"i am a rose of sharon; a lily of the valleys"
-song of solomon 2:1
vases billowing full of fresh-cut roses dot the foyer, living room and kitchen; they can also be found spread throughout every hallway and within all the rooms of kathleen and joey's home on lisbon drive in arcadia.
when you enter kathleen "the doll" grace and joey kiss', her fiancé, hilltop home, you are immediately swept with a feeling of love - for, the house is decorated not only with american beauties, angel faces and pink wonder flowers, but girly baby goods. ludo ludovic, the caretaker, swears up and down that it is a decorating scheme implemented for a party on valentine's day, though kathleen attests that it's in respect to the recent discovers that the kisses' baby is a girl; for, kathleen is nine months pregnant with her and joey kiss' first child.
it's just after sunrise on a gorgeous arcadian morning and dead quiet as i enter the property of 1999 lisbon drive. ludo walks out from the main house, still in his pajamas and stocking feet, with a cup of coffee. he apologizes and reveals that the two are still upstairs, in bed. "last i checked, she was doing her makeup and he was propped up against her belly, telling the baby a story about motorcycles. i'd say it'll be a while before they're down." but by the time i step inside the front door, kathleen is waddling down the stairs.
she holds in her hands a stack of onesises, in mostly pinks, purples and floral patterns, and sets them on the piano. "joey picked this one out and it happens to be my favorite," kathleen says, picking up a smiley-printed one and pinning it to her belly, "joey picked it out while he was on tour with the lost boys."
and with that, joey kiss struts into the room. despite the rumors running rampant in the press, joey kiss appears to be nothing like the bad-boy-heroin-junkie-heartbreaker reputation that the kiss family name has come to embody. quite the grinning fool, he lopes in and takes a seat next to his pregnant bride. he gives kathleen a quick smooch on the cheek before introducing himself to me and asking how do i do. his next question was if i had seen the nursery yet.
joey takes her to the couple's bedroom upstairs to rest, then sees me out. as i depart, i can't help but look out onto the breathtaking view of the city that the property has; and discern that throughout all her years in the public eye, kathleen has maintained one thing : she likes to live above her people.
it began when she moved to cielo; mates attest that she trusts no one and wants to be veiled in a blanket of surreptitious security. her home on skid row was a quaint mansion right off the main drag; photographers - called 'flashers' by kathleen and her camp - were constantly barraging her for interviews, photographs and intimate details of her life. then, one night, everything changed. her once happy home became the human slaughterhouse within a matter of minutes. it took about the same amount of time to decide that her summer home, located in cielo, would be the idyllic place to recover from such a tragedy. within a few months, though, the itch for arcadia surfaced once again; yet, this time she would be bringing with her joey kiss, the future fiancé and father of her child.
"this is pregnancy headquarters," joey says, as he opens the door to a room painted pink and filled from floor to ceiling with items like rattles, diapers, baby bottles and pacifiers. "headquarters has been complete for some time now, but since we've gone public with the news that our baby is a girl - we're showing it off to just about every person who walks in the door." joey continues to gush and parade everything in the room. he points at a wooden crib, hand carved by kathleen's longtime wrangler and one of her many managers, headlock, sitting beside a window. next, he picks up a stuffed teddy bear and tells a lengthy story about how it originated as a prize he won for kathleen at the cielo carnival on a date, though now it will be used as a toy by their child. he begins to move on towards a pile of various trinkets and knick-knacks, each surely holding their own story of heartwarming origin, when kathleen stops him. "baby, the baby's kicking."
it was during a cruise of the easy street hills that kathleen discovered a tiny cul-de-sac, perfect for the young couple. originally intended to be used solely as an office, the destiny of the home changed entirely when joey kiss proposed and the announcement of kathleen's pregnancy became public. now, the estate at 1999 lisbon drive, located in arcadia's prominent easy street hills, will be the home of one very happy family.