The Spellman Files (17 page)

M
y father eventually gave up trying to decode my fashion U-turn. My mother, however, did not. After her initial stream of random interrogatories, like “Are you doing this to piss me off?” “Who do you think you’re fooling?” and “When is the last time you went to the doctor?” Mom refined her focus.

Initially she railed against my prior sartorial rut.

“For two decades straight, it was denim and leather, denim and leather, denim and leather, it was just like living with one of the Hell’s Angels—especially with that mouth you have on you.”

“You never told me you lived with a Hell’s Angel,” I replied.

“I would beg you to wear a dress. Beg. Remember Aunt Mary’s funeral? And now it is skirts and dresses all the time. I want to know why.”

“No reason, Mom. Just mixing it up.”

“What’s his name?” she said, finally getting to her point.

Every time she asked that question, she got precisely the same answer: “John Smith.” By offering my mother the common name, it was understood that she would have to fight me for this secret.

“How long do you think you can sustain this, Isabel?”

I didn’t have an answer for her at the time, but most questions eventually have an answer, and three months was the answer to that one.

While I continued to foil Daniel and my parents, other deceptions lined our family tree. Believing myself to be the master of all forms of trickery, I was surprised to learn that one sleight of hand was arranged entirely for my benefit, or lack thereof.

I don’t make a habit of dropping by David’s house unannounced, mostly because he told me not to make a habit of it. However, there was an occasion when I happened to be in the neighborhood because when I was driving not far from that neighborhood, I got a flat tire. I parked in my brother’s driveway and rang the bell. It was seven o’clock on a Saturday night and I considered that the chances of finding him home were slim.

David opens the door on the third ring. When he sees me, his face drops as if he were smiling at the prospect of who he thought would be there and disappointed by the reality of it.

“Isabel.”

“Good. You remember me.”

“I thought we talked about this.”

“I assumed there was some flexibility in that rule.”

“Is ‘flexible’ a word you’d use to describe me?”

“No. But I got a flat tire—in the neighborhood. So I don’t care.”

“You really have a flat tire?”

“My car is in your driveway. Would you like to inspect it?”

“No. What do you need?”

“Well, I’d like to use your phone and relax in your luxurious home while I wait for the tow truck.”

“Don’t you have a cell phone?”

“I left it at home. I was just running a quick errand.”

David turns back into his foyer and leaves the door ajar, silently and impolitely allowing my entrance.

“Make it quick, Izzy. I got plans tonight.”

“What kind of plans?”

“I’m not in the mood for an interrogation.”

“You never are.”

“Shall I draw you a map to the telephone?” David says, more snappish than usual, which on a scale of snappish is about a ten.

Just as I reach out to pick up the cordless phone on the kitchen counter, it rings. I remove the phone from the cradle and David charges toward me, quickly prying it out of my hands.

“Hello,” he says breathlessly. “Yes. I know. My sister is here right now and I have to wait until the tow truck arrives, so maybe we can move it back about a half hour? Okay, an hour. I’ll see you then.”

David hangs up and offers me the phone. I watch him carefully, but remain silent. I make the car-related phone calls while David primps impatiently in the mirror. I ask to use his bathroom and predictably itemize his medicine cabinet. Usually I discover the latest in age-defying propaganda and mock David relentlessly for his vanity. Sometimes I think if he weren’t my brother, I’d despise him. However, what I do discover alongside the alpha-hydroxy lotion is a box of tampons and I interpret this evidence to mean only one thing: David has a serious girlfriend. You might think I’m jumping to conclusions, but I’m basing my leap of logic on history and I’m already feeling resentful that he wants to hide this from me.

I lean out the bathroom door. “Where are you going tonight, David?”

“Out to dinner.”

“With a date?”

“A friend.”

“What’s her name?”

“None of your business.”

“That can’t possibly be her name.”

“Give it a rest, Isabel.”

I hold out the box of tampons. “I’m onto you.”

A
few weeks later, after Rae was pulled off a surveillance job for receiving a C-plus on an algebra exam, she snuck out again. This time she returned home in the company of two uniformed police officers. My father answered the door in his pajamas, surprised to find Rae outside and not inside.

Officer Glenn introduced himself and his partner, Officer Jackson, then offered my father a warm handshake and said, “Good evening, sir. Is this your daughter?”

“That depends. What did she do?”

“We received an anonymous tip that a young woman matching your daughter’s description was following random people around in the vicinity of Polk Street. Shortly thereafter, we found Emily following an elderly couple on Nob Hill. While that is not a crime, we consider it a somewhat unusual activity for a young lady at this time of night.”

“Honey,” said my father, “you don’t give officers of the law a fake name. I apologize for my daughter, Rae Spellman. Will you be filing a report?”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Officer Glenn, and the two cops took their leave.

Rae stepped inside and my father slammed the door behind her.

“How many times do we have to have this conversation?” he asked.

Still not grasping the rhetorical question, Rae answered, “You want a number?”

“There’s a lot of bad shit out there. You know that.”

“That’s why I was following old people!”

Fortunately my father did not accept her rationale. In a quiet, threatening whisper, he said, “You’re gonna pay for this, pumpkin,” and sent her to bed.

Rae passed her uncle’s room just as he shut the door. She knew he had been eavesdropping on the conversation and she knew he was the one who called the cops on her. And while she accepted that her punishment was inevitable, she also vowed that she would take Uncle Ray down with her.

F
or the infraction of following a couple whose combined age was approximately one hundred and sixty, Rae’s punishment was epic. At least it was by comparison to her previous résumé of punishments. She was grounded for three months, which was unprecedented, but the kicker was that she was forbidden to participate in any sanctioned surveillance activities during that time, as well. Before settling into the doldrums of the average life of a grounded child, Rae decided to drown her sorrows in a glass of ginger ale at the Philosopher’s Club.

While Milo tried unsuccessfully to convince my sister to depart on her own, Daniel was cooking me yet another meal in which he took far too many liberties with the recipe.

During the green onion chopping (they were supposed to be leeks), Daniel said, “I’m thinking of having a dinner party.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” I replied before my internal censor kicked in.

“Yes,” he insisted. “I think it will be fun.”

“Who will you invite?” I asked.

“Some friends. Maybe my mother.”

Uh-oh, I thought to myself, but then I decided that as long as he didn’t want to meet my mother, I was on easy street. So I decided to be accommodating and maybe help the situation.

“That sounds like a great idea. You should make enchiladas.”

“No, I’m thinking of something fancier.”

“I think enchiladas are very fancy,” I said, praying he would come around. Then my phone rang. Normally I wouldn’t have answered my cell phone, but the number looked familiar, but not familiar enough to be a family member—my usual criterion for answering my phone.

“Izzy, it’s Milo. Your sister is here again.”

“At the bar? But she’s grounded.”

“I know that. I know everything. Could you come and get her?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving now.”

The moment I got off the phone, Daniel asked me who was grounded, which guided my lie in a different direction than I was planning. I told him that my sister, Rae, missed the bus home from school (there is no bus) while at ballet practice (in case he heard me mention “the barre”), but that if she wasn’t home before 7:00
P.M
., she would be grounded.

Daniel asked if he could come with me because he wanted to meet my sister, but I reminded him that the sauce hadn’t reduced yet, and he relented.

When I arrived at Milo’s, Rae was in midspeech and Milo, like the good bartender he is, was lending a sympathetic ear.

“They were old, Milo. Old. And it was in Nob Hill. Drug dealers and prostitutes don’t hang out there.”

“You’ve got a point, kid.”

“I said let’s negotiate. Mom said it’s nonnegotiable. Right. Everything’s negotiable. I’m not hurting anyone, am I?”

“I think the concern is that you might hurt yourself.”

“I offered to cut back sixty percent. Nothing. Then eighty percent. Eighty percent! But Dad said no and on top of that, no more work. He took away my livelihood.”

Rae knew I was watching her and spoke purely for my benefit. But I’d heard enough. I sat down on the adjacent barstool and once again finished off her ginger ale.

“You’re grounded, Rae.”

“I know.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“The rules say that I’m not allowed to be out after school without the supervision of an adult.”

“And your point is?”

“Milo’s an adult.”

I yanked Rae off the barstool and dragged her to the car. I redefined the fine print in her punishment and we agreed to keep this incident secret if she would behave herself thereafter.

That night I used
Get Smart
to distract Daniel from my sister’s interruption. We watched four episodes, culminating in one from 1966 in which KAOS
1
uses the literal-minded
2
robot Hymie
3
to infiltrate CONTROL and kidnap Dr. Shotwire, an important scientist who is being guarded by Max. But Max’s kindness turns the sensitive robot from evil to good and in the end Hymie
4
saves the lives of Max, 99, and Dr. Shotwire and shoots his own creator. The chief asks Hymie to join CONTROL, but Hymie says he’d rather work for IBM to meet some intelligent machines. This was supposed to be Hymie’s only episode, but he was so popular, he was brought back several more times.

“I love Hymie,” said Daniel.

“How can you not?” I replied, thinking I had sufficiently gotten him off the subject of my sister and my family. But I was mistaken.

Daniel pressed the pause button and said, “I want to see where you live.”

Demands were made, followed by negotiations on the demands, which resulted in Daniel and me sneaking into my apartment via the fire escape at 2:30 in the morning. The novelty of the high school–level caper distracted Daniel from the blunt fact that his girlfriend wasn’t in high school anymore. He stayed the night—well, four hours—until I woke him and sent him out the fire escape again.

My mother’s impatience grew commensurately with Daniel’s, but I held firm with both of them. The teacher ruse was hard to maintain, but I did eventually begin to infuse my own personal wardrobe and vocabulary into the person I presented to Daniel until I could eventually say that I was being myself with him—other than the lying about what my family and I did for a living.

On the weekends of her incarceration, Rae would roam the house in a quiet rage, unable to find an outlet for her ample energy. My mother finally suggested she take a bike ride and reiterated the rules of her temporary freedom. Rae rode her bike to Milo’s and this time Milo called my dad. My parents discussed the situation and came to a conclusion befitting only them.

Note:
(While I was not a direct witness to the following encounter, I have interviewed all the parties involved and consider my research within the ballpark of the truth.)

When my parents finally picked Rae up at the Philosopher’s Club, the rain was already in full force. Rae secured her bike to the rack on the bumper of my mom’s Honda and got into the backseat. My father and my mother turned to Rae and offered up stern expressions. Rae immediately went on the defensive.

“You’re asking me to stop doing the one thing that I love the most,” Rae said.

“Don’t be dramatic,” said my mother.

“Frankly, I don’t know if I can stop.”

“You will stop if we tell you to stop,” said my father.

“Your expectations are unrealistic.”

My mother turned to my father for the go-ahead. My father nodded and my mother said, “We have a job for you. This should keep you busy for a while and out of trouble. Please understand that this is sanctioned surveillance, Rae. If I find out you’re freelancing again, you won’t be on the job another day until you’re eighteen. Got it?”

“Got it. What’s the job?”

“We want you to follow your sister,” said my father.

“I need an ID on that man she’s seeing,” said my mother.

Rae was silent as my dad laid out the ground rules. “The job cannot interfere with your schoolwork. And your curfew sticks. No matter where Isabel is or what she is doing, you make it home by eight
P.M
.”

“But my curfew is nine,” said Rae.

“Not anymore,” said my mother. “Are you interested?”

“Let’s talk money,” said Rae.

After Rae got a dollar-an-hour bonus for the extra risk of surveilling me, plus overtime and expenses, they shook on the deal.

Rae followed me for three straight days until I caught on. The slap to my ego when I learned this fact was nothing compared to my mother’s reaction when Rae laid out the photos and the truth in front of her. My mother reviewed the pictures of me and Daniel together and even commented to my father that he was a handsome, well-groomed man, and seemed somewhat relieved until my sister handed her the final photograph.

“Mom, try to stay calm,” Rae said as she proffered her last offering.

My mother snatched the final picture out of Rae’s hands. It was a photograph of the D
ANIEL
C
ASTILLO
, DDS signpost.

“He’s a dentist?” my mom asked.

“Yes,” said Rae. “But he seems really nice.”

Exactly three months after Normal Date #1, Daniel’s patience had come to an end. He gave me an ultimatum that spared no room for negotiation.

“I want to meet your family,” he said.

“Why? They’re not that exciting.”

“No. I demand to meet your parents.”

“Or?”

“What do you mean, ‘or’?”

“Well, usually when someone makes a demand, there are consequences if the demand isn’t met.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“So what are the consequences?” I asked, because I thought maybe they would be something like
Or I will never cook another meal for you again.

“If I don’t meet your family within one week, this relationship is over.”

“If you meet my family, this relationship
is
over.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and offered an exaggerated sigh. “They’ve dedicated their lives to educating our youth. How bad can they be?”

“Have you ever met a teacher?”

“Isabel, this is an ultimatum. I meet your folks or we’re done.”

Ultimatums must have been in the air, because the next day my mom gave me her own.

“Sweetie, if I don’t meet your new guy within a week, I’m going to track him down myself and arrange my own introduction. Got it?”

When I arrived in the Spellman kitchen the following morning, Rae was making her standard Saturday breakfast—chocolate-chip pancakes, heavy on the chocolate chips. In fact, my dad had to pry the bag out of her hands. Then my mom had to pry the bag out of my dad’s. Rae gave me a plate from the first batch. I told her I wasn’t paying for them, which was a common scam she played after a seemingly generous offer. This time she said they were on the house and smiled guiltily.

I turned to my mother, who was still waiting for a response from the previous day’s ultimatum. I gave it to her.

“You can meet him. But under my conditions.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

“He thinks I’m a teacher.”

“Where’d he get that idea?” asked my dad.

“I told him I was a teacher.”

“That’s a believable lie,” he muttered sarcastically.

“I might become one. Who knows?”

“You’re not going to become a teacher,” said my mom.

“How do you know?” I snapped in reply.

“How about we get back to the meeting?” interrupted my dad, and I clarified my expectations for the event.

“I’m not ready to tell him the truth.”

“Does he know about us?” asked my mom.

“No. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

Uncle Ray entered the kitchen, bare-chested, wearing only his standard blue jeans and sneakers.

“Hey, anybody see my shirt?”

Three nos followed and my mother asked, “Where did you see it last?”

“I was doing laundry last night.”

“Retrace your steps.”

“I’ve been retracing my friggin’ steps for the past two hours. Jesus Christ.” Uncle Ray directed this at no one as he marched out of the kitchen.

My mom turned the conversation back to important matters. “When will this meeting happen?”

“Friday night.”

“What’s our cover?” my dad asked reluctantly.

“Mom, you’re a seventh grade math teacher. Dad, you’re a retired principal for the Alameda school district.”

“Am I a teacher, too?” asked Rae.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re in the ninth grade.”

“So what’s my cover?”

“You’re in the ninth grade,” I said as forcefully as I could.

My mother stared down at her coffee and mumbled, almost inaudibly, “What are you so ashamed of?”

Later that night, Rae knocked on my apartment door.

“I need a dark past,” she said when I answered it.

“Excuse me?”

“Friday, when we meet the dentist. The whole being-in-the-ninth-grade thing isn’t enough for me to work with. Let’s say I had a heroin habit, but I kicked it about six months ago and now I’m doing fine.”

“That’s not funny,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” she replied, playing the part. “It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Now I just take it one day at a time.”

I grabbed her by the collar and shoved her against the door, prepared to squash whatever determination she had. I spoke slowly and clearly to drill in every word. “Your father is a retired principal. Your mother is a math teacher. Your sister is a sub. End of story. You get that down.”

“But I’ve got that down,” she said with whatever air she had left.