Authors: Lisa Lutz
M
rs. Collins’s radar went up the moment she met the inspector. A non-family member of the opposite sex picking up an impressionable adolescent girl was like a flashlight in a blackout for the seasoned educator. However, as Rae’s English teacher, she had further evidence to fuel her wariness. Mrs. Collins had recently assigned her students a five-page essay on a person whom they admired. Rae predictably wrote about Henry Stone. That in itself was not incriminating, but the fact that she referred to this man as her best friend did. Shortly after Rae turned in that essay, Mrs. Collins came upon Henry and Rae in the parking lot when he was picking her up yet again from school. Rae was introducing the inspector to a few of her classmates as her “uncle Henry.”
What Mrs. Collins didn’t hear was the argument that ensued on the car ride home, which went something like this:
“Why did you call me your uncle? I’m not your uncle.”
“You already said I can’t call you my colleague, associate, or friend. So what’s left?”
“Just say I’m a friend of the family.”
“But you’re more my friend than my family’s friend.”
“Rae, most people would find a forty-four-year-old man being friends with a fifteen-year-old girl inappropriate.”
“So what? I mean if Mom and Dad don’t care, what difference does it make?”
Henry chose not to pursue this line of conversation with Rae. Instead, he dropped Rae off at the Spellman house and pursued it with my mom. There he got precisely the same response.
“If I’m comfortable with you and Albert’s comfortable, then I don’t care what anybody else thinks,” said my mother.
Unfortunately, what other people thought did matter. Mrs. Collins called Mom and Dad to the school for a parent-teacher conference the following week. My mother, always on guard with school administrators,
1
recorded the entire conversation.
The transcript reads as follows:
MRS. COLLINS
: I’ve asked you here, Mr. and Mrs. Spellman, to discuss your daughter’s unusual relationship with an older gentleman named Henry Stone.
OLIVIA
: Inspector Henry Stone.
ALBERT
: What about it?
MRS. COLLINS
: I think you might want to rethink the company you allow your daughter to keep.
OLIVIA
: Excuse me?
MRS. COLLINS
: I have on more than one occasion overheard Rae refer to Inspector Stone as her quote-unquote best friend. I find their relationship highly inappropriate.
OLIVIA
: Respectfully, Mrs. Collins, if anything inappropriate were going on, I would know about it long before you. I assure you, Henry Stone is not a predator.
MRS. COLLINS
: So you approve of their relationship?
OLIVIA
: He’s clearly a good influence on my daughter.
ALBERT
: Undeniably.
MRS. COLLINS
: How so?
OLIVIA
: I can’t even remember the last time Rae asked me if I was on crack. It has to be at least three months ago.
ALBERT
: More like six.
MRS. COLLINS
: She treats him as her equal. I consider their relationship highly unorthodox.
OLIVIA
: Do you have my daughter’s transcripts in front of you?
MRS. COLLINS
: Yes, I do.
OLIVIA
: What was Rae’s GPA two years ago? [Mrs. Collins consults her file.]
MRS. COLLINS
: It was two-point-seven.
OLIVIA
: What was her GPA last semester?
MRS. COLLINS
: Three-point-four.
OLIVIA
: Mrs. Collins, I raised two children before Rae, neither of whom have fallen victim to a child predator. I assure you I know the signs and I know what’s best for my daughter. I appreciate your concern, but I hope this is the last I hear on this topic. [End of tape.]
This was, in fact, not the last my mother heard on the topic. Two weeks later, Mom received an at-home visit from a social worker. Mrs. Collins, unconvinced after my parents’ meeting, had filed a report with Child Protective Services and requested a full investigation.
My mother, cornered by state authority and concerned that the investigation would cast suspicion on Henry Stone’s reputation, promptly brought their meeting to a close with the following statement.
“Henry Stone is engaged to my older daughter, Isabel, who happens to be thirty years old. I don’t know what Mrs. Collins’s problem is, but Henry is like a son to me and soon enough he will be my son. And if my future son-in-law is willing to pick up his future sister-in-law from school now and again and help her with her homework, I think that is the epitome of family values, don’t you?”
The social worker checked her file, perplexed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s nothing in here about Henry Stone being engaged to your oldest daughter. That’s very curious. Well, I apologize for the inconvenience. We may have to do a follow-up visit. It’s procedure. But otherwise, I think we can put this matter to rest.”
“Thank you,” my mother replied. “And I might add that I’d like a tiny complaint to go in the file against Mrs. Collins. She could have destroyed a man’s career and reputation with her ungrounded accusations.”
Mom told this story over dinner with a shorter than usual guest list—Henry, Dad, and me. Rae was sent to David and Petra’s house under the ruse of helping them erase their hard drive.
2
Henry and I were on guard from the start, the limited guest list lending itself to suspicion. I recorded the proceedings.
The transcript reads as follows:
OLIVIA
: You’re probably wondering why I brought us all together.
ALBERT
: I assumed it was to eat dinner. Pass the steak.
OLIVIA
: No, Al. Start with the salad like a civilized person.
ALBERT
: In France, they eat the salad last.
OLIVIA
: When you’re fluent in French, you can save the salad for dessert. Until then—
ALBERT
: Henry, pass the steak.
OLIVIA
: Henry, don’t pass the steak. [Henry obeys my mother. Albert serves himself salad and passes the bowl around the table.]
OLIVIA
: Before I was interrupted by cholesterol number two hundred twenty-seven—
ALBERT
: Two hundred twenty-three.
OLIVIA
: That’s something to be proud of?
ISABEL
: Mom, Dad. It’s one thing to do this in front of family members, but maybe Henry doesn’t need to listen to a two-decade-old argument.
OLIVIA
: Thank you. Now there’s a reason I brought us all together. I—um—had a situation with Rae’s English teacher. Mrs. Collins. I believe you’ve met her, Henry.
HENRY
: Yes, I have.
OLIVIA
: Well, Mrs. Collins had an issue with Rae’s growing attachment to you. I explained to her that this was not a concern to me or Albert and that it shouldn’t be her concern. But that stupid bitch—
ALBERT
: Take it easy, Olivia—
OLIVIA
: That woman did not trust my judgment and filed a complaint with Child Protective Services.
HENRY
: She filed a complaint about me?
OLIVIA
: Well, she was concerned about Rae being so close to a non-family member of the opposite sex in your age range. Anyway, I received a visit from a social worker—
HENRY
: Olivia, this could become a problem.
OLIVIA
: Yes, Henry. I know. But I took care of it.
ISABEL
: How?
OLIVIA
: [nervously] Well, I explained that Henry was a member of our family.
HENRY
: They can check that out, you know.
OLIVIA
: I anticipated that problem, so you’re not a blood relative.
HENRY
: I don’t understand.
ALBERT
: Olivia, it’s like ripping off a bandage. Do it quickly and it will hurt less.
OLIVIA
: [very quickly] I said you were engaged to my older daughter, Isabel.
ISABEL
: Are you on crack?!
OLIVIA
: It really was the only option.
HENRY
: No. I think there were a few other options.
ALBERT
: Henry, you don’t have to actually marry Isabel. All you have to do is
pretend
you’re going to marry her.
ISABEL
: What if I get engaged to somebody else?
OLIVIA
: Who?
ISABEL
: I don’t know. It’s just a hypothetical.
OLIVIA
: You only have to do this for two and a half years, until Rae turns eighteen. I hardly think you’re going to get engaged before then. I mean, honestly, Isabel. You’re not even dating anyone right now.
ISABEL
: Stop laughing, Dad!
HENRY
: I’m not comfortable solving this problem with deception.
OLIVIA
: I said it quickly and without much forethought. But after I told the lie, I thought, I am a genius. I mean, this really solves the problem. It won’t hurt anyone. And it will keep Child Protective Services off our back, and considering your position with the SFPD, I think that’s the best thing for your career. [Mom hands me a tiny velvet box.]
OLIVIA
: Isabel, you can wear my old engagement ring.
ISABEL
: Is anybody interested in my opinion?
ALBERT
: No, sweetie.
HENRY
: Listen, Al and Olivia. It might be time now to put an end to Rae’s visits.
OLIVIA
: You can try that, Henry. But if it doesn’t work, we’ll do it my way.
A
pproximately six months ago, sometime between Mrs. Collins’s first meeting with my parents and the visit from the social worker, my mother began recording random conversations she was privy to between Henry and Rae. Initially, her reasoning behind the privacy invasion was to provide evidence of the nature of Henry and Rae’s relationship should Mrs. Collins or any other official “busybody” decide to follow up more enthusiastically. My mother is excellent at anticipating the behavior of bureaucrats.
Eventually the Henry and Rae tapes were made for pure entertainment value. Mom told Dad that if you listened to them while eating a sandwich, it was the equivalent of dinner and a show. My mother saw the recordings as an auditory photo album and would diligently title and label each recording. If a stranger were to come upon the collection, he would assume these tapes were a long-lost radio show.
“NO-NEGOTIATION”
Background:
When my sister was eight years old, my brother, in the interest of explaining his legal career to Rae, taught her how to negotiate. It was a lesson he and the rest of us would soon regret. Rae took from this lesson that everything—from simple acts of grooming to household chores to homework—could be negotiated to her end.
Setting:
After dropping Rae home from school, Stone agrees to drive Olivia to the auto shop to pick up her car. Rae comes along for the ride.
The transcript reads as follows:
RAE
: Shotgun!
HENRY
: Rae, let your mother sit up front.
RAE
: Did Mom call shotgun when I was temporarily deaf?
HENRY
: What did I tell you about sarcasm?
RAE
: That it’s the lowest form of humor. But you’re wrong. The saying is, “The pun is the lowest form of humor.”
HENRY
: A pun requires some element of cleverness. Sarcasm simply requires an annoying tone. [Henry opens the back door for Rae.]
HENRY
: You’re sitting in the backseat.
RAE
: I’m willing to negotiate. I’ll sit in the backseat if you give me two driving lessons.
HENRY
: Rae, you can get in the backseat or you can stay home. Those are your two options. [Rae gets in the backseat, Olivia the passenger seat.]
OLIVIA
: That was very impressive. I always get sucked into the negotiation.
HENRY
: I have a strict policy not to negotiate with Rae.
OLIVIA
: Really? I’m in awe.
RAE
: Turn on the radio, Henry.
HENRY
: Excuse me?
RAE
: Please.
HENRY
: Thank you.
RAE
: You are so prehistoric. [Henry laughs.]
HENRY
: What did you call me?
RAE
: You heard.
Henry Stone does not laugh. At least, before that moment, there was no evidence to the contrary. Later on, my mother would claim that
The Stone and Spellman Show
was archival evidence of the mutually beneficial nature of Henry and Rae’s relationship. What this moment confirmed for my mother was that the inclusion of Henry Stone in our lives was not coerced or cruel (an assumption my father had made); it was not just Henry who was a good influence on Rae, but perhaps the other way around. Whatever prior reservations my mother had regarding the manner in which Rae infiltrated Henry’s life vanished. She decided that Inspector Stone was a grown man and if he wanted Rae out of his life, he could take care of it himself.
And this is how Henry Stone came to be an honorary member of the Spellman family. Which brings me back to the beginning of my story—the one about “John Brown.”