by Kevin Kwan
Michael was silent for a long moment. “You know what the real problem is, Astrid? The problem is that you’ve never had to worry about money a single day in your life. You don’t realize how hard it is to make money—you blow your nose and money comes out! You’ve never understood the fear that normal people have. Well, I was motivated by that fear. And I built my own fortune out of it. I want to instill in my son that same fear. He is going to inherit a great deal of money one day, and he needs to know that he has to earn it. He has to have boundaries. Otherwise—he’s just going to end up like your brother Henry, or anyone of your pompous, entitled cousins who haven’t worked a day in their lives but feel like they own the world.”
“Now you’re just being mean, Michael. That’s an extremely unfair generalization.”
“You know I speak the truth. At the end of the day, your son made a decision to damage my car. Your son made the decision to use filthy language. And you just continue making excuses for him.”
“He’s only FIVE!” Astrid said, raising her voice.
“AND THAT’S MY POINT, HONEY! If we don’t correct his problems now, we’re never going to.”
Astrid sighed deeply. “Michael, I really don’t want to get into a big fight with you over this right now.”
“I don’t either. I want to get some sleep. Some of us have to work in the morning.”
With that, Michael hung up on her. Astrid put her phone back into her purse and leaned against the balustrade, feeling frustrated. The blue hour was upon the city, and the water began to shimmer in the reflection of the lights coming on in all the palazzos across the Grand Canal. This is ridiculous. I’ve just been standing at one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, getting into a long-distance argument over my son.
Domiella led a group of people out onto the terrace, and Astrid recognized her friend Grégoire L’Herme-Pierre among them.
“Astrid! I couldn’t believe it when Domiella told me you were here too! What are you doing in Venice? I didn’t know this art crowd was your thing,” Grégoire said, giving Astrid his usual Parisian quadruple kiss.
“I’m just soaking in the sights,” Astrid said distractedly, still trying to collect herself after the call.
“Of course. Now, surely you know my friends here—Pascal Pang and Isabel Wu of Hong Kong?”
Astrid greeted the chic couple. Pascal wore an immaculately tailored suit that had a slight iridescence, while Isabel was elegantly clad in a strapless black Christian Dior dress with a flared, knee-length skirt. Her hair was swept up into a Grecian chignon, and around her neck was a striking Michele Oka Doner gold necklace in the shape of palm fronds. Suddenly Astrid had a realization that the two of them weren’t a couple. Could this Isabel Wu standing in front of her be Charlie’s wife?
The lady caught Astrid’s flash of recognition, and said simply, “I know who you are.”
Grégoire chuckled. “See, it’s always such a small world when you’re around!”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” Astrid said to Isabel, adding, “Charlie told me all about your fund-raising efforts for M+ museum. I think it’s terrific what you’re doing. It’s high time Hong Kong has a world-class contemporary art space.”
“Thank you. Yes, I believe you saw Charlie recently, didn’t you?” Isabel asked.
“Yes. I am sorry you weren’t able to join us on our California road trip.”
Isabel paused, taken aback. California? She knew that Charlie had bumped into Astrid at the Pinnacle Ball, but she knew nothing about a road trip. “So, you had a nice time then?”
“Oh yes. We were planning on going to Sausalito, but then we decided on the spur of the moment to drive down the coast to Monterey and Big Sur.”
“Let me guess…did he take you to Post Ranch Inn for dinner?” she continued breezily.
“We went for lunch, actually. Heavenly there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, you could say that. Well, it was good to meet you at last, Astrid Leong.” Isabel turned to reenter the ballroom with Pascal, while Astrid remained on the balcony with Domiella and Grégoire. The summer heat still lingered in the soft evening breeze, and in the distance, the bells of the Basilica di San Marco began to peal.
Pascal suddenly reappeared on the balcony and said hurriedly to Grégoire, “Isabel needs to leave this instant. Are you staying or coming?”
“Is everything okay?” Astrid asked.
Pascal gave Astrid a glacial stare. “So nice of you to rub it in Isabel’s face like that.”
“I’m sorry?” Astrid said, confused.
Pascal inhaled deeply, trying to contain his rage. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve never seen anyone as brazen as you. Did you have to make it so apparent to Isabel that you’ve been fucking her husband up and down the California coast?”
Domiella gasped and gripped Astrid’s shoulder.
Astrid shook her head wildly. “No, no, there’s been a big misunderstanding. Charlie and I are just old friends—”
“Old friends? Ha! Until tonight, Isabel wasn’t even sure you were still alive.”
* * *
* A rattan cane popularly used by generations of Singaporean fathers, school principals, and after-school Chinese tutors for corporal punishment. (Mrs. Chan, I still hate you.)
4
THE BAOS
THREE ON THE BUND, SHANGHAI
The hotel’s Brewster green Rolls-Royce was waiting in the driveway to ferry Nick and Rachel to dinner, but with their destination just six blocks away, they decided to walk. It was an unseasonably cool evening for early June, and as they strolled along the legendary riverfront boulevard known as the Bund, Nick could still remember a morning in Hong Kong when he was around six years old.
His parents took him on a drive far out into the countryside of Kowloon’s New Territories, up a winding mountain road. At the top of the mountain was a lookout point crowded with tourists, snapping away at the view and lining up to use the swiveling metal binoculars that had been mounted on a rusty metal railing. Nick’s father lifted him up so that he could see through the viewfinder. “Can you see it? That’s the border of China. That’s where your great-great-grandparents came from,” Philip Young told his son. “Take a good look, because we aren’t able to go past that border.”
“Why not?” Nick had asked.
“It’s a Communist country, and our Singapore passports are stamped ‘No Entry into the People’s Republic of China.’ But one day, hopefully, you will be able to go.”
Nick squinted at the almost barren, muddy brown landscape. He could discern some roughly plowed fields and irrigation ditches, but not much else. Where was the border? He was trying to find a great wall, a moat, or any sort of proper demarcation to indicate where the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong ended and the People’s Republic of China began, but there was nothing. The viewfinder lenses were grimy, and his armpits hurt from the grip of his father’s large hands. Nick asked to be put down and made a beeline for the lady selling snacks in the concrete hut nearby. A Cornetto ice-cream cone was far more interesting than the view of China. China was boring.
But the China of Nick’s childhood bore no resemblance to the incredible sights that surrounded him in every direction now. Shanghai was a vast, sprawling megalopolis on the banks of the Huangpu River, the “Paris of the East,” where hyperbole-defying skyscrapers vied for attention with stately early-twentieth-century European façades.
Nick began pointing out some of his favorite buildings to Rachel. “That’s the Broadway Mansions Hotel right across the bridge. I love its hulking, Gothic silhouette—so classic art deco. Did you know Shanghai has the largest concentration of art deco architecture in the world?”
“I had no idea! All the buildings around us are just jaw-dropping—I mean, look at that crazy skyline!” Rachel gestured excitedly to the intimidating expanse of s
kyscrapers on the other side of the river.
“And that’s just Pudong—it was all pretty much farmland, and none of those buildings even existed ten years ago. Now it’s a financial district that makes Wall Street look like a fishing village. That structure with the two huge round orbs is the Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower. Doesn’t it look like something out of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century?” Nick remarked.
“Buck Rogers?” Rachel gave him a blank look.
“It was a 1980s TV show set in the future, and all the buildings looked like some ten-year-old’s fantasy of another galaxy. You probably didn’t watch any of the bad eighties shows that came to Singapore years after they bombed in the U.S. Like Manimal. Do you remember that one? It was about this guy who could change into different types of animals. Like an eagle, a snake, or a jaguar.”
“And what was the point of that?”
“He was fighting the bad guys, of course. What else would he be doing?”
Rachel smiled, but Nick could tell that underneath their banter, she was getting more and more nervous as they got closer to their destination. Nick stared up at the moon for a moment and made a wish to the universe. He wished for the dinner to go smoothly. Rachel had waited all these years and come all this way to meet her family, and he hoped her dreams would be fulfilled tonight.
They soon reached Three on the Bund, an elegant post-Renaissance-style building crowned by a majestic cupola. Nick and Rachel took the elevator up to the fifth floor and found themselves in a dramatic crimson-walled foyer. A hostess stood in front of a gold inlaid fresco that depicted a beautiful maiden in flowing robes flanked by two gigantic prostrating warriors.
“Welcome to the Whampoa Club,” the woman said in English.
“Thank you. We are here for the Bao party,” Nick said.
“Of course. Please follow me.” The hostess, dressed in an impossibly tight yellow cheongsam, walked them past the main dining room packed with chic Shanghai families enjoying their meals and down a hallway lined with art deco club chairs and green glass lamps. Along one side of the hallway was another gold-and-silver carved fresco, and the hostess pushed open one of the wall panels to reveal a private dining room.
“Please make yourselves comfortable. You are the first ones to arrive,” she said.
“Oh, okay,” Rachel said. Nick wasn’t sure whether she sounded more surprised or relieved. The private room was luxuriously appointed with a grouping of armchairs upholstered in raw silk on one end and a large round table with lacquered rosewood chairs by the window. Rachel noted that the table was set for twelve. She wondered whom she would be meeting tonight. Aside from her father, his wife, Shaoyen, and her half brother, Carlton, what other relatives would be joining them?
“Isn’t it interesting that since we’ve arrived, practically everyone has addressed us in English instead of Mandarin?” Rachel commented.
“Not really. They can tell from the minute we walk in that we’re not native Chinese. You’re an Amazon compared to most of the women here, and everything else about us is different—we don’t dress like the locals, and we carry ourselves in a completely different way.”
“When I was teaching in Chengdu nine years ago, my students all knew I was an American, but they still spoke to me in Mandarin.”
“That was Chengdu. Shanghai has always been a sophisticated, international city, so they are much more used to seeing pseudo-Chinese like us here.”
“Well, we’re certainly not as dressed up as many of the locals I’ve seen today.”
“Yeah, these days we’re the bumpkins,” Nick joked.
As the minutes ticked by, Rachel sat on one of the sofas and began to flip through the tea menu. “It says here they have over fifty premium teas from across China, served in traditional ceremonies in their private tearooms.”
“Maybe we’ll get to sample some tonight,” Nick replied as he paced around the room, pretending to admire the contemporary Chinese art.
“Can you just sit down and chill? Your pacing is making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Nick said. He took a seat across from her and started flipping through the tea menu too.
They sat in silence for another ten minutes, until Rachel could take it no more. “Something’s gone wrong. Do you think we’ve been stood up?”
“I’m sure they’re just stuck in traffic.” Nick tried to sound calm, although he was secretly fretting as well.
“I don’t know…I have a strange feeling about this. Why would my father book a room so early when no one’s showed up for more than half an hour?”
“In Hong Kong, people are notoriously late to everything. I’m thinking Shanghai must be the same. It’s a matter of face—no one wants to be the first to show up, in case they look too eager, so they try to outdo one another in lateness. The last one to arrive is deemed the most important.”
“That’s totally ridiculous!” Rachel snorted.
“You think? I feel a similar thing happens in New York, though it’s not quite as overt. At your department meetings, isn’t the dean or some star professor always the last to show up? Or the chancellor just ‘drops in’ at the tail end, because he’s too important to sit through the whole meeting?”
“That’s not the same.”
“It isn’t? Posturing is posturing. Hong Kongers have just elevated it to an art form,” Nick opined.
“Well, I can see that happening for a business lunch, but this is a family dinner. They are really quite late.”
“I was once at a dinner in Hong Kong with my relatives, and I ended up waiting over an hour before everyone else got there. Eddie was the last to arrive, of course. I think you’re getting paranoid a little too quickly. Don’t worry—they’ll be here.”
A few minutes later, the door slid open, and a man in a dark navy suit entered the room. “Mr. and Mrs. Young? I’m the manager. I have a message for you from Mr. Bao.”
Nick’s heart sank. What now?
Rachel looked at the manager anxiously, but before he had a chance to say anything, they were distracted by a commotion in the hallway. They poked their heads out of the doorway and saw someone surrounded by a crowd of gawkers. It was a girl in her early twenties, strikingly attired in a figure-hugging strapless white dress with an ornately sequined red matador cape flung casually over her milk-white shoulders. Two burly security guards and a woman with a faux-hawk hairstyle wearing a pinstriped suit attempted to clear the way, while proper teenage girls who had minutes before been enjoying polite, posh dinners with their families had suddenly transformed into shrieking fans taking pictures with their camera phones.
“Is she a movie star?” Nick asked the manager, staring at the girl as she posed glamorously with her fans. With long, voluminous raven hair piled up into a loose beehive, a perfectly sculpted ski-jump nose, and bee-stung lips, she seemed larger than life—like a Chinese Ava Gardner.
“No, that’s Colette Bing. She is famous for her clothes,” the manager explained.
Colette finished autographing some dinner napkins and headed straight toward them. “Ah, I’m glad I found you!” she said to Rachel as if she was greeting an old friend.
“Are you talking to me?” Rachel stared at her, utterly stunned.
“Of course! Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Um, I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. We’re meeting some people for dinner here—” Rachel began.
“You’re Rachel, right? The Baos sent me—the plans have changed. Come with me and I’ll explain everything,” Colette said. She took Rachel by the arm and began walking her out of the room. The girls in the hallway started squealing again and taking more pictures.
“Where is your service elevator?” the woman with the faux-hawk demanded of the manager. Nick followed along, baffled by everything that was happening. They were shuffled into an elevator and then down another serv
ice corridor on the ground floor. But as soon as the doors opened onto Guangdong Road, they were met by the blinding flashbulbs from a pack of paparazzi.
Colette’s security guards tried to clear a path through the phalanx of photographers. “Back off! Back the fuck off!” they yelled at the jostling pack.
“This is nuts!” Nick said, almost colliding with an overzealous photographer who had jumped right in front of him.
The woman in the faux-hawk turned to him and said, “You must be Nick. I’m Roxanne Ma—Colette’s personal assistant.”
“Hi, Roxanne. Does this happen everywhere Colette goes?”
“Yes. But this is nothing—these were only photographers. You should see what happens when she walks down Nanjing West Road.”
“Why is she so famous?”
“Colette is one of China’s foremost fashion icons. Between Weibo and WeChat, she has more than thirty-five million followers.”
“Did you say thirty-five million?” Nick was incredulous.
“Yes. I’m afraid your picture is going to be everywhere tomorrow. Just look straight ahead and keep smiling.”
Two large Audi SUVs suddenly pulled up, almost running into one of the photographers. The bodyguards quickly hustled Colette, Rachel, and Nick toward the first car, shutting the door firmly behind them before the swarming photographers could take any more shots.
“Are you okay?” Colette asked.
“Besides my barbecued retinas, I think I’m fine,” Nick said from the front passenger seat.
“That was intense!” Rachel said, trying to catch her breath.
“Things have really gotten out of control in Shanghai. It all started after my Elle China cover,” Colette explained in a carefully modulated British accent tinged with the staccato tones of a native Mandarin speaker.
Still on high alert, Nick asked, “Where are you taking us?”
Before Colette could answer, the car came to a sudden halt a few blocks away from the restaurant. The car door opened and a young man jumped in beside Rachel. She let out a quick gasp.