The Kitchen Shrink (12 page)

I followed her and cupped my hands over my mouth. “Mature? Criticizing everything about my life is mature? Helpful?” I dropped my hands and ran toward her as she got in her car. “You just want to think you’re right and I’m wrong, as usual. I’m not playing that game anymore, Mom. There is no right and wrong answer here. I’m doing the best I can and just once, I’d like you to be proud of me, and accept me as I am.”

Her car door slammed. She tried to peel out but her ten-year-old Toyota Camry couldn’t quite pull it off.

Watch out. Now I’m fired up.

I went back inside, Sam and his camera hot on my heels, Elgin rubbing his hands together like he expected to make sparks.

I put the broom away and was looking forward to painting. I’ve painted rooms in the past and found it incredibly therapeutic; though I always forgot how hard it was. I really liked how the kitchen was shaping up, and I felt like I had a big safety net under me, the crew. The wonderful, magic crew who supplied all the materials I needed, and who did all the prep, planning, taping and organizing. Reality show renovation was the only way to fly. I didn’t really have to work that hard. I wasn’t at all offended that they didn’t think I was doing that great of a job. The first hour of painting is fun. It’s the last seventeen hours that will get you. So, painting’s not my forte. I have other skills. I must, right?

Even I knew that watching some amateur putz around her kitchen really didn’t make for good TV. They would just do ‘TV bits’ of me where I was on camera learning how to use a miter saw, or smashing tile, or starting to paint a nice, fresh wall. They only needed a little bit of me doing that, because viewers with short attention spans were all about the “voila” factor. It’s not that fun staring at a hovel, but it was a lot of fun, through the magic of TV (and about ten professional never seen behind-the-scenes carpenters, painters, contractors, plumbers, and electricians) to witness an amazing transformation.

Elgin explained that home makeover shows are the I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched of the 21st century. He then put his hands on his hips and tsked at me, “Not that you’re any Barbara Eden.”

“Thanks, Elgin.”

“I’m just saying,” he said. He squinted at me and did the director’s thing with his hands, like he was making a frame. “Maybe Elizabeth Montgomery.”

Just as I began to smile, he added, “You know, in her later years, on that game show, Password.”

I shook my head. He was just pissy with me because I hate, hate, hate the color he wanted to paint my kitchen.

Elgin, of course, had to have something flamboyant. Big surprise. What unmet needs did he have going? He decided to paint my kitchen red, because he said that was opposite teal on the color wheel and because in Feng Shui universe, red was all that was good.

“Do you want to come to ‘Homo Depot’ with me, the gay designer’s macho man emporium?” Elgin stood with his legs apart, hands on his waist. I didn’t know if he was pretending to be Batman or Catwoman. “To the orange aprons,” he said, before pointing into the yonder.
“Sure,” I told him. I was no designer but I sensed disaster looming and hoped to intervene. Sam and Dustin loaded up their gear and followed us.

We went to the Home Depot in Carmel Mountain Ranch where the husky paint guys behind the counter greeted Elgin like an old friend. I followed Elgin as he flounced over to the paint chips and made a beeline for the reddest color he could find.

“Stupendo,” he said, kissing the bright paper square.

“So now you’re Italian?” I said, grabbing the paint chip. “No way.”

“Expelliarmos,” he muttered under his breath.

“Are you cursing me with a spell from Harry Potter?”

He ignored me while he tapped his finger against his mouth. He zoomed in on an even more atrocious color. “This is it.” He flashed it in my face and headed for the paint counter.

“Elgin. Stop. Let me see that.” He showed me again, his thumb pressing down firmly on the corner as if I was going to take it and rip it up, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

“Give it here,” I said, twisting the paper and pulling. I finally worked it free of his grubby little hands and stared at it in disbelief. “Rojo Ha?” I asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” I even looked at the camera. This had to be a joke. The red was so bright it made my teeth hurt. “I’m getting Punk’d, aren’t I? Is this like some Candid Camera show where you are setting me up?” I asked Sam and Dustin. “You can’t be serious.”

I truly thought it was one big joke, like the show where they played tricks on celebrities to get a rise out of them. Oh, I got it. They wanted me to react. I tried to find my inner decorating diva and put my work boot down. “Not gonna happen.”

Elgin merely ignored me. He went and got another paint chip and handed it to his burly buddy Bill. “Two gallons, my good man. Make it enamel.”

“No,” I said. “We’re not painting my kitchen Rojo Ha.”

“Yes, we are,” Elgin said, like a mom trying to ignore her annoying kid. He had moved on and was getting a paint tray and a couple of rollers.

“Bill,” I said to the paint guy, “tell him. This is not a good color for a kitchen. We’ll all have permanent indigestion. It’s a color for a December wedding bridesmaid’s dress. It’s a color for Popsicles.”

“Elgin knows his business, I guess, ma’am,” Bill said. “The customer is always right.”

“Well, I’m a customer and I don’t want this. Don’t mix that paint,” I ordered as he lifted a can and in three swift motions had pried the lid off.

I ran back to the paint samples. I frantically searched for a couple of less bright reds. Who was I kidding? They were all less bright. Then I grabbed a couple of nice, neutral sands, tans and beiges. I went to show Elgin. “Look, Elgin. Let’s just tone it down. See, look at this. Pretty, huh? I think this would look good with the cabinets.” I switched it up and showed him the taupe sample. “Or, we could go a whole different direction, look how great this would make the cabinets pop.” His eyelid didn’t even flicker as he pretended not to see the Harmonic Tan paint chip color I was waving in front of his face.

He ignored me. He picked up some blue painter’s tape, debated on plastic gloves, then must have decided ‘who cares’ since the show was paying for everything and added them to his orange cart. He was walking away from me.

“Elgin. Stop it, right now. I care. OK? I care about my kitchen.” If they wanted drama I could give them a little Home Depot meltdown. I looked back at Sam who nodded to me. He was the one who told me I should just go over the top. Since I was genuinely pissed, it didn’t take much to spur me into action. I ran in front of Elgin and climbed into his cart. I stood up, facing him and raised my voice to my very last nerve octave.

“We are not painting the kitchen red,” I screamed so loud I made a little boy down the aisle cry. I grabbed the extension pole Elgin had put in the cart and started poking him with it. “Do you hear me?”
“You getting this, Sam?” was all Elgin said.

“I mean it,” I said. “This is serious. Elgin, think about it. Red?” I held my hands out for a couple of beats. “Teal? It just doesn’t work. It will look like some freaking Florida Christmas pageant, or something.”
Elgin jerked his head toward the paint mixer where Bill was pushing alarmingly bright colors into the smooth white paint. “Zeal?” Elgin said, then he flicked a beige paint sample out of my hand, “or no zeal?”

“NO ZEAL,” I said, begged and pleaded. “No zeal.”

“Ma’am,” Bill had come over the counter. “I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the cart and lower your voice. You’re scaring our customers.”

“I’m not getting out of here until we pick a different color.” Elgin and I had a staring contest. I thought I was winning until Elgin said, in full Latino expression, slashing his words like a whip, “Rrrrrojjjjjoo Ha.”

I tried one more tactic. “Elgin. You are such an amazing designer and the kitchen is gorgeous, and you know it. Let your design show through and don’t muck it up with this color. Rojo Ha will be all anyone can see.”

“Ma’am,” Bill said, “step out of the cart.”

I started stomping my feet as I held on to the sides of the cart and raised my voice in a closing hymn. “Do you want to be judged by the color of my kitchen? Do you?”

Elgin started pushing the cart. “People will talk, you know how they are.”

Elgin just started pushing the cart faster. But I held on tighter. “You know I’m right,” I yelled. He was nearly running and was almost to the end of the aisle when he came to a sharp halt. I almost fell but that didn’t matter since Bill’s buddy, I never did get his name, grabbed me and lifted me out of the cart.

When we got home, Elgin made me do an interview. “So,” he asked me, “what was it like being thrown out of your neighborhood home improvement store?”

I glared my eyes at him. “You were there, you tell me.”

“It was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he said. “The look on your face as the paint guy slung you over his shoulder like one of their oriental rugs was worth a thousand bucks.” He continued. “Your kicking foot knocking over the tile workshop display was worth twice that. And setting off the sensor as you were bodily carried out of the store because you had a fancy schmancy horsehair paintbrush in your hands? Priceless.” He had to wipe tears out of his eyes.

I crossed my arms. “Are you finished?”

“Love to hear your side, darling.”

“No rebuttal.” I was embarrassed, I was mortified, but worse than that, I had lost. I didn’t get my way. And I dreaded what my beautiful kitchen would look like. I stood up. “You can take your Feng Shui…” They’d have to bleep out the rest.

What’s a home improvement show without Feng Shui, the ancient art of harmony and balance, integrated into your surroundings? Feng Shui is like a house’s charisma. That indefinable something that you really notice when it’s not present. Like Daria’s house. She had enough furniture for two houses and I always told her, as I turned sideways to squeeze between the overstuffed chair and couch to get to my seat, she needed to downsize. Yeah, who was I to talk. She’d always point out my computer in my bedroom, Feng Shui 101 no-no.

When Brett and I were still married he would always scatter the newspapers all over the countertops and wouldn’t let me throw them away until the next fresh newspaper arrived. It drove me crazy. So with me and Feng Shui, I could pretty much figure out what was wrong. Doing what was right was where I fell far short. That’s where Mai-Li came in. A darling almond-eyed petite woman who had silky black hair I wanted to play with. Her thick glossy tresses could have made thousands of the world’s most expensive paintbrushes. I was staring at her swishing locks when Elgin snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“Snap out of it,” he said. “Go listen to what Marlene has to say.”

“You mean Mai-Li?”

“Right. And my name’s really Elgin.”

“Her name’s really Marlene?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he told me, “but play along.”

So Feng Shui must extend to names of people, places, things and hair conditioners. Cool.

Mai-Li was a natural on camera. She explained the basics of the thousands of years old philosophy and told me I should practice it throughout my life.

“You’ve heard of chi, right?” she asked me.

Elgin interrupted her. “She’s heard of Cheetos, that’s for sure.”

As I told him to shut up, Mai-Li raised her hand and swished her head, causing him to stop. I swear her hair had magical powers.

“The nature that surrounds us is made up of chi, the life force. You’ve felt spiritual energy before, right?”

“Ask Phil-O,” Elgin said, giggling.

Mai-Li stroked her hair as she turned toward Elgin. “Mean-spirited humor is a dark force, repellent in Feng Shui, which, unless exorcised almost always ends up harming the source.”

Gulp. I smiled and vowed to think good thoughts from now on as Elgin sidled out of the shot, probably to go look for a rosary or something. Mai-Li stopped in front of my window, above my kitchen sink.

“Feng Shui literally translates into wind and water. Since life exists in air or water, chi is the energy that flows within these environments. You want to respect the life energy in every room and surrounding.”

I nodded.

“Clutter is out,” she smiled as she eyed my open kitchen, awaiting its cabinets. With the fresh start I was being given, I promised myself I would keep my cupboards neat and tidy. “Avoid over-decorating. When you sit at your table, you should have a clear view. Objects, papers, bills, projects; all weigh you down and represent piles of stress that are felt by your very psyche.”

“I agree with you there,” I said.

She peeked into my family room. “Good, good. You never want your stairs to face out your front door; it lets all of the good energy escape. Same thing, your front door should never open and face directly into a bathroom; that could signify a flushing out of your wealth.”

So far, so good.

“There are many arrangements that can enhance the energy that flows around you. Some of it is a common sense placement of furniture, but there are taboos, as well. For example, just as you don’t want your back facing a door in an office, you never, ever want your bed positioned with your feet pointing toward the door.”

Or course, Elgin was there for that. “Oh, don’t worry, her feet usually point up toward the ceiling. Is that good Feng Shui?”

I shot him a most un-Feng Shui look. Though some of this sounded like a bunch of superstitious mumbo-jumbo, who was I to question it? I believed hummingbirds bring good luck and every time I saw one I waited for something good to happen. I also tried not to step on cracks in sidewalks, but I thought that might also be to avoid tripping. I held my breath if I drove by a cemetery and I always made sure to leave the last bite on my plate and last swallow in my glass. I have no idea why. But I did it. Routines that worked for me.