Authors: Lisa Lutz
“David Spellman”
It was Saturday and David’s car was parked in the driveway, so I assumed he was home. However, by my fifth ring of the doorbell, there was still no answer. David really frowns upon unannounced visits,
1
so I thought he might be trying to ignore me in the hopes that I’d go away. But that never works. I began banging my fist on the door and shouting his name like Marlon Brando screamed “Stella” in
Streetcar
.
The door swung open soon after. David was wearing pajama bottoms, a stained white T-shirt (a first), mismatched socks, and a bathrobe.
“Hi, is David home?” I asked.
“Very funny.”
David left the door ajar and walked back into his house. I followed after him, hoping for some form of explanation.
“Rough night?” I queried.
“Unggh,” or something that sounded like it was his only response.
“English, please.”
“What do you want, Isabel?” David suddenly snapped.
“I need to see Petra about something.”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s visiting her mother in Arizona.”
“She hates Arizona…and her mother.”
“Then she’s having an awful time.”
“Why is she visiting her mother?”
“You never stop with the goddamn questions.”
“Just tell me what’s going on and I’ll get out of here.”
David stumbled over to his liquor cabinet, grabbed a bottle of scotch, and poured himself a drink.
“David, it’s only noon.”
“You want a drink?” he asked me.
“Is that single-malt scotch?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay.”
Three hours and four drinks later, after I had shared all the details of my recent dates with Subject, chronicled the Henry Stone Saga, and mentioned Mom’s inexplicable vandalism habit and Dad’s shrinking waistline, I knew it was time to get David to do the talking.
“David, did Petra leave you?”
David stared down at his drink. “Not exactly.”
“Then be more precise.”
“Don’t tell Mom.”
“Give me something not to tell her.”
“I’m begging you, Isabel. Just leave this alone.”
“You slept with somebody else, didn’t you?”
David wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“
No.
This is none of your business. And don’t tell Mom anything. If you do, I will give up every piece of evidence I have ever amassed against you.”
“Why didn’t Petra call me? She used to always call me.”
“It’s not what you think, Isabel. It’s better if you stay out of this.”
“You are an asshole. Just so you know, she gets custody of me in the divorce,” I said as I got up to leave. I could hear David pouring himself another drink as I exited his home.
I was too drunk to drive, so I took the bus back to the house. Mom saw me stumbling up the walk and asked where I had been. She then forced me to reenact my visit with David at least a dozen times. Her police-level interview rendered no revelatory information beyond his three-day-old beard, his stained T-shirt, and Petra’s mysterious vacation.
2
By the sixth time I mentioned that David served me single-malt scotch, my mother barked, “Yes, Izzy, I got that already.” It was only when I started asking for a pack of cigarettes and a lawyer that my mom brought the interrogation to a halt.
“You’re useless,” she said, and I went to my old apartment to nap off my afternoon booze.
1700 hrs
I phoned Petra on her cell phone when I woke up and left a message.
“I know,” I said. “He told me. I’m sorry. Please call me back.”
Tuesday, February 21
1610 hrs
I could hear my mother talking to an unrecognizable voice in the living room, so I went downstairs to check it out.
Mrs. Schroeder from Child Protective Services was politely sipping tea as my mother played her a few tracks from Stone and Spellman’s Greatest Hits. It turns out that Rae’s chronic discussion of her almost-murder of Henry Stone prompted yet another teacher to file an anonymous report with Child Protective Services. When Mrs. Schroeder arrived, my mother phoned Henry, requesting his presence. She then went into the kitchen, called my cell phone (even though I was downstairs), and told me to put on my ring and meet them in the living room. I had since stopped wearing the ring on a regular basis, but went back upstairs and found it in Mom’s jewelry box in her bedroom. As I arrived downstairs again, my mother was pulling her collection of tapes to share with her inquisitor.
“This is one of my favorites,” she said.
“SAT-PREP”
Setting:
Henry Stone’s apartment. Rae rode her bike over and got a flat tire. Mom has just arrived to pick her up and she stays for a cup of coffee.
The transcript reads as follows:
HENRY
: Get your book out, Rae.
RAE
: I don’t feel like it.
HENRY
: We had a deal. I made you pancakes; now we do some SAT work.
RAE
: He made buckwheat pancakes. Mom, have you ever had buckwheat pancakes?
OLIVIA
: Not that I recall.
RAE
: Well, they’re not the same.
HENRY
: Get your book. [Rae goes into the other room to grab the SAT prep book.]
OLIVIA
: Why is the SAT book here?
HENRY
: It’s an extra one. I found it at a used-book store and thought I should keep it around for these unannounced visits.
OLIVIA
: We don’t deserve you, Henry.
HENRY
: By the way, how did Rae get my address?
OLIVIA
: I don’t know. Every time I ask her about it she’s very cagey. [Rae hands Henry the SAT book and then opens one of the cabinets in the kitchen.]
RAE
: What happened to my candy?
HENRY
: I got rid of it.
RAE
: Why?
HENRY
: I think you should
abstain
from junk food for a while.
RAE
: But it’s the weekend.
1
HENRY
: “Absolution.” Definition first, then use it in a sentence.
RAE
: Absolution. Forgiveness. I…uh…give you absolution for throwing out my candy.
HENRY
: Good. “Hamper.”
RAE
: What you throw dirty clothes in.
HENRY
: I’m looking for another definition.
RAE
: I don’t know.
HENRY
: To hinder or obstruct. Use it in a sentence.
RAE
: You’re hampering my fun.
HENRY
: You’re hampering my weekend.
RAE
: What were you going to do, anyway?
HENRY
: Work.
RAE
: You’re so abstemious.
OLIVIA
: Good word. Not that I think you are abstemious, Henry.
RAE
: Me neither. Isabel called you that.
HENRY
: I didn’t think Isabel knew words that big.
RAE
: She doesn’t. She got it out of the book when she was helping me study.
HENRY
: So you have been studying?
RAE
: I told you I was.
HENRY
: Olivia, you’re not recording this, are you?
OLIVIA
: Yes, I am.
HENRY
: Please stop. [End of tape.]
The doorbell rang just as the tape was complete. I ran into the foyer and answered it. Subject was standing there holding a pair of boots.
“You left these at my house,” he said.
“I knew I had forgotten something.”
My mother and presumably Mrs. Schroeder could overhear our conversation. Mom shot me a severe glance that said
“Don’t blow our cover.”
2
I took my boots and Subject back outside.
“Mom’s having a very important meeting inside.”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Subject said.
“No problem.”
“Free for dinner tonight?”
“Your place?” I asked.
“Nah, I’d like to keep you away from that door, if you don’t mind.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Henry Stone parking his car across the street. His impossible-to-read expression was as cold as usual.
“Sure. Where?” I said, trying to not appear too distracted.
“Delfino’s.”
“What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“See you then.”
I waited for Stone on the walkway to give him a quick debriefing. “The social worker has been in there about an hour already. She probably just wants to say a quick hello and then she’ll close the case for good.”
“Who’s your friend?” Stone asked, nodding at Subject, who was entering the adjacent residence.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
My mother tried buttering up the social worker with baked goods, but Mrs. Schroeder would not be bought. This visit was less a product of concern over the nature of Henry and Rae’s relationship than an interest in my sister’s reference to the almost-murder. Mom suggested that Mrs. Schroeder speak directly to Henry on this matter and kept Rae out of the room, explaining that my sister’s tendency toward hyperbole might interfere with the facts. Henry, in a calm and straightforward manner, relayed the events of that fateful day and further explained that Rae’s actions did not go unpunished. She would receive no more driving lessons from him.
Mrs. Schroeder appeared satisfied that there was nothing untoward in Henry and Rae’s relationship, although she seemed highly skeptical of Henry’s and my “engagement.” Perhaps it was the eighteen inches of distance we kept between ourselves, the complete absence of eye contact, and then there was that awkward moment when I offered Henry a cookie and he said, “I don’t eat that stuff.”
And my response was, “Oh, right.”
My mother’s disappointment in our lousy performance manifested itself primarily in hostility toward me after the social worker’s departure.
“Well, that was Oscar-worthy,” Mom said sarcastically. “What the hell is going on with you and the neighbor?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Men don’t have to return your footwear if nothing is going on.”
“We were gardening,” I said.
“I hope that’s not a euphemism,” my mom replied.
“Eew, Mom.”
“You’re supposed to be engaged to Henry,” said Mom. “And yet the social worker sees some random male returning your footwear. I’m sure she thinks you’re a slut now.”
“He could be a cobbler for all she knows,” I replied.
Rae raced down the stairs (I’m sure the moment she saw Mrs. Schroeder’s car pull out of the driveway) and then she quickly slowed her pace at the bottom of the landing, as if she was trying to appear casual.
She sat down across from Henry and smiled politely.
“Hi, Henry.”
“Hi, Rae.” Henry smiled back at her. It was an open and warm smile. A smile that seemed absolutely foreign to the man I knew. It occurred to me that whatever coldness I sensed from him was not a generic anti-Spellman hostility, it was anti-Isabel. Or so it seemed.
“Have you had enough space?” Rae asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Isabel told me I had to leave you alone because you needed your space and if I didn’t give you your space, you would hate me.”
Henry then shot me the meanest look I’ve ever seen.
“I’m not ever going to hate you, Rae. I just needed some time to clear my head. That’s all.”
My mother looked like she was falling in love.
“So I’ve been giving you space for forty-six days when I didn’t have to?” Rae said, and then turned to me with an expression of loathing I had seen only a handful of times.
“You’re not recording this, are you, Olivia?” Henry asked.
“Oh, I forgot. Dammit.”
“No,” Henry said. “I don’t want to be recorded. Do you mind if Rae and I go for a walk? I want to have a little chat with her about space and stuff,” he said, and then shot me a glare.
Henry and Rae exited the house. My mother studied the inspector from the living room window.
“Something is wrong with him,” my mother said.
“What?”
“I don’t know. He looks depressed.”
“He looks the same as he always does.”
“No. Something is different,” insisted my mother.
Whatever conversation occurred between Rae and Henry on their walk put a spring in my sister’s step.
When she returned she announced, “I’m not giving Henry any more space. Although when he asks me to go home I’m going to heed his request.” She said the last line as if it were pulled from a script.
“Mom, I’m going to go over to Ashley’s house and do some homework. Is that okay?” she then asked.
“Just leave her phone number on the counter and have a good time. Call me if you need a ride home.”
Rae grabbed her belongings and shot out of the house.
“I just can’t get used to Rae having friends,” I said.
“And none of them are delinquents,” Mom said, making a jab at the backstory of most of my adolescent acquaintances.
Dad returned home shortly after Rae’s departure, his hair wet from recent showering and his face flushed from recent physical activity.
“Hi, honey,” Mom said casually to Dad, as he aimed for the stairs.
“Were you at the gym?” I asked.
“Uh—yes,” Dad said dismissively, and quickly headed upstairs.
When Dad was out of earshot, Mom said, “Your father’s definitely having a MILFO, although he seems to be trying to keep it on the down low. Doesn’t make any sense. In the past every time he went to the gym or ate broccoli he sent out a press release. Either way, this is one MILFO I can get behind.”
“Mom, they’re called REAFOs now, not MILFOs,” I said.
“What’s a REAFO?”
“Retirement-age freak-out. Dad was getting too old for a MILFO.”
“When did this happen?”
“We changed it about four years ago. Didn’t you get the memo?”
3
As I was heading back to the attic, my cell phone rang. I picked up.
“Hello?”
“Izzy, it’s your roomie calling.”
“Who?”
“Bernie.”
“We’re not roomies.”
“Sure we are.”
“Why are you calling, Bernie?”
“I got a message for you. Petra returned your call.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She just said to tell you she was returning your call.”
“If she calls again, tell her I’m not staying there and give her my cell number.”
“Give me that number again,” Bernie said.
“You just dialed it,” I said, and hung up.
I phoned Petra again and left a message, reminding her that I had moved out of Bernie’s place. I asked her to return my call yet again.