June 11, 2012

My dearest,

We are having dinner at our favourite seafood restaurant. Salted egg yolk squid, freshwater prawns vermicelli soup, butter crabs with deep-fried Chinese steamed buns. Everything we could ask for in a calorific weekend meal with friends.

Paprika and hubby brought their lovely daughter M. along. A precocious and pretty thing who’s not quite two years old. She keeps sneaking looks at me all night and smiling ever so sweetly. I admit I’m making goo-goo eyes at her too.

“Stop hitting on the little girl,” you tell me.

“You’re only saying that cos she’s not smiling at you. She has only eyes for me, don’t you, little girl?” I coo. And it’s true. Little M.’s not looking at you no matter how many times you try and attract her attention. Mostly so that you can you take a picture of the cute little baby. The girl’s on to you, mate.

Little M.’s so into me she allows me to carry her, a total stranger (albeit an attractive one, by baby standards), to the aquariums to look at the “fish-ees”, you know, the ones that get netted and banged on the head before getting steam/fried for other patrons? Those fish-ees.

Somewhere along the way, she’s got hold of my Blackberry too (a fascinating fossil for her, given her Mommy and Daddy are iPhone fans) and taken to holding it by her ear and pretending to make calls.

“Look at her,” I say, “isn’t she the cutest?”

That’s when she starts whacking me with my own damn phone. Bang! Bang! Bang!

“How sweet,” you say, “looks like she’s hitting on you too.”

Yours, ever and always.