Nothing Left To Want (41 page)

“
Oh, of course, oh it would be an honor to have Miss Kelleher, your friend, living here, and where are my manners? My name is Delilah, Delilah Kwan, but please call me Delilah, Milan.”

If it hadn’t all been so icky, the rental house, the rude then slimily ingratiating woman, I would have cracked up along with Christy at the ridiculous name. As it was, I just said, “Delilah, I’m Carey, and I’d like to see the place first, then we can ... ”

Delilah interrupted me. “Oh yes, yes of course, Carey. You have to see the house first but I know you will love it. It’s a good house. Please ladies, Miss Milan, all of you follow me.”

It was then I first noticed the unusual wooden gates behind us. They were tall and long, stretching across the width of the driveway, and burned in the old wood were the words 'Sorrow Not'.

I glanced askance at Delilah and she smiled widely. “Interesting, isn’t it? This is an old house. I bought it for an investment last year. I thought about having the words sanded out, but then I am Asian and we believe in luck and the words seem to me to say that the people who have lived here, and who will live here, should be happy, so I left it. It’s nice, yes?”

I didn’t know if it was nice or not, so I just nodded.

She pulled out a gate opener, pressed it and we followed her into a very cool lot.

The property was obviously old because the trees were huge and thick and made the yard look a little shadowy and mysterious. There were some beautiful old azalea and rose bushes clustered around. The house had a small shaded pool and a tiny little white stucco guest house that matched the main house.

The main house was a typical forties California Mission-style home. Inside it had three small bedrooms, all of which, including the main living areas, were carpeted in the ugliest cheap beige carpet I had ever seen. To make matters worse, the house was furnished with what were obviously decorating mistakes too ugly even for Delilah, and it stunk of mildew.

After walking inside, Milan and Christy had immediately turned around and gone back outside, where they were waiting for me. It was obvious they expected me to politely thank Delilah for the tour and say thanks but no thanks. I looked around at the dim living room and stared at the lavender and gold velour furniture and nodded. “I’ll take it.”

The ugly old house was perfect for me. It was just the sort of place that would make my entire family shudder in horror. As I was writing Delilah a check for twelve thousand dollars, first, last and a month’s security, I hoped with bitter satisfaction that one day my parents would come to visit me there and see what they had done to me. When I got back out to the car, holding my rental lease, it was obvious from their overly-solicitous tones that Christy and Milan had been talking about me. I showed them my lease and tried to smile.

Christy leaned over from the back and kissed my cheek. “Milan and I were just talking about how we could help out, you know, with the house and everything. Tell her, Mills.”

Milan squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to fly out to New York with you when you pick up Diana and ... ” She shook her head cutting off my protest. “No, I want to, I have to be out there anyway for some … some stuff. I already called my assistant and had her book us tickets and, while we’re there, I’m going to throw her the most kick-ass first birthday party any baby girl ever had. Christy is going to stay here and get the nursery ready and find you a nanny, so this’ll be okay, Carebears, it really will. Your parents are going to come around. You just need to … ” her voice drifted off, unsure as to what I needed to do exactly, then smiling determinedly she finished, “ … you just need to lay low for a while, not be in the papers, maybe not club for awhile, spend some time with Diana. Then they’ll see how great you are, they will, I know it.”

Christy chimed in from the back. “She’s right, Carey, Milan’s always right, and you wait till you see the awesome nursery I’ll put together for my goddaughter. At least there will be one pretty room in that craphole, uhm, sorry, my bad, I mean house.”

We all laughed and it was good that I had that moment with my sweet girls because when I told Karmen my plans, she went off on me. “You’re moving, just like that, with no notice, and you’re going to New York with that fucking stuck up bitch, Milan?”

I nodded tiredly and stroked Petal, hoping she wasn’t going to do this all night. I was so tired. She laughed nastily. “Okay, well I’m coming too. You can introduce me to Mommy and Daddy.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t really saying no, I was just thinking of my parents' obvious reaction to that idea, of Milan’s reaction.

Karmen didn’t give me a chance to explain that. Abruptly, and without warning, she reached over and slugged me in the shoulder hard enough to knock me back off the bed and make Petal fall out of my arms. Petal yipped and cowered. So did I. No one had ever hit either of us.

Karmen sneered. “You’re fucking pathetic and if I’m not good enough to be with you in public, you’re not good enough to stay here, so take your fucking dog that pisses all over my house, and your sad crying ass, and get the fuck out.”

Stunned and hurt, all I could manage was, “You mean right now?”

She nodded. “Right now.”

Shaking, I picked up Petal and left her condo. I didn’t want Christy or Milan to know, so I drove to a nearby Marriott and checked in. Petal and I stayed there for two days until we flew east with Milan.

Diana’s birthday party at Dylan’s Candy Bar was indeed a kick-ass event. Diana looked like a princess in the pink hand-smocked dress my mother had bought for her and they all came: my mother, her new husband, Daddy and Sarah and little Kells VI, even my long-estranged sisters. Despite my feeling that I was living in a flashback of my old life, my real life, I let myself be happy that day, and it was a happy day, probably my last happy day.

It was also the last time my father ever spoke to me.

Part 5

LONELY GIRL

Chapter 43

When I was a very little girl, Daddy took me with him to Herbert’s father’s funeral at St. Patrick’s. I wasn’t bored by the service, I was too busy admiring the vast grand space we were in.

I can still remember how happy I was to be there alone with Daddy. Daddy had called me his date and promised to take me to lunch at Serendipity afterwards. The priest had been droning on for awhile but there must have been some defect in his microphone because suddenly his voice boomed out loudly, echoing through the cathedral, startling people.

“
In my father’s house there are many mansions.”

I giggled and said as loudly as a five year old child can, “That sounds nice!”

Daddy was more amused than mortified and, after the service, outside he held me in his arms while people came to offer him their condolences at the loss of his attorney. That they all ignored Herbert, the bereaved son, didn’t seem unnatural. After all, Daddy was the richest man on Fifth Avenue and it was only right that all remarks be directed towards him.

Amongst the respectful murmurs of, “Damn shame, he was a fine man, a fine lawyer, only ninety seems sudden,” there were more jocular comments directed towards me. “That’s a fine little beauty you’ve got yourself there, Kells, and vocal too.”

Daddy would either incline his head or smile, depending on the various comments. Later, though, when we were alone at Serendipity, he looked across the table at me and laughed. “So, Carey K, you thought many mansions sounded nice, hmm?”

I nodded seriously, and speaking around my mouthful of forbidden chocolate, replied. “I do, Daddy … more is better, right? That’s what Mommy always says.”

He roared with laughter and, in an uncharacteristic show of public affection, he snatched me up out of my chair and twirled me around in front of the delighted patrons.

“
Your father’s house has many mansions too, little girl, and you’re the princess in every one of them, and don’t you forget it.”

I get confused remembering that sort of thing now. I haven’t really changed much from the silly, greedy little girl that I was then. I don’t know why or when I stopped being Daddy’s princess and became his shame.

As to the many mansions, well I guess 'mansion' is a relative term. To a family living in a third world country, my four hundred square foot, ice cold, dark guest house might be a mansion.

* * *

I’ve never been religious and God, if he exists, probably hates people who try to go quid pro quo with him as much as I do, but there is another saying in the bible. I don’t know why I remember it except that it’s a hobby of rich people to remember things that have to do with them. Anyway, it says it’s harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. I think that means that, given my present situation, I might have a fifty-fifty chance now.

I was arrested and put in jail two months ago.

At the time, I thought I had finally hit the bottom of my slide, but see, you can be wrong about something everyday, right up until the last day, because jails have heat and water, and I think even medical care, so, once again, in making judgments, I was letting my rich girl past color my viewpoint.

It was a stupid, stupid thing I did, I know that. In the last conversation I ever had with my wonderful Milan, she asked me what was I thinking? She hung up before I could try to explain.

A week after I was released from my seventy-two hour psych hold for attempted suicide at Cedars, I felt crazy enough to ask them to let me go back in.

I was totally alone in a way I had never been before, no beautiful little girl who wanted my company, not even semi-criminal Maria and her gangsta pals. They had disappeared along with Diana. I was so desperate for company that I called Maria and begged her and Ramon to come back. I said they could just live in the main house for free, but she told me no thanks. She said that she didn’t like living at my place because she couldn’t use the pool and Ramon’s apartment in Van Nuys had a great pool. I couldn’t argue with her about that. My pool had turned into a smelly, slime-covered swamp. I even had frogs.

Pool maintenance, like gardening and a hundred other details of daily life that used to be covered by my money, automatically had just disappeared. There was something worse too. Beverly Hills is a Mecca for rats. They live in the alleyways and they nest up high in the palm trees. It’s so bad that sometimes a tourist driving down Rodeo Drive in their rented convertible will get the surprise of his or her life when one drops down into the car.

This usually causes a lot of screaming and driving into the sides of overpriced buildings. It has become so common that the rental companies at L.A.X. issue a warning along with the car keys. Because I had no gardener, I had no one to tell me that the rats were taking over my lot and to tell me that I needed to call in an emergency extermination crew, not that I would have had the money anyway.

I found out about the rats from Petal. We were sitting in the squalor of my graffiti-covered living room early one morning when she began yipping frantically and dashing around the room. I stared at her, surprised. She was always so mellow. Then she let out the equivalent of a doggie scream and came rushing back towards me, the pursued not the pursuer. I saw a dark blur behind her as she cleared the floor in a high jump and landed on my lap. Instinctively I pulled up my feet, and she and I both watched in primal horror as a huge brown rat scuttled underneath the couch beneath us. After that we stayed in the guest house almost all the time. The rats were one more thing I began to blame Honeysuckle for. If she hadn’t called my mother, I would still have had Diana and my allowance, small as it was.

Because of her, I had lost my child and Herbert had, at my parents' behest, stopped my money cold, “Pending your voluntary check in to long-term rehab.”

I blamed her too for Karmen not taking my calls.

One night, while I was huddled up with Petal in our hovel watching
American Idol
, the TV suddenly went black and I understood that meant the cable was gone too. I guess I snapped because, much as I might wish to, I can’t write this off to drugs or alcohol.

I had a key to Honeysuckle’s condo. The three of us, Karmen, Honeysuckle and I, had all given each other keys to our places once upon a drunken bonding night. I grabbed Petal, who I never left alone anymore because of my fear that rats would eat her, and took off towards Century City on my last tank of gas. It was after ten, so I knew Honeysuckle would be out and her building has no doorman, so I just walked into the lobby like I owned the place and rode up the elevator, even flashing a smile at the cute guy in her hallway as I unlocked her door.