"Are you out of your mind?" my friend and partner in our decorating business, Bobbie Lyons, asks me as we come in from the heat and I plop down on the stool in her kitchen. Considering the fact that I've just told her that Carmine De'Guiseppe has offered to foot the bill for four weeks at sleepaway camp for all three of my children so that I can move into his house in the Hamptons and renovate it, her reaction isn't exactly surprising.

She reaches into her fridge and hands me a nice cold can of diet soda which I hold against my throat. "Because I'm considering doing it? Or because I haven't accepted it?"

I know, I know. It sounds like a slam dunk. But it's more complicated than it sounds. For starters, there's the fact that Carmine was, once upon a time, my mother's boyfriend. I mean, way, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and before DNA testing could prove paternity, if you get my drift.

And then, it's a well-known fact that the man has definite Mafia connections. I'm not exactly sure what they are, but I am sure I don't want to get involved with anything even remotely involving the Mafia—not after finally extricating middle names.

One Nicky the Nose was enough for my lifetime, thank you very much.

Bobbie, hair in place, makeup perfect despite the heat, tips down the sunglasses she hasn't yet taken off, and studies me over the rims. She gives me one of her let me get this straight looks, which is just this side of her please tell me you're kidding looks. "Four weeks in the Hamptons without the kids? Teddi, I'd be there in a heartbeat if Mike and I weren't going on that cruise to Alaska."

In the imaginary Go For It column, I put as Number One the