I had my doubts about the phone call from a homeowner who insisted I come and look at her house on Christmas Eve. First of all there was something wrong with me that agreed to meet her in the first place. Who in their right mind goes out on Christmas Eve to meet a new client? Do I want to work for someone that demanding? After I thought about it it had begun to sound like maybe someone was paying me back for a joke I had played on them.
Driving to the house in the Leawood addition I was trying to remember what the address of the "Gorda" house was. Could this be the same house and the foreign accent the homeowner had did seem a little fishy. At least I was going to be prepared if it turned out to be a payback.
Arriving at the address I discovered it was not the "Gorda" house but one much larger and rather stunning. There was a lady standing by her car in the driveway in a beautiful fur coat. Her name was Lisa, she was in her early thirties and she had come to America from the Philippines.
I began to have the feeling as we toured the house that this was not a joke and also began to realize that Lisa's original question as to how much it would cost to put something on a window was not dumb but the only way she knew how to ask.
Terror began to sink in as we moved from room to room. I can honestly say I had never been in a house as huge as that one much less decorated one. The foyer was as big as a basketball court with a two story ceiling with sky lights. A gently curving stairway and cat walk led to three bedrooms one on side of the upstairs and the Master bedroom on the other. The dining room was the only room that had any furniture and sitting in it was a mahogany table and chairs that sat sixteen guests. Who has sixteen guests for dinner? The living room and kitchen were as impressive plus there were two other rooms large enough for bedrooms downstairs.
By the time I had measured twenty-two windows the only thing I could think of was that I wanted to run out the door and never answer the phone again. Two things kept rolling through my mind. One being that I had the impression when Lisa had called and asked how much it would cost to do one window what would her reaction be when hit with the cost of twenty-two. The second panic-attack realization was that the was that she stated they were purchasing all new furniture. Walking through the house that day I could not get any feeling for what I thought they would like, colors, patterns or anything.
Most of the little decorating jobs I had done were in houses that clients lived in. I had gotten pretty good at listening to what they liked or what they had seen plus the decor they already had. It was funny but I had learned to listen very carefully as most clients told me they did not know exactly what they wanted. Nine times out if ten, if I listened they gave me enough clues that the decisions were easy. Listening to Lisa and making little notes that made no sense as we went from room to room was terribly confusing. One bedroom was the camera room, one the music room and the basement was the theater.
The interesting part of the tour of the house was Lisa's tidbits about her and her husband, Jim. She, a dietitian, and Jim, a plastic surgeon in his forties who had never been married, had only been married a short time. They were currently living in his little two bedroom house with all of his "collections". Evidently there was so much stuff in the house that there was not very much furniture so they were purchasing a larger home. That did help explain some of the strange room designations but there were still a lot of unanswered questions. They were moving in the next week and she wanted me to come back after the New Year and we would talk some more. My hope was that when I could see all their belongings in the home I could get some feel as to what they would like. That thought was perhaps a little far fetched. Then there was that nagging little thought that Barney was behind all this and I was not real sure I would hear from Lisa again.
Christmas Day came and went, Dennis was off for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day and his parents showed up the day after Christmas for a visit. That week could not have been very memorable since there are no family pictures except that there was more cooking and cleaning than usual.
New Year's Eve usually found me asleep by ten o'clock. Perhaps there were thoughts about how good or bad the past year was but never any resolutions for the up coming one. Never in my widest dreams would I have thought that 1980 would be the most exciting, educational and rewarding time while also being the saddest and most devastating.
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