by Kevin Kwan
Sunday lunch gave Malcolm and his wife a chance to inspect their children and grandchildren on a weekly basis, and it was a duty they undertook with utter seriousness. For in spite of all the advantages the Cheng children had growing up, Malcolm and Alexandra were constantly worrying about them. (Actually, Alexandra was the one doing most of the worrying.)
Their youngest son, Alistair, “the hopeless one,” was the pampered ne’er-do-well who had just barely scraped through Sydney University and was now doing something or other in the Hong Kong film industry. He had recently become involved with Kitty Pong, a soap-opera star who claimed she was from “a good Taiwanese family,” even though everyone else in the Cheng family doubted it, since her spoken Mandarin took on a distinctive northern China accent rather than the more cutesy inflections of Taiwanese Mandarin.
Their daughter, Cecilia, “the horsey one,” had developed a passion for dressage at an early age and was constantly dealing with her temperamental horse or her temperamental husband, Tony, an Australian commodities trader whom Malcolm and Alexandra secretly nicknamed “the Convict.” A “full-time mother,” Cecilia actually spent more time on the international equestrian circuit than raising their son, Jake. (Due to all the hours he spent with their Filipino maids, Jake was becoming fluent in Tagalog; he could also do a brilliant impression of Sinatra’s “My Way.”)
And then there was Eddie, their firstborn. To all appearances, Edison Cheng was “the perfect one.” He had breezed through Cambridge Judge Business School with distinction, done a stint at Cazenove in London, and was now a rising star in Hong Kong’s private banking world. He had married Fiona Tung, who hailed from a politically connected family, and they had three very studious, well-behaved children. But privately, Alexandra worried the most about Eddie. In the last few years, he was spending far too much time hanging around with these dubious Mainland Chinese billionaires, flying all over Asia every week to attend parties, and she worried how this might be affecting his health and his family life.
Today’s lunch was especially important since Alexandra wanted to plan the logistics of the family trip next month to Singapore for the Khoo wedding. It was the first time the entire family—parents, children, grandchildren, servants, and nannies included—was traveling together, and Alexandra wanted to make sure everything went off perfectly. At one o’clock, the family began filtering in from all corners: Malcolm from a mixed-doubles tennis match; Alexandra from church with Cecilia, Tony, and Jake; Fiona and her children from their weekend tutors; and Alistair from rolling out of bed fifteen minutes ago.
Eddie was the last to arrive, and as usual he was on his phone, coming to the table and ignoring everyone, chattering loudly in Cantonese on his Bluetooth earpiece. When he finally finished his call, he flashed his family a self-satisfied grin. “It’s all sorted! I just spoke with Leo, and he wants us to use his family jet,” Eddie declared, referring to his best friend Leo Ming.
“For all of us to fly to Singapore?” Alexandra asked, a bit confused.
“Yes, of course!”
Fiona raised an immediate objection. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. First, I really don’t think the entire family should be traveling together on the same plane. What would happen if there was an accident? Second, we shouldn’t be asking such a favor of Leo.”
“I knew you were going to say that, Fi,” Eddie began. “That’s why I came up with this plan: Daddy and Mummy should go a day earlier with Alistair; Cecilia, Tony, and Jake can fly with us the next day; and later in the day, the nannies can bring our children.”
“That’s outrageous. How can you even think of taking advantage of Leo’s plane like that?” Fiona exclaimed.
“Fi, he’s my best friend and he couldn’t care less how much we use the plane,” Eddie retorted.
“What kind of jet is it? A Gulfstream? A Falcon?” Tony asked.
Cecilia dug her nails into her husband’s arm, annoyed at his eagerness, and cut in. “Why do your kids get to fly separately while my son has to travel with us?”
“What about Kitty? She’s coming too,” Alistair asked quietly.
Everyone at the table glared at Alistair in horror. “Nay chee seen, ah!”* Eddie snapped.
Alistair was indignant. “I already RSVP’d for her. And Colin told me that he couldn’t wait to meet her. She’s a big star, and I—”
“In the New Territories maybe a couple of idiots watching trashy soap operas might know who she is, but trust me, nobody in Singapore has ever heard of her,” Eddie cut in.
“That’s not true—she’s one of Asia’s fastest-rising stars. And that’s beside the point—I want all our relatives in Singapore to meet her,” Alistair said.
Alexandra considered the implications of his declaration quietly, but decided to pick her battles one at a time. “Fiona is right. We can’t possibly borrow the Ming family plane two days in a row! In fact, I think it would look very inappropriate for us to fly in a private plane at all. I mean, who do we think we are?”
“Daddy’s one of the most famous heart surgeons in the world! You are Singaporean royalty! What’s wrong with flying on a private plane?” Eddie shouted in frustration, his hands gesticulating so wildly that he almost hit the waiter behind him, who was about to place a huge stack of bamboo steamers on the table.
“Uncle Eddie, look out! There’s food right behind you!” his nephew Jake shouted.
Eddie glanced around for a second and continued on his tirade. “Why are you always like this, Mummy? Why do you always behave so provincial? You are filthy rich! Why can’t you be a little less cheap for once and have more a sense of your own self-worth?” His three children looked up momentarily from their math practice test books. They were used to his rages at home but had rarely seen him so upset in front of Gong Gong and Ah Ma. Fiona pulled at his sleeve, whispering, “Lower your voice! Please don’t talk about money in front of the children.”
His mother shook her head calmly. “Eddie, this has nothing to do with self-worth. I just feel this sort of extravagance is completely unnecessary. And I am not Singaporean royalty. Singapore has no royalty. What a ridiculous thing to say.”
“This is so typical of you, Eddie. You just want all of Singapore to know that you flew in on Ming Kah-Ching’s plane,” Cecilia interjected, reaching for one of the plump roast-pork buns. “If it was your own plane, that would be one thing, but to have the audacity to borrow a plane for three trips in two days is just unheard of. I personally would rather pay for my own tickets.”
“Kitty flies private all the time,” Alistair said, though no one at the table paid him any attention.
“Well, we should get our own jet. I’ve been saying it for years. Dad, you spend practically half the month in the Beijing clinic, and since I plan to expand my presence into China in a big way in the coming year—” Eddie began.
“Eddie, I have to agree with your mother and sister on this one. I just would not want to be indebted to the Ming family in this way,” Malcolm finally said. As much as he enjoyed flying private, he could not stomach the thought of borrowing the Ming jet.
“Why do I keep trying to do this ungrateful family so many favors?” Eddie huffed in disgust. “Okay, you all do what you want. Squeeze into economy on China Airlines for all I care. My family and I are taking Leo’s plane. And it’s a Bombardier Global Express. It’s huge, state-of-the-art. There’s even a Matisse in the cabin. It’s going to be amazing.”
Fiona gave him a disapproving look, but he glared at her so forcefully that she retreated from any further objection. Eddie shoveled down a few rolls of shrimp cheong fun, got up, and announced imperiously, “I’m off. I have important clients to attend to!” And with that, Eddie stormed out, leaving a rather relieved family in his wake.
Tony, mouth full of food, whispered to Cecilia, “Let’s see their entire family plunge into the South China Sea on Leo Ming’s fancy-ass plane.”
As much as she tried to, Cecilia couldn’t stifle her laugh.
>
* * *
* Cantonese for “You’re out of your mind!”
7
Eleanor
SINGAPORE
After a few days of strategically placed phone calls, Eleanor finally nailed down the source of the disturbing rumor involving her son. Daisy confessed hearing it from her daughter-in-law’s best friend Rebecca Tang, who in turn revealed that she’d heard it from her brother Moses Tang, who had been at Cambridge with Leonard Shang. And Moses had this to report to Eleanor:
“I was in London for a conference. At the last minute, Leonard invites me down to dinner at his country estate in Surrey. Have you been there, Mrs. Young? Aiyoh, what a palace! I didn’t realize it was designed by Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, the architect who built Waddesdon Manor for the English Rothschilds. Anyway, we were dining with all these ang mor* VIPS and MPs† visiting from Singapore and as usual Cassandra Shang is holding court. And then out of nowhere Cassandra says loudly across the table to your sister-in-law Victoria Young, ‘You’ll never guess what I heard … Nicky has been dating a Taiwanese girl in New York, and now he’s bringing her to Singapore for the Khoo wedding!’ And Victoria says, ‘Are you sure? Taiwanese? Good grief, did he fall for some gold digger?’ And then Cassandra says something like, ‘Well, it might not be as bad as you think. I have it on good authority that she’s one of the Chu girls. You know, of the Taipei Plastics Chus. Not exactly old money, but at least they are one of the most solid families in Taiwan.”
Had it been anyone else, Eleanor would have dismissed all this as nothing but idle talk among her husband’s bored relatives. But this came from Cassandra, who was usually dead accurate. She hadn’t earned the nickname “Radio One Asia” for nothing. Eleanor wondered how Cassandra obtained this latest scoop. Nicky’s big-mouthed second cousin was the last person he would ever confide in. Cassandra must have gotten the intel from one of her spies in New York. She had spies everywhere, all hoping to sah kah‡ her by passing along some hot tip.
It did not come as a surprise to Eleanor that her son might have a new girlfriend. What surprised her (or, more accurately, annoyed her) was the fact that it had taken her until now to find out. Anyone could see that he was prime target number one, and over the years there had been plenty of girls Nicky thought he had kept hidden from his mother. All of them had been inconsequential in Eleanor’s eyes, since she knew her son wasn’t ready to marry yet. But this time was different.
Eleanor had a long-held theory about men. She truly believed that for most men, all that talk of “being in love” or “finding the right one” was absolute nonsense. Marriage was purely a matter of timing, and whenever a man was finally done sowing his wild oats and ready to settle down, whichever girl happened to be there at the time would be the right one. She had seen the theory proven time and again; indeed she had caught Philip Young at precisely the right moment. All the men in that clan tended to marry in their early thirties, and Nicky was now ripe for the plucking. If someone in New York already knew so much about Nicky’s relationship, and if he was actually bringing this girl home to attend his best friend’s wedding, things must be getting serious. Serious enough that he purposely hadn’t mentioned her existence. Serious enough to derail Eleanor’s meticulously laid plans.
The setting sun refracted its rays through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the recently completed penthouse apartment atop Cairnhill Road, bathing the atrium-like living room in a deep orange glow. Eleanor gazed at the early-evening sky, taking in the colonnade of buildings clustering around Scotts Road and the expansive views all the way past the Singapore River to the Keppel Shipyard, the world’s busiest commercial port. Even after thirty-four years of marriage, she did not take for granted all that it meant for her to be sitting here with one of the most sought-after views on the island.
To Eleanor, every single person occupied a specific space in the elaborately constructed social universe in her mind. Like most of the women in her crowd, Eleanor could meet another Asian anywhere in the world—say, over dim sum at Royal China in London, or shopping in the lingerie department of David Jones in Sydney—and within thirty seconds of learning their name and where they lived, she would implement her social algorithm and calculate precisely where they stood in her constellation based on who their family was, who else they were related to, what their approximate net worth might be, how the fortune was derived, and what family scandals might have occurred within the past fifty years.
The Taipei Plastics Chus were very new money, made in the seventies and eighties, most likely. Knowing next to nothing about this family made Eleanor particularly anxious. How established were they in Taipei society? Who exactly were this girl’s parents, and how much did she stand to inherit? She needed to know what she was up against. It was 6:45 a.m. in New York. High time to wake Nicky up. She picked up the telephone with one hand, and with the other she held at arm’s length the long-distance discount calling card§ that she always used, squinting at the row of tiny numbers. She dialed a complicated series of codes and waited for several beeping signals before finally entering the telephone number. The phone rang four times before Nick’s voice mail picked up: “Hey, I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Eleanor was always a little taken aback whenever she heard her son’s “American” accent. She much preferred the normal Queen’s English he would revert to whenever he was back in Singapore. She spoke haltingly into the phone: “Nicky, where are you? Call me tonight and let me know your flight information, lah. Everyone in the world except me knows when you’re coming home. Also, are you staying with us first or with Ah Ma? Please call me back. But don’t call tonight if it’s after midnight. I am going to take an Ambien now, so I can’t be disturbed for at least eight hours.”
She put down the phone, and then almost immediately picked it up again; this time dialing a cell-phone number. “Astrid, ah? Is that you?”
“Oh, hi, Auntie Elle,” Astrid said.
“Are you okay? You sound a bit funny.”
“No, I’m fine, I was just asleep,” Astrid said, clearing her throat.
“Oh. Why are you sleeping so early? Are you sick?”
“No, I’m in Paris, Auntie Elle.”
“Alamak, I forgot you were away! Sorry to wake you, lah. How is Paris?”
“Lovely.”
“Doing lots of shopping?”
“Not too much,” Astrid replied as patiently as possible. Did her auntie really call just to discuss shopping?
“Do they still have those lines at Louis Vuitton that they make all the Asian customers wait in?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t been inside a Louis Vuitton in decades, Auntie Elle.”
“Good for you. Those lines are terrible, and then they only allow Asians to buy one item. Reminds me of the Japanese occupation, when they forced all the Chinese to wait in line for scraps of rotten food.”
“Yes, but I can sort of understand why they need these rules, Auntie Elle. You should see the Asian tourists buying up all the luxury goods, not just at Louis Vuitton. They are everywhere, buying everything in sight. If there’s a designer label, they want it. It’s absolutely mad. And you know some of them are just bringing it back home to resell at a profit.”
“Yah lah, it’s those fresh-off-the-boat tourists that give us a bad name. But I’ve been shopping in Paris since the seventies—I would never wait in any line and be told what I can buy! Anyway Astrid, I wanted to ask … have you spoken to Nicky recently?”
Astrid paused for a moment. “Um, he called me a couple of weeks ago.”
“Did he tell you when he was coming to Singapore?”
“No, he didn’t mention the exact date. But I’m sure he’ll be there a few days before Colin’s wedding, don’t you think?”
“You know lah, Nicky doesn’t tell me anything!” Eleanor paused, and then continued cautiously. “Hey, I’m thinking of throwing him and his girlfriend a surprise pa
rty. Just a small party at the new flat, to welcome her to Singapore. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Sure, Auntie Elle. I think they would love that.” Astrid was quite taken aback that her aunt was being so welcoming to Rachel. Nick must have really worked his charm overtime.
“But I don’t really know what she would like, so I don’t know how to plan this party properly. Can you give me some ideas? Did you meet her when you were in New York last year?”
“I did.”
Eleanor seethed quietly. Astrid was in New York last March, which meant this girl had been in the picture for at least a year now.
“What’s she like? Is she very Taiwanese?” she asked.
“Taiwanese? Not at all. She seems completely Americanized to me,” Astrid offered, before regretting what she’d said.
How horrible, Eleanor thought. She had always found Asian girls with American accents to be quite ridiculous. They all sounded like they were faking it, trying to sound so ang mor.
“So even though the family is from Taiwan, she was raised in America?”
“I didn’t even know she was from Taiwan, to tell you the truth.”
“Really? She didn’t talk about her family back in Taipei?”
“Not at all.” What was Auntie Elle getting at? Astrid knew that her aunt was prying, so she felt like she had to present Rachel in the best possible light. “She’s very smart and accomplished, Auntie Elle. I think you’ll like her.”