Clutching my faux Gucci duffel bag stuffed with dirty laundry, I stood by the roadside waiting for my cab. My heart raced with anticipation.

From my right jeans pocket, I fished out my shiny new Prada wallet, a belated birthday present from Martin, a co-worker. Poor guy must’ve spent his entire month’s salary on it. It smelled richly of factory-fresh leather. Has he not heard of Petaling Street? The guy must really like me.

Sighing, I opened my thousand-ringgit wallet. Inside the note slit sat two old one-ringgit notes that the government did not even make anymore. I’d managed to find them deep in one of my junk drawers in my rented room, among old expired Durex condoms, lighters and a few hundred or so pens accumulated since college.

And coins. I stuffed my left hand into my slightly bulging left pocket and touched the remainder of my single person’s wealth. I already knew how much was in there. Four ringgit and thirty sen.

How the hell am I going to get all the way across town?

I knew I should’ve just taken a bus, but the thought of lugging a fake but very real-looking, very heavy Gucci bag up and down a mini bus did not appeal to me. In fact, I might even get pickpocketed, and whoever it was that thought he’d struck gold by lifting my nice new Prada wallet would soon discover that I was not unlike every other working girl in the city of Kuala Lumpur. We are, most of the time, not what we seem to be.

Before I could change my mind, my cab arrived. I opened the back door and threw my bag in, climbing in after it into its dark confines. A strong, sweet smell of cheap air freshener assailed my senses, almost knocking me out. And the air conditioning was on full blast. The loud whirring almost drowned out the throaty wailing of Malay slow rock wafting from the radio.

“Halo cik. Section 17?” the young Malay driver asked me, turning his head slightly towards me as I closed the door.

“Yea,” I answered, closing my nose and mouth with a hand for fear of perfume poisoning. He nodded and brought the car slowly out of my condominium.

As we entered traffic, I tried not to look at the meter on his dashboard, which was still at two ringgit two minutes after we set off, but had begun to increase steadily as he accelerated towards our destination. Six ringgit. How far would that take me? Not as far as Section 17, that much I knew.

Money. It has always been a problem with me. I’ve been working for two years now, trying to stay afloat but by the middle of the month, I’m left with nothing more than Maggi mee money and bus fare. The reason I could not drive my car was because the tank was empty. I had no money to buy fuel.

Being 27 and broke is extra pathetic when you’re carrying around what people believe to be a very expensive bag and what you know to be an honestly expensive wallet with no money in it. But like many girls my age, life in big city Kuala Lumpur means having to keep up with the Joneses. Or maybe here we call it the Khans or Mericans or the Wongs. I love to shop, no doubt about it. The taxi driver, who probably earns a little less than what I get waiting tables at the pub (I’m an attractive girl, so the tips can sometimes be a little ridiculous, but I’m not complaining), has more money than I do, and he probably has a wife and kid. Two kids even.

The meter read four ringgit and we were only half way there. My thumbs nervously stroked the smooth leather on my new wallet and I brought it to my nose, inhaling the leathery scent so that it would somehow replace the stench of the air refreshener that was still blowing from the air conditioning at a hundred miles an hour.

Martin. He was an overweight, bespectacled nerd who did not fit in at all into the overall profile of a trendy Bintang Walk pub. And yet, because he was loyal and hardworking, the bosses kept him around to do the cashiering and perhaps even to help look out for us girls because of all the male waiters and workers at the pub, excepting the gay ones, he had never hit on any of us.

Of course, that was before he gave me the wallet. It was out of the blue as well, because someone even had told me that Martin might be gay since he was always so polite and courteous around us. Sure, he also looked a little like a toad and could stand to lose some weight, so he might just be shy, but why me? There were plenty of more good-looking girls at the pub. Did he choose me because he thought that because I wasn’t the most out of reach, that he might actually have a chance? The thought sent a chill down my spine.

I glanced at the meter. Almost six ringgit. And not almost there yet. I let out a loud sigh.

“Wah, penat cik? Apa buat?” asked the driver, trying to be cheeky.

“Banyak kerjalah,” I lied.

I turned my attention at the orange highway lights and tried to enjoy the drive, still breathing in the wallet because the perfume was beginning to give me a headache. Instinctively, I opened the wallet to allow more of the leathery smell out. In doing so, I began to admire the many finely crafted compartments of the wallet, so beautifully and lovingly made perhaps in Italy (when I suspected that it was most probably beautifully and lovingly made in China). I’d not really transfered all of the other knick-knacks from my old and worn Esprit wallet over, just the essentials. 

As I explored the wallet, I also explored ways to thank Martin without actually sleeping with the guy. Did he want to sleep with me? Would someone like Martin buy a thousand-ringgit wallet to sleep with a girl? It did not make sense. He was an old-fashioned sort of person, although he smoked and had tried to laugh it off when we asked if he was gay. He did not even say anything when he handed me the wallet. He acted as though it was an afterthought, stopping me as I clocked out, and then walking away quickly before I could even say a proper thank you.

Also, if he knew me, he would know that it takes far less than a thousand ringgit to get me to bed. I’m not cheap. I just don’t sleep around for money. I sleep around for the sex. And I have responded to gestures far less extravagant with far more ‘gratitude’.

Pondering this little issue managed to distract me from the looming problem of having to pay the cab fare of what looked to be over eight ringgit in about three minutes. As the taxi slowed down to turn the few corners that would bring me to my parent’s home, I fumbled with the coins in my pocket, grabbing fistfuls out carefully without dropping any into the abyss that is the pitch black floor of the taxi or under the front seats.

As I twisted and turned, something fell out of the wallet from one of the many compartments of the wallet that I had left open on the seat. It was a piece of paper, folded twice, quite thick and looked like a warranty or some sort of guarantee for the wallet.

The taxi stopped, and the driver pressed a button on the meter.

“Sepuluh setengah, cik,” he stated the obvious, adding a ringgit for answering the cab call. Great. Without thinking, I opened the piece of paper and out dropped a ten-ringgit note.

Happy Birthday, Kay.

Wishing you many happy returns, and all that.

Love,
Martin

ps. It’s good luck to put money in a gift wallet. Here’s hoping you like it.