Wandi Meggaharto Widjawa and her mother were visiting Dr. Ben Stork—the Michelangelo of Botox—for their triannual filler injections. While in his elegant waiting room, she leafed through the latest British Tattle. In the Spectator section, Wandi spied an article featuring Colette Bing’s marriage to Lucien Montagu-Scott—the eldest son of the Duke of Glencora, formerly, one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain, and “the fifth largest landowner in England, with holdings in Northamptonshire, Suffolk, and Scotland” (108).

Wandi texted a link to the article to her circle of friends, which included Kitty Bing. After finding out from Georgina Ting that Lucien is a future duc who, through his mother, traces his ancestry back to Louis XIII, Kitty shouted an expletive about Colette and hung up.

Su Yi looked around at the thousands of white pillars in the Adinatha Temple, located in “the remote Aravalli Range between Jodhpur and Udaipur” (111). A voice behind her asked if she spoke English. She turned to see a young man looking back at her and replied that she did. His name was Jai, and he was a priest at the temple. His grandfather was the high priest—a position that his father would soon inherit and later pass on to Jai.