Rich People Problems

by Kevin Kwan

  Nick leaned into one of the rosebushes and said, “This is maybe the third time I’ve actually stood here and smelled the roses. It’s funny how one takes things for granted when they’ve always been around.”

  “We’ll plant our own rose garden,” Rachel said encouragingly. “I think we can afford a little country house now, don’t you think? Maybe in Vermont, or even in Maine. I hear North Haven is beautiful.”

  “I dunno, Rachel. With four billion dollars, it’s going to be tough finding something out there,” Nick deadpanned.

  Rachel smiled. It was still impossible for her to fathom that kind of money coming into her life, especially since Nick had just spent the past month desperately trying to raise funds and not getting anywhere close to what he needed. Now that the deadline was up, and his last-ditch effort with Uncle Alfred had failed, Nick had no choice but to give in to his aunts’ demands.

  Picking a beautiful blossom that was dangling from a half-broken stem, Rachel looked up at Nick. “Shall we go in?”

  “Yes, let’s do this.” Nick took her hand and they walked up the stone steps into the house, where Nick’s aunts sat pensively around a table in the library.

  Alix looked up at him. “Are we ready to make the call?”

  Nick nodded, and Felicity picked up the telephone in the middle of the table and dialed Oliver’s number. “Hiyah! It’s his international cell phone. Now we’ll have to pay the long-distance rates,” Felicity grumbled.

  The phone rang a number of times before Oliver picked up.

  “Oliver, can you hear us? We have you on speakerphone here,” Alix shouted into the phone.

  “Yes, yes, you can lower your voice. I can hear you just fine.”

  “Where are you right now, Oliver?”

  “I’m back in London at the moment.”

  “Ah, how lovely. How’s the weather today?”

  “Hiyah, gum cheong hay!*1 Let’s just get on with it, Alix!” Victoria scolded.

  “Oh, okay…um, I’ll let Nicky speak, since he is technically the majority shareholder,” Alix said.

  “Hi Oliver. Yes, I just wanted to inform you that we’ve reached a consensus.” Nick paused for a moment, took a breath, and then continued. “We’re ready to take Jack Bing’s offer of ten billion dollars for Tyersall Park.”

  “Okay. And I am accepting on their behalf. We have a deal!” Oliver replied.

  Felicity leaned in. “And Oliver, we’d like your expertise on valuing the furniture. We’ll sell him most of the furniture and objects in the house, with the exception of a few things that we wish to keep.”

  “He’s not getting Mummy’s Battenberg lace doilies, that’s for sure,” Victoria muttered under her breath.

  “Super. The Bings will be thrilled, and I know it hasn’t been easy for all of you to reach this decision, but I can tell you that you have made a superb deal. This is a record-breaking amount for real estate, and I don’t think you would have realized a price like this from anyone else on the planet. Great-aunt Su Yi would have been pleased.”

  Nick rolled his eyes, while Victoria and Alix nodded.

  “You’ll let them know, Oliver?” Felicity asked.

  “Of course. I will call Jack right after we get off the phone, and then I’ll e-mail Freddie Tan to begin drawing up the contract.”

  “Okay then, goodbye.” Nick turned off the speakerphone.

  The ladies sighed collectively. “It’s done,” Felicity muttered, as though she had just drowned a litter of puppies.

  “It was the right thing to do. Ten billion dollars! Mummy would be so proud of us,” Alix said, dabbing her eyes with a rolled-up tissue. Felicity looked at her sister, wondering if what she said was true. Would her mother ever be proud of her?

  Nick got up from the table and walked out the French doors into the garden again. Rachel was about to go after him when Alix placed a hand on her arm. “He’ll be fine,” she said to Rachel.

  “I know he will,” Rachel said softly.

  ···

  I just put four billion dollars into his pocket and that fucker didn’t even thank me, Oliver thought after Nick had abruptly hung up. Then he picked up his phone again and called Kitty’s cell phone.

  “Kitty? It’s done. The Youngs have accepted the offer…Yes, really…No, no, you can’t move in next week, it’s going to take a few months at the very least to get the deal done…Yes, they will sell some of the furnishings…Of course I will tell you what’s worth acquiring, don’t worry…I don’t think we can pay them more to move out tomorrow. This has been a home to the family for more than a century, Kitty. They need some time to get things sorted and dismantle the estate. The silver lining is that you’ll have time to plan the new interiors…Henrietta Spencer-Churchill? Yes, I do know her, but Kitty, why would you want the same designer who’s already doing Colette’s new house?…I know she’s related to Princess Diana, but I have an even better idea…I can think of only one person in the whole world I would trust with a redo of Tyersall Park. Can you meet me in Europe next week?…No, not Paris. We’re going to Antwerp, Kitty…No, it’s not in Austria. Antwerp is a city in Belgium…Oh, you’ll swing by London to pick me up? How awfully kind of you…Perfect. Look forward to it.”

  Oliver hung up the phone and stared into his computer screen for a few minutes. Then he clicked on iTunes and scrolled through his albums until he found a song. He clicked play, and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” came blasting on.*2 Oliver sat in his chair and listened to the first few verses of the aria. As it reached the crescendo, Oliver suddenly leapt out of his chair and started dancing madly around his flat. It was a wild, Dionysian release, and then he collapsed on the floor and started sobbing.

  He was safe. Safe at last. With the commission earned on the sale of Tyersall Park, the long nightmare of the past two decades was finally over. His 1.5 percent commission on the Tyersall Park sale would garner $150 million, enough to pay off all his student loans and his parents’ crushing debts. They wouldn’t be rich, but at least they would have enough to survive. His family could be restored to a proper level of respectability again. He would never, ever have to fly economy again. As Oliver lay on the carpet of his London flat, staring up at the cracked plasterwork on the ceiling that had needed fixing ten years ago, he cried out in joy, “All’alba vincerò! Vincerò, vinceròòòòòòò!”

  * * *

  *1 Cantonese for “so long-winded.”

  *2 The Pavarotti version, of course.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE PENINSULA HOTEL, LOS ANGELES

  “It’s as baffling to me as it is to you,” Alex Leong said, stirring the ice cubes in his scotch glass with his finger. “Astrid’s never left Cassian for this long a period before. I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind.”

  From his chair on the rooftop bar, Charlie gazed out at the palm trees that seemed to line every street in Beverly Hills. He didn’t know if Astrid’s brother was truly sincere or putting on a performance, especially since he knew that Alex—long estranged from his parents—was especially close to Astrid. Trying a different tactic, Charlie said, “I’m worried Astrid’s had some sort of breakdown and she’s unable to get help. She’s been MIA for five weeks now. You’d think your parents would be the least bit concerned.”

  Alex jerked his head indignantly, his Persol sunglasses reflecting against the setting sun. “I am the last person to answer this question, since I haven’t spoken to my father in years.”

  “But surely you know them well enough to know how they might react?” Charlie pressed on.

  “I was always the black sheep of the family, so I suppose I was more prepared when my parents took out the knives. But Astrid has always been the darling princess. She’s been raised her whole life to be absolutely perfect, to never put a wrong foot forward, so it must have really hit her hard when things didn’t go so perfectly. Astrid’s scandal makes me look like a saint at this point—I can’t begin to imagine how they must have reacted, the things th
ey must have said.”

  “She did tell me that her parents ordered her to go into hiding. But if they adore Astrid as much as I know they do, I don’t understand how they could be so coldhearted. I mean, she’s done absolutely nothing wrong! None of this was her fault,” Charlie tried to reason.

  Alex leaned back in his chair and grabbed a fistful of wasabi peas from the little bowl on the table. “The thing you have to understand about my parents is that the only thing that matters to them is their reputation. They care about appearances more than anything else in life. My father has spent his whole life crafting his legacy—being the elder statesman and all that shit, and my mum just cares that she’s the queen bee of the establishment crowd. So everything in their world has to be according to their exacting standards. They excommunicated me for defying their wishes and marrying a girl whose skin tone was just one shade too dark for them.”

  “I still can’t believe they disowned you for marrying Salimah. She’s a Cambridge-educated pediatrician, for God’s sake!” Charlie exclaimed.

  “How accomplished she was didn’t matter to them one bit. I’ll never forget what my father said to me when I told him I was marrying her with or without his blessing. He said, ‘If you don’t care about your own future, think of the children you will have with that woman. For eleven generations, the blood will never be pure.’ And that’s the last conversation I ever had with my father.”

  “Unbelievable!” Charlie shook his head. “Were you surprised that he harbored those feelings?”

  “Not really. My parents have always been racist and elitist to the extreme, like so many in their crowd. Peel away the veneer of wealth and sophistication and you’ll find extremely provincial, narrow-minded people. The problem is that they all have too much money, and it’s come so easily to them that they think they’re bloody geniuses and so they are always right.”

  Charlie laughed as he took a swig of his beer. “I’m lucky, I guess—my father always told me I was an idiot who was wrong about everything.”

  “By sheer dumb luck, my father was born in the right place at the right moment in time—when the whole region was going through enormous, unprecedented growth. And oh yeah, he also inherited an empire that had already been set up four generations before him. I think he looks down on people like your father—people who are self-made—because at the heart of it he is a deeply insecure individual. He knows he did absolutely nothing to deserve his fortune, and so the only thing he can do is disparage others who have the audacity to make their own money. His friends are all the same—they are frightened of the new money that’s rolling in, and that’s why they cluster in their little enclaves. I’m so glad I got away from all those people.”

  “If Astrid ever comes back to me, she’ll never have to put up with her parents if she doesn’t wish to. I want to build a whole new life for us, and I want her to live anywhere in the world she wants to live,” Charlie said, his voice thick with emotion.

  Alex raised his glass to Charlie. “You know, I always thought it was a pity the two of you didn’t get married the first time around. You and Astrid let my parents scare you off too easily then. I swear to you, if I knew where Astrid was, you’d be the first person to know. But my sister is a smart girl. She knows how to disappear, and she knows where everyone’s likely to be looking for her. If I were you, I’d be looking in all the unlikeliest places, rather than all her old haunts or cities where her best friends are.”

  After seeing Alex off, Charlie went back to his suite and found that the butler had already performed the turndown service. The shades were drawn, and the television was set on the channel with New Age music playing softly. He threw off his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt, and sank into the bed. After dialing room service to order a hamburger, he reached into his pocket and took out the letter that Astrid wrote to him from Paris, reading it yet again.

  As Charlie stared at the words, the glow coming from the flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed shined through the piece of paper, and Charlie saw for the first time something on the heavy stationery that he’d never noticed before. Near the bottom-right corner was a faint watermark with a distinctive, ornate monogram pattern:

  It suddenly occurred to Charlie that while the envelope had been from the Hotel George V in Paris, the letter itself was written on someone else’s expensive custom stationery. Who in the world was DSA? On a lark, Charlie decided to call his friend Janice in Hong Kong, who was one of those people who seemed to know everybody on the planet.

  “Charlie, I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been ages!” Janice purred into the phone.

  “Yes, it’s been much too long. Listen, I’m trying to solve a little mystery here.”

  “Ooh, I love a good mystery!”

  “I have a piece of monogrammed stationery, and I’m trying to figure out who it belongs to. I was wondering if you might be able to help.”

  “Can you send me a snapshot? I’ll circulate it to everyone I know.”

  “Well, this needs to be kept private, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay, not everyone then. Just a few key people.” Janice laughed.

  “I’ll take a picture and send it to you right now,” Charlie said. He hung up his phone, got out of bed, and threw open the window shades. The setting sun streamed into the room, almost blinding him for a moment as he held the letter against the windowpane. He took a few pictures and sent the sharpest image to Janice.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Charlie went to the door and looked out the peephole. It was room service with his burger. As he opened the door to let the uniformed waiter in with his trolley, his phone began to ring again. He saw that it was Janice calling and rushed to pick it up.

  “Charlie? This is your lucky day. I thought I would have to send your picture around, but I recognized that monogram from a mile away. I know those initials well.”

  “Really? Who is it?”

  “There is only one DSA in the whole world that matters, and that’s Diego San Antonio.”

  “Who is Diego San Antonio?”

  “He’s one of the leading social figures in the Philippines. He’s the host with the most in Manila.”

  Charlie turned to the waiter just as he was lifting the silver dome to reveal a delicious, juicy burger. “Actually, I’m going to need that to go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE

  Rachel and her best friend Peik Lin stood on the veranda, looking at the figure of Nick in the distance as he disappeared into a wooded part of the garden.

  “He’s been like this for the past week. Going off for walks on his own in the afternoons. I think he’s saying goodbye to the place, in his own way,” Rachel said.

  “Is there nothing more that can be done?” Peik Lin asked.

  Rachel shook her head sadly. “No, we already agreed to sell yesterday. I know it makes no sense, since we’ve just come into a huge windfall, but my heart still hurts for Nick. It’s like I’m in sync with his every emotion.”

  “I wish I could find someone I could be in sync with like that,” Peik Lin sighed.

  “I thought there was some secret new Mr. Perfect you promised to tell me about ‘when the time was right’?”

  “Yeah, I thought so too. I thought I’d finally met a guy who wasn’t intimidated by me, but like all the other losers, he disappeared with no explanation.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Peik Lin leaned on the veranda railing and squinted into the afternoon sun. “Sometimes I feel like it would be far easier not to tell guys that I went to Stanford, that I run a huge property development company, that I actually love what I do.”

  “Peik Lin, that’s total bullshit and you know it. If a guy can’t handle exactly who you are, then he clearly doesn’t deserve you!” Rachel scoffed.

  “Damn right he doesn’t! Now, let’s go get smashed. Where do they keep the vodka around here?” Peik Lin asked.

  Rachel led Peik Lin back into her bedroom and showed her a
small button by the bedside wall. “Now, here’s one thing I’m really going to miss about Tyersall Park. You press this button and a bell rings downstairs somewhere. And before you can even count to ten—”

  Suddenly there was a soft knock on the door, and a young maid entered the room with a curtsy. “Yes, Mrs. Young?”

  “Hi, Jiayi. We’d like some drinks. Can we have two vodka martinis on the rocks?”

  “Extra olives, please,” Peik Lin added.

  —

  Nick walked down the pathway past the lily pond, entering the deepest part of the woods in the northwest section of the property. When he was a boy, this was the area of the estate he never dared to venture into, probably because one of the old Malay servants from ages past had told him this was where all the tree spirits lived, and they should be left undisturbed.

  A bird high in one of the trees made a strange, piercing call that Nick had never heard before, and he looked up into the thick foliage, trying to spot what it was. Suddenly a blur of white flickered past his eyes, startling him for a second. Collecting himself, he saw it again, something white and shiny on the other side of a grove of trees. He crept slowly toward the trees, and as the bushes cleared, he saw the figure of Ah Ling facing a large tembusu tree, clutching a few joss sticks. As she prayed and bowed from the waist repeatedly, the smoke from the joss sticks wafted around her, and her white blouse would shimmer as it caught the rays of sunlight filtering through the low-hanging branches.

  When Ah Ling was finished with her prayers, she took the joss sticks and stuck them inside an old Milo can that had been placed in the hollow of the bark. She turned around and smiled when she caught sight of Nick.

  “I didn’t know you came out here to pray. I always thought you did your prayers in the garden behind the service wing,” Nick said.