Every Valentine’s Day, I like to personally write a note to each of my friends to thank them for making me part of their lives and being there for me throughout the year. Though I closed my restaurant ZARELA after 23+ years of business some time ago I still want to thank my staff who selflessly have stayed with me through one horrible depression/recession and many banner years and the customers that supported me..
Even before I had 337 “friends” on Facebook (I now have about 5K and an unbelievable 140,000 likes on my posts!), that include the New York Botanical Garden and a brand of tequila, I had started to mourn how this site and others had trivialized the meaning of this once powerful and clearly defined word : “friend”. This really hit home when someone recently complained they hadn’t been invited to my birthday party even though they were my friend on Facebook. First of all, it was not a party but an open house and, secondly, they would have known about it if they had done what a real friend does and checked in regularly.
I consider many people I hardly ever see or hear from close friends. I enjoy and invite them to parties because they’re fun, talented, interesting, eccentric, gorgeous. cultured, funny, hip or we share common interests. I’ve started to take a close look at what defines a true friendship and who I want in my life and what part we each have to play to maintain a nurturing relationship that in many ways is like a courtship.
As I struggled to define the special bond that develops between two or more people, I remembered a piece I wrote but never published about my friend Diana who I lost several years ago and still miss dearly. I share it with you
and hope that you too will one day have someone who gives you a red room.
The Red Room
Diana must have known that she was dying long before she would admit it to herself, or anyone else for that matter, least of all to me. Like most of her close friends, I lived in fear of losing her to cancer, the disease that claimed her 33-year old health nut of a brother and her parents before that. But I like to think that she was more protective of me. Our friendship had been long and sweet and she didn’t want to let me down and die. Or that’s the way she saw it any way. She knew how much she meant to me.
A mutual friend had introduced us back when I first moved to New York in 1983 thinking we’d have much in common. Both of us were single, with boys of almost the same age. But while the children never clicked, Diana and I formed an instant bond. We looked like one another –- voluptuous, dramatic, tousled black hair, and big red lips. (Diana was inordinately proud of being able to eat salad without smearing her lip color!.)
And we liked the many of the same things –news junkies both of us, our often opposing views led to some lively discussions. Diana was extremely well-read and had very informed opinions. I marveled at her diction and impeccable use of language and she tried to parlay her skill into a career in voice-overs. She was a good story teller I loved the one about the time she reported to her mother that a friend had committed suicide and she replied: . “How could she kill herself – she was a size 6!
For a time dancing was Diana’s passion, both as competition and as sport. We’d go dancing until the wee hours of the night. (I still chuckle at the memory of her doing the merengue with a midget at Club Broadway –her ample breasts rested on his head and his tiny hands wound around her generous bottom! ) I loved to entertain and we often hosted parties together. (I cooked, she dressed the table.). And we complimented each other. Always poised and elegant, Diana was my social arbiter. She never could understand why I wasn’t enr aged considering the obstacles I had had to overcome and reveled in my achievements. Diana admired my drive, and I admired her style.
Nowhere was that style better expressed than in her various homes. Diana had the “eye” and every object that she picked up in her constant “antiquing” was special. But it was the way that she displayed them that brought out their unique character. A priceless textile bunched up just so and flung across an embroidered ottoman. Red Tibetan temple bells wrapped around a window frame stood out against the lacquered marigold colored wall that she had had redone four times until it was the perfect hue. Saris from India formed a sensuous canopy for her bed and white mirrored fabric tacked to the ceiling of one tiny dining room shimmered in the candlelight. Oh! How I loved it all.
When I bought my land marked home, I sought her decorating advise. Finances didn’t permit me to carry out her fanciful plans. Instead I let the house take shape on its own and it turned out nicely. But when my son, Aarón, moved out several years later, Diana offered to help me turn his space into a haven.
Because Diana had now been diagnosed with the dreaded disease. the project took on a sense of urgency, You see, once, while trying to explain why I make every single dish served to my guests at home myself, I told her that when Mexicans want to give a special gift they try to imbue it with their essence. My friend loved the notion and yearned to leave her imprint on my life.
She envisioned a room fit for Scheherazade. I had been dating a Turk and had amassed a nice assortment of textiles and objects d’art from that part of the world. My frequent trips to Mexico had yielded a few museum-quality pieces and several little collections (hearts, hands, lacquered trays). I needed a setting to display my treasures and Diana knew just how to do that. Uncharacteristically throwing herself into the project, she sketched out her vision, cut out pictures from magazines, got fabric swatches. The theme would be organic –- flowers, birds, fruits, and animals –- sexy and lush.
We decided on Chinese red glazed walls with golden tones. I was perplexed by her choice of a tan tweed sofa and a sand-colored carpet (I was from the everything-must-match or contrast school of thought), but of course she was right. She had an unerring sense of color. Marigold sequined saris would be curtains . I begged her to let me buy an embroidered ottoman just like hers and she acceded. Would she have approved of the African beaded chair I bought after her death? I wonder. I know she would have loved the kilim I was later given. Diana did not live long enough to see this jewel-box of a room completed, but her spirit lives on in every detail of this sweetest of gifts.
