by Kevin Kwan
“Hiyah, tell us!” the ladies implored.
“It’s Kitty Pong!” Rosie triumphantly announced.
Ada’s face went white with contempt.
Lainey seethed, “Mut laan yeah?*2 How dare she show up here after the stunt she pulled the other night!”
“Who was stupid enough to bring her?” Tessa asked.
Ada rose slowly from the table and smiled tightly at her lunch companions. “Will you excuse me for just one minute? Please keep eating—don’t let the delicious turtle soup get cold.”
Evangeline de Ayala entered the parlor in a pretty black-and-white Lanvin shift dress and gave Kitty a double-cheek kiss. “So sorry to be late—I have no good excuse, except that I am always on Manila time.”
“Don’t worry—I was just admiring the art,” Kitty graciously responded.
“Quite cool, isn’t it? Do you collect?”
“I’m just beginning to, so I am trying to educate myself,” Kitty said modestly, wondering whether Evangeline was just pretending not to know that she had recently bought the most expensive painting in all of Asia.
The ladies approached the reception desk together, and the same host greeted them warmly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. de Ayala. Joining us for lunch today?”
“Yes, just the two of us,” Evangeline replied.
“Wonderful. Please come with me,” the host said, escorting the ladies up the curved marble staircase. When they entered the dining room, Kitty noticed quite a few people gawking at them. The manager of the club came rushing toward them with a look of importance.
Goody, he’s coming to welcome me personally to the club, Kitty thought.
“Mrs. de Ayala, I do apologize, but there seems to have been a huge mix-up with our computerized reservation system. I’m afraid we are completely overbooked today and will not be able to accommodate you for lunch.”
The host looked taken aback by his manager’s declaration, but said nothing.
Evangeline looked puzzled. “But I made the booking two days ago, and no one called to inform me.”
“Yes, I am aware of that. We’re truly sorry—but if you’ll allow me, I have made a booking for you right around the corner at Yung Kee on Wellington Street. They have a lovely table awaiting you, and I hope you will allow us to treat you to lunch, to make up for the inconvenience.”
“Surely you can seat us for a quick lunch here? We’re just two, and I see a few empty tables along the window,” Evangeline said hopefully.
“Unfortunately those tables have already been spoken for. Once again, please accept my apologies, and I do hope you enjoy Yung Kee—be sure to order their fabulous roast goose,” the manager said as he authoritatively steered Kitty and Evangeline toward the staircase.
As they left the club, Evangeline was still perplexed. “How bizarre! I’m so sorry—nothing like that has ever happened before. But the Locke does have rather strange rules. Now, let me just text my driver about our change of plans.” As Evangeline got out her phone, she saw that her husband was trying to call.
“Hey swithart,*3 how are you? The strangest thing just happened,” Evangeline cooed into the phone. Then she jumped at the torrent of cursing that came from the other end.
“Nothing! We did nothing!” she said in a defensive tone.
Kitty could hear Evangeline’s husband continue to rant.
“I can’t explain…I don’t know what happened,” Evangeline kept sputtering into the phone, her face getting paler and paler. Finally she put her phone down and gave Kitty a rather dazed look.
“I’m sorry, but I’m suddenly not feeling too well. Do you mind if we take a rain check on lunch?”
“Of course. Is everything okay?” Kitty asked, rather concerned for her new friend.
“That was my husband. Our membership at the Locke Club has just been revoked.”
After Evangeline’s driver had picked her up, Kitty stood at the curb, trying to process what had just happened. She had woken up this morning feeling so happy and excited, and now she was rather crestfallen that her lunch plans had gone so awry. Poor Evangeline. What an awful thing to happen to her. Just as she was about to call for her driver, Kitty noticed a gray-haired woman in a dowdy-looking pantsuit smiling at her.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Kitty responded, a little confused. Did she know her from somewhere?
“I was just at lunch at the Locke, and I couldn’t help but notice what happened in the dining room,” the woman said by way of introduction.
“Yes, it’s quite strange, isn’t it? I feel so bad for my friend.”
“How so?”
“She didn’t realize that she had lost her membership at the club, and she was trying to take me to lunch there. I think she must feel very embarrassed right now.”
“Evangeline de Ayala was kicked out of the club?” the woman said incredulously.
“Oh—you know her? Yes, right after we left the club, her husband called with the news. He must have done something terribly wrong for them to be kicked out without any notice like that.”
The woman paused for a few moments, as if she was trying to ascertain whether Kitty was being serious. “My poor dear, you are completely out to sea. You really have no clue what actually happened, do you? In the history of the club, they’ve only ever revoked a membership three times. Today was the fourth. The de Ayalas obviously were kicked out because Evangeline tried to bring you to the club.”
Kitty looked incredulous. “Me? What a silly idea! That was my first time setting foot in the club—what did I have to do with it?”
The woman shook her head pitifully. “The fact that you don’t even realize this makes me extremely sad. But I think I can help you.”
“What do you mean help me? Who are you?”
“I’m Corinna Ko-Tung.”
“As in Ko-Tung Park?”
“Yes, and Ko-Tung Road and the Ko-Tung wing at Queen Mary Hospital. Now, come with me. I know you must be starving. I’ll explain everything over yum cha.”*4
Corinna led Kitty down On Lan Street and into an alley behind New World Tower. Taking the service elevator up three floors, they were deposited at the back entrance of Tsui Hang Village restaurant, where VIPs could pass through unnoticed.
The manager recognized Corinna at once and rushed up to her, bowing deeply. “Ms. Ko-Tung, such an honor to have you dining with us today.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tong. Can we have a private room, please?”
“Certainly. Please come with me. How is your mother these days? Please send my best wishes to her,” the manager said effusively as he escorted them down a hallway.
The ladies were shown to a private dining room done up in subtle shades of beige, with a large round table and a flat-screen television along the back wall set on CNBC with the volume on mute.
“I will let the chef know that you are here—I’m sure he will want to send out all his special dishes.”
“Please thank him for me in advance. Now, could you please turn off the television?” Corinna instructed.
“Oh I’m so sorry, of course,” the manager said, lunging for the remote control as if it were the most offensive thing in the world.
After hot towels were ceremoniously distributed, two cups of tea had been poured, and the waitstaff had finally left the room, Kitty said, “You must be a regular here.”
“I haven’t been here in a while. But I thought it would be a convenient place for us to speak freely.”
“Do they always treat you this well?”
“Generally. It also helps that my family owns the land this tower is built on.”
Kitty was quietly impressed. Even after becoming Mrs. Bernard Tai, she had never been treated with such reverence anywhere. “Now, do you really think the de Ayalas got thrown out of the club because of me?”
“I don’t think—I know,” Corinna answered. “Ada Poon is on the membership committee.”
“But what does she have against me? I just made a huge donation to her husband’s foundation.”
Corinna sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought. “I wasn’t at the Pinnacle Ball, since I don’t attend such affairs, but the very next morning my phone was ringing off the hook. Everyone was talking about what you did.”
“What did I do?”
“You gravely insulted the Poons.”
“But I was just trying to be generous—”
“You may see it that way, but everyone there saw it differently. Sir Francis Poon is eighty-six years old, and he is revered by all. That award was his big moment, the culmination of decades of humanitarian work, but when you barged onstage and announced your big donation right in the middle of his speech, it was seen as a huge affront to him. You offended his family, his friends, and perhaps most important, his wife. It was supposed to be Ada’s night too, and you stole the limelight from her.”
“It was never my intention to do that,” Kitty shot back.
“Be honest with yourself, Kitty. Of course it was. You wanted all the attention on yourself, just like you did when you bought The Palace of Eighteen Perfections. But while the crowd at Christie’s might appreciate a good floor show, Hong Kong society does not. Your actions over the past few months are seen as nothing but blatant attempts to buy your way into the right crowd. Now, many people have done just that, but there’s a right way to do it, and there’s a wrong way.”
Kitty was indignant. “Ms. Ko-Tung, I know exactly what I’m doing. Just do a Baidu search under my name. Look at all the magazines and newspapers. The bloggers and gossip columnists can’t stop writing about me. My pictures are in all the magazines every month. I’ve totally changed my style over the past year, and in last week’s Orange Daily, they ran three pages on my red-carpet looks.”
Corinna shook her head dismissively. “Don’t you see that those magazines are just exploiting you? Sure, the average reader of Orange Daily living in Yau Ma Tei must think your life is a dream come true, but at a certain level of Hong Kong society, it doesn’t matter if you wear the finest couture and millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds. At this level, anyone can do that. Everyone is rich. Anyone can make a twenty-million-dollar donation if they really want to. To these people, having your picture in the party pages all the time actually does more damage than good—it is seen as desperate. Trust me, being in Tattle is not going to help your image. It won’t get you a membership at the Locke Club, or an invitation to Mrs. Ladoorie’s annual garden party at her villa in Repulse Bay.”
Kitty didn’t know whether or not to believe her. How could this woman who looked like her hair had been cut by some cheap hairdresser in Mong Kok dare to give her advice on her image?
“Mrs. Tai, let me tell you a bit about what I do. I advise people who want to secure a place among Asia’s elite, among the real people of influence.”
“With all due respect, I’m married to Bernard Tai. My husband is one of the richest men in the world. He’s already influential.”
“Oh really? Well where is Bernard these days, then? Why is he not at all the functions I go to? Why wasn’t he at the Chief Executive’s*5 lunch honoring the Fifty Most Influential Leaders in Asia last Thursday? Or at the party that my mother threw for the Duchess of Oxbridge last night? Why weren’t you there?”
Kitty didn’t know how to respond. She felt a wave of humiliation sweep over her.
“Mrs. Tai, if I may be very frank, the Tais have never had the best reputation. Dato’ Tai Toh Lui was a corporate raider from some Malay backwater. The other tycoons despised him. And now his son is seen as a ne’er-do-well party boy who inherited a fortune but hasn’t worked a day in his life. Everyone knows Carol Tai still controls the purse strings. No one takes Bernard seriously, especially after he married a former porn star turned soap-opera actress from Mainland China.”
Kitty looked like she had been slapped in the face. She opened her mouth to protest, but Corinna pressed on. “I don’t care what the truth is—I’m not here to judge you. But I feel that you need to know this is what everyone in Hong Kong has been saying about you. Everyone except Evangeline de Ayala, who we both know is very new in town.”
“She was the first person who has been nice to me since I got married,” Kitty said sadly. She looked down at her napkin for a moment before continuing. “I’m not as stupid as you think. I know what people are saying. I’ve been treated horribly by everyone, and it started long before the Pinnacle Ball. I was seated next to Araminta Lee at the Viktor & Rolf show in Paris last year, and she pretended like I didn’t even exist. What have I done to deserve this? There are so many other socialites with murky pasts, much worse than mine. Why am I being singled out?”
Corinna assessed Kitty for a few moments. She had expected her to be far more mercenary, and she was unprepared to discover the naïveté of the girl sitting in front of her. “Do you really want me to tell you?”
“Yes, please.”
“First of all, you are Mainland Chinese. You know how most Hong Kongers feel about Mainlanders. Like it or not, you have to work extra hard right out of the gate to overcome all the prejudices. But you handicapped yourself early on in the race. There’s a whole crowd who will never forgive you for what you did to Alistair Cheng.”
“Alistair?”
“Yes. Alistair Cheng is immensely popular. When you broke his heart, you made enemies out of all the girls who have adored him and all the people who respect his family.”
“I didn’t think Alistair’s family was that special.”
Corinna snorted. “Didn’t Alistair take you to Tyersall Park?”
“Tire-what?”
“My God, you never even got near the palace gates, did you?”
“What are you talking about? What palace?”
“Never mind. The point is, Alistair’s mother is Alix Young—because of her, Alistair is related to almost every important family in Asia. The Leongs of Malaysia, the aristocratic T’siens, the Shangs—who own practically everything. I’m sorry to have to break this to you, but you placed your bet on the wrong horse.”
“I had no idea,” Kitty said in a whisper.
“How could you? You didn’t grow up among these people. You’ve never been properly schooled in the ways of the manor-born. Let me assure you, if we choose to work together, you will get the insider’s view on everything. I will teach you the ins and outs of this world. I will share with you all the secrets of these families.”
“And how much is all this going to cost me?”
Corinna took a leather folio out of her battered Furla tote bag and presented it to Kitty. “I charge an annual retainer, and you are contractually obligated to sign on for a minimum of two years.”
Kitty looked over the schedule of fees and burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be joking!”
Corinna’s expression turned grave. She knew the moment had arrived for the hard sell. “Mrs. Tai, let me ask you something. What do you really want out of life? Because this is where I see your life heading: You’ll keep flying around Asia for the next few years, going to galas and benefits and whatnot, getting your picture in the magazines. Over time, you might strike up friendships with other rich Mainlanders or the gweilo*6 wives of men stationed here with three-year contracts at some foreign bank or private equity firm. You might even be invited to join the boards of inconsequential charities started by these bored expat wives. Your in-box will be filled with invitations for cocktails at the Chopard boutique or art openings in Sheung Wan. Sure, you may occasionally be invited to one of Pascal Pang’s parties, but the real Hong Kong will always be closed to you. You will never be asked to join the best clubs or attend the most exclusive parties in the best houses—and I’m not talking about Sonny Chin�
�s mansion on Bowen Road. Your children will never get into the best schools and have playdates with children from the top families. You will never get to know any of the people who move the economy, who have the ear of the top politicians in Beijing, who affect culture. People who truly matter in Asia. How much is that worth to you?”
Kitty remained silent.
“Here, let me show you a few pictures,” Corinna said, placing an iPad on the table. As she began to scroll through an album of images, Kitty recognized a few of the city’s top social figures posing casually with Corinna in private settings. Here was Corinna at breakfast on board the plane of a certain Mainland tycoon who now lived in Singapore, at the graduation of Leo Ming’s son from St. George’s School in Vancouver, in the delivery room at Matilda Hospital holding a famous Hong Kong socialite’s newborn baby.
“These are people you can introduce me to?”
“These are my clients.”
Kitty’s perfectly mascaraed eyes suddenly widened. “Ada Poon? She’s one of your clients?”
Corinna smiled. “Let me show you a picture of what she looked like before I began working with her. For your eyes only.”
“Oh my God—look at that outfit! And those teeth!” Kitty cackled.
“Yes, Dr. Chan did some of his best work ever on her teeth, didn’t he? Did you know that before she became the third Mrs. Francis Poon, she worked in the Chanel boutique on Canton Road in Kowloon? That’s how she met Francis—he came in looking for a little something for his wife, but left with a little something for himself.”
“How interesting. I thought she came from a good Hong Kong family.”
Corinna chose her words carefully. “I can tell you about Ada’s past because it’s a well-known fact. But you see, practically anyone can rise up in Hong Kong society. It’s all about perception, really. And the careful reinvention of personal history. We will refocus your image. Anyone can be forgiven. Anything can be forgotten.”
“So you will improve my image? You are going to help change Hong Kong’s perception of me?”
“Mrs. Tai, I am going to change your life.”