by Kevin Kwan
Jack leaned forward in his chair and remarked wryly, “I don’t think this has anything to do with age, actually. I think our daughter is in love with Carlton Bao.”
“Even if I was, I wouldn’t want to get married to him right now,” Colette shot back.
“And what makes you think I would ever approve of your marrying him?”
Colette looked at her father in exasperation. “Why is Richie so much more special than Carlton? They both have degrees from top universities, and both come from respectable families. Why, I’d even say that Carlton comes from a higher-status family than Richie.”
Mrs. Bing harrumphed. “I don’t like that Bao Shaoyen. Always acting so uppity, like she’s so much better and smarter than me!”
“That’s because she IS smarter than you, Mother. She has a PhD in biochemistry and runs a multibillion-dollar company.”
“How dare you say that to me! Don’t you think I’m partly responsible for your father’s success? I was the one who spent all those years—”
Raising his voice to be heard over his arguing wife and daughter, Jack interjected, “CARLTON BAO’S family has two billion dollars at most. The Yangs are on a whole other level. Our level. Don’t you see that this is the perfect dynastic match? The two of you together would make our families the most powerful and influential in China. Do you not see the unique position that you are in to be part of history?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was a chess piece in your plan for world domination,” Colette shot back sarcastically.
Jack banged his fist on the desk and stood up from his chair, pointing at her angrily. “You are not my chess piece! You are my prized possession. And I want to see that you are treated like a queen and married off to the best possible man in the whole world!”
“But the fact that I don’t agree with your idea of the best man means nothing to you!”
“Well if Carlton Bao is the best man for you, then why hasn’t he proposed to you?” Jack challenged her.
“Oh, he’ll propose whenever I want him to. Don’t you understand? I keep telling you, I’m just not ready! WHEN I want to get married and IF I choose Carlton, you can be sure he will exceed your expectations. The Baos might have more money than the Yangs by then. You have no idea how smart Carlton is! Once he really devotes his attention to his family’s business, there’s no telling how well he can do.”
“Is that going to happen in my lifetime? Your mother and I are not getting any younger—I want to see my grandsons grow up while we are still healthy enough to enjoy them!”
Colette’s eyes narrowed as she stared at her father, seeing things in a whole new light. “So this is what it’s really all about…you are just dying for grandsons, aren’t you?”
“Of course! What grandparents wouldn’t want lots and lots of grandsons?” Mrs. Bing said.
“This is just too funny…it’s like I’m trapped in some time warp.” Colette laughed to herself. “And what if I only produce girls? What if I don’t want any children at all?”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” her mother snapped.
Colette was about to argue back when it hit her—her mother’s very name, Lai Di, meant “hoping for a son.” Her mother couldn’t escape her mind-set—it had literally been branded on her since the day she was born. Colette looked at her parents squarely and said, “The two of you might have grown up like peasants, but I am not a peasant, and you did not raise me to be one. It is 2013, and I am not going to get married and pump out babies just because you want a barrel full of grandsons.”
“Ungrateful child! After all we’ve given you in life!” Mrs. Bing blurted out.
“Yes, thank you, you’ve given me a great life, and I intend to live it!” Colette declared, storming out of the room.
Jack gave a sharp little laugh. “Let’s see how she intends to live her life once I put a freeze on her accounts.”
* * *
* Mandarin for “Oh my God!”
5
PULAU CLUB
SINGAPORE
Michael was huddled in his office preparing for a big presentation with his head venture partner and his chief technology adviser when his phone buzzed with a text message from Astrid:
WIFEY: Mum called—she’s having a meltdown about the magazine article.
MT: Big shocker.
WIFEY: My dad’s requested that you meet him at Pulau club at 10:30 a.m.
MT: Sorry, I’ll be in a meeting then.
WIFEY: You’re going to have to face him sooner or later.
MT: I know, but I’m busy right now. Some of us HAVE TO WORK FOR A LIVING.
WIFEY: I’m just passing along the message.
MT: Tell him I have a very important meeting with the Monetary Authority of Singapore this AM. My assistant will call his assistant to set up another time to meet.
WIFEY: Okay. Good luck at your meeting.
Several minutes later, Michael’s executive assistant, Krystal, buzzed on the intercom. “Michael, ah? I just receive call from your father-in-law’s seck-ree-teh-ry Miss Chua. He wants you to meet him at Pulau Club in half an hour.”
Michael rolled his eyes in frustration. “I already know about this, Krystal. It’s been dealt with. Now, no more interruptions, please. We only have an hour left before our big pitch.”
He turned back to his partners. “Sorry, guys. Now, where were we? Yes, we can reinforce that our new finance-data app is a quarter of a second faster than Bloomberg’s terminals—”
The intercom buzzed again. “Michael—I know you said not to kachiao*1 you, but—”
“So why the hell did you?” Michael raised his voice angrily.
“I just got an-nah-der call…the meeting with gahmen*2 people postpone, lah.”
“The Monetary Authority meeting?” Michael tried to clarify.
“Yah lah.”
“Until what time?”
“Postpone, postpone, lor! They never say.”
“What the fuck?”
“And your father-in-law’s office call again with an-nah-der message. Miss Chua said to read it aloud to you. Wait, ah! I get message. Okay, here it is: Please meet Mr. Leong at Pulau Club at 10:30 a.m. No more excuses.”
“Kan ni nah!” Michael swore, kicking his desk.
• • •
Anyone standing at the third hole of the Island Course at Pulau Club—quaintly referred to as the “old course”—would feel as if they were transported back to an earlier time. Carved out of natural virgin jungle in 1930, the undulating green hills gave way to tropical groves of casuarinas and tembusus on one side and the oasis-like Peirce Reservoir on the other. Not a hint of the densely packed skyscrapers that were modern Singapore could be seen from this vantage point. Harry Leong, dressed in his usual golfing outfit of short-sleeved white cotton shirt, khaki pants, and a faded blue Royal Air Force cap*3 to protect his thinning silvery hair, was watching his golf buddy adjust a swing when his son-in-law came storming up the fairway.
“Oh—here he comes, looking blacker than the devil. Let’s have some fun with him, shall we?” Harry said to his friend. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” he called out.
“It might have been, had you not…” Michael began in a surly tone, before catching sight of the man standing next to his father-in-law. It was Hu Lee Shan, the minister of commerce, nattily dressed in a brightly striped Sligo golf shirt.
“Good morning, Mr. Teo,” the minister said jovially.
Forcing a smile, Michael said, “Good morning, sir.” Bloody hell! No wonder he was able to sabotage my meeting so quickly. He’s golfing with the friggin’ boss of the boss of the Monetary Authority!
“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice,” Harry continued politely. “Now, I’ll get right to the point: this matter over the silly magazine story.”
“
I’m sorry, Dad. It was never my intention for your name to get mentioned,” Michael began.
“Oh I don’t care about my name. I mean, who am I in the grand scheme of things, right? I’m a public servant—people can print any sort of nonsense they want about me. It’s all much ado about nothing in my opinion, but, you see, other names were mentioned in that article. Other people who are touchy about such things. Like my wife and my mother-in-law. That side of the family. You know how we mustn’t ever upset Astrid’s grandmother, or Uncle Alfred.”
“Heh heh heh—no one should ever upset Alfred Shang,” chuckled the minister.
Michael wanted to roll his eyes. What was the big deal about Alfred Shang that made every man so bo lam pa*4 in his presence? “I really had no idea that reporter was going to go digging. It was only supposed to be a flattering stor—”
Harry cut him off mid-word. “The Tattle people know never to write about us. So you went to the other magazine, Pompous or whatever it’s called. Tell me, what did you hope to achieve?”
“I thought the article would allow me to increase my company’s profile while respecting Astrid’s—and your family’s—need for privacy.”
“And do you think it does? I’m assuming you’ve read the article by now.”
Michael swallowed hard. “It doesn’t quite do what I had hoped.”
“Makes you out to be a pretentious buffoon, doesn’t it?” Harry said, as he reached for another putter. “Try this Honma, Lee Shan.”
Michael’s jaw tightened. If the minister wasn’t right there, he would give this old man a piece of his mind!
The minister executed a precise chipping swing and the golf ball rolled smoothly into the hole.
“Nice shot, sir,” Michael said.
“Do you play, Mr. Teo?”
“I do when I can.”
The minister glanced at Harry as he stepped up to the tee box and said, “You’re a lucky man—you have a son-in-law who golfs. My kids are far too preoccupied with their important lives to ever play with me.”
“We should all play at my club at Sentosa sometime. The ocean views are spectacular,” Michael offered.
Harry paused in the middle of his golf swing. “You know, I’ve never set foot in that club and I plan to die never having set foot there. If I’m not at St. Andrews or Pebble Beach, the only place I play is the old course right here.”
“I feel the same way, Harry,” the minister said. “Didn’t you use to catch Concorde to London on Fridays after work and then hop over to Edinburgh just to play a round at St. Andrews?”
“Those were the old days when I only had the weekends to spare. Now that I’m semiretired, I can go a whole week at Pebble Beach.”
Michael fumed in silence, wondering when this audience was ever going to end. As if reading his mind, his father-in-law looked him in the eye and said, “I need you to do something for me. I need you to go in person and apologize to your mother-in-law.”
“Of course. I’ll even write a letter to the magazine disavowing the article, if that’s what you want.”
“There’s no need—I’ve bought up the entire print run and had every issue of the magazine pulled from the bookstores and pulped,” Harry said lightly.
Michael’s eyes widened.
“Heh heh heh. All those subscribers are going to wonder why Pinnacle is missing from their mailboxes this month,” the minister cracked.
“Now, don’t let me keep you, Michael. I know you’re a very busy man. You have to get over to see my wife before she heads to Salon Dor La Mode for her wash and set at eleven thirty.”
“Of course,” Michael said, grateful to be getting away relatively unscathed. “Once again, I apologize. At the end of the day, I was only trying to do my best for the family. A feature article about my success can only benefit—”
Harry suddenly snapped in fury. “Your success is absolutely irrelevant to me! What have you succeeded at, really? You’ve sold a few meaningless companies and made some insignificant money. It’s all been handed to you! Your only mission in life as far as I’m concerned is to protect my daughter, and that means protecting her privacy. Your second mission is to protect my grandson. And on both scores you have failed.”
Michael, his face boiling in embarrassment and fury, stared at his father-in-law. He was about to say something when six black-suited security guards suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began carrying off the golf bags.
Harry Leong turned to his friend. “Now, on to the fourth hole?”
• • •
Michael sped down Adam Road in his Aston Martin DB5, seething with rage. How dare that shitbag humiliate me in front of the minister of commerce! Calling me a pretentious buffoon, when he’s the one bragging about his weekend trips to golf at Pebble Beach! What fucking bullshit to say it’s all been handed to me, when he inherited every cent of his obscene fortune and I’ve worked so goddamn hard my whole life!
Suddenly it was as if a flare went off inside his head. He had been going to his mother-in-law’s house on Nassim Road, but now he slammed on the brakes, made a U-turn, and raced back to his office.
Krystal was on her computer surfing websites for cheap travel deals to the Maldives when he came bursting into the office and started going through the filing cabinets.
“Where are all the files related to the sale of Cloud Nine Solutions, my first company?”
“Acherley,*5 wouldn’t those old files be in the archive room on forty-third floor?” Krystal suggested.
“Come with me, we need to find those files now!”
They raced down to the archive room, which Michael had never even entered before, and began digging through the file drawers. “I need to find the original contracts from 2010,” he said urgently.
“Wah, so many files here! Search and search until vomit blood!” Krystal complained.
After searching for twenty minutes, they came across a set of large orange binders that contained all the relevant documents. “Here it is!” Michael said excitedly.
“Wah, you damn heng!*6 I thought we never find!”
“Okay, Krystal, you can go back upstairs now.” Michael began rifling through the pages until he came to the one he was looking for. It was the Share Purchase Agreement authorizing the sale of his company to Promenade Technologies of Mountain View, California. There, buried within the dozens of various entities that were involved in the buyout of his tech firm, one name stood out—the ultimate parent company of the acquisition vehicle, some shell corporation based in Mauritius. He held the piece of paper in his hands, staring intently at the name in disbelief and denial, his heart pounding more furiously than it ever had before: Pebble Beach HoldCo IV-A, LTD.
It’s all been handed to you! His father-in-law’s words suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
* * *
*1 Singlish for “disturb” (Malay origin).
*2 Correct Singlish pronunciation for “government.”
*3 A gift from his friend His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent.
*4 A Hokkien term for cowards that literally means “no balls.”
*5 Correct Singlish pronunciation for “actually.”
*6 Hokkien for “lucky,” “fortunate.”
6
IMPERIAL TREASURE RESTAURANT
SHANGHAI
“I hope you don’t mind—I invited Colette to join us,” Carlton said breezily to his parents as the two of them entered the private dining room of Imperial Treasure. The Baos, who had summoned their son to dinner as soon as the gossip about Paris had reached their ears, couldn’t mask their looks of surprise when Colette walked in, followed by the ubiquitous Roxanne with a large beribboned hamper full of gifts from Paris.
“It’s always a pleasure to have you with us, Colette,” Gaoliang said, forcing a smile as he stared grimly at Carlton’s purplish eye. So the s
tory about his fight with Richie Yang was true.
Shaoyen was less restrained. She got up from the table and rushed toward her son, putting her hands on his face. “Look at you! You look like a raccoon that went for lip fillers! My God, after all you went through with your reconstructive surgeries, how could you let this happen?”
“I’m fine, Mother. It’s nothing,” Carlton said gruffly, trying to shrug her off.
“Mrs. Bao, I brought you some presents from Paris. I know how much you love the pâtés de fruits at Hédiard.” Colette gestured to the hamper, hoping to distract them.
“Hiyah, had I known you were coming, I would have arranged dinner at someplace special. This was just a last-minute family dinner,” Shaoyen said, hoping her emphasis on the word family would make the girl feel especially unwelcome.
“Oh, this is one of my family’s favorite restaurants too! I know the menu very well,” Colette chirped, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room.
“Why don’t you do the ordering then? Be sure to get all your favorite dishes,” Shaoyen replied solicitously.
“No, no, I’ll just keep it simple.” Colette turned to the waiter and smiled. “Let’s start with the deep-fried crab claws stuffed with minced shrimp, followed by the live Venus clams steamed in XO sauce, the barbecued roast pork with honey sauce, the sautéed scallops with Italian white truffle oil, and the stewed chicken with diced abalone and salted fish in clay pot. Oh, and of course we must have the roasted suckling pig—make sure it’s a fat one—and the steamed sliced garoupa with mushroom in lotus leaf, the stir-fried diced vegetables with walnut served in crispy nest, and of course the braised e-fu noodles with crab roe and crabmeat in soup. And for dessert, the double-boiled bird’s nest with rock sugar.”
Standing behind Colette’s chair, Roxanne leaned toward the waiter’s ear. “Please tell the chef it’s for Miss Bing—he knows she likes the bird’s nest dessert spiked with nine drops of amaretto di Saronno and sprinkled with shavings of twenty-four-carat gold.”
