China Rich Girlfriend

by Kevin Kwan

  ALT: Of course, but I don’t think it really clicked in his mind until last night. He associates you with his tech crowd, so he couldn’t really conceive of the two of us actually knowing each other. You really boosted my street cred!

  CW: He’s a nice chap. And congrats again on his award. He’s really made some smart moves.

  ALT: You should have told him that! Why were you being so quiet last night?

  CW: Was I?

  ALT: You hardly said a thing and looked like you couldn’t wait to run off.

  CW: I was trying to avoid Connie Ming, who’s already trying to commit me to underwriting next year’s ball! And I guess I wasn’t expecting to see you there.

  ALT: Of course I would be there to support Michael!

  CW: Yes, but I thought you didn’t do charity galas, especially in Hong Kong. Wasn’t it the rule in your family never to attend these big to-dos?

  ALT: The rule is more relaxed now that I’m a boring housewife. When I was younger, my parents didn’t want pictures of me appearing everywhere for their paranoid security reasons, and they didn’t want me to associate with the fast party crowd—the “International Chinese Trash” as Mum called it.

  CW: People like me.

  ALT: LOL!

  CW: Last night was especially bad. Lots of people your mum wouldn’t approve of.

  ALT: It wasn’t so bad.

  CW: Really? I saw you were seated at Ada Poon’s table.

  ALT: Okay, I confess—THAT was awful.

  CW: Hahaha!

  ALT: Ada and her tai tai*2 friends totally froze me out for the first hour.

  CW: Did you tell them you were from Singapore?

  ALT: Michael’s bio was in the programme, and everyone knew I was his wife. I know Hong Kongers have become a bit touchy ever since Singapore’s airport was voted the world’s best.

  CW: Well, in my opinion we still have better shopping at our airport. Who needs a free cinema or an orchid garden when you can go from Loewe to Longchamp in less than ten steps? Anyway, the real reason the ladies gave you the cold shoulder was because you didn’t go to St. Paul’s, St. Stephen’s, or Diocesan’s. They didn’t know where to rank you in their hierarchy.

  ALT: But there is such a thing as common courtesy. We’re at an event for charity, for chrissake. All the ladies could not stop trying to outdo each other bragging about the huge fines they all had to pay on their illegal basements. It was such a bore. But then after the duchess made her speech, she came right up to my table and said, “Astrid! I thought that was you! What are you doing here? I’m seeing your parents for lunch next week at Stoker and Amanda’s. Will you be at Chatsworth too?” And that’s all it took. Suddenly the tai tais could not leave me alone.

  CW: I bet they couldn’t!

  ALT: Hong Kong women fascinate me. The style here really is so different than in Singapore. It’s a studied opulence that’s just breathtaking to behold. I don’t think I’ve seen SO MUCH jewelry in one room at one time. Truly felt like the Russian Revolution, when all the aristocrats were fleeing the country with every piece of jewelry they had, some sewn into their clothing.

  CW: They really piled it on, didn’t they? What did you think of all those tiaras?

  ALT: I don’t think a woman should wear a tiara unless it’s been in her family for several generations.

  CW: Not sure if you look at our gossip columns, but there is this fool named Leonardo Lai…

  ALT: Haha, yes! My cousin Cecilia just sent me the article.

  CW: Leonardo obviously had NO CLUE who you were and couldn’t even get your name right, but he’s apparently concerned that you don’t have enough jewelry. LOL!

  ALT: I’m so glad he misspelled my name! Mum would be furious to see me in the gossip columns. I guess Leonardo wasn’t impressed by pieces from the actual Imperial collection—my earrings used to belong to Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.

  CW: Of course they did. I noticed them immediately—they looked like something I would have bought you back in our London days, from that little vintage jewelry shop in the Burlington Arcade that you loved poking around in. You were the best-dressed woman at the ball, no contest.

  ALT: You’re too sweet. But come on, I did not go all out like some of those Hong Kong fashionistas who wore specially commissioned gowns in the style of Catherine the Great or whomever.

  CW: You’ve always dressed to please yourself—that’s precisely why you looked great. You and Kitty Pong, of course.

  ALT: You’re funny. I actually thought she looked fantastic! Her dress was very Josephine Baker.

  CW: She was naked except for all those feathers and emeralds.

  ALT: The dress worked. But stealing the spotlight from Francis Poon was rather shameless. I was afraid poor old Francis was going to have a heart attack when she rushed onstage and grabbed the microphone from him while he was trying to make his speech!

  CW: Ada Poon should have jumped up and slapped Kitty Pong just like any good third wife would.

  ALT: She was too weighed down by all that jewelry to do any jumping.

  CW: I really do wonder what’s happened to Bernard Tai. Why is Kitty everywhere but he’s not? Is he even still alive?

  ALT: She’s probably got him chained up in a dungeon somewhere with a ball gag in his mouth!

  CW: Astrid Leong! You shock me!

  ALT: Sorry, I’ve been reading too much Marquis de Sade lately. Dare I ask where YOUR wife was? Am I ever going to meet the legendary Isabel Wu?

  CW: Isabel is too snotty to go to events like these. She only goes to two or three of the old-guard balls every year.

  ALT: LOL! Old-guard balls. I don’t even want to tell you what just came into my head!

  CW: Sir Francis Poon?

  ALT: You’re terrible! Oh—my cousin’s waving me over. It’s boarding time.

  CW: Why you still fly commercial I’ll never understand.

  ALT: We’re Leongs, that’s why. My dad thinks it would be shameful if the family is seen flying private since he is a “public servant.” And he claims it’s far safer in a big commercial airliner than in a small one.

  CW: I think it’s much safer on your own plane, with a dedicated ground crew. You get there in half the time and feel less jet lag.

  ALT: I don’t ever get jet lag, remember? Also, we don’t have Charlie Wu $$$.

  CW: That’s a funny one! You Leongs could buy me for breakfast any day. Anyway, have a good flight.

  ALT: Nice chatting. Next time we’re in HK, I promise I’ll give you more notice.

  CW: Okay.

  ALT: Michael and I will take you to dinner. There’s this great Teochew place in Hutchison House that my cousin keeps telling me about.

  CW: No, no, no—my town, my treat.

  ALT: We’ll fight about it later. xo.

  Charlie logged off his computer and swiveled his chair around to face the window. From his office on the fifty-fifth floor of Wuthering Towers he had a sweeping view of the harbor and could see every eastbound flight that departed out of Hong Kong International Airport. He stared into the horizon, scanning each plane that was taking off, searching for Astrid’s. I should never have IM’d her today, he told himself. Why in the world do I keep doing this to myself? Every time I hear her voice, every time I read an e-mail or even exchange a text with her, it’s pure torture. I tried to stop. I tried to leave her alone. But seeing her again for the first time in so long, entering the room in nothing but black lace against glowing bare skin, I was just hit so hard by her beauty.

  When at last Charlie saw the double-story Airbus A380 gliding through the sky with its telltale navy-and-gold markings, he found himself inexplicably picking up the phone and calling his private hangar. “Johnny, ah? Could you please have the plane ready within an hour? I need to go to Los Angeles.” I’ll surprise Astrid at the arrival lounge with red roses, just like I did back in our university days in London. This time there will be five hundred red roses awaiting her when she gets off the plane. I’ll take
her to Gjelina for lunch, and then maybe we can rent a car and drive to some amazing spa up the coast for a few days. It will be just like the old days, when we used to take the Volante over to France and drive all over the Loire Valley exploring ancient castles together, going to wine tastings. Oh what the hell am I thinking? I’m married to Isabel and Astrid is married to Michael. I am the biggest idiot in the whole world. For one moment, one brief moment, I had a chance to win her back, when her insecure husband was feeling too poor to afford her, but instead I made him a fortune. Christ, what was I thinking when I did that? And now they are back together, so damn happy and perfectly in love. And here I am, with a wife who hates me, miserable as fuck.

  * * *

  *1 Four male Cantopop stars in the 1990s—Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, and Andy Lau—who dominated the Asian music charts, packed stadiums, and made it acceptable for macho Asian men to frost their hair and wear sequined blazers.

  *2 A Cantonese term that means “supreme wife” (implying a situation where a man has several wives) but no longer strictly interpreted, since polygamy has been banned in Hong Kong since 1971. Nowadays tai tai refers to a privileged lady of means, usually of high standing within Hong Kong society. A prerequisite of being a tai tai is being married to a wealthy man, thus allowing the tai tai a tremendous amount of leisure time to lunch, shop, visit the beauty parlor, decorate, gossip, establish a pet charity, enjoy afternoon tea, take tennis lessons, schedule tutors for her children, and terrorize her maids, not necessarily in that order.

  9

  THE LOCKE CLUB

  HONG KONG, MARCH 9, 2013

  Kitty Pong was brimming over with anticipation as she stood in the crowded elevator. For years she had heard about this place, and at long last she was about to have lunch here. Located on the fifth floor of a nondescript office building on Wyndham Street, the Locke Club was Hong Kong’s most exclusive dining club—the holy of holies—and its members consisted of the crème de la crème of Hong Kong society and the international jet set. Unlike other private dining clubs,*1 where fame or a fat checkbook would gain you instant membership, the Locke played by its own rules. The place didn’t even have a membership waiting list—you had to be invited to join by its strict and secretive board, and even feigning a passing interest in belonging could mean that you would never, ever be asked.

  Back in the days when she had a minor role on the soap opera Many Splendid Things, Kitty often overheard Sammi Hui—the show’s biggest star—brag about her lunches at the Locke, and how she was seated in the same room as the Queen of Bhutan or Leo Ming’s latest mistress. Kitty couldn’t wait to see which sumptuous room she would be seated in today, and which important personages would be dining at the tables around her. Would they all be savoring the specialty of the house—turtle soup served in camphor-wood cups?

  It was such a stroke of luck that she had been seated at Evangeline de Ayala’s table at the Pinnacle Ball. Evangeline was the glamorous young wife of Pedro Paulo de Ayala, a scion of one of the oldest real estate families in the Philippines, and though the couple were fairly recent transplants to Hong Kong (via London, where Pedro Paulo had worked at Rothschild’s), their aristocratic connections—not to mention aristocratic-sounding surname—had made them popular new members at the club. Evangeline appeared to be wowed by Kitty’s big donation to Sir Francis Poon’s foundation, and when she suggested meeting for lunch at the Locke, Kitty wondered if she was finally going to be invited to join. After all, she had in two short months transformed herself into Hong Kong’s leading art collector and philanthropist.

  The elevator door finally opened, and Kitty pranced into the front foyer of the club, with its glossy ebony-paneled walls and dramatic black-marble-and-steel staircase leading up to the fabled dining room. One of the hosts at the reception desk smiled at her.

  “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

  “Yes, I am meeting Miss de Ayala for lunch.”

  “Missus de Ayala?” the host officiously corrected.

  “Yes, I meant missus,” Kitty replied nervously.

  “I’m afraid she isn’t here yet. Please have a seat in our parlor, and we’ll show you to the dining room as soon as she arrives.”

  Kitty walked into a room with silk-covered walls and took a seat in the middle of the red Le Corbusier sofa so that she could show herself off to best advantage. A few of the ladies coming off the elevator stared at her intently as they passed by, and she felt certain it was because of the outfit she had taken such care in choosing. She had opted for a sleeveless Giambattista Valli black-and-red floral-print dress, a red Céline knotted lambskin clutch, and Charlotte Olympia red flats with a gold buckle. Her only jewelry was a pair of cabochon ruby earrings from Solange Azagury-Partridge. Even with a peekaboo slit on the side of her dress, the look bordered on demure, and she dared any uppity tai tai to criticize her today.

  Unbeknownst to Kitty, one of the ladies in the elevator had been Rosie Ho, who was on her way to join Ada Poon and a few of their former Maryknoll classmates for lunch. Rosie made a mad dash to the dining room and breathlessly announced, “Girls, you’re never going to believe who is sitting in the parlor right now. Three guesses. Quick, quick!”

  “Give us some sort of clue,” Lainey Lui said.

  “She’s wearing a floral-print dress, and she definitely had breast reduction surgery.”

  “Oh my God, is it that lesbian girlfriend of Bebe Chow’s?” Tessa Chen cackled.

  “No, even better—”

  “Hiyah, tell us!” the ladies implored.

  “It’s Kitty Pong!” Rosie triumphantly announced.

  Ada’s face went white with contempt.

  Lainey seethed, “Mut laan yeah?*2 How dare she show up here after the stunt she pulled the other night!”

  “Who was stupid enough to bring her?” Tessa asked.

  Ada rose slowly from the table and smiled tightly at her lunch companions. “Will you excuse me for just one minute? Please keep eating—don’t let the delicious turtle soup get cold.”

  Evangeline de Ayala entered the parlor in a pretty black-and-white Lanvin shift dress and gave Kitty a double-cheek kiss. “So sorry to be late—I have no good excuse, except that I am always on Manila time.”

  “Don’t worry—I was just admiring the art,” Kitty graciously responded.

  “Quite cool, isn’t it? Do you collect?”

  “I’m just beginning to, so I am trying to educate myself,” Kitty said modestly, wondering whether Evangeline was just pretending not to know that she had recently bought the most expensive painting in all of Asia.

  The ladies approached the reception desk together, and the same host greeted them warmly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. de Ayala. Joining us for lunch today?”

  “Yes, just the two of us,” Evangeline replied.

  “Wonderful. Please come with me,” the host said, escorting the ladies up the curved marble staircase. When they entered the dining room, Kitty noticed quite a few people gawking at them. The manager of the club came rushing toward them with a look of importance.

  Goody, he’s coming to welcome me personally to the club, Kitty thought.

  “Mrs. de Ayala, I do apologize, but there seems to have been a huge mix-up with our computerized reservation system. I’m afraid we are completely overbooked today and will not be able to accommodate you for lunch.”

  The host looked taken aback by his manager’s declaration, but said nothing.

  Evangeline looked puzzled. “But I made the booking two days ago, and no one called to inform me.”

  “Yes, I am aware of that. We’re truly sorry—but if you’ll allow me, I have made a booking for you right around the corner at Yung Kee on Wellington Street. They have a lovely table awaiting you, and I hope you will allow us to treat you to lunch, to make up for the inconvenience.”

  “Surely you can seat us for a quick lunch here? We’re just two, and I see a few empty tables along the window,” Evangeline said hopefully.


  “Unfortunately those tables have already been spoken for. Once again, please accept my apologies, and I do hope you enjoy Yung Kee—be sure to order their fabulous roast goose,” the manager said as he authoritatively steered Kitty and Evangeline toward the staircase.

  As they left the club, Evangeline was still perplexed. “How bizarre! I’m so sorry—nothing like that has ever happened before. But the Locke does have rather strange rules. Now, let me just text my driver about our change of plans.” As Evangeline got out her phone, she saw that her husband was trying to call.

  “Hey swithart,*3 how are you? The strangest thing just happened,” Evangeline cooed into the phone. Then she jumped at the torrent of cursing that came from the other end.

  “Nothing! We did nothing!” she said in a defensive tone.

  Kitty could hear Evangeline’s husband continue to rant.

  “I can’t explain…I don’t know what happened,” Evangeline kept sputtering into the phone, her face getting paler and paler. Finally she put her phone down and gave Kitty a rather dazed look.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m suddenly not feeling too well. Do you mind if we take a rain check on lunch?”

  “Of course. Is everything okay?” Kitty asked, rather concerned for her new friend.

  “That was my husband. Our membership at the Locke Club has just been revoked.”

  After Evangeline’s driver had picked her up, Kitty stood at the curb, trying to process what had just happened. She had woken up this morning feeling so happy and excited, and now she was rather crestfallen that her lunch plans had gone so awry. Poor Evangeline. What an awful thing to happen to her. Just as she was about to call for her driver, Kitty noticed a gray-haired woman in a dowdy-looking pantsuit smiling at her.

  “Are you okay?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” Kitty responded, a little confused. Did she know her from somewhere?

  “I was just at lunch at the Locke, and I couldn’t help but notice what happened in the dining room,” the woman said by way of introduction.

  “Yes, it’s quite strange, isn’t it? I feel so bad for my friend.”