If You Were Here

“I got the call. I got the call and I haven’t any idea how to proceed. What do I do? Where do I go from here?”

I’m not on my usual cement bench today. Instead, I’m up and pacing back and forth, because I’ve got too much nervous energy coursing though me. “I mean, I’m thrilled and I’m excited, because this is everything I’ve worked for, but at the same time I’m scared, because now what? I mean, this is a life changer. This is big-time. Hollywood, baby!”

Although we’re in late summer and the sun is high and bright, I feel chilled and I wrap my arms around myself. “I’m afraid; I guess that’s what it is. I’m afraid if I leave, then whatever’s unsaid, whatever isn’t working between Mac and me, is going to fester and decay and we’ll never be able to get back to where we were once upon a time.

“Funny, I always thought that if we were ever going to break up, there’d be some huge incident, clear and unarguable. We’d suffer the marital equivalent of thermonuclear war, and bang! Mutually assured destruction. There’d be no question as to whether we should proceed in life together. But this? This isn’t one mass detonation; it’s a million tiny explosions, but we’re at the same crossroads.

“I don’t know what to do. Persiflage Films wants me to hop on a plane tonight, right now, in fact, and be ready to start taking meetings tomorrow. But there’s so much to be said, so much to resolve. . Do I just go and hope we can work it out over the phone? Honestly, that seems like running away, and I already do that far too much. Or, like lately, I completely lose my shit and start yelling and throwing small, breakable objects. We’ve always been so good about talking things out, but now I’m so frustrated that I can’t seem to stop going from completely passive to overly aggressive. I’ve lost the ability to find middle ground.”

I collapse onto the bench, suddenly exhausted by all the adrenaline dumped in my body after I found out that Persiflage actually agreed to meet my asking price for my books’ rights. My agents are currently hammering out the last few specifics on gross and net points and production credits and such, but the bottom line is, I’m about to be wealthy.

The big catch is that the film company wants me to be an active participant in the process from start to finish. They’re buying not only my words, but also my “artistic vision.”¹⁵⁸ They need me in LA as soon as possible and for an undetermined amount of time.

“Mac wasn’t home when I got the call, and I couldn’t reach him by cell, so he doesn’t even know. Last thing he said was that he was going to the plumbing specialty store, so I imagine he’ll be off the radar for a while. I talked to Ann Marie, who doesn’t want me to do anything without her reading my contract — go figure — and to my family. Jessica and Claire are beside themselves, especially as Claire’s going to be the coolest girl in eighth grade when the film comes out. My mom was totally psyched, and Babcia, well. . Babcia is Babcia.”

No matter what the situation, Babcia’s reaction is totally unpredictable, and I find that charming. “Babcia’s exact words were, ‘Life not movie. Good guy lose, everybody die, love not cocoa all.’ I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Jessica said Babcia signed up for a Netflix membership and she’s been watching a bunch of Kevin Spacey movies lately. Apparently she thinks he looks like her dead husband. Anyway, Jessica suspects this is some bastardization of a quote from Swimming with Sharks. Oh, boy, I can’t wait until she starts grilling me about who Keyser Soze is.”

The truth is, I’ve been avoiding Babcia a little bit ever since Vlad ran off.The rest of my family knows about our current housing pre-dicament, but we didn’t want to tell Babcia because we don’t want her to worry.¹⁵⁹

I glance down at my watch and see that I’ve been away from home for a while now. “Time to go. I’ll see you next week. Or maybe not? I guess that’s still to be decided. Tell you what, if you could send me some kind of sign, I’d appreciate it. Bye for now.”

When I get back home, Mac’s car is in the driveway, but I don’t see a sign of him downstairs. The dogs seem to be gone, too. I wonder if they’re outside. I search the backyard and around all the boxes in the basement. For good measure, I even peek my head in the panic room, but it’s just as I left it last week, save for the addition of a case of pudding cups.

He’s not upstairs, either. Weird. Maybe everyone’s out for a walk?

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about leaving for LA, but just in case, I should probably toss in a load of laundry. Our new washer and dryer arrived not long ago, and every time I’m able to wash a sheet or towel in my house, as opposed to the Laundromat two towns over,¹⁶⁰ I want to hug someone.

There’s a small maid’s quarters off the laundry room, and when I pass it, I hear swearing. I wonder what he’s doing in here. This part of the house was one of the numerous additions, and it’s so awkwardly located that there’s no reason ever to come in here. Plus it’s built over a crawl space instead of a basement, so it’s perpetually hotter than the rest of the house.

“Mac?”

“Miiiiiiaaaaaa!”

“Where are you?” I poke my head into the attached bath, and that’s when I find the dogs. They’re both staring into a hole in the floor and wagging their tails. I gaze down into it and, under a maze of new copper pipes, see Mac. “What the. .?”

“Miiiiiiaaaaaa!”

I can’t even begin to figure out what’s happening here. Mac appears to be — judging from his level of agitation — unharmed. But trapped. Clearly trapped. He’s down under the subflooring in the crawl space, and there’re a whole bunch of pipes blocking the hole in the floor between where he’s sitting and the bathroom above it.

“Is there an explanation for all of this?” I ask. The dogs flop down on either side of me, still peering into the hole.

“Yes, but can I have a bottle of water first? I’m dying of thirst.”

“Um. . okay.” I scurry to the kitchen, grab a bottle from the fridge, and trot back to the bathroom. “Do you want me to just. . throw it down there?”

“Yes, please.” He unscrews the cap and downs the whole thing in a single swig.

“Is it safe for me to come closer? Did you fall in? Do I need to call the police?” Actually, I wouldn’t mind giving officers Older and Younger a buzz. Might be nice for them to see it’s not me doing the stupid stuff around here for once.

“Yes, it’s safe, and no, I didn’t fall in. I cut the floorboards back to the joists, so anything you stand on is supported.”

“Good to know.” I sit down at the lip of the hole and dangle my legs in. “So… how was your day? Were the dogs well behaved? Did they finally want to play outside? Oh, and did anything interesting happen?”

His voice gets a wee bit accusatory. “You wanted a working shower.”

“Mmm,” I agree. “I did want a shower. But what I got is a husband doing the world’s largest termite impersonation. Tell me, are you drywood or Formosan subterranean?”

“Not funny, Mia.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, honey. This is so funny.” There’s a certain amount of poetic justice here. I’ve been trapped in bathrooms a dozen times, but I’ve never actually been stuck under one.

“Anyway, this shower was the quickest fix, because we’re not replacing tile or a tub surround or anything in the walls. All I needed to do was patch a couple of leaky pipes with new sections. I started doing the repair on the bathroom floor and I felt like I was working upside down. I thought if I climbed into the crawl space I’d have an easier time accessing all the pipes. And I did. Everything soldered together perfectly. Check out my work — it’s professional-grade.”

“Do most professionals wind up piping themselves in?” I query.

“I see you’ve discovered the one small flaw in my plan.”

“Why don’t you just disconnect the pipes and pull yourself out? Isn’t that the most logical solution?”

“Because it will ultimately be easier and faster to patch the floor than it will be to redo the pipes. What I need you to do is grab the cordless handheld saw and pass it down to me. That way I can cut myself out without damaging the joists.”

I find the saw and Mac manages to extricate himself as quickly as promised.

As we patch up the subflooring, we seem to have developed a tentative truce. This is the first time in a long