Page 20 of The Friend Zone Experiment

The mental image made it easier to say, “Do you want to come in for a coffee?”

“I don’t take coffee in the evening,” said Ket Siong.

The sting of the rebuff hardly had time to make itself felt when he blurted, “But I could do with some water.”

He looked uncharacteristically flustered. This made Renee feel a little better, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

The cabbie rolled down the window. “Not to rush you, but metre’s running, just so you know.”

“It’s OK,” said Renee. She could barely hear herself over theblood thumping in her ears, but what she could hear sounded surprisingly insouciant. It was as though her voice belonged to someone else. “My friend’s staying. How much does it come to? You might as well round it up. No worries. Have a good one.”

She watched as the taxi drove off, trepidation and excitement uncoiling inside her. When she turned back to Ket Siong, his eyes were fixed on her, as if he was trying to record every detail.

“Come on,” said Renee. “Let’s get you that water.”

Renee’s place was instantly familiar, though Ket Siong hadn’t seen it in ten years. The hallway was the same, with its walls panelled in honey-coloured wood, and the shining parquet floor necessitating the immediate removal of shoes (“Auntie Mindy will kill me if it gets scratched”). The air had the same faint, sweet floral smell, too—a scent he associated with Renee.

Some things had changed. Renee’s aunt had originally paid an interior decorating service to kit the flat out with a full set of furniture. The effect had been luxurious but neutral, everything in shades of taupe, beige, and grey. It had been almost oppressively free of personality, except for the occasional eccentric touch where the interior decorator had ventured to express themselves.

“You’ve kept the monkey,” said Ket Siong.

The monkey was about the size of a human baby and covered in an aggressively ugly hard-wearing paisley fabric. It sat eyelessly on a rattan console table in the hallway, facing the door. They had never been able to identify any useful purpose it might serve.

“I thought of getting rid of it, but I felt it would be disrespectful to Auntie Mindy,” said Renee. “It’s probably good feng shui. Scaring off the bad spirits.” She patted the monkey on the head.

Respect for her aunt had governed Renee’s approach to decoration when she lived here as a student. Conscious of her status as a guest, she’d never so much as Blu-Tacked a poster to the walls.

But she was a guest no longer. Through the door to the livingroom could be seen a pink velvet art deco–style sofa, draped with a leaf-patterned throw, rattan chairs on either side. The sofa’s predecessor had been oatmeal coloured and weirdly shiny, heaped with fussy cushions that poked you in the back.

Renee had indulged her own taste, too, in the matter of art on the walls. As Ket Siong followed her into the kitchen, he passed a striking photograph of a woman in a cheongsam, the wall behind her divided into stark triangles of light and shade; a couple of Egon Schiele pieces; a nude of a Chinese woman with her back to the viewer, her face in profile haughty and remote; and a black ink painting of a crevasse between gargantuan mountains.

The kitchen used to be all white, a vaguely clinical room. It had been impossible to imagine making a spaghetti Bolognese there. Now the cabinets were a friendly sage green, with bronze handles. Half of one wall was covered with a large framed piece of green-and-pink batik, adorned with flowers and swallows on a latticework background.

“Javanese batik tulis,” said Renee, when she saw him looking at it. “The pattern’s hand-drawn.” Then, when he started to grin, “Don’t laugh at me! I didn’t grow up speaking Malay.”

“I wasn’t saying anything,” said Ket Siong mildly. He tapped the dining table, a round marble-topped piece in dark hardwood, with matching chairs. “My grandmother had a table like this.”

“I bought the set secondhand in Singapore,” said Renee. “Don’t ask me how much it cost to ship here, your grandmother would be ashamed of me. It reminds me of home. And,” she added, turning to the fridge, “my Instagram followers go crazy for it.”

It was a good thing Ket Siong had asked for water and not any other form of refreshment. Renee’s fridge was pristine, empty save for a row of bottles of mineral water in the fridge door.

Ket Siong made no comment, but Renee seemed conscious this was weird.

“I’m not home for meals much,” she said. “I have someone come in to do the housekeeping. Is Evian OK?”

She spilt some water on the counter as she was filling the glass. Ket Siong found a tea towel and mopped it up. The cloth was crisp, with an attractive graphic print of tigers on it. He wondered how much it cost, and if it had ever been used before.

“Thanks,” said Renee. “Maybe I am a little drunk.”

If she was inebriated, it wasn’t obvious. What was clear was that she was nervous. This made Ket Siong feel a little better about the adrenaline racing through his veins, but unfortunately it did nothing to calm him down.

Renee raised a hand to push her hair out of her face, looking self-conscious. “How about you?”

Ket Siong drank his water. It was fizzy, which he hadn’t expected, but he managed not to cough. “A bit.”

He realised Renee was watching him swallow. She noticed he was looking, and cast her eyes down, a pink flush rising in her cheeks.

“You should know I never do this,” she said, after a moment.

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