by Lisa Lutz
“I’ll be fine,” Rae replied with equal formality.
It was like catching the third act of a drawing-room play.
“Good-bye then,” David said.
“Good-bye,” Rae replied. She turned on her heel and hauled her luggage down the stairs, grunting along the way.
“Is Rae taking a trip?” I asked no one in particular, although I wasn’t asking Sydney.
Maggie just shook her head. “David is making Rae move out.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I tried everything, “Maggie said. “No one is talking. I swear these two would make excellent prisoners of war.”
“Can I try?”
“Knock yourself out,” Maggie said, taking Sydney into the kitchen to feed her or something.
“What did Rae do?” I asked David.
“I’d rather not speak of it.”
I pulled the hundred out of my pocket and waved it in front of my brother.
“Will Benjamin Franklin change your mind?”
“Isabel, let it go.”
“Never.”
“Don’t you have places to be?”
“I do. I just don’t want to be there.”
“Well, you’re free to stay for fish sticks.”
“I was hoping to lure you to a dive bar tonight to watch the game.”
“What game?”
“Oh, no. It’s worse than I thought.”
“One day, you’ll understand,” David said. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t.
“One drink, David. That’s all I ask. Just prove to me that you’re still a man.”
“One drink,” David replied.
We walked to the closest bar, where David ordered a glass of red wine, sipped it for twenty minutes while recounting his entire day with Sydney, then put $20 on the bar and departed so swiftly I didn’t even have a chance to protest.
I took the hundred from my pocket and handed it to the bartender.
“Next round is on me.”
The Avoidance Method(TM)
The bar was mostly empty, so it took longer than you might expect to go through the hundred that Maggie gave me and the forty-eight bucks I had in my pocket. I could feel the buzz of my cell phone in my jacket but ignored it until I’d left the bar and was strolling up Polk Street. I didn’t bother listening to my voice mail since the messages were easy to anticipate.
My cell buzzed in my pocket again. I checked the caller ID. This time it said, “Private caller.” It could have been a trick from home, but I decided to pick up anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hello.”
“Hello?” I repeated.
“Can I ask whom I’m speaking to?” said a female voice on the other end of the line.
“You called me,” I replied.
“Actually, I believe you called me,” said the voice again.
“I don’t think so. Who are you?”
“I’m not comfortable giving out that kind of information to strangers.”
“Me neither,” I replied.
“Perhaps I’ve made a mistake,” the woman said.
“Sounds like it,” I replied, and disconnected the call.
I sent Maggie a text and told her that I’d pick up my car in the morning.1 I caught a cab and twenty minutes later, I was home. This home is different than the last home I might have told you about. It’s a single-family dwelling in the Inner Sunset. I’ve reduced the pros and cons to two. Pro: I can sneak through a window. Con: Somebody else could sneak through a window. Also, it’s far roomier than my previous homes, but I have a roommate, which sort of offsets that particular pro.
As I’ve said before, I’m not as partial to doors as the next woman. A window can often work just fine as a mode of entry and exit. In this particular case it worked out better because, frankly, I didn’t want the person I was cohabiting with to know I was home.
I circled my house and checked the perimeter for lights. Henry’s as eco-friendly as they come, so no light remains in a room where no human is present. In fact, I’ve often been left in the dark when Henry departs a room. Habit, he tells me, but sometimes it just seems rude. The point being that if a room was dark, I knew the coast was clear. I climbed through the window of the downstairs office and flicked on the desk lamp. My phone vibrated in my pocket, giving me a start and causing me to smack my knee against the steel-framed desk. As I grimaced in silence I looked at the caller ID and for reasons that still escape me—thrill seeking, I suspect—I answered it.
ME: Hello?
HENRY: Where are you?
ME: Home. Where are you?
HENRY: Very funny.
ME: Actually, it is kind of funny.
HENRY: Seriously, where are you? She’s starting to get suspicious.
ME: Of what?
HENRY: Of you.
ME: How so?
HENRY: That you don’t exist.
ME: That’s just silly. We have pictures, don’t we?
HENRY: She’d prefer the real thing.
ME: I think her opinion will change soon enough.
HENRY: Why are you whispering?
ME: Because I don’t want anyone to hear me.
HENRY: Isabel, our guest flew out here specifically to meet you.
ME: Have you taken her to Fisherman’s Wharf yet? Because that’s usually why people fly to San Francisco.
HENRY: Isabel, when are you coming home?
ME: Don’t wait up.
HENRY: What are you doing?
ME: I’m on a surveillance right now. I’ll call you when it’s over.
Before you judge me, I’d like you to consider this: At no point during that conversation did I lie to Ex-boyfriend #13. I was indeed at home. And I was also on a surveillance.
San Francisco has an unnatural number of houses that include the unfortunately named in-law unit. At first, when Henry and I were house hunting, I balked at the concept, fearing that one day (God forbid) my parents would somehow take ownership of the apartment out of a sense of entitlement. It required much cajoling to convince me that such a fate would not be mine. My mother finally got me to cave, explaining, point-blank, that she would prefer a low-rent convalescent home to cohabiting with me in her final days. I was mildly offended and spectacularly relieved.
The main entrance to the house is on the right side, up an abbreviated flight of stairs. The socially acceptable in-law entrance is on the ground level on the left side of the house. In the middle is the garage, which both units have a secondary access to. I slipped out of the office, which is in the in-law unit; went through the garage entrance; and climbed the rickety stairs to the interior entry to the main house. That door opens into the kitchen; I was in excellent eavesdropping position. The voices—one male, one female—echoed crisp and clear. It was as if I were a silent participant in the conversation.
Allow me to introduce you to Gertrude Stone, Henry’s mother.
GERTRUDE: Why don’t you have any pictures around?
HENRY: They’re still in boxes.
GERTRUDE: Surely you keep a picture of her in your wallet.
HENRY: [sigh] Well . . .
GERTRUDE: Why all the intrigue? She exists, right?
HENRY: For the last time, Mom. She exists. I swear. She’s just working late. You’ll meet her tomorrow morning.
GERTRUDE: Why wouldn’t you keep a picture in your wallet?
HENRY: I did! She stole it.
GERTRUDE: Why?
HENRY: Because she saw this movie once where a woman was showing a picture of her boyfriend to some woman at a bar. The second woman was later robbed and picked the boyfriend from the wallet snapshot out in a lineup.
GERTRUDE: Well, did he do it?
HENRY: Yes, but that’s not the point. Seeing his picture and then seeing him rob her made the identification easier.
GERTRUDE: What are the odds of Isabel ending up in a lineup anyway?
HENRY: Bette
r than you’d think. Can I get you anything else, Mom?
GERTRUDE: I could use a nightcap.
HENRY: You had wine with dinner.
GERTRUDE: That was two hours ago, Henry.
HENRY: Would you like more wine? I don’t think you finished the bottle.
GERTRUDE: No. I would like a proper drink.
HENRY: I think I saw some sweet vermouth in the pantry.2
GERTRUDE: So, how have things been going with this imaginary girlfriend of yours?
HENRY: Fine. You will meet her tomorrow.
GERTRUDE: So do you see wedding bells in your future?
HENRY: I can’t imagine Izzy approving of any ceremony involving bells.
GERTRUDE: Have you talked about children?
HENRY: I would rather not have this discussion.
GERTRUDE: So you haven’t talked to her?
HENRY: How’s Edna?
GERTRUDE: Dead. Last spring.
HENRY: Tragic.
GERTRUDE: She was eighty-eight. Why haven’t you talked about kids? It seems like it would come up eventually.
HENRY: We have peppermint schnapps.
GERTRUDE: Why on Earth do you have schnapps?3
A subtle intervention was required. Both the conversation and beverage offerings had to be rerouted. I slipped down the stairs and used my mobile. He picked up on the third ring.
“Hello.”
“It’s me,” I said.
“I know.”
“How’s everything going?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Do you have a new ETA?”
“Not just yet. But I thought of something. If your mom wants a drink, there’s a bottle of whiskey in my closet inside a green rain boot.”
“Why?”
“I like whiskey. Why?”
“Forget it.”
“Feel free to offer her some.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Yes. I’m missing the other boot. So if you see it around, let me know.”
“Good-bye, Isabel.”
I decided that sitting in a stairwell all night eavesdropping on a conversation in my own home was undignified, so I searched the office for a recording device that I could plant just outside the door. Then I could listen from the luxury of the office. Much more dignified.
I began searching my desk, which is essentially a receptacle for every item that I considered might someday come in useful or I didn’t know how to recycle. It’s also littered with an unruly number of thumbtacks, old candies, and expired electronic equipment, which might very well be emanating hazardous radio waves.
I stabbed myself a few times with an escaped pushpin and tried to recall my last tetanus shot. I tell you this only so that you understand that my guard was compromised, which gave Henry plenty of time to sneak down the stairs in his slippers and enter the in-law unit without my knowledge. Just when I spotted a listening device from circa 1992 in the nether reaches of the bottomless desk, Henry entered the office.
I shot out of the chair, spun around, and aimed the tape recorder as if it were a switchblade. As my heart rate slowed to a solid thud, I slumped back into my chair. “You scared me.”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Henry replied.
I searched the cluttered office and the equally cramped recesses of my mind and came up empty.
“Yep.”
“I’ll see you in five minutes. Please enter through the front door. Forget it, any door will do.”
Complaining about potential in-laws does appear to be as solid an American pastime as, for example, baseball, and while I was prepared for all sorts of criticism to both pitch and bat away, I had almost none. Gertrude, who goes by “Gerty” and fully acknowledges that it’s not much of an improvement, was quite possibly the exact opposite of what I expected. To put it bluntly, I expected an older, female version of Henry, which somehow didn’t translate well in my mind.
Gerty had a lovely long mop of gray hair, loosely clipped back off her neck. She wore a pair of baggy blue jeans and an oversized men’s striped shirt. Several bracelets dangled from her wrist, and she wore a collection of mismatched necklaces and large hoop earrings. When she smiled, she was usually laughing, and deep creases formed around her mouth. Starbursts of crow’s-feet framed her eyes. She wasn’t fighting her age, which somehow made her seem much younger than her sixty-eight years. I spotted only a hint of makeup on her face—red lipstick, faded over the day. I noted chipped nail polish and a shirt that was wrinkled from sitting in luggage, I suspect. I suddenly realized that Henry’s control gene, his fetish for order, his solid intensity, did not come from this woman. Gerty was relaxed and free and blind to the bread crumbs on the table. She was also better company than most of the company I invite over of my own free will.
For the most part, she asked random questions without any pointed prying. She told bizarre and hilarious anecdotes of Henry’s childhood. When he first discovered there was a number you could dial that would tell you precisely what time of day it was, he called the number every morning and set all the clocks in the house to the correct time. Even the slightly unreliable wind-up watches in their home were virtually always on the nose.
A few hours had passed and all the good booze was gone (mind you, there wasn’t much left in the boot when we started). Gerty suggested a beer run. Henry suggested that we had both had enough to drink; his mother then shot eye-daggers at her son and told him it was past his bedtime (which it was). Henry was in bed by midnight and, based on anecdotal history, asleep by 12:05. I think that’s one of the benefits of having a clear conscience.
I was looking forward to a few more hours of quality time with Gerty, drinking and getting more of the inside scoop on Ex #13. I was not surprised to learn that Henry played the trombone in the marching band and tried to start a Young Republicans club when he was ten. Gerty grounded him for a week, after which he saw the error of his ways. I asked if Henry resembled his father since he clearly did not take after Gerty, and she confirmed that he was the spitting image—in both appearance and character—of William Stone. I had an army of questions on the tip of my tongue, but Gerty fired back and twisted the conversation in the direction I’d been sidestepping all night.
“Let’s be serious for a moment, Isabel.”
Serious is seriously not my thing, but I was being polite for the guest and didn’t mention that.
“Sure. Okay.”
And then Gerty asked me the questions that she had been asking Henry during my interrupted reconnaissance mission. As you might expect, I didn’t have the answers. I looked at my watch and announced that it was past my bedtime.
“Next time, just tell me to mind my own business,” Gerty said.
“Would that have worked?”
“Sleep tight.”
Easy for her to say. My conscience hasn’t been clear for thirty years.4
I slipped into bed as stealthily as possible. Apparently not stealthily enough. The moment I rested my head on the pillow, Henry stirred and then mumbled.
“How long are you going to play this game?” he asked.
THE WEEKLY SUMMIT
We originally called it a company meeting, but my father thought the tone wasn’t quite professional enough and redubbed our Friday-afternoon powwows as the Weekly Summit in the futile hope that these hour-long gatherings would stop tumbling into low-rent group therapy sessions. During the weekly summits we discuss new cases, handle any in-house disputes (which can be quite numerous for an organization that pays only three full-time employees and one part-timer), and organize the workload for the week ahead.
I’ve never attended a summit in which at least one party didn’t have a private agenda, and this week was no exception. Once the family nicknames were doled out (and protested) and the code-phrase clinical trial voted in,1 I took the floor with what I believed was a valid argument that would undoubtedly be persuasive.
After a full review of the Vivien Blak
e case, I wanted it disappeared. I believe in privacy even though it is my job to invade it. While I have on occasion breached my own code of ethics for my work, the Vivien Blake case gave me pause more than any other. If she were to learn of her parents’ betrayal—and no matter how you cloak it, a betrayal it was—that relationship could be destroyed forever. There is a sharp distinction between being under direct scrutiny by your parents and being scrutinized by an agent of your parents. One is a family matter; the other is harassment.
Since I had lost the vote when the original discussion took place, it was only at the summit that I learned that Rae was to become the primary operative on the case. Aside from the case being at odds with the whole keeping-Rae-focused-on-her-schoolwork agenda, the method of the investigation struck me as ethically dubious. This wasn’t a simple surveillance job; we were planting an undercover operative in Vivien Blake’s world. With Rae, the perfect collegiate mole, Vivien would never know that she was being watched. That’s always the goal, of course. But usually, subjects at least have a fighting chance of figuring out they’re under investigation. Vivien had been a minor only six months ago. I believe in the folly of youth. I believe in rebellion and questioning authority and I even believe it’s okay to commit a few misdemeanors now and again. “Try to steer clear of felonies” is my motto.2 But Vivien wasn’t being given the chance to sow her wild oats. Speaking from a point of authority, it’s best to get that shit out of the way when you’re young.
I just assumed I’d have an ally in my sister on this subject. I was shocked when she studied the file and agreed to the case without even a moment of doubt.
“Rae, don’t you have a problem with this?” I asked.
“No,” Rae flatly replied.
“Why not?”
“Because surveillance is part of the job,” Rae replied.
“She’s only eighteen,” I said.
“And instead of moving into a dormitory like your average freshman, she chooses to rent an apartment in San Francisco. That’s a lot of responsibility for a girl that age,” Mom said.
“It’s still not a valid reason to take the case.”
