Rachel didn’t quite know what to say. She found herself amused and a little embarrassed by all the excitement.

“Your boyfriend is Colin Khoo’s best man? What’s his name?” Peik Lin’s father demanded.

“Nicholas Young,” Rachel replied.

“Nicholas Young … how old is he?”

“Thirty-two.”

“That’s one year above Peik Wing,” Neena said. She looked up at the ceiling, as if racking through her mental Rolodex to see if she could recall a Nicholas Young.

“Peik Wing—ever heard of Nicholas Young?” Wye Mun asked his eldest son.

“Nope. Do you know which school he went to?” Peik Wing asked Rachel.

“Balliol College, Oxford,” she replied, hesitantly. She wasn’t sure why they were suddenly so interested in every minute detail.

“No, no—I mean which primary school,” Peik Wing said.

“Elementary school,” Peik Lin clarified.

“Oh, I have no idea.”

“Nicholas Young … sounds like an ACS† boy,” P.T. chimed in. “All those ACS boys have Christian names.”

“Colin Khoo went to ACS. Daddy, I already tried to check Nick out when Rachel first started dating him, but no one I know has ever heard of him,” Peik Lin added.

“Nick and Colin went to elementary school together. They have been best friends since childhood,” Rachel said.

“What is his father’s name?” Wye Mun asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you find out the parents’ names, we can tell you whether he comes from a good family or not,” Wye Mun said.

“Alamaaaaak, of course he’s from good family, if he’s best friends with Colin Khoo,” Neena said. “Young … Young … Sheryl, isn’t there a gyney named Richard Young? The one who practices with Dr. Toh?”

“No, no, Nick’s father is an engineer. I think he works in Australia part of the year,” Rachel offered.

“Well, see if you can find out more about his background, and we can help you,” Wye Mun finally said.

“Oh, you really don’t have to do that. It’s not important to me what sort of family he comes from,” Rachel said.

“Nonsense, lah! Of course it’s important!” Wye Mun was adamant. “If he’s Singaporean, I have a responsibility to make sure he’s good enough for you!”

* * *

* Hokkien for “eat.”

† Among Singapore’s upper crust, only two boys’ schools matter: Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) and Raffles Institution (RI). Both are consistently ranked among the top schools in the world and have enjoyed a long, heated rivalry. RI, established in 1823, is known to attract the brainy crowd, while ACS, established in 1886, is popular with the more fashionable set and somewhat perceived to be a breeding ground for snobs. Much of this has to do with the 1980 article in the Sunday Nation entitled “The Little Horrors of ACS,” which exposed the rampant snobbery among its pampered students. This led to a shamed principal announcing to stunned students (including this author) the very next morning during assembly that, henceforth, students were no longer allowed to be dropped off at the front entrance by their chauffeurs. (They had to walk up the short driveway all by themselves, unless it was raining.) Expensive watches, eyeglasses, fountain pens, briefcases, satchels, pencil boxes, stationery, combs, electronic gadgets, comic books, and any other luxury items would also be banned from school property. (But within a few months, Lincoln Lee started wearing his Fila socks again and no one seemed to notice.)

17

Nicholas and Colin

SINGAPORE

Perhaps out of nostalgia, Nick and Colin liked to meet up at the coffee shop of their old alma mater on Barker Road. Located in the sports complex between the main pool and the basketball courts, the Anglo-Chinese School coffee shop served a motley selection of Thai and Singaporean dishes as well as such oddities as British beef pies, which Nick loved. Back when the two of them were on the swim team, they would always grab a bite after practice at the “tuck shop,” as they called it. The original cooks had long since retired, the legendary mee siam was no longer on the menu, and the coffee shop itself wasn’t even in the original space—having long since been torn down during the redevelopment of the sports center. But for Nick and Colin, it was still the place to meet whenever they were both in town.

Colin had already ordered his lunch by the time Nick arrived. “Sorry I’m late,” Nick said, patting him on the back as he got to the table. “I had to swing by my grandmother’s.”

Colin did not look up from his plate of salted fried chicken, so Nick continued. “So what else do we have to do today? The tuxes are in from London, and I’m just waiting to hear back from some of the last-minute people about the rehearsal next week.”

Colin clamped his eyes shut and grimaced. “Can we please talk about something besides this fucking wedding?”

“Okay then. What do you want to talk about?” Nick asked calmly, realizing that Colin had hit one of his down days. The cheerful, life-of-the-party Colin of the night before had vanished.

Colin didn’t respond.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Nick asked.

Colin remained silent. There was no one else in the place, and the only sounds were the occasional muffled shouts of players on the basketball court next door and the clatter of dishes being washed every time the lone waiter walked in and out of the kitchen. Nick leaned back into his seat, patiently waiting for Colin to make the next move.

To the society pages, Colin was known as Asia’s billionaire bachelor jock. Famed not only for being the scion of one of Asia’s great fortunes but also as one of Singapore’s top-ranked swimmers back in his college days. He was celebrated for his exotic good looks and debonair style, his string of romances with local starlets, and his ever-expanding collection of contemporary art.

With Nick, however, Colin had the freedom to be his true self. Nick, who had known him since childhood, was probably the only person on the planet who didn’t give a damn about his money, and more important, the only one who was there during what they both referred to as “the war years.” For beneath the wide grin and the charismatic personality, Colin struggled with a severe anxiety disorder and crippling depression, and Nick was one of the few people allowed to witness this side of him. It was as if Colin bottled up all of his pain and anguish for months at a time, unleashing it on Nick whenever he was in town. To anyone else, this would have been an intolerable situation, but Nick was so used to this by now, he almost didn’t recall a time when Colin wasn’t swinging between the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. This was just a prerequisite of being Colin’s best friend.

The waiter, a sweaty teenager in a soccer T-shirt who didn’t look old enough to pass child labor laws, approached the table to take Nick’s order.

“I’ll have the beef curry pie, please. And a Coke, extra ice.”

Colin finally broke his silence. “As always, beef curry pie and Coke, extra ice. You never change, do you?”

“What can I tell you? I know what I like,” Nick said simply.