If You Were Here

more likely to make her expression mainstream first. I’m pretty sure I heard a random person exclaim, “Sweet baby Ray!” at the grocery store last week, but I’m going to pretend they were looking at barbecue sauce.

Still, you have to admit that “bank” kicks ass as a turn of phrase. It’s short for “bank on it” or “you can take that to the bank,” kind of like how Vince Vaughn³⁰ described everything as “money” before he got all famous and bloated.

I tell Mac, “I was thinking I’d work ‘bank’ into my next book, maybe have Ezekiel say it after a particularly successful barn raising or something.”

“Do the Amish even use banks?” Mac wonders.

“No clue,” I admit.

“Wait. You write about the Amish,” Liz interjects. “Shouldn’t you know? Wouldn’t that have come up in your research?”

I shrug and smooth out my map. “Why would I research them? They don’t read my work, so it’s not like I have to worry about my inaccuracies offending the Amish community. Or the zombie community, for that matter. What are they going to do, download my books on their Kindles? Read my Twitter feed? Does the milking shed have Wi-Fi? Seriously, you think Stephenie Meyer spends her time researching vampires’ banking habits? Doubtful. She’s probably too busy taking money baths.”³¹

Liz wrinkles her brow.³² “I’m curious, then: If you haven’t done any research, then how do you know so much about the Amish?”

Mac speaks up before I get the chance. “She watched John Stossel do a report on them on 20/20. Once.”

“And yet my books about the Amish have done well enough to buy you this Benz,” I calmly respond. I wonder what Mr. Stephenie Meyer drives. Probably a flying fucking car.

Mac’s grinning when he glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Maybe if you knew a little more I could have upgraded to the big engine.”

I know he’s teasing me, but this still grates a little. I choose not to explain — again — how my books really aren’t about being Amish or the undead eating flesh. Rather, they’re about what it’s like to be a teenager. I want kids to read my books and feel like I did when I watched The Breakfast Club; I want them to know that like John Hughes, I’m quite aware of what they’re going through.³³

The Amish bit is really just a device for a couple of reasons. I like to write about stolen glances and clandestine feelings rather than big, blown-out, fully articulated sex scenes. The buildup to a first kiss can be every bit as riveting as a couple yanking each other’s pants off, sometimes even more so.

I’ve gotten decidedly more modest as I’ve aged. At twenty-two, fresh out of college and four years of playing I Never at fraternity parties, I’d have had no problem going on and on about my character’s o-r-g-a. .³⁴ But I’m a proper³⁵ married lady now, and writing explicit scenes just doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not judging anyone else who puts out racy novels — and I’ll probably even read them — but writing them isn’t for me. Plus, there’s something very satisfying about keeping my characters innocent.

I’ve chosen to write about the Amish because their stories aren’t going to get bogged down with technology, either. I don’t want my writing to get all cloudy and convoluted because I didn’t realize that Tumblr is the new Facebook which is the new Myspace.

Also, if I had to deal with characters that ran around spouting text message — speak like, “OMGWTFBBQ!” I’d probably want to kick a lung out of myself. Sure, the technology, lingo, and costumes change from generation to generation, but the pressure of being trapped somewhere between childhood and adulthood is universal.

In other words, the point isn’t about getting sparkly in the sun, Stephenie.

While I pout in the backseat, we get to the next house. We’re a little farther east in the Cambs, and the trees in this neighborhood are more mature, forming what’s got to be a spectacular canopy over the street when the leaves fill in. That’s the one downside of new construction in a subdivision. Sure, you might get a fancy community clubhouse and wide, smooth streets covered in fresh blacktop, and a brand-new roof, but unless the builder spends a mint on landscaping, the tiny little trees are dwarfed by whatever house they’re placed next to, no matter how modest. Given the choice, I’d prefer a house that’s older, maybe in a more established neighborhood.

The driveway is way longer than the last one, and under the snow I detect the sound of crushed shells. The house is solid brick, not just a brick facade, like where we live now, and the yard is substantially larger than the last. Homes in this neighborhood are set farther apart, and if you squint just right, it almost looks like an estate. This is a promising start.

Our promising start comes to a screeching halt the second we step inside.

“What’s that smell?” I ask, pulling my wooly scarf over my nose and mouth. I’m assaulted by an aroma that stings my eyes and burns my throat. My lungs instantly feel like there’s a steel vise around them.

Liz breathes into her gloved hand while consulting her MLS listing. “It says here they had a tiny problem with mold.”

Mac points to an enormous black bloom on the far wall in the kitchen. “Had mold? Ladies, that ain’t modern art. More like has mold.”

“Do we even need to look at this one?” I ask.

“Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt,” Mac replies.

We dash back outdoors and gasp for fresh air. “No wonder it was in our price range.”

To start this process, we ran our financials past our banker again. We’d been approved for a generous amount before, but with my recent book sales, we wondered if that would alter our budget. Turns out our bank is very enthusiastic about teenage Amish zombies in love and they increased our preapproval amount substantially.³⁶ We’re not ready to spend our self-imposed limit, but we did allocate more funds to the search.

With this sum, we could get a spectacular home anywhere in the whole Chicagoland area. . except here. Since this is such an elite enclave, prices are ridiculously inflated compared to other suburbs. A sane person would simply go where he got the most bang for his buck, but come on, this is Shermer! I’ve waited my whole life to live here!

We load back up into the car and drive another mile due east.Yay, east! From what I’ve read, the farther east you live in the Cambs, the better. Apparently there’s a whole east side/west side rivalry raging up here. The west side is where Pretty in Pink’s Andie lived, and the east side is where the sad-little-rich- boy-Blane-who-was-conflicted-about-liking-her (and-who-was-not-in-fact-a-major-appliance) was from. What John Hughes couldn’t have predicted back then is that twenty years later, even Andie’s teardown would be worth half a mil.

We pull into the circular drive of the third house. “Circular drive!” I exclaim. “All the best homes on the lake have circular drives! I feel good about this place!”

The house has an interesting footprint — from the front, it looks like a modest ranch, but in the back it balloons up to two and a half stories. The entire south wall is made of glass and it looks out onto acres and acres of forest preserve. I’m already mentally leashing up the dogs and taking them on long, luxurious, woodsy walks where I don’t have to worry about them stepping on glass or trying to eat a syringe or a cigarette. Once while we were out walking, I had to wrestle a chicken wing out of Daisy’s mouth. Seriously.

Liz punches in the code to get the key and we step out of our shoes and into the flannel booties. We’re prepared to be wowed. The ceilings inside are low and sloped, and there’s nothing but pale wood planks everywhere we look. There’s wood on the walls, wood on the countertops, a wood-covered refrigerator, wood paneling over the dishwasher, and wood on the slanted ceilings. The only place in our line of sight that’s not decked out in wood is the sunken living room. It appears to be about a foot lower than the rest of the house, but the carpet is so shaggy it’s more like six inches. I sort of want to do the Nestea plunge onto it.

“What do you call this architecture style?” Mac asks.

Liz scans her sheet.“The listing says it’s‘ Colorado contemporary.’ ”

“The listing should say, ‘Mork and Mindy’s house,’”I correct.

The decor doesn’t get any more contemporary³⁷ as we move past the entry. We notice the living room contains nothing but one of those big egg-shaped chairs and a curved chrome lamp.

“Suddenly I have the urge to sit in here wearing my hiking boots, listening to Dan Fogelberg on my eight- track while I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” Mac says.

“While feathering your hair with your enormous plastic pocket comb,” Liz adds.