As Long As It's Perfect

by Lisa Tognola

  Twenty minutes later, he found me in my Lexington Avenue closet, crying.

  Maybe I was being melodramatic, or maybe I just couldn’t take it any longer.

  “Listen, Wim, I’m just tired of you not treating me with respect. I know things are stressful …”

  I tried to remember how long it had been since I’d started censoring myself around Wim, monitoring everything I did or said so as not to upset him. My best guess was about a month—ever since he’d told me about getting laid off.

  “Have you considered using a job recruiter?” I’d asked him one morning a week or so after the layoff as he went through stacks of insurance papers, trying to figure out how much longer we’d be covered through COBRA.

  “I have, Janie. But I was a managing director. The banking industry has changed. There just aren’t many jobs at that level anymore.”

  He looked sick with fear. His hair was grayer and thinner. His face looked gaunt, too—probably a result of the two-day liquid diet he’d had to go on after a sudden attack of colitis, an intestinal disorder that, the doctor said, could be caused by stress.

  He’d found a new job now, but the stress of the past weeks had taken its toll on both of us.

  Now I sat on the floor of the closet, looking up at Wim with sorrow.

  “I know this is really about the house,” I said quietly. “You resent me, because I was the one driving the move. I know it’s frustrating for you that you won’t be able to retire as early as you hoped. But you were on board too. We decided together, and now we’re stuck. Maybe we should just sell the house as soon as it’s finished.”

  “If we sell it now, we’ll take a huge loss,” he said; then he lowered himself to the floor across from me.

  I stared at the white custom cabinets, whose Shaker style matched those in the kitchen I’d selected with Joan while designing the house eleven months earlier. “The cabinetry will last a lifetime,” Joan had said.

  I closed my eyes and thought about our conversation in Linda’s office—the worst-case scenario exercise. Selling the house seemed like a naive solution now. I rested my head against the wall, and we sat there together in silence, the two of us lost in an enormous closet in our big “not so big” house.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to watch the sunrise together on our balcony, sipping steaming cups of cappuccino side by side. Our house was supposed to improve our marriage, not compromise it.

  Now here we were, burrowed in the closet, facing the consequences of the decisions we’d made, good and bad.

  I wanted to rewind the clock, back to the days where Wim was sitting on the couch, looking at his 401(k), and I was bathing in a tub with Fizzy Wizzies floating around me. I wanted to begin again, without all the debt we’d incurred.

  “We’re not building this house as an investment; we’re building it to enjoy it as a place to live,” Wim said, breaking the silence. “But I’m frustrated. Every day I’m on this hamster wheel, and I can’t get off.”

  He started talking about financial planning and how much money you need to retire. He sounded like my dad. “Listen,” he said, “it’s not the house. I love this house. I love that you love it. I love that the kids love it. It’s going to be comfortable; it’s going to be home. I don’t care that we put a lot of money into the house. I’m just sick of worrying about money. I worry about it every day. I worry about it when I wake up in the morning, while I’m at work, before I go to bed. I worry about how we’re going to keep paying the huge taxes on this house, the maintenance, all our expenses, without me having to work forever. And I can’t figure out how to do it. And it stresses me out.”

  I could see the stress in the set of his jaw. He looked and sounded exasperated. His words shattered me. I wanted Wim to be happy—not looking as if he were suffering from a pinched nerve. It seemed we’d spread ourselves so thin he couldn’t enjoy life anymore.

  I wiped my cheek on my sleeve. “I understand. I don’t blame you. Something needs to change. We can’t go on like this, with you stressed out and taking it out on me. I’d rather sell the house at a loss.”

  “Paige still has eleven more years of school. I want her to finish it out. I want to enjoy this house as a family. We’ll at least wait until she graduates. But after that … I don’t plan to pay these taxes for a school system we’re not using. All I think about is when that day comes. It’s like I’m wishing away time, wishing it would move faster so I can get out of this situation.” His face was frantic.

  I was bewildered. For as long as we’d been building this house, I’d believed Wim and I were on the same page. Though I knew he worried about our finances, he had seemed to be enjoying the project. I struggled to reconcile the Wim who had shared my fantasy of watching movies on our big-screen TV in the basement, sipping coffee on our Juliet balcony, and preparing Caesar salad in our state-of-the-art kitchen with this Wim, who was gazing at me now with a pained expression. As I sat on the floor, imagining Hailey and Hunter laughing and shooting hoops in the driveway, Paige practicing the D-major scale in the light-filled piano room, and Wim and me soaking in the Jacuzzi tub in our spa-like bathroom, I realized that I’d assumed because I was happy, he was happy too. After everything we’d been through, I couldn’t bear the thought of our marriage ending over a house. Or ending, period.

  “But I don’t want any of this if it’s going to make us miserable,” I said. “I mean, I thought I wanted it. I always thought we deserved to live in a beautiful house. But not if it’s a burden to us.”

  I’d told him this before, but now I meant it. “It’s not a burden to us, just me,” Wim said.

  “But that’s just it, that’s how you think, that you’re alone in this. But you’re not. I worry about money too. All the time. And I feel guilty, because it was my idea to move in the first place.” Thinking back, I’d known there was risk, but I thought that if we just did it, things would work themselves out. What I’d come to realize, however, was that while you can change your mind once you’ve started something, the fact is, there are no do-overs in life. Only regrets.

  I thought about why I’d wanted a big house so badly. How I’d been drawn in by the promise of a sense of success and security. How I’d wanted the idyllic childhood I remembered, where I believed there were no mortgages, no invoices, no burdens. How I’d thought that if I changed my environment, I could change my life. How I’d thought that if I built this perfect house, my life would look perfect—be perfect.

  Now I realized that a house alone couldn’t make me happy. Only the people in it could. In the end, knocking down a house and rebuilding at the top of the market during an economic crisis had only added extra worry to our lives and threatened the very sense of security I had always longed for.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll try to worry more with you.” I smiled, hoping he would too.

  He didn’t, but the muscle in his jaw did relax slightly.

  “Maybe we should go back to therapy,” I said, half expecting him to dismiss the idea.

  But he surprised me.

  “Maybe we should,” he said.

  CHAPTER 44: LOVE ON A SAWHORSE

  Lexington Ave, Rye – July 2008

  On a quiet Friday afternoon, Wim and I packed Copper into the car and drove over to check on the house. It was eerily quiet; there was a noticeable absence of hammering, drilling, and sawing. The house seemed to be asleep.

  The day was hot and humid. I could already feel the perspiration collecting on my lower back and sticking to my cotton T-shirt. Wim strode down the steps to the basement, the dog leading the way, while I headed to the kitchen to admire our newly installed cabinets.

  The white cabinets looked crisp against the warm tones of the glass tile, a mosaic of horizontal-patterned browns and golds that contrasted with the rich, dark stain we’d chosen for the center island.

  It was hard to believe that the cabinets had been installed in just one week. The father-and-son team that put them in had worked compa
tibly, side by side, with steady hands, as they located studs and used levels and rulers to calculate precise cabinet location, frequently checking their work against their plans. They had installed the cabinets first, the doors next; now, everything looked complete.

  As I looked around the kitchen—the first room in the house to be converted from a shell to a furnished space—I felt buoyant. Despite our every debacle, our house was taking shape. There was a pot filler at the stove, a hot-and-cold water dispenser, a warming drawer—conveniences that until fairly recently I never even knew existed, let alone thought we’d own. I pictured Wim coming home late from work and sitting down to a dinner still hot from the warming drawer, us exchanging stories about our day, the kids playing together in the adjacent family room. I imagined the vibrant hum of life that would fill the air.

  I touched everything, feeling the smooth surface of the cabinetry. I opened and closed every cabinet and drawer, marveling at how, with a gentle push, the drawers effortlessly retracted. Even our microwave drawer opened and closed with a single push or pull of the handle. Glancing at the range, I imagined our next holiday meal, chicken soup simmering on the stove, a brisket in the oven—the smells and memories from my childhood that we would be recreating for our own family wafting through our house, smells that turned a house into a home. Of course we’d had holidays in our house on Raymond Avenue, but this would be different; here, more of our family could be together.

  “What are you doing?” Wim asked, watching me reach up to one of the upper cabinets.

  “Getting in touch with my inner spackler!” My body was stretched as high as my toes would allow, my thumbnail working vigorously in an effort to extricate a stray glob of spackle.

  “How about I get in touch with something else?” Wim edged in closer and gave my belt loop a playful tug, a hint of mischief gleaming in his eyes.

  I ignored his advances and continued scraping my nail into the hard, plaster-like material, determined to make our new kitchen cabinets look pristine. “How about you get in touch with this spackle and help me scrape off the excess before it permanently dries onto our cabinets?” I said.

  He grabbed me around the waist and slowly spun me around to face him. His hand wandered down my moist back, wedging it between me and the stove. I felt what I thought was the heat of his hand on my spine, and I suddenly realized the heat was coming from the stove.

  “Wim, you turned on the burner!”

  “Sorry!” he laughed.

  I squinted at him. “You nearly set me on fire.”

  He lowered his head and raised an adorable eyebrow as if to say, Forgive me?

  Wim knew exactly how to make me feel a little playful and reckless. The next thing I knew, he was chasing me through the dining room, up the stairs, and through our bedroom. We continued our little game of cat and mouse, cavorting like teenagers, until I found myself cornered in our two-person shower, staring at the still subtly phallic peak-and-valley veining of the marble “erect-tile,” surprised to find myself slightly aroused. I sat on the freshly installed marble bench, the only flat surface upstairs other than the dusty floor, careful not to disturb the overturned paint bucket that was temporarily keeping it in place.

  Wim eyed the bench uncertainly. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was—that placing double body weight on the bench was still risky. Even great sex wasn’t worth a costly slab of Calacatta.

  He took my hand and led me back into the bedroom, where he backed me up against a portable worktable that stood on two sawhorses in the center of an otherwise empty room.

  Here? I thought, looking at thick layers of sawdust covering the table. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” I said, pressing my palm to the surface, trying to gauge how much weight it could hold.

  But Wim was already arranging the twin-size plywood board. With a flick of his wrist, he whisked a leftover sheet of Tyvek paper onto the wood, covering its rough, dirty surface with the same smooth polyethylene wrap that enveloped the house—material I never dreamed we’d be using to protect our backsides. He peeled off my damp shirt, then his own. Then his shorts fell in a puddle at his feet.

  “Is this—”

  Before I could say “okay,” my shorts were off too.

  There was no graceful way to mount two sawhorses half-naked. I backed up and hoisted myself onto the tabletop, then lowered myself onto the hard surface beneath me. Wim climbed up next to me, kissing me, his lips soft and warm.

  The afternoon’s last rays of sunshine filtered through the dirt-coated windowpanes, lending an ethereal quality to the room. For the first time in my life, I was grateful for grimy windows and the dusty film that created a natural privacy screen from our new backyard neighbors. I was also grateful for a husband whom I loved—even more now than I had the evening we’d first been together on the not-so-private wood dock that warm summer night in Portugal so many years ago. Maybe we weren’t as captivated by one another now as we once had been, but our marriage had grown in a way that allowed us to trust each other, raise our kids together, and build a house together.

  I was on my side next to him, my eyes roaming over his body. I ran my hands down his back, over his arms, across his chest, almost forgetting where I was. “Tommy,” I murmured softly.

  Wim’s eyes popped open. “Who’s Tommy?”

  I pointed to the letters crudely etched into the tabletop above Wim’s shoulder. “It says ‘Tommy’ right here.”

  He sat up and looked at the engraving. “This saw table must belong to Tommy, the carpenter.”

  I sat up.

  “It’s fine,” Wim said, leaning over to kiss me again.

  “No, it’s awkward.”

  He exhaled loudly. “Let me understand this. You’ll have sex on a piece of plywood, but not if it belongs to Tommy?”

  “Yes—no. I don’t know.” I frowned. “It’s his personal work-table.” I wasn’t sure what I felt. Embarrassed? Guilty? Dirty?

  In the midst of our bantering, approaching footsteps echoed down the hall.

  I held my breath. “Did you hear that?” I whispered. “Somebody’s here.”

  The noise grew louder and closer, and my heartbeat quickened. Who would be here at this hour? I wondered, horrified at the idea of getting caught naked. On top of two sawhorses.

  Just as I was about to leap off the table and grab my clothes, the door that we had left slightly ajar swung open, revealing a furry mass. Copper bounded into the room, delighted to have found us. She plunked her hindquarters down beside us, cocked her head to the side, and gazed up at us expectantly.

  “Out!” Wim pointed to the door.

  Copper slunk away with her tail between her legs.

  Then Wim’s mouth was exploring the length of my neck, his sensual touch lulling me back into his powerful grip. Soon, I was oblivious to the earthy sawdust around me.

  For the first time in a long while, we weren’t paying attention to the house.

  Afterward, we lay on our backs in the fading light, both of us staring at the tray ceiling, taking in the scent of wood and sex permeating the air. I moved toward Wim and kissed him gently on the lips, then clasped my hand securely in his. And in that moment, nestled on top of my husband’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of each breath, I believed everything would be all right.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This story was inspired by true events. My husband and I built our dream house during the financial crisis and I, like Janie, was consumed by a desire to build a perfect house. I lost sight of reality and went on a construction bender just as the economy collapsed, making me question how much I was willing to risk to get my dream home.

  I took liberties to fictionalize the people, settings, and events in this book because in an embellished account I could keep all the good stuff while inventing a more heightened version of myself—more emotional, more vulnerable, and funnier. Fictionalizing my story also allowed me to protect people’s privacy.

  The cities, institution
s, agencies, and stores in As Long As It’s Perfect are real, but I changed some characteristics and rearranged time, particularly that of the construction timeline, to suit the convenience of the narrative. In real home construction, for example, windows are generally ordered in the beginning of home construction, electrical work happens before sheetrocking, painting happens after sheetrocking, and permanent stairs are installed at the end of construction, not midway through.

  After twelve years of writing, fact has blurred into fiction, to the point where I often can’t remember if what I wrote happened or not, and I’m not sure it matters. What matters to me is how we live our lives, and writing for me is a way of exploring the human condition.

  My hope is that this story—about love and longing, money and mobility, deepened by characters who grapple with issues of image and identity in the wake of financial collapse—will resonate with readers who have had a similar experience and prompt them to consider the following questions: What does it mean to be lured by temptation? What does it feel like to lose one’s financial security? What does it mean to “have it all”? What is the difference between happiness and fulfillment? Why do we try so hard to impress others? How can you be happy just being you, and not caring what others think of you?

  I want the reader to connect to Janie and Wim, who, like millions of other people in America, lost their financial bearings at the peak of the housing boom and were forced to deal with the crisis that followed. I want the reader to be left feeling uncertain but hopeful about the protagonist’s future, because adaption, learning, and growth, enabled by imperfection, are what allow us to progress in life, to move forward, and to succeed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank the people who supported me on the twelve-year journey from concept to published novel:

  To my family, for their unwavering love and dedication during the tumultuous ups and downs of my book project and of my life, and for celebrating my smallest victories and tolerating my biggest freak-outs. In particular, to my husband, Chris, for being the bass to my treble, my sounding board, and my sage; there’s no one I’d rather travel through the world and through life with. To my kids, Elana, Hannah, and Harrison, my gifts from the Gods, for providing tech support and moral support, and for understanding my long nights at the computer; and to my mom, Lorraine Fox (Mom, I miss you and hope you are smiling up in heaven) and dad, Harry Fox, my moral compass and my Gibraltar, for prioritizing love, family, and education. Your generosity knows no bounds. Deep gratitude to my loving in-laws, Pat and Ed Tognola, for being such a big part of our lives and celebrating milestones, holidays, and everything in between. I feel fortunate to have married into the Tognola family.