“How accomplished she was didn’t matter to them one bit. I’ll never forget what my father said to me when I told him I was marrying her with or without his blessing. He said, ‘If you don’t care about your own future, think of the children you will have with that woman. For eleven generations, the blood will never be pure.’ And that’s the last conversation I ever had with my father.”
“Unbelievable!” Charlie shook his head. “Were you surprised that he harbored those feelings?”
“Not really. My parents have always been racist and elitist to the extreme, like so many in their crowd. Peel away the veneer of wealth and sophistication and you’ll find extremely provincial, narrow-minded people. The problem is that they all have too much money, and it’s come so easily to them that they think they’re bloody geniuses and so they are always right.”
Charlie laughed as he took a swig of his beer. “I’m lucky, I guess—my father always told me I was an idiot who was wrong about everything.”
“By sheer dumb luck, my father was born in the right place at the right moment in time—when the whole region was going through enormous, unprecedented growth. And oh yeah, he also inherited an empire that had already been set up four generations before him. I think he looks down on people like your father—people who are self-made—because at the heart of it he is a deeply insecure individual. He knows he did absolutely nothing to deserve his fortune, and so the only thing he can do is disparage others who have the audacity to make their own money. His friends are all the same—they are frightened of the new money that’s rolling in, and that’s why they cluster in their little enclaves. I’m so glad I got away from all those people.”
“If Astrid ever comes back to me, she’ll never have to put up with her parents if she doesn’t wish to. I want to build a whole new life for us, and I want her to live anywhere in the world she wants to live,” Charlie said, his voice thick with emotion.
Alex raised his glass to Charlie. “You know, I always thought it was a pity the two of you didn’t get married the first time around. You and Astrid let my parents scare you off too easily then. I swear to you, if I knew where Astrid was, you’d be the first person to know. But my sister is a smart girl. She knows how to disappear, and she knows where everyone’s likely to be looking for her. If I were you, I’d be looking in all the unlikeliest places, rather than all her old haunts or cities where her best friends are.”
After seeing Alex off, Charlie went back to his suite and found that the butler had already performed the turndown service. The shades were drawn, and the television was set on the channel with New Age music playing softly. He threw off his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt, and sank into the bed. After dialing room service to order a hamburger, he reached into his pocket and took out the letter that Astrid wrote to him from Paris, reading it yet again.
As Charlie stared at the words, the glow coming from the flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed shined through the piece of paper, and Charlie saw for the first time something on the heavy stationery that he’d never noticed before. Near the bottom-right corner was a faint watermark with a distinctive, ornate monogram pattern:
It suddenly occurred to Charlie that while the envelope had been from the Hotel George V in Paris, the letter itself was written on someone else’s expensive custom stationery. Who in the world was DSA? On a lark, Charlie decided to call his friend Janice in Hong Kong, who was one of those people who seemed to know everybody on the planet.
“Charlie, I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been ages!” Janice purred into the phone.
“Yes, it’s been much too long. Listen, I’m trying to solve a little mystery here.”
“Ooh, I love a good mystery!”
“I have a piece of monogrammed stationery, and I’m trying to figure out who it belongs to. I was wondering if you might be able to help.”
“Can you send me a snapshot? I’ll circulate it to everyone I know.”
“Well, this needs to be kept private, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay, not everyone then. Just a few key people.” Janice laughed.
“I’ll take a picture and send it to you right now,” Charlie said. He hung up his phone, got out of bed, and threw open the window shades. The setting sun streamed into the room, almost blinding him for a moment as he held the letter against the windowpane. He took a few pictures and sent the sharpest image to Janice.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Charlie went to the door and looked out the peephole. It was room service with his burger. As he opened the door to let the uniformed waiter in with his trolley, his phone began to ring again. He saw that it was Janice calling and rushed to pick it up.
“Charlie? This is your lucky day. I thought I would have to send your picture around, but I recognized that monogram from a mile away. I know those initials well.”
“Really? Who is it?”
“There is only one DSA in the whole world that matters, and that’s Diego San Antonio.”
“Who is Diego San Antonio?”
“He’s one of the leading social figures in the Philippines. He’s the host with the most in Manila.”
Charlie turned to the waiter just as he was lifting the silver dome to reveal a delicious, juicy burger. “Actually, I’m going to need that to go.”
CHAPTER FOUR
TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE
Rachel and her best friend Peik Lin stood on the veranda, looking at the figure of Nick in the distance as he disappeared into a wooded part of the garden.
“He’s been like this for the past week. Going off for walks on his own in the afternoons. I think he’s saying goodbye to the place, in his own way,” Rachel said.
“Is there nothing more that can be done?” Peik Lin asked.
Rachel shook her head sadly. “No, we already agreed to sell yesterday. I know it makes no sense, since we’ve just come into a huge windfall, but my heart still hurts for Nick. It’s like I’m in sync with his every emotion.”
“I wish I could find someone I could be in sync with like that,” Peik Lin sighed.
“I thought there was some secret new Mr. Perfect you promised to tell me about ‘when the time was right’?”
“Yeah, I thought so too. I thought I’d finally met a guy who wasn’t intimidated by me, but like all the other losers, he disappeared with no explanation.”
“I’m sorry.”
Peik Lin leaned on the veranda railing and squinted into the afternoon sun. “Sometimes I feel like it would be far easier not to tell guys that I went to Stanford, that I run a huge property development company, that I actually love what I do.”
“Peik Lin, that’s total bullshit and you know it. If a guy can’t handle exactly who you are, then he clearly doesn’t deserve you!” Rachel scoffed.
“Damn right he doesn’t! Now, let’s go get smashed. Where do they keep the vodka around here?” Peik Lin asked.
Rachel led Peik Lin back into her bedroom and showed her a small button by the bedside wall. “Now, here’s one thing I’m really going to miss about Tyersall Park. You press this button and a bell rings downstairs somewhere. And before you can even count to ten—”