by Kevin Kwan
“We’re engaged!” Kitty squealed, waving around the large cloudy-pink diamond on her hand.
Felicity gasped audibly, looking at her sister, Alix, for some reaction. Alix gazed into the middle distance, not making eye contact with anyone. Her son nonchalantly continued. “Kitty, meet my cousin Nicky, my auntie Victoria, and my cousin Cassandra. And you must be Rachel.”
Without missing a beat, Victoria and Cassandra turned to Rachel, cutting Alistair dead. “Now Rachel, I hear you are an economist? How fascinating! Will you explain to me why the American economy can’t seem to dig out of its sorry state?” Victoria asked shrilly.
“It’s that Tim Paulson fellow, isn’t it?” Cassandra cut in. “Isn’t he a puppet controlled by all the Jews?”
* * *
* The exotic Black and White houses of Singapore are a singular architectural style found nowhere else in the world. Combining Anglo-Indian features with the English Arts and Crafts movement, these white-painted bungalows with black trim detailing were ingeniously designed for tropical climes. Originally built to house well-to-do colonial families, they are now extremely coveted and available only to the crazy rich ($40 million for starters, and you might have to wait several decades for a whole family to die).
† Cantonese for “what a waste of money.”
3
Patric’s
SINGAPORE
“A lacy black thong? And you could really see it through the dress?” Peik Lin cried out, doubling over with laughter in the restaurant banquette she was sharing with Rachel.
“The thong, the nipples, all of it! You should have seen the look on all of their faces! She might as well have been naked,” Rachel said.
Peik Lin wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “I can’t believe all that’s happened to you in the past week. Those girls. The dead fish. Nick’s family. Leave it to you to walk right into the middle of all this.”
“Oh Peik Lin, I wish you could see how Nick’s family lives! Staying at Tyersall Park has been absolutely unreal. The bedroom we’re in has all this exquisite French art deco furniture, and I feel like I’ve traveled back in time—the rituals, the decadence, the scale of everything … I mean, there must be at least twelve extra houseguests in town for the wedding, but there are so many maids around, I still have one dedicated just to me—this cute girl from Suzhou. I think she’s a bit pissed off because I haven’t let her do all her duties.”
“What are her duties?” Peik Lin inquired.
“Well, the first night she offered to undress me and brush my hair, which I thought was a little creepy. So I said, ‘No thanks.’ Then she asked if she could ‘draw me a bath’—I love that phrase, don’t you?—but you know I prefer showers, even though the clawfoot tub looks amazing. So she offers to give me a shampoo and scalp massage! I’m like, no I don’t need that. I just want her to leave the room so I can take my shower. Instead the girl rushes into the bathroom to adjust the old-fashioned shower taps until the water temperature is just perfect. I walked in and there were, like, twenty candles lit all around the room—for a friggin’ shower!”
“Alamak, Rachel, why didn’t you let her give you the works? All this royal pampering is totally wasted on you,” Peik Lin chided.
“I’m not used to all this—it makes me uncomfortable that someone’s entire job is to wait on me hand and foot. Another thing—their laundry service is amazing. Everything I wear is washed and pressed within a day of my wearing it. I noticed how fresh and wonderful all my clothes smelled, so I asked my maid what sort of detergent they used. She told me that everything is ironed with a special lavender water from Provence! Can you imagine? And every morning she wakes us up by bringing a ‘calling tray’ to the bedroom with tea for Nick, done just the way he likes it, coffee done just the way I like it, and a plate of these delicious cookies—‘digestive biscuits,’ Nick calls them. And this is before the huge buffet breakfast that’s laid out, and always in a different part of the house. The first morning breakfast was served in the conservatory, the next morning it was on the second-floor veranda. So even going to breakfast is like a surprising treat every day.”
Peik Lin shook her head in amazement, making a few mental notes. It was time to shake things up with the lazy maids at Villa d’Oro—they needed some new tasks. Lavender water in the irons, for starters. And tomorrow she wanted to have breakfast by the pool.
“I tell you, Peik Lin, between all the places Nick has taken me and all the lunches, teas, and dinners we’ve had to attend, I’ve never eaten like this in my entire life. You know, I never imagined that there could be so many big events surrounding one wedding. Nick warned me that tonight’s party is on a boat.”
“Yes, I read that it’s going to be on Dato’ Tai Toh Lui’s new mega-yacht. So tell me about the outfits you’re planning to wear this weekend,” Peik Lin said excitedly.
“Um, outfits? I only brought one dress for the wedding.”
“Rachel, you can’t be serious! Aren’t there going to be numerous events all weekend?”
“Well, there’s the welcome party tonight on the yacht, the wedding tomorrow morning, which will be followed by a reception, and a wedding banquet in the evening. And then there’s a tea ceremony on Sunday. I brought this cute cocktail-length black-and-white dress from Reiss, so I figure I can just wear it all day tomorrow and—”
“Rachel, you’re going to need at least three outfits tomorrow. You can’t be seen in the same dress from morning to night! And everyone is going to be decked out in jewels and ball gowns for the wedding banquet. It’s going to be the grandest event of the decade—there’ll be big-time celebrities and royalty there!”
“Well, there’s no way I can compete with that,” Rachel shrugged. “You know that fashion has never really been my thing. Besides, what can I do about it now?”
“Rachel Chu—I’m taking you shopping!”
“Peik Lin,” Rachel protested, “I don’t want to be running around some mall right now at the last minute.”
“A mall?” Peik Lin gave her a look of disdain. “Who said anything about a mall?” She whipped out her cell phone and speed-dialed a number. “Patric, can you please slot me in? It’s an emergency. We need to do an intervention.”
Patric’s atelier was a former shop house on Ann Siang Hill that had been transformed into an aggressively modern loft, and it was here that Rachel soon found herself standing on a glowing circular platform in nothing but her underwear, a three-way mirror behind her and an Ingo Maurer dome light hovering above, bathing her in warm, flattering light. Sigur Rós played in the background, and Patric (just Patric), wearing a white lab coat over a dramatically high-collared shirt and tie, scrutinized her intently, his arms crossed with one index finger on his pursed lips. “You’re very long-waisted,” he pronounced.
“Is that bad?” Rachel asked, realizing for the first time how contestants must feel during the swimsuit competition of a beauty pageant.
“Not at all! I know women who would kill for your torso. This means we can put you in some of the designers that normally wouldn’t fit on very petite frames.” Patric turned to his assistant, a young man in a gray jumpsuit with meticulously combed hair, and declared, “Chuaaaaan! Pull the plum Balenciaga, the naked peach Chloé, the Giambattista Valli that just came in from Paris, all the Marchesas, the vintage Givenchy, and that Jason Wu with the deconstructed ruffles on the bodice.”
Soon half a dozen or so assistants, all dressed in tight black T-shirts and black denim, buzzed around the space with the urgency of bomb defusers, filling it up with rolling racks crammed with the most exquisite dresses Rachel had ever seen. “I suppose this is how all super-wealthy Singaporeans shop?” she asked.
“Patric’s clients come from everywhere—all the Mainland Chinese, Mongolian, and Indonesian fashionistas who want the latest looks, and many of the privacy-obsessed Brunei princesses. Patric gets access to the dresses hours aft
er they’ve walked the runways,” Peik Lin informed her. Rachel gazed around in wonder as the assistants began hanging the dresses on a titanium rod that was suspended seven feet into the air, encircling the platform like a giant halo. “They’re bringing in way too many dresses,” she remarked.
“This is how Patric works. He needs to see different styles and colors around you first, then he edits. Don’t worry, Patric has the most impeccable taste—he studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, you know. You can be sure that the dresses he picks out won’t be seen on anyone else at the wedding.”
“That’s not my worry, Peik Lin. Look, no price tags anywhere—that’s always a dangerous sign,” Rachel whispered.
“Don’t worry about price tags, Rachel. Your job is to try on the dresses.”
“What do you mean? Peik Lin, I’m not letting you buy me a dress!”
“Shush! Let’s not argue about this,” Peik Lin said as she held up a translucent lace blouse to the light.
“Peik Lin, I mean it. None of your funny business here,” Rachel warned as she thumbed through another rack. A dress that was hand-painted with watery blue-and-silver flowers caught her eye. “Now this is to die for. Why don’t I try this one on?” she asked.
Patric reentered the room and noticed the dress Rachel was holding. “Wait, wait, wait. How did that Dries Van Noten get in here? Chuaaaan!” he yelled for his long-suffering aide-de-camp. “The Dries is reserved for Mandy Ling, who’s on the way right now. Her mother will kau peh kau bu* if I let someone else have it.” He turned back to Rachel and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, that Dries is already spoken for. Now, for starters let’s see you in this oyster-pink number with the pretty bustle skirt.”
Rachel soon found herself twirling around in one stunning dress after another and having more fun than she ever thought possible. Peik Lin would simply ooh and ahh over everything she put on, while reading aloud from the latest issue of Singapore Tattle:
Expect private-jet gridlock at Changi Airport and road closures all over the CBD this weekend as Singapore witnesses its own royal wedding. Araminta Lee weds Colin Khoo at First Methodist Church on Saturday at high noon, with a private reception to follow at an undisclosed location. (Mother-of-the-bride Annabel Lee is said to have planned every last detail, blowing northward of forty million on the occasion.) Although the crème de la crème guest list has been more closely guarded than North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, don’t be surprised to see royalty, heads of state, and celebrities such as Tony Leung, Gong Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Yue-Sai Kan, Rain, Fan BingBing, and Zhang Ziyi in attendance. It’s rumored that one of Asia’s biggest pop divas will perform, and bookies are taking bets on who designed Araminta’s bridal gown. Be on the lookout for Asia’s most glittering to come out in full force, like the Shaws, the Tais, the Mittals, the Meggahartos, the Hong Kong AND Singapore Ngs, assorted Ambanis, the David Tangs, the L’Orient Lims, the Taipei Plastics Chus, and many others too fabulous to mention.
Meanwhile, Patric would dash in and out of the dressing room making definitive pronouncements:
“That slit is too high—you’ll give all the choirboys erections wearing that one!”
“Gorgeous! You were genetically engineered to wear Alaïa!”
“NEVER, EVER wear green chiffon unless you want to look like bok choy that got gang-raped.”
“Now that looks stunning. That flared skirt would look even better if you were arriving on horseback.”
Every outfit Patric selected seemed to fit Rachel more beautifully than the last. They found the perfect cocktail dress for the rehearsal dinner and an outfit that could work for the wedding. Just when Rachel finally decided that, what the hell, she would splurge on one great designer ball gown for the first time in her life, Peik Lin summoned for a whole rack of dresses to be wrapped up.
“Are you taking all those for yourself?” Rachel asked in astonishment.
“No, these are the ones that looked best, so I’m getting them for you,” Peik Lin answered as she attempted to hand her American Express black card to one of Patric’s assistants.
“Oh no you’re not! Put that AMEX card down!” Rachel said sternly, grasping Peik Lin’s wrist. “Come on, I only need one formal gown for the wedding ball. I can still wear my black-and-white dress to the wedding ceremony.”
“First of all, Rachel Chu, you cannot wear a black-and-white dress to a wedding—those are mourning colors. Are you sure you’re really Chinese? How could you not know that? Second, when was the last time I saw you? How often do I get to treat one of my best friends in the whole world? You can’t deprive me of this pleasure.”
Rachel laughed at the preposterous charm of her statement. “Peik Lin, I appreciate your generosity, but you just can’t go around spending thousands of dollars on me. Now, I have money saved up for this trip, and I will gladly pay for my own—”
“Fantastic. Go buy some souvenirs when you’re in Phuket.”
In a dressing suite at the other end of Patric’s atelier, two attendants were gingerly tightening the corseted bodice of a scarlet Alexander McQueen gown on Amanda Ling, still jet-lagged from having just stepped off a plane from New York.
“It needs to be tighter,” her mother, Jacqueline, said, looking at the attendants, who each held one side of the gold silk cord hesitantly.
“But I can hardly breathe as it is!” Amanda protested.
“Take smaller breaths, then.”
“This isn’t 1862, Mummy. I don’t think this is actually supposed to be worn like a real corset!”
“Of course it is. Perfection comes at a sacrifice, Mandy. Which naturally is a concept you seem to lack any understanding of.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Don’t get started again, Mummy. I knew exactly what I was doing. Things were going just fine in New York until you forced me to fly back for this insanity. I was so looking forward to blowing off Araminta’s silly wedding.”
“I don’t know what planet you’re living on, but things are not ‘just fine.’ Nicky is going to propose to this girl any minute now. What was the whole point of my sending you to New York? You had one simple mission to accomplish, and you failed miserably.”
“You have no appreciation for what I’ve accomplished for myself. I’m part of New York society now,” Amanda proudly declared.
“Who gives a damn about that? You think anyone here is impressed to see pictures of you in Town & Country?”
“He’s not going to marry her, Mummy. You don’t know Nicky like I do,” Amanda insisted.
“Well, for your sake I hope you’re right. I don’t need to remind you—”
“Yes, yes, you’ve said it for years. You have nothing to leave me, I’m the girl, everything has to go to Teddy,” Amanda lamented sarcastically.
“Tighter!” Jacqueline ordered the attendants.
* * *
* Hokkien for “bitch me out” (or slang that translates to “cry to the father and cry to the mother”).
4
First Methodist Church
SINGAPORE
“Another security checkpoint?” Alexandra Cheng complained, peering out the tinted window at the throngs of spectators lining Fort Canning Road.
“Alix, there are so many heads of state here, of course they have to secure the location. That’s the Sultan of Brunei’s convoy ahead of us, and isn’t the vice premier of China supposed to be coming?” Malcolm Cheng said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if the Lees invited the entire Communist Party of China,” Victoria Young snorted in derision.
Nick had departed at the crack of dawn to help Colin prepare for his big day, so Rachel caught a ride with his aunts and uncle in one of the fleets of cars leaving from Tyersall Park.
The burgundy Daimler finally arrived in front of First Methodist Church and the uniformed chauffeur opened the door, causing the crowd crammed behind barricades to roar in anticipatio
n. As Rachel was helped out of the car, hundreds of press photographers hanging off metal bleachers began snapping away, the sound of their frenzied digital clicks like locusts descending on an open field.
Rachel heard a photographer yell to a newscaster standing on the ground, “Who’s that girl? Is she someone? Is she someone?”
“No, it’s just some rich socialite,” the newscaster snapped back. “But look, here comes Eddie Cheng and Fiona Tung-Cheng!”
Eddie and his sons emerged from the car directly behind Rachel’s. Both boys were dressed in outfits identical to their father’s—dove-gray cutaway jackets and polka-dot lavender ties—and they flanked Eddie obediently while Fiona and Kalliste followed a few paces behind.
“Eddie Cheng! Look this way, Eddie! Boys, over here!” the photographers shouted. The newscaster thrust a microphone in front of Eddie’s face. “Mr. Cheng, your family is always at the top of the best-dressed lists, and you certainly didn’t disappoint us today! Tell me, who are you wearing?”
Eddie paused, proudly placing his arms around his boys’ shoulders. “Constantine, Augustine, and I are in Gieves & Hawkes bespoke, and my wife and daughter are in Carolina Herrera,” he grinned broadly. The boys squinted into the bright morning sun, trying to remember their father’s instructions: look straight into the camera lens, suck your cheeks in, turn to the left, smile, turn to the right, smile, look at Papa adoringly, smile.
“Your grandsons look so cute all dressed up!” Rachel remarked to Malcolm.
Malcolm shook his head derisively. “Hiyah! Thirty years I have been a pioneering heart surgeon, but my son is the one who gets all the attention—for his bloody clothes!”
Rachel grinned. These big celebrity weddings all seemed to be about the “bloody clothes,” didn’t they? She was wearing an ice-blue dress with a fitted blazer trimmed with mother-of-pearl disks all along the lapel and sleeves. At first she felt rather overdressed when she saw what Nick’s aunts were wearing back at Tyersall Park—Alexandra in a muddy-green floral dress that looked like eighties Laura Ashley, and Victoria in a geometric-patterned black-and-white knit dress (so much for Peik Lin’s theory) that looked like something dug up from the bottom of an old camphor-wood chest. But here, among all the other chic wedding guests, she realized that she had nothing to worry about.