by Kevin Kwan
“Yes? Come in.” Astrid opened the door and saw Ludivine lying on her bed FaceTiming with some surfer dude on her laptop.
“Ludivine, please pack an overnight bag for yourself and for Cassian. We are leaving for my mother’s house.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
From there, Astrid ran to her bedroom and grabbed her wallet and car keys. As she came downstairs with Ludivine and Cassian, Michael was standing in the middle of the great hall leering at them. She handed the car keys to Ludivine and whispered, “Get in the car with Cassian. If I’m not out in five minutes, drive straight to Nassim Road.”
“Ludivine, don’t you dare fucking move or I’ll motherfucking break your neck!” Michael shouted. The au pair froze, and Cassian stared at his father wide-eyed.
Astrid glared at him. “Nice language in front of your son, Michael. You know, for the longest time I tried, I really tried. I thought we could save this marriage, for the sake of our son. But the fact that you would invade my privacy in such a fundamental way has shown me how broken our marriage is. You don’t respect me, and more importantly, you don’t trust me. You’ve never trusted me! So why do you want to stop us now? Deep down, you know I’m no longer the wife you want. You just won’t admit it to yourself.”
Michael ran to the front door and blocked it. He grabbed a fifteenth-century Bavarian poleax from the wall and waved it threateningly at Astrid. “You can go to hell for all I care, but you are not taking my son! If you leave this house now, I am going to call the police and tell them you have kidnapped him. Cassian, get over here!”
Cassian started to cry, and Ludivine held on to him tightly, muttering under her breath, “C’est des putains de conneries!”*
“Stop it! You’re scaring him!” Astrid said angrily.
“I’m going to drag you and your entire family through the mud! You’re going to see yourself on the front page of The Straits Times! I’ll sue you for adultery and desertion—I have all the e-mails and phone recordings to prove it!” Michael snarled.
“If you’ve read all my e-mails, you should know that I haven’t written a single inappropriate thing to Charlie. Not one word! He has been nothing but a good friend to me. He’s been a better friend than you could possibly ever imagine,” Astrid said, her voice cracking with emotion.
“Yes, I know you’ve been very careful in covering your tracks. But that home-wrecker Charlie hasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s so obvious, Astrid. The guy is so crazy in love with you it’s fucking sad. All his e-mails read like pathetic love letters.”
In a flash, it occurred to Astrid that what Michael said was true. Every casual e-mail, every text message Charlie had ever written to her was a testament to his love. He had never broken his promise. Not since the day they were at Abelard and Héloïse’s tomb in Paris. Suddenly, Astrid was flooded with a power that made her more courageous than ever. “Michael, if you don’t move away from the front door right now, I swear to God I will call the police myself!”
“Go ahead! We can both be in the fucking papers tomorrow morning!” Michael screamed.
Astrid got out her phone and dialed 999, all the while smiling calmly. “Michael, don’t you know by now that my grandmother and Uncle Alfred are the largest private shareholders of Singapore Press Holdings? We’re not going to be in the papers. We’re never going to be in the papers.”
* * *
* “This is fucking bullshit!” (Sounds so civilized in French, doesn’t it?)
16
188 TAIYUAN ROAD
SHANGHAI
“Why do I have to find out from Eleanor Young that my own daughter almost died?” Kerry Chu scolded into the phone.
“I didn’t almost die, Mom,” Rachel said, stretched out on a chaise lounge in her bedroom at the Bao residence.
“Hiyah, Eleanor said you were on your deathbed! I’m going to catch the first flight to Shanghai tomorrow!”
“You don’t need to come, Mom. I can assure you I was never in any danger, and I’m perfectly fine now.” Rachel laughed, trying to downplay it.
“Why didn’t Nick call me sooner? Why am I the last to know everything?”
“I was only in the hospital for a few days, and since I got back to normal so quickly I really didn’t see any reason to worry you. And since when have you started believing everything Eleanor tells you? Are you best buddies now?”
“We are nothing of the sort. But she calls me several times a week now, and I have no choice but to take her calls.”
“Wait a minute, why is she calling you several times a week?”
“Hiyah! Ever since she found out at the wedding that I sell houses to all the tech people in Cupertino and Palo Alto, she’s been calling me for hot tips on tech stocks. And then she keeps hassling me for news about you. Every few days she wants to know if there’s any news.”
“News about our trip?”
“No, she couldn’t care less about your trip. She wants to know if you’re pregnant, of course!”
“Oh God! Now it begins,” Rachel muttered under her breath.
“Seriously, wouldn’t it be nice to say you conceived a baby in Shanghai? I hope you and Nick have been trying very hard.”
Rachel made a sound like she was choking. “Ack! Stop, stop! I don’t want to be having this conversation with you, Mom. Please. Boundaries!”
“What do you mean, ‘boundaries’? You came out of my vagina. What kind of boundaries do we have? You are already thirty-two, and if you don’t start having your babies now, when are you going to start?”
“Duly noted, Mom. Duly noted.”
Kerry sighed. “So what happened to the girl who tried to poison you? Are they going to hang her?”
“Oh God, I have no idea. I hope not.”
“What do you mean you hope not? She tried to kill you!”
Rachel sighed. “It’s more complicated than that. I can’t really explain it all over the phone, Mom. It’s a long story, one that could only happen in China.”
“You keep forgetting I’m from China, daughter! I know much more about the country than you do,” Kerry said in annoyance.
“Of course, Mom, I didn’t mean it that way. But you just don’t know the people and the circumstances that I’ve been exposed to since getting here,” Rachel said, feeling a sadness come over her, as she thought about her encounter with Colette earlier that week.
The morning after they had returned to Shanghai, Rachel had been bombarded with voice mails from Colette: “Oh my God, Rachel, I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I just found out about Roxanne and everything. Please call me back.”
Followed very shortly by: “Rachel, where are you? Can I please see you? I called the Peninsula and they said you never checked in. Are you with the Baos? Call me back, please.”
Half an hour later: “Hi, it’s me again, Colette. Is Carlton with you? I’m really worried for him. He’s completely disappeared and not returning my calls or texts. Please call me.”
And then in the afternoon, a tearful voice message: “Rachel, I really hope and pray that you know I had NOTHING to do with this. Nothing at all. Please believe me. This is just horrible. Please let me explain.”
Nick felt strongly that Rachel should not return any of Colette’s calls. “You know, I really don’t believe that she’s as innocent as Roxanne claims. She’s ultimately responsible for what happened to you, and I’d just as soon never see or hear from her again.”
Rachel was more sympathetic. “Say what you want about her being an obscenely spoiled princess, but you can’t say she hasn’t been nice to us.”
“I just don’t want to ever see you get hurt again, that’s all,” Nick said, his brow furrowed with worry.
“I know. But I don’t believe Colette really wanted to see me hurt, and I certainly don’t think she’s going to hurt me now. I feel like I owe it to her to at least hear her out.”
At five o’clock
the next afternoon, Rachel walked into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on the Bund, tailed discreetly by two of Bao Gaoliang’s security men that Nick insisted accompany her. She made her way to the Grand Brasserie, a magnificent space framed by an elliptical mezzanine, tall marble columns that rose up to the second floor, and a stunningly landscaped interior courtyard. Colette got out of her seat and rushed toward Rachel the minute she saw her.
“I’m so glad you came! I didn’t know if you would,” Colette said, hugging her tightly.
“Of course I would,” Rachel said.
“They have a fabulous high tea here. You must try the scones—they’re just like the ones at Claridges. Now, what tea do you feel like today? I think I’ll have the Darjeeling, that’s always the best.” Colette fluttered nervously.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Rachel said, trying to put her at ease. She noticed that Colette was dressed in a completely different manner than she had ever seen her—in an austerely elegant gray-and-white dress accessorized with nothing but a Maltese cross made out of old cabochon emeralds. She wore less makeup than usual, and her eyes appeared to be swollen from crying.
“Rachel, you must believe me when I say that I had no idea Roxanne was going to do what she did. It was as much a shock to me as it must have been to you. I never, ever ordered Roxanne to do anything that would harm you. Nothing at all. You believe me, don’t you? Please say you believe me.”
“I believe you,” Rachel said.
“Oh thank God. Thank God.” Colette sighed. “For a while there I thought you were going to hate me forever.”
“I could never hate you, Colette,” Rachel said gently, placing her hand over Colette’s.
Two steaming pots of tea arrived, along with a tall silver stand overflowing with daintily cut triangles of sandwiches, scones, and a decadent array of sweet confections. As Colette began piling glistening pastries and fluffy warm scones onto Rachel’s plate, she continued to explain herself.
“Roxanne was the one who came up with the idea of eavesdropping on the Baos after we left—it was all her idea. But then, when we heard their conversation, I was in shock, that’s all. All I could think of was that I had hurt Carlton, that I had made things far worse for him. And in that moment, just that one moment, I got really upset—not at you, but at the whole situation—and Roxanne misinterpreted my feelings.”
“Boy, she really misinterpreted,” Rachel remarked.
“Yes she did. Roxanne and I…we have a complicated relationship. She’s worked for me for five years now—she was an eighteenth-birthday present from my father—and she knows me inside out. Before she came to work for me, she had a miserable job at P. J. Whitney, and she’s so thankful to me, she doesn’t have anything else—I’m her whole life. She’s like that Helen Mirren character in Gosford Park, the ultimate housekeeper—she can anticipate my needs even before I know what they are, and she does things all the time that she thinks are good for me, even when I don’t ask her. But she crossed the line, she really crossed the line. I hope you know I fired her. I sent her a text message firing her the minute I found out everything.”
Yeah, I’m sure she gets great Wi-Fi in her prison cell, Rachel thought. “What I’m not clear on, Colette, is why you got so upset over Carlton potentially losing some of his inheritance. Why does it matter to you so much?”
Colette looked down at her plate and began to pick at the raisins on a scone. “I don’t think you know the pressures I’ve had to face in my life. I know how fortunate I am, believe me I do, but with this fortune has come tremendous burdens. I’m the only child, and ever since I was born, my parents have had these great expectations of me. They gave me the best of everything, the best schools, the best doctors—you know, my mother sent me to get my eyelids done when I was six? Through my teens, there was always some surgery done on me every year to make me look prettier. But in return they have always expected me to be the best. To be the top performer in school. To be the best of everything. I thought that they were priming me to succeed in business, but it turns out all they want is for me to get married and start giving them grandsons. To them, I am a crown princess, and they only want me to marry a crown prince. Richie Yang was their handpicked choice, and they were so angry when I turned him down. But I don’t love him, Rachel. I love Carlton—I’m sure you’ve always known that—and even though I’m not ready to get married, I want Carlton to be the one when I am ready. I can picture myself with him—he’s got that wonderful accent, and the height, and that beautiful face—we would have the most beautiful children together. My father doesn’t see any of that. He doesn’t understand someone like Carlton, he only gets traditional types like Richie. So Carlton is already in a tough spot, and if he were to lose his fortune—even a small part of it—it would only further diminish my father’s view of him. And it would make it even more impossible for me to marry him one day.”
“But your family already has so much. More than enough for a hundred lifetimes.”
“I know it can’t make much sense to you—coming from where you do—but believe me, my father does not think he has enough. Nowhere near.”
Rachel shook her head in disgust. “I hope you realize that you’re going to have to stand up to your father at some point.”
“I realize that. I’ve already been doing that—I said no to Richie, remember? And now I’m trying to prove to my father that I can do just fine, thank you very much, without his money. I know he’s testing me—he’s always doing such things—and I know he’s not going to cut me off for long. I mean, it’s not like he’s really going to stop paying the landscape architect at my country estate. But now I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
Colette’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Carlton finally picked up the phone. He told me to stop calling him. He said so many horrid, horrid things, I don’t even want to tell you. And he told me that he never wants to see me again! Can you believe it? I know he’s just upset about what happened to you. I know he’s feeling guilty, blaming himself in some way. Please, you’ve got to convince him that you’re fine, and that we’re friends, and that he doesn’t have to be angry at me anymore. I have something very important to discuss with him, and I need to see him as soon as possible. Will you please help me?”
Rachel sat quietly, watching the tears spill down Colette’s cheeks. “You know, I haven’t seen Carlton since getting back to Shanghai. He hasn’t spoken to me or his parents. I don’t think he’s ready to talk to anyone yet.”
“He’ll talk to you, Rachel, and I know where he is. He’s in the Presidential suite at the Portman Ritz-Carlton—that’s where he always hides out. Will you go and see him for me? Please?”
“I can’t do that, Colette. I don’t want to force Carlton into seeing me until he’s ready. And I really don’t think I should be getting in the middle of your relationship. Nothing I can say will make him stop feeling the way he wants to feel. You need to give him time to heal, and he needs to figure out for himself what he wants.”
“But he never knows what he wants. You have to tell him!” Colette pleaded. “I think the longer he broods about this, the more it will fester—like his accident. He was already such a mess all the time when he was recovering from his accident, I don’t want him to get into another mess in his head about this.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Colette. People are messy. Life gets messy. Things are not always going to work out perfectly just because you want them to.”
“That’s not true. Things always end up working out for me,” Colette said impetuously.
“Well then I suppose you’ll just have to trust that they will this time.”
“So you’re really not going to go over to the Portman?”
“I just don’t see the point.”
Colette’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “Oh, I get it. You don’t want me to get back with Carlton, do you?”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, I see now. You want t
o punish me, don’t you?”
“I don’t understand—”
“You’re still angry about what happened to you.”
Rachel gave Colette a look of frustration. “I’m not angry at you. I felt sad for you, maybe, but I was never truly angry.”
“You felt sad for me?”
“Yes, I felt sad about the whole situation, that things would ever get to a point where Roxanne would feel the need—”
Colette suddenly slammed her fist onto the table. “How dare you feel sad for me! Who do you think you are?”
Rachel jerked back in alarm. “Um, I didn’t mean it as an insult, Colette, I just meant—”
“I took pity on you, Rachel Chu! I thought, here is this poor, pathetic orphan girl from America. I paid for your meals, I invited you to my house, you flew on my plane, I paid for the whole damn Paris trip. I gave you special access to the most exclusive places in the world and introduced you to all my important friends, and you can’t even do one small favor for me?”
My God, she’s losing it. Rachel tried to remain calm. “Colette, I think you are being unreasonable here. I am grateful for all the generosity you have shown Nick and me, but I just don’t think it’s my place to tell Carlton to do anything, especially if it concerns his relationship with you.”
“You’ve never really been my friend, have you? I see you clearly now, in your cheap American clothes and your cheap little jewelry!” Colette spat contemptuously.
Rachel stared at her in shock. Was this really happening? She could see that all the other well-manicured women in the dining room were gawking at them now. The two security guards rushed up behind Rachel’s chair. “Is everything okay, miss?”
“You brought security? Who do you think you are? Oh this is funny, are you trying to imitate me now? Well, I have double the security detail that you do! Roxanne was right about you all along—you’ve been envious of me from day one, and you’ve been plotting to get Carlton away from me and away from his family. This works out perfectly for you, doesn’t it? You want their money all to yourself. Well you can have their pathetic one-point-five billion dollars for all I care—that’s nothing compared to what my family has. You’re never in your life going to come close to touching me! All the money in the world is never going to buy you my style or my taste because you’ll always be common. You’re nothing but a common little bastard!”
