by Kevin Kwan
Jack muttered under his breath, “Tell me why we’re doing this again?”
“Honey, we were specially chosen by Vogue China to host the most exclusive party of Shanghai Fashion Week! This is the party all the most important lao wais*1 are attending! Do you know how many people would sell their servants’ organs for this opportunity? Please stop complaining.”
“What a waste of time…” Jack muttered under his breath.
“Waste of time? Do you even know who my friend is?”
“Some silly model.”
“She’s not just a model—she’s the wife of Colin Khoo.”
“No idea who that is.”
“Oh come on, he’s the heir to the Khoo empire of Singapore. And besides, Araminta is also the only daughter of Peter Lee. I’m sure you know who that is—he was the first Chinese billionaire in U.S. dollars.”
“Peter Lee’s old news. I’m worth exponentially more than him.”
“You may have more money, but the Lees have more influence. Don’t you realize I’m introducing you to the most influential people in the world?”
“These people make clothes. How are they influential?”
“You have no idea. These people control the world. And the cream of Shanghai society wants to be around them. Just think of who has showed up so far—Adele Deng, Stephanie Shi. And now the First Lady is about to arrive—”
“And it looks like Mozart came with her.”
“Oh my God, that’s not Mozart, that’s Karl Lagerfeld. He’s a very, very, very important man! He’s the Kaiser of fashion.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“He is so powerful, he could simply flare one of his nostrils and have me banned from Chanel forever and I might as well be dead. Please, please be polite.”
Jack snorted. “I’ll try not to fart in his general direction.”
After all the VVIP lao wais had been greeted, Kitty made her grand entrance into the house while Jack fled to his screening room until it was time for dinner. (“As long as you show up for my toast and tell Peng Liyuan how much you adore her singing at some point during the banquet, I don’t care what else you do,” Kitty had told him.) The whole party was actually an excuse for Kitty to show off the redesign of the house, and she stood on the top step of the former great hall—which she had renamed the Salon Grande—surveying the scene.
Gone was Colette’s Zen-like Puli Hotel–inspired decor, and in its place, Thierry Catroux had created a look he called “Ming emperor meets Louis-Napoléon at Studio 54.” Ming dynasty urns mingled with rare Aubusson carpets against sixties-mod Italian leather-and-Lucite furniture, while the monochromatic Shikumen gray brick walls were now covered in Tibetan yak hair dyed in shimmering shades of persimmon. The eighty-foot-long east wall had been covered with purple-and-crimson latticework screens—in homage to the Hall of Dispelling Clouds at the Summer Palace in Beijing. Colette’s prized collection of black-and-white Wu Boli calligraphy scrolls had been banished to the museum wing, and in its place were enormous paintings of vibrantly colored canvases by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring in antique rococo gilt frames. Kitty’s guests flocked to her side, gushing about the radical transformation.
“It’s unbelievable, Kitty,” Pan TingTing praised.
“So…original, Kitty,” Adele Deng demurred.
“You’ve really put your stamp on the house,” Stephanie Shi said and smiled.
“It’s such a trip, all that’s missing are the quaaludes!” Michael Kors*2 said.
At some point during the social swirl, Araminta appeared at her side with a glass of champagne. “I thought you could use this. I can see you’ve been circulating nonstop.”
“Oh thank you. Yes, everyone has been soooo nice, except for that awful Englishman over there talking to Hung Huang.”
“Philip? But he’s usually so charming!” Araminta furrowed her brow in surprise.
“Charming? Do you know what that snob said to me? When I asked him what he did, he actually dared to say, ‘I’m a millionaire!’ ”
Araminta clutched Kitty’s arm and doubled over in laughter. Trying to catch her breath, she said, “No, no, you’re mistaken!”
Kitty continued her tirade, “So I said to him, ‘Well, I’m a billionaire!’ ”
Wiping the tears of laughter away from her eyes, Araminta explained. “Kitty, that man is Philip Treacy. He’s not a millionaire, he’s a milliner—a hat designer. I’m sure that’s what he told you. He’s one of the best milliners there is—Perrineum Wang is wearing one of his hats right over there.”
Kitty gazed at the young Shanghai socialite, who was sporting a gigantic flesh-colored disk with a bejeweled starfish of pink rubies in the middle that covered eighty percent of her face. “No wonder he gave me a strange look.”
“Oh Kitty, you can always crack me up!” Araminta was still laughing when a pair of hands reached out from behind her and covered her eyes.
“Oh, who’s this?” Araminta giggled.
“Three guesses,” a man whispered into her ear in an extremely affected French accent.
“Bernard?”
“Non.”
“Er…Antoine?”
“Non.”
“Surely it can’t be Delphine? I give up!” Araminta whipped around and saw a patrician-looking Chinese man in a three-piece suit and small round tortoiseshell glasses grinning back at her.
“Oliver T’sien, you rascal! You had me fooled with that ridiculous accent.” Araminta giggled. “Oliver, have you met the chatelaine of this…er…magnificent estate, Kitty Bing?”
“I was hoping you’d introduce me,” Oliver purred.
“Kitty, this is Oliver T’sien. He’s an old friend from Singapore…and…aren’t we somehow related now through Colin? Oliver is related to practically everyone who’s anyone in Asia, and he’s also the consultant at large for Christie’s.”
Kitty shook his hand politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You work for Christie’s, the auction house?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Oliver is one of the top specialists in Asian art and antiquities,” Araminta continued.
“Hmm…there’s a little horse sculpture in the library I would love to show you. My husband is convinced it’s from the Tang dynasty, but I think it’s a fake. His ex-wife bought it,” Kitty said derisively.
“I am at your service, madame,” Oliver said, extending an arm. They walked into the library, and Kitty led him to a magnificent Macassar and Gabon Boulle armoire in one corner. She pressed against the tortoiseshell-and-gilt-bronze marquetry doors, which opened to reveal a hidden entryway into Jack Bing’s private cigar lounge.
“Well, this is quite splendid!” Oliver exclaimed, looking around the decadently upholstered room.
As soon as the doors closed behind them, Kitty sank into one of the tasseled velvet Louis-Napoléon smoking chairs and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad we’re finally alone! How do you think it’s going?”
Unbeknownst to any of her guests, and especially to friends like Araminta, Kitty knew Oliver rather well—he had been secretly advising her for the past couple of years and had been instrumental in helping her acquire The Palace of Eighteen Perfections, a set of prized Chinese scrolls that had broken auction records two years ago to become the most expensive Chinese artwork ever sold.
“You have nothing to worry about. Everyone is most impressed. Did you notice that Anna actually took her sunglasses off for a moment to scrutinize your Qianlong dragon vessel?”
“No, I missed that!” Kitty said excitedly.
“It happened so quickly, but it happened. I also spoke to Karl and—fingers crossed—I think you’re getting front row at next season’s show in Paris.”
“Oliver, you’re a miracle worker! You’d think spending nine milli
on dollars a year at Chanel would be enough to get you a front-row seat at the damn fashion show.”
“You’ll be front row dead center next season! See? You have nothing to worry about. We should head back to the party before anyone suspects anything. We’ve been gone too long to look at one Tang horse. Which, by the way, is not fake but is frightfully common. Every drawing room on Park Avenue has at least one collecting dust on top of a stack of coffee-table books. Just throw it away, or give it to Sotheby’s to auction off—some philistine will buy it.”
As Oliver and Kitty were about to emerge from the hidden cigar lounge, a trio of ladies entered the library. Oliver peeked through the crack in the armoire door and whispered to Kitty, “It’s Adele Deng, Stephanie Shi, and Perrineum Wang!”
Stephanie could be heard saying, “Well, Kitty has certainly succeeded in removing every trace of Colette from the house. What do you think of this Picasso over the desk?”
“I’m so sick of seeing Picassos—every starter billionaire in Beijing has one. You know that in the last two decades of his life, the man was doing four paintings a day like some desperate whore? The market is flooded with mediocre Picassos. Give me a good Gauguin any day—like the one in my father’s museum,” Adele Deng said with a sniff.
“Colette’s vision for this house was utter perfection, and now it’s been ruined,” Stephanie lamented.
“I don’t care what anyone says—to me this will always be Colette’s house,” Perrineum chimed in.
Adele walked up to the Boulle armoire, tracing over the marquetry with her fingers. “This is actually a nice piece, but what the hell is it doing here in the corner? If you ask me, Kitty’s trying so desperately to impress. Every single object in this house is a museum showpiece. Everything is screaming, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ Kitty wouldn’t understand the meaning of subtlety if it hit her on those fake breasts. As Marella Agnelli might say, ‘It will take her another lifetime to understand wicker.’ ”
“Hiyah, what do you expect from a porn star? She will never have Colette’s taste—you have to be born with it,” Perrineum decreed, readjusting her gigantic hat for the millionth time.
“I wonder if we can sneak over to her bedroom wing. I want to see what she did with the space,” Stephanie suggested.
“She probably put mirrors on the ceiling,” Perrineum cracked.
“Louis XIV mirrors. Stolen from Versailles!” Adele cackled, as she followed the ladies out the door.
Perched in the corner of the cigar lounge, Kitty couldn’t hide her look of devastation. “My breasts are not fake!” she cried.
“Don’t listen to them, Kitty.”
“Adele Deng told me the house was ‘so original.’ Why would she lie to my face like that?”
Oliver paused for a moment, thinking that Adele was right on one score—Kitty certainly didn’t pick up on the subtler cues. “They’re just jealous of all the attention you’re getting. Ignore them.”
“You know, it’s not so easy to ignore those ladies. Adele Deng and Stephanie Shi—they rule the scene here. If this is what they’re really thinking, I’ll never be able to compete.”
“Kitty, look—you’ve already conquered the world stage. These women aren’t your competition anymore, don’t you see?”
“I realize that, but I also realize something else. No matter what I do, this will always be known as Colette’s house. And this will always be Colette’s town, even though she’s gone. She was born here—these are her people. I will always be an outsider in Shanghai, no matter what I do. Why did I even bother spending two years redecorating this house? I should be where people appreciate me.”
“I couldn’t agree more. You have houses all over the world, you can be anywhere you want to be, creating your own social universe. Honestly, I don’t know why you don’t live in Hong Kong full-time. It’s my favorite city in Asia.”
“Corinna Ko-Tung tells me it will take at least one generation for me to break into Hong Kong society—Harvard might have a chance if I enroll him in the right kindergarten, but it’s already too late for Gisele. You know, the only place where Chinese people have ever treated me well is Singapore. Look how nice Araminta Lee has been. And my friends Wandi, Tatiana, and Georgina live there part-time too.”
Oliver didn’t want to remind Kitty that Araminta was actually born in Mainland China, and that neither Wandi, Tatiana, nor Georgina were native Singaporeans, but he began to see a new opportunity arise. “You know, you already own one of the most historic houses on one of the best streets in Singapore. I had assumed you’d spend more time there after you acquired it.”
“I thought I would. But then I got pregnant with Harvard and Jack insisted that I give birth in the United States. And after that we just somehow spent more time in Shanghai because I needed to redo this house.”
“But your poor Frank Brewer estate in Singapore is completely neglected. It’s only half decorated. Think of what you could accomplish there if you focused your attention on it. Think of all the accolades you would receive from architectural preservationists if you truly restored it to its former glory. My God, I’m sure my friend Rupert would insist on doing a feature story for The World of Interiors.”
The wheels in Kitty’s head began turning. “Yes, yes. I could transform that little house. Make it even more spectacular than this cursed place! And it will be one hundred percent mine! Will you help me?”
“Of course. But you know, aside from the house, I do think it’s time for you to undergo another radical transformation as well. You need a new look that will launch you into Singapore society properly. My God, the Tattle crowd will love you. Let’s get you a photo shoot and feature story. Hell, I’m sure I can wrangle you the cover.”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely. I can see it already…we’ll get Bruce Weber to shoot it. You, Gisele, and Harvard, romping through your historic heritage property in Singapore surrounded by a dozen golden retrievers. All wearing Chanel! Even the dogs!”
“Um…can we get Nigel Barker to shoot it instead? He’s soooooo dreamy!”
“Of course, dear. Whoever you want.”
Kitty’s eyes lit up.
* * *
*1 A derogatory term for Caucasians; in Mandarin it translates as “foreign/white/Caucasian.”
*2 Michael, Project Runway just hasn’t been the same without you. Pleeeeeeeeease come back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RESIDENCES AT ONE CAIRNHILL, SINGAPORE
The cook had brought home the most scrumptious Singaporean breakfast delicacies from the market. There was chwee kueh—delicately steamed rice-flour cakes topped with salty radish pickle and chili sauce; freshly grilled roti prata—crisp, buttery Indian bread served with a curry dipping sauce; chai tow kuay—daikon radish cakes pan-fried with egg, shrimp, and spring onions; and char siew bao—sweet barbecued-pork buns. As Eleanor and Philip gleefully unwrapped the brown waxed-paper packets of food, Nick entered the white Calacatta-marble-clad kitchen and padded toward the elegant diner-style banquette that had been glassed in so Eleanor’s guests could enjoy a “chef’s table” experience without having to worry about getting any of the smoky aromas on their expensive outfits or in their perfect coiffures.
“Oh good, you’re up. Come, come, eat while it’s still hot,” Eleanor said, dipping a piece of her roti prata into the spicy coconut chicken curry.
Nick stood at the table, not saying anything. Eleanor looked up at him and saw the grimace on his face. “What’s wrong? Are you constipated? I know we shouldn’t have gone to that Italian restaurant last night. So overrated, and so awful.”
“I rather enjoyed my linguine with white truffles,” Philip commented.
“Aiyah, nothing special, lah. I could open a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup and pour it over some noodles and you wouldn’t even know the difference! Not wort
h the money, even if Colin did pay, and all that cheese always clogs up the system.”
“I just can’t believe you sometimes.” Nick pulled out a chair and sat down at the banquette.
“What don’t you believe? Eat a ripe banana, or I have some Metamucil if that doesn’t work.”
“I’m not constipated, Mum, I’m annoyed. I just got off the phone with Rachel.”
“Oh, how is she?” Eleanor asked in a merry tone, as she spooned a heaping portion of chai tow kuay onto her Astier de Villatte plate.
“You know exactly how she is. You spoke to her yesterday.”
“Oh, she told you?”
“She’s my wife—she tells me everything, Mum. I can’t believe you actually asked her what kind of birth control we use!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Eleanor asked.
“Have you gone completely mental? She’s not some Singaporean girl you can interrogate about every bodily function. She’s American. They don’t discuss things like that with just anyone!”
“I am not just anyone. I am her mother-in-law. I have a right to know when she’s ovulating!” Eleanor snapped.
“No you don’t! She was so appalled and embarrassed, she didn’t even know what to say.”
“No wonder she hung up so quickly.” Eleanor giggled.
“This whole grandchildren business has to stop, Mum. We won’t be pressured into having kids just because you want us to.”
Eleanor banged down her chopsticks irritatedly. “You think I’m pressuring you? Hiyah, you don’t know the meaning of pressure! When your father and I came back from our honeymoon, your darling Ah Ma commanded her maids to ransack our luggage! When she found our French letters,* she got so upset, she said that if I wasn’t pregnant within six weeks, she would throw me out of the house! Do you really want to know what it took for me to get pregnant? Your father and I had to—”
“Stop, stop! Boundaries, please! I don’t need to know any of this!” Nick groaned, waving his hand in front of his mother’s face frantically.