Taiwanese girl in New York,
and now he’s bringing her to Singapore for the Khoo wedding!’ And Victoria says, ‘Are
you sure?
Taiwanese?
Good grief, did he fall for some gold digger?’ And thenCassandra says something like, ‘Well, it might not be as bad as you think. I have
it on good authority that she’s one of the Chu girls. You know, of the Taipei Plastics
Chus. Not exactly old money, but at least they are one of the most solid families
in Taiwan.”
Had it been anyone else, Eleanor would have dismissed all this as nothing but idle
talk among her husband’s bored relatives. But this came from Cassandra, who was usually
dead accurate. She hadn’t earned the nickname “Radio One Asia” for nothing. Eleanor
wondered how Cassandra obtained this latest scoop. Nicky’s big-mouthed second cousin
was the last person he would ever confide in. Cassandra must have gotten the intel
from one of her spies in New York. She had spies everywhere, all hoping to
sah kah ‡
her by passing along some hot tip.
It did not come as a surprise to Eleanor that her son might have a new girlfriend.
What surprised her (or, more accurately, annoyed her) was the fact that it had taken
her until now to find out. Anyone could see that he was prime target number one, and
over the years there had been plenty of girls Nicky
thought
he had kept hidden from his mother. All of them had been inconsequential in Eleanor’s
eyes, since she knew her son wasn’t ready to marry yet. But this time was different.
Eleanor had a long-held theory about men. She truly believed that for most men, all
that talk of “being in love” or “finding the right one” was absolute nonsense. Marriage
was purely a matter of timing, and whenever a man was finally done sowing his wild
oats and ready to settle down, whichever girl happened to be there at the time would
be
the right one
. She had seen the theory proven time and again; indeed she had caught Philip Young
at precisely the right moment. All the men in that clan tended to marry in their early
thirties, and Nicky was now ripe for the plucking. If someone in New York already
knew so much about Nicky’s relationship, and if he was actually bringing this girl
home to attend his best friend’s wedding, things must be getting serious. Serious
enough that he
purposely
hadn’t mentioned her existence. Serious enough to derail Eleanor’s meticulously laid
plans.
The setting sun refracted its rays through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the recently
completed penthouse apartment atop Cairnhill Road, bathing the atrium-like living
room in a deep orange glow. Eleanor gazed at the early-evening sky, taking in the
colonnade of buildings clustering around Scotts Road and the expansive views all the
way past the Singapore River to the Keppel Shipyard, the world’s busiest commercial
port. Even after thirty-four years of marriage, she did not take for granted all that
it meant for her to be sitting here with one of the most sought-after views on the
island.
To Eleanor, every single person occupied a specific space in the elaborately constructed
social universe in her mind. Like most of the women in her crowd, Eleanor could meet
another Asian anywhere in the world—say, over dim sum at Royal China in London, or
shopping in the lingerie department of David Jones in Sydney—and within thirty seconds
of learning their name and where they lived, she would implement her social algorithm
and calculate precisely where they stood in her constellation based on who their family
was, who else they were related to, what their approximate net worth might be, how
the fortune was derived, and what family scandals might have occurred within the past
fifty years.
The Taipei Plastics Chus were very new money, made in the seventies and eighties,
most likely. Knowing next to nothing about this family made Eleanor particularly anxious.
How established
and now he’s bringing her to Singapore for the Khoo wedding!’ And Victoria says, ‘Are
you sure?
Taiwanese?
Good grief, did he fall for some gold digger?’ And thenCassandra says something like, ‘Well, it might not be as bad as you think. I have
it on good authority that she’s one of the Chu girls. You know, of the Taipei Plastics
Chus. Not exactly old money, but at least they are one of the most solid families
in Taiwan.”
Had it been anyone else, Eleanor would have dismissed all this as nothing but idle
talk among her husband’s bored relatives. But this came from Cassandra, who was usually
dead accurate. She hadn’t earned the nickname “Radio One Asia” for nothing. Eleanor
wondered how Cassandra obtained this latest scoop. Nicky’s big-mouthed second cousin
was the last person he would ever confide in. Cassandra must have gotten the intel
from one of her spies in New York. She had spies everywhere, all hoping to
sah kah ‡
her by passing along some hot tip.
It did not come as a surprise to Eleanor that her son might have a new girlfriend.
What surprised her (or, more accurately, annoyed her) was the fact that it had taken
her until now to find out. Anyone could see that he was prime target number one, and
over the years there had been plenty of girls Nicky
thought
he had kept hidden from his mother. All of them had been inconsequential in Eleanor’s
eyes, since she knew her son wasn’t ready to marry yet. But this time was different.
Eleanor had a long-held theory about men. She truly believed that for most men, all
that talk of “being in love” or “finding the right one” was absolute nonsense. Marriage
was purely a matter of timing, and whenever a man was finally done sowing his wild
oats and ready to settle down, whichever girl happened to be there at the time would
be
the right one
. She had seen the theory proven time and again; indeed she had caught Philip Young
at precisely the right moment. All the men in that clan tended to marry in their early
thirties, and Nicky was now ripe for the plucking. If someone in New York already
knew so much about Nicky’s relationship, and if he was actually bringing this girl
home to attend his best friend’s wedding, things must be getting serious. Serious
enough that he
purposely
hadn’t mentioned her existence. Serious enough to derail Eleanor’s meticulously laid
plans.
The setting sun refracted its rays through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the recently
completed penthouse apartment atop Cairnhill Road, bathing the atrium-like living
room in a deep orange glow. Eleanor gazed at the early-evening sky, taking in the
colonnade of buildings clustering around Scotts Road and the expansive views all the
way past the Singapore River to the Keppel Shipyard, the world’s busiest commercial
port. Even after thirty-four years of marriage, she did not take for granted all that
it meant for her to be sitting here with one of the most sought-after views on the
island.
To Eleanor, every single person occupied a specific space in the elaborately constructed
social universe in her mind. Like most of the women in her crowd, Eleanor could meet
another Asian anywhere in the world—say, over dim sum at Royal China in London, or
shopping in the lingerie department of David Jones in Sydney—and within thirty seconds
of learning their name and where they lived, she would implement her social algorithm
and calculate precisely where they stood in her constellation based on who their family
was, who else they were related to, what their approximate net worth might be, how
the fortune was derived, and what family scandals might have occurred within the past
fifty years.
The Taipei Plastics Chus were very new money, made in the seventies and eighties,
most likely. Knowing next to nothing about this family made Eleanor particularly anxious.
How established
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