China Rich Girlfriend (23 page)

“My goodness, it's just like the Bellagio dancing fountain in Las Vegas!” Mrs. Bing squealed in delight.

“When did you have this put in?” Jack asked his daughter.

“They've been working on it in secret for months. I wanted it to be ready in time for my summer garden party with Pan TingTing,” Colette proudly explained.

“All this just to impress Pan TingTing!”

“Nonsense—I did this for Mother!”

“And how much is this costing me?”

“Oh—it was much less than you might think. Only around twenty bucks.”

Colette's father sighed, shaking his head in resignation.

Nick and Rachel exchanged looks. They knew that among the wealthy Chinese, “bucks” meant “millions.”

Colette turned to Rachel. “Do you like it?”

“It's spectacular. And whoever is singing sounds a lot like Celine Dion,” Rachel said.

“It
is
Celine. It's her famous duet in Mandarin with Song Zuying,” Colette said.

As the water spectacle ended, a line of maids entered the dining terrace, each bearing an antique Meissen platter. The lights came on again, and in perfect unison the maids placed a platter of parchment chicken in front of each dinner guest. Everyone began undoing their parchments, which had been adorably knotted in butcher's twine, and tantalizing aromas came seeping out of the golden-brown paper. As Nick was about to take his first bite into the succulent-looking chicken thigh, he spied the trusty Roxanne creep up to Colette and whisper something into her ear. Colette grinned broadly and nodded. She looked across the table at Rachel and said, “I have one final surprise for you.”

Rachel saw Bao Gaoliang coming up the stairs to the dining room. Everyone at the table rose in deference to the high-ranking minister. Gasping in delight, Rachel got up from her seat to greet her father. Bao Gaoliang looked just as surprised to see Rachel. He hugged her warmly, much to Carlton's astonishment. He had never seen his father display physical affection for anyone like that before, not even his mother.

“I am so sorry to interrupt your dinner. I was in Beijing a few hours ago, and I suddenly got strong-armed by these two conspirators and put onto a plane,” Gaoliang said, gesturing toward Carlton and Colette.

“No interruption at all. It is an honor to have you here with us, Bao
Buzhang
,”
^*2
Jack Bing said, getting up and patting Gaoliang on the back. “This calls for a celebration. Where's Baptiste? We need some very special Tiger Bone wine.”

“Yes, tiger power for everyone!” Richie cheered, getting up to shake Bao Gaoliang's hand. “That was a very insightful speech you gave last week about the dangers of monetary inflation,
Lingdao
.”
^*3

“Oh, were you there?” Bao Gaoliang asked.

“No, I watched it on CCTV. I'm a politics junkie.”

“Well, I'm glad some of you younger generation pay attention to this country's affairs,” Gaoliang said, casting a sideways glance at Carlton.

“I only pay attention when I feel like our leaders are being on the level with me. I don't watch any of the speeches that are all hype or rhetoric.”

Carlton had to resist rolling his eyes.

A place setting next to Rachel was swiftly arranged for Gaoliang, and Colette graciously gestured, “Bao
Buzhang
, please do sit down.”

“I'm sorry to see that Mrs. Bao couldn't join us. Is she still held up in Hong Kong?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, unfortunately. But she sends her regards,” Gaoliang said quickly.

Carlton let out a snort. Everyone at the table looked at him momentarily. Carlton looked like he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind and chugged a full glass of Montrachet in several quick gulps.

As the meal resumed, Rachel filled her father in on everything they had done since arriving in Shanghai, while Nick chatted amiably with the Bings and Richie Yang. Nick was relieved that Bao Gaoliang had finally shown up, and he could see how excited Rachel was to spend time with him. But he couldn't help noticing that a few seats away, Carlton sat stone-faced while Colette seemed to be getting more and more agitated as each course was served.
What's the deal? Both of them look like they could spontaneously combust at any moment
.

Suddenly, while everyone was in the midst of savoring the Lanzhou-style hand-pulled noodles with lobster and abalone, Colette put down her chopsticks and whispered into her father's ear. The two of them abruptly got up. “Please excuse us for a moment,” Colette said with a forced smile.

Colette marched her father downstairs and as soon as they were out of earshot, she began to scream: “What is the point of hiring the best butler in England to teach you proper manners, when you just won't learn? You were slurping your noodles so loudly, it made my teeth ache! And the way you spit out your bones onto the table, my God, Christian Liaigre would have a heart attack if he knew what was happening on his beautiful table! And how many times have I told you not to kick your shoes off when we are dining with company? Don't lie to me—I could smell something from a mile away, and I know it wasn't the snow-pea shoots simmered in stinky tofu!”

Jack laughed at his daughter's tantrum. “I am the son of a fisherman.
I keep telling you, you cannot change me. But don't worry, it doesn't matter how good my manners are. As long as
this
remains fat,” he patted the wallet in his back pocket, “even in China's best dining rooms, no one will care if I spit on the table.”

“Rubbish! Everyone can change! Look how well Mother is doing—she hardly chews with her mouth open anymore, and she wields her chopsticks like an elegant Shanghainese
lady
.”

Colette's father shook his head in amusement. “Hiyah, I really pity that idiot Richie Yang. He doesn't know what he's getting himself into.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Don't try to deceive your own father. Your plan of dangling Carlton Bao in front of Richie has paid off like a charm. I have a feeling he's planning to propose to you any day now.”

“That's ridiculous,” Colette said, still fuming at her father's negligent etiquette.

“Really? Then why did he beg his way onto my plane to ask my permission for your hand in marriage?”

“How silly of him. I hope you told him exactly where he could stuff that proposal.”

“Actually, I gave Richie my blessing. I think it will be a brilliant match, not to mention that I will finally be able to stop fighting over companies with his father.” Jack grinned, flashing the crooked incisor that Colette was constantly begging him to get fixed.

“Don't start getting any fantasies of mergers, Dad, because I have no interest in marrying Richie Yang.”

Jack laughed, and then he said in a low whisper, “Silly girl, I never asked if you were interested in marrying him. Your
interest
is not my concern.”

Then he turned and headed back upstairs.

HONG KONG

She's late again
. Corinna stood fuming by the revolving doors outside Glory Tower. She had specifically told Kitty to arrive no later than ten thirty, but it was now almost eleven.
I'm going to have to give her my punctuality lecture—the one I haven't had to use since working with that Burmese family in 2002
, Corinna thought as she nodded politely at all the nicely dressed people rushing past her into the building.

A few minutes later, Kitty's modest new pearl white Mercedes S-Class sedan pulled up at the curb, and Kitty emerged from the car. Corinna jabbed at her watch anxiously, and Kitty quickened her pace across the plaza. At least Kitty had diligently followed her advice in the appearance department and gone were the complicated up-do, the overly whitened face, and the burlesque-red lipstick.

In their place, the immaculately transformed Kitty only had a dusting of blush on her cheeks, a light apricot gloss on her lips, and a relaxed mane of chestnut-highlighted hair cut four inches shorter. She wore a baby-chicken-yellow Carolina Herrera dress with silk faille puff sleeves, low-heeled beige pumps of indeterminate brand, and a simple Givenchy green crocodile clutch, with her only jewelry being a pair of pearl stud earrings and a dainty diamond sideways cross necklace by Ileana Makri. The overall effect rendered her virtually unrecognizable.

“You're very late! Now we will be
noticed
when we enter, as opposed to blending in with the crowd,” Corinna scolded.

“I'm sorry—this whole church thing has got me so nervous, I changed six times. Does this look okay?” Kitty asked, readjusting the pleats on her skirt.

Corinna scrutinized her for a moment. “The cross might be overdoing it a bit for your first visit, but I will let it pass. Otherwise, it looks quite appropriate—you no longer remind me of Daphne Guinness.”

“The church is inside this office building?” Kitty asked, a little confused as they entered the peach-marble-clad lobby of Glory Tower.

“I told you, this is a very special church,” Corinna replied as they went up an escalator to the main reception hall. There, a greeting table draped with ruffled blue bunting was manned by a trio of teenage greeters and several security guards. An American girl with a headset and an iPad came bounding toward them with a big toothy grin. “Good morning! Are you joining us for the main service or the Seekers' Class?”

“The main service,” Corinna answered.

“Your names, please?”

“Corinna Ko-Tung and Kitty—I mean—Katherine Tai,” Corinna replied, using the name Kitty had used before she became a soap-opera star.

The girl scrolled through her iPad and said, “I'm sorry, I don't see you on the list for Sunday services.”

“Oh, I forgot to mention—we're guests of Helen Mok-Asprey.”

“Okay, yes, I see you here. Helen Mok-Asprey plus two.”

A female security guard approached and presented each of them with lanyards with freshly printed name badges attached in plastic sleeves. Printed in a vibrant purple font were the words “Stratosphere Church Sunday Worship—Guest of Helen Mok-Asprey,” followed by the church's motto in italics:
Communing with Christ at a Higher Level
.

“Put these on and take the first elevator up to the forty-fifth floor,” the guard instructed.

When Kitty and Corinna reached the forty-fifth floor, another greeter with a headset stood waiting to escort them to an elevator bank across the hall, this one taking them up to the seventy-ninth floor.

“We're almost there—just one more set of elevators,” Corinna said as she straightened the collar on Kitty's dress.

“Are we going all the way to the top?”

“The very top. See—I told you to be early precisely because it takes fifteen minutes just to get up there.”

“All this trouble for a church!” Kitty grumbled.

“Kitty, you are about to enter the most exclusive church in Hong Kong—Stratosphere was started by the billionaire Pentecostal Siew sisters, and it is strictly by invitation. Not only is it the highest church in the world, at ninety-nine storys above the earth, but it boasts more members on the
South China Morning Post
's rich list than any other private club on the island.”

With that introduction, the elevator doors opened onto the ninety-ninth floor, and Kitty was momentarily blinded by the light. She found herself standing in the apex of the tower under a soaring atrium, its cathedral-like ceilings constructed almost entirely of glass flooding the space with intense sunlight. Kitty wanted to put on her sunglasses, but she suspected this would elicit another scolding from Corinna.

The next thing to assault her senses was the blaring rock music. As they took a seat in one of the back rows, Kitty saw hundreds of worshippers with their hands raised and waving in unison as they sang along to the Christian rock band. The band was made up of a strapping blond lead singer who could have passed for a Hemsworth brother, a Chinese female drummer with a buzz cut, another white guy on bass guitar, three college-age Chinese girls singing backup, and a scrawny teenage Chinese boy in a green Izod shirt three sizes too big pounding away frantically on a Yamaha keyboard.

Everyone sang: “
Jesus Christ, come into me! Jesus Christ, come fill me up!
”

Kitty took in the whole spectacle with childlike awe—none of this was anything like what she ever imagined a Christian church service to be: the celestial light, the thumping music, the hunky rock god onstage, and best of all, the view. From her seat, she had a jaw-dropping bird's-eye view of Hong Kong Island, from Pacific Place mall in Admiralty all the way to North Point. If this wasn't heaven on earth, what was? She took out her phone and began snapping a few covert pictures. She had never seen the top of 2IFC up close before.

“What on earth do you think you're doing? Put that away! You're in the house of God!” Corinna hissed into her ear.

Kitty put away her phone red-faced, but whispered to Corinna, “You lied to me—look how everyone is dressed to the nines except me!” Kitty said, pointing to the young woman in the front row in a white Chanel suit, the three enormous Bulgari gemstone rings on her fingers sparkling brightly as she waved her arms back and forth.

“She's the pastor's wife. She is entitled to dress like that, but as a new visitor, you can't.”

Kitty was aggravated at first, but as she gazed at the gigantic cumulus clouds in the crisp azure sky, with the roar of the catchy chorus in her ears and everyone around her singing their guts out, she began to feel strange new emotions stirring within. The dapper guy in the hounds-tooth jacket and tight Saint Laurent jeans next to her was screeching off-key, “
Everything I need is right here, Jesus! Everything I neeeeed
,” tears of joy streaming down his face. She found it strangely sexy to see this young hipster crying so openly. After half an hour of singing, the blond lead singer—who turned out to be the pastor—said to the congregation in an American accent, “It fills me with so much joy to see all your bright happy faces today. Let's share the love! Let's share the joy by passing it along to the person next to you! How about that?”

Before Kitty knew what was happening, the crying hipster turned to her and gave her a big bear hug. Then the middle-aged
tai tai
in front of her turned around and embraced her warmly. Kitty was stunned. Hong Kongers—
hugging each other!
How was this possible? And not just one or two friends who knew each other.
Perfect strangers
were hugging each other and introducing themselves. This was a miracle. My God, if this was what it was like to be a Christian, she wanted in right now!

When the service finally concluded, Corinna turned to Kitty. “At last, time for coffee and cake. Follow me.”

“I don't want to spoil my appetite. Aren't we going to Cuisine Cuisine for lunch?”

“Kitty, the whole reason I brought you here is so you can socialize with these people over coffee and cake. This is the main event. Many of the members are the younger generation of Hong Kong old-guard families, and this is the best chance you have of getting to know them. They will be much more accepting of you because they are born-again Christians.”

“Born again? How can you be born twice?”

“Hiyah, I'll explain later. But the important thing you need to know about being a born-again Christian is that once you repent and accept Jesus into your heart, you are forgiven for all your sins no matter what
they are. Whether you murdered your parents, slept with your stepson, or embezzled millions to fund your singing career—these people
have
to forgive you. Now what I hope to accomplish today is to get you into one of the Bible Study Fellowships. The group that everyone wants to join is Helen Mok-Asprey's, but it's a very closed circle of only the top ladies. To begin with, I would aim for the group led by my niece Justina Wei. It's a younger crowd, and there are quite a few girls from good families in that one. Justina's paternal grandfather, Wei Ra Men, started Yummy Cup Noodles, so everyone calls her the Instant Noodle Heiress.”

Kitty was steered toward a moon-faced woman in her early thirties. She couldn't believe that this person dressed in a secretary-like navy pantsuit was the noodle heiress she had heard so much about. “Justina—hiyah,
gum noi moh gin
!
^*1
Meet my friend Katherine Tai.”

“Hello. Are you related to Stephen Tai?” Justina asked, immediately trying to place Kitty on her social map.

“Um, no.”

Justina, who was usually only comfortable talking to people she knew from birth, was forced to resort to her default question. “So, which school did you go to?”

“I didn't go to school in Hong Kong,” Kitty responded, a little flustered. Justina's long, frizzy, limp hair reminded her of instant noodles. She wondered what would happen if you poured boiling water over them and let them sit for three minutes.

“Katherine went to school abroad,” Corinna quickly interjected.

“Oh—is this your first time worshipping with us?” Justina cocked her head.

“Yes.”

“Well then, welcome to Stratosphere. Which church do you normally attend?”

Kitty tried to think of all the churches she passed every single day on the way down from her apartment on The Peak, but her mind temporarily went blank. “Er, the Church of Volturi,” she blurted out, picturing the church-like space from the
Twilight
movies where those scary old vampires sat on thrones.

“Oh, I don't know that one. Is it over on Kowloon side?”

“Yes it is,” Corinna said, coming to the rescue again. “I really must introduce Kit—I mean Katherine to Helen Mok-Asprey. I see Helen
already grabbing the flowers from the church altar, so I know she's about to leave.”

Pulling Kitty off to the side, Corinna said, “My God, that was an utter disaster! What is wrong with you today? Where is the girl who charmed the socks off Evangeline de Ayala?”

“Sorry, sorry, I don't know what's happening. I guess I'm just not used to all this—my new name, pretending to be a Christian, dressing this way. Without my normal makeup or proper jewelry, I feel like I don't have my armor on. People always used to ask me about what I was wearing, and now I can't even talk about that.”

Corinna shook her head in dismay. “You're an actress! It's time you put your improv skills to the test. Just think of it as playing a new role. Remember, you are no longer the evil twin sister. You are the good wife now. You spend all your time taking care of your invalid husband and your young daughter, and this is the only time all week you get to socialize with people. So you must be animated and grateful. Now let's try again with Helen Mok-Asprey. Helen was born a Mok, divorced a Quek, and is now married to Sir Harold Asprey. You should address her as Lady Asprey.”

Corinna steered Kitty toward the hospitality table, where a woman with an enormous coiffed helmet of hair was furtively wrapping up six enormous slices of Black Forest cake in paper napkins and stuffing them into her big black Oroton handbag. “Helen, thank you so much for putting us on your list today!” Corinna chirped.

Helen jumped a little. “Oh, hi, Corinna. I'm just taking home a little bit of cake for Harold. You know what a sweet tooth he has.”

“Yes, Harold's just like you when it comes to sweets, isn't he? Before you leave, I wanted to introduce my guest Katherine Tai. Katherine used to belong to the Volturi Church in Kowloon, but she's thinking of changing.”

“I love your church! Thank you so much for inviting us today, Lady Asprey,” Kitty said sweetly.

Helen looked Kitty up and down. “What a lovely little cross that is,” she complimented, before turning to Corinna and saying, sotto voce, “I had one very similar to that, but I think one of the new maids stole it. Those new girls from
youknowwhere
are just so untrustworthy. My God, I miss my Norma and Natty. You know, I paid them so well that now they've abandoned me to start a beach bar in Cebu.”

A lady chicly attired in a celadon-colored A-line dress came up to the
table with two carafes freshly refilled with coffee. “My goodness, what happened to all the cake? I guess I have to go down to the kitchen again.” She sighed.

“Oh Fi—before you run off, meet my friend Katherine Tai. Katherine, this is my cousin Fiona Tung-Cheng,” Corinna said.

“Pleased to meet you, Katherine,” Fiona said, before giving Kitty a more discerning look. “You look so familiar. Are you by any chance related to Stephen Tai?”

“They're distant cousins,” Corinna cut in, trying to stop her from asking more questions.

Kitty smiled calmly at Fiona and said, “You know I just adore your dress. Narciso Rodriguez, isn't it?”