Spy Mom (6 page)

The usual crowd is assembled. It's divided equally between nannies and moms. The nannies sit on one side speaking Spanish. The moms sit on the other side speaking Californian. They are an interesting group. There is Claire, an investment banker who, after going through four nannies, decided the only one who could raise Owen correctly was her. She has taken motherhood to a whole new level of intensity. Last Christmas, her gingerbread house had a master suite with a walk-in closet with fifteen tiny pairs of gingerbread shoes on a minuscule shelf. She never raises her voice or expresses any frustration with Owen. However, I think he subconsciously realizes that his mommy is a little scary and, in his case, good behavior is simply a form of self-preservation.

There is Belinda, who favors long, flowing skirts and Birkenstocks. Three-year-old Amanda has free will, Belinda has told us, so why shouldn't she be allowed to act on it? Amanda, as a result, is a holy terror. She once held a boy facedown in the sand until he promised to give her all of his Halloween candy, and it was only July. Belinda used to be a suit-wearing, office-going editor of a weekly business journal. I have a hard time imagining it, but apparently it's true.

There's Sam, as in Samuel, grandfather of Carter and part-time child care provider. We have never met Carter's mother or father. The park is obviously not their thing. Sam provides a much needed dose of testosterone in our den of estrogen. He does a good job keeping us from turning into a bunch of clucking hens, at least on the days that he and Carter join us in the park.

And there is Avery, my best mom friend. I didn't actually know people could be this nice. In my experience, the nice people were always after something. Even in states of extreme sleep deprivation, I've never heard Avery say an unkind word about anyone. Her daughter is the most refined three-year-old I've ever met. She meets us at the playground gate.

“Hello, Mrs. Hamilton,” she says.

“Hello, Sophie,” I answer.

“Come on, Theo,” she says, taking my little boy by the hand and leading him off into the mess of kids rolling around in the sand like puppies.

Avery is sitting on a bench. She waves me over and I join her.

“I think Sophie is going to grow up to be a cruise director or a CEO. She likes to boss people around,” she says.

“At least she is polite about it so you don't resent that you are being told what to do. Besides, Theo will go with anyone, provided she or he has long hair and doesn't object to him taking the occasional bite of it.”

Avery laughs. “So what's new?”

Well, I want to say, I just got this phone call from my old boss, from back when I used to be a spy, see? It seems he wants to have a chat. Now, that would be all well and good except members of the USAWMD don't pay social calls. They generally have no friends and no lives, so social calls aren't necessary. Anyway, I'm retired but now he wants to see me and I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it.

Instead, I say nothing is new. Things are quiet. The usual. We watch the kids play. They are building a tower out of sand and water, and Theo's recycled plastic adventure people and the Matryoshka dolls are BASE jumping from the top.

Sometimes I have flashbacks. Normally, in my memory, I'm pretty good at keeping my nine years with the USAWMD down to a constant yet dull hum. But sometimes a certain smell, say the exhaust from a passing bus or the way someone is walking down the street, will bring it all back into razor-sharp focus. Watching Theo and Sophie and Owen, I remember Simon Still bleeding in a back alley in Budapest.

“I'm going to die,” he said. I knelt over him, covering his wounds as best I could with my knockoff designer scarf. “You know what to do when an agent dies, don't you?”

“I didn't read that part of the manual, Simon. Sorry. So I guess I'm going to have to leave you here on the street, let the rats have at you.”

He smiled through his pain. “Bitch,” he said. “I might really die.”

“Stop being a baby,” I said, his blood soaking through my fingers. “Nobody dies from a gunshot wound.”

“I can't even laugh at that,” he said.

“Who wants to kill you?” I asked, tossing aside the bloody scarf. I pulled off my jacket, covered the bullet holes, and leaned on the whole mess as hard as I dared. Simon groaned.

“Everyone.”

“But no one knows we're here. We're not even supposed to be here,” I said. I tried to ignore the blood soaking through my jacket, forming little pools around my hands. “We're supposed to be in Madrid.”

“Doesn't matter,” Simon said through gritted teeth. “Get used to it.”

I called for an ambulance and got Simon to a local hospital. They wanted an explanation. I shouted at them hysterically in French until they couldn't stand it anymore and gave up. After they patched him up, the doctor, very slowly in very elegant French, explained to me that they needed to keep him for several days on account of the large bullet holes in his chest, but that was out of the question. In the end, I simply wheeled him out the back door when no one was paying attention and onto a transport back to the States.

When I finally came home after a useless three weeks in Budapest, Simon was back to work, still a little pale and moving slowly.

“We were not even supposed to be there,” I reminded him again. I'd had a lot of time to think about what happened while I was wandering around Budapest eating cucumber salad and accomplishing nothing. “We were supposed to be in Madrid.”

Simon ignored me, rearranging the yellow and pink Post-it notes on his desk. Now, a smart person would have accepted his silence on the matter and moved on. But not me. No. I had to keep at it.

“Do you think there is a rat?” I asked, which turned out to be the wrong question altogether.

Simon made that clear by sending me to Yemen for the worst assignment I'd ever had. Sand reminds me of Africa. Hostile acts, like throwing innocent recycled plastic adventure people and cute Russian dolls off of sand towers, remind me of Africa.

“You look like you've seen a ghost,” Avery says, bringing me quickly back to the present and San Francisco and the sun and the playground.

“No,” I say. “I was thinking about something from a long time ago.” She gives me that look, the same one that Will sometimes throws in my direction. It's the one that says I know you are not telling me the whole truth.

“Are you coming to yoga tonight?” Avery asks, changing the subject.

“Oh right. Yoga. Yes. I hate it but I'm coming.”

“Good.”

We sit on the bench some more, watching the kids. Eventually, Theo comes over and begs for snacks and juice, and the kids sit in a merry circle and trade food and end up wearing much more than they eat. It's just another normal morning in my normal life, and if I didn't have to see Simon Still in less than an hour, it would be a good day all around.

Simon Still sits at a table in the Java Luv. He is wearing a white fedora, dark sunglasses, and a raincoat, although it hasn't rained in months. It surprises me that he is waiting. Simon never arrives first. I stand outside, watching him through the big glass windows. For nine years, I considered him my mentor, the shoes I wanted to fill, if in a nicer color. However, I never deluded myself into believing he considered me anything more than your standard-issue amoeba. In profile his chin sags a bit more, but the rest of him looks the same. His eyes lock onto mine and I smile. He does not. I have Theo by the hand and he is joyously singing a tune about his toy car, which he clutches in the other hand. I see Simon run his eyes over my boy and I want to break his neck. There is no obvious reason for this; he hasn't done anything yet. But I have not a single doubt in my mind that he will.

I take a deep breath and push the door open. The strong smell of coffee, usually so inviting, is suffocating today. I move through the crowd, navigating my singing son in front of me. Simon doesn't stand up. He gives me a slight nod of acknowledgment, and for the second time in less than five minutes I want to kill him.

“Simon Still,” I say.

“Sally Sin,” he says.

“Lucy, if you don't mind.”

“Of course.” He nods. “Lucy. That's what it says on your passport, must be true. And this must be Theodore Wilton Hamilton, correct?”

“Yes. Say hi to the nice man, Theo,” I prompt.

“Nice man? Well, that's a new one,” Simon says.

“Hi,” Theo says. “Do you want to play cars?”

“No. I don't want to play cars. I have some quick business with your mother after which I'm sure she will play cars with you. That is her job now, you know.”

Theo looks disappointed. He is used to people cooing over him and smiling and enthusiastically playing whatever silly games he can dream up.

“Oh,” he says, looking at me for guidance in these uncharted waters.

“Can you sit here in the chair like a big boy for Mommy? Only for a few minutes and after we'll get an ice cream?” Okay. So I'm not above bribery, but I challenge you to find me one mother who is.

“I guess so,” Theo says, crawling under the table with his car. On the chair, under the chair, it's all the same when you're little.

I focus on Simon. “What do you want?” I ask. My tone is harsher than I intend. I fill my lungs with fresh air, close my eyes. All the yoga I do ought to be good for something, right? I start again.

“It's good to see you, Simon. You look well. Healthy.”

“I've been in South America.” I don't ask him why or where. “It's good to see you too, Mom.” There is a sneering quality to his voice that I don't like, but short of pitching a cup of scalding coffee in his face, my hands are tied.

“What brings you to sunny California?” I ask, hoping to get down to business before Theo grows bored and starts tugging on people's shoelaces.

“I wanted a cup of coffee and who better to have it with than Sally Sin? Sorry,” he corrects himself, “Lucy. No more Sally.”

I try to read him but it's impossible. Simon Still is not the best there ever was either but he is damn close. He gives nothing away—not a sign, not a gesture, nothing. So I go the direct route.

“As much as I'd like to believe that is true,” I begin, “I know that it's not. So I will ask you again. Why are you here, Simon?”

“That's Mr. Still to you,” he says in a tone that sets my teeth on edge. “Just kidding. Your boy is in the garbage can.”

Theo has, in fact, crawled into the recycle bin and is mucking around the dirty bottles and cans. I can hear him talking to himself.

“Theo, baby, come out of there,” I coax, “please?”

“No, Mommy. I like it in here. I like the cans.”

“Theo, now,” I say. I can feel Simon's eyes boring holes in my back. This is a test and I'm failing. I reach in and grab Theo and he begins to shriek and flail, pounding on me with his three-year-old fists.

Once he is locked down in my version of the human straitjacket, I return to the table. But I can't sit down because I'm holding on very tightly to my son, who is about ready to blow.

“We need to take this conversation outside,” I say. Simon raises an eyebrow. He doesn't say anything but I know what he is thinking. This is what you traded in a life of adventure and romance and chasing bad guys for? Brilliant choice. And you're so good at it. Really.

I wrestle Theo into his stroller and give him a chocolate chip cookie. This takes the edge off his fit. We walk down the street.

“I've always liked San Francisco. It's very … gay and happy,” Simon comments. And despite all my efforts to hate him and what he is about to do to my life, I laugh.

“You've not changed at all,” I say. “You're still not funny.”

“You have, my dear. You've changed in a great many ways.” I don't ask for specifics. We'd be out here on the street all day and we have exactly the length of one chocolate chip cookie to complete our business.

“What's going on, Simon? You have to tell me eventually, right? So let's get it over with.”

“We find ourselves in a situation that requires your assistance,” he says.

“Why? It seems hard to believe you don't have ten Sally Sins in your current clutches.”

“No,” he says, “there was only one Sally Sin.” And for a second I swear he sounds wistful, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. “The situation is delicate. It involves Ian Blackford.”

Talk about flashbacks. Every good spy needs a nemesis. Think about where James Bond would be without Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger, and Tee Hee, not to mention Jaws. He'd be just another good-looking guy in an expensive suit driving a nice car. A nemesis, by definition, heightens your senses, makes you grow eyes in the back of your head, adds an edge to every move you make. Of course, most spies go through a life of snooping with nary a nemesis in sight. And that's not altogether bad because in most cases your nemesis is trying very hard to kill you. So while it makes life interesting, it can also bring it to a premature end. My nemesis wasn't trying to kill me exactly, just torture me with the unexpected.

“Ian Blackford is dead,” I say.

“Well, that's why it's delicate,” Simon responds. From the look on his face, I know what is coming and I don't like it one bit.

Ian Blackford's name was on everyone's lips when I joined the Agency. He actually
had
been the best there ever was. Everyone agreed. Ian Blackford had magical powers. He singlehandedly averted nuclear war no less than ten times. The sad thing is I'm not kidding. But that wasn't why everyone was talking about him. All evidence pointed to the fact that Ian Blackford had turned, gone to the dark side, committed treason, done a really bad thing. It seemed that the money was too tempting for an underpaid, underappreciated government employee. So Ian Blackford went from being a star of the USAWMD to being a premier international illegal arms dealer in the blink of an eye. Everyone tried to catch him. Us, the CIA, Mossad, Interpol, even the FBI, although their attempt was kind of weak. But he was too good, as elusive as a cloud, sharp as a knife. If you bit him too hard, he'd bite back and it was sure to hurt. The story was that Blackford had offed two agents sent in after him and the USAWMD director was furious. Of course, I didn't know the dead agents and I had never met the Agency's director so, for me, it was nothing more than part of the lore.