by Lisa Lutz
“I think I’ll go back to work,” I replied.
A half hour later, I unlocked the door to 1799 Clay Street,1 entered the office, and sat down behind my desk, which had already been partially cleared. Demetrius gave me a look of warning, and my mother and father simply stared in dismay.
“Have you come to clean out your work space?” my dad asked.
“No,” I replied. “And I want all of my pens back and my stapler. I bought that with my own money.”
“Sweetie,” Mom said, “what are you doing here?”
“I’m working,” I replied, trying to find something on my desk that I could use as a prop.
Dad cleared his throat. “Did you go on a bender and forget that you were fired?”
“Funny. No,” I said. “Any new cases I should know about?”
“Isabel, you don’t work here anymore. I don’t know how else I can phrase it to make you understand,” Dad said.
“I thought maybe after a few days of cooling off, you might have changed your mind,” I said.
“We haven’t,” Mom replied.
“Maybe you want to rethink this decision one more time and consult with Demetrius while you’re at it, since he’ll have to pick up the slack with me gone.”
Dad stood over my desk and maintained the most severe expression he’s capable of. His face doesn’t morph into stern all that easily. It’s a face meant for levity, not gravity, but he was doing a good job.
“I love you, Isabel. But you were fired, which means you don’t work here anymore. You are welcome to come for dinner anytime. But your employment with Spellman Investigations has been terminated.”
I played it the way I did because I thought it would be nice if I could change their minds without forcing their hand. But clearly my backup plan was the only option. I took the envelope out of my bag and passed it to my father.
“You can’t fire me,” I said. “Only the primary shareholder has the authority to hire and fire, and now that person is me.”
Demetrius suddenly needed a cup of coffee and left the office. My father didn’t even look in the envelope. He chuckled a bit and shook his head.
“Do you really think doctored paperwork will change the situation?”
“Dad, when you reorganized the business a few years ago, the split became forty percent you and Mom, thirty percent me, and fifteen percent each to David and Rae. I now own David and Rae’s shares, which means I own sixty percent of the business. Only I can fire me. I can also fire you. But I won’t do that. And, for the record, I have no immediate plans to abuse my power.”
Dad finally disrobed the paperwork and sat down behind his desk to review the documents. He remained silent for close to an hour. My mother used her head-tic nod to motion for me to meet her in the other room. I found her in the kitchen pouring herself a stiff drink.
“What have you done?” she said.
“Can I have one too?” I said. She was drinking vodka, but I would have had peppermint schnapps at that point.
Mom slid the bottle in my direction and said, “Help yourself.”
Demetrius eyed us warily. “I think I should go do that thing that I was going to do.”
“You don’t have a thing,” I said.
“I have a thing,” D said insistently.
“Please stay,” I said. I figured my father could only get so angry in front of witnesses.
“I don’t think so,” D replied. “I did real time and you people still scare me.”
He was out the door before any further protest was made.
My mother and I stood at the counter, drinking vodka and avoiding eye contact. Her cell phone rang, which was a welcome interruption to the tense silence.
“Hello, Walter,” she said. “I seriously doubt that the upstairs apartment is leaking . . . has it happened before? Yes, there is a first time for everything. This isn’t the best time, Walter . . . I see. I see. Okay. I’ll be right over.” Mom grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the front door.
“You can’t leave me alone here with him,” I said.
“Sweetie, you want to plan a corporate takeover, you deal with the fallout.”
And she was out the door.
FALLOUT
I sat in the kitchen drinking vodka and grapefruit juice and eating Crack Mix for a full hour until my father surfaced from the office. I have no idea what was keeping Mom, but she managed to stay missing just like D. Dad sat down across from me and sighed deeply. He then grabbed a handful of D’s delicacy.
“People seem to be making sport out of duping me,” Dad said. “Any other food deceptions I should know about?”
“Most baked goods have been modified, and a few side dishes at meals.”
“You sure pulled the wool over my eyes.”
“I’m not taking the fall for everything. This was not my idea.” I slid the rest of the bowl in my father’s direction. “Eat up,” I said. “I don’t know when you’ll get another opportunity.”
My father snacked for a full five minutes before speaking. It was hard to tell if Dad was trying to get in as much Crack Mix time as possible or if he was genuinely contemplating how to speak to the daughter who had betrayed him. “I just got off the phone with my lawyers and your new benefactor, Mr. Slayter.”
“He’s just an investor.”
“And it looks like all your paperwork is in order,” he said. “You sure got me.”
“That wasn’t the point.”
“There had to be another way,” Dad said.
“Maybe. But I’ve been working for this business twenty years. When you and Mom retire, which is no longer in the distant future, I get to run it the way I want to. I’m thirty-four years old. I’m a grown-up now. Or I’m as grown-up as I’m likely to become. I can run Spellman Investigations on my own, but if this is going to be my business, I’m going to run it my way.”
“It’s the family business, Isabel.”
“Except that one day, I’ll be the only member of this family working here.”
Of course, that was only the beginning of the conversation. Over the next few days a good chunk of the Spellman dirty laundry was aired. My mother went to visit Rae, still shocked by her decision to relinquish company power to me. The price was good, but Rae already had a decent nest egg. It was then that my mother truly understood that Rae had lost all interest in investigative work. The six-year-old girl who begged for days on end to join the family on a surveillance job was no more. It could easily be argued that she burned out early.
Then my mother visited David, looking for some explanation for why he made the choice he did. David reminded her that the only Spellman capable of running the business in the future was me. He didn’t want to see Spellman Investigations retire when his parents did.
It was that simple.
Then my mother asked him about the rift between him and Rae, and David finally told her the truth. My mother’s response was atypical as usual. With all the scientific experimenting going on, she couldn’t help but lament the fact that out of her three children she couldn’t get a single doctor.
And so, for the time being, all current secrets had been unearthed and we were free to begin interring a few more. The holidays passed without any noteworthy event, other than Grammy Spellman appearing at Christmas dinner with a gentleman friend she met at a polka class. When the holiday break was over, my mother and father decided that they needed a disappearance.1 They figured a company restructuring was worthy of an extended weekend away at Big Sur.
Upon their return, they appeared both rested and accepting of all that had transpired. But, if I’ve learned anything in the course of my life, appearances can be and usually are deceiving. Mom and Dad both demanded raises and more vacation time and put in requests for new cell phones. As they settled into the simple fact that I was now their boss, our work relationship took a sharp U-turn. Instead of acting like bosses, they behaved like employees, and not very good ones at that. They began slacking off on the job
and showing up later and later, despite the fact that they had no commute. This often forced me to come into their bedroom in the morning, pull the blinds, and bribe them with coffee. I even had to reprimand my mother a few times for extended phone calls with friends back east and tell my dad that a FREE SCHMIDT T-shirt was not appropriate attire for a client meeting. I suspect all this was for show, but the end result was the same. I was saddled with unprofessional employees who had limited respect for their superior. Which, I suppose, was a burden my parents had endured for years.
After the most recent Weekly Summit, my dad winked at me and said, “Be careful what you wish for.”
TWENTY-ONE
The three months after the coup seemed to rush by like the landscape on a road trip. Occasionally I’d have a moment to sit back and reflect, and only then did I grasp how quickly this world was passing me by. Everywhere I looked, someone was hitting a milestone. David had a child; Demetrius was engaged; what was left of my father’s hair had gone completely gray; my mother had to take prescription calcium supplements. I suppose those last few things aren’t milestones. But Rae turning twenty-one most definitely was. I remembered when she was fourteen and would plant herself on a bar stool in the Philosopher’s Club and demand ginger ale, only to be expelled . . . eventually. My family decided to throw her a surprise party at the Philosopher’s Club. It seemed only fitting that we should celebrate her coming-of-drinking-age at what had been her unofficial watering hole for years.
The crowd was the typical Spellman mismatch of associates—David and Maggie (sans Sydney), Mom, Dad, Grammy Spellman, and an assortment of unknown coeds that Rae had apparently befriended. Vivien Blake, Robbie Gruber (I don’t know who invited him), and a couple of guys from my dad’s time on the SFPD even made a showing. Demetrius and Mabel arrived bearing gifts of edible items. (A few months before their engagement, D gave up his secret life with Mabel and invited her to dinner to meet his second family. Everyone was on excellent behavior, but that’s probably because D made us do a run-through the night before, with written critiques and all.)
Of course Bernie was also at the bar; he owns the place and I’m learning to accept that. Gerty has yet to discover the man in the affidavits1 and I’m hoping that maybe that man is gone for good. Although I suspect he’s just in hibernation. Of course, Henry was present for the event. For years he had served our family, providing Rae extractions from this very establishment. Like all relationships, my sister’s and Henry’s morphed over time. But I remember the days when they were inseparable (mostly because Rae wouldn’t leave Henry alone).
The surprise party ruse was that I wanted to buy my sister her first legal alcoholic beverage. I texted her after all the revelers had arrived. Some hid in the office, others behind the bar, and a few of the smaller coeds under the pool table.
ETA?
2 min.
“The Weasel is two minutes out,” I said as silence washed over the joint.
Even the jukebox was mercifully mute.
The reveal went the way most surprise parties do. People jumped out of their hiding places and shouted, “Surprise!” Rae tried really hard to appear alarmed and delighted, but I could spot that knowing look in her eye. Someone had inadvertently dropped a piece of intelligence and Rae had known all along. She faked it well, but I can read her like a book, although I should probably just read more books. As she scanned the room, searching through familiar faces, I knew that there was only one face she was looking for. But he was nowhere to be seen.
Gifts soon followed. Dad handed her the keys to the car he repossessed. She had the common sense to be gracious about it. But I could tell her thoughts were elsewhere. In between accepting wrapped offerings and greeting her fellow revelers, she clocked the front door repeatedly.
“Come on, where’s your party spirit?” I asked. “You usually love birthdays, especially your own. Maybe only your own.”
“It’s hard to celebrate being the legal age to do anything but rent a car and be president when I’m wearing an orange jumpsuit twenty hours a week and cleaning garbage off the side of the highway.”
“Try to forget about it for just one night,” I said. Then I gave her my birthday gift. It was wrapped in a business envelope.
“What is this?” she asked.
“I have enjoyed visiting you at the work site and taking photographs as you fulfill your probation. And I’m not kidding, you look amazing in orange. But in honor of this momentous occasion, I decided to erase the images from my computer. I have a letter from Robbie Gruber confirming this fact. It’s not legally binding, but you can take my word for it. However, I did put them on a storage device should you ever need them for any reason. I promise, these pictures will not come back to haunt you.”
Rae took the envelope and stuffed it in her pocket.
“From you, that’s a pretty decent gift.”
“Happy birthday,” I said. Then I spotted Fred at the entrance. “I think your real gift just arrived.”
Rae stepped away from the bar and walked toward Fred, meeting him halfway, which seemed fitting considering that was all he had ever asked for.
I scanned the room and found Henry sitting alone at a table in the corner, nursing a drink.
“What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“I have no idea,” Henry replied. “What’s your excuse?”
“I’m apparently not so nice.”
“I beg to differ.”
I looked over at the bar and caught a nauseating glimpse of Bernie and Gerty kissing. “If those two can make it work, you have to wonder,” I said.
“Indeed,” Henry replied.
And then silence fell over us.
But it was hard to notice with the hum of conversation in the room. Eventually someone would have to say something; it was Henry who spoke first.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“I’ve been better,” I replied.
“It won’t last,” he said.
And that was true, because nothing lasts. And as many times as that idea causes pain, it can also erase it. I wanted that night to end and it did. But there would be other nights in the future that I would want to go on forever. And those nights wouldn’t last either.
After Rae tore apart the rest of her presents with a little more enthusiasm, she sat down at the bar and reviewed her boozy options.
“What’ll it be?” Bernie asked.
“I’ll have the usual,” Rae replied.
“Refresh my memory,” said Bernie.
“Ginger ale.”
It was comforting to know that in a world where you can’t count on a single thing to be true from one moment to the next, there can be one small, insignificant thing that stays the same.
APPENDIX
DOSSIERS
Albert Spellman
Age: 67
Occupation: Private investigator
Physical characteristics: Six foot three; large (used to be larger, but doctor put him on a diet); oafish; mismatched features; thinning brown/gray hair; gives off the general air of a slob, but the kind that showers regularly.
History: Onetime SFPD forced into early retirement by a back injury. Went to work for another retired-cop-turned-private-investigator, Jimmy O’Malley. Met his future wife, Olivia Montgomery, while on the job. Bought the PI business from O’Malley and has kept it in the family for the last thirty-five years.
Bad habits: Has lengthy conversations with the television; snacking; thinks he’s the boss of me.
Olivia Spellman
Age: 59
Occupation: Private investigator
Physical characteristics: Extremely petite; appears young for her age; quite attractive; shoulder-length auburn hair (from a bottle); well groomed.
History: Met her husband while performing an amateur surveillance on her future brother-in-law (who ended up not being her future brother-in-law). Started Spellman Investigations with her husband. Excels at pretext calls and o
ther friendly forms of deceit.
Bad habits: Willing to break laws to meddle in children’s lives; likes to record other peoples’ conversations.
Old David Spellman (for New David, see this document)
Age: 36
Occupation: Lawyer
Physical characteristics: Tall, dark, and handsome.
History: Honor student, class valedictorian, Berkeley undergrad, Stanford law. You know the sort.
Bad habits: Makes his bed every morning, excessively fashionable, wears pricey cologne, drinks moderately, reads a lot, keeps up on current events, exercises.
Rae Spellman
Age: 20½
Occupation: Junior in college/part-time Spellman Investigations employee
Physical characteristics: Petite like her mother; appears a few years younger than her age; long, unkempt sandy blond hair; freckles; tends to wear sneakers so she can always make a run for it.
History: Blackmail, coercion, junk food obsession, bribery.
Bad habits: Too many to list.
Henry Stone
Age: 47
Occupation: San Francisco Police Inspector
Physical characteristics: Average height, thin, short brown hair, serious brown eyes, extremely clean-cut.
History: Was the detective on the Rae Spellman missing persons case over six years ago. Before that, I guess he went to the police academy, passed some test, married some annoying woman, and did a lot of tidying up. Was Ex-boyfriend #13 for a while, but now he’s just Henry Stone.
Bad habits: Doesn’t eat candy; keeps a clean home; likes to iron.
Demetrius Merriweather
Age: 43
Occupation: Employee at Spellman Investigations
Physical characteristics: Tall, athletic, a few prison scars.
History: Wrongly incarcerated for murder; spent fifteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Was released, moved into the Spellman household, and currently works for Spellman Investigations.
Bad habits: Must have back to wall at all times; jumpy; good at keeping secrets.
