If You Were Here

I chime in, “In rainbow suspenders. While smoking an enormous doob.”

There are three different spiral staircases leading to oddly angled nooks upstairs, and every bedroom has either a water bed or access to a hot tub or both. And wood. So very, very much wood.

“Anyone else get the feeling this place was a porn set?” Mac asks.

I nod gravely. “So very, very much porn.”

We continue the tour, mostly because it’s funny.

“Who would buy this place?” I ask.

Liz consults a column of dates on the second page of the listing. “It’s been on the market for a year. You know, the construction is solid and someone obviously spent a lot of money on the paneling, but design like this can’t be fixed without a bulldozer. Unless they drop their asking price several hundred thousand dollars—”

“Or find Pam Dawber,” I interject.

“Or find Pam Dawber, no one will buy this place.”

We bid good-bye to Porn House and move on to the next listing. We’re there before I can even locate the place on the map. We park in front of a sagging colonial bordered by a couple of scruffy trees. “Okay, here we go,” Liz says. “This is it, 613 Maple Knoll Road.”

Hmm. Why does this address sound familiar? Have I been here before? No, today’s pretty much my first foray into anything other than the Cambs’ McDonald’s. And yet this address rings a bell.Why?

“Have you mentioned this place to us before?” I ask Liz.

“Not that I know of,” she replies.

“Mac, does this seem at all familiar to you?”

Whenever Mac really needs to concentrate, he squints and puts his hand to his mouth. He finally opens his eyes and says, “The place looks a little like a down-market version of my grandparents’ house, I guess?”

“No, no, that’s not it. But the address, it’s right on the edge of my subconscious. What is it? What could it be?” I stomp around the porch, shaking snow off my clogs. I notice a lady walk by with a dog and I smile and wave. In return, she scowls. Okay, what was that about?

The lock is sticking, so we have a couple more moments to cool our heels before we enter. I continue to try to jog my memory. “Maple Knoll, Maple Knoll, Maple Knoll. . ” And then I notice the street address in big brass numbers on the mailbox and it comes to me. “I’ve got it! I know how I know this house!”

“Yeah? How’s that?” Liz asks. “Have you been here before? I just showed a place to a couple, and in the middle of the tour, the wife exclaimed, ‘I threw up in these bushes!’ I guess she’d been to a party there once in high school.”

“That’s hilarious, but we didn’t grow up in Illinois — we’re from Indiana. We only moved up here after college. But I remember why I know this address! A child molester lived here!”

At the same time, Mac and Liz exclaim, “What?”

“I cross-referenced the MLS with the Illinois Sex Offender Database.” Both Liz and Mac stare at me incredulously.³⁸

Liz looks worried as she works the locks. “Was it one of those situations where the guy was nineteen and the girl was seventeen and it was more of a parent thing and less of a sex crime?”

“Oh, no,” I exclaim. “This guy was a full-on perv. Child pornography. Videotaping and shit. Don’t even worry about the lock, because we can’t live here. Too much terrible karma.”

Mac quickly agrees. “You’re right. The neighbors might not know we were the new people and we’d be ostracized.”

I nod. “I guess that explains why the woman who just walked by here was staring daggers at us. Also? I’d hate to get a pedophile’s mail.”

We quickly leave and spend the rest of the afternoon trolling around the west side of Abington Cambs. What’s really unfortunate is that the Porn House and the Perv House are the highlights of the day. Everything we see next is small or chopped up or completely overpriced or full of questionable wiring and a hundred layers of hideous wallpaper and totally not worth removing our shoes. Mac and I are both really frustrated that we may not be able to find a decent place up here.

“Hey, is anyone thirsty?” Mac asks. “We should find a 7-Eleven or a Starbucks or something.”

I’m quick to help. “Let me see what I can locate on my trusty map.”

Exasperated by our lack of success, he runs his hand through his hair. “Okay, seriously, enough with the frigging map. You’re using what’s essentially a child’s place mat from a seafood restaurant, and you keep telling us to turn left into bodies of water so we can avoid pirates while we search for the goddamn buried treasure! This is like driving around with Homer Simpson. I guarantee you there’s no place to get a hot beverage on that thing, so please stop barking commands and let me see what I can find.”

I cross my arms and lean back into my seat. If my navigational skills aren’t wanted, then I’ll keep them to myself.

We cruise up and down Whitefish Bay Road for fifteen minutes, passing the oddly placed green barn no less than five times.

At no point do I mention that that’s the McDonald’s. . which is clearly marked on my map.

Chapter Four. THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF LAKE COUNTY

“No luck yet?”

I’m sitting at a window table at Lulu’s with Tracey and our mutual bestie, Kara. Our schedules have been so hectic that this is the first time we’ve had a chance to get together in almost a month. “Oh, no,” I say, stabbing a hunk of feta cheese, “we’ve found a place. In fact, we’ve found a bunch of places. We just can’t buy any of them.”

Tracey smirks. “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Tracey hasn’t quite been behind our move to the suburbs. She thinks we should simply find a house here in the city, but unless we colonize Grant Park, we’re not going to get all the land, lake, and privacy that we want. Every time I recount an unsuccessful real estate outing, Tracey cheers, “Team City!”

Kara’s from the Cambs and her mom’s still a practicing ob-gyn up there, so she’s been far more supportive of Team Suburbs. Plus, if she comes to see us, she has the option to tack on a visit to the’rents, too. “What’s going on?” Kara asks sympathetically, pushing a big hank of black hair back from her face. Her stacked, intricately carved gold bracelets clink merrily with the movement. Her jewelry’s the one nod to her Indian culture. “My parents said there are ten houses for sale in their subdivision.”

“Hey, I love their house! All those pretty trees and winding drives! You know, I should look at places in your parents’ neighborhood,” I say.

Kara shudders. “Please don’t. I’ll never be allowed to see you if I don’t swing by their place, too, and I already see them plenty. Plenty. I’m begging you as a friend to buy on the east, north, or south side.”

I’ve met Kara’s parents many times and they’re sweet and kind and adorable. . and absolutely merciless when it comes to their opinions on Kara’s life. As I’m sort of charmed by my overbearing family, sometimes I don’t realize that others frown on being told what to do quite so much.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry; I forgot.”

The last time we got together, Kara shared her latest story about a mandatory parental fix-up. Not only was her date forty and still living at home, but he spent the whole evening lecturing Kara on the evils of high-fructose corn syrup and liquor after she ordered a rum and Coke. As she saw it, her only course of action was to drink more. So she did. But then she had to endure a hangover-tinged lecture the next morning from her mom after getting a “bad report”³⁹ from her date.

“She’s right; it’s a bloodbath up there,” I agree. “Just about everything in our price range is either a short sale or in foreclosure.”

“Short sales are tricky,”Tracey adds. “Lenders are really hesitant to allow owners to sell properties at a loss, especially now.”