“Alix was moaning on about how much money Eddie and Fiona spend on those kids. Seems
they only wear
“
“They must be sweating like little pigs in those tweed jackets,” Cassandra said, shaking her head.
Just then Rachel noticed a couple entering the room. A young man with the tousled hair of a Korean pop idol lumbered toward them with a girl dressed in a lemon-yellow and white-striped tube dress that clung to her body like sausage casing.
“Ah, here comes my cousin Alistair. And that must be Kitty, the girl he’s madly in love with,” Nick remarked. Even from across the room, Kitty’s hair extensions, false eyelashes, and frosty-pink lipstick stood out dramatically, and as they approached, Rachel realized that the white stripes in the girl’s dress were actually sheer, with her engorged nipples clearly showing through.
“Everyone, I’d like you all to meet my girlfriend Kitty Pong,” Alistair proudly beamed.
The room went dead silent as everyone stood gaping at those chocolate-brown nipples. While Kitty basked in the attention, Fiona swiftly herded her children out of the room. Eddie glared at his kid brother, furious that his entrance had been upstaged. Alistair, thrilled by the sudden attention, blurted out, “And I want to announce that last night I took Kitty to the top of Mount Faber and asked her to marry me!”
“We’re engaged!” Kitty squealed, waving around the large cloudy-pink diamond on her hand.
Felicity gasped audibly, looking at her sister, Alix, for some reaction. Alix gazed into the middle distance, not making eye contact with anyone. Her son nonchalantly continued. “Kitty, meet my cousin Nicky, my auntie Victoria, and my cousin Cassandra. And you must be Rachel.”
Without missing a beat, Victoria and Cassandra turned to Rachel, cutting Alistair dead. “Now Rachel, I hear you are an economist? How fascinating! Will you explain to me why the American economy can’t seem to dig out of its sorry state?” Victoria asked shrilly.
“It’s that Tim Paulson fellow, isn’t it?” Cassandra cut in. “Isn’t he a puppet controlled by all the Jews?”
* The exotic Black and White houses of Singapore are a singular architectural style found nowhere else in the world. Combining Anglo-Indian features with the English Arts and Crafts movement, these white-painted bungalows with black trim detailing were ingeniously designed for tropical climes. Originally built to house well-to-do colonial families, they are now extremely coveted and available only to the crazy rich ($40 million for starters, and you might have to wait several decades for a whole family to die).
† Cantonese for “what a waste of money.”
Patric’s
SINGAPORE
“A lacy black thong? And you could really see it through the dress?” Peik Lin cried out, doubling over with laughter in the restaurant banquette she was sharing with Rachel.
“The thong, the nipples, all of it! You should have seen the look on all of their faces! She might as well have been naked,” Rachel said.
Peik Lin wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “I can’t believe all that’s happened to you in the past week. Those girls. The dead fish. Nick’s family. Leave it to you to walk right into the middle of all this.”
“Oh Peik Lin, I wish you could see how Nick’s family lives! Staying at Tyersall Park has been absolutely unreal. The bedroom we’re in has all this exquisite French art deco furniture, and I feel like I’ve traveled back in time—the rituals, the decadence, the scale of everything … I mean, there must be at least twelve extra houseguests in town for the wedding, but there are so many maids around, I still have one dedicated just to me—this cute girl from Suzhou. I think she’s a bit pissed off because I haven’t let her do all her duties.”
“What are her duties?” Peik Lin inquired.
