by Kevin Kwan
“There’s my little Joshie!” Nadine cooed.
“He’s not that little. Don’t you think he has an enormous coo-coo for his age? My boys were never that big,” Daisy whispered to Lorena.
“Isn’t the father Arab? Arab men are supposed to be hung like camels,” Lorena whispered back.
“The father’s not Arab. He’s a Syrian Jew. And we shouldn’t be talking about such things at Bible study!” Carol glared at the women distastefully.
“Aiyah, what’s the big deal? The Bible is filled with penises! There are so many scriptures about circumcising your boys and all that nonsense!” Daisy said.
“You know, in Australia we don’t customarily circumcise boys anymore,” Jackie interjected. “It’s seen as an outdated practice, and a human rights issue. Boys should be given the right to make a decision about their own foreskins.”
Rachel had been enjoying her lunch immensely, but all this foreskin talk was suddenly making the glistening bits of chicken skin on her dish look particularly unappetizing. After the ladies had taken turns passing around the iPad and oohing and aahing over the chubby little toddler, Nadine ended the call as the maids brought in trays filled with sinfully delicious nyonya kueys.
Daisy spoke up as she ate a piece of kuey dadar.*3 “That grandson of yours is just tooooo cute! I look at him and I want to pinch those fat cheeks!”
“Next to Beyoncé and Rihanna, he is the greatest joy of my life,” Nadine said.
Rachel glanced at Nadine curiously, wondering if she had heard her correctly.
“Really, Nadine, you should be in London enjoying your grandson. He’s at the most adorable age right now!” Carol suggested.
“I loved my grandkids when they were at that age. After they were potty trained, but before they started getting potty mouths!” Daisy laughed.
“How about you, Rachel? When are you going to make Eleanor a proud grandmother?” Lorena asked point-blank.
Rachel saw that all eyes in the room were suddenly glued on her. “Nick and I do hope to have children someday.”
Lorena cocked her head. “And when might that someday be?”
Rachel noticed that Eleanor was staring at her intently but staying absolutely silent, so she chose her words carefully. “Well, the last few years have been…so eventful…we’re just waiting for the right time.”
“Trust me, there’s never going to be a right time. You just have to do it! I had three sons in three consecutive years. Got them out of the way in one go, lah!” Daisy said breezily.
“It’s a lot more challenging to have kids these days than during your time, Auntie Daisy. Especially raising children in New York, you really have to—”
“So have your baby in Singapore. You can have your pick of nannies here—Filipino, Indonesian, Sri Lankan—or even splurge on an eastern European,” Lorena chimed in.
“And all of us will gladly help to babysit!” Nadine volunteered.
Rachel was quietly aghast at the thought—Nadine couldn’t even babysit her own shopping bags. She smiled at the ladies and said diplomatically, “Thank you for all your advice, aunties. I really will take it to heart and discuss this with my husband.”
“Is it Nicky who’s stopping you from having a baby?” Daisy inquired.
“Um, no, not exactly…” Rachel said awkwardly.
“Then is it you? Are you concerned about being not able to bear a child at your age?” Daisy prodded.
“No, that’s not a concern.” Rachel took a deep breath, trying not to get annoyed by all this probing.
“Aiyah, aunties, stop putting so much pressure on poor Rachel!” Jackie suddenly spoke up. “A woman’s decision to have a child is the most important decision she can make.”
“Okay lah, okay lah, we are just so eager for Eleanor to join us in the grandmas’ club!” Daisy laughed, breaking the tension in the room.
Rachel shot Jackie a grateful look.
Jackie stood up and said to Rachel, “Here, come with me. Let’s get a little fresh air.”
Rachel put her tray aside and followed Jackie out of the bedroom. Jackie made a quick turn around the corner and opened the door to what was Carol’s private prayer room. “Let’s go in here.”
Rachel entered and the first thing she saw was a medical examination table in the middle of the room, the kind with raised footrests found in gynecological clinics.
“You know, Rachel, I’m an ob-gyn in Brisbane, and if you have any medical concerns at all about your reproductive system, we can address them right now,” Jackie suggested, flipping on a switch. The room was suddenly flooded with harsh white fluorescent light.
Rachel stared at her for a few seconds, too stunned to speak.
Jackie smiled as she handed Rachel a pale green patient gown. “Here, why don’t you put this on and get on the table, and I’ll perform a quick pelvic exam?”
“Um, I’m quite all right, thanks.” Rachel began backing away from her.
Reaching into her pocket, Jackie pulled out a pair of surgical gloves and began to put them on. “This will just take a few minutes. Auntie Elle just wants to know how those ovaries of yours are doing.”
“Get away from me!” Rachel cringed as she turned toward the door. She ran into Carol Tai’s bedroom and grabbed her purse without a word.
“Aiyah, so fast?” Nadine commented.
“Is everything okay?” Carol asked sweetly.
Rachel turned to Eleanor, her face red with fury. “Just when I thought you might be a semi-normal mother-in-law, you go and pull this stunt?”
“What are you talking about?” Eleanor said innocently.
“You had an entire friggin’ examination room set up next door! You planned this entire bullshit ambush, didn’t you? Just because Nick and I haven’t had any babies yet, you think I have some medical problem?”
“Well, you can’t blame her for thinking that. We all know this isn’t Nicky’s problem—he’s got great genes,” Lorena said.
“What is wrong with you people?” Rachel seethed.
Eleanor suddenly stood up and began shouting. “What is wrong? Look at my hands, Rachel. They are empty!” She thrust her open palms out. “Why am I not getting to cradle a baby? It’s been more than two years now, five if you count how long you’ve been sleeping with my son! So where’s my grandchild? How much longer are these hands going to be cold and empty?”
“Eleanor, THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU! Nick and I will have a child when we are good and ready!” Rachel yelled back.
Daisy spoke up in defense of her friend. “Don’t be so selfish, Rachel! You and Nicky have had your fun! It’s time to do your duty and give Eleanor a grandchild now! How many more years do she and Philip have to enjoy their grandchildren? The next time I see you in Singapore, I want you to be holding a big bouncy baby!”
Rachel was outraged. “Do you think it’s that easy? I just snap my fingers and a baby will magically appear?”
“Of course! It’s soooo easy to have babies these days!” Nadine exclaimed. “I mean, my Francesca didn’t even have to get pregnant herself. She was so scared of getting stretch marks, she hired a pretty girl from Tibet to carry the baby. The day after Joshie was born she was already off to some party in Rio!”
Carol tried to step in. “Ladies, let’s not get too worked up. I think we should all say a prayer together—”
“You want a prayer? I’ll give you a prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for getting me the fuck out of here. Amen!” Rachel said, storming out of the room.
* * *
*1 Singapore’s impressive Electronic Road Pricing system (ERP), used to manage road congestion, has also led to impressive levels of bitching from citizens.
*2 Ah Meng was an irrepressible orangutan that was for many years in the 1980s the star attraction of the Singapore Zoo.
*3 A sweet r
olled pancake filled with coconut palm sugar that, because of the way the pancake is folded at the ends, just happens to resemble a small uncircumcised penis.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
From Tommy Yip’s daily gossip column:
Titas were atwitter last night over what happened in the middle of the spectacularly elegant party at China Cruz’s divine mansion in Dasmariñas. Apparently, while Chris-Emmanuelle Yam (clad in a curvy Chloé confection) was belting out the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” accompanied by a full orchestra, a tremendous crashing noise sent the couture-clad guests rushing out of the ballroom to the grand foyer. There they found debonair Diego San Antonio wrestling on the marble floor with an intruder.
“It was this Chinese man, rather handsome, but obviously quite deranged. He had Diego by the collar and he kept shouting, ‘Tell me where she is!’ ” social dynamo Doris Hoh (enchanting in an emerald Elie Saab) breathlessly told me. “It was surreal. Here were two men rolling around on the floor, with purple glass everywhere and a huge roasted pig right next to them!” Apparently the fight began upstairs, where Diego first encountered the intruder in China’s library. A tussle began and they ended up rolling down the dramatic curving Gone with the Wind–style double staircase, toppling over the buffet table where a huge lechon* was just about to be carved, and smashing into a Ramon Orlina glass sculpture.
“That sculpture was of my breasts. It was a beautiful masterpiece that got destroyed!” China (sheathed in a showstopping strapless Saint Laurent) lamented. “What a waste! I was so looking forward to the lechon. I heard it was a special pig that had only eaten truffles its entire life and was flown in from Spain,” Josie Natori (draped in a dress of her own design, of course) said with a sigh. Thankfully, before the intruder could do much damage to Diego’s fabulous Brioni blazer, Brunomars—China’s 250-pound Tibetan mastiff—leapt onto the intruder and according to onlookers “bit him in the ass.”
But the intrepid journalist Karen Davila (astonishingly alluring in Armani) quashed that story. “Tommy, do your fact-checking, please! Brunomars did not bite him in the ass! He is still a puppy, and he leapt onto the men on the floor because he was trying to get a taste of the lechon! He bit the lechon on the ass!” Whoever’s ass it was, Brunomars saved the day, because the intruder suddenly calmed down when he saw all the guests clustered around like they were watching Manny Pacquiao in the boxing ring. (Manny was actually at the party too, but he was in the basement having an intense chess match with China’s son.) He ran out the front door without another word, jumped into a waiting black Toyota Alphard, and sped off before any of China’s guards could stop him.
···
Charlie leaned against the bathroom sink in his suite at the Raffles Makati, holding a towel full of ice to his face to soothe the swelling. How in the world had he let things devolve to this point? He had snuck unnoticed into China Cruz’s party, and managed to get Diego’s attention when the singing began. Diego had suggested that they go upstairs to the library to talk things over, but things became heated when Diego had refused to reveal Astrid’s whereabouts.
“I can assure you, Mr. Wu, that you can search every corner of Manila and all seven thousand islands of the Philippines, but you’ll never find her. If she wanted you to know where she was, she would have told you,” Diego had said rather nonchalantly.
“You don’t understand! If she knew what was really happening, she’d come out of hiding. The situation has changed, and there’s some vitally important information she needs to know!” he had pleaded.
“Well, who put her in this situation in the first place? As far as I’m concerned, everything bad that’s happened to Astrid in the past few months has had something to do with your involvement in her life. The leaked paparazzi photos. The leaked video. Your ex-wife. I’m sorry, but my only duty here is to protect Astrid from you.”
And that’s when things got out of control. He knew he shouldn’t have lunged at Diego, but some visceral force just overtook his body. And now he had caused yet another scandal, this time among the most elite circles of Manila high society. And these people were sure to talk. The news would be all over town, all over Asia, and into Astrid’s ears in no time. And this might make her go even deeper into hiding. Goddamnit, he had really screwed things up again.
Charlie dumped the ice from his towel into the sink and splashed some cold water on his face. Turning off the running faucet, he suddenly heard a soft knock on the door. He walked out of the bathroom and peered through the peephole. He saw a petite Filipino girl in a gold lamé cocktail dress standing in the hallway.
“Who is it?”
“My name is Angel. I have a message for you.”
Charlie opened the door and stared at the girl. She looked to be in her early twenties, with shoulder-length hair and a friendly, open face. “Sir Charlie, I have some instructions for you from my boss. Go to the ITI Private Terminal on Andrews Avenue in Pasay City tomorrow morning and take the seven-thirty flight. Your name will be on the list.”
“Wait a minute, how do you know me?”
“I was at China’s party tonight. I recognized you immediately.”
“Who’s your boss? How does he know I was staying here?”
“My boss knows everything,” Angel said with an enigmatic smile, before turning to leave.
—
The next morning, Charlie followed the instructions that had been provided by the mysterious girl and went to the private terminal in Pasay City, where he discovered in the hospitality lounge that this was a charter plane bound for different resorts on the Philippines’ southwest coast. He boarded the twin-propeller plane, which was filled with tourists eager to get their beach vacations started. The plane took off and flew low over the coast, landing forty-five minutes later at a small desolate airstrip on the edge of the sea.
It was gray and raining when Charlie got off the plane. All the passengers were guided onto a colorfully painted bus, and they were driven down a muddy track to a series of open-air wooden huts. EL NIDO AIRPORT, a charming painted wooden sign announced. A row of Filipino women stood in the rain at the edge of the hut, singing a welcome song. Charlie got off the bus and was about to follow the tourists into the hut when an athletic young Filipino dressed in a white polo tee and crisp navy cargo pants approached him, holding a large white golf umbrella.
“Sir Charlie? My name is Marco. If you’ll come with me please,” the man said in an American accent. Charlie followed the man down a pathway to a private dock, where an elegant Riva speedboat awaited. They hopped into the boat, and Marco turned on the engine.
“It’s been a wet morning. There’s a raincoat under that seat for you,” Marco said, as he expertly turned the boat around and sped off onto the open sea.
“I’m fine, I enjoy the rain. Where are we going?” Charlie yelled over the roar of the wind and the splashing waves.
“We’re heading twenty-five nautical miles southwest.”
“How did you recognize me?”
“Oh, my boss showed me your picture. You’re easy to spot in a crowd of American tourists.”
“Sounds like you spent some time in America yourself,” Charlie said.
“I went to UC Santa Cruz.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who your boss is?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Marco said with a little nod.
After about thirty minutes, the gray clouds gave way to open sky and puffy white clouds, turning the color of the ocean into a deep sapphire. As the speedboat continued to zoom along the Sulu Sea, Charlie stared out to the horizon as fantastical rock formations rose up from the water like apparitions. Soon they were surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of tiny islands floating on the blindingly azure waters. Each island resembled a monolithic rock carved in some otherworldly shape, bursting with
lush tropical vegetation and sugary white beaches.
“Welcome to Palawan,” Marco announced.
Charlie took in the mystical landscape in awe. “I feel like I’m dreaming. These islands look like they don’t belong on this earth—they look like they rose out of Atlantis.”
“They are more than fourteen million years old,” Marco said, as they sped past a towering rock face that gleamed in the late-morning sun. “It’s all part of a marine reserve park.”
“Are most of them deserted?” Charlie asked as they passed an island with a particularly pristine crescent-shaped beach.
“Some, but not all. That one we just passed has a great little beach bar that only opens after sunset. They make the best margaritas,” Marco said with a big grin.
The Riva sped past a few other small islands before coming to one of the larger ones. “Did you bring any swimming trunks?” Marco asked.
Charlie shook his head. “I had no idea where I would be going.”
“There’s a pair in that cabinet under your seat that should fit you. You’re going to need them.”
As they rounded the other side of the island, Charlie hastily threw on the pair of blue-and-white-striped Parke & Ronen swimming trunks that happened to fit him perfectly. Marco anchored the boat by a rocky cove and handed Charlie a mask and snorkel. “The tide is a bit high right now, so we’re going to be underwater just for a little while. You’re okay with a bit of ocean swimming?”
Charlie nodded. “Where are we going? Or let me guess, I’ll find out soon enough.”
Marco flashed his pearly whites again. “This is the only way you’re gonna meet the boss.” He stripped off his clothes to reveal a red Speedo underneath and dove into the water. Charlie dove in after him, and as they floated together by the side of the speedboat, Marco said, “These rocks are really treacherous whenever the waves crash onto them. Once you dive underwater, you’ll see a cave opening under the rocks. We’re going to swim through the opening, and you’ll only need to hold your breath for fifteen, twenty seconds max.”
