The Last Word

by Lisa Lutz

  Sydney grew up with a doting father as her primary caretaker, a working mother who managed as much quality time as she could, two adoring grandparents, and two aunties. Sydney’s Aunt Isabel tried her best but had never taken a shine to babies or toddlers or people at eye level with one’s kneecaps. Sydney’s Aunty Rae, however—shorter in stature, which perhaps marks more of a commonality with her niece—generously offered to babysit. David and Maggie, sleep-deprived and housebound, like most new parents, greedily accepted the free babysitting whenever the opportunity arose.

  All would agree that the first year of Sydney’s life went quite smoothly. She learned to say Mama and Dada; she learned to walk; she learned to eat creamed carrots and applesauce. She learned to pick up Cheerios and throw Cheerios. And then there was this incident, mentioned in the previous document,2 when she was about eighteen months old: Sydney learned how to say banana.

  That is when the trouble began for David and Maggie and Sydney and a few other Spellmans.

  Sydney began calling many things banana. If you held up an orange, she said banana. A carton of milk, banana. Cheerios, banana. Oddly enough, if you showed Sydney a banana she would shout, “No apple.”

  David discovered that his favorite babysitter and sister (Rae) was conducting linguistic experiments on his daughter. He never told anyone because when Rae was a child David wrote a children’s book called How to Negotiate Everything,3 which he read to Rae repeatedly as a toddler. This book has informed Rae’s character in more ways than any of her family wishes to consider. So, in a way, David performed his own experiment on a family member.

  It wasn’t that babysitters were in short supply. David and Maggie lived just a few short miles from Albert and Olivia Spellman’s home. But he had seen what female product had come from the parental unit—Isabel and Rae—and he wanted none of that.

  And that was a mistake David would pay for dearly.

  Ruth Spellman—Grammy Spellman, great-grandmother to Sydney—like all grandmothers, lives to babysit. It was a win-win situation for David and Maggie. Or so they thought. No one likes Grammy very much, or at all. But she certainly would know how to keep a child alive and put her to bed at a decent hour and until Sydney complained, they would avail themselves of her services whenever they needed a night out.

  • • •

  This almost brings us up to date. Remember Isabel,4 the impoverished younger sister of David, who lives in her brother’s basement apartment? One night, Izzy decided to forage for food upstairs. She entered quietly through the back door to avoid disturbing any sleeping children or awake adults. As Isabel perused the pantry and gathered bags of Goldfish, string cheese, and a bottle of cheap wine that she knew her brother would save for family dinners or unwelcome guests, she overheard a conversation in the living room that alarmed her working-class sensibilities. She placed her reserves on the dryer and tiptoed down the galley kitchen to the mouth of the dining area, where the acoustics were more eavesdropping-friendly. Two familiar voices were having the most disturbing conversation.

  GRAMMY: Young lady, elbows off the table.

  SYDNEY: I want fish.

  GRAMMY: What do you say?

  SYDNEY: Fish please.

  GRAMMY: Those are empty calories, young lady. That’s the kind of food your aunt Izzy eats. It’s not good for you.

  SYDNEY: Cookie please.

  GRAMMY: Sit up straight. A young lady crosses her legs. You have to be very careful when you’re wearing a dress, Sydney. Here’s your cookie.

  SYDNEY: Thank you.

  GRAMMY: In the future you should say thank you before you start eating the cookie. And for every cookie you eat, you have to walk around the block at least twice or play in the park for twenty minutes. If you get hungry later, we’ll have carrot sticks.

  SYDNEY: I don’t like this.

  GRAMMY: It is a cookie for young ladies.5

  SYDNEY: But I don’t like it, Grammy.

  GRAMMY: I don’t like them either, but they’re low in calories. So, Sydney, what do you want to be when you grow up?

  SYDNEY: A princess. I want a cookie.

  GRAMMY: How about I make you a deal.

  SYDNEY: I want a cookie.

  GRAMMY: Wouldn’t you like a pretty pink princess dress?

  SYDNEY: Yes. I want a princess dress.

  GRAMMY: I will get you the prettiest princess dress you’ve ever seen if you promise Grammy that you will eat young-lady cookies and stay away from bad food.

  SYDNEY: Izzy food?

  GRAMMY: Right. Stay away from Izzy food.

  SYDNEY: Where is the dress?

  GRAMMY: Do you know what else a princess has to have?

  SYDNEY: A crown.

  GRAMMY: A princess has to have impeccable manners. Do you know what manners are?

  And that is when the brainwashing began. Every Thursday night—movie night for David and Maggie; Emily Post night for Sydney and Grammy—Grammy would arrive, help Sydney into a pink crinoline dress and tiara that she purchased as a bribe for the occasion, and let loose with a series of manners tutorials fit for a 1950s cotillion.

  David and Maggie, heady from the rush of freedom that movie (and sometimes dinner-and-a-movie) night provided them, were blind to the tiny shifts in their daughter’s personality. Being a good sister and the sworn enemy of Grammy Spellman, Isabel warned her brother and sister immediately after she overheard the first disturbing conversation. Maggie and David promised to look into the matter, but a babysitter you could call at a moment’s notice who didn’t charge was hard to come by, and who could argue against teaching your daughter manners? It wasn’t until Sydney’s play-dates started dropping out as fast as Grandpa Albert’s hair in the eighties that David and Maggie began heeding Isabel’s warning.

  Maggie and David immediately installed a Grammy Cam and invited Grammy Spellman over for what would be her last unsupervised visit with her great-granddaughter. After witnessing the programming firsthand, Maggie and David decided to deprogram their daughter by example. Good manners went out the window. Anyone famously ill-mannered was welcomed into their home with open arms.

  For the next several weeks Isabel found herself to be the guest of honor virtually every day in the Mason/Spellman household. She was treated like a queen, waited upon hand and foot, offered Goldfish, beer, bourbon, whatever food they were serving that night. Extra coffee and porridge were always made in the morning. If she accidentally swore or put her shoes on the coffee table, nary a comment was made. Isabel discovered that the less presentable she appeared, the more compliments she received.

  Isabel had never known a more peaceful living situation, if you put aside the pink tyrant sipping air tea in the corner. Everything was perfect until one night when Isabel came home from a brutal day at the office. She dropped her coat and bag at her apartment and quickly climbed the stairs to the Mason/Spellman hearth to see what was for dinner. Maggie had ordered pizza that night, with mushrooms and olives. An interesting choice, Isabel thought. Her favorite toppings, but neither David’s nor Maggie’s. That wasn’t the only thing that was out of the ordinary. Maggie was wearing a pretty blouse and a not-too-wrinkled skirt. Clothes she wore outside, not inside.

  Maggie pulled a beer from the refrigerator for Isabel and opened the pizza box.

  “Hungry?” Maggie asked.

  “Starving,” Isabel said, taking a plate from the cupboard as she sat down at the table. “Where’s Princess Banana?”

  “David’s putting her to bed.”

  A few minutes later, David came down the stairs.

  “She’s out,” he said.

  David, too, had cleaned up. Isabel had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Did you see the pizza?” David asked.

  “Yes,” Isabel said.

  It was an unusual question since some of the pizza was in her mouth.

  “Do you need anything else?” Maggie asked.

  David and Maggie began inching toward the door. It was only t
hen that Isabel knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  “An eight o’clock movie. Sydney’s asleep. She won’t be a problem,” Maggie said.

  “We owe you,” David said.

  Before Isabel could say another word, David and Maggie ran out the front door and down the driveway as if the house was on fire. They jumped into Maggie’s car and burned rubber, pulling onto the street. They were gone before Isabel could utter a single word in protest.

  Isabel locked the door and calmly accepted her fate. As long as Princess Banana stayed asleep, there was no place she’d rather be and she had everything she needed—pizza, beer, and a large-screen TV.

  But Princess Banana didn’t stay put. Thirty minutes later, footsteps padded along the staircase and she heard the all-too-familiar words.

  “No Izzy!”

  “Banana, if you go back to sleep, when you wake up I won’t be here.”

  “No Izzy,” the princess said again.

  “You can keep saying that all you want, but it won’t make me magically disappear.”

  “Where are Mommy and Daddy?”

  “At a movie,” Isabel said.

  “Mommy and Daddy,” the princess demanded, stomping her foot.

  “They will return when the movie is over.”

  “Now.”

  “No. Come on, let’s go back to bed,” Isabel said, climbing the stairs.

  Princess Banana sat down on the top landing and wouldn’t budge.

  “Sydney, go to bed,” Isabel repeated.

  Princess Banana said, “You have bad manners.”

  “You have bad manners,” was Isabel’s clever retort.

  There was nothing to be said after that. Princess Banana remained stubbornly seated and trained her eyes wistfully on the front door.

  “You’re not a lady,” Banana said.

  “You got that right,” Isabel said, taking a seat a few steps down from her niece.

  That is where David and Maggie found them exactly one hour and forty-five minutes later, when they returned home. Sydney rushed into her father’s arms. Isabel slowly got to her feet and worked out the kinks in her back.

  Isabel looked at the couple with cold, dead eyes and said, “I could waste a few hours thinking about payback, but you know what you did was wrong. I had two unpleasant hours with your child. You have the rest of your lives. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  * * *

  1. Three times a month.

  2. Now available in paperback!

  3. Now available from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. I’m not joking.

  4. This is the only time I will ever refer to myself in the third person.

  5. Further investigation determined that it was Melba toast.

  WHERE WAS I?

  MEMO

  To All Spellman Employees:

  Case meeting Tomorrow, 10:15 A.M. Attendance is Mandatory Please attend, everyone. Your input is invaluable.

  Signed, Respectfully,

  The Management Isabel

  In case you’ve lost track of time, we’re now back to the beginning of the story, approximately four months after I took over as chief operating officer of Spellman Investigations. Approximately a week after Rae took Vivien’s case, I first met Damien Thorp, was enlisted to defragrance Charlie’s sweaters, and Henry told me his girlfriend was pregnant. And, once more, I was trying to wrangle the crew together for a meeting and failing, as usual.

  Even with D’s blueberry muffins as incentive, the unit refused to turn out for the ten fifteen meeting. I phoned the home line to see if they’d pick up. No answer. Although I could hear them watching a morning program in their bedroom. There’s that saying about the mountain and Muhammad and I’m not saying it, but as you can see I’ve been reduced to thinking in clichés. D grabbed the basket of muffins, Viv collected mugs from the kitchen, and I took the carafe of coffee and the case files up to my parents’ bedroom.

  I knocked twice, asked if everyone was decent, and we entered.

  “I guess we’ll have the meeting here,” I said as I hunted for the on/off switch on the television. Once I clicked it off, Dad clicked it on again with the remote. We continued the on/off rally for a few more strokes until I pulled the power cord.

  I politely poured my parents each a cup of coffee, which they accepted in silence. D’s muffins, on the other hand, they snatched up with warm gratitude. Vivien took a seat on the floor by the window; I removed a pile of clothes from a captain’s chair in the corner and offered it to D; I sat on the end of the bed like I did when I was a little girl.

  “Who would like to begin?” I asked.

  Silence.

  “Anybody working any cases?”

  More silence. I turned to Vivien.

  “Any updates on your moving-company case?”

  “I couldn’t find anyone named Owen Lukas connected to Lightning Fast Moving, so Rae made a pretext call. She claimed that she’d had a really great experience with her moving consultant and described him to the secretary. The secretary said he sounded like Marcus. Cross-checking owner names on the corporate records, Marcus Lorre was his full name. There are three Marcus Lorres in a probable radius, so we’re going to run a quick surveillance on known addresses and see if it’s the same guy.”

  “Under no circumstances, Vivien, are you to speak to him again.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “See if you can locate any of the other people who have claims against the company and if they were dealing with a Marcus Lorre or Owen Lukas.”

  “I think Rae is already on it,” Viv said.

  “Any theories on why the guy is using a fake name?” I asked.

  “Rae thinks that if the owner is using an alias it provides another layer of protection. It’s hard to file a complaint against a man who doesn’t exist.”

  “How’s your soap sculpture going?” D asked.

  “They must use a different brand of soap in prison,” Vivien said.

  Mom and Dad managed to remain completely oblivious to the business meeting happening right in front of them. Dad reached for another blueberry muffin and Mom smacked his hand away.

  “One is more than enough,” she said.

  “Is there anything you guys want to talk about?” I asked.

  “The muffins are excellent, D,” Dad said.

  “Delicious as always,” Mom said.

  “I meant about work,” I said.

  “No, dear,” one of them said.

  “D, what do you have on Divine Strategies?”

  “On paper everything looks great. I looked over the D & B that Mr. Slayter provided and the financials are solid. No UCC filings or even civil cases on record.”

  “That all sounds good. Any problems?”

  “More executives have departed in the last ten years than support staff. In the last two years, they’ve given five percent bonuses across the board. Usually in a company with this kind of revenue the executives could expect more.”

  “Is it possible that a company exists without following the tenets of traditional corporate American greed?”

  “It’s possible,” Mom said, interrupting.

  “I asked Olivia to look over the report,” D said.

  “Mom, do you have something to add?”

  Through a mouthful of blueberry muffin, Mom said, “Something isn’t right there. I just can’t say what. It’s too perfect. Usually there’s more turnover in the support staff than on the executive level, but with Divine Strategies it’s turned upside down. Also, human resources could be remiss in their records, but even for a company that size, there’s been only one disciplinary report and one firing in the last eight years.”

  “That sounds like a good thing to me.”

  “Companies are motivated by greed. You have firms that smartened up after the financial crisis, but Divine Strategies has been like this for years, it seems. It’s possible they’re a corporation with a co
nscience, but the cynic in me says it’s something else.”

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “Track down some of their previous employees and interview them,” Mom said.

  “Would that be something you’d consider doing?” I asked with a polite and even tone.

  “I might be able to work it into my schedule,” Mom said.

  “Thank you. That would be wonderful,” I said.

  Viv looked at her watch and said, “I have a paper due in an hour and I haven’t started it. Mind if I go?”

  “No problem.”

  D’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and said, “It’s Maggie. I better take it.”

  After he departed, I looked at my parents, who hadn’t moved from their state of repose.

  “Anyone planning on getting out of bed?”

  “Maybe later,” said Mom.

  “This can’t go on forever,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Dad replied. “We’ll die eventually.”

  • • •

  I returned to the office and caught D at the tail end of his phone call.

  “Maggie, I would strongly encourage you to read his file in full before we invest any more time in this case.”

  Then he did a lot of listening and saying uh-huh, uh-huh, I do understand, but—yes, okay. I remember. Then he hung up the phone and stared out the window for an unusually long time. There is no view, no matter what anybody tries to tell you.

  “Everything okay, D?” I asked.

  “Can’t complain.”

  “How’s the pro bono case going?” I asked.

  “We, I mean I, interviewed Washburn at San Quentin State Prison the other day.”