in the crowds. Where are you from?”

“Bulacan,” Angel says, and she watches the woman’s features crumple with sympathy.

“That flood!” she says. “On the news, I saw people living on their rooftops.”

“Good thing they still had rooftops,” Angel says.

“Was your family caught up in it?”

“Not too badly,” Angel says, because this is easier to say than the truth. There is no space in small talk for describing the swirling water that inched its way up her nieces’ ankles and rotted the wooden floors that her brother-in-law had laid with his own hands.

Mei steps away from Angel and writes down her measurements. She looks back and forth between them curiously. “Relax, Mei, we’re not talking about you,” the Filipino saleswoman tells her. Angel laughs. “Anyway, best of luck. My colleague will show you some of our latest styles. It’s time for my lunch break.”

Angel bids her goodbye and continues shopping. She holds up a sports bra with an adjustable racer-back strap and pictures herself wearing it on long morning runs in the park. Mei clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ear. She gives Angel an apologetic smile. “There’s no discount on this one.”

Angel figured as much. But when Mei tries to nudge her towards a range of plain bras with flimsy cups in sizes S, M, L, and XL, Angel holds on to the bra. “I will try it on,” she says, knowing full well that she won’t end up buying it. It is eighty-nine dollars, more than half what she earns in a week.

On her way to the fitting room, she notices a small crowd has formed near the MAC counter. Voices are rising. There is a young, pale Filipino woman with glossy black hair wearing a pair of skintight denim shorts that are cut to reveal the half-moons of her pert bottom. Three saleswomen have surrounded her, and Angel’s first thought is that she has stolen something. Angel can only see her face in profile, but her voice rings clearly across the department store: “I don’t have to buy it!”

The saleswomen’s voices rise as well, and one of them returns to the counter to make a call. As the Filipino woman continues arguing, she turns to reveal a heavily made-up face. It looks like she has tried every sample of every product on this floor, and the saleswomen are now pressuring her to buy something.

Angel waves Cora over when she notices her wandering back from the restroom. Another round of heated arguing catches Cora’s attention. She takes one look at the Filipino woman and marches over to the counter. Do they know each other? Angel hurries over to join them.

“Donita, what is going on?” Cora asks. The girl scowls at Cora. In all those layers of foundation and bronzer and crayon-thick eyeliner, she looks like a sad, beautiful clown.

“I don’t need your help,” she says. She hitches her purse on her shoulder and reaches for another tester product—a tube of concealer.

“Enough,” Cora says, gripping her wrist. Donita tries to shake her off but Cora’s grip appears to be strong. Angel looks around nervously. In Cora’s effort to calm things down, she has actually created a bigger scene.

“Security will be here soon,” one of the saleswomen announces. Her arms are crossed over her chest.

“Why does security need to be involved?” Angel asks. “She doesn’t want to buy something, it is not a crime.”

Donita looks at her, and Angel thinks she’s going to tell her to mind her own business, but she nods. “Exactly,” she says. “I am a customer, but you’re not treating me like one. You let all of those other ladies try everything.”

“Donita, you do not want security to get involved,” Cora says. She looks around nervously.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Donita replies. “Your friend here understands it.”

“Yeah,” Angel says. “This is unfair.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cora snaps. “It doesn’t matter who’s right.”

Behind Cora, Angel can see the blue blur of security guards approaching. At the crackling sound of their walkie-talkies, all heads turn, and the store becomes a sea of excited whispers. Then something happens that Angel will be thinking about for days. Cora flees. She bolts out of the doors as if she is being chased, and she doesn’t slow down even as she gets closer to the main road. “Cora!” Angel cries. She’s thinking only of Cora’s safety as she runs after her, but when she crosses the threshold of the store and the alarms start wailing, she remembers that she is still holding the expensive sports bra.

 

The storm has subsided to a drizzle but the concrete pavements are dark with puddles. Cora, Angel, and Donita stand in a row like schoolgirls. The police had to be called even though Angel ran right back into the store as soon as she realized her mistake. She steals a look at Cora, who returned at the wail of the alarm too, and sees her staring straight at her feet, nodding to the policeman’s questions. “Elizabeth Lee,” Cora says. “I have been working for her for three weeks.”

“I need to see your employment passes,” the policeman says. “All of you.”

They fumble with their purses and bring out the green plastic cards. Angel’s tiny black-and-white photo looks like a mug shot. “And you?” the policeman asks Donita. “Where do you work?” He looks her up and down as he says it.

“Marine Parade,” Donita says, peering at the policeman from under her thickly mascaraed lashes. “Also new here, sir. It is my first day off.”

“You’re a maid or do you do some other kind of work?” the policeman asks. “Why are you dressed like you’re selling something in Geylang?”

Donita stares blankly at him. She might be too new to know that the policeman is referring to the red-light district, but Angel feels the anger swishing like dark waters within her. What can she say? The policeman’s black holster gleams like his badge and polished shoes. He searches Donita’s bag and pulls out her kikay kit—a small pink pouch for grooming essentials. Her comb and a pack of tissues fall out as he unzips it, and he takes no notice before turning his attention to Angel.

“Sir,” she begins for the third time since they were rounded up. Her voice trembles—is it rage or fear? “I can explain.”

So many people are strolling by and gawking. The roar of traffic along Orchard Road drowns out their whispers, but Angel knows they are assuming the worst. “No need to explain. The security team is reviewing the footage. Do you know the penalty for theft? You could go to jail. Your friends here could have their employment passes cancelled right now and they can be deported.”

“I know, sir,” Angel says, bowing her head. Next to her, she can feel Cora stiffen. Donita mutters something under her breath in Tagalog about preferring to go back.

The policeman begins to quiz Angel on her identification details. Who is her employer? Where do they live? What is their phone number—he will have to call them. When she explains to him that Mr. Vijay is unable to speak, he raises an eyebrow. “Then who is in charge today? Who is there?”

Angel feels sick as she gives the policeman Raja’s number. As she slowly reads out the digits from her Contacts list, she feels the pain in her palms. The strap of the bra burned her hands when security ripped it away from her once she ran back into the store. She can still feel the tight grip of the security guard’s fingers around her wrists and the way Raja brushed past her this morning on purpose.

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupts Angel. It is Mei the saleswoman, waving at the policeman. He looks annoyed but he motions for her to approach. Mei flashes a nervous smile.

“Officer, this is all my fault,” she says. “I was handling the purchase and forgot to take off the tag. That’s why the alarm went off.” She waves a receipt. “She bought it just now, and in all of the commotion with her friends, she wandered off before I could put it in a bag as well. Here, miss,” she says, handing Angel a Tangs department store bag made of stiff tartan-print paper. “I’m very sorry about this.”

Angel takes the bag wordlessly. “Let me see the receipt,” the policeman says. Mei hands it over. The policeman squints at it, then he surveys Mei. “Okay,” he says to Angel. “You can go. But don’t let me catch you up to any nonsense again.” He wags a finger at each of the women.

After he leaves them, Angel realizes she’s been holding her breath. “Thank you so much,” she says to Mei.

“No problem,” Mei says. “I have to return the bra, though. I just quickly picked up another one and made the purchase when I saw what was going on.”

“Of course,” Angel says, giving her the bag.

“These will be on sale in November,” Mei tells her. “I’ll put one aside for you, okay?” She smiles and returns to the store.

Cora, Donita, and Angel are still standing in a line as if waiting for permission from the policeman to unfreeze, even though he is sauntering away with his partner. Donita is the first to speak, turning to Cora. “I’m really sorry.”

“As you should be,” Cora retorts. Angel notices she is trying to hide the shakiness in her voice. “This is not how I was expecting to spend my day off.”

“How do you two know each other?” asks Angel.

“Our ma’ams are friends,” Donita says.

“Not quite friends,” Cora says sourly. Donita cracks a smile, and Cora’s lips twitch as well. “My ma’am couldn’t get away from yours quickly enough that day.”

“She’s horrid,” Donita agrees.

“Still?” Cora asks. “I hoped she was just showing off.”

“What you saw was her good behaviour,” Donita says. “Anyway, what happened to you? Why were you so scared of the security guards that you ran out of the store and gave them a real reason to call the police?”

Cora shrugs off the question. “Just a childhood fear, I guess,” she mutters, but Angel knows this can’t be true. She has known Cora for years and never saw her behave so skittishly around anybody. Where is the woman who championed the rights of her friends for so long?

Donita accepts Cora’s response, but only because she is distracted by her own reflection in a sliver of mirror that frames the glass door of the department store. “It’s not too much, is it?” she asks.

“It’s too much,” Angel says. “Are you going to a nightclub in the middle of the day?”

“No, just meeting someone,” Donita says, twisting a lock of her hair in her fingers.

“Enjoy it,” Cora says dryly. “If your ma’am finds out you’ve been up to trouble, it could be the last time you have a day off.”

“How will she know?” Donita asks. “The policeman didn’t end up calling her.”

“The videos,” Angel says. “Did you see how many people stopped and took photos? They’ll put them up on their social media pages: ‘Look at these maids getting into trouble, is one of them your maid?’”

“Shit,” Donita says. “I’ll ask Flor.”

“Who’s Flor?”

“She’s a friend of mine. She has accounts on the ma’am Facebook pages. I can ask her to look out for the video. Give me your numbers, I’ll text you if anything comes up.”

If the videos are out there, there is nothing they can do. But being informed is a small mercy, a courtesy so they can be aware if their faces are made public. Angel exchanges numbers with Donita, and Cora does the same. In their small huddle on the street, they are no longer drawing anybody’s attention.

From the ma’am Facebook pages:

Elaine Yip: My helper has her own tin of Milo (the Malaysian one) but lately we have found her taking from the family tin (Australian recipe)!!! The Australian one is nearly twice the price as the Malaysian brand and better quality, more nutrients, etc., that’s why I got it for the kids. We’ve never had problems with things going missing from the house but this is tantamount to theft. Can’t be too careful nowadays. First they’re helping themselves to your food, what’s next?

 

Nurzafira Mohamed: Can you all help me with this grammatical issue? My son’s primary-school English teacher says “museum” is a proper noun but my maid was looking at his worksheets and said it’s incorrect. I actually think she’s right. She was an English teacher in her hometown and sometimes she even helps me to phrase my work e-mails correctly. But the teacher called me up and said, “I’m the professional here and you should trust me.” My son said she gave the class a pointed speech about people from Third World countries trying to take jobs from Singaporeans. I think we started it with this whole grammar issue.