3

ASTRID

VENICE, ITALY

“Ludivine, I’m not sure if you can hear me, but you’re breaking up. I’m on a gondola in the middle of a canal right now, and the connection is very weak. Please text me and I’ll call you back as soon as I get off this boat.” Astrid put her phone away and smiled apologetically at her friend, Contessa Domiella Finzi-Contini. She was there for the Venice Biennale, and they were being rowed to the Palazzo Brandolini for a dinner party honoring Anish Kapoor.

“This is Venezia—there is never a signal anywhere, much less in the middle of Canal Grande.” Domiella laughed as she tried to stop her pashmina from flapping away in the evening breeze. “Now, finish telling me the story of your amazing find.”

“Well, I always thought Fortuny only worked with heavier silks and velvets, so when I came across this voile dress in an antique shop in Jakarta, of all places, I didn’t know what to think. I thought at first it was some kind of Peranakan wedding gown from the 1920s, but the distinctive pleating caught my eye. And the pattern—”

“It’s his classic Delphos pattern, of course, but this fabric—my God, so light!” Domiella said as she fondled the hem of Astrid’s long diaphanous skirt. “And the color—I’ve never seen this shade of violet before. Obviously hand-painted, probably by Fortuny himself or his wife, Henriette. How is it that you are always finding these remarkable treasures?”

“Domiella, I swear to God, they just find me. I paid about three hundred thousand rupiahs for it—that’s about twenty-five U.S. dollars.”

“Cazzo! I am going to vomit with jealousy! I’m sure any museum would love to have it. Be careful, Dodie will probably want to buy it off your body the minute she sees you tonight!”

The grand entrance of the Palazzo Brandolini was jammed oar to oar with guests arriving in gondolas, launches, and vaporettos, allowing Astrid to check her phone again. This time, there was an e-mail that read:

Astrid read the e-mail with increasing frustration and sadness. She sent a quick text message to her husband, and then allowed herself to be helped out of the gondola after the contessa. They entered the front hall of the palazzo, which was dominated by an enormous metallic-gold concave sculpture suspended from the ceiling.

“Bellissima! I wonder, is it one of Anish’s new installations?” Domiella turned to gauge Astrid’s reaction, and found that she hadn’t even noticed the sculpture hovering above her. “Is everything okay?”

Astrid sighed. “Every time I go away, there seems to be a new problem with Cassian.”

“He misses his mama.”

“No, that’s not it. I mean, I’m sure he misses me, but I intentionally make these short trips so that Cassian might bond with his father. He’s too much of a mama’s boy, and I’m trying to change that—I see what that’s done to my brother. But every time I go away, there’s always a problem. Michael and he just seem to always be at loggerheads.”

“What is loggerheads?”

“They fight. Michael doesn’t have any tolerance for anything other than perfect behavior from his son. He treats him as if he were in the military. Tell me, when Luchino and Pier Paolo were Cassian’s age, if they broke something valuable, what would you do to them?”

“My God, my sons tore up everything in the house! Furniture, rugs, everything! They put an elbow through a Bronzino one day when they were fighting with each other. Thankfully, it was a portrait of a very ugly woman. Some inbred ancestor of my husband’s.”

“And what did you do? Did you punish them?”

“For what? They are boys.”

“Exactly!” Astrid sighed.

“Oh dear, here comes that odious art dealer who keeps trying to sell me a Gursky. I keep telling him that if I had to look at a huge photo of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport all day, I’d hang myself. Let’s go upstairs.”

Despite their best efforts, the dealer caught up to them in the Grand Ballroom on the second floor. “Contessa—how good to see you,” he said in an extremely affected accent, attempting to give her a double-cheek kiss. She only allowed one cheek. “How are your parents these days?”

“Still alive,” Domiella said wistfully.

The man paused for a split second, before letting out a guffaw. “Oh, har har!”

“This is my friend Astrid Leong Teo.”

“Howdoyoudo,” he said, pushing up his obnoxiously thick hornrimmed spectacles. He had memorized dossiers on every high-net-worth Asian collector who might attend the Biennale this year, but as he did not recognize Astrid, he continued to zero in on the contessa. “Contessa, I do hope you will give me a chance to walk you through the German Pavilion sometime.”

“Excuse me, I have to make a brief phone call,” Astrid said, as she moved toward the outdoor balcony.

Domiella looked at the art dealer and shook her head pitifully. “You just missed the chance of a lifetime. Do you know who my friend was? Her family are the Medicis of Asia, and she’s on a buying binge for a museum in Singapore.”

“I assumed she was just some model,” the dealer sputtered.

“Oh look—Larry’s talking to her. He’s obviously done his homework. Too late for you now,” Domiella tut-tutted.

After assuring the art dealer who cornered her on the terrace that she truly had no interest in seeing his big shiny Koons, Astrid placed a call to her husband.

Michael picked up his cell phone after four rings, sounding sleepy. “Hey. Is everything okay?”

“Yes.”

“You know it’s one thirty in the morning here, right?”

“I do. But I think you’re the only one in the house who’s able to sleep. Ludivine just texted me that Cassian is still up. He’s terrified of the dark now. Locking him in the closet…really?”

Michael let out a sigh of frustration. “You don’t understand. He’s been a little pest all week. Whenever I come home, he goes berserk.”

“He’s acting out to get your attention. He wants to play.”

“The great hall is not a playroom. My cars are not toys. He has to learn to control himself—at his age, I was not jumping around like an orangutan all day.”

“He is an active, high-spirited kid. Like his father was.”

“Hnnh!” Michael snorted. “If I had acted the way he does, I would have been whipped by my pa. Ten strokes on my ass with his rotan.”

“Well, thank God you’re not your father then.”

“Cassian is a wild child, and this is the time for him to learn some discipline.”

“He is disciplined. Do you see how much calmer he is when I am there? I think you would get much farther if you would give him more of your attention. And I don’t mean sitting by the pool with your laptop while he plays. Take him to the zoo, take him to Gardens by the Bay. He just wants to be with his father.”

“So now you’re trying to make me feel guilty.”

“Darling, I’m not trying to make you feel anything. But don’t you see? My being away is a special opportunity for you to spend more quality time with him. He’ll be in Primary One next year, and then the whole academic race begins. He’s growing up so fast—this is a time in his life you’ll never get back.”

“Okay, lah, okay lah, you win. I’m a bad father.”

Astrid balled up some of the fabric of her skirt in frustration. “This is not about winning, and you’re not a bad father. It’s just—” Astrid began, before Michael interrupted her.

“I’ll try to do better tomorrow while you’re having fun in Venice. Have a Bellini on me.”

“You’re not being fair. You know I promised to take this trip for the museum. We are trying to make some important things happen here for the good of Singapore. I spend most of my waking hours with Cassian all year and you are the one who travels eighty percent of the year.”

“Excuse me for working my ass off to ensure a future for my family. While you’re working ‘for the good of Singapore,’ everything I’m doing is for Cassian and you!”

“Michael, we’re not going to go hungry anytime soon, and you know that.”

Michael was silent for a long moment. “You know what the real problem is, Astrid? The problem is that you’ve never had to worry about money a single day in your life. You don’t realize how hard it is to make money—you blow your nose and money comes out! You’ve never understood the fear that normal people have. Well, I was motivated by that fear. And I built my own fortune out of it. I want to instill in my son that same fear. He is going to inherit a great deal of money one day, and he needs to know that he has to earn it. He has to have boundaries. Otherwise—he’s just going to end up like your brother Henry, or anyone of your pompous, entitled cousins who haven’t worked a day in their lives but feel like they own the world.”

“Now you’re just being mean, Michael. That’s an extremely unfair generalization.”

“You know I speak the truth. At the end of the day, your son made a decision to damage my car. Your son made the decision to use filthy language. And you just continue making excuses for him.”

“He’s only FIVE!” Astrid said, raising her voice.

“AND THAT’S MY POINT, HONEY! If we don’t correct his problems now, we’re never going to.”

Astrid sighed deeply. “Michael, I really don’t want to get into a big fight with you over this right now.”

“I don’t either. I want to get some sleep. Some of us have to work in the morning.”

With that, Michael hung up on her. Astrid put her phone back into her purse and leaned against the balustrade, feeling frustrated. The blue hour was upon the city, and the water began to shimmer in the reflection of the lights coming on in all the palazzos across the Grand Canal. This is ridiculous. I’ve just been standing at one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, getting into a long-distance argument over my son.

Domiella led a group of people out onto the terrace, and Astrid recognized her friend Grégoire L’Herme-Pierre among them.

“Astrid! I couldn’t believe it when Domiella told me you were here too! What are you doing in Venice? I didn’t know this art crowd was your thing,” Grégoire said, giving Astrid his usual Parisian quadruple kiss.

“I’m just soaking in the sights,” Astrid said distractedly, still trying to collect herself after the call.

“Of course. Now, surely you know my friends here—Pascal Pang and Isabel Wu of Hong Kong?”

Astrid greeted the chic couple. Pascal wore an immaculately tailored suit that had a slight iridescence, while Isabel was elegantly clad in a strapless black Christian Dior dress with a flared, knee-length skirt. Her hair was swept up into a Grecian chignon, and around her neck was a striking Michele Oka Doner gold necklace in the shape of palm fronds. Suddenly Astrid had a realization that the two of them weren’t a couple. Could this Isabel Wu standing in front of her be Charlie’s wife?

The lady caught Astrid’s flash of recognition, and said simply, “I know who you are.”

Grégoire chuckled. “See, it’s always such a small world when you’re around!”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” Astrid said to Isabel, adding, “Charlie told me all about your fund-raising efforts for M+ museum. I think it’s terrific what you’re doing. It’s high time Hong Kong has a world-class contemporary art space.”

“Thank you. Yes, I believe you saw Charlie recently, didn’t you?” Isabel asked.

“Yes. I am sorry you weren’t able to join us on our California road trip.”

Isabel paused, taken aback. California? She knew that Charlie had bumped into Astrid at the Pinnacle Ball, but she knew nothing about a road trip. “So, you had a nice time then?”

“Oh yes. We were planning on going to Sausalito, but then we decided on the spur of the moment to drive down the coast to Monterey and Big Sur.”

“Let me guess…did he take you to Post Ranch Inn for dinner?” she continued breezily.

“We went for lunch, actually. Heavenly there, isn’t it?”

“Yes, you could say that. Well, it was good to meet you at last, Astrid Leong.” Isabel turned to reenter the ballroom with Pascal, while Astrid remained on the balcony with Domiella and Grégoire. The summer heat still lingered in the soft evening breeze, and in the distance, the bells of the Basilica di San Marco began to peal.

Pascal suddenly reappeared on the balcony and said hurriedly to Grégoire, “Isabel needs to leave this instant. Are you staying or coming?”

“Is everything okay?” Astrid asked.

Pascal gave Astrid a glacial stare. “So nice of you to rub it in Isabel’s face like that.”

“I’m sorry?” Astrid said, confused.

Pascal inhaled deeply, trying to contain his rage. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve never seen anyone as brazen as you. Did you have to make it so apparent to Isabel that you’ve been fucking her husband up and down the California coast?”

Domiella gasped and gripped Astrid’s shoulder.

Astrid shook her head wildly. “No, no, there’s been a big misunderstanding. Charlie and I are just old friends—”

“Old friends? Ha! Until tonight, Isabel wasn’t even sure you were still alive.”