Rich People Problems-Kwan 2017 (WWT)

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 fundraiser
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