If You Were Here

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

“I can’t help but adore her. Someday when I’m old, I’m going to stop being so nice to people and be more like Babcia,”Ann Marie replies wistfully.

I kind of hope I’m not alive to see that.