Read Online The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente) by Kirstie Alley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kirstie Alley
Tags: General, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Rich & Famous
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home cooking his dinner, I’m sure, instead of posing seminude for a local artist. It was also so unlike me, as I was modest to the point of Victorian prudishness.
This marked my turning point—I’d degraded myself, and Bob helped me degrade myself a little more. He called me many names; the most impressive one started with a C . I knew what I’d done was wrong, that I wasn’t a nude-y kinda girl. I felt like shit, like the whore my mother predicted I’d become. It really screwed with our marriage.
We decided to go home to Kansas for Christmas. I had all these decorated pillows there that I’d made when Bob and I were in college, and a Wichita friend of mine named Carmen had made terrariums. Apparently she was as bored and hard up for some goal in life as I was. She said, “Kirstie—let’s take your pillows and my terrariums and sell ’em at the holiday showcase in Wichita.” Out of storage flew my 150 handmade pillows to be put on the open market, but we needed a BIG vehicle to transport all those pillows and 10 bulky, ugly terrariums.
Carmen’s husband, Dick, had a friend with a Bronco, so come Saturday morning, along came Jake—a handsome, twinkly-eyed, pseu-docowboy rich guy. He just “got me,” you know? He “understood me,” “appreciated me.” Good ole Jake. I loved his name: “Jake.” He’d never been married, never found true love, and he was just the kind of midwestern bad boy I’d been fantasizing about. The one all the girls in Wichita wanted . . . Jake.
Why wouldn’t they all want him? He was 27, blue-eyed, with a big smile, cowboy hat, custom boots, and a ripped body. He appeared to be a cowboy who’d just gotten off his horse, scrubbed up, and come to town for dinner. In point of fact, he was a highly educated heir of a prominent oil family in Kansas—the recipient of a hefty trust fund, compliments of his grandfather and Standard Oil of Ohio. Jake—he was so strong and helpful and happy. Attentiveness is and was his most obvious trait. He didn’t have me at “hello,” he had me at “howdy.”
I sold all of my “before their time” designer pillows and spent Christmas with my husband and our families with visions of this new guy Jake dancing in my head. Bob went back to California to his practice, and I stayed in Kansas for another week. Oddly I found a penchant for the game of backgammon at Dick and Carmen’s parents’ house. The best player? Of course it was Jake. We spent several nights studying that backgammon board, with me doing my best Faye Dunaway impersonations à la The Thomas Crown Affair . I dazzled the cowboy with my coy smiles and my infinite wit, but I left it at flirting. Soon it was time to go back to California and my husband.
I blocked Jake out of my mind, didn’t talk to him for six months, and that summer Bob suggested we go home for a vacation. I loved his family, especially his mother—she was a role model for me. We swam and did skits, ate the finest food known to man, played games and a lot of bridge, rode horses, and flew around in Dr. Alley’s plane. It was perfect; I loved my husband, and I had since I was 16 years old. All was well.
Bob had to head back to Cali to work, and I decided to stay another several days to spend more time with my friends. I’d made my decision to be a good girl, and that summer Jake had faded out of my mind.
Kansas is notorious for tornadoes. They are destructive and devastating, perhaps a prelude to my own life.
Carmen, Dick, and I were all hanging out at his family’s house—it felt like my second home, a huge College Hill estate in the heart of Wichita. They were a family with five sons, each one hotter than the next. The home was warm and inviting, with animals all around, dogs, cats, and raccoons. Dick’s parents, Don and Maxine Aldritt, were fun—not hipster fun, just warm and adorable. They let their children have full rein. There was always tons of home-cooked food around, and articles by Louis
This marked my turning point—I’d degraded myself, and Bob helped me degrade myself a little more. He called me many names; the most impressive one started with a C . I knew what I’d done was wrong, that I wasn’t a nude-y kinda girl. I felt like shit, like the whore my mother predicted I’d become. It really screwed with our marriage.
We decided to go home to Kansas for Christmas. I had all these decorated pillows there that I’d made when Bob and I were in college, and a Wichita friend of mine named Carmen had made terrariums. Apparently she was as bored and hard up for some goal in life as I was. She said, “Kirstie—let’s take your pillows and my terrariums and sell ’em at the holiday showcase in Wichita.” Out of storage flew my 150 handmade pillows to be put on the open market, but we needed a BIG vehicle to transport all those pillows and 10 bulky, ugly terrariums.
Carmen’s husband, Dick, had a friend with a Bronco, so come Saturday morning, along came Jake—a handsome, twinkly-eyed, pseu-docowboy rich guy. He just “got me,” you know? He “understood me,” “appreciated me.” Good ole Jake. I loved his name: “Jake.” He’d never been married, never found true love, and he was just the kind of midwestern bad boy I’d been fantasizing about. The one all the girls in Wichita wanted . . . Jake.
Why wouldn’t they all want him? He was 27, blue-eyed, with a big smile, cowboy hat, custom boots, and a ripped body. He appeared to be a cowboy who’d just gotten off his horse, scrubbed up, and come to town for dinner. In point of fact, he was a highly educated heir of a prominent oil family in Kansas—the recipient of a hefty trust fund, compliments of his grandfather and Standard Oil of Ohio. Jake—he was so strong and helpful and happy. Attentiveness is and was his most obvious trait. He didn’t have me at “hello,” he had me at “howdy.”
I sold all of my “before their time” designer pillows and spent Christmas with my husband and our families with visions of this new guy Jake dancing in my head. Bob went back to California to his practice, and I stayed in Kansas for another week. Oddly I found a penchant for the game of backgammon at Dick and Carmen’s parents’ house. The best player? Of course it was Jake. We spent several nights studying that backgammon board, with me doing my best Faye Dunaway impersonations à la The Thomas Crown Affair . I dazzled the cowboy with my coy smiles and my infinite wit, but I left it at flirting. Soon it was time to go back to California and my husband.
I blocked Jake out of my mind, didn’t talk to him for six months, and that summer Bob suggested we go home for a vacation. I loved his family, especially his mother—she was a role model for me. We swam and did skits, ate the finest food known to man, played games and a lot of bridge, rode horses, and flew around in Dr. Alley’s plane. It was perfect; I loved my husband, and I had since I was 16 years old. All was well.
Bob had to head back to Cali to work, and I decided to stay another several days to spend more time with my friends. I’d made my decision to be a good girl, and that summer Jake had faded out of my mind.
Kansas is notorious for tornadoes. They are destructive and devastating, perhaps a prelude to my own life.
Carmen, Dick, and I were all hanging out at his family’s house—it felt like my second home, a huge College Hill estate in the heart of Wichita. They were a family with five sons, each one hotter than the next. The home was warm and inviting, with animals all around, dogs, cats, and raccoons. Dick’s parents, Don and Maxine Aldritt, were fun—not hipster fun, just warm and adorable. They let their children have full rein. There was always tons of home-cooked food around, and articles by Louis
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