If You Were Here

with a film studio flunky who spent the whole time talking about his Facebook page. Sure am glad I paid for a full- fare ticket to LA to take that meeting.

I continue to dazzle the crowd with my insider information. “Remember the part in the movie where Dong and his date crash through the floor on the exercise bike? The owners actually had a huge hole in the ceiling because of a leak. John Hughes thought it was so funny that he wrote it into the script.”

Mac nods along with my monologue. “What you’re saying is that this house has a history of water damage.”

Oh! Hoisted with my own petard!

When we get to the kitchen, Mac marvels at the antiquated appliances. The bizarre — possibly sparking — track lighting in the bedroom causes him to scratch his head in disbelief, and the state of the laundry room makes him shudder. I didn’t realize you could stick linoleum floor tiles to the ceiling, either, but maybe that was the style back then?

“What do you think so far?” Liz probes.

“You already know my vote,” I say.

Mac’s a lot more skeptical, especially when the floorboard beneath him cracks. I try to cough really loudly to cover up the noise, garnering a knowing look from Mac. Busted. “Mia, I’ve counted nine different varieties of flooring and we haven’t even been to the basement yet. Every wall is made of a different material, no two windows are alike, and I’m pretty sure I saw daylight coming through the side of one of the closets. It’s like this place was an elaborate game of handyman Truth or Dare.”

“There’s so much space!” I insist. “And so many rooms!”

“We’ve passed six bathrooms so far,” he observes. “Each one of them has had a different color and style of toilet. I’ve seen black, white, mint green, powder blue, baby pink, and light purple—”

“Lilac. Technically that shade is lilac,” I inform him. What can I say? I watch a lot of Color Splash with David Bromstad.

“Who installs a lilac toilet? Prince? On top of that, functionally, not a single bathroom countertop hits higher than my inseam. Great if I’d like to wash my crotch, but I’d have to bend at a ninety-degree angle to brush my teeth. Who lived here? Circus folk? Carnies? Plus, we are only two people. We don’t need six toilets. Let’s face facts, Mia — this house is a disaster. We’d have to call it Apocalypse House.”

“You wanted a fixer-upper,” I protest.

Mac tries to break the news as gently as he can.“This house would be a journey into the heart of darkness of home renovation. What we have here isn’t a fixer-upper so much as it is a tearer-downer.”

“Please do me a favor and don’t rule it out until you’ve seen the whole thing,” I beg.

“You’re the boss,” he says with more than a little resignation, following me down the too-steep stairs.

Liz is fully versed in all the reasons I want this house, a few flaws notwithstanding, but I need her to help me sell Mac. After we tour the bedrooms, she pulls out the big guns. “Mac, perhaps you’ll be interested in the full English basement. Plenty of space for a pool table!”

“Honey, see? There’s a bar down here!”

When I say a bar, I don’t mean a small slab of countertop and room for a few stools. I mean a full, operational, ready-to-open-forbusiness bar with a keg cooler, an industrial-strength ice maker, and seating for fifteen, all covered in a really retro knotty pine paneling. Plus, you have to go through a separate door to be able to stand behind the bar, so it’s particularly authentic.

“Huh,” he says, running his hand over the place where I’ll wager he’s already mentally stocking cut lemons, limes, and other assorted cocktail garnishes. I saved the basement for the end of the tour because I’m counting on Mac’s unresolved bartending issues. He was hired as a bartender during college but he kept yelling at people when they’d order blender drinks and was eventually demoted to bouncer. Actually, that’s how we met — he stormed into the dining area one night because he wanted to see what kind of person⁶⁰ ordered a banana daiquiri in an Irish pub. Oh, and FYI? This is the perfect example of the hand of fate at work. If I didn’t have a lifelong love of Cool Whip — topped cocktails and he weren’t so fussy about what he mixed, we’d have never met.

“Nice, right?” I prompt.

“Hmph,” is all he says in response.

After we’re finished (grudgingly) admiring the bar, we head into the adjacent area. There’s a big spot in the middle of the carpet where someone’s laid down more parquet to form a functional dance floor. I point down at it, saying, “How many homes have you seen that come with their own disco?”

“Other than in The Jerk? None,” he replies before something in the corner grabs his attention. “Hey, what is that over there?” He points to a platform that’s surrounded by paneling, covered in carpet, and buffered by stairs.

“Not sure,” Liz admits. “We couldn’t figure it out last time.” She and I kind of thought it was a stage for midgets, but don’t want to say this, because Mac’s already convinced this house was built for little people.

Mac takes a small jackknife out of his pocket. He very gingerly peels back a section of the carpeting and lifts a small portion of ply-wood. Then he whips out a mini Maglite and shines it in the crevice, leaning in close to get a better view. “There’s a. . Jacuzzi under here.”

Liz and I are both completely perplexed, although this does make slightly more sense than a little-person karaoke stage. “Does it have water in it?”

“No, no, it’s empty. I guess that explains why there’s a huge exhaust fan over there.” He gestures to a massive grated system behind the hot tub.

“That’s just badass,” I exclaim. “How often do you pull up the carpet and discover a hot tub? How much fun would that be? You could stand behind your bar and I could sit in here and have fruity blender drinks. If that’s not the key to happiness, what is?”

“Let’s be realistic, Mia. The hot tub is obviously broken if it’s covered up with panel and carpet. Plus it’s so big they probably built the basement around it. I doubt we could get it out,” Mac cautions.

“Details! Silly, torturous details! We can get it fixed,” I promise.

We move on to the main part of the basement and Mac grows really quiet. We’ve just entered the area that meets his exact specifications for his dream home-theater system. Not only is this room the right shape and height and width for ideal sound quality, but the windows are positioned in such a way that they wouldn’t cast a glare on the plasma screen. He won’t look me in the eye and all he manages to mumble is, “I might be able to work with this.”

Yes!!

We move on to the basement kitchen. “What is this?” Liz wonders, poking at the black screen and weird knobs. “Like an old TV or something?”

“Ha!” Mac barks. “That, ladies, is a microwave. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the first microwave. Ever.”

I feel like all my good work with the bar and media area might be for naught, and I can sense I’m losing him again. “Mock it if you want, but a microwave is what, a hundred dollars to replace? What you’re failing to see is that there’s a whole extra kitchen down here with a fridge and a stove and a dishwasher. Yes, it’s all a bit Brady Bunch, but I bet it’s functional. Which means you’d still be able to prepare your gourmet meals⁶¹ while the upstairs is under renovation. So this is actually a really good thing.”

Actually, if any of these appliances are functional, I’ll be shocked, but I feel it wise not to mention this.

After Mac mocks the kitchen a bit more⁶² he moves on to the basement bathroom, and we add one more color (beige) to the toilet collection. He’s appalled by the state of the water heaters, and I’m not sure what he might have thought about the furnace, because he was bent over, clutching his sides and laughing.

When Mac finally composes himself, he takes my right hand. “Mia, this isn’t going to happen. We cannot in good conscience buy this house.”

I begin to panic and speak almost exclusively in exclamation points. “But it’s huge, it’s close to the water, and you’d get to renovate! This house has great bones! Think of all the new tools you can buy! And the location! Come on, this is east Abington Cambs! You can’t get a better address than this! Yeah, there are a few cosmetic issues, but those will be fun to fix! If this house were fully operational and perfect, we’d never be able to afford it!”

He appears wholly unmoved by my monologue.

Then I do something I’m ashamed to admit. I try to get my eyes to water, knowing full well that crying is his Kryptonite. I generally follow Spider-Man’s aunt’s dictate of great power coming with great responsibility, so I rarely