Family Affair

by Saxon Bennett

  Once outside, Stella commanded James to retrieve the car. "An express lunch, ma'am?" He eyed Lacey's plate.

  "Yes. A certain important appointment came up."

  James nodded and went for the car.

  Her mother pulled out her cell phone and texted Peggy again.

  "How does she know where he's going?" Chase asked.

  "She put a GPS on his car," Stella replied.

  "Wow, she's good," Lacey said. She took a bite of her lobster bisque. "Want some?" she said, holding out a spoonful.

  "Uh, no thanks," Chase said, looking at the creamy sauce with distaste. Maybe when they were through with the escapade they could swing by Taco Bell and she could have a seven layer burrito and a taquito.

  James pulled up with the car. Stella popped him another twenty and got in, waiting impatiently for the two others and then floored it once everyone was inside.

  Lacey held onto her bisque for dear life. "What's with the driving lately?"

  "We are on a mission," Stella said. The tires of the Bentley squealed as she pulled out of the parking lot onto the adjacent street. "Now, Chase will you reach under your seat and pull out the camera bag."

  "A couple of incriminating photos and Peggy and Addison are free," Chase said.

  "You got it." Stella got off the freeway and pulled into the parking lot of a hotel.

  "Isn't that him?" Chase said. She'd only met Dickhead once when she was picking up Addison. He'd sort of grunted at her as they passed in the hallway.

  Stella looked at her GPS screen. "That sneaky bastard. He parked at the Hyatt and crossed over to the Marriott." She raced the car through the parking lot to the other hotel. Lacey barely kept the plate from slamming into her chest. Bisque soaked the napkin and would soon soak Lacey. "I really wish you'd stop doing that."

  "To reiterate, we're on a mission," Chase said. She pointed at the entrance of the Marriott. "There he is again."

  "Well, doesn't he think he's smart," Stella said, smirking. "Parking across the street but still in a hotel parking lot isn't an Einsteinian move when there's no reason he should be at a hotel in the first place." Stella grabbed the camera bag and pulled out two straw cowboy hats and tacky cheap black sunglasses. "Here put these on and go take pictures of each other in the lobby." She shoved the camera at Chase.

  "I thought you wanted pictures of him,'" Chase said.

  "I want you to get a picture of him going into the hotel then I want you to get his hotel room number." She slapped the straw hat on Chase's head and handed Lacey the other one.

  "I'm not wearing that," Lacey said. She was still holding the plate.

  "Give me that," Chase said. She opened the car door and set the plate down on the pavement. She pulled Lacey out of the car.

  "I don't understand why you're so gung-ho," Lacey complained.

  "He's Addison's father. He is fucking some cheap whore and I want him hung up so he can't get at Addison. Is that a good enough reason?" Chase stared hard at Lacey who looked taken aback.

  Stella observed her. "You'll make a fine parent."

  "Thank you." Chase smiled as if her mouth, unaccustomed to doing that around her mother, were relearning a gesture from when she was an infant and hadn't know any better. She shouldered the camera, adjusted her silly hat and slapped the glasses on. "Operation Ball-Slammer, ready for action." She looked back at Lacey again.

  "All right, I'm in. I just hope he's not an NRA member."

  "He's not," Stella said.

  Chase didn't want to know how she knew this. She grabbed Lacey's hand and made for the door.

  Once inside Chase said, "Stand over by the fountain and I'll take your picture. Do you have your phone?"

  "Duh," Lacey said, pulling it out of her blazer pocket.

  "Good, I'll photograph you and you set your phone to video mode."

  "Why?" Lacey asked.

  Chase watched as he came through the door. "Just do it."

  The urgency in her voice made an instant impression on Lacey. She opened her phone set it up and waited for the cue. "Now," Chase said. She began snapping photos of Lacey by the fountain with Dickhead in the background at the front desk. She looked over at him once. Their ruse must be working because he didn't notice them. Her mother was right. They looked like stupid tourists.

  He got the key and went to the bank of elevators. "Shouldn't we follow him?" Lacey asked.

  "Too obvious. Let's see your phone."

  Lacey handed it to her. "Over here." Chase took them to the far corner of the plant-strewn atrium. Behind the ficus tree she replayed the video making sure to turn up the sound. "That's room five-twenty, Mr. Smith."

  "You're brilliant," Lacey said as they headed back to the car.

  "Did you get it?" Stella asked as they slid into the car.

  "Sure did." Chase hit play and showed her mother.

  "Oh, this is much better." She wrote down the room number in a slim black leather notebook, putting in the date and time.

  Chase leaned over to observe this. "You're taking this pretty seriously."

  "I think I may have found my calling," Stella said, her eyes gleaming

  Chase remembered how she felt when she completed the first chapter of her first novel—complete euphoria. She had found her purpose. What had been foreign was now familiar.

  "So now what?" Lacey said.

  "Now we do some serious spying," Stella said.

  Stella grabbed another black duffel bag from the trunk and they headed to the lobby of the hotel.

  Chase watched as her mother schmoozed the desk clerk. The well-groomed desk clerk happily supplied her with a chart of the hotel and allowed her to choose a room of her pleasing.

  "That was slick," Chase said as she punched the five button.

  "It's all about presentation," Stella said, handing Chase the duffel bag. Chase handed it to Lacey who looked miffed but said nothing.

  Once inside Room 518, Stella pulled the heavy emerald green curtains open. She drew her eyebrows together.

  "Can you see him?" Lacey said, looking over Stella's shoulder.

  "Not yet but I will." She pulled various equipment from the black duffel bag—a Nikon D700 digital camera with a high-powered lens, a set of enormous binoculars, a tripod and some kind of goggle-looking things.

  "What are those?" Chase said.

  "Night vision goggles," Stella said, laying out the equipment on the bed, careful not to get the fuzz from the amber brocade bedspread on any of it.

  "Let me try them," Lacey said, carefully picking them up and examining them.

  "It's light in here," Chase said.

  "It's not in the bathroom," Lacey said. She tromped off.

  "She's not all there, but she does have moments," Stella said, looking through the camera and adjusting the lens.

  "Are the curtains open over there?"

  "You betcha," Stella said, as she began rapidly snapping shots. "We got you, you slimy bastard." She turned around. "High-five, baby." She held out her hands.

  Chase slapped them. The world was definitely off-kilter and she felt like a sailor canted on the deck of the wrong boat.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my backpack," Addison said, avoiding Chase's gaze.

  They were on their way to an Isotopes baseball game. Chase had no idea why Addison had expressed a sudden interest in the sport. She thought kids were into soccer these days.

  "You were under pressure," Chase said. She hoped she wasn't condoning behavior that would one day turn Addison into some corporate monster that enslaved the masses in a third-world country with her "don't tell" philosophy. The Congo came to mind.

  "No, it was wrong. I succumbed to blackmail, thinking only of myself and abusing your trust," Addison said, studying her hands as they gripped her backpack.

  Chase's vision of the Congo popped like a soap bubble. Addison had morals and a conscience. "Well, if I behaved better toward my own mother it wouldn't have happened in the
first place—a cause and effect thing."

  The old ballpark had undergone a serious makeover—modern architecture of steel frame and a groovy color scheme of adobe sand and sage green with some red thrown in to make it fun. The grounds were xeriscaped. Chase noticed the yuccas with their red blooms and the wild grasses. She was always interested in the horticulture of the city in an effort to see what would grow in the hot dry climate of New Mexico so she could add it to her garden with a fifty-fifty chance of species survival.

  Addison pulled two tickets from her backpack.

  "Where'd you get those?" Chase put her wallet away. She never ceased to be amazed by Addison's organizational skills.

  "My mom gets them free at work—for her real estate clients."

  Addison handed them to the large man wearing a red vest and white baseball cap with the Isotope logo of swirling atoms. Chase thought the logo was stupid. Before the city had lost the team due to lack of financing in the eighties the baseball team had been called the Dukes—named for the Duke of Albuquerque who had colonized the place by killing off and subduing the indigenous people. Not that she thought this was a good name either, but the name Isotopes was in reference to the bombs made at the two labs in New Mexico, Sandia and Los Alamos.

  "Can you buy those hats at the concession stands?" Addison inquired.

  "Sure can—take a left and you'll see the souvenir shop."

  "Thank you."

  "Well-mannered kid," the man remarked.

  "Yes, she is," Addison said.

  Chase smirked. "I'm going to make a terrible parent," she said as they walked off.

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm not very mature. If I was a normal parent I would chastise you for being a smart-ass with that man. Instead, I thought it was funny. That's not good role model material."

  "Ha! That'll be the day. He got what he deserved. Grown-ups shouldn't use the third person when the kid is perfectly aware of what is going on." She led them toward the souvenir shop.

  Chase made a mental note: Don't treat Bud as if she weren't present by using the third person.

  At the souvenir shop Addison picked out a khaki-colored hat with the Isotopes logo stitched in reds and yellows, then a huge yellow foam hand giving the number one sign and a small wooden bat.

  "Are you sure you want all that stuff?" Chase asked as she tried on a black visor.

  "I want to look authentic."

  "Does that mean we get a hot dog?" Chase placed the visor back on the hook and turned her attention to the hot dog stand located in the walkway behind them.

  "Of course," Addison said picking up the visor Chase had been looking at and tucking it under her arm with her other purchases. She went to the checkout counter and pulled out her debit card. When she had finished she handed Chase the visor. "Here, you'll need this. It's really bright out there."

  Chase put it back on. "Thanks. Now, what do you want on your hot dog?"

  "The works," Addison said, as she clipped the sales tag from their purchases with a small pair of scissors she'd fished out of her backpack.

  Carrying the hot dogs, Chase followed Addison to their seats, happily musing about taking Bud to these kinds of events. She hoped Addison would help her at least in the beginning until she got good at maneuvering these activities. Bud was to have as normal a childhood as possible.

  They went up two flights of stairs and were behind home plate.

  "Wow, these are great seats," Chase said as they sat down. She started in on her hot dog. "These are really good," she said, after taking a large bite.

  Chase had read about baseball games, saw photographs and the blurbs on the television when a big game was on, but she'd never sat in the stands, smelled food that everyone knew was bad for your HDL or heard the fresh roasted peanut vendors as they made their way up the stands hawking their wares. She thought she might give those a try as well. The murmur of the crowd and the hum of the grandstand music all made her feel like she was on another planet. It was fantastic.

  Addison took out a pair of enormous binoculars that looked a lot like the pair Stella had used for surveillance. She scanned the crowd.

  "Don't you want your hot dog?"

  "In a minute," she said, and then, appearing satisfied, she set the binoculars on her lap and ate her hot dog.

  Chase sipped her Dr. Pepper and watched as the players did some practice throws. They wore white uniforms with red piping. The other team wore blue uniforms and yellow piping. She didn't know who they were, but it didn't matter. All she had to remember was who wore what color. She could handle that.

  Addison put down her half-eaten hot dog and resumed her watch.

  Something was wrong. She studied Addison. "Why don't you tell me what's really going on? We agreed no secrets."

  Addison sighed and pursed her lips as if to demonstrate the difficulty of her confession. "My dad is dating this woman who has a kid. I wanted to see for myself."

  "How do you know they're here?"

  "I overhead my mom talking to him. Something about settling up this afternoon and he said he was going to the ballgame and she said you never took Addison to a ballgame. I raided my mom's stash of tickets. I wanted to see what they look like."

  "I'll be right back." Chase raced back to the souvenir shop and grabbed a pair of binoculars. "These the best you got?" she asked the vendor.

  "Lady, this is a souvenir shop. They'll get you a good look at home plate."

  Chase paid and went back to the stands.

  Addison was scanning the crowd. She looked up as Chase squeezed past her. She sat down. "All right, let's find the bastard. I mean your father."

  "He is a bastard," Addison said.

  "Okay, you scan that side and I'll get this side. We'll do it in quadrants."

  "I found him," Addison said. She pointed. "Down there."

  Chase pointed her binoculars in that direction. "He's by himself." She was hopeful.

  "For the moment," Addison replied. She slurped at her Dr. Pepper as if retribution might be lurking in the recesses of the crushed ice.

  "Want another one?" Chase asked.

  "No, I'm fine." She pulled a Red Bull from her pack and poured it in the plastic cup with the red and orange Isotope logo like she was mixing a drink.

  Chase was worried. A smart hopped-up kid with a grudge could do ugly things. "What are you planning on doing... exactly?"

  "I haven't quite decided." She went back to her binoculars.

  This added to Chase's anxiety. The announcer read the line-up for each team as the players ran out on the field. Chase couldn't concentrate. She didn't know a lot about baseball, but there was always Wikipedia if Bud had questions. She wondered what parents did before the Internet. They probably made shit up. Parenting wasn't so simple anymore. Kids could check facts now.

  Addison went back to staring at her father long-distance.

  The Isotope batter whacked the ball. He made it to first base and kept going as the ball sailed upward toward the centerfield fence.

  Chase tapped Addison's shoulder. "Hey, look, something is actually happening. He might get a home run." Chase jumped around in her seat like all the others—she almost felt at one with the rest of the world. Maybe that's what sports were about—a sense of unity. The batter made it home. The crowd, including Chase went mad. "That was exciting." She looked over at Addison. "Did you see it?"

  "It's a boy with red hair and freckles. He looks like Ron Howard when he played Opie in Mayberry RFD."

  "You've seen that show?"

  "Nickelodeon."

  "Who are we talking about?" Chase asked.

  "My father's new kid."

  "Really?" Chase grabbed her binoculars and honed in. Addison was right. Daddy was playing it up big. A chunky blonde appeared to be the boy's mother. That's who Dickhead is doing, Chase thought with disgust.

  "See him?"

  "Yep. His mother's nothing but a fat tart." Chase put the binoculars down on her lap. She looked over at Addiso
n.

  Addison was sitting back in her seat, looking over the program and eating her hot dog. "Let's have another one of these. They're really good. Should get the spicy brown mustard this time."

  "I thought you'd be upset." Chase eyed her warily. She didn't want to set her off but absolute denial wasn't a good thing either. It could surface years later and cost a fortune in shrink fees.