Rich People Problems (39 page)

THE PEAK, HONG KONG

Chloe made the call from her bathroom, with the shower turned on full blast. “Dad, you said to call…you know…if Mum was ever acting weird again.”

Charlie felt his gut tighten. “What happened? Are you and Delphine okay?”

“Um, we're fine. But maybe you should come over.”

Charlie looked at his watch. It was just past eleven at night. “I'm leaving my office right this second. Be there in fifteen minutes! Do me a favor, honey. Stay with your mother?”

“Um, okay.”

Charlie could hear the fear in her voice. He raced to the house in his Porsche 911, the sports car careening dangerously along the hairpin curves and steep hills all the way up to The Peak. He speed-dialed Isabel's lead security officer, Jonny Fung, from his Bluetooth but it went straight to voice mail. All the while, his heart was beating a mile a minute as he dreaded what he would find when he arrived at the house. Isabel had been doing so well. Was this really another breakdown, or did she stop taking her meds again?

A few blocks from the house, Charlie got caught in a traffic jam as cars waited bumper to bumper. He leaned on his horn anxiously, and then decided, fuck it, he would cut onto the oncoming traffic lane. He raced past the line of cars and discovered that they were all trying to go to the same place—Isabel's house. There was a cluster of people in front of the gates as Charlie pulled up. He jumped out of the car and approached the security guards stationed by the gate. “What the hell is happening?”

“Private party,” one of the guards said in Cantonese.

“Party?
Tonight?
I'm going in.”

“Wait a second, are you on the list? What's your name?” the baby-faced guard asked, holding an iPad with a list of names glowing on the screen.

“My name? Jesus, get out of my face!” Charlie seethed, pushing past him and running down the driveway. Just as he reached the porte cochere of the house, three bodyguards in black suits suddenly appeared out of nowhere and jumped on top of him. “Got the crasher!” One of the guards said into his earpiece as he pinned Charlie's face to the ground.

“Get off me! This is my house!” Charlie grunted as one of the guards held him in a knee-lock.

“Yeah right,” the guards laughed mockingly.

“Get Mr. Fung out here now! I'm Charlie Wu and this is my house! I sign all your paychecks!”

At the mention of their boss's name, one of the guards started talking urgently into his earpiece. Moments later, the head of security came out of the house and began shouting, “That's Mr. Wu! Get off him, you fucking morons!”

Charlie got up from the ground and brushed the dirt off his face. “Jonny, what the fuck is going on here? Why aren't you picking up your phone?”

“Sorry, I was inside, and it's very loud in there,” Jonny apologized. “Mrs. Wu decided to have the party just this afternoon. It's a benefit for the earthquake victims in Yunnan Province.”

“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Charlie muttered as he entered the house. There were at least fifty people crowded in the foyer, and a man suddenly grabbed him from behind and gave him a full-on bear hug. “Charlie! You're here!” It was Pascal Pang, his face inexplicably powdered white, with rouge on his cheeks. “I was just telling Tilda that I've never seen
such
a pleasant divorce as you and Isabel had. Look, he even comes to her parties! My ex-wives won't even take my calls, hahaha.”

Charlie was bewildered as a pale, thin woman with uniquely androgynous features dressed in a silver jumpsuit smiled at him sweetly. “So you're Charlie! Astrid's told me so much about you,” she said in a lilting British accent.

“Has she? Excuse me, I just need to find someone.” Charlie squeezed through the crowded foyer and into the sprawling formal room, which had been utterly transformed into a dark, funereal space. All of Isabel's pretty French furniture had been covered in black fabric, and even the walls were draped in black. Guests sat at little black bistro tables lit with red votive candles, and a woman dressed in a long deep red velvet dress lay on top of the grand piano with a microphone in her hand. As the pianist tickled the keys, she sang in a deep, throaty voice,

“
Fawwwwwwl-ling in love again, never wanted to,

what am I to do, I can't help it…
”

Charlie spotted Isabel at one of the front tables, dressed in a man's tuxedo with her hair slicked back, sitting on the lap of a male model who looked to be no older than twenty-five. Chloe and Delphine stood behind her, dressed in matching outfits of black vests, black shorts with garter belts, and black bowler hats, looking extremely uncomfortable. Chloe's face lit up in relief the moment she saw her father.

Charlie marched up to Isabel's table and demanded, “Can we talk?”

“Shh! Ute Lemper's singing!” Isabel said, waving him off.

“We really need to talk
now
,” Charlie said as calmly as possible, grabbing her arm and leading her to the back of the room.

“What is your problem? We have one of the greatest chanteuses in the world right here, and you're interrupting!” Isabel's breath reeked of vodka, and Charlie looked into her eyes, trying to figure out if she was just drunk or having a manic episode.

“Isabel, it's Thursday night. Why are you hosting a party for two hundred people right now, and what on earth did you make the girls put on?”

“Don't you get it? This is the Weimar Republic. It's 1931 Berlin and we're at the Kit Kat Club. Chloe and Delphine are both dressed like Sally Bowles!”

Sighing deeply, he said, “I'm going to take them home with me right now. It's past midnight on a school night and they can hardly keep their eyes open.”

“What are you talking about? The girls are having the time of their lives! I especially invited Hao Yun Xiang to the party because Chloe's got a crush on him!” Isabel gestured to the strapping male model whose lap she had been keeping warm. “You're just jealous, aren't you? Don't worry, I think you've got a bigger cock.”

At that moment, Charlie knew she was out of her mind. Isabel could do some outrageous things, but she was never profane. “I'm not jealous—” he began calmly.

“Well then, stop spoiling all the fun for the rest of us!” Isabel declared, going back to her chair. She straddled her male model this time and began swaying to the music.

It was obvious to Charlie that Isabel was in the midst of a manic high, and sooner or later she was going to come crashing down, and who knows what she would do. It was useless to argue with her like this. He grabbed Chloe and Delphine by their hands and marched them toward the exit. At the front door, he whispered to Jonny Fung, “You don't let Isabel out of your sight, you hear me? And don't let her leave the house until I come back tomorrow morning with her doctors.”

“Of course,” the head of security nodded.

At 3:00 a.m., Charlie was woken up by a phone call. Seeing it was Isabel, he rolled over onto his back with a sigh and answered.

“Where are my girls?” Isabel said, sounding preternaturally calm.

“They're here with me. Fast asleep.”

“Why did you drag them off like that?”

“I didn't drag them off. They were only too happy to leave the freak show and come home with me.”

“You know, you deprived them of seeing Ute's full performance. She sang three encores. She sang ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.' And I wanted Chloe to meet Tilda Swinton. When will she ever get a chance like this again?”

“I'm sorry, Isabel. I'm sorry Chloe didn't get a chance to meet Tilda. But apparently she's friends with Astrid, so maybe she'll have another chance—”

“I don't give a flying fuck about Astrid! Don't you see that there are people suffering in the world? Do you know we raised two million dollars tonight for the earthquake victims? Think of all the children we are helping!”

Charlie gave an exasperated laugh. He knew it was pointless to argue with her when she was having one of these episodes, but he couldn't help himself. “You could start with your own children.”

“So you think I'm a bad mother,” Isabel said, suddenly sounding very sad.

“I don't think that. I think you're a wonderful mother, but you're just having a bad night.”

“I am NOT having a bad night! I am having a
fantabulous
evening! I am a charity fund-raiser par extraordinaire, and I am trying to help our children.” Isabel began to sing in a slow, soulful voice: “
I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and leeeeeet them lead the way…
”

“Izzie, it's three in the morning. Can we stop with the Whitney Houston?” Charlie said wearily.

“I'll never stop! Those bastards crushed Whitney's spirit, but they will never crush mine, do you hear me?”

“Izzie, I'm going to sleep now. I will see you tomorrow morning first thing. I'll bring the girls home before school so they can change into their uniforms.”

“Don't you dare hang up on me, Charlie Wu!” Isabel demanded. But it was too late. Charlie had hung up. He had hung up on her in the way that he never used to. Isabel's mind went into a roller-coaster dip as she stared out the window onto the crashing waves of the ocean. Unbeknownst to Charlie, she had been sitting in the bedroom of his new house in Shek O during the entire call. Foiling her security crew, she had swapped outfits with Ute Lemper after her second encore and slipped unnoticed out of her own party in a deep red velvet dress. She had taken the first car in the valet line and driven in a manic rage all the way to Charlie's house. She had punched in the code she remembered: 110011. And now she was wandering through the empty Tom Kundig–designed house, spiraling into greater and greater rage.

So this is what it's going to be like now. This is how it is now that you have your new life in this perfect glass house by the sea. This boring bourgeois
Architectural Digest
fantasy, with all your boring mid-century furniture and that boring little decorative object you wake up next to every morning. Because that's what she is. That Astrid Leong and her sham aesthetics. Just because she wears Alexis Mabille to lunch she thinks she's hot shit, she thinks she's an original. She's nothing but a perfectly bred decorative doll with no substance and no grit. Everyone thinks she's soooo exquisite and soooo elegant, but I know the truth. I know what kind of woman she really is.

Isabel leaned against the dining table, took out her cell phone, and swiped around the screen furiously until she found what she was looking for. It was a video clip she had saved in a locked folder. It was the video of Charlie and Astrid making love, and as she played the video, the sound of their moans echoed through the vast, empty house.
Look at her. She's no better than a whore. Look at the way she straddles him, commanding his invading prick like she's riding one of her Thoroughbreds. This isn't a woman who will just settle for being “friends” with Chloe and Delphine. This is a woman who wants it all. And because of all her money she thinks she can buy whatever she wants. She bought Charlie and now she wants to buy my children and buy their love and turn them into little carbon copies of herself, with long ballerina necks and perfect couture outfits. She wants to sit in this perfect house and look out at the perfect view of the sea with my daughters and stroke their hair in the golden sunlight and twirl them around the garden like they are all in some goddamn Terrence Malick movie and convince them that this is the only life they should ever want. “You'll always be welcome here,” she says. Like hell I will. The day after her wedding she's going to shut me out forever. I just know it. She thinks she's going to erase me from their lives, but I will never let this happen. Never never never!
With trembling fingers, Isabel jammed out a message on the gossip columnist Honey Chai's WeChat message board:

Astrid Leong has stolen my life. She is a cheating, husband-stealing whore. Just look at her whoring herself in this video. She is nothing but a vapid rich girl, an heiress to an evil fortune that destroys our planet. I curse her! I curse Charlie Wu! I curse this house built on deceit and sin! For the rest of eternity, there will never ever be any peace in this house!

Isabel attached the video clip and hit “post,” as the video streamed out to millions of WeChat users all over the world. Then she climbed up on the wooden Nakashima dining table as if it was a giant surfboard, took off her long velvet gown, rolled it into a tight long rope and threw one end around the Lindsey Adelman chandelier. She fastened the other end taut over the white, tender part of her neck and inched to the edge of the table slowly, step by step, gazing out the window at the moonlit sea. And then she jumped.

TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE

“It was an epic fail, a disaster of titanic proportions,” Carlton sighed over the phone to his sister as he recounted his date with Scheherazade.

“I'm so sorry, Carlton—it sounds traumatic,” Rachel said. “So what happened after Colette dropped her bombshell?”

“Well, it basically killed the dinner for everyone. Scheherazade didn't eat a thing after that, and I bolted right after dessert was served. It became apparent to me that Scheherazade's parents were going to file a restraining order against me if I stuck around one minute longer.”

“I'm sure it wasn't that bad.”

“No, actually, it probably got worse. Everyone went into the drawing room for drinks and coffee, and I
just know
Colette was itching to get into all the details of exactly what happened in London. I'm sure she went on a no-holds-barred campaign to tell the Shangs what a murderous monster I am. Scheherazade walked me down to my car, and I tried to tell her the whole story but it just all came out wrong. I was rushing and nervous, and I think she was too in shock to process anything.”

“It's a lot of story for a first date, Carlton. Give her a little time to recover,” Rachel said gently.

“She'll have all the time in the world—I heard she left for Paris first thing this morning. Game over.”

“It's not game over. Maybe her leaving had nothing to do with you.”

“Uh-uh, I don't think so. She hasn't responded to any of my texts in the past twenty-four hours.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Jesus, you millennials! If you really want to win her back, fly to Paris, send her a thousand roses, take her to dinner at some romantic rooftop in the Marais,
just do something other than text her!
”

“It's not so simple. She's surrounded by bodyguards 24/7. If she's not going to respond to my texts, I don't want to be some creepy stalker who shows up at her doorstep.”

“Carlton, even if you tried, you would never come across as a creepy stalker. Scheherazade's obviously freaked out because she's been fed a line of bullshit from Colette. So you need to show her who you really are. She's waiting for you to do that, don't you see?”

“I think she's back in Paris living her life, probably dating some French count with three-week-old stubble by now.”

Rachel sighed. “You know what it is, Carlton? You're just spoiled. You had the fortune, or maybe the misfortune, of being born good-looking, and girls have been throwing themselves at you all your life. You've never had to lift a finger. Scheherazade is the first girl who's challenging you, who's making you work for it. You've met your match. So are you gonna step up?”

Carlton was quiet for a moment. “So what's my next move, Rachel?”

“You need to figure that out. I'm not going to give you a cheat sheet! You need to win her back with a wildly romantic gesture. Look, I need to go. There's a potential buyer coming to tour Tyersall Park this morning, and you
don't
want to know who it is.”

“Why not?” Carlton asked.

“Because it's Jack Bing.”

“Bollocks! You're pulling my leg!”

“I wish I was. He's offering an insane amount of money for the house.”

“Bloody hell, between Colette and her father, the Bings are clearly out for blood in Singapore. Don't sell it to him.”

Rachel sighed. “I wish it were up to me. Nick and I are actually trying to avoid him, and I think I hear people arriving.”

“Okay, call me later.”

Jack Bing stood in the middle of the Andalusian Cloister, puffing away on his cigar as he stared at the ornately carved columns. “This is incredible. I've never seen a house like this in my whole life,” he said in Mandarin.

“I love this inner courtyard! We can take out this reflecting pool and put in a
real
swimming pool,” Kitty suggested in English.

Felicity, Victoria, and Alix winced but said nothing.

Oliver stepped in diplomatically. “Kitty, this reflecting pool was brought over tile by tile from Córdoba, Spain. Do you see these blue-and-coral Moorish tiles lining the pool? They're extraordinarily rare, from the thirteenth century.”

“Oh, I had no idea. Of course we must keep them, then,” Kitty said.

Jack stared at the lotus-shaped rose quartz in the middle of the fountain that was bubbling a slow, hypnotic trickle of water. “No, we mustn't change a thing. This house may not be as grand as our place in Shanghai, but it has amazing feng shui. I can feel the chi flowing through everywhere. No wonder your family prospered here,” Jack told the assembled ladies.

The Young sisters nodded politely, as none of them spoke Mandarin and only understood about thirty percent of what he said. Jack looked at the three frumpily dressed sisters, thinking to himself,
Only women who grew up in a place like this can get away with looking like that.
And they can't even speak a word of Mandarin. They are like dodo birds, a useless species. No wonder they are losing their house.

The group proceeded through the arcade into the library.

Jack looked around at all the old books lining the double-height bookcases and the sleek Indian rosewood desk. “I love this kind of furniture. Art deco, isn't it?”

“Actually, this was Sir James's library, and he had all the furniture custom designed by Pierre Jeanneret in the late 1940s,” Oliver informed him.

“Well, it reminds me a bit of the old Shanghai clubs where my grandfather used to play,” Jack remarked. Turning to the ladies, he said, “My grandfather worked in a water-boiler factory, but he was also a trumpet player. Every night for extra money, he would play in a jazz band that performed in all of the clubs frequented by Westerners. When I was a little boy, it was my duty to shine his trumpet for him every night. I would spit and spit at the trumpet to clean it, in order to make the polish go farther.”

Felicity backed away nervously, afraid that he might actually perform one of his spitting demonstrations near her.

“How much for the furniture?” Jack asked.

“Er…which pieces did you have in mind? Some of them are…things…that we could never part with,” Victoria said in the rudimentary Mandarin she used with her servants. “Oliver, how do you say ‘heirloom' in Mandarin?”

“Ah, that's ‘
chuan jia bao
,' ” Oliver told her.

“Oh, I love the tables, the chairs, this purple-and-blue rug, especially.” Jack pointed at the floor. Felicity stared down at the purple silk rug and a story her aunt Rosemary T'sien had once told her suddenly came flooding back…

You know your mother once stared a Japanese general in the eye and dared him to shoot her? It happened right here in this library, where Su Yi was hosting a card party for some high-ranking officers. They were always forcing her to do things like this during the occupation, host these horrible debauched parties for them. My husband—your uncle Tsai Tay—had just been arrested for some ridiculous offense, and when the general lost a game of gin rummy to your mother, she demanded that in return he free Tsai Tay. Of course the general was outraged by her boldness, and immediately took out his pistol and held it to her temple. I was sitting right next to her, and I thought she was a gone case.

Su Yi remained completely calm and said in that imperious way of hers, “General, you are going to ruin Rosemary's beautiful cheongsam if you shoot me right now. My brains will be all over it, not to mention this beautiful art deco carpet from Paris. Do you know how much this carpet is worth? It's designed by a very famous French artist named Christian Bérard, and would make such a beautiful present for your wife, if only it wasn't stained with my blood. Now, you wouldn't want to disappoint your wife, would you?” The general was silent for a moment, but then he burst into laughter. And then he put down his gun, took the rug with him, and the next day, they released my husband from prison. Tsai Tay would never forget what Su Yi did for him.

Hiyah, there are so many stories I can tell you about the war years, but Su Yi wouldn't want me to. But you know, she saved the lives of so many people, and most of them didn't even realize she was the one responsible. She wanted it that way. After the war was over, we heard that the general was executed for war crimes during the war tribunals in Manila. One day, your mother called me up and said, “You'll never guess what just arrived in a long box. That purple art deco rug that the general took back to Japan. I suppose his wife never approved of it.”

Felicity snapped out of her reverie and said decisively, “Mr. Bing, this rug isn't for sale. But there are some items that we could offer with the house.”

“All right then. Oliver, could you make an assessment of how much everything is worth? I'll take whatever
chuan jia biao
these nice ladies will let me have,” Jack said, turning to the Young sisters with a little smile.

“Of course,” Oliver said.

“Ladies, I approve of this house, and I think my family will be very happy using it whenever we visit Singapore. Thank you for showing us around this morning, and please, this is a standing offer, so take your time to decide. I know this must not be an easy decision for all of you,” Jack said. He then strolled out the front doors, flicked his cigar onto the gravel driveway, and got into the back of the first black Audi SUV. Kitty climbed in after him, the bodyguards got into their SUVs, and the convoy of cars zoomed off.

“Well
that
was excruciating,” Victoria said as they sank into the sofas in the drawing room.

“Oliver, where on earth did you ever dig up these people?” Felicity asked contemptuously.

“Believe it or not, they're far from the worst. Jack has become quite an astute art collector—they have one of the top private museums in Shanghai—and Kitty's taste has actually matured. Plus, she's willing to learn. Don't worry, they won't do anything to the house without my approval.”

Victoria looked up in surprise to see Nick and Rachel entering the drawing room. “I didn't realize you two were home! Why didn't you come out and meet these people? Rachel, we could have used another Chinese translator!”

Nick plopped down on one of the art deco club chairs. “Oh I've met them before—I met Jack in Shanghai a couple of years ago and had hoped never to meet him again, and his wife we all met when she came for Colin's wedding.”

“Wait a minute…that woman was at Colin Khoo's wedding?” Felicity looked taken aback.

“Auntie Felicity,
she was at your house
. She used to be Alistair's girlfriend,” Nick said irritatedly.

“Good grief,
that was
her
? The one with the big brown cow nipples? Pussy Ping or whatever her name was?” Alix blurted out.

“Her name is Kitty Pong,” Rachel said.

“Dear me, I didn't recognize her at all. She has a completely new face! No wonder Alistair suddenly flew back to Hong Kong first thing this morning! But I thought she was married to that ghastly boy, Carol Tai's good-for-nothing son? The one that butchered his face with plastic surgery too?” Alix said.

“That was ages ago, Auntie Alix. Kitty's traded up.”

“She most certainly has. I actually quite liked her pretty floral dress today. Why, she didn't look very vulgar at all,” Victoria noted.

“It's
impossible
to look vulgar in Dries Van Noten,” Oliver declared.

“So you really want to sell the house to them?” Nick asked gruffly.

“Nicky, you tell me how we can say no to
ten billion dollars
? That's three times more than our top offer. It would be pure stupidity to refuse this kind of money!” Felicity reasoned.

Oliver nodded. “It would be looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

Nick glanced over at Oliver in annoyance. “That's easy for you to say. You didn't grow up in this house. For some of us, it's not just about the money.”

Oliver sighed. “Look, Nicky, I know you're upset with me, but I really didn't mean for any of this to hurt you. I loved your grandmother and I love this house more than you can possibly imagine. I thought you
wanted
to preserve Tyersall Park, and when I heard that the Bings were on the lookout for a new place in Singapore, I just put two and two together. These people love the house, and they're committed to maintaining its architectural integrity. And they actually have the kind of money it takes to restore the house and keep the estate in tip-top condition for generations to come.”

Rachel spoke up. “Do those generations include Colette Bing?”

Oliver's face flushed red, while Felicity asked, “Who's Colette Bing?”

“Colette Bing is Jack's daughter. Two years ago, her personal assistant, Roxanne, tried to poison Rachel, on Colette's behalf,” Nick answered sharply.

“
WHAAAT?
” Felicity and Victoria shrieked in horror.

“Oh my goodness, I had completely forgotten that this was
that family
.” Alix moaned, putting her hands to her face.

“Rachel, that was such an unfortunate incident, but you should know that Jack and Kitty have absolutely
nothing
to do with Colette anymore,” Oliver said.

Nick's face flashed with anger. “It wasn't an unfortunate incident. My wife almost died! Just how much do you stand to make on this deal, Oliver? Aside from your commission on the sale, which will be in the millions, how much will you and that auction house of yours be making selling new stuff to these eager Bings?”

Oliver got up from the divan and smiled apologetically. “You know, I think I will leave you all now. I can see that I've frayed a few nerves. The offer's on the table, and I look forward to hearing your response.”