Crazy Rich Asians

Stephen wished he hadn’t brought up the bracelet. He suspected that Astrid had not been impressed with the gift from her husband. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure Astrid would ever wear something as quotidian as a bracelet with multicolored pavé diamond teddy bear charms, but it was one of the least expensive things he had in the shop, and he knew that Michael, a typically clueless husband, was making a great effort to find something within his budget. It was quite a sweet gesture really. But now, within twenty minutes of being at his shop, Astrid had already bought an extremely rare three-carat blue diamond set on a diamond eternity band that had just arrived from Antwerp, art deco cuff links that had once belonged to Clark Gable, a signed vintage Cartier platinum-and-diamond link bracelet, and she was seriously considering a fantastical pair of VBH earrings. It was a piece he had brought in to show her for the sheer folly of it, and he would never have imagined her to be interested.

“The pear-shaped stones are kunzites weighing forty-nine carats, and these remarkable sparkling disks are twenty-three-carat ice diamonds. A highly original treatment. Are you thinking of wearing something new to the Khoo wedding next weekend?” he asked, trying to make conversation with his unusually focused shopper.

“Um … maybe,” Astrid replied, staring into the mirror and scrutinizing the multicolored gemstones dangling off the enormous earrings, the bottoms of which were brushing against her shoulders. The piece reminded her of a Native American dream catcher.

“It’s such a dramatic look, isn’t it? Very Millicent Rogers, I think. What kind of dress are you planning to wear?”

“I haven’t really decided yet,” she said, almost mumbling to herself. She wasn’t really looking at the earrings. In her mind, all she could picture was a piece of jewelry from her husband hanging off some other woman’s wrist. First came the text message. Then the receipt from Petrus. Now there was an expensive charm bracelet. Three’s a charm.

“Well, I think you’d want to go with something dead simple if you wear these earrings,” Stephen added. He was getting a bit concerned. The girl was not being herself today. Usually she would breeze in and they would spend the first hour chatting and munching on the delicious homemade pineapple tarts she always brought before he took out anything to show her. After another hour or so of looking at pieces, she might hand one thing over to him and say, “Okay, I’m going to think about this one,” before blowing a kiss goodbye. She was not the sort of client who spent a million dollars in ten minutes.

And yet Stephen always cherished her visits. He loved her sweet nature, her impeccable manners, and her complete lack of pretension. It was so refreshing, not like the sort of ladies he usually had to deal with, the egos that required constant stroking. He enjoyed reminiscing with Astrid about their crazy younger days in Paris, and he admired the originality of her taste. She cared about the quality of the stones, of course, but she couldn’t have cared less about the size and was never interested in the ostentatious pieces. Why would she need to be, when her mother already had one of the grandest jewelry collections in Singapore, while her grandmother Shang Su Yi possessed a trove of jewels so legendary he had only ever heard them mentioned in hushed whispers. “Ming dynasty jade like you’ve never seen before, jewels from the czars that Shang Loong Ma cunningly bought from the grand duchesses fleeing into Shanghai during the Bolshevik Revolution. Wait till the old lady dies—your friend Astrid is the favorite granddaughter, and she’s going to inherit some of the most unparalleled pieces in the world,” Stephen had been told by the acclaimed art historian Huang Peng Fan, one of the few people who had ever witnessed the splendor of the Shang collection.

“You know what? I must have these earrings too,” Astrid declared, standing up and smoothing out her short pleated skirt.

“Are you leaving already? Don’t you want a Diet Coke?” Stephen asked in surprise.