The Jason Hahn Files: Getting Hot & Bothered By The Giddy Romance Of Bridgerton
My mother loves to tell the story of Jimmy Lai who was two years her senior at school.
“Oh, he was such a beautiful boy,” she used to tell Michelle as soon as my sister was old enough to bear children. “For some reason, there’s always one boy like that in every school — someone who’s more handsome and taller, more talented and popular than anyone else!”
Michelle pursed her lips, remembering Phillip Chan who was in her year in school and whom she’d worshipped for his sharp nose, high cheekbones and Colgate-bright smile. Apparently, he spoilt her for any other boy — she was so committed to keeping catching his eye that she spurned the attentions of all the other boys in school. Which is probably what saved her from the very long list of incidents to befall the girls in her year, not least of which was STD and unplanned visits to the gynaecologist’s office.
Meanwhile, Mother was still lost in her adolescent past. “We were all so in love with him! Even some of the boys, if you know what I mean.”
Jimmy was all that. Plus he was class president and a straight-A student who got a scholarship to Harvard where he studied medicine and then he went to gaol.
Michelle put her hand up the first time she heard this part of the story. “Wait, what?”
Mother shrugged. “Oh, you know how it is. He developed a drug problem and he started stealing them from the hospital he was working at. One thing led to another, and before you knew it, he was dealing drugs straight out of his bedroom.”
Michelle sighed at the tragedy of Jimmy Lai. “So, what happened to him?”
“He served time, got clean and found God. When he was released, he worked in some missionary programme in Bangladesh.” Mother paused as she took a sip of her coffee. “Funnily enough, he came to our 40th high school reunion. He was bald and fat! He’d lost all his looks. It was such a shock!” Mother fingered her pearl necklace, her eyes lost in the past.
The subject of Jimmy Lai came up during a recent episode of the new season of Bridgerton. This time, the manifestation of beauty came in the form of Lord Bridgerton, a character who spends a fair amount of onscreen time topless, his armpits raised, or showing off his perfectly-shaped bum.
To hear the girls tell it, they’d had no interest in the show when the first season premiered but apparently Barney Chen had insisted they cancel all their dinner plans for one weekend and binge-watch what he said was the best thing since Selling Sunset!.
“You won’t regret it,” he said. “All the men are hot!”
“You said that about Byron Baes, and that was such a total waste of time!” Amanda pointed out.
“You have no taste in men,” Barney said affectionately. “And this is why you’re still hot and single.”
Which, as Saffy later said, is a masterclass in giving backhanded compliments.
But with nothing to do that weekend anyway, they sat down on Saturday evening and fell in love with yet another Shonda Rimes show, falling hard for the costumes, the sets, and the ridiculously handsome Bridgerton boys. The next evening, they started on season 2.
“Oh my God, could Lord Bridgerton be any hotter? I would have his baby in a heartbeat,” Amanda said, her imagination running wild at the thought of a possible pregnancy with a man she’d never met. “I bet he was a beautiful boy in school, too!”
Saffy turned to her. “Really? Anthony?”
Amanda looked surprised. “You don’t think so?”
Saffy sniffed. “I’m more of a Benedict fan, myself. I love his smile. He’s like a puppy! I just want to pick him up and cuddle him.”
“He reminds me of Jonathan Ho in my school,” Amanda said. “All the girls thought he was so beautiful, though I never saw it. I was much more into his younger brother, Patrick, but would you believe they both turned out to be gay?”
Saffy sighed. “All the good ones are. Like Benedict. Though, at least, he’s straight in real life,” she said, tactfully leaving unsaid the fact that Jonathan Bailey, the guy who plays Anthony, isn’t.
All of which proves my Mother’s original point — which is, never marry someone who’s good looking, let alone gorgeous like Lord Bridgerton. “Looks never last. Just look what happened to Jimmy Lai. Completely unrecognisable without his beautiful hair! Someone said he was also stone broke. His jacket had mothball holes in them.”
“Daddy still has all his hair!” Michelle said once.
“And his money,” Mother said, sitting up slightly more noticeably in her chair. “Daddy still has all his money.”
Bridgerton is now streaming on Netflix.
Photo: Netflix
