If You Were Here

“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 sauteed beef and pork and onions. My mouth begins to