The Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy

SINGAPORE

“Another security checkpoint?” Alexandra Cheng complained, peering out the tinted window at the throngs of spectators lining Fort Canning Road.

“Alix, there are so many heads of state here, of course they have to secure the location. That’s the Sultan of Brunei’s convoy ahead of us, and isn’t the vice premier of China supposed to be coming?” Malcolm Cheng said.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the Lees invited the entire Communist Party of China,” Victoria Young snorted in derision.

Nick had departed at the crack of dawn to help Colin prepare for his big day, so Rachel caught a ride with his aunts and uncle in one of the fleets of cars leaving from Tyersall Park.

The burgundy Daimler finally arrived in front of First Methodist Church and the uniformed chauffeur opened the door, causing the crowd crammed behind barricades to roar in anticipatio

n. As Rachel was helped out of the car, hundreds of press photographers hanging off metal bleachers began snapping away, the sound of their frenzied digital clicks like locusts descending on an open field.

Rachel heard a photographer yell to a newscaster standing on the ground, “Who’s that girl? Is she someone? Is she someone?”

“No, it’s just some rich socialite,” the newscaster snapped back. “But look, here comes Eddie Cheng and Fiona Tung-Cheng!”

Eddie and his sons emerged from the car directly behind Rachel’s. Both boys were dressed in outfits identical to their father’s—dove-gray cutaway jackets and polka-dot lavender ties—and they flanked Eddie obediently while Fiona and Kalliste followed a few paces behind.

“Eddie Cheng! Look this way, Eddie! Boys, over here!” the photographers shouted. The newscaster thrust a microphone in front of Eddie’s face. “Mr. Cheng, your family is always at the top of the best-dressed lists, and you certainly didn’t disappoint us today! Tell me, who are you wearing?”

Eddie paused, proudly placing his arms around his boys’ shoulders. “Constantine, Augustine, and I are in Gieves & Hawkes bespoke, and my wife and daughter are in Carolina Herrera,” he grinned broadly. The boys squinted into the bright morning sun, trying to remember their father’s instructions: look straight into the camera lens, suck your cheeks in, turn to the left, smile, turn to the right, smile, look at Papa adoringly, smile.

“Your grandsons look so cute all dressed up!” Rachel remarked to Malcolm.

Malcolm shook his head derisively. “Hiyah! Thirty years I have been a pioneering heart surgeon, but my son is the one who gets all the attention—for his bloody clothes!”

Rachel grinned. These big celebrity weddings all seemed to be about the “bloody clothes,” didn’t they? She was wearing an ice-blue dress with a fitted blazer trimmed with mother-of-pearl disks all along the lapel and sleeves. At first she felt rather overdressed when she saw what Nick’s aunts were wearing back at Tyersall Park—Alexandra in a muddy-green floral dress that looked like eighties Laura Ashley, and Victoria in a geometric-patterned black-and-white knit dress (so much for Peik Lin’s theory) that looked like something dug up from the bottom of an old camphor-wood chest. But here, among all the other chic wedding guests, she realized that she had nothing to worry about.

Rachel had never seen a crowd like this in the daytime—with the men sharply dressed in morning suits and the women styled to within an inch of their lives in the latest looks from Paris and Milan, many sporting elaborate hats or flamboyant fascinators. An even more exotic contingent of ladies arrived in iridescent saris, hand-painted kimonos, and intricately sewn kebayas. Rachel had secretly been dreading the wedding all week, but as she followed Nick’s aunties up the slope toward the Gothic redbrick church, she found herself succumbing to the festive air. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event, the likes of which she would probably never witness again.

At the main doors stood a line of ushers dressed in pinstriped morning suits and top hats. “Welcome to First Methodist,” an usher said cheerily. “Your names, please?”

“What for?” Victoria frowned.

“So I can tell you which rows you’ll be sitting in,” the young man said, holding up an iPad with a detailed seating chart glowing on its screen.

“What nonsense! This is my church, and I am going to sit in my regular pew,” Victoria said.

“At least tell me if you’re guests of the bride or groom?” the usher asked.

“Groom, of course!” Victoria huffed, brushing past him.

Entering the church for the first time, Rachel was surprised by how starkly modern the sanctuary looked. Silver-leaf latticework walls soared to the stonework ceilings, and rows of minimalist blond-wood chairs filled the space. There wasn’t a single flower to be seen anywhere, but there was no need, because suspended from the ceiling were thousands of young Aspen trees, meticulously arranged to create a vaulted forest floating just above everyone’s heads. Rachel found the effect stunning, but Nick’s aunties were aghast.

“Why did they cover up the red brick and the stained glass? What happened to all the dark wooden pews?” Alexandra asked, disoriented by the complete transformation of the church she had been baptized in.

“Aiyah, Alix, don’t you see? That Annabel Lee woman has transformed the church into one of her ghastly hotel lobbies!” Victoria shuddered.

The ushers inside the church rushed around in utter panic, since most of the eight hundred and eighty-eight* wedding guests were completely ignoring the seating chart. Annabel had been advised on the seating protocol by no less an authority than Singapore Tattle’s editrix in chief, Betty Bao, but even Betty was unprepared for the ancient rivalries that existed among Asia’s old-guard families. She would not have known, for instance, that the Hus should always be seated in front of the Ohs, or that the Kweks would not tolerate any Ngs within a fifty-foot radius.

Predictably, Dick and Nancy T’sien had commandeered two rows near the pulpit and were turning away anyone other than T’siens, Youngs, or Shangs (in rare exceptions, they were allowing in a few Leongs and Lynn Wyatt). Nancy, in a cinnabar-red dress and enormous matching feather-brimmed hat, gushed excitedly as Alexandra and Victoria approached. “Don’t you love what they’ve done? It reminds me of the Seville Cathedral, where we attended the wedding of the Duchess of Alba’s daughter to that handsome bullfighter.”

“But we’re Methodists, Nancy. This is a sacrilege! I feel like I’m in the middle of the Katyn forest, and someone is about to shoot me in the back of the head,” Victoria seethed.

Rosemary T’sien walked up the central aisle escorted by her grandson Oliver T’sien and her granddaughter Cassandra Shang, nodding to people she knew along the way. Rachel could already tell by Cassandra’s wrinkled nose that she did not approve of the decor. Radio One Asia slipped in between Victoria and Nancy and launched into the latest breaking news: “I just heard that Mrs. Lee Yong Chien is furious. She is going to talk to the bishop right after the service, and you know what that means—no more new library wing!”

Oliver, who was nattily dressed in a cream-colored seersucker suit, blue checked shirt, and yellow knit tie, slipped in next to Rachel. “I want to sit next to you—you’re the best-dressed girl I’ve seen all day!” he declared, admiring the understated elegance of Rachel’s outfit. As the church continued to fill up, Oliver’s running commentary on the arriving VIP guests had Rachel alternately mesmerized and in stitches.