Designing Hearts

  “I’d appreciate that. I don’t know how to thank everyone for what they’ve done for us. Pam and Trish brought meals by over the weekend. Meredith dropped off an incredible dinner from her catering business, and Kristen gave us a gift certificate for maid service. Chris sent over a CD of healing guitar music. I had no idea when I took this class that I’d meet such great people.”

  “They are great people,” Jill agreed.

  “We’re at a critical point now in her treatment. If this round of chemo goes well, we might actually be looking at a positive outcome.” Joel paused and let out a heavy breath. “That is, if the treatment itself doesn’t kill her.”

  That night, Jill shared the conversation with her other students, who expressed their desire to continue helping Joel and Diana. The women decided to organize another round of meals for the next week. As Jill looked around the room at the students who had known each other for just three weeks, she felt certain they would remain friendly long after the class was over.

  She went to the chalkboard and illustrated the bagua, circling the square in the lower left-hand area that corresponded to the subject of tonight’s class. “Tonight we’re going to talk about the knowledge and skills area of the bagua, which is found in the square directly to the left of the front door as you enter the home. Who needs special help with this area?”

  “I do,” Amy said. Springy auburn curls framed a heart-shaped face with skin the color of fine porcelain. Amy had gorgeous, bottle-green eyes and a figure as lithe and slender as that of a ballet dancer. “I’m learning to be a yoga and meditation instructor.”

  “The knowledge and skills part of the house is the best of all possible areas for meditation, I think,” Jill said. “That’s because we concentrate on this area of the bagua when we want to learn something or when we’d like to sharpen our skills in a particular subject.” She held up a photo with symbols used in this area. “The knowledge and skills area is a place where we can combine several elements together in a creative way—specifically water, wood, and metal. The primary color we want to use is blue, but we can also use black because it signifies water.”

  “I have a huge reference manual called The Gigantic Black Book About Everything that has information about … well, everything,” Pam said. “No matter what else is wrong with that area in my house, if I put that book on my coffee table, am I covered?”

  “Just make sure the information is up to date,” Jill said, smiling. “Symbolically, that type of reference book isn’t a bad idea. This area is also a nice place for a small fountain and a big green plant—as long as you keep the water clean and the plant healthy. Pick off dead leaves. If you have any metal statues or a bust of a famous, smart person, this is a good area for it. I keep all my feng shui books in this area of my home.”

  Chris frowned. “My knowledge and skills area is in my garage. It’s actually part of the house, not a separate structure, so I guess I have to consider that space as part of the bagua, right? It’s not that bad out there, but I don’t think I’ll be doing any serious reading in my garage.”

  “Attached garages, where the space ‘invades’ the bagua, are actually quite common. I wouldn’t worry about it at all. Store some reading materials out there, even if it’s just the instruction booklet to your weed trimmer. You could also put a plant in the window, as long as it gets lots of light and you clean the glass. If you’re keeping the garage clean and orderly, from a feng shui perspective, your mind will also be clean and orderly.” Jill paused and waited for the inevitable.

  “So, watching porn should never be done in the knowledge and skills area of the bagua?” Pam quipped, her cat’s eye glasses perched low on her nose.

  There were snickers. Shelly looked at Pam with a mixture of shock and disapproval. By now, it had become apparent that Pam considered herself to be the class clown, although her attempts at humor were often crude. Yet Pam clearly had a heart of gold. Jill was sure that her off-color humor masked deep feelings of insecurity.

  “I knew that one was coming.” Jill chuckled and shook her head at Pam. “Actually, you bring up a great point. Like it or not, it’s important for us to remember that whatever it is we desire in life—whether it’s a lasting relationship, stronger family ties, health, prosperity, or even fame—requires us to take care in all other areas of our lives. It doesn’t do much good to accentuate the family area of your home if you’re going to cheat on your spouse.” She blushed, realizing what she had just said. “Heavy drinking, drug use, smoking, cheating on your taxes … whatever you do that falls short of the ideal isn’t good for your overall well-being. Remember that squares in a bagua flow into one another. You can’t fix a problem in one area of your life if another area is not in good order.”

  It was a lively discussion as everyone talked about the knowledge and skills areas of their homes and the challenges they perceived. Jill realized from their questions and the suggestions they made to one another that they were beginning to have a much deeper understanding of feng shui principles and were starting to apply them to their living spaces. Over the past few weeks, as Jill had gotten better acquainted with her students, she learned that their reasons for taking the class were as varied as the individuals themselves. She hoped that not all of her students were in as dire a situation as Joel.

  Amy—the beautiful woman in her twenties with auburn curls and the graceful body of a dancer who wanted to start her own yoga studio—had taught English as a Second Language in Tokyo and returned to the United States determined to live a life more in keeping with the spirituality she adopted in Japan.

  Trish wanted to enhance her prosperity corner after a divorce left her with a low-paying secretarial job and a shabby apartment. Her husband of twenty-two years had lost his business and then decided he didn’t want to be married, either. Trish, who had just turned forty-five, had been a stay-at-home wife and hospital volunteer, unaware that her husband’s business was in trouble until just before it went under. After the divorce, she was forced to move out of her beloved home into a cheap, one-bedroom apartment. Jill empathized with the trauma of Trish’s situation and felt fortunate that she had maintained her own stable income all the years of her marriage.

  “I just need to start generating more income,” Trish confided that evening on break. “I want to be able to feel pride in myself and my home again. I don’t want to be afraid of the future.”

  “Concentrate on what you want, and feel happy emotions when you think about it,” Jill advised her. “Believe in the power of your intentions.”

  Chris, a talented singer/songwriter, wanted to enhance his reputation and broaden his chances for fame. He’d been selected for the hit show, Stars, but after just two weeks had been cut by the judges. As soon as his classmates heard he’d been on Stars, they treated him like a celebrity.

  “They said I didn’t have that ineffable star quality,” Chris said with a sigh.

  “What the eff!” Pam said, shaking her head, which brought a laugh even from conservative Shelly.

  Painfully shy by nature, Chris was in his element only when performing onstage, he claimed. Off stage his sweet sincerity was infinitely appealing, yet he’d been told that he lacked the charisma that spelled star power. To make matters worse, his mother, who had been his biggest fan, died suddenly of a heart attack shortly after his appearance on Stars.

  “With the right song and the right break, I can get the attention of a music label,” he said with what Jill recognized as forced confidence.

  Meredith, a single mother with three teenage sons, owned a catering business that she intended to expand. “I need to sell my house so that I can buy a place with a bigger kitchen,” she said. “Plus, I’m Italian on both sides of my family, but I’ve never been to the actual place that inspires all my recipes. So in addition, I’d love to have enough money left over to travel to Italy.”

  Kristen, an attorney, desired true love after her engagement ended, but three years worth of bad dates followed.
“I’ve been on every online dating site you can imagine and have met mostly two kinds of men. Either they want you to be their ‘beck and call’ girl, or they’re looking for a mom and a meal ticket. I’d like to truly enjoy a man’s company without all the games. I don’t want to settle for ‘Mr. Right Now’ just to say that I’m in a relationship.”

  Joni, a quiet, elegant woman in her forties, struggled with “family-of-origin difficulties,” as she put it. “In my family, there is only one way to survive, and that’s to be absent as much as possible,” she said with a sigh.

  After twenty-eight years as a paralegal, Pam wanted a career as a romance novelist. “For years, I’ve been reading romance novels and thinking, ‘I can do this.’ ” She looked wistful. “I have a good income as a paralegal, but it’s not enough anymore. I want to enjoy my work. I want to write books that take people away from their troubles to a place where there are always happy endings.”

  Shelly was experiencing infertility in an extended religious family where every woman of childbearing age was either pregnant or already a mother several times over. Even worse, her husband was reluctant to undergo fertility testing, and Shelly believed he was afraid of discovering he was the one with the problem. Shelly was frustrated and becoming angrier as her biological clock ticked its way into her thirties.

  Jill knew from experience that the practice of feng shui could result in remarkable life changes for people. Time and again, as she worked with clients to fix challenges in their homes and offices, she had witnessed miraculous events. Now that she had gotten to know her students better, she hoped that these classes and the time she was investing in their consultations could help them achieve their strongest desires. She also knew that as she worked with each of them, she was likely to experience positive effects in her own life. Feeling an unexpected sense of exuberance, she drove home, resolving to take a fresh look at her home and make some fixes.

  Later that week, Jill drove to a nearby suburb to visit with Amy, the student from her class who taught yoga and meditation. Amy lived in a newer complex of townhomes with a man-made lake. She answered the door wearing a silk, cream-colored kimono-style dress adorned with green leaves, yellow chrysanthemums, and a wide yellow sash. Her fiery red hair was swept up in a stylish topknot and fastened with black lacquered chopsticks. It was clearly a studied look, but Jill thought the overall effect was striking.

  “What a gorgeous outfit. It really suits you.” Jill lightly touched her cheek to Amy’s. “I hope I can help with your knowledge and skills area, although from the appearance of your apartment and your outfit, I think you already have a good grasp of feng shui and what else might be needed.”

  “I’ve gotten a lot of useful information from your class, and I’ve spent time considering furnishings and what colors I want. But I’m still not sure that I’ve placed my furniture quite right or what else I might need,” Amy said, indicating the sparsely furnished apartment. “I like a lot of open space, but the knowledge and skills area has hardly anything in it. I usually meditate on a cushion on the floor.”

  “You have a chair over there in the benefactors and travel area that I’d love to see relocated into the knowledge and skills area. That would be good placement for that piece, since blue and white are ideal colors in this area,” Jill said. “From a purely design standpoint, I’d recommend a deep-blue Oriental rug, if you can find one. You don’t need to spend a lot of money. Most discount home stores have them. That kind of rug would look terrific with the hardwood floors and that sofa. Toss some blue-and-white throw pillows in various designs onto the sofa to tie it all together.”

  “I remember you said something about statues in this area. I have a gold Buddha in another room,” Amy said.

  “Buddha would love to be in this area.” Jill looked around. “I think I saw him over there in your fame and reputation area.”

  Amy stood in the center of the room, running her finger lightly over pursed lips. “What about plants in here?”

  “A tall green plant would work well. Keep the bamboo plant in your prosperity corner.” Jill leaned against the windowsill and glanced outside at the lake, which featured a fountain in the center. “You have such an obvious love and appreciation for the Japanese culture. How long did you live in Tokyo?”

  “I majored in Japanese in college and taught English for three years there,” Amy explained. “Then I had a bad breakup with a man—a Japanese man I met while teaching—and I just couldn’t bear to live there anymore. It was hard for me there, even though the majority of people were very kind to me. That was a true testament to their gracious culture, since this red hair is a dead giveaway that I’m not Japanese.”

  “I bet you turned a lot of heads.”

  Amy smiled. “After I came back to the U.S., I decided to stop teaching English, except as a volunteer for an English as a Second Language class at the community college. The idea to teach yoga and meditation came gradually to me, but now I know it’s really what I want to do.”

  “I had a yoga teacher I liked a lot, but she moved to Soho,” Jill said with a rueful look. “That was just too far to go for classes after work. Will you be teaching your class anywhere nearby?”

  “The community college has a room I can use, and it seems like a pretty central location. Would you like me to refer you to another yoga teacher closer to where you live?” Amy was already rifling through a drawer in her coffee table for a business card.

  “Actually, I’d like to use the teacher I already know.”

  “But I thought you said you didn’t want to commute into the city.”

  “I meant you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jill saw Denny MacBride three times that week at the homes of two clients. They were becoming friendly enough now that he texted and emailed her several times to touch base between visits. She looked forward to seeing him, although she felt conflicted. Was it possible to remain friends when there clearly was chemistry between them? Denny also stopped by the office one afternoon to pick up his check—something that didn’t escape Monica’s notice.

  “Something tells me that our new painter has designs on you,” she said to Jill, who blushed to the roots of her hair.

  “We’ve got a great working relationship,” Jill corrected her. “He’s good at what he does, and he’s friendly and nice, period. That makes working with him more fun for me.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Monica said. “We have direct deposit, you know.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you. I’m still married.”

  “You’re legally separated and planning to divorce a cheating spouse. Surely it couldn’t hurt for you to consider going out with him,” Monica insisted. “You deserve some fun after what you’ve been through, and I have a feeling he’d be a lot of fun.”

  “Just for the record, Denny hasn’t asked me out. And, anyway, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Jill said. “For one thing, I’m really busy with projects and teaching my class. Plus, Denny and I work together. I’m guessing that somewhere in the personnel policies, it says, ‘Don’t date the subcontractors.’ ”

  “It doesn’t. I checked,” Monica said.

  When Jill arrived at the home of new clients that week to do an initial consultation, she was told by the wealthy couple that the reason they had chosen to work with her firm was due in large part to Denny MacBride’s recommendation. After many years of using Denny’s services for interior painting, the couple had been informed that he was working exclusively with Becker, Hennessy & Johnson.

  Jill was elated and immediately drove over after the consultation to the work site where Denny was painting. She intended to thank him for the referral, but knew that there was more to her motives than appreciation. When she saw him, her heart predictably skipped a few beats.

  “Well, this is a nice surprise,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Are you here to check up on me?”

  “Actually, I’m here to thank you for referring a new cli
ent to us. That old millhouse is spectacular, and I’ll enjoy redecorating that master suite. Denny, Tom and I really appreciate that you’re referring your regular painting clients to us. Thank you. Is it true what they said, that you’re only working with us now?”

  “That’s right,” Denny said. “I’m working on a new exhibit and need time to finish up a few large pieces. Besides, you’re keeping me busy enough. I hope you know how much I enjoy working with you, Jill.” He gazed into her eyes.

  Jill felt a blush creeping up her neck. “I enjoy working with you, too,” she said honestly. “It’s wonderful to know that I don’t have to worry about clients being satisfied with how the painting process is coming along … or the painter’s work habits or manners. I hear nothing but compliments.”

  Standing so close to Denny, she was conscious of the subtle scent of soap emanating from him. He shifted his weight to his other foot, his eyes never leaving hers. They stood together without speaking for a few moments as deeply unsettling feelings coursed through Jill. She had a strong urge to move closer and realized with embarrassment that, unconsciously, she had just done so. Denny’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move.

  “Jill,” he started to say as her face flamed, “are you …?”

  “I’d better be going,” she said quickly, stepping back. “I just wanted to say thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome.” He smiled gently at her. “I hope you do decide to check up on my work.”

  Jill hurried to her car, started the engine, and drove off. She regretted stopping to see Denny, for surely he had read in her eyes the growing attraction she had for him. It wasn’t right to feel this way, not so soon after separating from her husband. It would be a rebound relationship—never a good thing. What would people say, especially after David’s behavior?

  She also knew that, at least in part, her feelings for Denny came from being alone without David when, for so many years, she had been part of a couple. She missed intimacy and the affectionate behavior of being held and kissed by a man. Far from feeling repelled by the idea of lovemaking after her husband’s betrayal, she longed for it, missed what she had enjoyed during her many years with David. Whenever Denny was near, she had a yearning to be held by him. Jill knew that she was growing ever more attracted to him, and that she thought about him more and more. She just hoped that her desire for Denny wouldn’t end in disappointment for either of them.