The Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy Box Set

by Kevin Kwan

  *5 Mandarin for “Grandmother.”

  14

  TRENTA

  SHANGHAI TO PARIS ON THE BINGS’ PRIVATE JET*1

  The security guard at the Hongqiao International Airport Private Aviation entrance handed Carlton, Rachel, and Nick their passports and waved them through. As Carlton’s SUV approached a Gulfstream VI surrounded by arriving cars, Rachel commented, “I have a bit of a phobia of private jets, but I gotta admit, Colette’s got a beautiful plane.”

  “That’s a nice plane, but it’s not Colette’s. That one is,” Carlton said, steering the car to the right. Parked in the distance on the tarmac was an alpine white Boeing 747 jumbo jet with one undulating scarlet stripe painted along its fuselage like a giant calligraphy brushstroke. “This Boeing 747-81 VIP was a fortieth-birthday present for Colette’s mother.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Rachel said, staring at the humongous plane glistening under floodlights.

  Nick chuckled. “Rachel, I don’t know how you can still be surprised. Bigger is always better for the Bings, isn’t it?”

  “They spend so much time crisscrossing the globe, it makes sense for them. And especially for businessmen like Jack Bing, time is money. With the long delays at the airports in Shanghai and Beijing these days, it’s an advantage to have your own plane—you can just pay to jump the runway queue,” Carlton explained.

  “Isn’t that precisely what’s causing the flight delays at Chinese airports? All the private jets getting to skip ahead of commercial airliners?” Nick asked.

  “No comment,” Carlton said with a wink as he pulled up to the red carpet that extended from the airplane’s staircase onto the tarmac. The ground crew immediately bustled around the car, opening doors and removing the luggage while Carlton handed off his car to the valet. Along the length of the carpet, fifteen flight crew members stood at attention like troops ready for inspection, attired in the same crisp black James Perse uniforms seen at Colette’s house.

  “I feel like Michelle Obama about to board Air Force One,” Rachel whispered to Nick as they walked along the plush red carpet.

  Overhearing them, Carlton quipped, “Wait till you get on board. This plane makes Air Force One look like a sardine tin.”

  At the top of the steps, they entered the cabin door and were immediately greeted by the chief purser. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Bao. Good to see you again.”

  “Hi, Fernando.”

  Next to Fernando stood a flight attendant who bowed deeply before asking Rachel and Nick, “Your shoe sizes, please?”

  “Er…I’m a size six, and he’s a ten and a half,” Rachel said, wondering why she asked.

  Moments later, the flight attendant returned with velvet drawstring bags for everyone. “A gift from Mrs. Bing,” she announced. Rachel looked inside and saw a pair of Bottega Veneta leather slippers.

  “Colette’s mum prefers for everyone to wear these on board,” Carlton explained, slipping off his loafers. “Come, let me give you a quick tour before everyone else gets here.” He led them down a hallway paneled in a lacquered gray maple wood and tried to open a set of double doors. “Bugger, I guess it’s locked. This is a staircase that leads downstairs to the clinic. There’s an operating theater with a full life-support system, and there’s always a doctor on board.”

  “Let me guess…Mrs. Bing’s idea?” Nick asked.

  “Yes, she’s always worrying that she’ll fall ill on the plane on the way to visit her doctors. Let’s try going this way.”

  They followed Carlton along another passage and down a wider set of steps. “Here’s the main cabin, or the Grand Lounge, as they call it.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped. She knew, on an intellectual level, that she was still on an airplane. But what she was seeing was something that couldn’t possibly exist on a plane. They were standing in a vast, semicircular room filled with sleek Balinese teak sofas, consoles that looked like antique silver chests, and silk-covered lamps in the shape of lotus blossoms. But the focal point of the space was a three-story rock wall carved with ancient-looking Buddhas. Growing out of the wall were live ferns and other exotic botanicals, while off to the side, a spiral glass-and-stone staircase wound its way to an upper floor.

  “Mrs. Bing wanted the Grand Lounge to feel like an ancient Javanese temple,” Carlton explained.

  “It’s just like Borobudur,” Nick said in a hushed whisper as he touched the moss-covered stone.

  “You got it. I think she fell in love with some resort there many years ago and wanted it replicated on her plane. The wall is an actual temple façade from an archaeological dig. They had to smuggle it out of Indonesia, from what I’m told.”

  “I guess you can do whatever you want with a 747 if you don’t need to fit four hundred seats,” Nick surmised.

  “Yeah, and having five thousand square feet of space to play with also helps. These sofas, by the way, are upholstered in Russian reindeer leather. And up those stairs, there’s a karaoke lounge, a screening room, a gym, and ten bedroom suites.”

  “Sweet Jesus! Nick, come over here right now!” Rachel said in a panicked voice from across the room.

  Nick rushed over to her. “Are you okay?”

  Rachel stood dead in her tracks at the edge of what appeared to be a lap pool, shaking her head in disbelief. “Look—it’s a koi pond.”

  “God, you scared me. For a moment I thought something was wrong,” Nick said.

  “You don’t think anything’s wrong? THERE’S A FRIGGING KOI POND IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS PLANE, NICK!”

  Carlton came over, highly amused by his sister’s reaction. “These are some of Mrs. Bing’s prized koi. You see that fat white one over there with the big red spot right in the middle of its back? Some Japanese tosser who was a guest on the plane once offered the Bings $250,000 for that fish. It reminded him of the Japanese flag. I do wonder if these poor koi ever get jet-lagged.”

  Just then, Colette entered the main cabin swathed in a hooded angora poncho, trailed by a large entourage that included her mother, grandmother, Roxanne, a few of the girls from earlier, and a retinue of maids. “I can’t believe those idiots let you on board! I wanted to give Nick and Rachel the tour myself,” Colette said with a little pout.

  “We haven’t seen anything except this room,” Rachel said meekly.

  “Okay, great! Knowing your love of bathrooms, I wanted to show you the hydromassage room myself.” Lowering her voice, she said to Rachel, “I wanted to warn you ahead of time. My parents bought and designed this plane while I was away at Regent’s. So I can’t be held responsible for the decor.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Colette. This plane is unfathomably gorgeous,” Rachel assured her.

  Colette looked genuinely relieved. “Here, come meet my grandmother. Nainai, these are my friends from America, Rachel and Nick,” Colette announced to a plump septuagenarian with a standard-issue Chinese-grandma perm.

  The old lady smiled tiredly at them, baring a couple of gold teeth. She looked as if she had been hastily yanked out of bed, shoved into a St. John knit jacket two sizes too small, and hustled aboard the plane.

  Colette surveyed the cabin, looking rather displeased. She glanced at Roxanne and said, “Send for Fernando right now.”

  The man arrived momentarily, and Colette gave him a lethal glare. “Where’s the tea? There should always be cups of steaming-hot Bird’s Tongue Longjing tea*2 waiting for my mother and grandmother the minute they get on board! And little plates of hua mei*3 to suck on during takeoff! Hasn’t anyone read the Aircraft Standards Manual?”

  “I apologize, Miss Bing. We only landed a little over an hour ago and haven’t had time to turn around the plane properly.”

  “What do you mean you just landed? Wasn’t Trenta here all weekend?”

  “No, Miss Bing. Your father just returned from Los Angeles.�
�

  “Really? I had no idea. Well, get us the tea and tell the captain we’re ready for takeoff.”

  “Right away, Miss Bing,” the chief purser said, turning to leave.

  “One more thing…”

  “Yes, Miss Bing?”

  “There is something in the air tonight, Fernando.”

  “We’ll readjust the cabin climate right away.”

  “No, that’s not it. Can you smell the air, Fernando? It’s nothing like Frédéric Malle’s Jurassic Flower. Who changed the cabin scent without my permission?”

  “I’m not sure, Miss Bing.”

  After Fernando left the room, Colette turned to Roxanne again. “When we get to Paris, I want new copies of the Aircraft Standards Manual printed and bound for every member of the flight crew. I want them to memorize every page, and then we’re going to give them a pop quiz during the return flight.”

  * * *

  *1 The passenger list included Rachel, Nick, Carlton, Colette Bing, Mrs. Bing, Grandma Bing, Auntie Pan Di, Stephanie Shi, Mrs. Shi, Adele Deng, Wen Pi Fang, Mrs. Wen, Perrineum Wang, Tiffany Yap, Roxanne Ma, and six maids (every one of Colette’s girlfriends brought along a personal maid).

  *2 The mountains of Hangzhou are famed for Longjing tea, also known as Dragon Well tea. It is said that 600,000 fresh tea leaves are required to produce one kilogram of this precious tea that is prized above all else by Chinese tea connoisseurs.

  *3 Salted dried plums, fervently sucked on by generations of Chinese like martini olives. Supposedly great for combating nausea but has the reverse effect on me.

  15

  28 CLUNY PARK ROAD

  SINGAPORE

  Carmen Loh had just stretched into sarvangasana pose in the middle of her living room when she heard her answering machine kick in.

  “Carmen, ah. Mummy here. Geik Choo just called to tell me that Uncle C.K. has been checked in to Dover Park Hospice. They say if he makes it through the night, he can probably last through the week. I’m going to pay a visit today. I think you should come with me. Can you come and pick me up at Lillian May Tan’s around six? We should be finished with mah-jongg by then, unless Mrs. Lee Yong Chien shows up. In that case the game will take longer. Visiting hours at Dover Park end at eight, so I want to make sure we have ample time. Also, I ran into Keng Lien today at NTUC, and she said she heard from Paula that you are selling your Churchill Club membership to fund some new scuba-diving venture. I said ‘What rubbish, there is no way my daughter would ever do a thing like…’ ”

  Grunting in frustration, Carmen eased her body down from its shoulder stand. Why the hell didn’t she remember to turn off the machine? Thirty minutes of pure bliss ruined by one call from her mother. She walked slowly to the phone and picked it up. “Ma, why on earth is Uncle C.K. in a hospice and not at home? Won’t they get him twenty-four-hour home-hospice care even in his final days? I can’t believe the family is as giam siap*1 as that.”

  “Aiyah, it’s not that. Uncle C.K. wants to die at home, but the children won’t let him. They think it will affect the value of the house, lor.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes in exasperation. Even before the tin-mining tycoon C. K. Wong’s MRI results came in showing that his cancer had spread all over, everyone had already begun plotting. In the old days, real estate agents would scour the obituaries every morning, hoping to see the name of some prominent tycoon appear, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the family put the big house up for sale. Now, with Good Class Bungalows*2 becoming rarer than unicorns, the top agents were resorting to “well-placed contacts” at all the hospitals. Five months ago, Carmen’s boss, Owen Kwee, at MangoTee Properties had called her into his office and said, “My lobang*3 at Mount E. saw C. K. Wong come in for chemo. Aren’t you related to him?”

  “Our fathers are cousins.”

  “That house of his on Cluny Park Road is on a three-acre plot. It’s one of the last Frank Brewer houses still standing.”

  “I know. I’ve been going there my whole life.”

  Owen leaned back in his tufted-leather office chair. “I only know the oldest son, Quentin. But there are other siblings, right?

  “Two younger brothers and one daughter.” She knew exactly where he was going with this.

  “Those two brothers live abroad, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” Carmen said impatiently, wishing he would get to the point.

  “The family will probably want to sell after the old man conks off, won’t they?”

  “Jesus, Owen, my uncle is still very much alive. He was golfing at Pulau Club last Sunday.”

  “I know, lah, but can I safely assume that MangoTee will get the exclusive listing if the family ever decides to sell?”

  “Stop being so kiasu.*4 Of course I will get the listing,” Carmen said in annoyance.

  “I’m not being kiasu, I just wanted to make sure you are prepared. I hear Willy Sim over at Eon Properties is already circling like a hawk. He went to Raffles with Quentin Wong, you know.”

  “Willy Sim can circle all he wants. I’m already in the nest.”

  • • •

  Six months later, this was precisely where Carmen found herself—standing in the crow’s nest, a small room tucked away in the attic of her late uncle’s old bungalow—as she showed her friend Astrid around the property.

  “What a cute space! What did they use this room for?” Astrid asked as she peered around the little nook.

  “The original family that built this house called it the crow’s nest. The story is that the wife was a poetess, and she wanted a quiet place away from her children to do her writing. From the window, she had a bird’s-eye view of the front garden and the driveway, so she could always keep an eye on who was coming and going. By the time my uncle bought the house, this was just a store room. My cousins and I used it as a clubhouse when we were kids. We called it Captain Haddock’s Hideout.”

  “Cassian would love this. He would have so much fun up here.” Astrid peered out the window and saw Michael’s 1956 black Porsche 356 Speedster pulling up the driveway.

  “James Dean just arrived,” Carmen deadpanned.

  “Haha. He does look like quite the rebel in it, doesn’t he?”

  “I always knew you’d end up with a bad boy. Come, let’s give him the grand tour.”

  As Michael got out of his classic sports car, Carmen couldn’t help but notice the transformation. The last time she had seen him was two years ago at a party at Astrid’s parents’ house, where he was in cargo pants and a polo shirt and still had his commando buzz cut. Now, striding up to the front steps in his steel-gray Berluti suit, Robert Marc sunglasses, and trendy disheveled haircut, he seemed like a totally different man.

  “Hey, Carmen. Love your new hairstyle,” Michael said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks,” Carmen said. She’d had her long straight hair layered into a chin-length bob a few weeks ago, and he was the first man to pay her a compliment.

  “My condolences about your uncle—he was a great man.”

  “Thank you. The silver lining to this unfortunate event is that you are getting to preview the place before it officially goes on the market tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Astrid hassled me to leave the office and come see this place right now.”

  “Well, we anticipate a feeding frenzy as soon as the listing goes live. A property like this hasn’t come on the market in years, and it will most likely go straight to auction.”

  “I can only imagine. What is this—two, three acres? In this neighborhood? I’m sure every developer would love to get their hands on this,” Michael said, surveying the expansive front lawn framed by tall, lush traveler’s palms.

  “That’s precisely why the family has allowed me to show it to you exclusively. We don’t want this house to be torn down and turned into some huge condo de
velopment.”

  Michael glanced quizzically at Astrid. “This isn’t a teardown? I thought you wanted to hire some hot-shit French architect to design something on this land.”

  “No, no, you’re confusing this with the place I wanted you to see on Trevose Crescent. This should never be torn down—it’s a treasure,” Astrid said emphatically.

  “I like the grounds, but tell me what’s so special about this house—it’s not like it’s one of those historic Black and Whites.”

  “Oh, it’s much rarer than a Black and White house,” Carmen said. “This is one of the few houses built by Frank Brewer, one of Singapore’s most prominent early architects. He designed the Cathay Building. Come, let’s take a walk around the outside first.”

  As they circled the house, Astrid began pointing out the distinctive half-timbered gables that gave the house its stately, Tudor-esque feel, the elegant exposed-brick arches in the porte cochere, and other ingenious details like the Mackintosh-inspired ventilation grilles that kept the rooms feeling cool even in the sweltering tropical heat. “See how it combines the Arts and Crafts esthetic with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Spanish Mission style? You’re not going to find such a fusion of architectural styles in one house anywhere else on the planet.”

  “It’s nice, hon, but you’re probably the only person in Singapore who would even care about those details! Who lived here before your relatives?” he asked Carmen.

  “It was built originally in 1922 for the chairman of Fraser and Neave, and later it became the Belgian ambassador’s residence,” Carmen replied, adding rather unnecessarily: “This is a rare chance to own one of Singapore’s truly historic gems.”

  The three of them entered the house, and as they wandered through the elegantly proportioned rooms, Michael began to appreciate the place more and more. “I like how high the ceilings are on the ground floor.”

  “It’s a bit creaky in places, but I know just the architect to help give this place a gentle restoration—he worked on my uncle Alfred’s place in Surrey and just redid Dumfries House in Scotland for the Prince of Wales,” Astrid said.