Besides, Eleanor enjoyed passing through the kitchens. The old amahs squatting over enamel double boilers would always open the lids for Eleanor to sniff the smoky medicinal herbs being brewed for Carol’s husband (“natural Viagra,” as he called it), and the kitchen maids gutting fish in the courtyard would fawn over how youthful Mrs. Young still looked for sixty, what with her fashionably shagged chin-length hair and her unwrinkled face (before furiously debating, the moment she was out of earshot, what expensive new cosmetic procedure Mrs. Young must have endured).
By the time Eleanor arrived at Carol’s bedroom, the Bible study regulars — Daisy Foo, Lorena Lim, and Nadine Shaw — would be assembled and waiting. Here, sheltered from the harsh equatorial heat, these longtime friends would sprawl languorously about the room, analyzing the Bible verses assigned in their study guides. The place of honor on Carol’s Qing dynasty Huanghuali[9] bed was always reserved for Eleanor, for even though this was Carol’s house and she was the one married to the billionaire financier, Carol still deferred to her. This was the way things had been since their childhood as neighbors growing up on Serangoon Road, mainly because, coming from a Chinese-speaking family, Carol had always felt inferior to Eleanor, who was brought up speaking English first. (The others also kowtowed to her, because even among these exceedingly well-married ladies, Eleanor had trumped them all by becoming Mrs. Philip Young.)
Today’s lunch started off with braised quail and abalone over hand-pulled noodles, and Daisy (married to the rubber magnate Q. T. Foo but born a Wong, of the Ipoh Wongs) fought to separate the starchy noodles while trying to find 1 Timothy in her King James Bible. With her bobbed perm and her rimless reading glasses perched at the tip of her nose, she looked like the principal of a girls’ school. At sixty-four, she was the oldest of the ladies, and even though everyone else was on the New American Standard, Daisy always insisted on reading from her version, saying, “I went to convent school and was taught by nuns, you know, so it will always be King James for me.” Tiny droplets of garlicky broth splattered onto the tissue-like page, but she managed to keep the good book open with one hand while deftly maneuvering her ivory chopsticks with the other.
Nadine, meanwhile, was busily flipping through her Bible — the latest issue of Singapore Tattle. Every month, she couldn’t wait to see how many pictures of her daughter Francesca — the celebrated “Shaw Foods heiress”—were featured in the “Soirées” section of the magazine. Nadine herself was a fixture in the social pages, what with her Kabuki-esque makeup, tropical-fruit-size jewels, and over-teased hair. “Aiyah, Carol, Tattle devoted two full pages to your Christian Helpers fashion gala!” Nadine exclaimed.
“Already? I didn’t realize it would come out so quickly,” Carol remarked. Unlike Nadine, she was always a bit embarrassed to find herself in magazines, even though editors constantly fawned over her “classic Shanghainese songstress looks.” Carol simply felt obligated to attend a few charity galas every week as any good born-again Christian should, and because her husband kept reminding her that “being Mother Teresa is good for business.”
Nadine scanned the glossy pages up and down. “That Lena Teck has really put on weight since her Mediterranean cruise, hasn’t she? It must be those all-you-can-eat buffets — you always feel like you have to eat more to get your money’s worth. She better be careful — all those Teck women end up with fat ankles.”
“I don’t think she cares how fat her ankles get. Do you know how much she inherited when her father died? I heard she and her five brothers got seven hundred million each,” Lorena said from her chaise lounge.
“Is that all? I thought Lena had at least a billion.” Nadine sniffed. “Hey, so strange Elle, how come there’s no picture of your pretty niece Astrid? I remember all the photographers swarming around her that day.”
“Those photographers were wasting their time. Astrid’s pictures are never published anywhere. Her mother made a deal with all the magazine editors back when she was a teenager,” Eleanor explained.
“Why on earth would she do that?”
“Don’t you know my husband’s family by now? They would rather die than appear in print,” Eleanor said.
“What, have they become too grand to be seen mingling with other Singaporeans?” Nadine said indignantly.
“Aiyah, Nadine, there’s a difference between being grand and being discreet,” Daisy commented, knowing full well that families like the Leongs and the Youngs guarded their privacy to the point of obsession.
“Grand or not, I think Astrid is wonderful,” Carol chimed in. “You know, I’m not supposed to say, but Astrid wrote the biggest check at the fund-raiser. And she insisted that I keep it anonymous. But her donation was what made this year’s gala a record-breaking success.”
Eleanor eyed the pretty new Mainland Chinese maid entering the room, wondering if this was another one of the girls that the dato’ had handpicked from that “employment agency” he frequented in Suzhou, the city reputed to have the most beautiful women in China. “What do we have today?” she asked Carol, as the maid placed a familiar bulky mother-of-pearl chest beside the bed.
“Oh, I wanted to show you what I bought on my Burma trip.”
Eleanor flipped open the lid of the chest eagerly and began methodically taking out the stacked black velvet trays. One of her favorite parts of Thursday Bible study was looking at Carol’s latest acquisitions. Soon the bed was lined with trays containing a blinding array of jewels. “What intricate crosses — I didn’t realize they did such good setting work in Burma!”
“No, no, those crosses are Harry Winston,” Carol corrected. “The rubies are from Burma.”
Lorena got up from her lunch and headed straight for the bed, holding up one of the lychee-size rubies to the light. “Aiyah, you have to be careful in Burma because so many of their rubies are synthetically treated to boost the redness.” Being the wife of Lawrence Lim (of the L’Orient Jewelry Lims), Lorena could speak on this topic with authority.
“I thought rubies from Burma were supposed to be the best,” Eleanor remarked.
“Ladies, you need to stop calling it Burma. It’s been called Myanmar for more than twenty years now,” Daisy corrected.
“Alamak! You sound just like Nicky, always correcting me!” Eleanor said.
“Hey, speaking of Nick, when does he arrive from New York? Isn’t he the best man at Colin Khoo’s wedding?” Daisy asked.
“Yes, yes. But you know my son — I’m always the last to know anything!” Eleanor complained.
“Isn’t he staying with you?”
“Of course. He always stays with us first, before heading to Old Lady’s,” Eleanor said, using her nickname for her mother-in-law.
“Well,” Daisy continued, lowering her voice a bit, “what do you think Old Lady will do about his guest?”
“What do you mean? What guest?” Eleanor asked.
“The one … he’s bringing … to the wedding,” Daisy replied slowly, her eyes darting around at the other ladies mischievously, knowing they all knew to whom she was referring.
“What are you talking about? Who is he bringing?” Eleanor said, a little confused.
9
Literally “yellow flowering pear,” an exceedingly rare type of rosewood now virtually extinct. In recent decades,