Crazy Rich Asians (21 page)

“Okay, I’ll tell the cook to make you something when you get home. What do you feel
like eating?” she offered cheerily.

“No, no, don’t bother. I’m sure we’ll be ordering food here.”

A likely story
. Astrid hung up the phone reluctantly.
Where was he going to order the food? From room service at some cheap hotel in Geylang?
There was no way he could meet this girl at a decent hotel—someone was bound to recognize
him
. She remembered a time not long ago when Michael would be so sweetly apologetic for
missing any family occasion. He would say soothing things like, “Honey, I’m soooo
sorry I can’t make it. Are you sure you’ll be okay going on your own?” But that gentler
side of him had dissipated. When exactly did that happen? And why had it taken her
so long to notice the signals?

Ever since that day at Stephen Chia Jewels, Astrid had experienced a catharsis of
sorts. In some perverse way, she was relieved to have proof of her husband’s unfaithfulness.
It was the uncertainty of it all—the cloak-and-dagger suspicions—that had been killing
her. Now she could, as a psychologist might say, “learn to accept and learn to adapt.”
She could concentrate on the bigger picture. Sooner or later the fling would be over
and life would go on, as it did for the
millions of wives who quietly endured their husbands’ infidelities since time immemorial.

There would be no need for fights, no hysterical confrontations. That would be much
too cliché, even though every silly thing her husband had done could have come straight
out of one of those “Is My Husband Cheating on Me?” quizzes from some cheesy women’s
magazine:
Has your husband been going on more business trips lately?
Check.
Are you making love less frequently?
Check.
Has your husband incurred mysterious expenses with no explanation?
Double check. She could add a new line to the quiz:
Is your husband getting text messages late at night from some girl proclaiming to
miss his fat cock?
CHECK. Astrid’s head was beginning to spin again. She could feel her blood pressure
rise. She needed to sit down for a minute and take a few deep breaths. Why had she
missed yoga all week, when she so badly needed to release the tension that had been
building up? Stop. Stop. Stop. She needed to put all this out of her mind and just
be in the moment. Right now, in this moment, she needed to get ready for Ah Ma’s party.

Astrid noticed her reflection in the glass coffee table and decided to change her
outfit. She was wearing an old favorite—a gauzy black tunic dress by Ann Demeulemeester,
but she felt like she needed to turn up the volume tonight. She was not going to let
Michael’s absence ruin her night. She was not going to spend one more second thinking
about where he could possibly be going, what he might or might not be doing. She was
determined that this would be a magical night of wild blooming flowers under the stars,
and that only good things would happen.
Good things always happened at Ah Ma’s
.

She went into the spare bedroom, which had basically become an extra closet for her
overflow of clothes (and this didn’t even include the rooms upon rooms of clothes
she still kept at her parents’ house). The space was filled with metal rolling racks
on which garment bags of outfits had been meticulously organized by season and color,
and Astrid had to move one of the racks into the hallway in order to fit comfortably
into the room. This apartment was much too tiny for the family of three (four if you
counted the nanny, Evangeline, who slept in Cassian’s room), but she had made the
best of it for the sake of her husband.

Most of Astrid’s friends would have been utterly horrified to discover the conditions
in which she lived. To the majority of Singaporeans, a spacious two-thousand-square-foot,
three-bedroom condo
with two and a half baths and a private balcony in District Nine would be a cherished
luxury, but for Astrid, who had grown up in such palatial surroundings as her father’s
stately house on Nassim Road, the modernist weekend beach bungalow in Tanah Merah,
the vast family plantation in Kuantan, and her grandmother’s Tyersall Park estate,
it was totally unfathomable.

As a wedding gift, her father had planned to commission an up-and-coming Brazilian
architect to build the newlyweds a house in Bukit Timah on land that had already been
deeded to Astrid, but Michael would have none of that. He was a proud man and insisted
on living in a place that he could afford to purchase. “I am capable of providing
for your daughter and our future family,” he had informed his stunned future father-in-law,
who instead of being impressed by the gesture, found it rather foolhardy. How was
this fellow ever going to afford the kind of place his daughter was accustomed to
on his salary? Michael’s meager savings would barely even get them a down payment
on a private flat, and Harry found it inconceivable that his daughter might live in
government-subsidized housing. Why couldn’t they at the very least just move into
one of the houses or luxury apartments that she already owned? But Michael was adamant
that he and his wife begin their life on neutral territory. In the end, a compromise
was struck and Michael agreed to let both Astrid and her father match what he was
able to put in as a down payment. The combined amount allowed them a thirty-year fixed
mortgage on this condo in an eighties-era apartment complex off Clemenceau Avenue.

As Astrid sifted through the racks, it suddenly, rather comically, occurred to her
that the money she had spent on the couture outfits in this room alone could have
paid for a house three times the size of this one. She wondered what Michael might
think if he knew actually how many properties she already owned. Astrid’s parents
bought their children houses in a way that other parents might buy theirs candy bars.
Over the years, they had purchased so many houses for her that by the time she became
Mrs. Michael Teo, she was already in possession of a staggering real estate portfolio.
There was the bungalow off Dunearn Road, the house in Clementi and the semidetached
on Chancery Lane, a row of historic Peranakan shop houses on Emerald Hill left to
her by a great-aunt on the Leong side, and numerous other luxury condominiums scattered
throughout the island.

And that was just in Singapore. There were land holdings in Malaysia; a flat in London
that Charlie Wu had secretly bought for her; a house in Sydney’s exclusive Point Piper
and another in Diamond Head, Honolulu; and recently, her mother had mentioned picking
up a penthouse in some new tower in Shanghai under her name. (“I saw the special computer
mirror in the closet that remembers everything you wear and immediately
knew
this place was for you,” Felicity had excitedly informed her.) Quite frankly, Astrid
didn’t even bother trying to remember all of it; there were too many properties to
keep track of.

It was all quite meaningless anyway, since aside from the shop houses on Emerald Hill
and the London flat, none of the properties were truly hers—yet. This was all part
of her parents’ wealth-succession strategy, and Astrid knew that as long as her parents
were alive, she had no real control over the properties, though she benefited from
the income derived from them. Twice a year, when the family sat down with their business
managers at Leong Holdings, she would notice that her personal accounts always increased
in value, sometimes to an absurd degree, no matter how many couture dresses she had
splurged on the previous season.

So what should she wear? Maybe it was time to bring out one of her latest Paris treats.
She was going to wear her new embroidered Alexis Mabille white peasant blouse with
the pearl-gray Lanvin cigarette pants and her new VBH earrings. The thing about those
earrings was that they looked so over the top, everyone would think they were costume
jewelry. They actually dressed
down
the whole outfit. Yes, she deserved to look this good. And now maybe she should also
change Cassian’s outfit to complement hers.

“Evangeline, Evangeline,” she called out. “I want to change Cassian’s clothes. Let’s
put him in that dove-gray jumper from Marie-Chantal.”

Rachel and Nick

As Peik Lin’s car approached the porte cochere of Tyersall Park, Nick bounded down
the front steps toward them. “I was worried you’d gotten lost,” he said, opening the
car door.

“We did get a bit lost, actually,” Rachel replied, getting out of the car and staring
up at the majestic façade before her. Her stomach felt like it had been twisted in
a vise, and she smoothed out the creases on her dress nervously. “Am I really late?”

“No, it’s okay. I’m sorry, were my directions confusing?” Nick asked, peering into
the car and smiling at Peik Lin. “Peik Lin—thanks so much for giving Rachel a lift.”

“Of course,” Peik Lin murmured, still rather stunned by her surroundings. She longed
to get out of the car and explore this colossal estate, but something told her to
remain in her seat. She paused for a moment, thinking Nick might invite her in for
a drink, but no invitation seemed to be forthcoming. Finally she said as nonchalantly
as possible, “This is quite a place—is it your grandmother’s?”

“Yes,” Nick replied.

“Has she lived here a long time?” Peik Lin couldn’t resist trying to find out more
as she craned her neck, trying to get a better look.

“Since she was a young girl,” Nick said.

Nick’s answer surprised Peik Lin, as she assumed that the house would have belonged
to his grandfather. Now what she really wanted
to ask was,
Who on earth is your grandmother?
But she didn’t want to risk seeming too nosy. “Well, you two have a great time,”
Peik Lin said, winking at Rachel and mouthing the words
Call me later!
Rachel gave her friend a quick smile.

“Good night, and get home safe,” Nick said, patting the roof of the car.

As Peik Lin’s car drove off, Nick turned to Rachel, looking a little sheepish. “I
hope it’s okay … but it’s not just the family. My grandmother decided to have a small
party, all arranged at the last minute, apparently, because her
tan hua
flowers are going to bloom tonight.”

“She’s throwing a party because her flowers are in bloom?” Rachel asked, not quite
following.

“Well, these are very rare flowers that bloom extremely infrequently, sometimes once
every decade, sometimes even longer than that. They only bloom at night, and the whole
thing only lasts for a few hours. It’s quite something to witness.”

“Sounds cool, but now I’m feeling
really
underdressed for the occasion,” Rachel said pensively, eyeing the fleet of limousines
that lined the driveway.

“Not at all—you look absolutely perfect,” Nick told her. He could sense her trepidation
and tried to reassure her, placing his hand on the small of her back and guiding her
toward the front doors. Rachel felt the warm, radiating energy from his muscled arm
and instantly felt better. Her knight in shining armor was at her side, and everything
would be just fine.

As they entered the house, the first thing that caught Rachel’s eye was the dazzling
mosaic tiles in the grand foyer. She stood transfixed for a few moments by the intricate
black, blue, and coral pattern before realizing that they were not alone. A tall,
spindly Indian man stood silently in the middle of the foyer next to a circular stone
table clustered with pots of enormous white-and-purple phalaenopsis orchids. The man
bowed ceremoniously to Rachel and presented her with a hammered silver bowl filled
with water and pale pink rose petals. “For your refreshment, miss,” he said.

“Do I drink this?” Rachel whispered to Nick.

“No, no, it’s for washing your hands,” Nick instructed. Rachel dipped her fingers
into the cool scented water before wiping them on the soft terry cloth that was proffered,
feeling awed (and a little silly) by the ritual.

“Everyone’s upstairs in the living room,” Nick said, leading her toward the carved
stone staircase. Rachel saw something out of the corner of her eye and let out a quick
gasp. By the side of the staircase lurked a huge tiger.

“It’s stuffed, Rachel.” Nick laughed. The tiger stood as if about to pounce, mouth
open in a ferocious growl.

“I’m sorry, it looked so real,” Rachel said, recovering herself.

“It
was
real. It’s a native Singaporean tiger. They used to roam this area until the late
nineteenth century, but they were hunted into extinction. My great-grandfather shot
this one when it ran into the house and hid under the billiard table, or so the story
goes.”

“Poor guy,” Rachel said, reaching out to stroke the tiger’s head gingerly. Its fur
felt surprisingly brittle, as if a patch might fall off at any minute.

“It used to scare the hell out of me when I was little. I never dared go near the
foyer at night, and I had dreams that it would come alive and attack me while I was
sleeping,” Nick said.