“Did you finally come clean?” Tracey inquires. Kara’s folks are so old-school that she’s terrified to admit to them that she’s the Kara behind the wildly successful relationship column. Of course, they don’t call her Kara. They refuse to acknowledge anything but her given name — Karunamayee, which means “full of pity for others.”
Seriously, how perfect is that?
It’s like she was predestined to give advice for a living.
Kara shakes bits of drywall out of her hair and her bracelets jangle with all the movement. “Not even a little bit. Ironically, my column ran today, and it was racier than usual because I answered a question on threesome etiquette.”
“There’s etiquette involved?” Wow, sometimes I wonder if I really am Amish.
Kara regards me quizzically. “Of course — there’s etiquette involved in any social situation, and what’s more social than a three-way?” Kara then notices I’m blushing all the way to the tips of my ears, so she doesn’t really elaborate. “The long and short of it is, share and share alike. Anyway, while we’re sitting there having tea after breakfast, both my parents went on and on about the shame that other Kara must heap on her family, and I wanted to fall through the floor and die.”
“Sounds like you need a drink,” I declare.
Kara blithely steps over the piles of rubble, and both girls follow me to the kitchen. “Have you got anything that isn’t pink or sugary?”
I ponder the contents of our fridge for a second. “Of course. Wine okay?”
Tracey chimes in, “Is it sugary pink wine?”
“No.”92
“Something stronger?” Kara pleads. “I may have trouble washing away the thirty-four years of shame and disappointment I’ve heaped on the Patel name with sauvignon blanc.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” I give her a reassuring hug before I root through the liquor cabinet. “Most everything’s downstairs in the bar, but Mac may have some sipping whiskey up here.” I locate a bottle of Elmer T. Lee bourbon and set it on the grit-covered countertop,93 and before I can even reach for a glass, Kara downs a shot straight from the bottle.
“You poor kid,”Tracey sympathizes. “That is so not bank.”
You know what? I’m willing to admit “bank” doesn’t work as an expression.94
Drinks prepared, we make our way to my library/office, parting the thick sheets of dust-repelling plastic as we enter. This is the one clean, organized room in the whole house. Because of the majestic paneling, we didn’t need to cover up any horrible eighties peach paint or vertigo-inducing wallpaper.
A word about the wallpaper, if I may?
I realize I’ve previously ranted about how home buyers on HGTV always seem daunted by the littlest bits of wallpaper. In the scheme of things, wallpaper simply isn’t that big a deal. I mean, it’s paper. Anything made out of paper can’t be inherently so challenging, right? And yet now I’m forced to admit that wallpaper can be so aggressively awful as to cause actual distress.
Take my living room, for example. My walls are covered with yards and yards of paper you wouldn’t believe if you saw. Picture a whole bunch of monkeys sitting around on large swirls of paisley perpetrating hate crimes against a group of Asian men who are just hanging out, minding their own business by playing their lutes and dancing their jigs. In alternating scenes, lions climb bamboo trees, tigers run away from monkey-tossed spears, and jaguars poise, ready to launch an attack on the pesky monkeys who started everything. The whole scene is about five seconds away from imminent bloodshed.
The kitchen walls are plastered with paper featuring dogs dancing with clowns in what appears to be a Venetian circus. The dining room boasts large multicolored pheasants on a mustard yellow background sunning themselves in what must be a nuclear-waste-rife raspberry patch, as each of the berries is three times the size of the birds’ heads.
One of the powder rooms has walls covered in pink and fuchsia checks bordered with repeating scenes of Chinese men who are either working in a rice paddy or washing their socks.95
Or how about the loft on the third floor? The room spans the length of the house, although the ceiling follows the roofline, so it begins to angle at shoulder height. What would make this room less oppressive? I know! Eight thousand square yards of pastel blue and white Boats of Many Sizes alternating up and down the walls in the maritime version of my nightmares. Or what about the bedroom made up primarily of Chinese men whipping yaks and feeding chickens?
Funnily enough, the horrible wallpaper was the only stuff Ann Marie did like about this house. She says this style is called “chinoiserie” and that it’s very happening with the senior set in Florida. Yeah, well, so is Super Poligrip, but I’m not about to smear denture cream on my walls, either.
Anyway, I love coming into the library because I can avoid the “noise” of the many, many wallpapered rooms. I spent an entire day lemon-oiling the wood walls and ceiling and now they’re as glossy and shiny as the steering wheel in Mac’s car. Beautiful!
After I accomplished that project, I felt divinely inspired, and I tore through my latest chapter. This room is kind of my sanctuary, as no matter what Mac’s ripping down in the house, I can come in here and work in peace. And that’s a real relief, considering how behind I am on this manuscript.
We bring our cocktails to the sitting area over in the corner. As Duckie and Daisy love Kara more than almost anyone, they immediately dog-pile on her. Due to their size, breeds, and thorough distaste for being groomed, she’s one of their few fans. Kara welcomes their sloppy kisses and has to peek around wagging tails and nuzzling snouts to continue her story. “I wouldn’t have even gone to their house, but I had to borrow a car while mine’s in the shop. I swear, if that thing gets any older or more decrepit—”
“Then I’d date it!” Tracey insists as Kara and I both blink in amazement. “What, I can’t acknowledge I like old men, too?”
“It’s decidedly less funny if you own it,” I admit.
“She’s right,” Kara agrees. “Sorry, Trace. Anyway, I need to get a new car, because asking them for help only serves to highlight how I can’t possibly function without a husband.” Before Tracey and I can jump in to protest, she continues, “No, no, I’m aware I function just fine on my own. Great, actually. I couldn’t be happier most of the time. But convincing Dr. and Dr. Patel I’m capable is an entirely different story.”
“Would they have given you this much shit if you’d gone to med school instead of J school?” Tracey and Kara met as grad students in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern in the early nineties.
Kara mulls over my question before answering. “Probably.”
Before we can pursue this line of conversation, we hear a loud banging upstairs, followed by what sounds like two bears wrestling, capped off with an enormous thump.
“Do I want to ask?” Tracey points to where my fantastic fleamarket-find crystal chandelier sways dangerously above us.
“Mac has proclaimed today New Toilet Day! Which will be nice, because I’m tired of coming downstairs every time I have to take a leak. Do you realize that out of seven bathrooms, we’re presently down to three?” I grouse. And then I feel a weird stab of guilt at bitching about being down to three bathrooms when I grew up in a house with five people and one full bath.
“Everything will be totally worth it when you’re done.” Funny, but the second Kara stops dwelling on her parents, she returns to her usual upbeat self. “That reminds me; I’ve got some recipes for Mac. He mentioned on Facebook that he wanted to learn to make palak paneer and lamb curry.” She pulls a couple of cards out of her bag and I dive on them like I’m protecting the room from a live grenade.