by Kevin Kwan
*3 Dumplings filled with meat and piping hot broth that—due to their increased popularity in recent years on the international food scene—have been scalding uninitiated mouths around the world.
3
SCOTTS ROAD
SINGAPORE, FEBRUARY 9, 2013
“When you get here, just drive straight up to the garage,” Bao Shaoyen told Eleanor over the phone. Eleanor did as she was instructed, pulling up to the security booth and explaining that she was paying an after-dinner visit to the Baos, who had recently rented a unit in this brand-new condominium off Scotts Road.
“Ah yes, Mrs. Young. Please keep to the left and follow the arrows,” the attendant in the dark gray uniform said. Eleanor drove down the ramp into a spotless underground parking garage that seemed curiously devoid of cars. They must be one of the first tenants to move in, she thought, veering to the left and approaching a white metallic garage door with a sign overhead that read UNIT 01 MECHANISED CAR PARK (FOR RESIDENTS ONLY). The door rose quickly and a green signal light began to flash. As she pulled forward into the brightly lit chamber, a digital sign in front of her flashed STOP. PARKING POSITION OK. How strange…am I just supposed to park right here?
Suddenly the ground began to move. Eleanor gasped and grabbed hold of the steering wheel reflexively. Only after a few seconds did she realize she had driven onto a rotating platform that was slowly pivoting her car ninety degrees. When the car stopped turning, the entire floor began to rise. For heaven’s sake, it’s a drive-in elevator! To her right was a wall of windows, and as the elevator continued to ascend, the full glory of Singapore’s nighttime skyline unfurled below her.
This high-tech apartment must be Carlton’s idea, Eleanor thought. Since meeting Bao Shaoyen in London last September, she had come to know the family well. Eleanor and her friends had lent their support to Shaoyen and her husband, Gaoliang, during those tense few weeks when Carlton was in and out of surgeries at St. Mary’s Paddington, and as soon as he was out of danger, it was Eleanor who suggested that he complete his recuperation in Singapore rather than Beijing.
“The climate and air quality will be much better for him, and we have some of the best physical therapists in the world. I’m related to all the top doctors in Singapore, and I’ll make sure Carlton gets the best treatment,” she had urged, and the Baos thankfully concurred. Of course, Eleanor did not reveal the true motive behind her altruism—having them close by would allow her to find out everything she could about the family.
Eleanor knew plenty of overindulged sons, but never had she met one with a mother so wrapped around his finger. Shaoyen had flown three maids down from Beijing to assist in Carlton’s care but still insisted on doing practically everything for Carlton herself. And since arriving in Singapore last November, they had inexplicably moved three times. Daisy Foo had done what she considered to be a special favor for the Baos, and using her family connections had secured them a Valley Wing suite at the Shangri-La at a very discounted rate—but Carlton had for some reason been dissatisfied with one of Singapore’s top hotels. The Baos soon moved into a furnished apartment at Hilltops, the luxurious high-rise on Leonie Hill, and a month later they switched again to an even swankier pad off Grange Road. And now here they were in this building with the ridiculous car elevator.
Eleanor remembered reading about this place in the property section of Business Times—it was the first luxury condo in Asia to boast biometrically controlled car elevators and “en suite sky garages” in every apartment. Only expats on could-give-a-damn expense accounts or Mainlanders with too much money would want to live in a place like this. Carlton, obviously in the latter category, had gotten exactly what he wanted.
Fifty levels up, the ground finally came to a halt and Eleanor found herself peering into a sprawling living room. Shaoyen stood on the other side of a glass wall waving at her, with Carlton—in a wheelchair—by her side.
“Welcome, welcome!” Shaoyen said excitedly as Eleanor entered the apartment.
“Alamak, I got the fright of my life! I thought I was getting a vertigo attack when the floor started to turn!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Young, it was my idea—I thought you’d enjoy the novelty of the car lift,” Carlton explained.
Shaoyen gave Eleanor a look of resignation. “I hope you see now why we had to move in here. The handicap van comes right up to this floor, and Carlton can just wheel himself right into the apartment with no fuss.”
“Yes, very convenient,” Eleanor said, not believing for one moment that handicap access played a role in the selection of this apartment. She turned around to look at the gimmicky garage again, but noticed that the wall of glass had turned an opaque shade of white. “Wah, how clever! I thought you’d have to sit in your living room and stare at your car all day. It would be so unfortunate if you drove an old Subaru.”
“Well, you can stare at your car if you want to,” Carlton said, touching the screen on his iPad mini. The wall instantly became transparent again, but this time, special spotlights and mood lighting in the garage made her twelve-year-old Jaguar look like it was a museum showpiece. Eleanor was secretly relieved that her driver, Ahmad, had polished the car the day before.
“Imagine how gorgeous a chrome-colored Lamborghini Aventador would look sitting in there,” Carlton said, shooting his mother a hopeful look.
“You are not getting behind the wheel of another sports car,” Shaoyen said in a huff.
“We’ll see about that,” Carlton muttered under his breath, shooting Eleanor a conspiratorial look. Eleanor smiled back at him, thinking how utterly transformed he seemed. For the first few weeks after he had been moved to Singapore for his rehabilitation, Carlton seemed totally catatonic, barely making eye contact or saying a word to her. But today, the young man in the wheelchair was talking, even joking with her. Maybe they had put him on Zoloft or something.
Shaoyen steered Eleanor into the formal sitting room, an aggressively modern space with floor-to-ceiling windows and backlit onyx walls. A Mainland Chinese maid entered carrying a tray groaning with an elaborate Flora Danica tea service that Eleanor privately judged incongruous with the rest of the decor.
“Come, come, have some tea. You are so nice to spend time with us on New Year’s Eve when you should be with your husband,” Shaoyen said graciously.
“Well, Philip doesn’t arrive until late tonight. Our family doesn’t celebrate New Year’s until tomorrow. Speaking of husbands, is Gaoliang around?”
“You just missed him. He had to fly back to Beijing. There are so many official functions he has to attend over the next few days.”
“How unfortunate. Well, you’ll have to save some of these for him,” Eleanor said as she handed Shaoyen a large plastic OG shopping bag.*1
“Oh, you really shouldn’t have!” Shaoyen reached into the bag and began to take out half a dozen different containers. “Now, what are all these delicious-looking confections?”
“Just some traditional New Year goodies made by my mother-in-law’s cooks. Pineapple tarts, love letters, almond cookies, and assorted nyonya cakes.”
“This is so nice of you. Xiè xie!*2 Wait a minute, I have something for you,” Shaoyen said, scurrying off to another room.
Carlton eyed the desserts. “Awfully nice of you to bring all these treats, Mrs. Young. Which one should we try first?”
“I would start with something not too sweet, like the kueh bangkit almond cookies, and work your way up to the pineapple tarts,” Eleanor advised. She studied Carlton’s face for a moment. The scar on his left cheek was just a faint hairline now, and it actually added a dash of roguish charm to his boringly perfect cheekbones. He was a handsome young chap, and even after all the reconstructive surgery still resembled Rachel Chu so closely that it was rather disconcerting to look at him at times. Thankfully, his posh English accent, which reminded her so much of Nicky’s, was much more attractive than Rachel’s absurd American drawl.
“Mind if I share a secret with you, M
rs. Young?” Carlton suddenly whispered.
“Of course,” Eleanor said.
Carlton peered over at the hallway for a moment to see if his mother was approaching, and then, slowly, he lifted himself up from the wheelchair and took a few tentative steps.
“You’re walking now!” Eleanor exclaimed in astonishment.
“Shhhhh! Not so loud!” Carlton said, sitting down in his wheelchair again. “I don’t want my mother to see this until I can walk clear across the room. My PT thinks I’ll be walking normally again within a month, and running by this summer.”
“Oh my goodness! I’m so happy for you,” Eleanor said.
Shaoyen reentered the room. “What’s all the excitement? Did Carlton tell you about his mazi coming to visit?”
“Noooo?” Eleanor replied, her interest piqued.
“She’s not my girlfriend, Mother,” Carlton said.
“Okay, Carlton’s friend is coming to visit us next week,” Shaoyen clarified.
Carlton let out an embarrassed groan.
“Aiyah, Carlton is so handsome and so smart, of course he would have a friend! Too bad, I had so many eligible pretty girls lined up to gaai siu,”*3 Eleanor said mischievously.
Carlton blushed a little. “Do you like the view, Mrs. Young?” he said, trying to change the subject.
“Yes, it’s very nice. You know, you can see my apartment from here,” Eleanor said.
“Really? Which one is it?” Shaoyen said with interest, going up to the window. They had been in Singapore for three months now, and she found it a bit curious that Eleanor had never once invited them over.
“It’s the one on top of that hill over there. Do you see the tower that looks like it’s built on top of that old mansion?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Which floor are you on?” Carlton asked.
“I have the penthouse.”
“Wicked! We tried to get the penthouse here but it was already taken,” Carlton bragged.
“This is big enough, don’t you think? Don’t you have the whole floor?”
“Yes. It’s three thousand five hundred square feet, with four bedrooms.”
“My goodness, you must be paying an arm and a leg in rental fees.”
“Well, we decided to buy the place rather than pay rent on it,” Carlton said with a satisfied grin.
“Oh,” Eleanor said, surprised.
“Yes, and now that we’ve moved in, we like it so much that we’ve decided to buy the floors above and below and create a triplex—”
“No, no, we’re just thinking about it,” Shaoyen cut in quickly.
“What do you mean, Mother? We signed the contract two days ago! There’s no backing out now!”
Shaoyen pursed her lips tightly before catching herself and forcing a smile. She was obviously uncomfortable that her son had said so much.
Eleanor tried to put her at ease. “Shaoyen, I think you’ve made a very wise decision. Prices in this district will always go up. Singapore properties are becoming even more sought after than New York, London, or Hong Kong.”
“That’s exactly what I told Mother,” Carlton said.
Shaoyen said nothing, but reached over to pour a cup of tea for Eleanor.
Eleanor smiled as she took the tea, while the adding machine in her brain began to do its work. In such a prime location, this flat must easily have cost the Baos $15 million—probably more with the sky garage—and now it turns out they bought two more floors. With Eddie Cheng as their private banker, Eleanor assumed the Baos had to be loaded, but apparently she had underestimated how loaded.
Daisy Foo had been right all along. Shortly after meeting Shaoyen in London, Daisy had theorized, “I bet these Baos are richer than God. You have no idea how wealthy all these Mainlanders have become—it seems like yesterday Peter and Annabel Lee were the first Mainland billionaires, and now there are hundreds. My son tells me that China will have more billionaires than America within five years.” Mr. Wong, the trusty private investigator Lorena had connected her to, had been crisscrossing China for the last few months trying to dig up every piece of dirt on the Baos, and now Eleanor was even more anxious to read his dossier.
After Carlton and Shaoyen had made a respectable dent in the New Year desserts, Shaoyen handed a large red-and-gold shopping bag to Eleanor. “Here, just a small token for you to celebrate the holiday. Xin nian kuai le.”*4
“Aiyah, no need lah! What’s this?” Eleanor said, pulling out an instantly recognizable orange-and-brown-trimmed box from the shopping bag. Lifting the cover, she saw that the box contained a Hermès Birkin bag.
“Do you like it? I know you tend to wear neutral colors, so I got you the White Himalayan Nile Crocodile,” Shaoyen explained.
Eleanor knew that this handbag, dyed in the chocolate, beige, and white tones of a Himalayan cat, had to cost at least a hundred thousand dollars. “Alamak! This is far too lavish! I can’t accept this!”
“It’s just a small token, really,” Shaoyen said demurely.
“I appreciate the gesture, but I cannot accept it. I know how much these things cost. You should be saving this for yourself.”
“No, no, too late,” Shaoyen said as she unfastened the buckle and lifted up the front flap of the handbag. Embossed on the leather were Eleanor’s initials—E.Y.
Eleanor sighed. “This is too much. I must pay you for this—”
“No, no. Do not insult us. This is nothing compared to all the kindness you have shown us over the past few months.”
You don’t know what I’m really up to, Eleanor thought. She turned to Carlton and said, “Help me out here. This is outrageous!”
“It’s really no big deal,” Carlton said.
“It IS a big deal! You know I can’t possibly accept such a generous gift from your mother.”
Carlton scoffed. “Come, Mrs. Young. Let me show you something.” He wheeled himself out of the sitting room, beckoning Eleanor to follow. At the end of the hallway, he opened the door to one of the guest bedrooms and turned on the light. Eleanor peered into the room. It was sparsely furnished but almost impossible to walk into.
Covering the entire floor were Hermès bags and matching boxes, and displayed on top of each box was a Birkin or Kelly handbag—in every color of the rainbow, in every possible variation of exotic leather. Along every wall were custom-built cabinets that displayed rows and rows of Hermès handbags, all illuminated by soft accent lights. There were more than a hundred handbags in the room, and the calculator in Eleanor’s brain started going into overdrive.
“This is my mother’s gift room. She’s giving an Hermès to every single doctor, nurse, and physical therapist at Camden Medical Centre who’s helped me over the past few months.”
Eleanor stared at all the handbags crammed into the room, her mouth agape.
“My mother has one weakness. And now you know what it is,” Carlton said with a laugh.
Shaoyen proceeded to show Eleanor some of the most unique Hermès bags—customized just for her. Privately, Eleanor felt it was a gigantic waste of money. Think how many Noble Group or CapitaLand shares she could buy instead! But publicly, she made a show of oohing and aahing over the bags.
Eleanor thanked them again for the lavish gift and prepared to depart. Carlton rolled over to the entrance foyer and said, “Take the elevator this time, Mrs. Young. I’ll send your car down by itself, and it will be waiting for you when you reach the lobby.”
“Oh thank you so much, Carlton. I was thinking I might have a panic attack if I had to go in that car elevator again!”
Shaoyen and Carlton waved goodbye at the elevator vestibule. The doors closed, but instead of going down immediately, there was an unusual pause. On the other side of the door, Eleanor heard Carlton let out a sudden yell.
“Ow! Ooow! That one really hurt, Mother! What have I done?”
“BAICHI! *5 How dare you tell Eleanor Young so much of our business? Have you learned nothing?” Shaoyen screamed in Mandarin.<
br />
Then the elevator began its rapid descent, and Eleanor could hear no more.
* * *
*1 Oriental Garments, better known as OG, is a homegrown department store chain established in 1962. Offering value-for-money apparel, accessories, and household items, it’s the go-to place for old-money Singaporean ladies of a certain generation who claim that they only wear Hanro underwear but secretly buy all their discount Triumph bras and panties there.
*2 Mandarin for “thank you.”
*3 Cantonese for “to introduce.”
*4 “Happy New Year” in Mandarin.
*5 Mandarin for “Idiot!”
4
RIDOUT ROAD
SINGAPORE
From: Astrid Teo
Date: February 9, 2013 at 10:42 PM
To: Charlie Wu
Subject: HNY!
Hey you,
Just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year! I got home from the annual yee sang* dinner with my in-laws, and I suddenly remembered the year I came over to your house for the dish, and one of the ingredients was 24-carat gold-leaf shavings. I remember telling my mum about it, knowing it would scandalize her. (“Goodness gracious, those Wus have run out of ways to spend their money, so now they are literally eating it!” was what she had to say.)
Apologies for not writing in a while but these past few months have been rather insane. I’ve become a working girl of sorts…I’m now involved with the Fine Arts Museum, helping behind the scenes with some strategic next-phase acquisitions as the museum expands. (Please keep all this to yourself. They wanted to officially make me a trustee or name a wing for me but I declined both. No desire to see my name carved into a wall—I actually think it’s kind of morbid.)
Speaking of acquisitions, Michael’s new company has been on a tear! He bought two U.S.-based tech start-ups last year, giving me an excuse to accompany him on a couple of trips to California to visit my brother. Alex and Salimah now have three kids and live in a lovely home in Brentwood. This year my mum finally agreed to come with me to LA to meet her grandchildren (Dad still refuses to acknowledge Salimah and “those” kids). Of course Mum fell in love with them—they are adorable.
