Кевин Кван - China Rich Girlfriend

“Well, I’m certainly not interested in having any of it if I can’t share my life with her,” Nick said adamantly.

“Who said you couldn’t be with Rachel? Why don’t you live with her as you have been? Just don’t get married now. Don’t rub it in your grandma’s face. Go home and make peace with her. She is in her nineties, how many years does she have left? After she goes, you can do anything you want.”

Nick considered her words in silence. There was a gentle knock on the door, and a steward bearing a tray of coffee and desserts entered.

“Thank you, Sven. Now try some of this chocolate cake. I think you’ll find it to be quite interesting.”

Nick took a bite, recognizing immediately that it tasted exactly like the airy yet rich chocolate chiffon cake made by the cook at his grandmother’s house. “How did you manage to pry the recipe out of Ah Ching?” he asked in surprise.

“I didn’t. I smuggled a slice into my handbag when I had lunch with your grandmother last week and had it flown straight to Marius, the genius chef we have aboard. He spent three days doing his own forensics on the cake, and after about twenty attempts, we got it just right, don’t you think?”

“It’s perfect.”

“Now, how would you feel if you could never have this chocolate cake again?”

“I’ll just have to be invited back to your yacht.”

“This isn’t my yacht, Nicky. None of this is mine. And don’t think I’m not reminded of this every day of my life.”

*1 Also blond, most likely Swedish.

*2 She’s naturally referring to Espen Oeino, one of the world’s leading naval architects, who has designed superyachts for the likes of Paul Allen, the Emir of Qatar, and the Sultan of Oman.

*3 Hokkien for “play money.”

7BELMONT ROAD

SINGAPORE, MARCH 1, 2013

The man with the machine gun tapped on the tinted glass of Carol Tai’s Bentley Arnage. “Lower your window, please,” he said gruffly.

As the window came down, the man peered in, carefully scrutinizing Carol and Eleanor Young in the backseats.

“Your invitations, please,” he said, extending a Kevlar-gloved hand. Carol handed over the engraved metal cards.

“Please have your handbags open and ready for inspection when you get to the entrance,” the man instructed, gesturing for Carol’s chauffeur to drive on. They passed through the security roadblock, only to find themselves bumper-to-bumper with other fancy sedans trying to make their way toward the house with the red lacquered front door on Belmont Road.

“ Aiyah , if I knew it was going to be this lay chay , *1I wouldn’t have come,” Carol complained.

“I told you it wouldn’t be worth the headache. It never used to be like this,” Eleanor said, glaring at the traffic jam and thinking back to the earlier days of Mrs. Singh’s jewelry tea party. Gayatri Singh, the youngest daughter of a maharaja, possessed one of Singapore’s legendary jewelry collections, said to rival that of Mrs. Lee Yong Chien or Shang Su Yi. Every year, she would return from her annual trip to India with another stash of heirlooms spirited away from her increasingly senile mother, and starting in the early 1960s, she had begun inviting her dearest friends — women hailing from Singapore’s elite families — to come over for tea to “celebrate” her latest baubles.

“Back when Mrs. Singh was running the show, it was such a relaxed affair. It was just a bunch of nice ladies in beautiful saris sitting around the living room. Everyone took turns fondling Mrs. Singh’s jewels while gossiping and gobbling down Indian sweets,” Eleanor recalled.

Carol scrutinized the long queue trying to get through the front door. “This looks anything but relaxed. Alamak , who are all these women all dressed up like they are going to a cocktail party?”

“It’s all the new people . The whoest-who of Singapore society that no one has ever heard of — mainly Chindos,” *2Eleanor sniffed.

Ever since Mrs. Singh lost interest in counting her carats and began spending more time in India studying Vedic scriptures, her daughter-in-law Sarita — a former minor Bollywood actress — had taken over the affair, and the homey ladies’ tea party evolved into a high-profile charity exhibition to raise money for whatever happened to be Sarita’s cause du jour. The event was breathlessly chronicled by all the glossy magazines, and anyone who could pay the exorbitant entry fee had the privilege of traipsing through the Singhs’ elegant modernist bungalow and gawking at the jewelry, which nowadays consisted of some specially themed exhibition.

This year’s show was devoted to the works of the acclaimed Norwegian silversmith Tone Vigeland, and as Lorena Lim, Nadine Shaw, and Daisy Foo peered into the glass vitrines in what was now the “gallery,” converted from the former table-tennis room, Nadine could not help but register her dismay. “ Alamak , who wants to see all this Scandinavian gow sai *3? I thought we would get to see some of Mrs. Singh’s jewels.”

“Keep your voice down! That ang moh *4over there is the curator. Apparently she is some hotshot from the Austin Cooper Design Museum in New York,” Lorena warned.

“ Aiyah , I don’t care if she’s Anderson Cooper! Who wants to pay five hundred dollars a ticket to see jewelry made of rusty nails? I came to see rubies the size of rambutans!”

“Nadine has a point. This is such a waste of money, even though we got these free tickets from my banker at OCBC,” Daisy said.

Just then, Eleanor entered the gallery, squinting at the bright lights. She immediately put her sunglasses back on.

“Eleanor!” Lorena said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were coming to this!”

“I wasn’t planning to, but Carol was given tickets by her banker at UOB, and she convinced me to come. She needs cheering up.”

“Where is she?”

“In the toilet, of course. You know her weak bladder.”

“Well, there’s nothing here that will cheer her up, unless she wants to see jewelry that will give her tetanus,” Daisy reported.

“I told Carol this would be a waste of time! Sarita Singh only wants to impress her arty-farty international friends these days. Three years ago she invited me, Felicity, and Astrid, and it was all this Victorian mourning jewelry. Nothing but black jet and brooches made from the hair of dead people. Hak sei yen! *5Only Astrid could appreciate it.”

“Let me tell you what I’m appreciating right now — your new Birkin bag! I never thought you’d be caught dead with one of these. Didn’t you once say that only tacky Mainlanders carried such bags?” Nadine asked.

“Funny you should say that — this was a gift from Bao Shaoyen.”

“ Wah, ah nee ho miah! *6I told you the Baos were loaded,” Daisy said.

“Well, you were right — the Baos are loaded beyond belief. My God, the way I’ve seen them spend in just the few months they’ve been here! Nadine, if you thought your Francesca was a spendthrift, you should see how that Carlton spends. I have never seen a boy more obsessed with cars in my life! At first his mother swore she would never let him set foot in another sports car, but every time I go over there, there’s some exotic new car in their sky garage. Apparently he’s been buying cars and shipping them back to China. He claims he’ll make a fat profit reselling them to his friends.”

“Well, it sounds like Carlton has made quite a recovery!” Lorena said.

“Yes, he hardly even needs his crutches anymore. Oh, in case you were still thinking of him for your Tiffany, you should stop. Apparently he’s already got a girlfriend. A fashion model or something like that — she lives in Shanghai but flies down to see him every weekend.”