Free The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente) by Kirstie Alley Page A

appointment, and it was love at first sight.
    Dean was a terrific guy, one of the most naturally funny people I’ve met. He showed us all the design books that met the description of what we wanted. I chose this and that fabric. Those pieces of furniture, carpeting, and lamps. I was having so much fun with Dean and Jake, just designing away.
    Although I studied interior design in art school when I was a teenager, I was far from a pro. I only knew I had a knack for it and loved designing. At the end of our decorating sessions, about three weeks after our first encounter, Deano said, “You’re really good at this! You want a job?” I thought he was kidding but, yes, I did want a job as an interior designer.
    I said, “I’m not trained, you know.”
    He said, “Who cares? You’re good and I’ll train you in the bullshit of all of it.” We laughed, I said yes, and Monday morning I showed up for work as one of Deano’s new interior designers.
    Of course I’d never ordered anything in my life. I had no knowledge about purchase orders or working with clients of legit interior design firms. Dean’s wife, Joyce, thought I was a lunatic and thought Deano was probably loony for hiring me, and she was right on both counts. What Dean and Joyce didn’t know was that I had a budding cocaine habit.
    Deano and his secretary, Betty, set up a section of his large store as my “design office.” It was small, but wow, how did an idiot like me land this primo job in the first place? Dean immediately got me clients. It was crazy! I’d meet them at their homes and ask what they liked and tell them what I thought would be “lovely.” Then I’d go back in the store where Betty would help me order everything.
    This was all going swimmingly, and I had five clients within a month. Joyce was not as suspect of my lunacy as she’d been the month before, and Dean was getting rave reports from my clients.
    Then Dean gave me a client named Paul. Paul was a well-known, wealthy businessman who owned an enormous plumbing-supply store. When I first met Paul, I thought he was gay. When I next met with Paul, I knew he was a raging middle-aged cocaine addict. Paul remains on my top-ten-weirdest-people-I’ve-ever-known list. How he ran the biggest wholesale plumbing-supply house in Kansas, I’ll never know.
    After meeting Paul I told Dean, “Paul is a total freak.” Dean replied that he already knew that and that I was the only one who could handle him. Why Dean? Because I’m notorious for handling freaks? I thought. Anyway, it was work and it was a client and he was rich and on good days he was coherent.
    One day while I was having the drapery woman hang drapes in Paul’s bedroom, he took me aside, way aside, into his garage where he kept his Bentley and his Benz.
    “You’re doing a great job on the house, Kirst.” Sweet Jesus, what a red flag it is when people call me Kirst. It culls them from the normal folk instantly. “You’re doing such a great job, Kirst, that I got you a little gift.” He handed me a crystal Art Nouveau box with an enamel lid. The box was double the size of a cigarette pack. It was stunning, and I’m sure it was the real thing, an antique.
    He said, “Go ahead and open it. What’s inside is even prettier.” So I opened it. Probably five ounces of cocaine filled the lovely box to the brim. “I just had it flown in from California,” he said. “Do you like cocaine? Have you ever tried cocaine?”
    And here’s where I broke my professional bond with Paul. “I’ve tried it a couple of times. It’s sorta fun.” I blushed. Jeez! I’d never seen five ounces of California cocaine! I bought my stash by the gram in little folded papers. “Thank you, Paul, would you like to do a bit with me?” I knew cocaine wasn’t called “bits,” it was called lines, rails, bumps, blow, etc.
    “Yes,” cunning Paul said, “let’s do a ‘bit.’ ” We snorted a quarter of the Art Nouveau box—enough to kill us