The Kitchen Shrink (22 page)

While I’m enjoying hanging out with Nicole, and I’m back to driving her crazy, I miss Daria and hope we can make up soon. I’ve tried calling her a million times and begging for mercy. She just tells me everything is fine and she’s not mad at me, she’s just been busy.

“I know you’re going out with Sam, why can’t we talk about it” I told her. “I’m happy for you, he’s great.”

“Lisby, please.” She told me. “This is important that you just respect my privacy right now.” Fine. So I will.

So, I was in trouble with a capital T on TV. I feel like I haven’t lived up to my end of the bargain, even though I’ve participated to the best of my ability. Besides, there’s that money that I wish I didn’t even know about. I can’t stop spending it in my head. It would really help take some of the pressure off. I could get Ryan prepared for college, and put some away for Nicole, and myself, to have a cushion when something else goes wrong. I’ve been upbeat and open with Elgin but I know it’s not enough.

I haven’t lost a ton of weight, sprouted an ass-sized pair of boobs, found religion, a man, or a woman, for that matter. I have a sneaking suspicious the producers would love that. Lady love. In theory, a great idea, I always used to joke I would love to have a wife, but in reality I just don’t get how that works. I must be careful to not be as effusive in my greetings as I was to the Feng Shui lady or who knows what kind of story line they’ll concoct. I shudder to see what this show is really going to look like because I don’t know whose reality it will be.

I haven’t had an earth-shattering reunion with my mother, even though it was great to make up with her. I haven’t remembered a history of abuse, or any past lives. They don’t seem to be able to find me a guy to go out with, even though they somehow found out about the Martinator and tried to bring him back for round two. Daria said she smoothed that one over with the Martinator.

They finally seemed resigned the fact that I’m just a plain, ol ordinary lady. The most excitement was my pimple last week that was so big I had to name it. Actually, Elgin did. Naturally. I felt the tingle and bump as the onslaught of stress concentrated smack dab on the center of my forehead, between my eyebrows. If it had just been off to one side it wouldn’t have looked so bad. I tried to juice up on the kid’s ProActiv, the stuff Katy Perry swears by that doesn’t really seem to work as well for people who aren’t pop stars with stylists.

“Damn Lisby, how’s Popeye doing?” Elgin thinks that’s really funny since he keeps saying he wants to pop my third eye.

Then, Nicole ended up with pink eye. I’m sure it wasn’t the colored contact lenses that she borrowed from her girlfriend. I spent 20 years shoving those freaking disks in my eyes to see better, she does it on a whim to make her brown eyes blue. And Ryan had ringworm. At least he could cover that up. So not only were we boring, we were pretty unattractive, the only sin on TV bigger than being boring.

The kitchen is amazing. They did a bit with me using a mitre saw to create the crown molding. Audience, you need to know, they told me what to say and where to draw the line and exactly how to saw. Like I actually measured how to butt up two pieces of corner molding.

“Crown molding makes my brain mold, when it comes to figuring angles,” I tried to tell them.

Boy there’s a lot that goes into remodeling a kitchen. But the progress has been amazing. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Reality TV, with all the magical elves who make it happen, is the only way to fly for a room makeover. They even clean up the mess after themselves, every day! Imagine!

Things are still iffy with Daria and I’m getting worried about ever making up with her. She’s been so secretive because of Sam, the cameraman, who I’ve finally admitted to myself, after several secret fantasies, to having a crush on. Sam doesn’t talk about her, but then again, he’s no Teddy the Blind Guy, he’s not the type of guy to kiss and tell. But I bet he’s a good kisser.

If I have trouble falling asleep at night one of my favorite fantasies is where Sam shows up for work one day, and for some reason, I never bother to fill in the blanks, I’m a very busy woman and it’s a fantasy after all, no one else is around. I’m wearing some killer outfit, that I don’t even own and would never buy, and I’m looking all hot, and much younger, and I’m just having a glass of wine, while, again, for some strange reason, I am trying to put up crown molding. I take a misstep on the ladder and Sam is there to catch me. Then we kiss, discover we’re soul mates, blah blah. I actually was daydreaming that sweet scenario last night heading into nightdreaming as I tossed and turned on my pillow. But dreams, like life, seldom follow the script. Instead, I had a McSticky affair with the late President Gerald Ford. What the heck? I was a kid when he was in office. Never found him attractive. Never even thought about him. Except to maybe wonder why his funeral lasted so long. Sorry, no disrespect intended, may he rest in peace. So where did that come from? I demand a do over.

I heard Elgin clapping his hands. Like the bad puppy I was, I slunk downstairs, head hanging, wondering what I was guilty of now.

“Lisby. Interview time.”

“Whatever,” I said, plopping down into the overstuffed chair in my family room. “I’ve pretty much told you everything there is to know.”

“Yes,” said Elgin, pretending to drowse, “we know.” He waited while Sam did a quick adjustment to the lighting. “Ready?” he said. Sam nodded.

“Lisby. ‘Tis the season.”

I nodded. I hated the stress of Christmas. One time, when Brett and I were still married, we took the kids to Maui for Christmas. Mele Kalikimaki. The pine smell of the imported live Christmas trees mixed with the aroma of coconut suntan oil doused the sun-streaming lobby in an aromatherapy fusion no one could have concocted. Pine and coconut usually don’t mix. But trust me, it was the best. Ukulele players and hula dancers wearing very little meandered through the hotel singing Christmas carols. I loved it. It was very crowded, but it was worth not putting up our tree back home, not freaking out about putting up all the outside decorations and lights and then fighting with Brett about turning them on and off, since he had it rigged where you had to climb over our privet hedge to reach the electric outlet. We were usually too lazy to turn them on, let alone turn them off.

Then there’s the frenetic buying. OK, I must admit, I had a couple of years when the kids were younger when I went the educational route. Bad idea. They’re so spoiled they pretty much have everything they want anyway so Christmas is usually a bust. Then, there’s the worry of who else to buy presents for and how much to spend. Skipping off to a tropical island allowed us to bag it all, we wouldn’t be there to exchange presents or receive presents from someone we didn’t remember to buy for. From teachers to the mailman to the garbage collector to the paper carrier, who kept dinging us by thoughtfully providing a card and envelope we merely needed to drop cash into. What about the hair stylists, the school counselors, and my favorite barista? Lugging out all the decorations, cluttering up the house, I just wasn’t up for it. I was like the chicken in the story about who will help me plant the wheat? Who will help me set up the tree? No one. But they all want to eat the goodies and get the goods.

I was ashamed of myself for how pretty I thought our tree was now, especially since Elgin did it all. I always wanted a symmetrically decorated, themed tree.

“Earth to Lisby,” Elgin was megaphoning me. “Get ready. This show is going to air after Christmas so while it is the season; we’re not talking about that. We already did the promos that will run during the holidays in a few days. But right now, I want you to tell me how much you’ve changed and how this show has saved your life.”

“I’ll give it a whirl,” I said. “The premise of The Kitchen Shrink is, ‘if your life’s a mess, your house probably is too.’ Face it, it’s probably true. My life was out of control, I guess. With my kids, there are so many other things going on, I didn’t think about staying on top of my house.

“I think it’s a little too simplistic to say that if your renovate your house your life will magically be improved.” Elgin was glaring at me but I raised my hand. “But, it does manage to put some things in perspective. Making anything better, cleaner, more organized, easier to be in or around, is a good thing. For me, carpentry and therapy did kind of go hand in hand. I liked focusing on a concrete project instead of worrying about my life, my kids, what am I going to do with my life, what kind of job will I get, and how sad I’ll be when my kids leave, and worrying about but what if they never leave? I am sometimes my own worst enemy and this project did help me redo my kitchen and redo my brain. I really think there is something to Feng Shui, and its important to have a good home you like to be in. Our home is our haven, and harmony and balance in your life is definitely something to strive for.

“At the end of the day, when all of our work is done, my kids’ homework is finished, we’re getting ready to settle in for the night, put our pajamas on, watch TV, whatever, we call it hunkering down I think it’s important to have a peaceful hunkering down place. Besides, there are so few things we can control in our life, making your life space a good reflection of you is one of them.”

“Not bad,” Elgin said.

Thanks, I thought. I had worked on that last part. “Wait.” I said. “One more thing. I’ve made a decision. I’m going to redo my downstairs bathroom next.” Someday. Maybe the viewers would see that I was going to continue my home and life improvement act.

“What color are you going to paint it?” Elgin asked.

“I’m thinking a really pretty rich coffee brown.”

Elgin made a raspberry noise, blowing on the palms of his hands. “You crap in there. Why do you want to paint the walls brown?”

“You are a class act, Elgin.”

My kids got home a short time later and wanted to know how Elgin liked the kitchen.

“Guess,” I told them and they laughed. “Thanks so much for your help, guys. I think it’s gorgeous.”

“It’s a’ight,” Ryan said.

“I like it,” Nicole added.

They headed into the family room to go upstairs and saw the tree.

“Who’s tree?” Ryan asked, as Nicole poked at a red-sequined ornament.

“Ours. Elgin did it. We had to shoot promos for the show that are going to start running on Christmas. What do you think?”

“Where’s our tree going to go?” Nicole asked.

“It is our tree,” I told her. “Elgin just decorated it fancy, for TV.”

I saw Ryan glance at Nicole before he went upstairs.

“Do you like it?” I asked Nicole. “You always like buying new decorations with me. Isn’t it pretty?”

“Yeah,” she said. She went up to her room.

I knew this was coming. As much as I wanted to be convinced how pretty it was and how much like it looked like a model tree in some mansion, it wasn’t right. As happy as I was that the tree was up and decorated and most importantly done, checked off my to-do list, I felt like I robbed my kids of their familiar holiday. I felt tears prickly behind my eyes but instead of crying, I went into the kitchen and got a bowl of chips and broke into my secret stash of Junior Mints and went into Nicole’s room.

“Hey, honey. Look what I have.” I sat next to her on her bed and watched a rerun of Malcolm in the Middle with her. She ate the chips and reached her hand out for some Junior Mints.

As many times as I screw up, you think I’d learn. Well, I’ve learned how to make things right, I guess.

I thought I heard the crew leave and I went downstairs, carrying a box. Sam and Dustin were putting their gear away.

“Oh, hey guys. Are you out of here?”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “Another good day, Lisby. The producers love it when you and Elgin fight.”

“What can I say?” I shrugged, setting the box down in front of the tree.

“What’s in the box?” Sam asked me.

I looked up at him. “I’m going to redecorate the tree. With my kids’ ornaments.”

“Do you want any help?” he asked.

“No, that’s OK,” I told him. “You can keep me company if you feel like it. It won’t take me long. My kids don’t want to help. I think they’re punishing me for not putting their stuff up in the first place.”

“This tree is OK, but you have to admit, it doesn’t have much personality,” Sam said.

“This tree is like this show,” I said. “Fake.”

Sam laughed and handed me a box. “Here, you can put Elgin’s ornaments in here.”

I looked at Sam and thought for the millionth time how lucky Daria was. Damn.

I put on some holiday music to try to get in the mood and to entice my kids. I took off all of Elgin’s decorations but left the lights. I started hanging my own old familiar ones and found a plastic ice skater ornament. “Look at this,” I showed Sam, pulling on one of her legs. “Nicole and her friends went through an ice skating phase a few years ago. This always reminds me of yoga instructors. They’re so bendy. I would love to be a yoga instructor.”

“What’s stopping you?” he asked.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Only about twenty pounds, twenty years, and twenty uptight rigid personality traits that prevent me from embracing my inner goddess.”

Sam laughed.

“What about you?” I asked. “What would you be doing if you weren’t a cameraman?”

“Me? I always wanted to be an astronaut.”

“You’re kidding. Like go up into outer space type of astronaut?”

“No, like a pocket-protecting, wingtip shoe wearing astronaut, who remains solidly on ground estimating the minutes of oxygen left in an orbiting space craft. Of course I want to go into space.”

“Are you kidding me? If they had tourist trips to space would you go?”

“Absolutely. You wouldn’t?”

“No. And I’ve made my kids swear they wouldn’t go either.”

“Why?”

“You still have somewhat of a chance to survive an airplane crash, it’s been known to happen. But in space? There’s no air. No place to crash. No search party to come to your rescue. Freaks me out.”