Rich People Problems

by Kevin Kwan

  All the color drained from Astrid’s face. “Oh my God.”

  “I’m so sorry…” Sophie began.

  Astrid stood stock-still for a moment, and then she snapped into crisis-management mode. “I need to go. I need to get Cassian out of school. Please tell them I needed to go,” Astrid said, as she made a run for her car.

  As Astrid sped along the Sentosa Gateway heading back to Singapore, she found herself unusually calm and collected. She tried ringing Charlie from her Bluetooth but his cell kept going straight to voice mail. Finally, she left a message: “Charlie, I suspect you’ve already heard about the video leak since you’re not answering. I just found out minutes ago. I’m fine, don’t worry, I’m on my way to ACS now to get Cassian. I would suggest doing the same for Chloe and Delphine. If they haven’t found out already, it’s better coming from us than from some classmate. You know how kids can be. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  The minute Astrid ended the call, her phone started ringing again. “Charlie?”

  There was a brief silence on the other end, and then a screeching voice filled her car. “Oh my God, you are still talking to that horrible pervert! I can’t believe you!” It was her mother.

  “Mum, please calm down.”

  “A sex tape! Ohmygod, in my worst nightmare I never imagined I would ever hear those words uttered about one of my children! I just got home from showing Tyersall Park to some dreadful Chinese people, and now I hear this news from Cassandra Shang? Your father is so angry, I’m worried he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack!” Felicity cried.

  Astrid couldn’t help but notice how her mother always managed to sob hysterically, scold, and guilt-trip her simultaneously. “Mother, we did nothing wrong! Michael secretly videotaped us in the privacy of Charlie’s home, and now he’s leaked the video everywhere. This is a crime, Mum.”

  “The crime is you sleeping with Charlie in the first place!”

  “How is that a crime?”

  “You’re a harlot! Your reputation has gone down the toilet, and you’re branded for life now!”

  “Did you even see the video? It’s ten seconds of grainy footage—”

  “Ohmygod, if I were to actually see the video I think I would instantly go blind! How could you have slept with that man when you’re not even married to him? This is God punishing you!”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve had sex before marriage, okay, and I’ve had sex with Charlie, who, by the way, I was having sex with the first time he was my fiancé over a decade ago!”

  “The two of you have brought nothing but disgrace onto us. You have disgraced your father and me and you have disgraced your family for generations! And you have ruined poor Cassian’s life! How will he ever show his face at ACS again?”

  “I’m on my way to get Cassian now.”

  “We already got him. Ludivine just collected him from school and is bringing him over here.”

  “Oh good, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Absolutely not! What are you thinking? We don’t want you anywhere near this house!”

  “Stop being ridiculous, Mum—”

  “Ridiculous? I don’t know how I’m ever going to recover from this! You need to leave Singapore and not come back until things blow over! Don’t you realize what this scandal has done to your father’s reputation? Good grief, this might affect the next election! This might throw the sale of Tyersall Park into jeopardy! My God, the price might come tumbling down! I can feel my blood pressure skyrocketing now. Oh my goodness I need my pills. Sunali, where are my pills?” Felicity shrieked to one of her maids.

  “Calm down, Mum, I don’t see how this has anything to do with Tyersall Park!”

  “How can you not see it? You have tainted the family legacy! Do not come over to Nassim Road, do you understand? Your father does not want to see your face! He says you are dead to him!”

  Astrid felt winded for a few moments, overwhelmed by her mother’s attack. Thankfully, her phone beeped and Charlie’s number flashed on the screen.

  “Okay, Mum, don’t worry, I’m not coming over. I’m not going to shame you for one moment longer,” she said, switching over to Charlie.

  There was a short pause, and then Charlie’s voice came through. “Astrid, are you okay?”

  “Yes, thank God it’s you!” Astrid said with a heavy sigh.

  “Are you driving?”

  “Yes, I was on the way to get Cassian out of school, but—”

  “Can you find someplace to pull over?” Charlie’s voice sounded strange.

  “Sure, I just got to Tanglin Road. Let me pull over into this Esso right here.”

  Astrid parked in the gas station and relaxed into her seat. “Okay, I’m parked.”

  “Good, good. First of all, are you okay?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, my mum just screamed at me in a way I’ve never heard before and ordered me to leave the country. Otherwise, life is peachy. How has your day been so far?”

  “I’m not sure how to tell you this, Astrid,” Charlie said in a shaky voice.

  “Let me guess, you found out why Michael leaked the video?”

  “Actually, Michael didn’t leak it.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “No. It was Isabel.”

  “ISABEL? How did she even get the video?”

  “We’re not sure…we’re still trying to piece it all together, but the video came from her phone. She posted it to the gossip blog.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?”

  “She had another psychotic episode, Astrid. And this time, she tried to hang herself.”

  “She what?” Astrid found herself going numb.

  “She tried hanging herself in our new house, on the dining-room chandelier. She wanted to curse the house and curse our marriage forever.”

  “So what happened?” Astrid barely got the words out.

  “The chandelier broke, and that saved her. But now she’s on life support. She’s in a coma, and they don’t know if she’ll ever come out of it,” Charlie said, his voice cracking in grief.

  “No. No, no, no, no, no,” Astrid cried, breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.

  * * *

  * Sophie is the sister of Colin Khoo, and they are cousins to Astrid through their late mother, who was Harry Leong’s sister. Yes, Singapore is a very small world, and even smaller within the high-net-worth crowd.

  PART FOUR

  I often think how unfairly life’s good fortune is sometimes distributed.

  —LEO TOLSTOY, WAR AND PEACE

  What’s a soup kitchen?

  —PARIS HILTON

  Four days after Isabel’s suicide attempt, an exclusive story broke in The Daily Post:

  HEIRESS DRIVES RIVAL TO SUICIDE ATTEMPT AFTER SEX VIDEO LEAK!

  The gorgeous Singaporean heiress Astrid Leong’s sensational $5 billion divorce from venture capitalist Michael Teo continues to pile up collateral damage. The latest victim is Isabel Wu, the ex-wife of Astrid’s current boyfriend, tech billionaire Charles Wu.

  Apparently, an explicit video of Ms. Leong in bed with Mr. Wu sent Mrs. Wu into an emotional tailspin, and after leaking the video to a popular Chinese gossip blog, Mrs. Wu tried to hang herself at the spectacular new Tom Kundig–designed mansion that her ex-husband has been building in Shek O.

  Isabel has been in a coma at Hong Kong Sanatorium for over a week, where sources say there had been a concerted attempt by Mr. Wu to keep the tragedy under wraps. But Isabel’s mother, The Hon. Madam Justice Deirdre Lai, demands a further investigation into her daughter’s suicide attempt. “Charlie and Astrid are responsible, and I want the world to know what they have done to my daughter!” sobbed the Hong Kong High Court Judge.

  The scandal has become the talk of Asia, splitting Hong Kong society as friends and family take opposing sides. An insider on Team Charlie says, “Isabel has been suffering from mental health issues for over two decades. The footage in question was secretly recorded long after Isabel and Cha
rlie’s marriage fell apart, and Isabel leaked it while she was suffering from a manic episode. Charlie and Astrid are the real victims here.”

  “Nonsense!” counters an insider from Team Isabel. “Izzie was devastated by this video. It was recorded while Isabel and Charlie were happily married, and it really put her over the edge to learn just how long their affair had been going on.”

  Deirdre Lai says, “My poor granddaughters Chloe and Delphine! First they have a porn star for a father, and now they might lose their mother! Can you believe that after all this, that dirty woman dared to show up at the hospital where my poor daughter lies in a coma?”

  The Daily Post tried to contact Ms. Leong for a comment, but since her appearance at Hong Kong Sanatorium, Ms. Leong has seemingly vanished. When we contacted her family’s company, Leong Holdings, for comment, spokeswoman Zoe Quan said, “Astrid Leong has no functioning role in this company, and we have no comment.” When we inquired as to Astrid’s whereabouts, Ms. Quan hurriedly barked, “No idea, lah! She is out of the country for an indefinite period.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  PLACE DE FURSTENBERG, PARIS

  Scheherazade padded into the gleaming, state-of-the-art kitchen of her apartment in Saint-Germain, lifted the lid from her frying pan, and put a finger on the crust. Not ready yet. She put the lid over the pan again, went back into her dressing room, and took off her sheer ruffled Delpozo blouse. She had just returned from a party at the loft of a fashion photography couple, where the former pastry chef at Noma had cooked up the most elaborate feast ever, but all through the dinner, Scheherazade only dreamed of getting back to her place, heating up some two-day-old pizza in her frying pan,* opening a bottle of red wine, and catching up on The Walking Dead.

  Changing into her pajamas, she brought the plate of pizza into her living room, sank down into her gray suede sofa, turned on her television, and selected the latest episode. As her favorite show began to play, the dialogue was suddenly drowned out by the sound of muffled music outside her window. Scheherazade turned up the volume on her TV, hoping to drown out the noise, but it only got louder. Cars started honking on the street and a neighbor could be heard screaming out his window.

  Getting annoyed, Scheherazade paused the show, walked over to her balcony, and opened the glass-paned doors. Suddenly the full force of the music flooded her ears, and as Scheherazade peered over her railing, she saw the most curious sight. Carlton Bao was standing on the roof of a Range Rover parked outside her building, holding up a boom box that was blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”

  “Carlton! What the hell are you doing?” Scheherazade shouted down at him, absolutely mortified.

  “I’m trying to get your attention!” Carlton shouted back.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to listen to me. I want you to know that I’m not some reckless killer! The only thing I’m guilty of is falling—”

  “What? Turn down the music! I can’t hear you!”

  Carlton refused to turn down the music, but yelled louder, “I said the only thing I’m guilty of is falling in love with yo—”

  At that moment, four bodyguards dressed in civilian clothes suddenly grabbed him by the legs, yanked him off the car, and body tackled him onto the ground.

  “Oh fuck!” Scheherazade started giggling. She ran out the door, down four flights of stairs, and out the front door. “Get off him!” she told the security guards that were now standing over Carlton.

  “Miss Shang, are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! He’s fine. He’s with me,” Scheherazade insisted.

  The beefiest guard reluctantly released his knee from Carlton’s back, and when Carlton got off the ground, Scheherazade saw that the left side of his face was all cut up from the asphalt.

  “Oh no. Come upstairs—let’s get some disinfectant on that,” Scheherazade said. As they entered her building and rode up in the ornate wrought-iron elevator, she looked him over again.

  “What did you think you were doing?”

  “That was my wildly romantic gesture!”

  Scheherazade frowned. “That was supposed to be romantic?”

  “I was doing my best John Cusack impersonation.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Say Anything.”

  “Say what?”

  “You haven’t seen the movie, have you?” Carlton said, suddenly crestfallen.

  “No, but you did look cute standing on top of that car,” Scheherazade said, pulling him in for a kiss.

  ···

  At the other end of Paris, Charlie was walking back to the Hotel George V after a very frustrating dinner with Astrid’s old friend Grégoire L’Herme-Pierre. Grégoire had been more charming than usual, and Charlie suspected that he knew far more about Astrid’s whereabouts than he let on. She had been in Paris for probably three days, Grégoire surmised, and then she was gone. No, she hadn’t seemed distraught—I just assumed she was making her usual semiannual trip to the city for her couture fittings.

  Over the past two weeks, Charlie had crisscrossed the globe frantically searching for Astrid. Mad with worry, he had started in Singapore, then Paris and London, going to all their familiar haunts and speaking with all her friends. He then headed down to Venice to see if she was hiding out in her friend Domiella Finzi-Contini’s palazzo, but Domi, like so many of Astrid’s friends, remained as silent as the Sphinx. I haven’t heard a peep from Astrid, but then I’ve been in Ferrara for the past month. We always spend the winter in Ferrara. No, I didn’t hear about the scandal at all.

  Now he was back in Paris, trying to retrace her steps, trying to understand how she could have abandoned her entire life, and how her family didn’t seem to care that she had been missing for the past month. Entering the hotel, he went to the reception desk to see if there had been any messages. No, monsieur, nothing for you tonight.

  Charlie went up to his suite and opened the doors to the balcony, letting in some fresh cold air. The cold air kept him on his toes, helped him to think clearly. Paris had been a dud. She had been here, but she clearly wasn’t coming back. He should try Los Angeles next. Even though her brother Alex had assured him she wasn’t there, he was still suspicious. His entire security team and all the private investigators he had hired had been poring over everything since day one. Astrid had been meticulous. She hadn’t left any sort of paper trail, no bank transfers, no credit card charges in more than five weeks. Someone had to be helping her. Someone close.

  He stepped out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing, gazing at the soft golden glow that always seemed to hover over Paris at night. The city, breathtakingly lovely as always, suddenly seemed so lonely. He should never have let her come to Hong Kong. She had insisted on coming, wanting to help him through his crisis, but when she saw Isabel in the ICU, hooked up to all those machines…he knew she was trying to be strong for him, for the girls, but he could see that it just devastated her. And then when Isabel’s mother saw Astrid at the hospital, she went berserk, and that’s when she gave the whole story to The Daily Post, breaking the scandal wide open. It was all his fault. His stupid damn fault.

  Charlie went back into the suite and sat down on the bed. He opened the drawer beside the bed and took out a small brown padded envelope. It was an envelope that had been mailed to him in Hong Kong from this very hotel a few weeks ago, and inside was a box containing the engagement ring he had given Astrid, along with a handwritten note that he had now read hundreds of times:

  Dear Charlie,

  I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking over the past days. Ever since I came back into your life five years ago, I’ve only caused you heartache. I dragged you into my problems with Michael, I dragged you into my horrendous divorce, and now I have dragged you and your daughters into an unthinkable tragedy. Chloe and Delphine almost lost their mother, and I am the only one to blame. I feel like no matter how hard I try, nothing I do ever leads to anything good, and so the best I can think to
do is to simply go away so that no more damage can be done. I don’t think I will ever be fit to be your wife, and I can only hope and pray that you and your family will in time be able to find happiness and peace again.

  Yours truly,

  Astrid

  P.S. Please give this ring to my cousin Nicky when you next have the chance. He should have it for Rachel.

  Charlie put down the note and reclined on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Astrid had been lying on this very bed, probably staring at the same view. It was her favorite suite at the George V and he had been the one to introduce her to it the first time he brought her to Paris back in their university days. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and he wished he could just go back to that time and do everything differently. Charlie rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, inhaling deeply. He thought that if he breathed deep enough, maybe her scent would return.

  * * *

  * Truly the best way to heat up two-day-old pizza. The crust gets crispy and the cheese gets cheesy if you leave a lid on for a minute at the end.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE

  Rachel was walking through the rose garden, looking at the fresh new blooms and inhaling their deep, intoxicating scent when Nick returned. He had been to see Alfred Shang in the hope of raising enough money to buy Tyersall Park from his aunts.

  “How did it go?” she asked as he entered the garden, although from the look on his face she already knew the answer.

  “I walked him through the entire proposal, thinking he would at least throw me some kind of bone since Tyersall Park had been his father’s estate. Do you know what he told me? He thinks that we are in the midst of another financial bubble waiting to burst, and when that implodes all of the property markets in Asia will collapse. He said, ‘If this idiot really wants to give you ten billion for Tyersall Park, you would be an even bigger idiot not to take it. Take his money and go buy some gold. It’s the only asset worth keeping in the long run.’ ”