Kevin Kwan: Crazy Rich Asians

“Are you sure?” Eleanor asked in surprise.

“Quite sure.” Ormsby grinned tightly.

Felicity Leong joined her sister-in-law at the front desk. “Is there a problem?” she asked impatiently, eager to get to the room to dry her hair.

“ Alamak , *they can’t find our reservation,” Eleanor sighed.

“How come? Maybe you booked it under another name?” Felicity inquired.

“No, lah . Why would I do that? It was always booked under my name,” Eleanor replied irritatedly. Why did Felicity always assume she was incompetent? She turned back to the manager. “Sir, can you please check again? I reconfirmed our reservation just two days ago. We’re supposed to be in your largest suite.”

“Yes, I know you booked the Lancaster Suite, but I can’t find your name anywhere,” Ormsby insisted.

“Excuse me, but if you know we booked the Lancaster Suite, why don’t we have the room?” Felicity asked, confused.

Bloody hell . Ormsby cursed at his own slip-up. “No, no, you misunderstood. What I meant was that you might think you booked the Lancaster Suite, but I certainly can’t find any record of it.” He turned away for a moment, pretending to rummage through some other paperwork.

Felicity leaned over the polished oak counter and pulled the leather-bound reservations book toward her, flipping through pages. “Look! It says right here ‘Mrs. Eleanor Young—Lancaster Suite for four nights.’ Do you not see this?”

“Madam! That is PRIVATE!” Ormsby snapped in fury, startling his two junior clerks, who glanced uncomfortably at their manager.

Felicity peered at the balding, red-faced man, the situation suddenly becoming abundantly clear. She hadn’t seen this particular brand of superior sneer since she was a child growing up in the waning days of colonial Singapore, and she thought this kind of overt racism had ceased to exist. “Sir,” she said politely but firmly, “this hotel came highly recommended to us by Mrs. Mince, the wife of the Anglican Bishop of Singapore, and I clearly saw our name in your registry book. I don’t know what sort of funny business is going on, but we have traveled a very long way and our children are tired and cold. I insist that you honor our reservation.”

Ormsby was indignant. How dare this Chinese woman with the Thatcheresque perm and preposterous “English” accent speak to him in such a manner? “I’m afraid we simply do not have anything available,” he declared.

“Are you telling me that there are no rooms left in this entire hotel?” Eleanor said incredulously.

“Yes,” he replied curtly.

“Where are we supposed to go at this hour?” Eleanor asked.

“Perhaps someplace in Chinatown?” Ormsby sniffed. These foreigners had wasted enough of his time.

Felicity went back to where her younger sister Alexandra Cheng stood guarding the luggage. “Finally! I can’t wait to take a hot bath,” Alexandra said eagerly.

“Actually, this odious man is refusing to give us our room!” Felicity said, making no attempt to hide her fury.

“What? Why?” Alexandra asked, completely confused.

“I think it has something to do with us being Chinese,” Felicity said, as if she didn’t quite believe her own words.

“Gum suey ah!” †Alexandra exclaimed. “Let me talk to him. Living in Hong Kong, I have more experience dealing with these types.”

“Alix, don’t bother. He’s a typical ang mor gau sai! ” ‡Eleanor exclaimed.

“Even so, isn’t this supposed to be one of London’s top hotels? How can they get away with that sort of behavior?” Alexandra asked.

“Exactly!” Felicity raged on. “The English are normally so lovely, I have never been treated like this in all my years coming here.”

Eleanor nodded in agreement, even though privately she felt that Felicity was partly to blame for this fiasco. If Felicity wasn’t so giam siap §and had let them take a taxi from Heathrow, they would have arrived looking far less disheveled. (Of course, it didn’t help that her sisters-in-law always looked so dowdy, she had to dress down whenever she traveled with them, ever since that trip to Thailand when everyone mistook them for her maids.)

Edison Cheng, Alexandra’s twelve-year-old son, approached the ladies nonchalantly, sipping soda from a tall glass.

“Aiyah, Eddie! Where did you get that?” Alexandra exclaimed.

“From the bartender, of course.”

“How did you pay for it?”

“I didn’t—I told him to charge it to our suite,” Eddie replied breezily. “Can we go up now? I’m starving and I want to order from room service.”

Felicity shook her head in disapproval—Hong Kong boys were notoriously pampered, but this nephew of hers was incorrigible. Good thing they were here to put him in boarding school, where he would have some sense knocked into him—cold morning showers and stale toast with Bovril was what he needed. “No, no, we’re not staying here anymore. Go and watch Nicky and Astrid while we decide what to do,” Felicity instructed.

Eddie walked over to his younger cousins, resuming the game they had begun on the plane. “Off the sofa! Remember, I’m the chairman , so I’m the one who gets to sit,” he commanded. “Here, Nicky, hold my glass while I sip from the straw. Astrid, you’re my executive secretary, so you need to massage my shoulders.”

“I don’t know why you get to be the chairman, while Nicky is the vice president and I have to be the secretary,” Astrid protested.

“Didn’t I explain this already? I’m the chairman, because I am four years older than the both of you. You’re the executive secretary, because you’re the girl. I need a girl to massage my shoulders and to help choose jewelry for all my mistresses. My best friend Leo’s father, Ming Kah-Ching, is the third-richest man in Hong Kong, and that’s what his executive secretary does.”

“Eddie, if you want me to be your vice president, I should be doing something more important than holding your glass,” Nick argued. “We still haven’t decided what our company makes.”

“I’ve decided—we make custom limousines, like Rolls-Royces and Jags,” Eddie declared.

“Can’t we make something cooler, like a time machine?” Nick asked.

“Well, these are ultra-special limousines with features like Jacuzzis, secret compartments, and James Bond ejector seats,” Eddie said, bouncing up from the settee so suddenly that he knocked the glass out of Nick’s hand. Coca-Cola spilled everywhere, and the sound of smashing glass pierced the lobby. The bell captain, concierge, and front-desk clerks glared at the children. Alexandra rushed over, shaking a finger in dismay.

“Eddie! Look what you’ve done!”

“It wasn’t my fault—Nicky was the one who dropped it,” Eddie began.

“But it’s y our glass, and you hit it out of my hand!” Nick defended himself.

Ormsby approached Felicity and Eleanor. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises.”

“Can we just use your telephone?” Eleanor pleaded.

“I do think the children have done quite enough damage for one night, don’t you?” he hissed.

It was still drizzling, and the group huddled under a green-and-white-striped awning on Brook Street while Felicity stood inside a phone booth frantically calling other hotels.

“ Dai gu cheh looks like a soldier in a sentry box in that red booth,” Nick observed, rather thrilled by the strange turn of events. “Mummy, what are we going to do if we can’t find a place to stay tonight? Maybe we can sleep in Hyde Park. There’s an amazing weeping beech in Hyde Park called the upside-down tree, and its branches hang down so low that it’s almost like a cave. We can all sleep underneath and be protected—”