Eddie hated going over to his parents’ place. He hated the lobby, with its cheap-looking Mongolian granite floors and the old-lady security guard who was forever eating stinky tofu out of a plastic bag. Inside the flat, he hated the peach-colored leather sectional sofa and white lacquered consoles (bought when the old Lane Crawford on Queen’s Road was having a clearance sale in the mid-1980s), the glass pebbles at the bottom of every vase of fake flowers, the random collection of Chinese calligraphy paintings (all presents from his father’s patients) clustering the walls, and the medical honors and plaques lined up on the overhead shelf that ran around the perimeter of the living room. He hated walking past his old bedroom, which he had been forced to share with his little brother, with its nautical-themed twin beds and navy blue Ikea wall unit, still there after all these years. Most of all, he hated the large walnut-framed family portrait peeking out from behind the big-screen television, forever taunting him with its smoky brown portrait-studio backdrop and the gold-embossed SAMMY PHOTO STUDIO in the bottom right corner. He hated how he looked in that photograph — he was nineteen, just back from his first year at Cambridge, with shoulder-length feathered hair, wearing a Paul Smith tweed blazer he thought was so cool at the time, his elbow arranged jauntily on his mother’s shoulder. And how could his mother, born to a family of such exquisite breeding, be completely devoid of taste? Over the years, he had begged her to redecorate or move, but she had refused, claiming that she “could never part with all the happy memories of my children growing up here.” What happy memories? His only memories were of a childhood spent being too embarrassed to invite any friends over (unless he knew they lived in less prestigious buildings), and teen years spent in the cramped toilet, masturbating practically underneath the bathroom sink with two feet against the door at all times (there was no lock).
As Eddie stood in Leo’s new closet in Shanghai, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Pudong financial district shimmering across the river like Xanadu, he vowed that he would one day have a closet so cool, it would make this one look like a fucky little pigsty. Until then, he still had one thing that even Leo’s crisp new money could not buy — a thick, embossed invitation to Colin Khoo’s wedding in Singapore.
11
Rachel
NEW YORK TO SINGAPORE
“You’re kidding, right?” Rachel said, thinking Nick was pulling a prank when he steered her onto the plush red carpet of the Singapore Airlines first-class counter at JFK.
Nick flashed a conspiratorial grin, relishing her reaction. “I figured if you were going to go halfway around the world with me, I should at least try to make it as comfy as possible.”
“But this must have cost a fortune! You didn’t have to sell a kidney, did you?”
“No worries, I had about a million frequent-flier miles saved up.”
Still, Rachel couldn’t help feeling a little guilty about the millions of frequent-flier points that Nick must have sacrificed for these tickets. Who even flew first class anymore? The second surprise for Rachel came when they boarded the hulking two-story Airbus A380 and were promptly greeted by a beautiful stewardess who looked as if she had materialized straight out of a soft-focus ad from a travel magazine. “Mr. Young, Ms. Chu, welcome aboard. Please allow me to show you to your suite.” The stewardess sashayed down the aisle in an elegant, figure-hugging long dress,[19] ushering them to the front section of the plane, which consisted of twelve private suites.
Rachel felt as if she was entering the screening room of a luxurious TriBeCa loft. The cabin consisted of two of the widest armchairs she had ever seen — upholstered in buttery hand-stitched Poltrona Frau leather — two huge flat-screen televisions placed side by side, and a full-length wardrobe ingeniously hidden behind a sliding burled-walnut panel. A Givenchy cashmere throw was artfully draped over the seats, beckoning them to snuggle up and get cozy.
The stewardess gestured to the cocktails awaiting them on the center console. “An aperitif before takeoff? Mr. Young, your usual gin and tonic. Ms. Chu, a Kir Royale to get you settled in.” She handed Rachel a long-stemmed glass with chilled bubbly that looked like it had been poured just seconds ago. Of course they would already know her favorite cocktail. “Would you like to enjoy your lounge chairs until dinner, or would you prefer us to convert your suite into a bedroom right after takeoff?”
“I think we’ll enjoy this screening-room setup for a while,” Nick replied.
As soon as the stewardess was out of earshot, Rachel declared, “Sweet Jesus, I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this!”
“I hope you don’t mind roughing it — this is all rather lowbrow by Asian hospitality standards,” Nick teased.
“Um … I think I can make do.” Rachel curled up on her sumptuous armchair and began fiddling with her remote control. “Okay, there are more channels than I can count. Are you going to watch one of your bleak Swedish crime thrillers? Oooh, The English Patient. I want to see that. Wait a minute. Is it bad to watch a film about a plane crash while you’re flying?”
“That was a tiny single-engine plane, and wasn’t it shot down by Nazis? I think it should be just fine,” Nick said, placing his hand over hers.
The enormous plane began to taxi toward the runway, and Rachel looked out the window at the planes lined up on the tarmac, lights flashing on the tips of their wings, each one awaiting their turn to hurtle skyward. “You know, it’s finally sinking in that we’re going on this trip.”
“You excited?”
“Just a bit. I think sleeping on an actual bed on a plane is probably the most exciting part!”
“It’s all downhill from here, isn’t it?”
“Definitely. It’s all been downhill since the day we met,” Rachel said with a wink, entwining her fingers with Nick’s.
NEW YORK CITY, AUTUMN 2008
For the record, Rachel Chu did not feel the proverbial lightning-bolt strike when she first laid eyes on Nicholas Young in the garden of La Lanterna di Vittorio. Sure, he was terribly good-looking, but she had always been suspicious of good-looking men, especially ones with quasi-British accents. She spent the first few minutes silently sizing him up, wondering what Sylvia had gotten her into this time.
When Sylvia Wong-Swartz, Rachel’s colleague at New York University’s Department of Economics, walked into their faculty suite one afternoon and declared, “Rachel, I just spent the morning with your future husband,” she dismissed the declaration as another of Sylvia’s silly schemes and didn’t even bother to look up from her laptop.
“No, seriously, I’ve found your future husband. He was at a student governance meeting with me. It’s the third time I’ve met him, and I’m convinced he’s the one for you.”
“So my future husband is a student? Thanks — you know how much I like jailbait.”
“No, no — he’s the brilliant new prof in the history department. He’s also the faculty adviser to the History Organization.”
“You know I don’t go for professor types. Especially from the history department.”
“Yeah, but this guy is different, I’m telling you. He’s the most impressive guy I’ve met in years. So charming. And HOT. I would be after him in a second if I wasn’t already married.”
“What’s his name? Maybe I already know him.”
“Nicholas Young. He just started this semester, a transfer from Oxford.”
19
Designed by Pierre Balmain, the signature uniform worn by Singapore Airlines flight attendants was inspired by the Malay