Crazy Rich Asians (46 page)

“Well I’ve been keeping a tally, and I’m only up to five or six million so far. God
help us, I think the motherlode is being spent on tonight’s ball,” Oliver surmised.

“I can’t imagine how they’re going to top this,” Rachel said.

“Refreshments, anyone?” a voice behind her said. Rachel turned around to see Nick
holding two glasses of champagne.

“Nick!” she cried excitedly.

“What did you all think of the wedding ceremony?” Nick asked, gallantly handing drinks
to the ladies.

“Wedding? I could have sworn it was a coronation,” Oliver retorted. “Anyway, who cares
about the ceremony? The important question is:
What did everyone think of Araminta’s dress?
”

“It was lovely. It looked deceptively simple, but the longer you stared at it, the
more you noticed the details,” Rachel offered.

“Ugh. It was awful. She looked like some kind of medieval bride,” Cassandra sniggered.

“That was the point, Cassandra. I thought the dress was a triumph.
Valentino at his best, channeling Botticelli’s
Primavera
and Marie de’ Medici’s arrival in Marseilles.”

“I have no idea what you just said, Ollie, but I agree.” Nick laughed.

“You looked so serious up there at the altar,” Rachel remarked.

“It was very serious business! Speaking of which, I’m going to steal Rachel away for
a moment,” Nick said to his cousins, grasping Rachel’s hand.

“Hey—there are children around. No hanky-panky in the bushes!” Oliver warned.

“
Alamak
, Ollie, with Kitty Pong here, I don’t think Nicky’s the one we need to worry about,”
Cassandra said drily.

Kitty stood in the middle of the great lawn, staring in wonder at everything around
her. Here at last was something worth getting excited about! Her trip to Singapore
so far had been nothing but a series of disappointments. First of all, they were staying
at that cool new hotel with the huge park on the roof, but all the suites were booked
up and they were stuck in a lousy regular room. And then there was Alistair’s family,
who clearly weren’t as rich as she had been led to believe. Alistair’s auntie Felicity
lived in an old wooden house with old Chinese furniture that wasn’t even polished
properly. They were nothing compared to the rich families she knew in China, who lived
in huge newly built mansions decorated by the top designers from Paris France. Then
there was Alistair’s mother, who looked like one of those dowdy Family Planning Commission
workers who used to come to her village in Qinghai to give advice about birth control.
At last they were finally at this fairy-tale wedding reception, where she could be
surrounded by the crème de la crème of society.

“Isn’t that fellow in the bow tie the chief executive of Hong Kong?” Kitty whispered
loudly to Alistair.

“Yes, I believe it is,” Alistair answered.

“Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him once or twice—my parents know him.”

“
Really?
Where are your parents, by the way? They disappeared so quickly after the wedding,
I didn’t even get a chance to say hi,” Kitty said with a little pout.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. My dad’s right there piling his plate with
langoustines, and my mum is over in that purple-striped gazebo with my grandmother.”

“Oh, your Ah Ma is here?” Kitty said, peering at the gazebo. “There are so many old
ladies in there—which one is she?”

Alistair pointed her out.

“Who is that woman talking to her right now? The one in the yellow head scarf, covered
head to toe in
diamonds
!”

“Oh, that’s one of my Ah Ma’s old friends. I think she’s some sort of Malay princess.”

“Oooh, a
princess
? Take me to meet her now!” Kitty insisted, dragging Alistair away from the dessert
tent.

In the gazebo, Alexandra noticed her son and
that strumpet
(she refused to call her his
fiancée
) walking intently toward her.
Hiyah, were they actually on their way here? Did Alistair not have the sense to keep
Kitty away from his grandmother, especially when she was receiving Mrs. Lee Yong Chien
and the Sultana of Borneo?

“Astrid, it’s getting a bit crowded. Will you please tell the sultana’s bodyguards
to make sure
no one else
is allowed in?” she whispered to her niece, her eyes darting frantically at Alistair
and Kitty.

“Of course, Auntie Alix,” Astrid said.

As Alistair and Kitty approached the gazebo, three guards in crisp military dress
uniforms blocked the steps in front of it. “Sorry, no more people allowed in,” a guard
announced.

“Oh, but my family’s in there. That’s my mother and grandmother.” Alistair pointed,
peering over the guard’s shoulder. He tried to catch his mother’s eye, but she seemed
to be engrossed in conversation with her cousin Cassandra.

“Yoohoo!” Kitty cried out. She took off her huge polka-dotted straw hat and began
waving it excitedly, jumping up and down. “Yoohoo, Mrs. Cheng!”

Alistair’s grandmother peered out and asked, “Who is that girl jumping about?”

Alexandra wished at that moment she had put an end to her son’s ridiculous romance
when she’d had the chance.

“It’s nobody. Just someone trying to get a glimpse of Her Royal Highness,” Astrid
cut in, gesturing toward the sultana.

“Is that
Alistair
with the jumping girl?” Su Yi asked, squinting her eyes.

“Trust me, Mummy, just ignore them,” Alexandra whispered nervously.

Cassandra decided that it would be far more amusing to throw a wrench into this little
charade. “Aiyah,
Koo Por,
^*
that’s Alistair’s new girlfriend,” she said mischievously, as Alexandra glared at
her in exasperation.

“The Hong Kong starlet you were telling me about, Cassandra? Let her in—I want to
meet her,” Su Yi said. She turned to Mrs. Lee Yong Chien with a gleam in her eye.
“My youngest grandson is dating some Hong Kong soap-opera actress.”

“An
actress
?” Mrs. Lee made a face, as Alistair and Kitty were allowed into the gazebo.

“Ah Ma, I want you to meet my fiancée, Kitty Pong,” Alistair boldly announced in Cantonese.

“Your fiancée? Nobody told me you got engaged,” Su Yi said, shooting her daughter
a look of surprise. Alexandra couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her mother.

“So nice to meet you,” Kitty said in a perfunctory tone, utterly disinterested in
Alistair’s elderly grandma. She turned to the sultana and dipped into a deep curtsey.
“Your Honor, it is such a privilege to meet you!”

Cassandra turned away, trying to keep a straight face, while the other ladies glowered
at Kitty.

“Wait a minute, are you the youngest sister in
Many Splendid Things
?” the sultana suddenly asked.

“Yes, she is,” Alistair proudly answered for her.

“
Alamaaaaak
, I love your show!” the sultana exclaimed. “My God, you’re so eeeeee-vil! Tell me,
you didn’t
really
die in that tsunami, did you?”

Kitty grinned. “I’m not telling you—you’ll just have to wait for next season. Your
Gracefulness, your jewels are magnificent. Is that diamond brooch real? It’s bigger
than a golf ball!”

The sultana nodded her head in amusement. “It’s called the Star of Malaya.”

“Ooooh, can I touch it, Your Highness?” Kitty asked. Mrs. Lee Yong Chien was about
to protest, but the sultana eagerly leaned forward.

“My God, feel the weight!” Kitty sighed, cupping the diamond in her palm. “How many
carats?”

“One hundred and eighteen,” the sultana declared.

“One day, you’ll buy me something just like this, won’t you?” Kitty said to Alistair
unabashedly. The other ladies were aghast.

The sultana reached for her bejeweled handbag and pulled out an embroidered lace handkerchief.
“Will you please autograph this?” she asked Kitty expectantly.

“Your Majesticness, it would be my pleasure!” Kitty beamed.

The sultana turned to Shang Su Yi, who had been surveying the whole exchange with
bemused interest. “This is your grandson’s fiancée? How delightful. Be sure you invite
me to the wedding!” The sultana began to wiggle off one of the three humongous diamond
rings on her left hand and handed it to Kitty, as the ladies looked on in horror.
“Congratulations on your engagement—this is for you.
Taniah dan semoga kamu gembira selalu
.”
^†

The farther Nick and Rachel walked from the great lawn, the more the park began to
change. The strains of the string ensemble gave way to birds with strangely hypnotic
chirps as they entered a pathway shaded by the sprawling branches of two-hundred-year-old
Angsana trees. “I love it over here—it’s like we’re on a whole other island,” Rachel
said, savoring the cool relief underneath the lush canopy.

“I love it here too. We’re in the oldest part of the park, an area that’s sacred to
the Malays,” Nick explained quietly. “You know, back when the island was called Singapura
and was part of the ancient Majapahit empire, this is where they built a shrine to
the last king.”

“ ‘The Last King of Singapura.’ Sounds like a movie. Why don’t you write the screenplay?”
Rachel remarked.

“Ha! I think it’ll draw an audience of about four,” Nick replied.

They reached a clearing in the pathway, and a small colonial-era structure covered
in moss came into view. “Whoa—is this the shrine?” Rachel asked, lowering her voice.

“No, this is the gatehouse. When the British came in the nineteenth century, they
built a fort here,” Nick explained as they
approached the structure and the pair of massive iron doors under the archway. The
doors were wide open, flush against the inner wall of the tunnel-like gatehouse, and
Nick slowly pulled on one of the heavy doors, revealing a dark narrow entrance cut
into the thick stonework, and beyond it the steps leading to the roof of the gatehouse.

“Welcome to my hideout,” Nick whispered, his voice echoing in the tight stairway.

“Is it safe to go up?” Rachel asked, assessing steps that looked like they hadn’t
been treaded on in decades.

“Of course. I used to come up here all the time,” Nick said, bounding up the steps
eagerly. “Come on!”

Rachel followed gingerly, taking care not to rub any part of her pristine dress against
the dirt-caked stairway. The roof was covered in freshly fallen leaves, gnarled tree
branches, and the remnants of an old cannon. “Pretty cool, isn’t it? At one point,
there were more than sixty cannons lining the battlements of the fort. Come take a
look at this!” Nick said excitedly as he disappeared around the corner. Rachel could
hear the schoolboy adventurer in his voice. Along the south wall, someone had scrawled
long vertical lines of Chinese characters in what looked like a muddy-brown color.
“Written with blood,” Nick said in a hushed voice.

Rachel stared at the characters in amazement. “I can’t make them out … it’s so faded,
and it’s that old form of Chinese. What do you think happened?”

“We used to make up theories about it. The one I came up with was that some poor prisoner
was chained here and left to die by Japanese soldiers.”

“I’m getting sort of creeped out,” Rachel said, shaking off a sudden chill.

“Well, you wanted to see the proverbial ‘sacred cave.’ This is as close to it as you’re
going to get. I used to bring my girlfriends up here to make out after Sunday school.
This is where I had my first kiss,” Nick announced brightly.

“Of course it is. I couldn’t imagine a more eerily romantic hideout,” Rachel said.

Nick pulled Rachel closer. She thought they were about to kiss, but Nick’s expression
seemed to shift into a more serious mode. He thought of the way she looked earlier
that morning, with the light
streaming in through the stained-glass windows and glinting on her hair.

“You know, when I saw you in the church today sitting with my family, do you know
what I thought?”

Rachel could feel her heart suddenly begin to race. “Whh … what?”