If You Were Here (24 page)

Read If You Were Here Online

Authors: Jen Lancaster

Tags: #Chicago, #Humorous, #Family Life, #General, #Suburbs, #Women Authors, #Illinois, #Fiction, #Remodeling, #Dwellings

BOOK: If You Were Here
2.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Lotta skids, kid, whole lotta skids. So my associates and me, we find cash makes everything nice and easy. Cash makes workers less, y’know,
likely to have an accident
on the job.”
“Yes, of course,” I agree.
There’s no way I’m going to hire this cut-rate John Gotti, but if I’m not polite, it will get back to my dad’s cousin, and then my father and then I’ll never hear the end of it at Thanksgiving. “It’s good to hear you have standards,” I add.
“Plus, we got a service that if the neighbors get too, y’know,
inquisitive
about the permits, we can take care of that.”
“That’s just covered in awesome sauce,” I say.
Although honestly, after the latest petition,
127
I’m a tiny bit tempted to learn more, but I fight that urge. I glance at my watch to see how much more time I’ve got to kill with this guy before I can make it seem like I’ve given him my full consideration.
Then he moves in all conspiratorially. “Hey, your cousin tells me you make books. Funny, we got something in common. I make book, too. What’s your taste of the vig?”

 

When the bell rings, the dogs come dashing to the door with me to meet the next candidate. I open the door to a gentleman who, from the looks of him, is neither stoner, nor greenhorn, nor smalltime mobster. I swear, if this guy can swing a hammer in the general direction of a nail, he’s hired.
“Hi,” I say, grabbing hold of the dogs’ collars. “Please give me a minute. I’ve got to put these guys out back and then we can chat.”
He bends down to the dogs’ level. “Hey, is that a pit bull?”
“Yes, her name is Daisy. Isn’t she beautiful? Say hello, Daisy!” She doesn’t speak but instead chooses to wag her whole body in response while Duckie paws and licks at the air beside her.
The contractor leans against the doorway. “You ever fight her?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Dogfights—you ever put her in the ring and see what she can do?”
“Are you serious?”
“Between us, you can make a lot of money fighting dogs. If you want, I’ve got a place—”
I don’t hear the rest because I’ve slammed the door.

 

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m here! I can’t believe I’m sitting at your table! Is this where you write? Is this where you come up with your stories?”
So, the good news is that I have fans who aren’t thirteen-year-old girls. Did not know that. Apparently I’m beloved not only by young ladies who’ve yet to graduate from training bras, but also by at least one forty-six-year-old male builder.
He gushes on: “I see so much of myself in Mose and Amos. They’re both hardworking and dedicated and they’re drawn to women who want to eat them.”
Mac kicks me under the table. I ignore him.
My fan/possible contractor/probable eventual restraining-order recipient continues. “I mean, not literally. No, that’d be weird and gross. Spiritually. All the women I date are spiritual vampires.”
“Listen, Nick, we don’t really use the v-word around here,” Mac tells him, making air quotes when he says “v-word.”
The contractor turns ashen. “OH, NO, I’M SO SORRY! PLEASE DON’T BE MAD AT ME! I’D DIE!”
“No, Nick, he’s kidding.” I shoot Mac an angry look. “Tell him that was a joke.”
“Sorry, man.”
The contractor gives me the kind of adoring gaze that’s supersweet coming from a tween, but something entirely different from an adult. “Seriously, can I, like, touch your beautiful brain? Not in a weird way—I just want to see if your energy transports into me.”
“Is it okay if we don’t?” I always try to be as kind as possible to my fans; they’re the reason I have a career. But come on, creepy is creepy. When his face falls at my response, I add,“I just got my hair done.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. That was really inappropriate of me. I’m sorry.”
Mac tries to break his reverie by asking, “What else do you need to know to bid out this project?”
“What do I need?” He rests his chin in his palms and stares into the distance. “Um, I guess what I really need is to find out if Amish and zombie teenagers in love ever find a way to live between their two worlds. I need to know if it does indeed get better. I need confirmation that their love will conquer anything.”
Nick looks down at his wide, capable hands. I wonder whether, when he reads descriptions of how small and delicate Miriam’s tiny zombie fingers look resting in Amos’s broad, wide palm, he pictures his own calluses and scarred knuckles.
I wonder whether, when I talk about the pain and melodrama associated with coming of age, he sees his own teen years, and if he can find peace with the decisions he made long ago. And I’m curious whether somehow these stories help him make sense of his own life. Knowing that my words have an impact on an entirely unintended audience really touches me and I can’t help but smile.
Nick is apparently emboldened by my encouraging grin. “Also, I need to find out if Amos and Miriam ever get it on, and if so, will you please be describing their union in graphic detail with anatomically correct terms?”

 

As it stands, I can live in a squalid house or I can hire someone completely repugnant to fix it.
Talk about your Sophie’s choice.
Chapter Fourteen
EAT, PRAY, SHOVE
“Hi, Chronic. It’s Mia MacNamara! . . .Yes, the lady with the sugar cubes . . .You’re welcome. I’m glad you liked them. . . . The grocery store, I guess . . .Yes, probably any grocer will have them . . . . I can’t really say; I’ve never checked for them at the 7-Eleven. Anyway, I’m calling because we’d like to hire you to do our renovations . . . . Oh, no, really? . . . Well, I guess that’s great for you guys . . . . Shoot. Okay, if anything changes and the band breaks up again, please let us know.”

 

“Hi, this is Mia MacNamara; may I speak with Lucky? . . . No, I didn’t realize . . . Do you know how long he’ll be gone? . . . Yeah, our renovations probably can’t wait eight years . . . . No, not even with good behavior . . . I agree, racketeering
is
a bitch. Thanks, anyway.”

 

“Hi, this is Mia MacNamara. . . . Right, right, the nosy woman with all the questions. Listen, I’m calling to find out about your availability. . . . You’re kidding. Booked solid? All summer? . . . Okay, then good luck with your new business, and please let us know if your schedule opens up.”

 

“I don’t know, Mac. I don’t understand why, either.”
Between the two of us, Mac and I have called every general contractor/builder/carpenter/handyman/plumber/electrician in a hundred-mile radius, and we can’t even get anyone to give us an estimate, let alone commit to taking on our project. I wonder whether the folks who write newscasts and newspapers have talked to builders in our area, because it sounds like the housing boom is back.
“What are we going to do? I can’t keep living like this,” I say, surveying the wreckage of my kitchen, which is adjacent to the dining room with the crumbled wall, across from the library with all the ceiling holes, across from the living room with the aggressively ugly monkey wallpaper. Plumbing issues have crippled two more bathrooms and we’re down to one functioning toilet and shower. We’ve yet to get the smell of rotting carpenter ants out of the master, the mustiness emanating from the covered hot tub is almost unbearable, and there’s something alive and well in the wall of my writing room.
“We have no choice,” Mac says in a determined tone.
“You realize I’ll go to jail if the dogfighter steps into this house,” I remind him. People who are cruel to animals bring out my inner Swayze. I’ll show him exactly how
not nice
I can be, and I’ll probably still be more humane than those barbarians are with sweet, innocent doggies.
“That’s not who I meant.”
That’s when I feel my heart drop into my stomach.
“Mac, noooo! Nick was way too creepy! I seriously don’t want to be alone in the house all day with my number one fan!” I plead.
“I have plenty more vacation time,” Mac reasons. “I can take it now so you won’t be alone with him initially.”
“I can’t.” I curl into myself just imagining having that weirdo in my house.
Mac is firm. “You can.”
“I won’t.”
Mac stares me down. “You won’t what? Imagine how nice it might be to have the capacity to wash dishes? Use a toilet other than in the basement? Breathe in air that’s not full of drywall dust? Walk across a floor without shoes or with the confidence that it won’t give way at any time?”
I cross my arms in front of me and rock slightly back and forth in my chair. I don’t know what to do. Do I agree to have someone in my home who makes me unbearably uncomfortable, or do I suck it up and keep trying to find someone—anyone—else?
I need a sign.
As I rock forward, the leg of my chair punches through the hardwood and I topple out of my seat and onto the floor.
Okay, universe, I hear you loud and clear.
With great resignation, I say, “Fine. Call the pervert.” I’m too immobilized by the general feeling of ickiness
128
to bother sitting upright. The dogs rush over to lie beside me.
“Good dog,” I whisper into the rough of Duckie’s neck while I glower at Mac. “You’d never make me hang out with a perv-o-potamus.”
Mac whips out his cell phone and retrieves Nick’s number. He dials quickly and walks into the dining room as the call goes through. “Nick, John MacNamara here. How are you? . . . Good, glad to hear it. Hey, Mia and I wanted to see if you’re still available to spearhead our project. . . . What’s that? . . . You’re joking. . . . You’re serious? Are you sure? . . . Everyone? . . . Is there any way to—. . . Shit . . . Well, yes, this is obviously going to affect her work. . . . Yes, we have been encountering—. . . Fucking hell . . . Nope, wasn’t aware of that, either . . .”
I sit up, trying to hear more of the conversation, but Mac’s since paced into the living room. I get up to follow and the dogs trail along behind me.
“. . . and that’s what it would take? . . . There’s no other way? . . . You’re sure? I don’t want her to have to—. . . No, you don’t need to swear on your love of
It’s Raining Mennonites. . . .
Okay. Let me run it up the flagpole and I’ll get back to you.”
Mac walks over to where I’m standing in the doorway. “So, how badly do you want the house fixed?”
“On a scale of one to a hundred? At least ninety-eight.”
129
“Are you willing to make a sacrifice?”
“Like what? Going down two and a half flights of stairs in the night to go to the bathroom? Washing dishes in the bathtub? Already been there, thanks.”
“No, I mean a different kind of sacrifice. One that could temporarily compromise your principles.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“How much are you willing to give in order to get this ball rolling?”
Mac looks as cagey as he did the time he tried to keep the oven fire a secret.
130
“You’re talking in circles. Out with it.”
Mac puts his hand on my shoulder. “So, remember when
TMZ
said Vienna was out for revenge?”
“Yeah, what of it? That was, like, two months and one cover of
People
with the headline
Eat, Pray, Shove
ago.”
“Then I guess revenge is a dish best served cold. She got her revenge; we just weren’t aware of it. You know how no one will work on our house? There’s a reason for that. Mia, we’ve been blackballed.”
Blackballed? Like a sorority pledge who made out with someone else’s date, then barfed in a fountain, lost her shoe, wiped out six active members while she tumbled down the stairs, and
didn’t
have Ann Marie pleading her case? “What does that mean?”
“Vienna’s family issued a moratorium on any contractor who works with us or on this property. No one can take the job.”
“Oh, come on,” I protest. “They can’t legally do that.”

Other books

All Night Awake by Sarah A. Hoyt
Killing a Cold One by Joseph Heywood
The Walking Dead: Invasion by Robert Kirkman
Killer Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh