9

THE LOCKE CLUB

HONG KONG, MARCH 9, 2013

Kitty Pong was brimming over with anticipation as she stood in the crowded elevator. For years she had heard about this place, and at long last she was about to have lunch here. Located on the fifth floor of a nondescript office building on Wyndham Street, the Locke Club was Hong Kong’s most exclusive dining club—the holy of holies—and its members consisted of the crème de la crème of Hong Kong society and the international jet set. Unlike other private dining clubs,^*1 where fame or a fat checkbook would gain you instant membership, the Locke played by its own rules. The place didn’t even have a membership waiting list—you had to be invited to join by its strict and secretive board, and even feigning a passing interest in belonging could mean that you would never, ever be asked.

Back in the days when she had a minor role on the soap opera Many Splendid Things, Kitty often overheard Sammi Hui—the show’s biggest star—brag about her lunches at the Locke, and how she was seated in the same room as the Queen of Bhutan or Leo Ming’s latest mistress. Kitty couldn’t wait to see which sumptuous room she would be seated in today, and which important personages would be dining at the tables around her. Would they all be savoring the specialty of the house—turtle soup served in camphor-wood cups?

It was such a stroke of luck that she had been seated at Evangeline de Ayala’s table at the Pinnacle Ball. Evangeline was the glamorous young wife of Pedro Paulo de Ayala, a scion of one of the oldest real estate families in the Philippines, and though the couple were fairly recent transplants to Hong Kong (via London, where Pedro Paulo had worked at Rothschild’s), their aristocratic connections—not to mention aristocratic-sounding surname—had made them popular new members at the club. Evangeline appeared to be wowed by Kitty’s big donation to Sir Francis Poon’s foundation, and when she suggested meeting for lunch at the Locke, Kitty wondered if she was finally going to be invited to join. After all, she had in two short months transformed herself into Hong Kong’s leading art collector and philanthropist.

The elevator door finally opened, and Kitty pranced into the front foyer of the club, with its glossy ebony-paneled walls and dramatic black-marble-and-steel staircase leading up to the fabled dining room. One of the hosts at the reception desk smiled at her.

“Good afternoon. May I help you?”

“Yes, I am meeting Miss de Ayala for lunch.”

“Missus de Ayala?” the host officiously corrected.

“Yes, I meant missus,” Kitty replied nervously.

“I’m afraid she isn’t here yet. Please have a seat in our parlor, and we’ll show you to the dining room as soon as she arrives.”

Kitty walked into a room with silk-covered walls and took a seat in the middle of the red Le Corbusier sofa so that she could show herself off to best advantage. A few of the ladies coming off the elevator stared at her intently as they passed by, and she felt certain it was because of the outfit she had taken such care in choosing. She had opted for a sleeveless Giambattista Valli black-and-red floral-print dress, a red Céline knotted lambskin clutch, and Charlotte Olympia red flats with a gold buckle. Her only jewelry was a pair of cabochon ruby earrings from Solange Azagury-Partridge. Even with a peekaboo slit on the side of her dress, the look bordered on demure, and she dared any uppity tai tai to criticize her today.