Kris Jenner . . . And All Things Kardashian Read Free Page A

always entertained as if she were expecting a party of fifty guests, even when she was having only my little sister and me. I grew to love that quality, and I think she passed it on to me. When I grew up andgot married and had kids of my own, I wanted to do all the same kinds of things for my own kids. Of course, I ended up carrying on the traditions my grandmother taught me, except on steroids. Doing everything for my kids is something I learned from my grandmother. She sparked a dream in me early on: to someday have a ton of kids and become a wonderful mother.
    G randma also taught me the value of hard work.
    The Candelabra was right in the middle of La Jolla, just across from the ocean. She just
loved
candles. A great deal of my childhood was spent in that store. My mom often worked there with my grandmother. The older I got, of course, the more often they would drag me along with them to work. I would be in the back room, doing my little chores: wrapping gifts for customers, making candles, and doing whatever else needed to be done.
    The Candelabra did so well that my mother opened up her own shop in 1976, called the Candles of La Jolla. So there was the Candelabra on Prospect Street and the Candles of La Jolla on Gerard, next to John’s Waffle Shop.
    Candles became our family business. I grew up working in both shops. When I was old enough to drive, I drove myself to work there. My whole childhood, beginning at age ten, was spent working in those two stores. By the time I was thirteen, I was getting a little paycheck and really contributing to the business by being there at Christmastime. During Christmas vacation, I spent my days at the candle store, wrapping gifts as fast as I could.
    My grandmother actually did so well at her candle store that she was able to keep her home decorated in a just-2die4-style, as did my mother. They liked beautiful things, and everything had to be just so. They were both perfectionists. “As soon as you finish using the sink, wash it out with Comet,” my grandmother would tell me.“Clean the sink and polish it.” It was the era of “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” and that was how I was raised: with a “Whistle while you work” mentality, like in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
.
    Because of all of that, I never complained about hard work; I thrived on it. From a young age I learned that if I wanted to get ahead in life, I needed to work. It was a pretty perfect world: hard work, beautiful candles, and lots of love.
    A few years after my parents had divorced, my mother met Harry Shannon. Harry was a great guy, and he quickly became
her
guy. They fell completely in love. It started off great, but for a while the candles in our lives began to flicker and came close to blowing out.
    H arry was a drinker and he loved to party. It was the era of the Rat Pack, of course, and everybody went to cocktail parties on the weekends. Even my grandmother would have her friends over regularly. But Harry Shannon took it to an extreme. He was an alcoholic. Still, my mom loved him, dating him on and off, but always breaking up with him because she had two little girls to take care of and would lose patience with his problems with alcohol.
    Harry had money. He was a yacht broker and taught his clients how to sail. He was an excellent sailor, and he was definitely a businessman. He walked around in fabulous white linen slacks, jackets, and fabulous loafers. He was the coolest, most beautiful dresser. He always looked like a Ralph Lauren ad.
    He was in love with my mother. But when Harry drank, he misbehaved. Once when they were dating, my sister and I were sleeping in my mom’s bed because she had gone out that night and left us with a babysitter. When she came home, she crawled into bed with us and we all fell asleep. An hour or so later, we heard bangingat the bedroom window. Harry Shannon was trying to get into the house. He was drunk as a skunk. We went to the front door and peeked through the