If You Were Here

by Jen Lancaster

  “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.

  She continues. “So, construction, how’s that going? Please tell me you’ve finally started making decisions about that house with your head and not your heart.”

  I’m very pleased to tell her, “We did a ton of research on how to select a contractor, and we conducted a number of interviews.”

  “Why, Grasshopper, there may be hope for you yet. When does work begin?”

  “That’s still TBD.”

  “Oh, did they all run away screaming when they saw the place, too?” We’re on speakerphone, which means I can hear her tapping a box of Marlboro Reds, followed by the tearing of cellophane. Then I note the familiar clink of a crystal ashtray being placed on her desk, the whoosh of a lighter, and a deep intake of breath. I’ve heard it all a million times before.

  Ann Marie’s secret shame is that she hasn’t been able to conquer her addiction to smoking. She’s done the patch, the gum, Chantix, acupuncture, hypnosis, aromatherapy, psychotherapy, support groups, herbal cigarettes, an ill-advised weekend in a sweat lodge, and cold turkey/sheer willpower. Every time she fails, it’s . . . not pretty.

  You know how families stage interventions to force their loved ones to stop a destructive behavior like drugs or alcohol? Ann Marie’s husband gathered all her friends, family, and associates to beg her to please start smoking again because her attempts at quitting were ruining the lives of everyone around her.

  She’s gotten her habit down to the point that she’ll smoke only at work. Her office is located in a municipal building—not only does everyone in the building turn the other way when she blatantly violates the city’s no-smoking statute, but her boss even had a special fan and vent system installed for her. In college we used to call her “the Bear,” which was short for “Don’t taunt the bear.”

  “No, smarty-pants, they didn’t. None of our top choices were available, and I’m so disappointed. The one guy would have kept us in stitches, and there was a female contractor who was just so cool and interesting. The third guy was all Zen and socially responsible and I loved knowing that my hiring him would directly benefit Habitat for Humanity.”

  While we chat, I’m lying on the couch in the library, staring up at the gaping holes in the ceiling. Because we have such extensive termite damage, the handyman we contacted after the fact couldn’t repair the openings and we have to wait for our contractor. On the one hand, I’m a fan of how much more light this room gets, but on the other, I’m not so thrilled by the source. Given the choice, I’d rather have a dark library and two additional functioning bathrooms.

  I go on: “Plus, I really looked forward to having coffee with them before they started work for the day. I’d try to make them happy to come to the job site with theme breakfasts and stuff. Monday could be Munchkin Doughnut Day, followed by Turkey Bacon Tuesday and Waffle Wednesday. I can’t think of anything for Thursday yet, but we’d have Fresh Fruit Friday and, if they wanted overtime, Sausage, Egg, and Cheese (Biscuit) Saturday.”

  “That’s not the worst idea you ever had.” When she says it like that, I’m not sure I want to ask her what my worst idea ever was, because I suspect I don’t want to hear the answer.

  “Um, thank you? Anyway, the guide actually stressed hiring someone you’d want to have over for dinner. Doing quality work is only one aspect. When you’re going to have a person managing a team in your house for what could be months, you have to make sure your personalities mesh or the experience is going to be awful for everyone.”

  Ann Marie is noncommittal on her end of the phone. “I see. Go on.”

  “I guess it’s understandable that these contractors are all busy, because they interviewed so well. The guide said you don’t want a contractor who actually needs the work. But that’s kind of weird to me. Like, why are they even going out to talk to potential new clients if they won’t have time to take you on?”

  “Ours is not to ask why,” Ann Marie replies. See? Do you see how much calmer and more serene she is while she’s smoking? One of her tricks is to deny herself cigarettes when she’s going to court because it makes her extra aggressive.123

  “What really sucks is that none of the B-teams we interviewed can take our job, either. I guess with summer coming on, everyone’s Is really ratcheting up the home repairs.”

  I can hear Ann Marie exhale sharply on the other end of the line. “None of them? How many second choices did you have?”

  “We did seven interviews in all, three we loved and four we really liked. All of them came highly recommended.”

  “Uh-huh, and did they all seem interested in the job when you first approached them?” She’s trying to get at something, but I’m not too concerned. She’s always trying to get at something. She sees conspiracy theories everywhere. When her kids were younger and she’d watch children’s programming with them, she’d always go on and on about the Sesame Street industrial complex.124

  “Well, yeah, or else they wouldn’t have met with us. As of now, to fix everything in this place, it’s a six-figure job. We had to take out a second mortgage to pay for it all.”

  When I say the cost out loud, I get a stomach cramp. I knew everything would be expensive and that the home’s price reflected the need for updates, but there’s still something about seeing all those zeroes on a piece of paper that makes me more than a little queasy. Do you know how much melodramatic zombie longing I’ll have to write to compensate for that kind of money? For six figures, I may even have to let Mose and Ishmael get to second base with their crushes.125 Argh.

  “To recap, you’ve met with seven contractors and you already have your financing secured. This is a big-ticket job and it’s the kind of project that will keep crews working all summer. Am I right so far?”

  “You are.” Ann Marie’s always been a recapper. Back in college, we’d lie in our bunk beds at night and she’d be all, “So after he kissed you at the formal, you went outside and barfed blackberry schnapps into the fountain? And then you lost your shoe when? On the bus or before you fell down the stairs?”126

  I can hear Ann Marie push smoke out of her nose, something she does only when she’s ruminating. “Mmm-hmm, so what you’re telling me is that in a depressed economy and in a market where new housing starts are down by an average of seventy-three percent since their peak in January 2006, all the decent contractors in your area are too busy to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from you.”

  Now I’m confused. “I guess so?”

  “Mia, I’d like you to do me a favor. Call every available contractor in your area, interview them immediately, right this minute, and if you find someone decent, sign a contract on the spot. Can you do that for me?”

  “But the guide says—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  I don’t even have to mull this over. “With my life. But Mac will—”

  “Thank me. Mac will thank me. Call them all. Now. We’ll cut our call short so you can get started. Off you go.”

  Wow. That was even bossier than usual.

  I bet she’s been smoking light cigarettes again.

  “How many other jobs does your company have going right now?” Mac asks the gentleman sitting across from us at the kitchen table.

  The man scratches his head while he thinks, a task made far more challenging due to his blond dreadlocks. He shifts his eyes upward and starts counting off on his grubby fingers. “Um . . . I guess that would be . . . none at the moment. Hey, you got any more coffee ?” He shakes his cup at me. “Sugar, too. I like them little cubes.” I cross to the counter to retrieve the sugar bowl and he ignores the small silver tongs, choosing instead to plunge in bare-handed. I do my best to conceal my shudder.

  Mac is undeterred. “When you’re on a job, what kind of hours do you put in on a typical day?”

  T
he man yawns and stretches in such a way that he exposes the bulk of his hirsute belly. “I like to get in when I get in and work until I don’t want to work anymore.”

  “Can you clarify? Are you more likely to start early or stay late?” Mac questions.

  “I’m more likely to start late and finish early. I like to be done for the day around, ahem, four twenty.” Then he waggles his bushy, unkempt eyebrows at us, causing some random bit of crud to fall off his face. I try hard not to retch.

  I tacitly ignore the implication of drug usage and then I hit him with a couple of my own questions. “Who’ll be on-site managing the project every day?”

  “I try to be on-site every day. But some days . . . eh, you know how it is. If I’m not here, I send in Nugget. If Nugget can’t make it, I send in Cheeba. If Cheeba can’t make it, then it musta been some party the night before.” Then he laughs so hard his dreads shake.

  Mac and I aren’t quite as amused. “Okay, then. How many people work for you?”

  “Lemme see,” he says, having just discovered that his coffee spoon works well for all those hard-to-reach itches. “I got Stash and Loadie on full-time, Cheeba and Nugget when they’re not following Phish, and Lucy and Shaggy when needed. So that’s”—he pauses to add on his fingers again—“nine. I got nine.”

  “No,” I reply, “that’s seven. Including yourself, that’s seven.”

  “Whoa.”

  Whoa, indeed.

  In terms of hiring people with whom I might like to dine, this man ranks somewhere on my list between Mussolini and Hitler. And it’s not because of anything as superficial as his silly coiffure. Actually, during my freshman year of college I had a crush on a guy who was all into grunge and had the white-guy dreadlocks. But then he spent the summer working at a fishery in Alaska and he had to shave them off because of the bugs. He seemed way less cute after that.

  Anyway, my issue is that this guy has not only blown every question we’ve asked him, but then he used the bathroom without flushing or washing or closing the door, and on top of a plethora of other blatant personal hygiene problems, he was an hour and seventeen minutes late for our meeting. Say what you will about Mussolini, but at least the trains ran on time.

  “Okay, yes,” I say, pushing off from the table, “I think that about does it. We look forward to receiving your bid, Chronic.” Mac and I make a beeline to the door while Chronic ambles along behind us. When he tries to shake my hand, I cough and tuck mine into my armpits, saying, “Ooh, sorry. Cold and flu season, you know how it is.”

  “Yeah, man, that’s cool,” he agrees.

  And then he hugs me instead.

  Mac finds this hilarious until Chronic hugs him, too.

  “Do you belong to any trade associations?”

  “Come again?”

  “Trade associations, you know, like NARI or NAHB?”

  “Knob? What’s that?”

  “National Association of Home Builders.”

  “Never heard of ’em. Must be new.”

  “They’ve been around since 1942 and have a hundred and seventy-five thousand members. Their members are responsible for building eighty percent of all new homes. They work closely with Congress to promote a probuilder agenda. Does any of this sound familiar?”

  “Not ringing any bells.”

  “Do you use subs?”

  “Do I sub what?”

  “Subs. Subcontractors. What’s your policy on subcontractors?”

  “I don’t know what those are.”

  “What kind of liability insurance do you carry?”

  “For what?”

  “Are you bonded?”

  “Listen, lady, what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is none of your business.”

  “Do you have any references?”

  “My mom thinks I’d do a great job. Does that count?”

  “Is this your first job ever?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “And finally, I like to be paid in cash. Cash up front. See, cash makes it easier to, y’know, grease the skids and the like.”

  “Are there many skids to be greased?” I ask, trying desperately to sound enthusiastic. When I told my dad how much trouble we were having finding a contractor, he made some calls and got ahold of his cousin Big Joey, who referred us to his “associate” Lucky. In the past half hour, I’ve heard all about how Lucky and Co. keep their pinkie-ring-clad fingers in many businesses . . . waste management, vending machines, concession trucks, cell phones, and, of course, building construction.

  “Lotta skids, kid, whole lotta skids. So my associates and me, we find cash makes everything nice and easy. Cash makes workers less, y’know, likely to have an accident on the job.”

  “Yes, of course,” I agree.

  There’s no way I’m going to hire this cut-rate John Gotti, but if I’m not polite, it will get back to my dad’s cousin, and then my father and then I’ll never hear the end of it at Thanksgiving. “It’s good to hear you have standards,” I add.

  “Plus, we got a service that if the neighbors get too, y’know, inquisitive about the permits, we can take care of that.”

  “That’s just covered in awesome sauce,” I say.

  Although honestly, after the latest petition,127 I’m a tiny bit tempted to learn more, but I fight that urge. I glance at my watch to see how much more time I’ve got to kill with this guy before I can make it seem like I’ve given him my full consideration.

  Then he moves in all conspiratorially. “Hey, your cousin tells me you make books. Funny, we got something in common. I make book, too. What’s your taste of the vig?”

  When the bell rings, the dogs come dashing to the door with me to meet the next candidate. I open the door to a gentleman who, from the looks of him, is neither stoner, nor greenhorn, nor smalltime mobster. I swear, if this guy can swing a hammer in the general direction of a nail, he’s hired.

  “Hi,” I say, grabbing hold of the dogs’ collars. “Please give me a minute. I’ve got to put these guys out back and then we can chat.”

  He bends down to the dogs’ level. “Hey, is that a pit bull?”

  “Yes, her name is Daisy. Isn’t she beautiful? Say hello, Daisy!” She doesn’t speak but instead chooses to wag her whole body in response while Duckie paws and licks at the air beside her.

  The contractor leans against the doorway. “You ever fight her?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Dogfights—you ever put her in the ring and see what she can do?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Between us, you can make a lot of money fighting dogs. If you want, I’ve got a place—”

  I don’t hear the rest because I’ve slammed the door.

  “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m here! I can’t believe I’m sitting at your table! Is this where you write? Is this where you come up with your stories?”

  So, the good news is that I have fans who aren’t thirteen-year-old girls. Did not know that. Apparently I’m beloved not only by young ladies who’ve yet to graduate from training bras, but also by at least one forty-six-year-old male builder.

  He gushes on: “I see so much of myself in Mose and Amos. They’re both hardworking and dedicated and they’re drawn to women who want to eat them.”

  Mac kicks me under the table. I ignore him.

  My fan/possible contractor/probable eventual restraining-order recipient continues. “I mean, not literally. No, that’d be weird and gross. Spiritually. All the women I date are spiritual vampires.”

  “Listen, Nick, we don’t really use the v-word around here,” Mac tells him, making air quotes when he says “v-word.”

  The contractor turns ashen. “OH, NO, I’M SO SORRY! PLEASE DON’T BE MAD AT ME! I’D DIE!”

  “No, Nick, he’s kidding.” I shoot Mac an angry look. “Tell him that was a joke.”

  “Sorry, man.”

  The contractor gives me the kind of adoring gaze that’s supersweet coming from a tween,
but something entirely different from an adult. “Seriously, can I, like, touch your beautiful brain? Not in a weird way—I just want to see if your energy transports into me.”

  “Is it okay if we don’t?” I always try to be as kind as possible to my fans; they’re the reason I have a career. But come on, creepy is creepy. When his face falls at my response, I add,“I just got my hair done.”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. That was really inappropriate of me. I’m sorry.”

  Mac tries to break his reverie by asking, “What else do you need to know to bid out this project?”

  “What do I need?” He rests his chin in his palms and stares into the distance. “Um, I guess what I really need is to find out if Amish and zombie teenagers in love ever find a way to live between their two worlds. I need to know if it does indeed get better. I need confirmation that their love will conquer anything.”

  Nick looks down at his wide, capable hands. I wonder whether, when he reads descriptions of how small and delicate Miriam’s tiny zombie fingers look resting in Amos’s broad, wide palm, he pictures his own calluses and scarred knuckles.

  I wonder whether, when I talk about the pain and melodrama associated with coming of age, he sees his own teen years, and if he can find peace with the decisions he made long ago. And I’m curious whether somehow these stories help him make sense of his own life. Knowing that my words have an impact on an entirely unintended audience really touches me and I can’t help but smile.

  Nick is apparently emboldened by my encouraging grin. “Also, I need to find out if Amos and Miriam ever get it on, and if so, will you please be describing their union in graphic detail with anatomically correct terms?”

  As it stands, I can live in a squalid house or I can hire someone completely repugnant to fix it.