“I don’t know how I would even begin,” Alexandra said. “Why don’t you talk to her, Victoria? You’re so good at this sort of thing.”
“Me? Good grief, I don’t intend to exchange a single word with that girl!” Victoria declared.
“Tien, ah, you are all hopeless!” Su Yi groaned. Turning to one of her lady’s maids, she ordered, “Call Oliver T’sien. Tell him to come over right away.”
On the way home from the wedding reception, Nick had assured Rachel that his relationship with Mandy was ancient history. “We dated on and off till I was eighteen and went off to Oxford. It was puppy love. Now we’re just old friends who meet up every once in a while. You know, she lives in New York but we hardly ever meet — she’s way too busy going to A-list parties with that Zvi fellow,” Nick said.
Still, Rachel had sensed a distinctly territorial vibe coming from Mandy back at the fort, making her wonder if Mandy was truly over Nick. Now, as she was getting dressed for the most formal event she had ever been invited to, she wondered how she would compare to Mandy and all the other impossibly chic women in Nick’s orbit. She stood in front of the mirror, assessing herself. Her hair had been swept up into a loose French twist and pinned with three violet orchid blossoms, and she was wearing a midnight blue off-the-shoulder gown that draped elegantly across her hips before flaring out just above the knees into luxuriant folds of silk organza scattered with tiny freshwater pearls. She scarcely recognized herself.
There was a jaunty rap on the door. “Are you decent?” Nick called out.
“Yes, come in!” Rachel replied.
Nick opened the bedroom door and stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh wow!” he said.
“You like it?” Rachel asked bashfully.
“You look stunning,” Nick said, almost in a whisper.
“Do these flowers in my hair look silly?”
“Not at all.” Nick circled around her, admiring how the thousands of pearls shimmered like faraway stars. “It makes you look glamorous and exotic at the same time.”
“Thanks. You look pretty awesome yourself,” Rachel declared, admiring how utterly debonair Nick looked in his dinner jacket, with its streamlined grosgrain lapels perfectly accentuating his crisp white bow tie.
“Ready for your carriage?” Nick asked, entwining his arm through hers in a courtly manner.
“I guess so,” Rachel said, exhaling deeply. As they walked out of the bedroom, little Augustine Cheng came racing down the corridor.
“Whoa, Augustine, you’re going to break your neck,” Nick said, stopping him in his tracks. The little boy looked terrified.
“What’s wrong, little man?” Nick asked.
“I need to hide.” Augustine was panting.
“Why?”
“Papa’s after me. I spilled Orange Fanta all over his new suit.”
“Oh no!” Rachel said, trying not to giggle.
“He said he was going to kill me,” the boy said, shaking, with tears in his eyes.
“Oh, he’ll get over it. Come with us. I’ll make sure your father doesn’t kill you.” Nick laughed, taking Augustine by the hand.
At the bottom of the stairs, Eddie was arguing in Cantonese with Ling Cheh, the head housekeeper, and Nasi, the head laundry maid, while Fiona stood next to him in her Weimaraner-gray evening gown looking exasperated.
“I’m telling you, this type of fabric needs to soak for a few hours if you want to get the stain out properly,” the head laundry maid explained.
“A few hours? But we need to be at the wedding ball by seven thirty! This is an emergency, do you understand?” Eddie shouted, glaring at the Malay woman as if she didn’t understand English.
“Eddie, there’s no need to raise your voice. She understands,” Fiona said.
“How many laundry maids does my grandmother keep? There must be at least ten of you! Don’t tell me you people can’t fix this right now,” Eddie complained to Ling Cheh.
“Eddieboy, even if there were twenty of them, there’s no way it will be ready for tonight,” Ling Cheh insisted.
“But what am I going to wear? I had this tux specially made for me in Milan! Do you know how much it cost me?”
“I’m sure it was very, very expensive. And that’s exactly why we need to be gentle and let the stain lift properly,” Ling Cheh said, shaking her head. Eddieboy had been a pompous little monster even when he was five.
Eddie glanced up the staircase and noticed Augustine coming down with Nick and Rachel. “YOU LITTLE SHIT!” he screamed.
“Eddie, control yourself!” Fiona admonished.
“I’m going to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget!” Incandescent with rage, Eddie began to storm up the stairs.
“Stop it, Eddie,” Fiona said, grabbing hold of his arm.
“You’re wrinkling my shirt, Fi!” Eddie scowled. “Like mother like son—”
“Eddie, you need to calm down. Just wear one of the other two tuxes you brought,” Fiona said in a measured tone.
“Don’t be stupid! I’ve already worn both of those the past two nights. I had everything perfectly planned until this little bastard came along! Stop hiding, you little bastard! Be a man and accept your punishment!” Eddie broke free from his wife and lunged toward the boy with his right arm outstretched.
Augustine whimpered, cowering behind Nick. “Eddie, you’re not really going to hit your six-year-old son over a harmless accident, are you?” Nick said lightheartedly.
“Harmless? Fucky fuck, he’s ruined everything! The monochromatic fashion statement I was planning for the whole family is RUINED because of him!”
“And you’ve just ruined the whole trip for me!” Fiona suddenly blurted out. “I’m so sick of all this. Why is it so damn important for us to look picture-perfect every time we walk out the door? Who exactly are you trying to impress? The photographers? The readers of Hong Kong Tattle? You really care so much about them that you’d rather hit your own son over an accident that you caused in the first place by screaming at him for wearing the wrong cummerbund?”
“But, but …” Eddie sputtered in protest.
Fiona turned to Nick, her serene expression returning. “Nick, can my children and I ride with you to the ball?”
“Er … if you’d like,” Nick said cautiously, not wanting to further incite his cousin.
“Good. I have no desire to be seen with a tyrant.” Fiona took Augustine by the hand and started up the stairs. She paused for a moment as she passed Rachel. “You look amazing in that dress. But you know what? It needs something.” Fiona proceeded to take off the sapphire-and-diamond choker she had just been given by Su Yi and placed it around Rachel’s neck. “Now the outfit looks complete. I insist that you borrow it for tonight.”
“You’re too kind, but what will you wear?” Rachel asked in astonishment.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Fiona said, giving her husband a dark stare. “I’m not going to be wearing a single piece of jewelry tonight. I was born a Tung, and I have nothing to prove to anyone.”
7
Pasir Panjang Road
SINGAPORE
“Never, never let young people plan their own weddings, because this is what you end up with!” Mrs. Lee Yong Chien fumed to Puan Sri Mavis Oon. They were standing in the middle of an enormous warehouse in the Keppel Shipyard along with seven hundred other VIPs and VVIPs, utterly baffled by the Cuban band dressed in forties Tropicana splendor on the stage. People like Mrs. Lee were used to only one kind of Chinese wedding banquet — the kind that took place in the grand ballroom of a five-star hotel. There would be the gorging on salted peanuts during the interminable wait for the fourteen-course dinner to begin, the melting ice sculptures, the outlandish floral centerpieces, the society matron invariably offended by the faraway table she had been placed at, the entrance of the bride, the malfunctioning smoke machine, the entrance of the bride again and again in five different gowns throughout the night, the crying child choking on a fish ball, the three dozen speeches by politicians, token ang mor executives and assorted high-ranking officials of no relation to the wedding couple, the cutting of the twelve-tier cake, someone’s mistress making a scene, the not so subtle counting of wedding cash envelopes by some cousin,[84] the ghastly Canto pop star flown in from Hong Kong to scream some pop song (a chance for the older crowd to take an extended toilet break), the distribution of tiny wedding fruitcakes with white icing in paper boxes to all the departing guests, and then Yum seng![85]—the whole affair would be over and everyone would make the mad dash to the hotel lobby to wait half an hour for their car and driver to make it through the traffic jam.
84
The custom at Chinese weddings is for guests to contribute a cash gift meant to help defray the cost of the lavish banquet, and it is usually the task of some unfortunate second cousin to collect and keep track of all these cash-stuffed envelopes.