Crazy Rich Asians (24 page)

“Look, Papa—this whole patch is empty! You think it’s part of the Botanic Gardens,
but it’s not. This is where the house is. But why are there no images? It doesn’t
appear on Google Earth at all! And my GPS couldn’t find the address either.”

Wye Mun stared at the screen. The place his daughter claimed to have seen was literally
a black hole on the map. It did not officially exist. How very strange.

“Who is this fellow’s family?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But there were a lot of VIP cars in the driveway. I saw quite a few
diplomatic license plates. Old Rolls-Royces, vintage Daimlers, that type of car. These
people must be loaded beyond belief. Who do you think they are?”

“I can’t think of anyone specifically who lives in this area.” Wye Mun ran the cursor
over the perimeter of the blacked-out area. His family had been in the property development
and construction business in Singapore for more than forty years, but he had never
come across anything like this. “Wah, this is prime, prime land—right in the middle
of the island. The value would be incalculable. Cannot be one property,
lah
!”

“Yes it is, Papa. I saw it with my own eyes. And supposedly Nick’s grandmother grew
up there. It’s
her
house.”

“Make Rachel find out the grandma’s name. And the grandpa. We need to know who these
people are. How can one person own this much private land in one of the most crowded
cities in the world?”

“Wah, it looks like Rachel Chu has hit jackpot. I hope she marries this guy!” Neena
chimed in from her recliner.

“Aiyah, who cares about Rachel Chu? Peik Lin,
you
go after him!” Wye Mun declared.

Peik Lin grinned at her father, and began texting Rachel.

Wye Mun patted his wife on her shoulder. “Come, call the driver. Let’s take a drive
down Tyersall Road. I want to see this place for myself.”

They decided to take the Audi SUV in an effort to be as inconspicuous as possible.
“See, I think this is where the property actually begins,” Peik Lin noted as they
turned onto the curving, densely wooded road. “I think all this on the left side is
the southern boundary of the land.” When they reached the gray iron gates, Wye Mun
made the driver stop the car for a minute. The place looked completely deserted. “See,
you wouldn’t think there’s anything here. It looks like some old section of the Botanic
Gardens. There’s another guard house farther down this road, a high-tech one manned
by Gurkha guards,” Peik Lin explained. Wye Mun stared down the unlit, overgrown road,
completely fascinated. He was one of Singapore’s leading property developers, and
he knew every square inch of land on the island. Or at least he thought he did.

Rachel and Nick

“The
tan huas
are coming into bloom!” Ling Cheh announced excitedly to everyone on the terrace.
As the guests began to head back in through the conservatory, Nick pulled Rachel aside.
“Here, let’s take a shortcut,” he said. Rachel followed him through a side door, and
they wandered down a long hallway, past many darkened rooms that she longed to peek
into. When Nick led her through an arch at the end of the passage, Rachel’s jaw dropped
in disbelief.

They were no longer in Singapore. It was as if they had stumbled onto a secret cloister
deep within a Moorish palace. The vast courtyard was enclosed on all sides but completely
open to the sky. Elaborately carved columns lined the arcades around its perimeter,
and an Andalusian fountain protruded from the stone wall, spouting a stream of water
from a lotus blossom sculpted out of rose quartz. Overhead, hundreds of copper lanterns
had been meticulously strung across the courtyard from the second-floor walkway, each
flickering with candlelight.

“I wanted to show you this place while it was still empty,” Nick said in a hushed
voice, pulling Rachel into an embrace.

“Pinch me, please. Is any of this real?” Rachel whispered as she looked into Nick’s
eyes.

“This place is very real.
You’re
the dream,” Nick answered as he kissed her deeply.

A few guests began to trickle in, disrupting the spell they had momentarily been under.
“Come, it’s dessert time!” Nick said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Along one of the arcades stretched long banquet tables that displayed a wondrous selection
of desserts. There were elaborate cakes, soufflés, and sweet puddings, there was
goreng pisang
^*
drizzled with Lyle’s Golden Syrup,
nyonya kuehs
in every color of the rainbow, and tall polished samovars filled with different steaming-hot
elixirs. Servers wearing white toques stood behind each table, ready to dish out the
delicacies.

“Tell me this isn’t how your family eats every day,” Rachel said in amazement.

“Well, tonight was leftovers night,” Nick deadpanned.

Rachel elbowed him in the ribs playfully.

“Ow! And I was about to offer you a slice of the best chocolate chiffon cake in the
world.”

“I just stuffed my face with eighteen different types of noodles! I couldn’t possibly
eat dessert,” Rachel groaned, pressing her palm against her stomach momentarily. She
walked to the center of the courtyard, where chairs were arranged around a reflecting
pool. In the middle of the pool were huge terra-cotta urns that held the painstakingly
cultivated
tan huas
. Rachel had never seen a species of flora quite so exotic. The tangled forest of
plants grew together into a tall profusion of large floppy leaves the color of dark
jade. Long stems sprouted from the edges of the leaves, curving until they formed
huge bulbs. The pale reddish petals curled tightly like delicate fingers grasping
a silken white peach. Oliver stood by the flowers, scrutinizing one of the bulbs closely.

“How can you tell they are about to bloom?” Rachel asked him.

“See how swollen they’ve become, and how the whiteness of the bulbs are peeking through
these red tentacles? Within the hour, you will see them open fully. You know, it’s
considered to be very auspicious to witness
tan huas
blooming in the night.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed. They bloom so rarely and so unpredictably, and it all happens so fast.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people, so I’d say you’re very lucky to be
here tonight.”

As Rachel strolled around the reflecting pool, she noticed Nick under an arcade chatting
intently with the striking lady who had been sitting next to Nick’s grandmother. “Who
is that woman talking to Nick? You were with her earlier,” Rachel asked.

“Oh, that’s Jacqueline Ling. An old family friend.”

“She looks like a movie star,” Rachel commented.

“Yes, doesn’t she? I’ve always thought that Jacqueline looks like a Chinese Catherine
Deneuve, only more beautiful.”

“She
does
look like Catherine Deneuve!”

“And aging better too.”

“Well, she’s not
that
old. What is she, in her early forties?”

“Try adding twenty years to that.”

“You’re kidding!” Rachel said, staring in awe at Jacqueline’s ballerina-like figure,
shown to great advantage by the pale yellow halter top and palazzo pants that she
wore with a pair of silver stilettos.

“I’ve always thought it a bit of a pity that she hasn’t done more with herself than
disarm men with her looks,” Oliver observed.

“Is that what she’s done?”

“Widowed once, almost married a British marquess, and since then she’s been the companion
of a Norwegian tycoon. There’s a story I heard as a child: Jacqueline’s beauty was
so legendary that when she visited Hong Kong for the first time in the sixties, her
arrival attracted a throng of spectators, as if she were Elizabeth Taylor. All the
men were clamoring to propose to her, and fights broke out at the terminal. It made
the newspapers, apparently.”

“All because of her beauty.”

“Yes, and her bloodline. She’s the granddaughter of Ling Yin Chao.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was one of Asia’s most revered philanthropists. Built schools all over China.
Not that Jacqueline is following in his footsteps, unless you consider her donations
in aid of Manolo Blahnik.”

Rachel laughed, as both of them noticed that Jacqueline had one hand on Nick’s upper
arm, stroking it gently.

“Don’t worry—she flirts with everyone,” Oliver quipped. “Do you want another piece
of juicy gossip?”

“Please.”

“I’m told Nick’s grandmother very much wanted Jacqueline for Nick’s father. But she
didn’t succeed.”

“He wasn’t swayed by her looks?”

“Well, he already had another beauty on his hands—Nick’s mother. You haven’t met Auntie
Elle yet, have you?”

“No, she went away for the weekend.”

“Hmm, how
interesting
. She never goes away when Nicholas is in town,” Oliver said, turning around to make
sure no one was within earshot before leaning closer in. “I’d tread extra carefully
around Eleanor Young if I were you. She maintains a rival court,” he said mysteriously
before walking off toward the cocktails table.

Nick stood at one end of the desserts, wondering what to have first: the
goreng pisang
with ice cream, the blancmange with mango sauce, or the chocolate chiffon cake.

“Oh, your cook’s chocolate chiffon! Now
this
is the reason I came tonight!” Jacqueline ran her fingers through her shoulder-length
curls and then brushed her hand softly against his arm. “So tell me, why haven’t you
been calling Amanda? You’ve only seen her a handful of times since she moved to New
York.”

“We tried getting together a couple of times this spring, but she’s always overbooked.
Isn’t she dating some high-flying hedge-fund guy?”

“It’s not serious; that man is twice her age.”

“Well, I see her pictures in the newspapers all the time.”

“That’s just the problem. That has to stop. It’s so unseemly. I want my daughter to
mix with quality people, not the so-called Asian jet set in New York. All those pretenders
are riding Amanda’s coattails—she’s just too naïve to see that.”

“Oh, I don’t think Mandy’s that naïve.”

“She needs proper company, Nicky.
Gar gee nang
.
^†
I want you to look out for her. Will you promise to do that for me?”

“Of course. I spoke to her last month and she told me that she was too busy to come
back for Colin’s wedding.”

“Yes, it’s too bad, isn’t it?”

“I’ll call her when I’m back in New York. But I do think I’m far too boring for Amanda
these days.”

“No, no, she would benefit from spending more time with you—you were so close once
upon a time. Now tell me about this charming girl you’ve brought home to meet your
grandmother. I see she’s already won over Oliver. You better tell her to be careful
with him—he’s such a vicious gossip, that one.”