by Kevin Kwan
“Nick’s been calling every day, you know,” Peik Lin said. “I’m sure he has.”
“It’s been pretty pathetic,” P.T. reported. “It was four times a day when you first got here, but he tapered off to once a day. He drove up here twice, hoping we might let him come in, but the guards told him he had to move along.”
Rachel’s heart sank. She could imagine how Nick was feeling, but at the same time, she didn’t know how to face him. He had suddenly become a reminder of everything that had gone wrong in her life.
“You should see him,” Wye Mun said gently.
“I disagree, Papa,” Peik Wing’s wife, Sheryl, piped in. “If I were Rachel, I would never want to see Nick or anyone in that evil family again. Who do those people think they are? Trying to ruin people’s lives!”
“Alamak, why make the poor boy suffer? It’s not his fault that his mother is a chao chee bye!” Neena exclaimed. The whole table exploded in laughter, except for Sheryl, who made a face as she covered her daughters’ ears.
“Hiyah, Sheryl, they’re too young to know what it means!” Neena assured her daughter-in-law.
“What does that mean?” Rachel asked.
“Rotten cunt,” P.T. whispered with relish.
“No, no, smelly rotten cunt,” Wye Mun corrected. Everyone roared again, Rachel included.
Recovering herself, Rachel sighed. “I guess I ought to see him.”
Two hours later Rachel and Nick were seated at an umbrella-shaded table by the swimming pool of Villa d’Oro, the sound of trickling gilded fountains punctuating the silence. Rachel gazed at the water ripples reflecting off the gold-and-blue mosaic tiles. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Nick. Strangely, what had been the most beautiful face in the world to her had become too painful to look at. She found herself suddenly mute, not quite knowing how to begin.
Nick swallowed nervously. “I don’t even know how to begin to ask for your forgiveness.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. You weren’t responsible for this.”
“But I am. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I put you in one horrendous situation after another. I’m so sorry, Rachel. I’ve been recklessly ignorant about my own family—I had no idea how crazy my mum would get. And I always thought my grandmother wanted me to be happy.”
Rachel stared at the sweaty glass of iced tea in front of her, not saying anything.
“I’m so relieved to see that you’re okay. I’ve been so worried,” Nick said.
“I’ve been well taken care of by the Gohs,” Rachel said simply.
“Yes, I met Peik Lin’s parents earlier. They’re lovely. Neena Goh demanded that I come to dinner. Not tonight, of course, but …”
Rachel gave the barest hint of a smile. “The woman is a feeder, and you look like you’ve lost some weight.” Actually, he looked terrible. She had never seen him like this—he looked like he had slept in his clothes, and his hair had lost its floppy sheen.
“I haven’t been eating much.”
“Your old cook at Tyersall Park hasn’t been preparing all your favorite dishes?” Rachel said a little sarcastically. She knew her pent-up anger was misdirected at Nick, but in the moment she couldn’t help herself. She realized he was as much a victim of circumstances as she was, but she wasn’t able to look past her own pain just yet.
“Actually, I’m not staying at Tyersall Park,” Nick said.
“Oh?”
“I haven’t wanted to see anyone since that night in Cameron Highlands, Rachel.”
“Are you back at the Kingsford Hotel?”
“Colin’s let me crash at his house in Sentosa Cove while he’s away on his honeymoon. He and Araminta have been very worried about you too, you know.”
“How nice of them,” she said flatly, staring out across the pool at the replica of Venus de Milo. An armless statue of a beautiful maiden fought over by collectors for centuries, even though its origins have never been verified. Maybe someone should chop off her arms too. Maybe she would feel better.
Nick reached out and placed his hand over Rachel’s. “Let’s go back to New York. Let’s go home.”
“I’ve been thinking … I need to go to China. I want to meet my father.”
Nick paused. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“Is anyone ever ready to meet the father they never knew, who’s in a prison?”
Nick sighed. “Well, when do we leave?”
“Actually, Peik Lin is coming with me.”
“Oh,” Nick said, a little taken aback. “Can I come? I’d like to be there for you.”
“No, Nick, this is something I need to do on my own. It’s already enough that Peik Lin insisted on coming. But her father has friends in China who are helping with the red tape, so I couldn’t say no. I’ll be in and out within a couple of days, and then I’ll be ready to head back to New York.”
“Well, just let me know when you want to change the return date on our plane tickets. I’m ready to go home anytime, Rachel.”
Rachel inhaled deeply, bracing herself for what she was about to say. “Nick, I need to go back to New York … on my own.”
“On your own?” Nick said in surprise.
“Yes. I don’t need you to cut short your summer vacation and fly back with me.”
“No, no, I’m as sick of this place as you are! I want to go home with you!” Nick insisted.
“That’s the thing, Nick. I don’t think I can deal with that right now.”
Nick looked at her sadly. She was clearly still in a world of pain.
“And when I’m back in New York,” she continued, her voice getting shaky, “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
“What? What do you mean?” Nick said in alarm.
“I mean exactly that. I’ll get my things out of your apartment as soon as I get back, and then when you return—”
“Rachel, you’re crazy!” Nick said, leaping out of his chair and crouching down beside her. “Why are you saying all this? I love you. I want to marry you.”
“I love you too,” Rachel cried. “But don’t you see—it’s never going to work.”
“Of course it is. Of course it is! I don’t give a damn what my family thinks—I want to be with you, Rachel.”
Rachel shook her head slowly. “It’s not just your family, Nick. It’s your friends, your childhood friends—it’s everyone on this island.”
“That’s not true, Rachel. My best friends think the world of you. Colin, Mehmet, Alistair, and there are so many friends of mine you haven’t even had the chance to meet. But that’s all beside the point. We live in New York now. Our friends are there, our life is there, and it’s been great. It will continue to be great once we’ve left all this insanity behind.”
“It’s not that simple, Nick. You probably didn’t notice it yourself, but you said ‘we live in New York now.’ But you won’t always be living in New York. You’ll be returning here someday, probably within the next few years. Don’t kid yourself—your whole family is here, your legacy is here.”
“Oh fuck all that! You know I couldn’t care less about that bullshit.”
“That’s what you say now, but don’t you see how things might change in time? Don’t you think you might start to resent me in years to come?”
“I could never resent you, Rachel. You’re the most important person in my life! You have no idea—I’ve barely slept, barely eaten—the past seven days have been absolute hell without you.”
Rachel sighed, clamping her eyes shut for a moment. “I know you’ve been in pain. I don’t want to hurt you, but I think it’s really for the best.”
“To break up? You’re not making any sense, Rachel. I know how much you’re hurting right now, but breaking up won’t make it hurt any less. Let me help you, Rachel. Let me take care of you,” Nick pleaded fervently, hair getting into his eyes.
“What if we have children? Our children will never be accepted by your family.”
“Who cares? We’
ll have our own family, our own lives. None of this is significant.”
“It’s significant to me. I’ve been thinking about it endlessly, Nick. You know, at first I was so shocked to learn about my past. I was devastated by my mother’s lies, to realize that even my name wasn’t real. I felt like my whole identity had been robbed from me. But then I realized … none of it really matters. What is a name anyway? We Chinese are so obsessed with family names. I’m proud of my own name. I’m proud of the person I’ve become.”
“I am too,” Nick said.
“So you’ll have to understand that, as much as I love you, Nick, I don’t want to be your wife. I never want to be part of a family like yours. I can’t marry into a clan that thinks it’s too good to have me. And I don’t want my children to ever be connected to such people. I want them to grow up in a loving, nurturing home, surrounded by grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who consider them equals. Because that’s ultimately what I have, Nick. You’ve seen it yourself, when you came home with me last Thanksgiving. You see what it’s like with my cousins. We’re competitive, we tease each other mercilessly, but at the end of the day we support each other. That’s what I want for my kids. I want them to love their family, but to feel a deeper sense of pride in who they are as individuals, Nick, not in how much money they have, what their last name is, or how many generations they go back to whatever dynasty. I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of being around all these crazy rich Asians, all these people whose lives revolve around making money, spending money, flaunting money, comparing money, hiding money, controlling others with money, and ruining their lives over money. And if I marry you, there will be no escaping it, even if we live on the other side of the world.”
Rachel’s eyes were brimming with tears, and as much as Nick wanted to insist she was wrong, he knew nothing he could say now would convince her otherwise. In any part of the world, whether New York, Paris, or Shanghai, she was lost to him.
* * *
* Cantonese for “century-egg congee.”
† Hokkien slang for “it’s all good.”
16
Sentosa Cove
SINGAPORE
It must have been a bird or something, Nick thought, waking up to a sound. There was a blue jay that liked to tap its beak against the sliding glass wall downstairs by the reflecting pool every morning. How long had he been sleeping? It was seven forty-five, so this meant he’d knocked off at least four and a half hours. Not bad, considering that he hadn’t been able to sleep more than three hours a night since Rachel had broken up with him a week ago. The bed was bathed in a pool of light coming from the retractable glass roof, and now it was far too bright for him to go back to sleep. How did Colin manage to get any sleep in this place? There was something so impractical about living in a house that consisted mainly of reflecting pools and glass walls.
Nick turned over, facing the Venetian stucco wall with the large Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph. It was a black-and-white image from his cinema series, the interior of an old theater somewhere in Ohio. Sugimoto had left the camera shutter open for the duration of the film, so that the large screen became a glowing, rectangular portal of light. To Nick, it seemed like a portal to a parallel universe, and he wished he could just slip into all that whiteness and disappear. Maybe go back in time. To April, or May. He should have known better. He should never have invited Rachel to come here without first giving her a crash course in how to deal with his family. “Rich, Entitled, Delusional Chinese Families 101.” Could he really be part of this family? The older he got, and the more years he spent abroad, the more he felt like a stranger in their midst. Now that he was in his thirties, the expectations kept growing, and the rules kept changing. He didn’t know how to keep up with this place anymore. And yet he loved being back home. He loved the long rainy afternoons at his grandmother’s house during monsoon season, hunting for kueh tutu* in Chinatown, the long walks around MacRitchie Reservoir at dusk with his father …
There was the sound again. This time it didn’t sound like the blue jay. He had fallen asleep without arming the security system, and now someone was definitely in the house. He threw on a pair of shorts and tiptoed out of the bedroom. The guest bedroom was accessed through a glass skywalk that stretched across the back section of the house, and looking down, he could see the flicker of a reflection as it moved across the polished Brazilian oak floors. Was the house being burglarized? Sentosa Cove was so isolated, and anyone reading the gossip rags knew Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee were away on their fabulous honeymoon yachting around the Dalmatian coast.
Nick hunted around for a weapon; the only thing he could find was a carved didgeridoo propped against the wall of the guest bathroom. (Would someone actually play the didgeridoo while sitting on the loo?) He crept down the floating titanium stairs and walked slowly toward the galley kitchen, raising the didgeridoo to strike just as Colin appeared from around the corner.
“Christ!” Nick swore in surprise, putting down his weapon.
Colin seemed unruffled by the sight of Nick in nothing more than a pair of soccer shorts, wielding a rainbow-colored didgeridoo. “I don’t think that makes a good weapon, Nick,” he said. “Should have gone for the antique samurai sword in my bedroom.”
“I thought someone was breaking in!”
“There are no break-ins around here. This neighborhood is way too secure, and thieves can’t be bothered to drive out here just to steal customized kitchen appliances.”
“What are you doing back from your honeymoon so early?” Nick asked, scratching his head.
“Well, I heard disturbing rumors that my best friend was suicidal and wasting away in my house.”
“Wasting away, but not suicidal.” Nick groaned.
“Seriously, Nicky, you have a lot of people worried about you.”
“Oh, like who? And don’t say my mother.”
“Sophie’s been worried. Araminta. Even Mandy. She called me in Hvar. I think she feels really bad about how she acted.”
“Well, the damage has been done,” Nick said gruffly.
“Listen, why don’t I make you a quick breakfast? You look like you haven’t eaten in years.”
“That’ll be great.”
“Watch, as the Iron Chef attempts to fry up some hor bao daan.”†
Nick perched on a barstool at the island in the kitchen, wolfing down his breakfast. He held up a fork of eggs. “Almost as good as Ah Ching’s.”
“Pure luck. My bao daan usually end up as scrambled eggs.”
“Well, it’s the best thing I’ve eaten all week. Actually, it’s the only thing I’ve eaten. I’ve just been parked on your sofa, bingeing on beer and episodes of Mad Men. By the way, you’re out of Red Stripe.”
“This is the first time you’ve ever really been depressed, isn’t it? Finally the heartbreaker discovers how it feels to get his heart broken.”
“I don’t actually hold the trademark on that name. Alistair’s the true heartbreaker.”
“Wait a minute—you haven’t heard? Kitty Pong dumped him!”
“Now that’s a shocker,” Nick remarked drily.
“No, you don’t know the whole story! At the tea ceremony the day after the wedding, Araminta and I were in the middle of pouring tea for Mrs. Lee Yong Chien when we all heard this strange noise coming from somewhere. It sounded like a rattling crossed with some kind of farm animal giving birth. No one could figure out what it was. We thought maybe a bat was stuck somewhere in the house. So a few of us started looking around discreetly, and you know how my grandfather’s colonial house on Belmont Road is—there are all these huge built-in closets everywhere. Well, little Rupert Khoo opens the door under the grand staircase and out tumble Kitty and Bernard Tai, right in front of all the guests!”
“NOOOOOOO!” Nick exclaimed.
“And that’s not the worst of it. Bernard was bent over spread-eagle with his pants around his ankles, and Kitty still had two fingers up his bum when
the door popped open!”
Nick broke out into hysterical fits, slapping the travertine counter repeatedly as tears ran down his cheeks.
“You should have seen the look on Mrs. Lee Yong Chien’s face! I thought I was going to have to perform CPR!” Colin sniggered.
“Thanks for the laugh—I needed that.” Nick sighed, trying to catch his breath. “I feel bad for Alistair.”
“Oh, he’ll get over it. I’m more worried about you. Seriously, what are you going to do about Rachel? We need to get you cleaned up and back on your white horse. I think Rachel could use your help now more than ever.”
“I know that, but she’s adamant about wanting me out of her life. She made it clear she never wanted to see me again, and those Gohs have done a damn good job of enforcing that!”
“She’s still in shock, Nicky. With all that’s happened to her, how could she possibly know what she wants?”
“I know her, Colin. When her mind is made up there’s no going back. She’s not a sentimentalist. She’s very pragmatic, and she’s so stubborn. She’s decided that because of the way my family is, being together will never work. Can you blame her, after what they’ve done? Isn’t it ironic? Everyone thinks she’s some kind of gold digger, when she’s the complete opposite. She broke up with me because of my money.”
“I told you I liked her from the day we met—she’s the real deal, isn’t she?” Colin observed.
Nick gazed out the window at the view across the bay. In the morning haze, the Singapore skyline almost resembled Manhattan’s. “I loved the life we had together in New York,” he said wistfully. “I loved getting up early on Sunday mornings and going to Murray’s to pick up bagel sandwiches with her. I loved spending hours wandering around the West Village, going to Washington Square Park to check out the dogs playing in the dog run. But I fucked it all up. I’m the reason her life has become a total mess.”
“You’re not the reason, Nicky.”
“Colin—I ruined her life. Because of me, she no longer has a relationship with her mother, and they were like best friends. Because of me, she found out that her father is a convict, that everything she believed about herself has been a lie. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t brought her here. As much as I want to believe there’s a part of her that still loves me, we’re trapped in an impossible situation.” Nick sighed.
