My Year Abroad: A Novel by Chang-Rae Lee

Author:Chang-Rae Lee [Lee, Chang-rae]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Spideyface, seated beside me, hollered in a guttural English: “Sing it, diva lady!” And boy, did she, serenading us with that slow-burn opening, milking it and us, and when she sang those lines about being so bad I hooted before I could quell myself.

The speakers busted with the full musical accompaniment and a second beam lit a rotating disco globe and we were all up and shimmying to that unmistakable beat, and the whole room sang the famous refrain with her, though just that, for none of us wanted to obscure the rest of the performance, which was as sultry and vivacious as any Donna Summer ever gave, and sneakily sexier, coming from a gorgeous sixty-plus-year-old in pearls and glossy hair. We hit her with a standing O led by Drum and Spideyface and Pong, too, who was grinning superwide and nodding rhythmically like a bobblehead, and I found myself bleating, Maureen hooking her arm around my waist and hoisting her shot glass as we and everyone else toasted our siren queen.

The lights went up and Madam bowed and hugged Drum and bid us much gratitude and enjoyment for the rest of our evening, and then left to greet patrons in the other rooms.

“She sings only for special occasion,” Maureen told me. “Like for Mr. Drum.”

After that, Drum’s posse took their turns, the hostesses either backing up the guys if they asked, or else singing separately. Every song was accompanied by a video (not related, just gauzy scenes of young Asian couples strolling hand in hand in parks or on long piers) and a scroll of lyrics on the big flat screen. There were varying levels of singing talent and polish but actually everybody could carry the two or three tunes they probably always sang, complete with characteristic tics all singers have, the dramatic pauses, and gestures of hand and head, and eyes squeezing tight as they reached for certain high notes.

A great moment was when one of the crew kept lunging forward à la Elvis on certain verses, really getting down and dirty, but then groaned and pulled up lame on the last lunge, grasping at his hammy. His mates had to help him to the banquette. It wasn’t a serious pull, luckily, and everybody had a good laugh about it. The songs were varied, too, with a few that Pong had to fill me in on, including a fizzy Hong Kong pop tune from the ’90s, and a somber Korean folk ballad that made Spideyface tear up. But then, to my surprise, Drum cued up a rock ’n’ roll classic that I heard a lot when the cool kids wanted to go retro: “Hotel California.” I got kind of sick of the song, just the way you would with pink champagne on ice if you had it too often, but hearing that long twelve-string guitar opener made me picture my parents sitting in the living room with big goblets of white wine and not talking but not too unhappy, just marinating in the hi-fi.

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