Crazy Rich Asians (19 page)

The waiter, a sweaty teenager in a soccer T-shirt who didn’t look old enough to pass
child labor laws, approached the table to take Nick’s order.

“I’ll have the beef curry pie, please. And a Coke, extra ice.”

Colin finally broke his silence. “As always, beef curry pie and Coke, extra ice. You
never change, do you?”

“What can I tell you? I know what I like,” Nick said simply.

“Even though you always like the exact same thing, you can always change your mind
whenever you wish. That’s the difference between us—you still have choices.”

“Come on, that’s not true. You
can
choose.”

“Nicky, I haven’t been in the position to make a single choice since I was born, and
you know that,” Colin said matter-of-factly. “It’s a good thing I actually want to
marry Araminta. I just don’t know how I’ll make it through the Broadway production,
that’s all. I have this perverse fantasy of kidnapping her, jumping on a plane, and
marrying her at some little twenty-four-hour chapel in the middle of nowhere Nevada.”

“So why not do it? The wedding isn’t until next week, but if you’re already this miserable,
why not call it off?”

“You know this merger has been choreographed down to the most minute detail, and this
is how it’s going to be. It’s good for business, and anything that’s good for business
is good for the family,” Colin said bitterly. “Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on the
inevitable anymore. Let’s talk about last night. How was I? Sufficiently cheery for
Rachel, I hope?”

“Rachel loved you. It was a nice surprise to be welcomed like that, but you know,
you don’t ever have to put on a show for her.”

“I don’t? What have you told her about me?” Colin asked warily.

“I haven’t told her anything, besides the fact that you once had an unhealthy obsession
with Kristin Scott Thomas.”

Colin laughed. Nick was relieved—it was a sign that the clouds were dissipating.

“You didn’t tell her about how I tried to stalk Kristin in Paris, did you?” Colin
continued.

“Er, no. I wasn’t going to give her any more opportunities to back out of this trip
by giving her full insight into my weird friends.”

“Speaking of weird, could you believe how nice Araminta was being to Rachel?”

“I think you’re underestimating Araminta’s ability to be nice.”

“Well, you know how she normally is with new people. But I think she wants to keep
you on her side. And she could see that I liked Rachel instantly.”

“I’m so glad.” Nick smiled.

“To be quite honest, I thought I might be slightly jealous of her
at first, but I think she’s great. She’s not clingy, and she’s so refreshingly … American.
You do realize that everyone is talking about you and Rachel, right? Everyone is already
taking bets on the wedding date.”

Nick sighed. “Colin, I’m not thinking about my wedding right now. I’m thinking about
yours
. I’m just trying to live in the here and now.”

“So speaking of the here and now, when are you going to introduce Rachel to your grandmother?”

“I was thinking tonight. That’s why I went to see my grandmother—to get Rachel invited
to dinner.”

“I’ll say a little prayer,” Colin quipped as he finished his last chicken wing. He
knew how momentous it was for Nick’s famously reclusive grandmother to invite a virtual
stranger into her house. “You do realize that everything’s going to change the minute
you take Rachel into that house, don’t you?”

“Funny, Astrid said the same thing. You know, Rachel is not expecting anything—she’s
never put any pressure on me when it comes to marriage. In fact, we’ve never even
discussed it.”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean.” Colin tried to clarify. “It’s just that the two
of you have been living this idyllic fantasy, this simple ‘young lovers in Greenwich
Village’ life. Up until now, you’ve been the guy struggling to get tenure. Don’t you
think she’s in for quite a shock tonight?”

“What do you mean? I
am
struggling to get tenure, and I don’t see how Rachel meeting my grandmother will
change things.”

“Come on, Nicky, don’t be naïve. The minute she walks into that house, it
will
affect your relationship. I’m not saying that things are going to be bad, necessarily,
but an innocence will be lost. You won’t be able to go back to the way it was before,
that’s for sure. No matter what, you’ll forever be transformed in her eyes, just like
all my former girlfriends the minute they found out I was
that
Colin Khoo. I’m only trying to prepare you a bit.”

Nick pondered what Colin had just said for a while. “I think you’re wrong, Colin.
First of all, our situations are so completely different. My family isn’t like yours.
You’ve been groomed since day one to be the future CEO of the Khoo Organization, but
nothing of the sort exists in my family. We don’t even
have
a family business. And yes, I might have well-to-do cousins and all that, but you
know my
situation isn’t like theirs. I’m not like Astrid, who inherited all her great-aunt’s
money, or my Shang cousins.”

Colin shook his head. “Nicky, Nicky, this is why I love you. You are the only person
in all of Asia who doesn’t realize how rich you are, or should I say, how rich you
will be one day. Here, hand over your wallet.”

Nick was puzzled, but he took his well-worn brown leather wallet out of his back pocket
and handed it to Colin. “You’ll see I have about fifty dollars inside.”

Colin fished out Nick’s New York State driver’s license and held it in front of his
face. “Tell me what this says.”

Nick rolled his eyes but played along. “Nicholas A. Young.”

“Yes, that’s it. YOUNG. Now, out of your entire family, are there any other male cousins
with this surname?”

“No.”

“My point exactly. Besides your father, you are the only
Young
left in the line. You
are
the heir apparent, whether you choose to believe it or not. What’s more, your grandmother
adores you. And everyone knows your grandmother controls
both
the Shang and Young fortunes.”

Nick shook his head, partly in disbelief at Colin’s presumption, but more because
speaking of such things—even with his best friend—made him rather uneasy. It was something
that had been conditioned into him since an early age. (He could still remember the
time when he was seven, coming home from school and asking his grandmother at teatime,
“My classmate Bernard Tai says that his father is very very rich, and that we’re very
very rich too. Is that true?” His aunt Victoria, immersed in her
London Times
, suddenly put her paper down and launched into him, “Nicky, boys with proper manners
do not
ever
ask questions like that. You do not ever ask people if they are rich or discuss matters
concerning money. We are not rich—we are simply well-off. Now, apologize to your Ah
Ma.”)

Colin continued. “Why do you think my grandfather, who treats everyone so dismissively,
treats you like a visiting prince every time he sees you?”

“And here I thought your grandfather just liked me.”

“My grandfather is an
asshole
. He only cares about power and prestige and expanding the fucking Khoo empire. That’s
why he encouraged this whole thing with Araminta to begin with, and that’s
why he’s always dictated whom I could be friends with. Even when we were kids, I remember
him saying, ‘You be nice to that Nicholas. Remember, we are nothing compared to the
Youngs.’ ”

“Your grandfather is going senile, I think. Anyway, all this inheritance nonsense
is really beside the point, because, as you’ll soon see, Rachel is not the sort of
girl who cares about any of that. She may be an economist, but she’s the least materialistic
person I know.”

“Well, then, I wish you the best. But you do realize that even in the here and now,
dark forces are at work plotting against you?”

“What is this,
Harry Potter
?” Nick sniggered. “That’s what you just sounded like. Yes, I am aware that even now
dark forces are trying to sabotage me, as you put it. Astrid’s already warned me,
my mother inexplicably decided to go to China right when I arrived, and I had to enlist
my great-aunt to persuade my grandmother into inviting Rachel tonight. But you know
what? I don’t really give a damn.”

“I don’t think it’s your mother you have to worry about.”

“Then whom should I be worried about, exactly? Tell me who is bored enough to waste
their time trying to ruin my relationship, and why?”

“Practically every girl of marriageable age on the island
and
their mothers.”

Nick laughed. “Wait a minute—why me? Aren’t you Asia’s most eligible bachelor?”

“I’m a lame duck. Everyone knows that nothing in the world is going to stop Araminta
from walking down that aisle next week. I hereby pass the crown on to you.” Colin
chuckled, folding his paper napkin into a pyramid and placing it on Nick’s head. “Now
you are a marked man.”

Rachel and Peik Lin

After they had finished lunch, Neena insisted on giving Rachel a complete tour of
Villa d’Oro’s other wing (which, not surprisingly, was done up in the baroque-on-crack
style Rachel had gotten a whiff of earlier). Neena also proudly showed off her rose
garden and the Canova sculpture they had recently installed there (thankfully spared
the gold treatment). With the tour finally over, Peik Lin suggested that they head
back to the hotel to relax over afternoon tea, since Rachel was still feeling a bit
jet-lagged. “Your hotel serves a terrific high tea, with fabulous
nyonya kueh
.”
^*

“But I’m still full from lunch,” Rachel protested.

“Well, you’ll just have to get used to the Singaporean eating schedule. We eat five
times a day here—breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, and late-night supper.”

“God, I’m going to put on so much weight while I’m here.”

“No you won’t. That’s the one good thing about this heat—you’ll sweat it all out!”

“You might be right about that—I don’t know how you guys deal
with this weather,” Rachel said. “I’ll have tea, but let’s find the coldest spot inside.”

They made themselves comfortable in the terrace café, which had a view of the pool
but was blessedly air-conditioned. Smartly uniformed waiters walked by with trays
bearing a selection of tea cakes, pastries, and
nyonya
delicacies.

“Mmmm … you need to try this
kueh
,” Peik Lin said, putting a slice of glutinous rice-and-coconut custard on Rachel’s
plate. Rachel took a bite, finding the juxtaposition of subtly sweet custard with
almost-savory sticky rice to be surprisingly addictive. She looked around at the bucolic
garden, most of the deck chairs now occupied by guests asleep in the late-afternoon
sun.

“I still can’t believe Colin’s family owns this hotel,” Rachel said, taking another
bite of the
kueh
.

“Believe it, Rachel. And they own a lot more besides—hotels all over the world, commercial
properties, banks, mining companies. The list goes on and on.”

“Colin seems
so
modest. I mean, we went to one of those outdoor food markets for dinner.”

“There’s nothing unusual about that. Everyone here loves the hawker centers. Remember,
this is Asia, and first impressions can be deceiving. You know how most Asians hoard
their money. The rich are even more extreme. Many of the wealthiest people here make
an effort not to stand out, and most of the time, you would never know you were standing
next to a billionaire.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but
your
family seems to enjoy their wealth.”

“My grandfather came over from China and started out as a bricklayer. He is a self-made
man, and he’s instilled the same ‘work hard, play hard’ ethic in all of us. But come
on, we’re not in the same league as the Khoos. The Khoos are
crazy rich
. They are always at the top of the
Forbes
‘Asia Rich List.’ And you know that’s just the tip of the iceberg with these families.
Forbes
only reports on the assets they can verify, and these rich Asians are so secretive
about their holdings. The richest families are always richer by billions than what
Forbes
estimates.”

A piercing electronic melody began to play. “What’s that sound?” Rachel asked, before
realizing it was her new Singapore cell phone.

It was Nick calling. “Hey you,” she answered with a smile.

“Hey yourself! Having a nice afternoon catching up with your friend?”

“Absolutely. We’re back at the hotel enjoying high tea. What are you up to?”

“I’m standing here staring at Colin in his underwear.”

“WHAT did you say?”

Nick laughed. “I’m over at Colin’s. The tuxes just came in, and we’re having the tailor
make some final adjustments.”

“Oh. How does yours look? Is it powder blue with ruffles?”