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21st Output For Finals

Bettina Ortiz y Meña, a wealthy socialite, grows impatient waiting for her favorite table at a restaurant. She is annoyed by a noisy group of tourists occupying the prime waterfront seating area. It is later revealed that the group includes a Duke and a very powerful Asian businessman, much to Bettina's surprise.

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Isabel
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393 views

21st Output For Finals

Bettina Ortiz y Meña, a wealthy socialite, grows impatient waiting for her favorite table at a restaurant. She is annoyed by a noisy group of tourists occupying the prime waterfront seating area. It is later revealed that the group includes a Duke and a very powerful Asian businessman, much to Bettina's surprise.

Uploaded by

Isabel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rich People Problems

an excerpt by Kevin Kwan

1 Bettina Ortiz y Meñ a was not accustomed to waiting. A former Miss


Venezuela and Miss Universe runner-up, of course, the exceedingly bronzed
strawberry blond was these days the wife of Miami auto-parts tycoon, Herman Ortiz
y Meñ a, and at every restaurant she chose to grace with her presence, she was
always greeted with reverence and whisked to the exact table she desired. Today she
wanted the corner table on the terrace at Sip Sip, her favorite lunch spot on Harbor
Island.

She wanted to sit on one of the comfy orange canvas director’s chairs and
stare out at the gently lapping turquoise waters while eating her Kale Caesar salad,
but there was a large noisy group taking up the entire terrace and they didn’t seem
in much hurry to leave.

Bettina fumed as she glared at the tourists happily savoring their lunch
2

in the sun. Look how tacky they were…the woman overly tanned, wrinkled, and
saggy, none of them properly lifted or botoxed.

She felt like walking up to their table and handing out her dermatologist’s
business cards. And the men were even worse. All dressed in all rumpled shirts and
shorts, wearing those cheap straw hats sold at the trinket shot on Dunmore Street.
Why did such people have to come here?
3 The three-and-a-half-mile-long paradise with its pristine pink-sand
beaches was one of the best-kept secrets in the Caribbean, a haven for the very
rich filled with quaint little wood houses painted in shades of sherbet, charmin
boutiques, chic oceanfront mansions turned into inns, and five-star restaurants to
rival St. Barths. Tourists should have to take a style exam before being allowed to
set foot on the Island! Feeling that she had been patient long enough, Bettina
stormed into the kitchen, the fringe on her crocheted Pucci caftan top shaking
furiously as she made a beeline for the woman with a shock of pixie-cut blond hair
manning the main stove.

4 “Julie, honey, what’s the dealio? I’ve waited more than fifteen minutes for
my table!” Bettina sighed to the owner of the restaurant.
“Sorry, Bettina, it’s been one of those days. The party of twelve on the terrace
showed up first just before you did,” Julie replied as she handed off a bowl of spicy
conch chili to waiting server.

“But the terrace is your prime spot! Why on earth did you let those tourists
take up all that space?”

5“Well, that tourist in the red fishing cap is the Duke of Glencora. His party
just boated over from Windermere – that’s his Royal Huisman you see moored off
the coast. Isn’t it the most handsome sailboat you’ve ever seen?”
6 “I’m not impressed by big boats,” Bettina huffed, although secretly she was
rather impressed by people with big title. From the kitchen window, she surveyed
the party assembled on the terrace with new eyes. These aristo British types were
such a strange breed. Sure, they had their Savile Row suits and their heirloom
tiaras, but when they traveled, they looked so painfully frumpy.

7 It was only then that Bettina noticed three tan, well-built men in fitted
white T-shirts and black Kevlar pants sitting at the adjacent table. The guys
weren’t eating but sat watchfully, sipping glasses of seltzer water. “I assume that’s
the duke’s security detail?
They couldn’t be more obvious! Don’t they know that we’re all billionaires
here on Briland, and this isn’t how we roll?”
Bettina tutted.

8“Actually, those bodyguards belong to the duke’s special guest. They did a
whole sweep of the restaurant before the party arrived.

They even searched my walk-in freezer. See that Chinese fellow seated at the
end of the table?”

Bettina squinted through her Dior Extase sunglasses at the portly, balding,
seventy-something Asian man dressed in a nondescript white short-sleeved golf
shirt and gray trousers. “Oh, I didn’t even notice him! Am I supposed to know who
he is?”

That’s Alfred Shang, Julie said in a hushed tone.

9 Bettina giggled. “He looks like their chauffeur. Doesn’t he look like that guy
that used to drive Jane Wyman around in Falcon Crest?”

Julie, who was trying to focus on searing a cut of tuna to perfection, shook her head
a tight-lipped smile. “From what I hear, that chauffeur is the most powerful man in
Asia.”

“What’s his name again?”


Activity 1

Directions: Fill out the elements of a story


entitled “Rich People Problem”.

Rich People Problem


by Kevin Kwa

Characters

Setting

Plot

Conflict

Climax

Theme
Activity 2

Directions: Create a table with two columns using word.doc file format. On the first
column entitled From the Text, you are going to lift lines from the indicated
paragraphs in the short story “Rich People Problem”. On the next column entitled
From my Mind, you are going to write your ideas based on the lines lifted. An
example has been provided as your guide.

From the Text From my Mind


Example: Bettina Ortiz y Meña was Patience is a virtue.
not accustomed to waiting.

From the Text (Paragraph 1) From my Mind

From the Text (Paragraph 2) From my Mind

From the Text (Paragraph 3) From my Mind

From the Text (Paragraph 4) From my Mind

From the Text (Paragraph 5) From my Mind


Activity 3

Directions: Choose 5 words from the ICTArtWord image. Give your


own definition for each word.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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