Astrid stopped in her tracks and turned around. "Yes?"
"Is his wife here as well?" Su Yi asked.
"No, it's just him." Astrid paused for a second, anticipating another question from her grandmother. But Su Yi was now fidgeting with the bed controls, raising the incline of her bed to the exact angle she wanted. Astrid proceeded to the balcony, where she found Nick sitting pensively at the wrought-iron table.
"Is she awake?" he asked.
"Yes."
"How is she?"
"She's okay. A lot better than I was expecting, actually. Come on, your turn."
"Um … she really wants to see me?" Nick asked trepidatiously.
Astrid smiled at her cousin. For a moment he looked like he was six years old again. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course. She's ready for you now."
* * *
*1 Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, the Singapore Botanic Gardens is cherished by locals in the same way Central Park is by New Yorkers or Hyde Park is by Londoners. A verdant oasis in the middle of the island filled with amazing botanical specimens, colonial-era pavilions, and one of the most amazing orchid collections on the planet, it's no wonder that so many Singaporeans want to have a tiny bit of their ashes scattered here. In secret, of course, since it's highly illegal. (No one escapes the law in Singapore, not even the dead.)
*2 If you read China Rich Girlfriend, you'd already know what a pontianak is. But just in case you haven't (and why the hell haven't you?), allow Dr. Sandi Tan, the world's foremost pontianakologist, to elucidate you: "A tropical female vampire-slash-dryad combo, often assuming the form of a comely, sarong-draped maiden, who inhabits the darker corners of the Southeast Asian jungle. Her metamorphosis into her true form will reveal: putrefying gray flesh, mucho teeth, many claws, accompanying unpleasant odors. Her traditional prey is the unborn fetus of a pregnant woman, consumed in situ, though during severe hunger pangs, any living person-even flatulent, stringy grandpas-would suffice. She can be summoned by tying a white string between two adjacent banana trees and intoning a chant of your own choosing, but she is more than capable of being an independent operator. Must not be confused with her inelegant country cousins, also female bloodsuckers, the penanggalan (bodiless flying she-demon with long, unwashed hair and a meaty chandelier of entrails) and the pelesit (an all-purpose slave, horrendously and pathetically devoted to her conjuror, with no agency of her own)."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHANGI AIRPORT, SINGAPORE
Oliver had just boarded his flight to London and was in the process of stealing an extra pillow from the seat behind him when Kitty called.
"Morning, Kitty," he said cheerily, steeling himself for the barrage he knew was about to come. "Did you sleep well?"
"Are you fucking kidding me? That was the worst night of my entire life!"
"I know several billion people who would have happily traded places with you, Kitty. You got to attend one of Yolanda Amanjiwo's legendary dinners. The world's most acclaimed chef prepared a twelve-course tasting menu for you. Did you not enjoy that? I thought the langoustines were superb-"
"Ugh! That so-called genius chef from that de la cellar place should be locked in his own cellar and they should throw away the key!"
"Come on, aren't you being a bit harsh? Just because you don't appreciate deconstructed surrealist Catalan fusion cuisine doesn't mean you should sentence him to the gallows. I could have eaten ten more plates of that jamón ibérico flash-frozen fried rice."
"How could I possibly appreciate the food when I was being tortured? I've never been more humiliated in my life!" Kitty seethed.
"I don't know what you mean, Kitty," Oliver said lightly as he took the stack of in-flight magazines out of the seat pocket and shoved them into the pocket adjacent to him before the passenger arrived. Anything for the extra legroom.
"Everybody at the dinner curtsied to Colette! That snotty Swedish ambassador guy next to me glared at me when I didn't move, but I'll be damned if I curtsy to my own stepdaughter!"
"Well, Thorsten obviously did not know who you were. And Kitty, that whole curtsying thing was a complete farce. I don't know which edition of Debrett's Yolanda Amanjiwo is reading, but she was absolutely incorrect. A British earl does not have precedence over the First Lady of the country where he is nothing more than a visitor. They should have been bowing to her. But these Singaporeans are so awed by any ang mor with a two-bit title that they just bow and scrape away like subservient little toadies. I remember a time when the Countess of Mountbatten came to visit Tyersall Park, and Su Yi wouldn't even come downstairs to receive her!"