Rich People Problems-Kwan 2017 (WWT)

CHAPTER EIGHT
EMERALD HILL, SINGAPORE
Since separating from Michael, Astrid had moved in to one of the heritage shop houses on
Emerald Hill Road that she had inherited from her great-aunt Mathilda Leong. As Nick
strolled down the street toward her place, he couldn’t help but stop along the way and
admire some of the ornamental friezes, timber-framed windows, and elaborate entrance
gates on the beautifully restored Peranakan-style terrace homes that made this street so
unique. *1 No two façades were alike—each one blended different elements of Chinese
baroque, late-Victorian, and art deco details.
When Nick was a child, many of these shop houses where old Peranakan families lived
and worked had fallen into neglect and the street had an air of faded grandeur, but now
that real estate prices had shot up to absurd levels and the neighborhood had been
designated a conservation area, these houses had become highly coveted properties going
for tens of millions. Many of them had been turned into hip bars or sidewalk cafés,
leading some of Nick’s snootier relatives to derisively refer to Emerald Hill Road as “that
street where all the ang mor kow sai go to leem tzhiu,” *2 but Nick found it all rather
charming. Arriving at a handsome white shop house with smoky gray shutters, he stopped
and rang the doorbell.
A blond girl in her early twenties peered over the pintu pagar—an ornately carved
wooden half door that was a typical feature of such houses—and asked in a heavy French
accent, “Are you Nicolas?”
Nick nodded, and she slid the lock open to allow him to enter. “I’m Ludivine, Cassian’s
au pair,” she said.
“Salut, Ludivine. Ça va?” Nick said with a smile.
“Comme ci comme ça,” Ludivine replied coquettishly, wondering why she’d never met
madame’s hottie French-speaking cousin before.
Stepping into the front foyer, Nick could see that the room had been painstakingly
restored to its original style. The floor was an elaborate mosaic of ceramic tiles painted in
a William Morris–esque floral pattern, and intricately carved gilt wood screens created a
partition between the front room and the rest of the house beyond. The centerpiece of a