Aunty Lee's Delights Read Online Free

had decided whom their father would be. And it was precisely for the sake of these future offspring that she took so much interest in her husband’s business and prospects. The Lees were old money. In a young nation like Singapore, old money was anything that had been in a family for more than twenty years. Their lifestyle was one that Selina, the daughter of two teachers comfortably anchored in the middle of Singapore’s respectable middle class, had always aspired to—she saw herself living the life of a Tai-Tai, wearing designer clothes and going for manicures and overseas holidays. Unfortunately her husband was also living a Tai-Tai lifestyle. Mark Lee had grown up with that comfortable nonchalance toward money that a financially privileged childhood confers. It didn’t seem to matter to him that all his father’s money had been stolen by his second wife. But it mattered to Selina.
    “I don’t think you should let Laura Kwee have any wine tonight. She’s obviously not used to it.”
    “It’s a wine-tasting dinner,” Mark Lee said mildly. Mark was generally mild, especially where his wife was concerned. “Besides, Laura is helping me with the serving, right?”
    “She didn’t say she isn’t coming. I texted her a reminder to give her a chance to back out if she wanted to—it would be just like her to back out at the last moment—but she just said ‘see you there.’ Not a word of apology. After carrying on like a drunken alcoholic!”
    “Laura already apologized, right?” Mark slowed down to join the queue of cars waiting to cross the Bukit Timah Canal. The younger Lees lived in a condominium across the canal from Binjai Park. It was not a great distance—if not for the trees, you could see Aunty Lee’s Delights from their ninth-floor apartment—but given the large canal and two main roads that separated them, only the servants walked in between. “Laura’s not used to wine, that’s all. If she was any kind of alcoholic, a few glasses of wine wouldn’t have had any kind of effect on her.”
    Mark seldom disagreed with his wife, but he knew Selina was only venting in advance because she was steeling herself to keep up her social persona for the rest of the evening. Selina worried so much about what people were thinking of her that she was always uncomfortable in public. Mark was looking forward to the evening as he waited for traffic to clear. He was a patient driver. Selina was not patient about anything.
    “Why did you let that car cut in like that? He has no right! Did you see what he did? If you didn’t stop he would have caused an accident!” No response from Mark. “Did you remember to bring over all the wine yesterday?”
    “All except the Albarino. I thought at first Chianti for the satay but then last night I thought about it, and I think the 2009 La Cana that just came in would do better. And I can talk a bit about Spanish wine. We’ve been having so much French and Australian lately.”
    “You want to open it because it just came,” Selina said sourly. “Is it expensive? I told you not to waste expensive stuff on these people. Anyway, that old woman’s food is going to drown out all your wine as usual. They won’t notice what they are drinking.”
    Mark did not answer.
    “There’s no point wasting that,” Selina said sharply. “You know Aunty Lee can’t tell the difference anyway. You could just get her some old bottle from the supermarket and she wouldn’t notice.”
    “She likes it that I bring her something special,” Mark said. “We’re partners in this, after all.”
    Selina snorted. “You can wrap up any old bottle. She won’t be able to tell the difference. If you ordered that specially, you should be able to sell it for more. Don’t waste it.”
    It would not be a waste, Mark thought. Selina thought that wrapping a bottle in brown paper or a coat of aluminum foil would be enough for Aunty Lee. But the wine would not be wasted because he was really doing it