If You Were Here

by Jen Lancaster

  Babcia continues to scowl as she inspects the car from hood to trunk. “Is too fast-making.”

  As I settle her in the backseat, I say, “I promise Mac will drive home slowly.”

  I can see Mac blanch. I suspect he was planning to pilot this thing like the Batmobile on the way back, just to lessen their time together in such an enclosed space.

  “How was your flight?” Mac gamely ventures.

  “No talk while drive,” she replies icily.

  He gives me a desperate look while I offer a small shrug in return. “Babcia, does that mean no one talks or just Mac can’t talk?”

  “Warehouse.”

  “Warehouse? I’m not sure I follow you, Babcia.” A little Babcia 101 for you? The question you ask often has little to no bearing on the question she’ll answer.

  “Warehouse.”

  “Do you want to go to Costco?” I probably don’t even need to mention how Babcia feels about their liberal free-sample policies.

  Or how she’s since been banned from all Miami-Dade County locations after the whole Foreman Grill unpleasantness.

  “WAREHOUSE.”

  “I think she’s asking where the house is. We’re about half an hour from here, depending on traffic, Babcia,” Mac interjects helpfully, only to be met with a steely glare and a bony finger pointed in his direction. Realizing the error of his attempt to interpret, he slinks down so low in his seat I wonder if he can even see over the dashboard.

  Then Babcia reaches around the seat in front of her and takes her bony finger and pokes me in the stomach so hard I think she hits my spine. “Why fat, moja zabko? Is baby?”

  You know, it’s possible this visit wasn’t my best idea.

  “I need you now!”

  His desperation is palpable.

  “Mac, let me finish getting the coffee together. You can spend thirty seconds alone with her.” I roll my eyes and leisurely pour the carton of half-and-half into a white ceramic cow-shaped creamer. “Last I saw, she and Daisy were hanging out together on the couch in the living room, thick as thieves. How could that possibly be problematic?”

  “Oh? Oh, really?” he questions me, his arms wrapped around himself in a very protective, albeit somewhat feminine position. “Then you’re not at all concerned about her squeezing Daisy’s hindquarters and muttering things like ‘tender’ and ‘make delicious.’ ”

  “Not even a little bit,” I reply. That I put pep in my step filling the coffee cups and getting back to the living room is entirely coincidental.

  I run a white dish towel over the coffee table before I set down the tray. With a couple of swipes, it turns completely gray. Even though we’re not actively tearing anything down right now, the grit and dust remain. I look forward to this eventually not being the case. Today I started coughing, and from what I hacked up, you’d assume I was a coal miner.

  While Mac attempts to make himself invisible on the opposite side of the couch, Babcia eyes me as I sit down. “You make movie.”

  I serve Babcia her coffee and hand her the cream, having presweetened her coffee.115 “I don’t have a definitive answer yet. Maybe? A couple of places are interested in buying my stories, but my level of involvement may vary with each. If HBO—Wait. Do you know what HBO is?”

  She nods with great conviction. “Tony Soprano.”

  “Right. If HBO wants it, then basically I’ve sold them the idea and they take my book and they hire someone else to write a pilot—first episode—based on it. If Persiflage—it’s a film studio—wants it, then they’ll have me re-work the script I already wrote.”

  “What problem? You already write.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t quite work like you’d think it would. I’ll know a little more today, because I’ve got a conference call with Persiflage.” What I don’t tell her is that this potential sale would more than pay for the repairs and renovations. We got our estimates back and they’re all a little terrifying. As of now, our home-equity line of credit will just barely cover everything we need to do.

  Babcia straightens in her seat and gets very serious. “You tell no turtle.”

  “Got it. No Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my movie.” When I first started writing, I explained to Babcia that I wrote stories for kids and that she wouldn’t like them. As of now, she’s not read any of my books. I hope to keep it that way, as I don’t relish the thought of having to explain, “Why no zipper?” “Why no car?” “Why eat peoples?”

  “Mac, will you be around today at three o’clock? I’d like for someone to keep Babcia company while I’m on the phone,” I request.

  “Wow, you know I’d love to, but I can’t. Meeting with the attorney this afternoon, remember?”

  Mac’s managed to schedule everything he’s been procrastinating doing since we moved up here. In the past twenty-four hours, he’s had breakfast with our accountant, he’s gotten a cavity filled, he met with the guy from the security company about upgrading our alarm system, and after he sees the attorney this afternoon, he’s playing a late round of golf116 with our insurance agent in order to get a better idea about the differences between term and whole-life coverage.

  In other words, yes, he is that desperate to get away from Babcia.

  “Okay, honey, but if I’m going to be tied up, maybe you can take Babcia back to her hotel? I don’t want her to be bored.”

  Mac turns about fifteen shades of purple, but before he can manufacture another excuse, Babcia says, “No. I stay. I cook.” Then she gives Daisy a proprietary pat on the head.

  So, yeah, I’ll bring the dogs upstairs with me when I have my conference call.

  “Very interested,” I tell Natalie. “Superinterested. Persiflage sounds like this is a done deal if I want it to be. The conversation could not have gone better.”

  “Then why aren’t you more excited?” she presses. “Are you worried about the workload? You said the book was coming along. Obviously you wouldn’t start on any television project until you finished the work in progress.”

  I wrap the curly phone cord around a finger and gaze up at the ceiling. Oh, great. Water spot. I’ll add that to the list. “No, it’s not the writing—that, I love. I’m just . . . Well, it sounds like Persiflage is really hands-on. They’d want me in LA while I rewrote the script, and then they talked about me staying on while they did the casting and stuff.”

  “We’d negotiate to get you paid for each step of the process, no worries.”

  “Right, of course. That’s not it. Truth is, I kind of hate the idea of being away from home for so long. I’d miss Mac and all the pets and my friends. I don’t really have a life I can just step out of and run off to Los Angeles, you know?”

  While we were on the phone, the more gung ho the producers got, the more reticent I became. I guess they’re so used to people who’d sell their firstborn to get a screenplay sold that my hesitancy intrigued them. They kept putting me on hold to hash out details, and each time they came back on the line, they were more and more fired up.

  “Mia, do you want to play in the big leagues or not?”

  That is the million-dollar question. I desperately want to witness my characters coming to life on-screen. Seeing actors turn the characters I love so much into three-dimensional beings has been my goal since the day I started my first manuscript. I’ve lost myself in fantasy after fantasy of how the set would come across on-screen. Would the film be dark and foreboding in a nod to the culture of zombies within it? Or would producers opt to make the movie more of a rom-com, emphasizing the lighthearted moments, turning Amos and Miriam’s love candy-colored and upbeat? The opportunity to have creative minds poring over my work, bringing every detail of the story to a mass audience, is something I’d do almost anything to experience.

  For the most part.

  What scares me is that I want no part of the celebrity that might come along with having my movie made. I don’t want to end up being the story. I mean, I enjoy having the kind of job where people are familiar
with my work, but the last thing I want is stringers for TMZ and Radar Online following me around trying to get candids of me buying coffee or shopping for toilet paper. I can’t handle that kind of scrutiny.

  I guess I always go back to John Hughes’s example. He didn’t drop out of sight because he wasn’t producing work anymore. The reason Hughes went all J. D. Salinger is because he didn’t like how the “Hollywood machine” used up his friends and colleagues. He hated the person the business was turning him into, so he brought his family back home to Illinois. Maybe I’m being silly to be so hesitant to travel down a path so fraught with potential hazards.

  I mean, look at what Hollywood did to Vienna. She spent her first twenty years in luxury but obscurity. Vienna used to have real potential, maybe not as a terribly nice person, but definitely as a scholar. The tabloids never mention that she went to Brown University. She might have needed her parents’ name to get into that college, but if she lasted three years, that’s because she made the effort. It wasn’t until she turned twenty-one and came into her trust fund that she hired herself a publicist, dropped out of school, and started chasing fame.

  She probably never meant to become a caricature of herself, yet here she is. She chased fame and she caught it. And now fame/ Hollywood/the media has ruined her potential for being a person of value. I hate that, and I fear how even a tiny portion of drinking my own Kool-Aid could change me as a person.

  And yet getting involved in the business by selling my rights would solve all our financial troubles, so I can’t just dismiss it. On the one hand I’m flattered by their interest, and on the other, I’m terrified and I haven’t a clue as to how to proceed.

  Before I can give Nat an answer, I hear a commotion outside. I’m up in what was originally supposed to be my writing room before I annexed the library, and it affords an unencumbered view of the driveway. When I look out the window, I see what horror films would classify as “angry villagers,” only instead of waving pitchforks and torches, they’re shaking . . . ornamental cabbages?

  “Listen, something’s up here. Lemme call you back.” I bang down the phone before Nat can get another word out. I’m not sure what’s going on in my driveway, but as the casserole ship sailed long ago, it’s definitely not the welcome wagon.

  As I dash down the stairs, I’m stopped in my tracks by the smell of something delicious. I have to give Babcia extra props for volunteering to create a meal in our messed-up kitchen. She seems to have had no issues working around a downed cabinet and a bunch of rubble. I’m glad to note the oven’s functional, even if the door is all bashed up.

  The air is thick with the scent of simmering garlic and sautéed beef and pork and onions. My mouth begins to water. One whiff of Babcia’s cooking and I’m instantly transported back to my childhood. Babcia must be in a good mood,117 because she’s making my favorite dish, golabki.

  I’m almost at the front door when I put the pieces of this particular puzzle together.

  Golabki.

  Babcia’s cooking golabki.

  We had a couple of pounds of ground beef and pork in the fridge from when I forbade Mac to make chili last time. Even though I’m not a huge cook, I always keep an ample stock of fresh onions in the house, and I’d be kicked out of my father’s Italian side of the family if I didn’t have an endless supply of garlic on hand. I had all the necessary pantry staples for golabki, too, like rice and beef stock.

  But I did not have cabbage.

  And I’m not walking distance from the grocery store.

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  With great trepidation, I open the front door, whereupon Elbow Patches lunges at me with half a head of ornamental cabbage. “You did this! I know you did this! The trail of dirt leads directly from my planter beds to your front door! You wiped out half a block of our cabbage!” A host of angry neighbors stands behind him, all nodding grimly.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” I plead.“You see, I have an elderly, infirm relative here and she wanted to do some cooking and I think she just got confused. I understand how mad you all are and I can’t apologize enough.”

  “You have to replace them,” says a woman one row back.

  “Yes, yes, of course. How do you want me to do this—shall I write you all a check or do you want me to—” Before I can figure out how to properly make amends to a dozen households, the screaming begins.

  Lululemon’s updated her look for summer and today she’s sporting a colorful tennis skirt and racer-back tank. But we have no time for a sartorial discussion, as I’m pretty sure a blood vessel is about to pop in her forehead.

  “That woman flashed my children!” I turn to see her gesturing at Babcia, who’s materialized behind my right shoulder.

  I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear what comes next.

  And I’m pretty sure I have no choice.

  “We were on our beach and we looked up and suddenly there she was! Naked! That crazy woman was naked on our beach!” Lululemon shrieks.

  “Babcia, tell me this isn’t true,” I demand. She offers nothing but a shrug in return.

  I take a couple of slow, steady breaths to compensate for having forgotten to breathe for the last minute.

  One of the (many) things I didn’t pay attention to when we bought this house was our odd plat of survey. Whereas it looks like we have full beach access in back, our property is actually shaped like a very big saucepan with a tiny handle, meaning we have only about twenty square feet of beach rights in that handle. And our part’s a rocky outcropping. We can still get in the water (if we climb jagged rocks), but essentially any sand at the back of my house belongs to Lululemon.

  “Can you at least give your version of events?” I beg.

  “Is hot; I swim.”

  This is not the explanation Lululemon was looking for. “She was naked!”

  “You weren’t naked; tell me you weren’t naked.” Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please.

  Babcia shrugs again. “Is hot; I swim. What? You want I swim clothing?” She flaps the ruffle of her collar at me. “Marc Jacobs don’t like get wet.”

  Just when I think the situation can’t get more awkward, Citizen Cane moves from the back of the group to the front and begins to bark, “Hey! I know her! She stole my cane! That’s the woman who ran off with my cane in the restaurant at the Stag’s Leap last night!”

  I stand corrected; this situation can indeed be more awkward.

  The temperature of the mob begins to shift from “angry” to something more akin to “lynch.”

  “She’s eighty years old! I’m sure she thought she was grabbing her own cane. Please,” I implore, “we can work this out. Babcia, you grabbed his cane by accident, right?”

  “I want my cane! Look at me!” Citizen Cane waves a large Chicago Bears logo umbrella at me. “I have to use this to walk!” I remember the specifics of his cane now and I think I understand the problem.

  “To nie Polski! 118 Eagle not belong you!” Sure, of course. Because, in Babcia’s world, no one can possess anything with an eagle on it except for a Polish person. This is due to her great affinity for the Polish coat of arms. The eagle on the half dollar makes her crazy, and we don’t even allow her to go to the mall with the American Eagle store anymore.119

  Then, before I realize what’s happening, Babcia sprints out the door and comes face-to-face with Citizen Cane, whereupon they stare each other down like Gamera versus Godzilla.

  “What about my cabbage?” someone in the crowd shouts, causing others gathered to echo the same sentiments. This is followed by Lululemon demanding Babcia be charged as a sex predator.

  The New Madrid fault line stretches through six states in the central part of America, including Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois. I learned about it in third-grade science class. Our teacher told us how it had the capacity to produce a quake up to a 7.7 magnitude. Growing up, I was terrified of a potential earthquake, and I lived in a constant state of worry that the earth would
begin to violently shake and roll and fissures would open up and swallow me whole.

  I’d sure like a fissure right about now.

  Fortunately, I’m able to keep the situation from devolving further by writing some checks,120 and eventually the crowd disperses.

  As the last person exits the driveway, Babcia turns to me and gives me a triumphant smile.

  “Golabki time.”

  For the record?

  I’m pretty sure I’m out of the running for the dessert course at the next neighborhood progressive dinner.

  Chapter Thirteen

  CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

  “After all that, did Babcia leave without incident?” Ann Marie asks during our weekly call. Because she’s so busy, we actually have a standing appointment to catch up every Tuesday from noon to one thirty p.m. Her secretary blocks the time off on her calendar and brings down a world of hurt on anyone who tries to disturb us.121

  I sigh. “Um, sort of. On Sunday, when I was upstairs writing and she was supposedly napping, she cornered Mac and told him she wanted to clean our house. Mac was so thrilled that she’d not only actually spoken to him directly but also seemed to be taking responsibility for her actions that he was all, ‘Yes, of course, Babcia, anything you say.’ So she and some random crew of Polish ladies—mind you, I have no idea who they were or where they came from—they got this place spotless. When they finished, Mac was all, ‘Thank you!’ and then Babcia goes, ‘Four hundred dollars. Plus tip. Big tip. Babcia don’t like cheap.’”

  “He never saw it coming, did he?”

  I laugh despite the six-hundred-dollar hit on our bank account. “We’ve been married how long, ten years? And the poor guy has yet to figure out how Babcia operates. This is what happens when he doesn’t communicate with me. Had he just run the cleaning idea past me, I’d have stopped them both. I mean, did he forget that Christmas when we stayed with her and she tried to charge him for using hot water?”122