by Lisa Tognola
“But what if it doesn’t?”
I tried to remind myself that it was foolish to worry. We’d had our own inspection before buying this home. There was nothing in need of major repair. And yet … What if the inspector found a crack in the foundation? What if the buyer decided they wanted us to replace the roof? What if they took back their offer and the house went back on the market and we were again strapped, really strapped, for cash?
CHAPTER 40: ERECT-TILE DYSFUNCTION
Lexington Ave, Rye – May 2008
One morning, after inspecting the tile work downstairs, I headed upstairs to the master bathroom to find Leo and Stan. The two Slovakian tile installers referred to themselves as brothers, though they couldn’t have looked more different: Leo was short and balding, with dark eyes; Stan was tall and fair. I’d assumed at least one of them was adopted until I came to learn that they were actually brothers-in-law.
Leo was standing in the “carwash”—his joking term for our steam shower, which was so huge I could have parked my old college Volkswagen in it (and used the multiple showerheads to wash every side of it).
Installing an oversize shower had been Wim’s idea. He wanted an experience—a place he could escape into after a long day at the office and unwind with steam and a surround-sound stereo. I didn’t understand the idea of bathing in what felt like a gigantic dishwasher. Why would anybody want to be steamed and come out of the shower looking like undercooked pork roll?
Leaning against the wall, eyebrows knitted, Leo was trying to make sense of a rough sketch he was gripping between grout-encrusted fingers. “This”—he flapped the wrinkled paper in my direction and shook his head—“is not much to work with.” As he leaned over to set the sketch down on a plastic bucket, I detected a vague odor of cigarettes and thinset.
“I know,” I said, aware how unhelpful I sounded.
He just stood there, looking at me with an expression that was somewhere between lost and frustrated. Who could blame him? I remembered looking over Joan’s master bath plans with Wim the previous week; both of us had been concerned about her lack of detail. “That bathroom is going to end up being the most expensive room in the house—we can’t screw it up,” Wim had said.
Weeks earlier, we’d stood in the master bathroom—the three of us, Joan, Wim, and I—facing the arched window overlooking the backyard. Rays of sunshine streamed in through the trees; I’d noticed that the beech leaves had started to emerge.
Just as I’d done with Joan when designing the kitchen, I’d held my binder open to an inspiration photo, this time of an ethereal, spa-like space with pristine Calacatta marble covering every exposed surface: floors, counters, and tub surround. The marble would also be used to highlight our his-and-her mahogany vanities.
“It’s going to be breathtaking,” Joan had said, putting a hand over her chest.
But now, standing in the carwash with Leo, who was asking me questions about the shower walls that I couldn’t answer, I realized that “breathtaking” was simply not adequate direction.
“Working with marble is different than other tile because the patterns are natural. We can either lay the tile randomly or try to line up the veining to create matching patterns,” Leo explained in his charming Slavic accent as he held up one of the twelve-by-twelve-inch Calacatta Gold tiles. “It’s like putting together puzzle pieces, only these can be put together in countless ways.”
“What do you think we should do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Marble is like artwork. Each person sees it differently.”
“Well,” I said, “I think I’d like the veining to flow in matching patterns. As if it were one slab.” I looked at my watch. I was late to pick up my kids from school. “I’m sorry, Leo, but I have to go.” I stepped out of the shower and onto crisp white marble tiles swirling with thin streaks of gray and gold; they were so fresh and pristine, setting foot on them made me nervous. “I trust you and Stan to use your artistic discretion,” I said over my shoulder, the words trailing behind me.
Later that day, as Leo and Stan gathered their tools nearby, Luke and I stood together in the shower, eyes open wide, staring at the tiled wall opposite the shower door. An image quickly registered in my brain as … could it be?
Highlighted in the creamy white background, delineated in varying shades of gray, was a series of vertical lines and well-proportioned curves with the softness and openings of a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.
Luke and I exchanged a quick glance, and the look on his face confirmed my thoughts. There was no mistaking it. Smack in the center of the wall—in all its anatomical glory—was a gigantic vagina.
But that wasn’t all. The vagina itself was part of a larger scene. There, in its vulval midst, standing a foot tall on either side and framing it like phallic bookends, were two unmistakable penises.
For a wild moment, I wondered whether the design might please Wim. After all, he was the one who’d been dying for a steam shower to relax and unwind in. But no; he wouldn’t find this funny. His words hovered over my mind like steam that wouldn’t evaporate: This bathroom is the most expensive room in the house—we can’t screw it up.
Luke and I stood there dumbly as I wondered why Leo and Stan would do this. I couldn’t have been more taken aback if Tommy, the dreamy young carpenter, had entered the shower just then, buck naked, and joined Luke and me for a rinse.
I pointed to the image, too embarrassed to name what I was seeing. “What exactly is this?” I asked Stan.
His blue eyes brightened at the question, as if he were delighted I’d asked for a full interpretation of his art.
Leo and Stan entered the shower, and as the four of us stood there—three men and me, gazing at the uncanny phallic likeness—two thoughts occurred to me: one, that our steam shower could, astonishingly, fit four adults comfortably, and two, that this situation couldn’t be more ridiculous.
“You told me you wanted a pattern,” Stan said, “so I followed the natural lines of the marble as they went up. It’s like three candles in a row.”
I looked at the “candles,” two tall and bulging, the one in the center wider and outstretched, like a lemon. Do they really not see it? When I’d told Leo earlier that day to use his “artistic discretion,” I’d never imagined that he and his “brother” would turn my shower into a Playboy centerfold.
How was it possible that I had another penis crisis on my hands? I was beginning to wonder if I was the problem. Like Freud, did I simply see sex everywhere—bolts and nuts, keys and keyholes? It’s true; I saw images in the patterns of wood flooring, the swirls of paisley fabrics, the curves of connective pipes. Still, that didn’t mean that every time I looked at our cupola or our shower walls I wanted to think, penis.
That weekend, I hardly slept. It was too late to order extra tile, and even if we could, it would set us back thousands of dollars. On Monday morning, I started making calls. The tile shop was closed, and Joan was on vacation for the week. I called Glenn, the operations manager, who simply gave me a philosophical lecture about prioritizing life’s problems. “You have more important things to focus on right now. Besides, it’s better not to disturb the tiles. The drywall may break away, and if the tile cracks, it will set the whole project back.”
Finally, I called Faye, our dedicated interior designer who often went above and beyond the call of duty. Still, I couldn’t help worry that even she might draw the line at penis problems.
“There’s a penis in my shower,” I said. “Two, actually.” I described to her the “candles” and how worried I was that this was going to ruin my perfect bathroom. How Leo and Stan had no design to work from, how the tile was already set, and how this could cost thousands of dollars to fix.
“Just tell them to change it,” she instructed.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a penis!”
When Faye and Leo arrived at 9:00 a.m. for our meeting, my hands were shaking so viole
ntly from nerves and caffeine tremors that riptides of coffee splashed from my cup. I had stopped by Rye Country Store that morning and bought coffee and bagels for the painters, but unexpectedly, none had shown. Now, three coffee cups’ worth of acid churned in my stomach, eating away at two buttered bagels.
“Are you okay?” asked Faye, who was pristinely dressed in a pair of gray linen slacks and a white sleeveless knit top, drop pearls dangling from her ears.
I was staring at the wall erotica, wondering how Faye would broach the subject with Leo. Still oblivious to the sexual undertones of Stan’s tile work, Leo was complaining that someone had stolen his drill the previous day after he’d left it at the house.
“My client thinks the tile work is beautiful, but there are a few tiles we’d like to change,” Faye began.
I glanced at Leo. His dark eyebrows frowned a little below his balding head.
Without a word about penises, Faye marked the offensive tiles with blue painter’s tape. One by one, Leo replaced them with the few extra tiles we had on hand. When he was done, the genitalia had vanished, and in its place, a new image had emerged—one that Leo said reminded him of a topographical outline of old Czechoslovakia. “Maybe the mountains here.” He pointed to the topside, where three peaks jutted out like a geological ridge.
Personally, I saw the San Gabriel Mountains, which reminded me of California. This was a vista I could happily look at each and every day.
CHAPTER 41: NOW WHAT?
Lexington Ave, Rye – May 2008
One afternoon, Wim and I were standing in front of the house, studying the shingle color, when out of the blue he said, “I’ve been bracing myself for another round of cuts at work.” He stopped to take a deep breath, and then went on. “I got laid off.”
A feeling of dread spread over me. “What? When?”
“Last week.”
“Last week! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
I didn’t know what upset me more, his layoff or his belated confession, but I didn’t stop to question it. “I’m sorry, Wim. What happened?”
“The banking industry has changed. There just isn’t a need for my job anymore.” He looked and sounded defeated.
I’d been consumed by house decisions, caught up in bathroom tile, paint colors, faucets, and furnishings. Now I just felt panicky and confused. I had a heavy feeling in my chest as I looked at Wim, as if I was losing part of him.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I watched his face fall with sadness.
“Me too,” he said.
We embraced and a rush of warm tears flowed from my eyes. We held each other for a long time.
Finally, I pulled back. “We’re going to be okay,” I reassured him.
He nodded weakly. Our mortgage payment due date was three weeks away.
CHAPTER 42: A BRAND-NEW FUZZY AND WUZZY
Raymond Ave, Rye – June 2008
On a warm Saturday morning, Wim and I found ourselves standing in our driveway surrounded by a fish tank, toddler bedding, picture books, and other possessions that had filled our home for the past decade that we’d now, like our house, outgrown. It had been hard sorting through all our things and deciding what to keep and what to sell. Some objects I’d see and immediately think, “Why did I hang on to this for so long?” Others, I couldn’t let go of, especially the things that brought back happy memories. I hung on to the books I’d read dozens of times to my children and the wooden blocks we’d stacked into towers together while sitting cross-legged on the living room floor. But why store a crib, I reminded myself, when a family who needs it could use it now?
Wim and I stood facing an impatient-looking woman who seemed confused because we’d quoted her two different prices.
“Which one is it?” she asked.
“Ten dollars,” Wim said.
“Excuse me a moment,” I told the woman, and I pulled Wim aside.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“The crutches are tagged for twelve dollars. She just offered you ten, and you told her you’d take eight. You’re supposed to bargain up, not down.”
“Wim, they’re crutches,” I said. “That lady has her elderly mother sitting in the car. What if she needs them and they don’t have health insurance and …” As I spoke, my mind flashed back to my parent’s visit four years ago. They were babysitting our kids so we could spend some much-needed time alone together. Paige was napping in her crib, and when she awakened, crying, my mom ran to her—and slipped and fell and broke her kneecap. I’d felt terrible for my mother, especially because our house didn’t have a guestroom and she’d had to convalesce at the Courtyard by Marriott. I was grateful that she and my dad would soon stay in our basement guest suite during their visits.
“That is not how you do business.” Wim frowned and shook his head.
It wasn’t how I’d have done business a month ago, when I’d felt more desperate to save every last cent possible. But now that Wim had some job prospects and we had finally closed on our house and had some money in the bank, it seemed silly to haggle over a few dollars, especially knowing what a big difference that money could make to someone else.
At the same time, I didn’t want to disappoint my husband, a businessman to his core. People like Wim, who negotiated with clients for a living, tended not to be emotional about haggling. But I tended to be emotional about everything.
“I can handle this.” I nodded.
“I’ll be over by the bikes. Maybe somebody would like to buy your mountain bike for fifty cents,” he mumbled as he walked away.
Moments later, I had sold not only the crutches but also the baby clothes, the crib, and the bassinet. I noticed a fleck of amusement in Wim’s eyes, and maybe something else I wasn’t used to. Admiration?
In the end, pricing didn’t matter. Not many people had shown up and we’d had to practically give our things away—even the pieces with the most sentimental value, items we’d previously been unable to part with. Gone was the rocking chair in which I had nursed all three of my children. Gone was Wim’s outdated but high-end college stereo equipment that he’d paid a thousand dollars for in 1988. Gone were the twin comforter and matching sheets—a circus print on a baby blue background—that we’d bought Hailey when Hunter was born. I got teary-eyed when I saw a mom and her young daughter walk away with the bedding I’d sold them. I wondered if the girl would line up her stuffed animals at the foot of the bed in descending order of size, the way Hailey had done each night at bedtime. Now she was thirteen years old and cared less about the stuffed animals she was parting with and more about the friends she’d be hanging out with in our new basement game room.
I looked forward to living in a house with plenty of space and everything brand-new. Yet, as eager as I was to move on, it was hard for me to stop thinking of this house as “home.”
Ever since the new owners had agreed to rent us the house for the next month until our new house was complete, I’d been waiting with mixed emotion. Each morning when I woke up, I raised the shades and looked out over what, from now on, would be somebody else’s holly tree, the same tree in which, every year, we had watched the robin family return to its nest to raise its babies, each little “fuzzy and wuzzy,” as my kids affectionately named them, taking flight on its new wings. I would enjoy my mug of coffee in what was now the new owners’ office and wait for that anticipated moment—it usually occurred at around 5:30 a.m.—when the sun broke through the Murrays’ maple trees across the street and spilled across our yard, turning the tree-lined driveway into a luminous golden canopy.
And in the evenings, when I was ready for bed, I would climb what was now Jason and Audrey Cook’s fourteen stairs to the second floor—moving as if walking on eggshells to avoid the creaking treads, having learned over the years to measure every step like an acrobat to keep from waking my sleeping children—and think of how I would miss the pencil lines we’d drawn on the kitchen doorjamb to mark the
kids’ height throughout the years, and how I’d miss sitting with Wim outside on our back deck, looking out at the abundant azaleas blanketing our yard.
It was with bittersweet feelings, then, that I would pack our most treasured possessions in bubble wrap—carefully wrapping our ketubah in protective layers and stacking swaddled picture frames in boxes marked “FRAGILE”—so we could finally move into our coveted Lexington Avenue dream house. Because deep down, I knew I was leaving a little piece of myself behind.
CHAPTER 43: SICK WITH FEAR
Raymond Ave, Rye – June 2008
Saturday was a quiet day for us. Hailey and Hunter had religious school, and Paige was at a friend’s house, sleeping over.
“There you go again,” I said, standing in front of Wim as he sat at the kitchen table. We’d been here before, two weeks earlier, only we’d been discussing a different aspect of the house then.
He looked up from his computer. “What did I say wrong this time?” He sounded annoyed.
“It’s not what you said; it’s how you said it. ‘The house appraisal has to get done next week,’” I said, mimicking his tone. “‘We can’t screw around.’”
“That’s not how I said it.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “It is.”
“Whatever.” He shook his head. “How I said it doesn’t change the fact that we can reduce our mortgage payment by $500 a month if we refinance again and lock in this rate.”
“No, but it changes whether or not you hurt my feelings.”
“Jesus, Janie, I can’t do or say anything to please you.”
“Don’t turn this back on me. You’re the one who’s always mad at me.” I felt my eyes tearing, a lump growing in my throat. “Sometimes I think you don’t even want to be with me anymore.”
Before he could respond, I grabbed my purse and walked out the door.