“So…original, Kitty,” Adele Deng demurred.
“You’ve really put your stamp on the house,” Stephanie Shi said and smiled.
“It’s such a trip, all that’s missing are the quaaludes!” Michael Kors*2 said.
At some point during the social swirl, Araminta appeared at her side with a glass of champagne. “I thought you could use this. I can see you’ve been circulating nonstop.”
“Oh thank you. Yes, everyone has been soooo nice, except for that awful Englishman over there talking to Hung Huang.”
“Philip? But he’s usually so charming!” Araminta furrowed her brow in surprise.
“Charming? Do you know what that snob said to me? When I asked him what he did, he actually dared to say, ‘I’m a millionaire!’?”
Araminta clutched Kitty’s arm and doubled over in laughter. Trying to catch her breath, she said, “No, no, you’re mistaken!”
Kitty continued her tirade, “So I said to him, ‘Well, I’m a billionaire!’?”
Wiping the tears of laughter away from her eyes, Araminta explained. “Kitty, that man is Philip Treacy. He’s not a millionaire, he’s a milliner—a hat designer. I’m sure that’s what he told you. He’s one of the best milliners there is—Perrineum Wang is wearing one of his hats right over there.”
Kitty gazed at the young Shanghai socialite, who was sporting a gigantic flesh-colored disk with a bejeweled starfish of pink rubies in the middle that covered eighty percent of her face. “No wonder he gave me a strange look.”
“Oh Kitty, you can always crack me up!” Araminta was still laughing when a pair of hands reached out from behind her and covered her eyes.
“Oh, who’s this?” Araminta giggled.
“Three guesses,” a man whispered into her ear in an extremely affected French accent.
“Bernard?”
“Non.”
“Er…Antoine?”
“Non.”
“Surely it can’t be Delphine? I give up!” Araminta whipped around and saw a patrician-looking Chinese man in a three-piece suit and small round tortoiseshell glasses grinning back at her.
“Oliver T’sien, you rascal! You had me fooled with that ridiculous accent.” Araminta giggled. “Oliver, have you met the chatelaine of this…er…magnificent estate, Kitty Bing?”
“I was hoping you’d introduce me,” Oliver purred.
“Kitty, this is Oliver T’sien. He’s an old friend from Singapore…and…aren’t we somehow related now through Colin? Oliver is related to practically everyone who’s anyone in Asia, and he’s also the consultant at large for Christie’s.”
Kitty shook his hand politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You work for Christie’s, the auction house?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Oliver is one of the top specialists in Asian art and antiquities,” Araminta continued.
“Hmm…there’s a little horse sculpture in the library I would love to show you. My husband is convinced it’s from the Tang dynasty, but I think it’s a fake. His ex-wife bought it,” Kitty said derisively.
“I am at your service, madame,” Oliver said, extending an arm. They walked into the library, and Kitty led him to a magnificent Macassar and Gabon Boulle armoire in one corner. She pressed against the tortoiseshell-and-gilt-bronze marquetry doors, which opened to reveal a hidden entryway into Jack Bing’s private cigar lounge.
“Well, this is quite splendid!” Oliver exclaimed, looking around the decadently upholstered room.
As soon as the doors closed behind them, Kitty sank into one of the tasseled velvet Louis-Napoléon smoking chairs and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad we’re finally alone! How do you think it’s going?”
Unbeknownst to any of her guests, and especially to friends like Araminta, Kitty knew Oliver rather well—he had been secretly advising her for the past couple of years and had been instrumental in helping her acquire The Palace of Eighteen Perfections, a set of prized Chinese scrolls that had broken auction records two years ago to become the most expensive Chinese artwork ever sold.
“You have nothing to worry about. Everyone is most impressed. Did you notice that Anna actually took her sunglasses off for a moment to scrutinize your Qianlong dragon vessel?”
“No, I missed that!” Kitty said excitedly.
“It happened so quickly, but it happened. I also spoke to Karl and—fingers crossed—I think you’re getting front row at next season’s show in Paris.”
“Oliver, you’re a miracle worker! You’d think spending nine million dollars a year at Chanel would be enough to get you a front-row seat at the damn fashion show.”
“You’ll be front row dead center next season! See? You have nothing to worry about. We should head back to the party before anyone suspects anything. We’ve been gone too long to look at one Tang horse. Which, by the way, is not fake but is frightfully common. Every drawing room on Park Avenue has at least one collecting dust on top of a stack of coffee-table books. Just throw it away, or give it to Sotheby’s to auction off—some philistine will buy it.”
As Oliver and Kitty were about to emerge from the hidden cigar lounge, a trio of ladies entered the library. Oliver peeked through the crack in the armoire door and whispered to Kitty, “It’s Adele Deng, Stephanie Shi, and Perrineum Wang!”
Stephanie could be heard saying, “Well, Kitty has certainly succeeded in removing every trace of Colette from the house. What do you think of this Picasso over the desk?”
“I’m so sick of seeing Picassos—every starter billionaire in Beijing has one. You know that in the last two decades of his life, the man was doing four paintings a day like some desperate whore? The market is flooded with mediocre Picassos. Give me a good Gauguin any day—like the one in my father’s museum,” Adele Deng said with a sniff.
“Colette’s vision for this house was utter perfection, and now it’s been ruined,” Stephanie lamented.
“I don’t care what anyone says—to me this will always be Colette’s house,” Perrineum chimed in.
Adele walked up to the Boulle armoire, tracing over the marquetry with her fingers. “This is actually a nice piece, but what the hell is it doing here in the corner? If you ask me, Kitty’s trying so desperately to impress. Every single object in this house is a museum showpiece. Everything is screaming, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ Kitty wouldn’t understand the meaning of subtlety if it hit her on those fake breasts. As Marella Agnelli might say, ‘It will take her another lifetime to understand wicker.’?”
“Hiyah, what do you expect from a porn star? She will never have Colette’s taste—you have to be born with it,” Perrineum decreed, readjusting her gigantic hat for the millionth time.
“I wonder if we can sneak over to her bedroom wing. I want to see what she did with the space,” Stephanie suggested.
“She probably put mirrors on the ceiling,” Perrineum cracked.