摘要：Mariane's call came as a surprise, and her invitation for Susan to visit her in Singapore an even greater one. They hadn't been particularly close during the six years they had inhabited the same city in southern Japan, where they had practically been neighbours, and they hadn't met each other for five years. Susan wasn't sure she even really liked Mariane. The two were complete opposites. Susan was a plump and placid American; her greatest ambition was to keep her house sparkling clean and to put good meals on the table each night for her husband and young daughter. Mariane was lean and lanky, a pretty Australian with a broad mouth that often widened into a gap-toothed smile set in an attractively angular face. She was outgoing and popular and fond of going out with fellow ex-pats, spending at least one night a week at a bar with 'the boys,' as she called them: fellow ex-pats working at local language schools.
