If You Were Here

vanity top, each shattered tile, and four metric tons of drywall in the foyer beside the front door. He argued that the neighbors would have our heads if we placed the refuse outside without a bin, and I’m inclined to agree with him. We’ve already been on the receiving end of three different neighborhood petitions regarding our trees, our dogs, and our ability to accessorize.⁹¹

“You like it?” I ask.

“Oh, yes,” Tracey dryly asserts. “Very fetching and postmodern. Reminiscent of Bosnia. Or Herzegovina. The broken tile has the insouciance of a land mine, while the plaster hunks scream ‘ethnic cleansing.’ I believe you’d describe this whole look as ‘bank.’ ”

All I can do is nod.

“Really, Mia — might I ask what you were possibly thinking?”

I explain, “Mac has a ton of vacation time. He’s been with his company since graduation, so the amount of time off he gets is ridiculous. He’s taken the whole month of May off, and he has tons more days accrued after that, too. Anyway, he decided that since we’re not going to be traveling—”

“As you’ve invested all your money in this house,”Tracey offers.

“That, and because I have a book due, we’re not going on vacation, so Mac was trying to figure out what to do with his time. Point? After spending a weekend watching Genevieve Gorder make over outdated baths, he decided he was ready to start renovating, and he’s been ripping out fixtures ever since.”

“Clearly this”—Tracey makes a broad sweeping motion over the shoulder-high piles—“came from more than one place. What happened to your plan to take your time and finish one room before moving on to the next?”

I exhale deeply, and my breath sends little plumes of construction powder into the air. Somehow when Mac explained things, ripping out all the upstairs bathrooms made sense, but now I’m not so sure. “I suspect he may have gotten carried away.” While we’re standing there, the core of Mount Drywall destabilizes, followed by a minor avalanche that spills across Tracey’s Pumas.

She shakes her foot, creating swirling eddies of dust motes. “You think?”

Before I can come up with a snappy retort, there’s another knock at the door. I wipe away the grime coating the side window and see a familiar dark head. “Hey, Kara! Welcome! How was your visit with your folks?”

Kara plows into the house so quickly that she churns up all the dust and she’s suddenly nothing but a blur of bangle bracelets and bouncy hair. “You mean other than the four hundred and twenty-seven conversations we had about my being in my thirties and not yet married? Great! Just great,” Kara responds through gritted teeth.

“Did you finally come clean?” Tracey inquires. Kara’s folks are so old-school that she’s terrified to admit to them that she’s the Kara behind the wildly successful relationship column. Of course, they don’t call her Kara. They refuse to acknowledge anything but her given name — Karunamayee, which means “full of pity for others.”

Seriously, how perfect is that?

It’s like she was predestined to give advice for a living.

Kara shakes bits of drywall out of her hair and her bracelets jangle with all the movement. “Not even a little bit. Ironically, my column ran today, and it was racier than usual because I answered a question on threesome etiquette.”

“There’s etiquette involved?” Wow, sometimes I wonder if I really am Amish.

Kara regards me quizzically. “Of course — there’s etiquette involved in any social situation, and what’s more social than a three-way?” Kara then notices I’m blushing all the way to the tips of my ears, so she doesn’t really elaborate. “The long and short of it is, share and share alike. Anyway, while we’re sitting there having tea after breakfast, both my parents went on and on about the shame that other Kara must heap on her family, and I wanted to fall through the floor and die.”

“Sounds like you need a drink,” I declare.

Kara blithely steps over the piles of rubble, and both girls follow me to the kitchen. “Have you got anything that isn’t pink or sugary?”

I ponder the contents of our fridge for a second. “Of course. Wine okay?”

Tracey chimes in, “Is it sugary pink wine?”

“No.”⁹²

“Something stronger?” Kara pleads. “I may have trouble washing away the thirty-four years of shame and disappointment I’ve heaped on the Patel name with sauvignon blanc.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” I give her a reassuring hug before I root through the liquor cabinet. “Most everything’s downstairs in the bar, but Mac may have some sipping whiskey up here.” I locate a bottle of Elmer T. Lee bourbon and set it on the grit-covered countertop,⁹³ and before I can even reach for a glass, Kara downs a shot straight from the bottle.

“You poor kid,”Tracey sympathizes. “That is so not bank.”

You know what? I’m willing to admit “bank” doesn’t work as an expression.⁹⁴

Drinks prepared, we make our way to my library/office, parting the thick sheets of dust-repelling plastic as we enter. This is the one clean, organized room in the whole house. Because of the majestic paneling, we didn’t need to cover up any horrible eighties peach paint or vertigo-inducing wallpaper.

A word about the wallpaper, if I may?

I realize I’ve previously ranted about how home buyers on HGTV always seem daunted by the littlest bits of wallpaper. In the scheme of things, wallpaper simply isn’t that big a deal. I mean, it’s paper. Anything made out of paper can’t be inherently so challenging, right? And yet now I’m forced to admit that wallpaper can be so aggressively awful as to cause actual distress.

Take my living room, for example. My walls are covered with yards and yards of paper you wouldn’t believe if you saw. Picture a whole bunch of monkeys sitting around on large swirls of paisley perpetrating hate crimes against a group of Asian men who are just hanging out, minding their own business by playing their lutes and dancing their jigs. In alternating scenes, lions climb bamboo trees, tigers run away from monkey-tossed spears, and jaguars poise, ready to launch an attack on the pesky monkeys who started everything. The whole scene is about five seconds away from imminent bloodshed.

The kitchen walls are plastered with paper featuring dogs dancing with clowns in what appears to be a Venetian circus. The dining room boasts large multicolored pheasants on a mustard yellow background sunning themselves in what must be a nuclear-waste-rife raspberry patch, as each of the berries is three times the size of the birds’ heads.

One of the powder rooms has walls covered in pink and fuchsia checks bordered with repeating scenes of Chinese men who are either working in a rice paddy or washing their socks.⁹⁵

Or how about the loft on the third floor? The room spans the length of the house, although the ceiling follows the roofline, so it begins to angle at shoulder height. What would make this room less oppressive? I know! Eight thousand square yards of pastel blue and white Boats of Many Sizes alternating up and down the walls in the maritime version of my nightmares. Or what about the bedroom made up primarily of Chinese men whipping yaks and feeding chickens?

Funnily enough, the horrible wallpaper was the only stuff Ann Marie did like about this house. She says this style is called “chinoiserie” and that it’s very happening with the senior set in Florida. Yeah, well, so is Super Poligrip, but I’m not about to smear denture cream on my walls, either.

Anyway, I love coming into the library because I can avoid the “noise” of the many, many wallpapered rooms. I spent an entire day lemon-oiling the wood walls and ceiling and now they’re as glossy and shiny as the steering wheel in Mac’s car. Beautiful!

After I accomplished that project, I felt divinely inspired, and I tore through my latest chapter. This room is kind of my sanctuary, as no matter what Mac’s ripping down in the house, I can come in here and work in peace. And that’s a real relief, considering how behind I am on this manuscript.

We bring our cocktails to the sitting area over in the corner. As Duckie and Daisy love Kara more than almost anyone, they immediately dog-pile on her. Due to their size, breeds, and thorough distaste for being groomed, she’s one of their few fans. Kara welcomes their sloppy kisses and has to peek around wagging tails and nuzzling snouts to continue her story. “I wouldn’t have even gone to their house, but I had to borrow a car while mine’s in the shop. I swear, if that thing gets any older or more decrepit—”

“Then I’d date it!” Tracey insists as Kara and I both blink in amazement. “What, I can’t acknowledge I like old men, too?”

“It’s decidedly less funny if you own it,” I admit.