If You Were Here: A Novel

by Jen Lancaster

  Tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock!

  Ahem, green fields, trickling stream, nice cow—

  Tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock!

  You know what? I need to think more like the Amish. I’ve got to get inside their heads. How would they deal with this? WWMD?150

  And then it comes to me. My plain-talking, straight-shooting characters wouldn’t mess around with the symptoms—they’d directly address the cause.

  I head down to Mac’s workshop and grab some protective goggles and his good shootin’ gloves. And then I pick up the chain saw and march back to the house.

  That tree is going down.

  “All rise.”

  We rise.

  “You may be seated.”

  We sit. Then I rise again when my attorney pokes me, because everyone’s supposed to sit but me.

  The judge begins to speak. “This is Mia MacNamara, case number 0360144237. Good afternoon, Ms. MacNamara. I understand you want to plead guilty to the charge of an unlawful discharge of a firearm, code 13-3107.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  The judge glances up from his files to take his first look at me. He peers long and hard over his half-glasses.

  “Ms. MacNamara, what is this all about?”

  “Your Honor, have you ever seen Sixteen Candles?”

  “Ms. MacNamara, I ask the questions around here.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that it’s superrelevant. Anyway, long story short, we bought this house that was featured in that movie almost three decades ago and we made a stupid, emotional decision, and because of a birthday cake and a song and John Hughes we bought a money pit that we thought we could fix up ourselves and we couldn’t, and then a contractor ran off to fight a war in some former part of the Soviet Union and he took all our cash and I don’t have a shower or a kitchen and I got covered in ants and now the only way we’ll have enough funds to finish the house and start living like human beings again and not like bears or something is for me to turn in my manuscript, which I couldn’t do because a stupid woodpecker wouldn’t shut up already, so I threw shoes at it and shook a shovel at it and then cut its tree down and after all that I kind of lost my mind a little bit and I shot at it and I’m sorry but I almost don’t even want to go home because my husband is mad at me and because I want to take another shower and because they’re serving spaghetti for lunch at the jail today.”

  I gasp for air because all that came out in one big breath. “So, yes,” I continue, “I’m guilty. I’m sorry, but I’m guilty. Whatever my punishment is, I’ll take it, but please know there were extenuating circumstances that led to my discharging the firearm.”

  The entire courthouse is quiet after my soliloquy, and the judge takes a long time before he says anything. He takes off his half-glasses and rubs his eyes.

  “Ms. MacNamara, what do you know about Spanish tile?”

  I shrug. “Virtually nothing, Your Honor.”

  “My wife loves Spanish tile. In fact, she loves it so much she decided to have our kitchen redone in it. The whole job was supposed to take a week. ‘One week, that’s it,’ she promised. We’d have the contractors do the renovations while we were on vacation. We’d be out, they’d go in, and we’d come back to a brand-new kitchen. Piece of cake.” He swings around in his big chair to face his bailiff. “Remember that, Marcus? When I told you it would take a week?”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Marcus the bailiff replies.

  “And what did you say to me?”

  “I said, ‘Take however long they told you it’d take, double it, and then double it again.’ ”

  “So four weeks,” the judge says. “I did your math and I estimated the job would, at worst, take four weeks.”

  The bailiff simply chuckles in response.

  “But the project didn’t take four weeks. After the contractors ordered mismatched tiles and put in the wrong-size cabinets, my wife decided she didn’t like her initial choices because they weren’t ‘Spanish enough,’ whatever that means. So she had the contractors order different items. Then she liked what she picked, so we waited for them to be installed. You remember that, Marcus?”

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  “This whole time, I don’t have a kitchen. I’ve got men in and out of my house every day, except for the days when they flat-out don’t show up. No call, no e-mail, no texts, they just flat-out don’t come. When I’d protest, they’d apologize and then not show up the next day. Seemed like they were intent on teaching me who really was boss.”

  Marcus is nodding the whole time. “I remember those days.”

  “Then, just as I thought we’d seen the light at the end of the tunnel, they broke a water main and flooded my basement. My finished basement. Ms. MacNamara, do you have any idea how long they were in my house?”

  “Two months?” I guess.

  “Try six. Six months. I lost my kitchen and my basement TV room for the better part of six months. I had to watch the World Series on the little TV my wife keeps in her sewing room. That was the year the White Sox were in the series. Instead of seeing the action on a sixty-inch plasma, I saw it all unfold on twelve inches of screen. Every pitch, every catch, every strikeout. Twelve inches.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I tell him, for lack of anything else to say.

  “I don’t believe you’re dangerous, Ms. MacNamara. I don’t believe this is something you’ll do again. I’m willing to take your extenuating circumstances and let you off with a warning, this one time. But if I see you in here again, I will not be so understanding. Do I make myself clear, Ms. MacNamara?”

  “Crystal clear, Your Honor, and thank you so much.” Relief washes over me.

  “One more thing, Ms. MacNamara. There is the matter of the tree.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You chopped down a tree that was more than four inches in circumference. I understand the circumstances surrounding your actions, but the city of Abington Cambs strictly enforces this ordinance, so there is a fine involved.”

  Then the judge addresses the rest of the court. “The defendant, Mia MacNamara, is free on her own recognizance but will make restitution to the town of Abington Cambs in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars. Case dismissed.”

  He bangs his gavel and I’m free to go.

  As soon as I figure out where to get fifteen hundred dollars.

  But I did finish my book while in jail.

  So there’s that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ALONE, HOME

  “For what it’s worth, Kara’s not returning my calls, either,” Tracey tells me.

  It’s been a week since I accidentally missed Kara’s come-to-Jesus meeting with her parents. In between my stays at the Abington Cambs jail, I’ve frantically tried to get hold of her so I can tell her how sorry I am. I even maxed out my credit card to send her an extravagant wine-and-flowers-and-chocolate care package, but I haven’t heard a peep back.

  “I was going to go down to her place a few days ago and stake her out, but, you know, prison. I feel sick that she had to face her parents alone.”

  “Mia, it wasn’t like you were trying to avoid her. This kind of thing happens.” She quickly amends that statement. “Wait, no. This kind of thing happens to you, I mean. No one else gets trapped by bathtubs. Anyway, Kara finally standing up to her folks may be exactly what she needed. I bet you inadvertently did her a favor.”

  “If so, I sure wish I’d hear that from her,” I reply. “I’ll just add Kara to the list of things about which I’m panicking.”

  “But you finished your book. Why are you stressed?”

  “Apparently you forget I live in a barn.”

  “Actually I kind of did. Are you ever sorry you decided to—coughnotlistentomecough—I mean live up there and not just face ORNESTEGA and his band of idiots?”

  “Lately? Every minute of every day,” I mournfully reply.“Things are not great. Our nerves are shot and we’re both overreacting to everything. Like last nigh
t, when we tried to mount a cabinet? I thought we were going to spontaneously burst into divorce.”

  We’re both unbelievably sick of carryout, delivery, and hot dogs, so we decided we’d try to tackle the kitchen. First, Mac tried to do the cabinet bases himself, but the floor’s so uneven that he ran out of shims trying to get them level. So he decided we should change courses and try to work on hanging the cabinets again.

  When we attempted this last week, the whole incident ended in tears because Mac didn’t know we weren’t supposed to hang them with the doors on, and they were so heavy I kept dropping them. Realizing his mistake, he thought we could do it this time, particularly if we used a ladder to help balance the load.

  To mount a cabinet on the wall, a strong person needs to stand underneath while someone with good dexterity anchors the cabinet to the wall.

  As it turns out, I am neither.

  First, we put me underneath the cabinet, with part of the weight being supported by a ladder, but mostly by me holding it up like Atlas tried to hold up the world, while Mac dicked around with anchors and drill bits. By the time he’d finally load up his drill, my arms would get wobbly and I’d have to set the cabinet down.

  Since he didn’t learn last time exactly how much I can benchpress, he decided it would be smart to bolt some of the cabinets together, so I wasn’t just trying to hold up one—in some cases I was trying to do two or three.

  Once we realized I didn’t have the endurance to hold cabinets up for the twenty minutes it would take to get them anchored, we swapped jobs and I had to work the power tools. Mac got all squawky that I was “countersinking!” or “not countersinking!” and ruining the anchor holes and stuff.

  In the end, we got a couple of cabinets up, but it turns out Mac measured wrong and now we have to rip them back down and start again. The whole ordeal was a nightmare, and I feel like I’m at my breaking point.

  “Do you need to vent?”

  “Yes and no. Remember how I’ve always had a policy of not saying anything about Mac that I wouldn’t first say to Mac?” This is one of my rules for a happy marriage. I believe every time you bring someone else into a confidence that you don’t share with your spouse, it forms a wedge between you and your beloved. Problems should either be addressed directly or, as sometimes is the case with me, shoved down into a little ball where they’re hopefully forgotten.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m having trouble keeping it all in and tamping it down. We’re angry all the time now. I feel like if we could just get this damn house straightened out, we could get back on track. I know that’ll happen eventually—the skirmishes in Kyrgyzstan can’t go on forever—but I worry that in the interim, we’re going to let our anger build up so much that we’ll say stuff we can’t unsay. Because we both want to avoid this, we’re avoiding each other.”

  “If you change your mind and decide you want to talk, I want to listen.”

  “Thanks, honey. So what about you? How’d the date go last night?”

  Tracey giggles like a tween. “I hate to jinx it by gloating, but we had an amazing time. He took me to a show at the Goodman and afterward we had the most delectable dinner at Nightwood. For the first course, we split hand-cut pasta with veal meatballs. Then I had weather-vane scallops in a tomato broth and he got a braised pork belly that—”

  I moan, “Stop, you’re killing me! You know what I ate today? Peanut butter and lemon curd on an English muffin. Untoasted. Yesterday I had a tortilla filled with ham and mustard, a can of chicken broth, a drive-through cheeseburger, and a mushy apple. I’m considering robbing a 7-Eleven just so I can go back to jail and get a hot meal.”

  “When will your kitchen be up and running?”

  “As it stands now? A quarter past never, because the cabinets are just impossible and they need to go up before we move on to anything else. We’re at a stopping point and we’ve barely even started.”

  “Why don’t you buy or rent those support things that hold up the cabinets while you drill?”

  Hold the phone—what? “What are you talking about?”

  “Here, let me Google it; I think I just saw them use something like this on This Old House last week. Ah, here we go, I’m looking at the T-JAK all-purpose support tool. Says here ‘the lightweight, multipurpose T-JAK tool is designed to ease the installation of kitchen cabinets, drywall ceilings, door and window headers,’ et cetera. Lemme see if I can find a price . . . Okay, yes. They start at seventy-nine fifty.”

  I slump down in disappointment. “Oh, well, no wonder Mac didn’t buy one. We can’t afford seven thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “No, Mia, it’s just seventy-nine dollars.”

  “Tracey, I’m going to need to call you back.” I hastily put down the phone and rush out to Mac’s workshop.

  “Mac! Mac!” I race to the garage with the dogs right on my heels. Mac’s at his worktable, studying plans. “Honey! Our problems are solved! All we need is a T-JAK! It’s some kind of support that’ll hold up the ceiling when we drywall it and that way I won’t get all crippled trying to install the cabinets either! It’s a miracle! It’s, well, it’s probably some kind of tube and platform and—”

  “I know what a T-JAK is.”

  That stops me dead in my tracks. “You do?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then why don’t we have one?”

  He shrugs. “Because I heard pros don’t use them. They’re for amateurs.”

  I think about the debacle we had a couple of days ago, when we ruined a whole sheet of drywall trying to install it on the ceiling, and reflect on how much my shoulders hurt from trying to hoist cabinets and the resulting tension, and I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth next. “What the fuck do you think we are?”

  The stack of bills in front of me is the same height as my mug of tea. I have them sorted into stacks of “late,” “very late,” and “they’re probably going to send some guys.” Every time I look at them, I hyperventilate. Now that I’ve finished my book, the money’s going to come, but I won’t see a check until I finish my revisions, and then another good six weeks. These bills need to be paid now. Each time the phone rings I’m shot through with anxiety and I hate it. I’ve gone my entire adult life making careful financial decisions specifically to never have to deal with a situation like this.

  I’ve been running spreadsheets of our household expenses and I’m trying to cut every last bit of fat. While I pore over my paperwork, Mac strolls by eating an apple. There’s something about his cavalier attitude that makes a tiny part of me fantasize about stuffing the apple in his mouth and roasting him over a spit.

  “Mac, can you come here for a minute?”

  “What’s up?” He leans over my shoulder to see my array of paperwork.

  “I’ve found an area where we can economize.”

  Mac attempts to not roll his eyes. “Mia, this is all going to be fine in a month. I don’t know why you’re torturing yourself right now.”

  “Why am I ‘torturing myself’? This is why.” I begin to slap envelopes down in front of him.“ComEd, North Shore Gas, AT&T, Comcast, Abington Cambs Department of Water Management, Abington Cambs Bank and Trust, Chubb, Geico, MasterCard, MasterCard, MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover Card, U.S. Department of Education, and . . . Macy’s? Why do we have a Macy’s bill?”

  Mac shrugs and takes a loud, wet bite. “I needed some new shorts.”

  Argh.

  Calm down, I tell myself. You love this man, and this situation is only temporary. Stop thinking of places you can insert that apple. Through gritted teeth and a bitten tongue, I tell him, “I found a way to save a couple of hundred dollars this month.”

  “Cool. What are we doing, switching to cheaper toilet paper?”

  “Yes,” I hiss.“We’re going to stop wiping our asses on bonds and start using Charmin.”

  He takes a step back and coolly appraises me. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Mia.”


  I stiffen.“Noted. Anyway, what we need to do is cancel our gym membership. We’re month-to-month anyway, so we’re not going to lose a huge membership fee. Plus, we’re getting quite a workout here.” All the physical exertion of rebuilding this place coupled with stress has had a marked reflection on my waistline. I’ve easily dropped fifteen pounds.151

  Mac takes another noisy bite. “No can do. Where would we shower?”

  “Here’s a novel idea,” I suggest. “Why don’t you quit screwing around in your workshop and wandering the aisles of Home Depot and actually install one of the new showers? Or hook up the tub; I’m really not picky at this point.”

  He says nothing, opting instead to chew his apple slowly. I continue. “I just saw one of those save-the-children things on TV. You know, where some organization visits underprivileged families in Appalachia and brings the kids candy bars and crayons and stuff? The announcer was all, ‘This family only has cold running water in their bathroom,’ and I got jealous over their ability to take a chilly shower! Mac, we live in what was—and hopefully someday will again be—a mansion, yet I envy people who receive charity. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  He finishes his apple with a slurp and attempts a three-point shot into the garbage with the core. Only he hits the can in such a way that the whole wastebasket tips over. “Fine. I’ll do it tomorrow, or as soon as I get the west wall of the workshop organized.” Then he stalks off, most likely to do something inane and useless, like sort screws by length and diameter.

  I’ll admit that the few projects we’ve completed successfully happened because Mac could immediately locate packets of molly bolts in his huge workshop. When he needed to whittle down a door edge, I was grudgingly impressed by how he’d labeled all his various wood planes by function, e.g., for smoothing, polishing, routing, etc. So perhaps there’s some merit in being orderly, yet a tidy workshop does little to negate the fact that I can’t bathe in my home.

  I call the gym and cancel my membership immediately, and it’s only once I hang up that I realize my mistake. I haven’t showered yet today. If I call back and leave my membership open until tomorrow, I’ll be charged for another whole month. As I see it, I’ve got three choices: I can go without, I can hop in the lake, or I can get arrested.