16
Sentosa Cove
•
SINGAPORE
It must have been a bird or something, Nick thought, waking up to a sound. There was a blue jay that liked to tap its beak against the sliding glass wall downstairs by the reflecting pool every morning. How long had he been sleeping? It was seven forty-five, so this meant he’d knocked off at least four and a half hours. Not bad, considering that he hadn’t been able to sleep more than three hours a night since Rachel had broken up with him a week ago. The bed was bathed in a pool of light coming from the retractable glass roof, and now it was far too bright for him to go back to sleep. How did Colin manage to get any sleep in this place? There was something so impractical about living in a house that consisted mainly of reflecting pools and glass walls.
Nick turned over, facing the Venetian stucco wall with the large Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph. It was a black-and-white image from his cinema series, the interior of an old theater somewhere in Ohio. Sugimoto had left the camera shutter open for the duration of the film, so that the large screen became a glowing, rectangular portal of light. To Nick, it seemed like a portal to a parallel universe, and he wished he could just slip into all that whiteness and disappear. Maybe go back in time. To April, or May. He should have known better. He should never have invited Rachel to come here without first giving her a crash course in how to deal with his family. “Rich, Entitled, Delusional Chinese Families 101.” Could he really be part of this family? The older he got, and the more years he spent abroad, the more he felt like a stranger in their midst. Now that he was in his thirties, the expectations kept growing, and the rules kept changing. He didn’t know how to keep up with this place anymore. And yet he loved being back home. He loved the long rainy afternoons at his grandmother’s house during monsoon season, hunting for kueh tutu in Chinatown, the long walks around MacRitchie Reservoir at dusk with his father . . .
There was the sound again. This time it didn’t sound like the blue jay. He had fallen asleep without arming the security system, and now someone was definitely in the house. He threw on a pair of shorts and tiptoed out of the bedroom. The guest bedroom was accessed through a glass skywalk that stretched across the back section of the house, and looking down, he could see the flicker of a reflection as it moved across the polished Brazilian oak floors. Was the house being burglarized? Sentosa Cove was so isolated, and anyone reading the gossip rags knew Colin Khoo and Araminta Lee were away on their fabulous honeymoon yachting around the Dalmatian coast.
Nick hunted around for a weapon; the only thing he could find was a carved didgeridoo propped against the wall of the guest bathroom. (Would someone actually play the didgeridoo while sitting on the loo?) He crept down the floating titanium stairs and walked slowly toward the galley kitchen, raising the didgeridoo to strike just as Colin appeared from around the corner.
“Christ!” Nick swore in surprise, putting down his weapon.
Colin seemed unruffled by the sight of Nick in nothing more than a pair of soccer shorts, wielding a rainbow-colored didgeridoo. “I don’t think that makes a good weapon, Nick,” he said. “Should have gone for the antique samurai sword in my bedroom.”
“I thought someone was breaking in!”
“There are no break-ins around here. This neighborhood is way too secure, and thieves can’t be bothered to drive out here just to steal customized kitchen appliances.”
“What are you doing back from your honeymoon so early?” Nick asked, scratching his head.
“Well, I heard disturbing rumors that my best friend was suicidal and wasting away in my house.”
“Wasting away, but not suicidal.” Nick groaned.
“Seriously, Nicky, you have a lot of people worried about you.”
“Oh, like who? And don’t say my mother.”
“Sophie’s been worried. Araminta. Even Mandy. She called me in Hvar. I think she feels really bad about how she acted.”
“Well, the damage has been done,” Nick said gruffly.
“Listen, why don’t I make you a quick breakfast? You look like you haven’t eaten in years.”
“That’ll be great.”
“Watch, as the Iron Chef attempts to fry up some hor bao daan.”
Nick perched on a barstool at the island in the kitchen, wolfing down his breakfast. He held up a fork of eggs. “Almost as good as Ah Ching’s.”
“Pure luck. My bao daan usually end up as scrambled eggs.”
“Well, it’s the best thing I’ve eaten all week. Actually, it’s the only thing I’ve eaten. I’ve just been parked on your sofa, bingeing on beer and episodes of Mad Men. By the way, you’re out of Red Stripe.”
“This is the first time you’ve ever really been depressed, isn’t it? Finally the heartbreaker discovers how it feels to get his heart broken.”
“I don’t actually hold the trademark on that name. Alistair’s the true heartbreaker.”
“Wait a minute—you haven’t heard? Kitty Pong dumped him!”
“Now that’s a shocker,” Nick remarked drily.
“No, you don’t know the whole story! At the tea ceremony the day after the wedding, Araminta and I were in the middle of pouring tea for Mrs. Lee Yong Chien when we all heard this strange noise coming from somewhere. It sounded like a rattling crossed with some kind of farm animal giving birth. No one could figure out what it was. We thought maybe a bat was stuck somewhere in the house. So a few of us started looking around discreetly, and you know how my grandfather’s colonial house on Belmont Road is—there are all these huge built-in closets everywhere. Well, little Rupert Khoo opens the door under the grand staircase and out tumble Kitty and Bernard Tai, right in front of all the guests!”
“NOOOOOOO!” Nick exclaimed.
“And that’s not the worst of it. Bernard was bent over spread-eagle with his pants around his ankles, and Kitty still had two fingers up his bum when the door popped open!”
Nick broke out into hysterical fits, slapping the travertine counter repeatedly as tears ran down his cheeks.
“You should have seen the look on Mrs. Lee Yong Chien’s face! I thought I was going to have to perform CPR!” Colin sniggered.
“Thanks for the laugh—I needed that.” Nick sighed, trying to catch his breath. “I feel bad for Alistair.”
“Oh, he’ll get over it. I’m more worried about you. Seriously, what are you going to do about Rachel? We need to get you cleaned up and back on your white horse. I think Rachel could use your help now more than ever.”
“I know that, but she’s adamant about wanting me out of her life. She made it clear she never wanted to see me again, and those Gohs have done a damn good job of enforcing that!”
“She’s still in shock, Nicky. With all that’s happened to her, how could she possibly know what she wants?”
“I know her, Colin. When her mind is made up there’s no going back. She’s not a sentimentalist. She’s very pragmatic, and she’s so stubborn. She’s decided that because of the way my family is, being together will never work. Can you blame her, after what they’ve done? Isn’t it ironic? Everyone thinks she’s some kind of gold digger, when she’s the complete opposite. She broke up with me because of my money.”
“I told you I liked her from the day we met—she’s the real deal, isn’t she?” Colin observed.
Nick gazed out the window at the view across the bay. In the morning haze, the Singapore skyline almost resembled Manhattan’s. “I loved the life we had together in New York,” he said wistfully. “I loved getting up early on Sunday mornings and going to Murray’s to pick up bagel sandwiches with her. I loved spending hours wandering around the West Village, going to Washington Square Park to check out the dogs playing in the dog run. But I fucked it all up. I’m the reason her life has become a total mess.”
“You’re not the reason, Nicky.”
“Colin—I ruined her life. Because of me, she no longer has a relationship with her mother, and they were like best friends. Because of me, she found out that her father is a convict, that everything she believed about herself has been a lie. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t brought her here. As much as I want to believe there’s a part of her that still loves me, we’re trapped in an impossible situation.” Nick sighed.
A sudden rapping noise, consistent as Morse code, echoed through the kitchen. “What’s that?” Colin asked, looking around. “I sure hope it’s not Kitty and Bernard again.”
“No, that’s the blue jay,” Nick said, getting up from the barstool and heading toward the living room.
“What blue jay?”
“Don’t you know? There’s this blue jay that visits every morning without fail, and for about ten minutes it will keep flying into the glass wall and pecking at it.”
“I guess I’m never up this early.” Colin entered the living room and stared out the window, enthralled by the cobalt-blue bird darting through the air, its tiny black beak hitting against the glass pane for a moment before swooping away, only to return seconds later, like a tiny pendulum swinging against the glass.
“I keep wondering if he’s just sharpening his beak, or whether he’s really trying to come in,” Nick said.
“Have you thought of opening the glass wall and seeing if he will fly in?” Colin suggested.
“Er . . . no,” Nick said, looking at his friend as if it was the most brilliant thing he had ever heard. Colin picked up the house remote control and pressed a button. The glass panels began to open effortlessly.
The blue jay zipped into the living room at top speed, heading straight for the massive painting of brightly colored dots against the far wall, where it began pecking mercilessly at one of the bright yellow dots. “Oh my God, the Damien Hirst! It’s been attracted to those bright dots all along!” Nick cried in amazement.
“Are you sure it’s not the world’s tiniest art critic?” Colin quipped. “Look at the way it’s attacking the painting!”
Nick rushed up to the painting, waving his arms to shoo the bird off.
Colin sprawled onto his George Nakashima bench. “Well, Nicky, I hate to point out the obvious, but here’s this tiny bird that’s been trying to get through a huge bulletproof glass wall. A totally impossible situation. You tell me it’s been here every day pecking away persistently for ten minutes. Well, today the glass wall came down.”
“So you’re saying I should free the bird? I should just let Rachel go?”
Colin gave Nick an exasperated look. “No, you idiot! If you love Rachel as much as you say you do, then you need to be that blue jay for her.”
“Okay, so what would the blue jay do?” Nick asked.
“He would never give up trying. He would take an impossible situation and make everything possible.”