Free Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan Page A

perfect
     for him when he walked through the door.
    Astrid popped into the kitchen to chat with her cook about the menu, and decided they
     should set up dinner on the balcony tonight. She lit some fig-apricot-scented candles
     and set a bottle of the new Sauternes she had brought back from France in the wine
     chiller. Michael had a sweet tooth when it came to wines, and he had taken a liking
     to late-harvest Sauternes. She knew he was going to love thisbottle, which had been specially recommended to her by Manuel, the brilliant sommelier
     at Taillevent.
    To the majority of Singaporeans, it would seem that Astrid was in store for a lovely
     evening at home. But to her friends and family, Astrid’s current domestic situation
     was a perplexing one. Why was she popping into kitchens talking to cooks, unpacking
     luggage by herself, or worrying about her husband’s workload? This was certainly not
     how anyone would have imagined Astrid’s life to be. Astrid Leong was meant to be the
     chatelaine of a great house. Her head housekeeper should be anticipating every one
     of her needs, while she should be getting dressed up to go out with her powerful and
     influential husband to any one of the exclusive parties being thrown around the island
     that night. But Astrid always confounded everyone’s expectations.
    For the small group of girls growing up within Singapore’s most elite milieu, life
     followed a prescribed order: Beginning at age six, you were enrolled at Methodist
     Girls’ School (MGS), Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS), or the Convent of the
     Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ). After-school hours were consumed by a team of tutors preparing
     you for the avalanche of weekly exams (usually in classical Mandarin literature, multivariable
     calculus, and molecular biology), followed on the weekends by piano, violin, flute,
     ballet, or riding, and some sort of Christian Youth Fellowship activity. If you did
     well enough, you entered the National University of Singapore (NUS) and if you did
     not, you were sent abroad to England (American colleges were deemed substandard).
     The
only
acceptable majors were medicine or law (unless you were truly dumb, in which case
     you settled for accounting). After graduating with honors (anything less would bring
     shame to the family), you practiced your vocation (for not more than three years)
     before marrying a boy from a suitable family at the age of twenty-five (twenty-eight
     if you went to med school). At this point, you gave up your career to have children
     (three or more were officially encouraged by the government for women of your background,
     and at least two should be boys), and life would consist of a gentle rotation of galas,
     country clubs, Bible study groups, light volunteer work, contract bridge, mah-jongg,
     traveling, and spending time with your grandchildren (dozens and dozens, hopefully)
     until your quiet and uneventful death.
    Astrid changed all this. She wasn’t a rebel, because to call herone would imply that she was breaking the rules. Astrid simply made her own rules,
     and through the confluence of her particular circumstances—a substantial private income,
     overindulgent parents, and her own savoir faire—every move she made became breathlessly
     talked about and scrutinized within that claustrophobic circle.
    In her childhood days, Astrid always disappeared from Singapore during the school
     holidays, and though Felicity had trained her daughter never to boast about her trips,
     a schoolmate invited over had discovered a framed photo of Astrid astride a white
     horse with a palatial country manor as a backdrop. Thus began the rumor that Astrid’s
     uncle owned a castle in France, where she spent all her holidays riding a white stallion.
     (Actually, it was a manor in England, the stallion was a pony, and the schoolmate
     was never invited again.)
    In her teen years, the chatter spread even more feverishly when Celeste Ting, whose
     daughter