Fiona said nothing.
“Oh, I always make sure my wife has the very best, Russell. Come, come, have some of your favorite cognac before we begin. Um sai hak hei,”[67] Eddie said cheerily. He turned to Fiona and said, “Darling, where are your diamonds? Go and put on your beautiful art deco diamond-and-jade necklace and then Russell can start his photo shoot. We don’t want to take up too much of his time, do we?”
As Russell was taking some of the final shots of the Cheng family posed in front of the huge bronze sculpture of a Lipizzan stallion in the front foyer, another worrying thought entered Eddie’s head. As soon as Russell was out the door with his camera equipment and a gift bottle of Camus Cognac, Eddie called his sister Cecilia.
“Cecilia, what colors will you and Tony be wearing at Colin’s wedding ball?”
“Nay gong mut yeah?”[68]
“The color of your dress, Cecilia. The one you’re wearing to the ball.”
“The color of my dress? How should I know? The wedding is a week away — I haven’t begun to think about what I’m going to wear, Eddie.”
“You didn’t buy a new dress for the wedding?” Eddie was incredulous.
“No, why should I?”
“I can’t believe it! What is Tony going to wear?”
“He will probably wear his dark blue suit. The one he always wears.”
“He’s not wearing a tux?”
“No. It’s not like it’s his wedding, Eddie.”
“The invitation says white tie, Cecilia.”
“It’s Singapore, Eddie, and no one there takes those things seriously. Singaporean men have no style, and I guarantee you half the men won’t even be in suits — they’ll all be wearing those ghastly untucked batik shirts.”
“I think you’re mistaken, Cecilia. It’s Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee’s wedding — all of high society will be there and everyone will be dressed to impress.”
“Well, you go right ahead, Eddie.”
Fucky fuck, Eddie thought. His whole family was going to show up looking like peasants. So bloody typical. He wondered if he could convince Colin to change his seating so that he didn’t have to be anywhere near his parents and siblings.
“Do you know what Mummy and Daddy are wearing?”
“Believe it or not, Eddie, I don’t.”
“Well — we still need to color coordinate as a family, Cecilia. There’s going to be a lot of press there, and I want to make sure we don’t clash. Just be sure you don’t wear anything gray to the main event. Fiona is wearing a gray Jil Sander ball gown. And she’s wearing a deep lavender Lanvin dress to the rehearsal dinner, and a champagne-colored Carolina Herrera to the church ceremony. Can you call Mummy and tell her?”
“Sure, Eddie.”
“Do you need me to SMS you the color scheme again?”
“Sure. Whatever. I have to go now, Eddie. Jake is having another nosebleed.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. What is Jake going to wear? My boys will all be wearing Ralph Lauren tuxedos with dark purple cummerbunds—”
“Eddie, I really have to go. Don’t worry, Jake is not going to wear a tuxedo. I’ll be lucky if I can get him to tuck in his shirt.”
“Wait, wait, before you go, have you talked to Alistair yet? He’s not still thinking of bringing that Kitty Pong, is he?”
“Too late. Alistair left yesterday.”
“What? No one told me he was planning to go early.”
“He was always planning to leave on Friday, Eddie. If you kept up with us more, you’d know that.”
“But why did he go to Singapore so soon?”
“He didn’t go to Singapore. He went to Macau for Colin’s bachelor party.”
“WHAAAT? Colin’s bachelor party is this weekend? Who the hell invited Alistair to his bachelor party?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
“But Colin is better friends with ME!” Eddie screamed, the pressure building in his head. And then he felt a strange draft from behind. His pants had split open at the ass.
11
Rachel
SAMSARA ISLAND
The bachelorettes were enjoying a sunset dinner at a long table set under a pavilion of billowing orange silk on the pristine white sand, surrounded by glowing silver lanterns. With dusk transforming the gentle waves into an emerald froth, it could have been a photo shoot straight out of Condé Nast Traveler, except that the dinner conversation put a damper on that illusion. As the first course of baby Bibb lettuce with hearts of palm in a coconut-milk dressing was served, the cluster of girls to Rachel’s left were busy skewering into the heart of another girl’s boyfriend.
“So you say he just made senior vice president? But he’s on the retail side, not the investment banking side, right? I spoke to my boyfriend Roderick, and he thinks that Simon probably makes between six to eight hundred thou base salary, if he’s lucky. And he doesn’t get millions in bonuses like the I-bankers,” sniffed Lauren Lee.
“The other problem is his family. Simon’s not even the eldest brother. He’s the second youngest of five,” Parker Yeo pontificated. “My parents know the Tings very well, and let me tell you, as respected as they are, they are not what you or I would consider rich — my mum says they have maybe two hundred million, max. You split that five ways and you’ll be lucky if Simon gets forty mil at the end of the day. And that won’t be for a loooong time — his parents are still quite young. Isn’t his father going to run for parliament again?”
“We just want what’s best for you, Isabel,” Lauren said, patting her hand sympathetically.
“But … but I really think I love him—” Isabel stammered.
Francesca Shaw cut in. “Isabel, I’m going to tell it to you like it is, because everyone here is wasting your time being polite. You can’t afford to fall in love with Simon. Let me break it down for you. Let’s be generous and assume that Simon is making a measly eight hundred thousand a year. After taxes and CPF,[69] his take-home is only about half a million. Where are you going to live on that kind of money? Think about it — you have to factor a million dollars per bedroom, and you need at least three bedrooms, so you are talking three mil for an apartment in Bukit Timah. That’s a hundred and fifty thousand a year in mortgage and property taxes. Then say you have two kids, and you want to send them to proper schools. At thirty thousand a year each for school fees that’s sixty thousand, plus twenty thousand a year each on tutors. That’s one hundred thousand a year on schooling alone. Servants and nannies — two Indonesian or Sri Lankan maids will cost you another thirty thousand, unless you want one of them to be a Swedish or French au pair, then you’re talking eighty thousand a year spent on the help. Now, what are we going to do about your own upkeep? At the very least, you’ll need ten new outfits per season, so you won’t be ashamed to be seen in public. Thank God Singapore only has two seasons — hot and hotter — so let’s just say, to be practical, you’ll only spend four thousand per look. That’s eighty thousand a year for wardrobe. I’ll throw in another twenty thousand for one good handbag and a few pairs of new shoes every season. And then there is your basic maintenance — hair, facials, mani, pedi, brazilian wax, eyebrow wax, massage, chiro, acupuncture, Pilates, yoga, core fusion, personal trainer. That’s another forty thousand a year. We’ve already spent four hundred and seventy thousand of Simon’s salary, which leaves just thirty thousand for everything else. How are you going to put food on the table and clothe your babies with that? How will you ever get away to an Aman resort twice a year? And we haven’t even taken into account your membership dues at Churchill Club and Pulau Club! Don’t you see? It’s impossible for you to marry Simon. We wouldn’t worry if you had your own money, but you know your situation. The clock is ticking on your pretty face. It’s time to cut your losses and let Lauren introduce you to one of those eligible Beijing billionaires before it’s too late.”
68
Cantonese for “What are you saying?” or, better yet, “What the hell are you talking about?”
69
Central Provident Fund, a mandatory savings scheme that Singaporeans contribute to each month to fund their retirement, health care, and housing. It’s a bit like the U.S. Social Security program, except that the CPF won’t be going broke anytime soon. CPF account holders earn an average of five percent interest per year, and the government also periodically gifts its citizens with bonuses and special shares, making Singapore the only country in the world that gives dividends to all its citizens when the economy does well. (Now you know why that Facebook fellow became a Singaporean.)