“What do you mean you just landed? Wasn’t Trenta here all weekend?”
“No, Miss Bing. Your father just returned from Los Angeles.?
?
“Really? I had no idea. Well, get us the tea and tell the captain we’re ready for takeoff.”
“Right away, Miss Bing,” the chief purser said, turning to leave.
“One more thing…”
“Yes, Miss Bing?”
“There is something in the air tonight, Fernando.”
“We’ll readjust the cabin climate right away.”
“No, that’s not it. Can you smell the air, Fernando? It’s nothing like Frédéric Malle’s Jurassic Flower. Who changed the cabin scent without my permission?”
“I’m not sure, Miss Bing.”
After Fernando left the room, Colette turned to Roxanne again. “When we get to Paris, I want new copies of the Aircraft Standards Manual printed and bound for every member of the flight crew. I want them to memorize every page, and then we’re going to give them a pop quiz during the return flight.”
* * *
*1 The passenger list included Rachel, Nick, Carlton, Colette Bing, Mrs. Bing, Grandma Bing, Auntie Pan Di, Stephanie Shi, Mrs. Shi, Adele Deng, Wen Pi Fang, Mrs. Wen, Perrineum Wang, Tiffany Yap, Roxanne Ma, and six maids (every one of Colette’s girlfriends brought along a personal maid).
*2 The mountains of Hangzhou are famed for Longjing tea, also known as Dragon Well tea. It is said that 600,000 fresh tea leaves are required to produce one kilogram of this precious tea that is prized above all else by Chinese tea connoisseurs.
*3 Salted dried plums, fervently sucked on by generations of Chinese like martini olives. Supposedly great for combating nausea but has the reverse effect on me.
15
28 CLUNY PARK ROAD
SINGAPORE
Carmen Loh had just stretched into sarvangasana pose in the middle of her living room when she heard her answering machine kick in.
“Carmen, ah. Mummy here. Geik Choo just called to tell me that Uncle C.K. has been checked in to Dover Park Hospice. They say if he makes it through the night, he can probably last through the week. I’m going to pay a visit today. I think you should come with me. Can you come and pick me up at Lillian May Tan’s around six? We should be finished with mah-jongg by then, unless Mrs. Lee Yong Chien shows up. In that case the game will take longer. Visiting hours at Dover Park end at eight, so I want to make sure we have ample time. Also, I ran into Keng Lien today at NTUC, and she said she heard from Paula that you are selling your Churchill Club membership to fund some new scuba-diving venture. I said ‘What rubbish, there is no way my daughter would ever do a thing like…’?”
Grunting in frustration, Carmen eased her body down from its shoulder stand. Why the hell didn’t she remember to turn off the machine? Thirty minutes of pure bliss ruined by one call from her mother. She walked slowly to the phone and picked it up. “Ma, why on earth is Uncle C.K. in a hospice and not at home? Won’t they get him twenty-four-hour home-hospice care even in his final days? I can’t believe the family is as giam siap*1 as that.”
“Aiyah, it’s not that. Uncle C.K. wants to die at home, but the children won’t let him. They think it will affect the value of the house, lor.”
Carmen rolled her eyes in exasperation. Even before the tin-mining tycoon C. K. Wong’s MRI results came in showing that his cancer had spread all over, everyone had already begun plotting. In the old days, real estate agents would scour the obituaries every morning, hoping to see the name of some prominent tycoon appear, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the family put the big house up for sale. Now, with Good Class Bungalows*2 becoming rarer than unicorns, the top agents were resorting to “well-placed contacts” at all the hospitals. Five months ago, Carmen’s boss, Owen Kwee, at MangoTee Properties had called her into his office and said, “My lobang*3 at Mount E. saw C. K. Wong come in for chemo. Aren’t you related to him?”
“Our fathers are cousins.”
“That house of his on Cluny Park Road is on a three-acre plot. It’s one of the last Frank Brewer houses still standing.”
“I know. I’ve been going there my whole life.”
Owen leaned back in his tufted-leather office chair. “I only know the oldest son, Quentin. But there are other siblings, right?
“Two younger brothers and one daughter.” She knew exactly where he was going with this.
“Those two brothers live abroad, don’t they?”