“I hate to burst your bubble, but I think we’ve been comped at every restaurant or club we’ve been to. Do you notice how Colette gets Roxanne to take pictures of her everywhere we go? She just tweets or blogs about every place, and the rest of us eat for free. It’s quite a racket.”
“Still, I think she’s good for Carlton.”
“Yeah, but don’t you think she’s toying with him? She’s clearly into him, and yet she’s still chanting this ‘He’s just one of my many suitors’ BS.”
Rachel gave Nick a teasing look. “You just don’t like it when the tables are turned! Colette’s got her own career and her own goals and she’s in no rush to get married. I think it’s so refreshing. Most Chinese girls are under such enormous pressure to get married and have kids by their early twenties. I mean, how many Chinese girls do we get every semester that are really just at NYU to find the perfect husband?”
Nick cocked his head and thought about it for a moment. “I can’t think of any besides you.”
“Oh, har har. Jerk!” Rachel said, smacking him with a tasseled pillow.
• • •
At five that afternoon, as Nick and Rachel stood outside their hotel waiting for Carlton to pick them up, a thunderous roar could be heard coming from the Bund. Nick was dressed casually in jeans, a light blue oxford shirt, and his fawn-colored Huntsman summer blazer, while Rachel opted for an Erica Tanov summer linen smock dress. Moments later, a burned-apricot McLaren F1 pulled into the driveway of the Peninsula, its engines making a low, deliriously expensive rumble that sent the valet attendants scurrying around excitedly, each hoping for the chance to park this exotic driving machine. Their hopes were dashed when Carlton poked his head out the window and beckoned Nick and Rachel to get in.
“You take the front seat,” Nick gallantly offered his wife.
“Don’t be ridiculous—my legs are much shorter than yours,” Rachel said. Their argument ended up being completely moot, because as the wing doors rose, they saw that the driver’s seat was in the center of the car, with a passenger seat flanking either side.
“How cool! I’ve never seen anything like this!” Rachel said.
Nick peered in. “This is one sexy car you have here—is it street legal?”
“Hell if I know,” Carlton said with a smirk.
“And here I thought you people went around in nothing but Audis,” Rachel said as she climbed in on the right side.
“Oh, the Audis belong to Colette’s family. You know why everyone drives Audis, don’t you? It’s the car most high-level politicians drive, so many people drive them because they think that other cars will give way and the police are more likely to leave them alone.”
“How interesting,” Rachel said as she settled into her surprisingly comfortable bucket seat. “I love this new-car smell.”
“Actually, this car isn’t new at all—it’s from 1998,” Carlton said.
“Really?” Rachel said in surprise.
“It’s considered a classic—I only drive it on sunny, cloudless days like today. You’re smelling the hand-stitched Connolly leather hides—made from cows even more pampered than the ones in Kobe.”
“Looks like we’ve discovered another of Carlton’s passions,” Nick commented.
“Oh yeah! I’ve been importing cars for several years now and selling them to friends. I started during my Cambridge days, whenever I came up to London on weekends,” Carlton explained as he sped onto Yan’an Elevated Road.
“You must have witnessed the Arab sports-car parade around Knightsbridge every year,” Nick said.
“You bet! My friends and I would grab a table outside the Ladurée and watch them roll by!”
“What are you guys talking about?” Rachel asked.
Nick proceeded to explain. “Every June, all these young Arab squillionaires descend on London, bringing with them the most stupendous sports cars in the world. And they race them around Knightsbridge as if the streets are their private Formula One track. On Saturday afternoons, the cars converge behind Harrods at the corner of Basil Street like some swap meet. All these kids—some not more than eighteen, dressed in expensive tattered denim, and their girlfriends, covered up in their hijabs but wearing blinged-out sunglasses sitting in these million-dollar automobiles. It’s an incredible sight.”
Carlton nodded, his eyes flashing with excitement. “The same thing is happening here! This is now the number-one market for luxury cars in the world—especially exotic sports cars. The demand is unquenchable, and all my friends know I’m the best at finding the rarest of the rare. This McLaren we’re sitting in—only sixty-four were ever built. So before a car even arrives on the dock in Shanghai, I have a waiting list of buyers.”
“Sounds like a fun way to make a living,” Nick commented.
“Tell that to my parents when you see them. They think I’m wasting my life.”
“I’m sure they are just concerned for your safety,” Rachel said, holding her breath as Carlton suddenly cut across three lanes at ninety miles per hour.
“Sorry, I just need to get around those trucks. Don’t worry—I’m a very safe driver.”