to the left, breaking out of the clouds as Rachel caught sight of the island for the first time. They had departed New York twenty-one hours ago, and after one refueling stop in Frankfurt, she was in Southeast Asia now, in the realm her ancestors called the Nanyang.* But the view she could glimpse from the plane did not resemble some romantic terrain swathed in mist—rather, it was a dense metropolis of skyscrapers glittering in the evening sky, and from six thousand feet Rachel could already feel the pulsating energy that was one of the world’s financial powerhouses.
As the electronic doors of the customs area slid open to reveal the tropical oasis that was the arrival hall of Terminal Three, the first thing Nick saw was his friend Colin Khoo holding up a large placard with BEST MAN printed on it. Beside him stood an exceedingly tan, willowy girl clutching a bunch of silver balloons.
Nick and Rachel rolled their luggage carts toward them. “What are you doing here?” Nick exclaimed in surprise as Colin squeezed him into a bear hug.
“Come on! Of course I had to welcome my best man properly! This is full service, man,” Colin beamed.
“My turn!” the girl beside him declared, leaning over and giving Nick a hug followed by a quick peck on the cheek. She turned next to Rachel, stretched out her hand, and said, “You must be Rachel. I’m Araminta.”
“Oh sorry, let me make proper introductions—Rachel Chu, meet Araminta Lee, Colin’s fiancée. And this, of course, is Colin Khoo,” Nick said.
“So nice to finally meet you.” Rachel smiled, shaking their hands vigorously. She wasn’t prepared for this welcoming party, and after all those hours on the plane, she could only imagine how she must look. She studied the cheery couple for a bit. People always looked so different from their pictures. Colin was taller than she imagined, roguishly handsome with dark freckles and an unruly shock of hair that made him look a bit like a Polynesian surfer. Behind her wire-frame spectacles, Araminta had a very pretty face, even without a stitch of makeup. Her long black hair was pulled into a rubber-banded ponytail that reached down to the small of her back, and she looked far too skinny for her tall frame. She was wearing what appeared to be a pair of plaid pajama pants, a pale orange tank top, and flip-flops. Though she was probably in her mid-twenties, she looked more like a schoolgirl than someone about to walk down the aisle. They were an unusually exotic couple, and Rachel wondered how their children might end up looking.
Colin began texting away on his cell phone. “The drivers have been circling around for a while. Let me just make sure they know we’re ready.”
“I can’t believe this airport—it makes JFK look like Mogadishu,” Rachel remarked. She stared up in wonder at the soaring ultramodern structure, the indoor palm trees, and the immense, lush vertical hanging garden that seemed to make up an entire length of the terminal. A fine mist of water began to spread over the cascading greenery. “Are they misting the entire wall? I feel like I’m at some upscale tropical resort.”
“This whole country is an upscale tropical resort,” Colin quipped as he led them toward the exit. Waiting at the curb were two matching silver Land Rovers. “Here, pile all your luggage into this one, it’s going straight to the hotel. We can all ride in the other one without being cramped.” The driver in the first car got out, nodded to Colin, and went to join the other driver, leaving an empty car for them. In her jet-lagged fog, Rachel didn’t know what to make of all this and just climbed into the backseat of the SUV.
“What a treat! I don’t think I’ve been welcomed at the airport like this since I was a little kid,” Nick said, recalling the times in his childhood when a large group of family members would gather at the airport. A visit to the airport back then was a thrilling event, since it also meant that his father would take him for a hot fudge sundae at the Swensen’s Ice Cream Parlor in the old terminal. People seemed to go away on longer trips back then, and there were always tears from the women saying goodbye to relatives heading overseas or welcoming home children who had spent the school year abroad. He once even overheard his older cousin Alex whisper to his father