If You Were Here

preliminary plans about how he’d need to upgrade his garage workshop in order to accommodate the project.

If Mac were interviewing for a job, I’d tell him to bring up the meticulous-planning aspect of his personality if asked about his greatest strengths and weaknesses. If Mac’s properly prepared, he can blow through a task in a heartbeat, like when he mounted a shelf for me in college. The installation took ten minutes, zip, zip, zip, done. Buying the tool belt, gathering all the right screws, selecting the most appropriate hammer, and finding the studs and a lever and the right brackets took two weeks, and I was at the point where I was fine with my books living on the floor. Sometimes I need more execution and less planning, you know? Our infrequent fights almost always boil down to me getting on him to move faster, or him reacting to feeling rushed.

What’s ironic is that as much as he plans and readies his tools, he’s terrible at following instructions, because he secretly believes that he can figure out a better way; ergo, blue stew for dinner.

In order to do our renovations himself, Mac said he’d get his buddies to help him on the weekends.

Yeah, that was a selling point, let me tell you. I’m not sure which of those prospects strikes the most terror in my heart. He’s friends with Luke, whom you may have seen on the news last year when he set his garage on fire trying to deep-fry a turducken on Thanksgiving. Then there’s Charlie, who knocked out a Wrigleyville gas main when he attempted to dig out an inground pool with a stolen forklift one night after a Cubs game. How about Phil, who ended up in a body cast after adding a nitrous booster to his riding lawn mower?

Or perhaps he’ll bypass all of the aforementioned and he’ll hit up his fraternity brother Bobby, who seemed normal enough until we set him up with Kara. Remember how cool and romantic it was when an eighteen-year-old Lloyd Dobler stood outside Diane Court’s window with the boom box raised over his head? The scene is decidedly less romantic when a thirty-five-year-old does it, especially after having gone on only one uninspired date, where he spent the entire time crying¹³² about his ex. Did I mention he pulled the boom-box stunt in the lobby of Kara’s office at the paper? Every year since then, she’s received a Peter Gabriel CD at her company’s gift exchange.

I am resolute. “Not an option, honey.”

“I don’t like it.” Mac pouts.

“The way I see it, our luck is about to change. Everything that could go wrong has. Things are about to get better. Trust me,” I assure him.

Had Agent Jack Bauer not knocked a hammer through one of the holes in the ceiling right as I said this, I might even believe myself.

Chapter Fifteen. NOBODY EXPECTS THE KYRGYZSTAN INQUISITION

“Hi, Mia speaking.”

“I’ve been outed!”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve been outed!” Kara wails. “My parents know about the column!”

I sink heavily onto the floor, as all the furniture is under dustcovers. “Sweetie, are you sure?”

Kara’s frantic on the other end of the line, and I can hear her bangles jangling in the background. “Yes! No. Or I’m not sure, at least a hundred percent. My sister called and said my parents were in a lather about something after talking to my cousin Parvati’s mother. Parvati’s family has been all over her about breaking off her engagement and I think she may have thrown me under the bus to deflect.”

“Parv’s not engaged anymore?”

“No, she caught her fiance cheating with some chick from work, so she dumped him.”

“That poor kid.” I don’t know Parvati very well, but I like her because she’s so much like Kara — all hugs and kind words and frenetic energy. “Would Parv do that? She doesn’t seem like the type to squeal on you.”

“Not intentionally, no. But if she was under scrutiny, she may have cracked. Like when I got busted smoking in high school and I blurted, ‘At least I wasn’t drinking, like Parvati does!’ Mia, you can’t comprehend what it’s like having my mom or her sister grill you — it’s like waterboarding, only instead of water, they use guilt. The government should have my mother question terror suspects. We’d have bin Laden before she finished her tea.”

“Okay, that may be, but I still don’t follow how you know you’ve been outed.”

Kara’s breaths are quick and ragged. “While I’m on the phone with my sister, I get a voice mail from my mother telling me in no uncertain terms that I am coming to dinner up there Friday night, and that we will be having a talk. Honest to God, I want to puke right now, I’m so nervous.”

From the clicking in the background, I can tell she’s pacing. I do my best to calm her. “Kara, the simple fact is, you haven’t done anything wrong. Your column helps people. People have problems. They come to you for a solution. You’re providing a public service.”

Her voice is small. “I guess. . ”

“Think of all the success stories you’ve told me — like that woman who was afraid to let her boyfriend see her stretch marks, or the guy who was too shy to make the first move with his platonic roommate, or the kid who didn’t know how to end her friendship with a mean girl. Happy endings, all of them! Yeah, sometimes you write about sex, but big deal; you do it in a clinical way. Your mom stares at lady parts all day. You think she doesn’t field some of the exact same questions you get?”

Kara warms a tiny bit. “Maybe. Go on.”

“Honey, you’re writing for newspapers — hundreds of them — not Penthouse Forum! You do nothing salacious.You never started a column,‘I never thought it would happen to me, but. .’ If anything, your parents should be proud. Now, tell me what you’re going to do when you talk to them.”

Kara launches back into panic mode. “What am I going to do? I’m going to do exactly what Parvati did! Deflect, deflect, deflect! She told me she once kissed a girl at a party; I’m probably going to lead with that and follow up with the time she walked out of Macy’s without paying for a bra. Totally accidental, but I’ll leave that part out.”

I try to speak in a slow, calm voice to make sure she’s actually listening and not just plotting how to screw over her cousin. “K, that’s a temporary solution and you know it. You’ve got to come clean, because the longer you drag this out, the worse it’s going to be when you tell them. And you’ll feel so much better when you do,” I try to reassure her. “Let me ask you this — if someone in the same situation wrote to you, what would you tell them?”

“I’d tell them they were thirty-four years old and that it was time to man up. I’d tell them the only way to get their parents’ respect would be to demand it as an adult, as an equal.”

“That sounds like excellent advice. Why don’t you follow it?”

“Because I’m chickenshit.”

“Kara, you’re not—”

She bursts in,“Wait. I’ve got it! I’ve got the perfect solution! I’m going to bring you with me to dinner, because she won’t yell at me if you’re with me. My parents won’t make a scene if you’re there.Yes, that’s it! Tell me you’ll come! You have to come! Meet me at their house on Friday night, six p.m., please!”

“Of course. I’ll be there if you need me. But I swear you’ll feel better if you face—”

“Mia, I am currently hiding in a closet thirty miles away from my parents in Abington Cambs. Clearly I am not ready to face anything. Now please distract me. Since you won’t tell me any dirty stories because you’re boring —”

“Hey,” I protest. “That’s not fair. I’m not boring; I’m private.”

She snorts.“You weren’t private in college — at least, not according to Ann Marie.”

I frown and this time my forehead actually furrows, since I haven’t wanted to waste money on Botox lately. “Ann Marie has a big mouth.”

“Ha, I’ll say. She told me about one time that you and her and four Sigma Chis—”

“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Do you want me to come to dinner or not?”