I pause, then nod. “Mac says the expression is actually ‘in case the balloon goes up,’ but that doesn’t make any sense either. Neither balloons nor bubbles are inherently threatening. Anyway, Mac’s much more fast and loose in terms of fiscal responsibility. He says I’m stressing out needlessly, particularly since we’ll get plenty of cash once I finish my book. But I’m terrified of not having enough in the interim.”
I take his silence as tacit encouragement. “Right, you’re right. Mac’s concept of money being completely different than mine doesn’t make it wrong. I mean, he grew up solidly middle-class. His folks weren’t wealthy, but they were definitely comfortable. He never had to watch his mom’s face burn with shame in the grocery store as the cashier took away items to bring the total under twenty dollars. He never heard his folks screaming at each other all night long because they couldn’t pay the electric bill. My parents still loved each other when they split up, but ultimately, their marriage failed because they couldn’t come together on finances. Buying this house may be the first time I haven’t been completely fiscally conservative, and even that was with my accountant’s blessing.”
I take a couple of big breaths to gather my thoughts before I continue. “Oh, no, please, I have no regrets about buying the place. I mean, Mac’s living his dream of doing renovations, and I don’t have to tell you again how important it was to live in Jake Ryan’s house.You don’t mess with destiny. I know I’m being silly and selfindulgent. Forgive me; I’ve been inhaling a lot of paint fumes; I’m not quite myself.”
I pause a minute to take in my surroundings. I still can’t get over how gorgeous and serene it is here. “To me, I see that house like Jake saw Samantha. Sure, he had Caroline, who was perfection on the outside. Put her and Samantha side by side and there’d be no contest on who embodied more of the classical elements of beauty. Blond hair, blue eyes, killer body, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, Caroline didn’t respect Jake enough to prevent her friends from trashing the joint, whereas Sam was pure and good and kind enough to lend her panties to a geek. Jake saw that in her. Jake realized that he’d be a better man with Samantha in his life.”
There’s no sound save for a light breeze ruffling the leaves and the distant hum of a lawn mower. “I’m not saying the house is going to make me a better person. But I’m really happy we didn’t pick a Caroline of a house, all perfect and move-in ready. Maybe getting a Samantha kind of house takes a little more effort up front, but will end up being the better purchase in the long run. I’m going to learn something with the effort, you know? I feel like there’s a real value in viewing this house not as a teardown, but as a place that will absolutely come to life with enough nurturing and love. Or it’s like the kids in
The Breakfast Club
. Once they got past misleading exteriors and discovered one another’s true selves, everything changed.”
Even though it’s almost June, the stone bench beneath me is icecold. I shift a bit, relocating to the sunny spot. “Mac? He’s at home right now. He wanted to finish off the room himself. He—this is actually very cute—he wanted me to have the experience of a ‘big reveal,’ like they always do with the homeowners on TV, so he sent me away this morning. I spent quite a bit of time in Starbucks and I knocked out two chapters! Felt so good to have the words flow. I wrote the sweetest thing about how Rebecca tried to bite off Mose’s ear and he stopped her with a first kiss—and . . . You know what? Details don’t matter, because the scene just works and that’s a huge relief.
“What’s he doing? Oh, he’s moving furniture back in and replacing outlet covers and hanging curtains and stuff. Actually, he said to be home by three o’clock, so I’m taking off now.” I get up and start to walk away. “Oh, my gosh, you’re right; I almost forgot! These are for you, sir. They’re pretty in pink this week, pun intended.” I grab the big bunch of peonies from their spot on the edge of the bench and set them down in front of him.
“It’s ‘really human of you to listen to all my bullshit.’ Ha, I know, I know: Don’t quote you to you. But in all sincerity, you understand me. You always understood me. So thank you. I’ll see you next week.”
Mac’s in the kitchen arranging champagne in a bucket when I get home. I ease myself over the downed cabinet and wedge past the boxes of our salvaged dinnerware to get to him.
“Ooh, festive!” I exclaim.
“They always have booze at the end of
Holmes on Homes
, so I wanted to make the big reveal official.” Mac hands me a plastic tumbler of Veuve.We stopped using real plates and glasses when the cabinet fell and the dishwasher was crushed. The kitchen’s our next project, and I’m cautiously optimistic we can do it ourselves.
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We have yet to decide on cabinets and pulls, but that’s neither here nor there, and I’m not letting it mar this celebration.
Mac glances up from pouring. “How was he today?”
I respond, “Quiet,” and Mac laughs.
“I’d be concerned if he weren’t.”
I recently let Mac in on the secret of my weekly pilgrimage, because it felt weird keeping something from him.
Ever since we moved to the Cambs, I’ve . . . Okay, this might sound a little strange. . . . I’ve been bringing flowers to John Hughes’s grave. At first I just did the floral equivalent of a dine-and-dash. I’d practically run to his resting spot, dump my bouquet, murmur a quick word, and sprint back to my car. Any further dalliance felt disrespectful.
It’s common knowledge that Hughes was an extraordinarily private man. Were he alive, I’d never go up to him on the street or interrupt his dinner or say or do anything that might make him uncomfortable. He left Hollywood to return to Illinois, coming back for a quiet, more anonymous life. Even if I’d been presented a chance to introduce myself, I’d likely have not felt worthy enough to take it.
I’ve been to Jim Morrison’s grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and the site was total chaos, covered in every bit of detritus you can imagine—flowers, candles, graffiti, liquor bottles—empty and full, plus ladies’ panties and . . . a used condom.
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Crowds of people lined up so they could make “metal hands” while posing for pictures with his headstone, and we had to wait a while to even get close. The whole scene felt less like a place of quiet reflection and solitude, and more like a concert tailgate party, with kids singing and playing guitars, smoking pot, and having drinks.
I realize fans were simply trying to pay tribute to the life of the Lizard King and the iconic music he created. From everything I’ve ever read, Morrison probably would have loved that almost forty years later, the celebration rages on in his honor. But does that mean he’d have been okay with strangers spray-painting his lyrics on his grave? To me, the mess felt blatantly disrespectful. If fans want to keep his memory alive, wouldn’t they be better served by making sure that each new generation hears his songs and reads his poetry?
Since I was there in the nineties, I understand guards have been employed to patrol the area. Given Morrison’s tumultuous history with authority figures, I wonder how he’d have felt about that.
John Hughes’s resting place is the polar opposite. Anyone who’s cared enough about Hughes’s work to seek him out has had selfrestraint not to leave a permanent reminder of his or her presence. The plot is small and unremarkable, tucked under the evergreens in a particularly quiet corner of the cemetery, away from the showy mausoleums and ornately carved headstones closer to the water. You’d never find it unless you knew where to look. No guides shuffle carts of tourists past, and no one’s selling maps to get there. There’s something profound and sacred about his final resting spot, and I find myself lingering longer and longer now.
I started talking to him on my third visit. The minute I finally allowed myself to say something more than, “Thank you,” the words started spilling out. I couldn’t help it. I told him all about how he inspired me, and how, if I could provide teenagers with an iota of the kind of solace he gave Jess and me growing up, I’d consider myself a success.
I talked about how I wouldn’t have a career without him. Then I apologized if I sounded like I was sucking up, but I truly felt like he had just as much cultural influence as Jim Morrison did, and how I was really glad none of Hughes’s fans left him Mardi Gras beads or cheesy stuffed animals.
Anyway, perhaps it’s a product of my overactive imagination, but I swear I feel his spirit when I’m there, because I’m always buoyed and inspired after I leave. I bet it’s not coincidental that I do my best writing after a visit.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m so prone to keeping everything bottled up that I feel better once I let it all out.
When I saw
Sixteen Candles
for the first time, I wasn’t even a teenager yet. I wonder how I’d have felt knowing that movie would have such an influence on my life and career almost thirty years later?
“Mia?”
I snap back to attention. “Oh, sorry. Zoned out for a second.”
Mac gives me a glass and takes my hand to help me over the rubble. “Are you ready to see your Fabulous! New! Master! Suite!” he says in his best HGTV-host imitation.
“Yay! Yes!” The big reveal’s always my favorite part.
You know why I love HGTV? It’s not just that I get a peek into other people’s lives. It’s that everyone’s always thrilled with the end result, whether they’re redecorating an unfortunate room, selling a house, or cleaning up another contractor’s mess. I live for a happy ending, and HGTV is perpetually upbeat and optimistic. The shows are all about problem solving, not drama creating.
I used to be a huge
Trading Spaces
fan in the early days, and I was always so upset when the homeowners weren’t happy. Sometimes their disappointment was justified—like the time Doug painted a newly refinished hardwood floor white,
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or Hildi stapled something like ten thousand silk flowers to a bathroom wall. Seriously, can you imagine what a disaster that must have been to live with, let alone try to remove? The staples probably began to oxidize after the first shower, and I’m loath to picture how much dust and moisture those flowers trapped.
What infuriated me was when the homeowners would throw a fit over perfectly lovely rooms. I hated how, even though their friends and the designers and carpenters spent two days slaving away in their house, they couldn’t get past how they “hate brown!” or “that’s not where we keep the coffee table!” Sometimes they’d get all pissed off about the show’s using lower-priced materials, even though the whole point of
Trading Spaces
was to demonstrate how to make improvements on a budget. Mac always knew what I was watching when he’d hear me shout stuff like, “If you want Brazilian cherry and not MDF,
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pay for it yourself!”
Anyway, it’s reveal time here, and I am, in fact, ready to see my Fabulous! New! Master! Suite! “Did you want me to wear a blindfold ?” I ask Mac.
“No, and if I did, I’d make sure we were up the stairs first.” Oh. Good point. The dogs dart in and out between us, and we have to step over Mac’s cache of paint and stain cans and around the wall o’ tools to get to the doorway on the second floor. “Ready?”
“Ready!” I clamp my eyes shut while Mac swings open the door.
When I open I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing. I mean, I’ve been here for every step of the process and I know the room intimately. Trust me: I’ve shed DNA in this space. That’s the spot on the floor where the rusty nail punched right through my shoe and into my foot when I was sanding.
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That’s the wall where I lost most of my knuckle skin wrestling off cherub-covered wallpaper that had been affixed with what was clearly the kind of glue used to hold airplanes together. That’s the closet door that claimed most of my pinkie nail, and over there’s the window that could easily do double duty as a guillotine.
But now? I’m transported to a place that’s got the same kind of glow and luminosity as the inside of a seashell. The pickled floors are a cool, clean contrast to the multihued cornflower blue rug with its bold golden flowers and milk glass green swirls. The bed looks all fresh and inviting and squashy with the down-filled duvet, and the canopy curtains around it are white and billowy. This room is nestled next to a leafy old maple, and the view makes me feel like I’m in a tree house for grown-ups.
Unbeknownst to me, Mac refinished my rummage sale antique dresser with the dry sink and he shined up the copper lining. There are scores of creamy white roses in reclaimed glass jars all over the room and tons of our black-and-white wedding photos.
Instead of linen, Mac suggested we go with lighter drapes for the coming summer, and the fabric he chose is unstructured and ethereal. Mac strategically placed candles that smell like honeysuckle and orange blossom around the room, too. On the hope chest at the foot of the bed, he’s placed a woven tray laden with my favorite cheeses, candied nuts, and succulent grapes.
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The bathroom is equally inviting, with sparkly tiles and paint that’s all Zen and the same pearly blue as the horizon at sunset.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I’m so enamored that it takes me a moment to find the proper words. “Oh, honey—I’m blown away. We did it! I can’t believe we did it. I’m not going to lie to you: It was touch-and-go there for a hot minute, but this? This is spectacular! This is magic! This could be in a magazine! Babcia’s going to love staying in here, and then we’re going to spend many long, happy years in here.”