room. Everyone took turns fondling Mrs. Singh’s jewels while gossiping and gobbling down Indian sweets,” Eleanor recalled.
Carol scrutinized the long queue trying to get through the front door. “This looks anything but relaxed. Alamak, who are all these women all dressed up like they are going to a cocktail party?”
“It’s all the new people. The whoest-who of Singapore society that no one has ever heard of—mainly Chindos,”*2 Eleanor sniffed.
Ever since Mrs. Singh lost interest in counting her carats and began spending more time in India studying Vedic scriptures, her daughter-in-law Sarita—a former minor Bollywood actress—had taken over the affair, and the homey ladies’ tea party evolved into a high-profile charity exhibition to raise money for whatever happened to be Sarita’s cause du jour. The event was breathlessly chronicled by all the glossy magazines, and anyone who could pay the exorbitant entry fee had the privilege of traipsing through the Singhs’ elegant modernist bungalow and gawking at the jewelry, which nowadays consisted of some specially themed exhibition.
This year’s show was devoted to the works of the acclaimed Norwegian silversmith Tone Vigeland, and as Lorena Lim, Nadine Shaw, and Daisy Foo peered into the glass vitrines in what was now the “gallery,” converted from the former table-tennis room, Nadine could not help but register her dismay. “Alamak, who wants to see all this Scandinavian gow sai*3? I thought we would get to see some of Mrs. Singh’s jewels.”
“Keep your voice down! That ang moh*4 over there is the curator. Apparently she is some hotshot from the Austin Cooper Design Museum in New York,” Lorena warned.
“Aiyah, I don’t care if she’s Anderson Cooper! Who wants to pay five hundred dollars a ticket to see jewelry made of rusty nails? I came to see rubies the size of rambutans!”
“Nadine has a point. This is such a waste of money, even though we got these free tickets from my banker at OCBC,” Daisy said.
Just then, Eleanor entered the gallery, squinting at the bright lights. She immediately put her sunglasses back on.
“Eleanor!” Lorena said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were coming to this!”
“I wasn’t planning to, but Carol was given tickets by her banker at UOB, and she convinced me to come. She needs cheering up.”
“Where is she?”
“In the toilet, of course. You know her weak bladder.”
“Well, there’s nothing here that will cheer her up, unless she wants to see jewelry that will give her tetanus,” Daisy reported.
“I told Carol this would be a waste of time! Sarita Singh only wants to impress her arty-farty international friends these days. Three years ago she invited me, Felicity, and Astrid, and it was all this Victorian mourning jewelry. Nothing but black jet and brooches made from the hair of dead people. Hak sei yen!*5 Only Astrid could appreciate it.”
“Let me tell you what I’m appreciating right now—your new Birkin bag! I never thought you’d be caught dead with one of these. Didn’t you once say that only tacky Mainlanders carried such bags?” Nadine asked.
“Funny you should say that—this was a gift from Bao Shaoyen.”
“Wah, ah nee ho miah!*6 I told you the Baos were loaded,” Daisy said.
“Well, you were right—the Baos are loaded beyond belief. My God, the way I’ve seen them spend in just the few months they’ve been here! Nadine, if you thought your Francesca was a spendthrift, you should see how that Carlton spends. I have never seen a boy more obsessed with cars in my life! At first his mother swore she would never let him set foot in another sports car, but every time I go over there, there’s some exotic new car in their sky garage. Apparently he’s been buying cars and shipping them back to China. He claims he’ll make a fat profit reselling them to his friends.”
“Well, it sounds like Carlton has made quite a recovery!” Lorena said.
“Yes, he hardly even needs his crutches anymore. Oh, in case you were still thinking of him for your Tiffany, you should stop. Apparently he’s already got a girlfriend. A fashion model or something like that—she lives in Shanghai but flies down to see him every weekend.”
“Carlton is so handsome and charming, of course there must be a long line of girls trying to catch him,” Nadine said.
“He may be all that, but I can see now why Shaoyen loses sleep over her son. She told me that the past few months have been the most relaxed time she’s had in years. She’s afraid that once Carlton is fully back on his