Spy in the Alley (3 page)

Dad believed that everyone should find their creative side, and make the most of it. He encouraged Madge in her drawing, “You've got talent, kid — it's your duty to yourself to bring it out and nurture it.” He was always signing Madge up for art courses and buying her extravagant art supplies.

Not that Dad could always pay for them. Dad went from job to job, and back to university for this or that course in between. He was very bright. He just wasn't very practical. Least of all about himself. I could never get over the fact that while he urged others to reach to the limits of their potential, he couldn't follow that advice himself.

Anyhow, as I made my prayers, I would sooner or later hear Mom, next to me, murmur the word “godsend,” and I knew she was offering up yet more thanks for Madge's modeling.

I would have offered some up, except that I didn't see how God, who was good, would have included in His gift not only the modeling, but the young man who unavoidably came with it, the ultra-dweeb, Roderick Wellman.

“Some squash, Roderick?” asked my mother.

“Thanks, but I prefer to play squash, not eat it.” Smiling at his own wit, Roderick passed the steaming bowl heaped with buttery, cinnamon-sprinkled butternut squash to Madge, who helped herself, then to Jack, who helped himself liberally, and then to me, who piled on as much as both of them combined.

We were seated at the round cherrywood dining table Mother had sat at with
her
parents. Around us, the mostly windowed walls of the dining room looked on to the stunning mountain view we enjoyed, thanks to our position at the top of the Grandview-neighborhood hill. In the winter these ancient windows, only single-paned, made the dining room brutally cold, but in summer you forgot all that. You felt as though you could step right out on the Coast Mountains and ski down to Burrard Inlet.

My gaze descended from the shining blue-violet of the mountains to the shining, slicked-back and somewhat thinning locks of Roderick's head.

“We'll put a security guard on your house for the next couple of weeks,” he was assuring Madge and my mother. “Just in case this geek comes back. Now that Madge is getting known from billboards, magazine ads and so on, it's only natural that the odd geek with nothing better to do will show up to gawk at her. That's the downside of fame.”

“Gawking geeks?” I said.

He frowned, then went on as if I hadn't spoken. “I'm making Wellman Talent responsible for your well-being,” he assured Madge. “We'll ward geeks off.”

“I don't really like the idea of having to be guarded,” Madge objected.

Mother said, “If Rod thinks it's a good idea, dear, perhaps we should agree. After all, I suppose he's an expert on geeks.”

Dotty, bookish Mother, whose pronouncements so often came out wrong — yet hit the mark exactly. I smiled delightedly down at my squash.

Jack said smoothly, to cover the uncertain pause that had greeted Mother's remark, “I'm around most of the day. I can keep a watch out for geeks bearing binoculars.” He grinned at Madge, who gave him the slightest of smiles in return.

Roderick examined Jack from beneath raised eyebrows, as if a particularly negligible piece of furniture had just started talking. “My company is quite able to provide
professional
security.”

“What's your company?” Jack inquired, passing me the pepper, which I'd been craning my neck to find after salting my squash and green beans. I'd also mixed these two veggies together, to resemble a plum pudding. Eating should be an art.

Glancing distastefully at my plate, Roderick replied to Jack, “The Wellman Talent Company. Since I graduated from high school in June, I've been working in place of my dad. He's been taking time off, traveling with Mom.”

“Your father is so nice, Roderick,” Mother interrupted. She gave him a faintly puzzled look, as if she couldn't quite get the genetic connection.

Roderick gave a smug little smile. “Oh, Dad's
nice
, all right,” he agreed, in a rather patronizing way. “
Nice
doesn't succeed big time, though.
Aggressive
does. I'm trying to bring some aggressiveness to Wellman Talent that it lacked under Dad. I'm looking to sign contracts with big, international companies, like Bonna Terra and Fields Tobacco.

“If,” he continued, ignoring Jack's sudden grimace, “I can get those two to sign a long-term contract, we'll break into the big time. Wellman Talent will be on the map, and
I
will have put us there.”

Then Roderick shook his head sadly. “Poor Dad,” he sighed. “He always set his ambitions so low. He worked so hard, long hours at the office and all that. But he never looked beyond Vancouver for clients.” Roderick waved a dismissive hand at the vista of mountains and oceans outside the window, as if our city were a minor speck on the map he was so anxious to conquer.

Mother moved aside a vase of flowers that Roderick's hand was in danger of smacking into. “But Rod, you're talking about your dear father in the past tense,” she noted worriedly. “He's not — not — ”

“Dad is alive and well,” Roderick snapped, an annoyed flush filling his face and even the balding parts of his head visible under his thinning hair. He disliked being interrupted, especially when he was boasting. “The last time Dad phoned, he and Mom were peering into the Grand Canyon.” Roderick shrugged, implying such an activity to be an absurd waste of time.

Then, realizing he'd been a bit testy with Mother, he grinned apologetically. “Sorry, Mrs. G. Making a success of Wellman Talent is my chance to prove myself to Dad. Heck, if I can work with Dad from now on, I'll actually
see
him!” He laughed — but he was the only one. It was really a sad kind of joke, if you thought about it.

On the other hand, he
was
a dweeb, and therefore should be insulted at every possible opportunity. I added a few radish slices from the salad to the top of my squash-plus-beans, and said, “Roderick has been working so hard for his dad that he had to do most of his grade twelve credits over again. Now that's commitment to the company,” I finished, straight-faced and wide-eyed.

Oblivious to scowls by Madge and Roderick, Mother told Jack, “The nice thing is that Madge got to attend two proms. Roderick took her to the prom this past June at his school, a lovely private school perched on the cliffs of Point Grey — oh, I do hope it doesn't tumble into the ocean, Roddy. Have they done an earthquake-preparedness check? And, of course, to the prom the previous June, with the young people from the class that Roderick, um, that he — ”

“Failed,” I supplied helpfully. I poured ketchup over my squash-plus-beans-plus-radishes. “I bet you did well in school,” I said to Jack.

He shrugged and looked embarrassed. In other words, he
had
done well. “I might start a couple of university courses this fall,” he said. “I'd like to be a teacher eventually. I had one or two teachers who made all the difference to me after my mom died, and I was in an emotional slump.

“Not that I have a monopoly on bad things happening,” Jack amended, with an apologetic look at Mother. “I'm sure your family went through a rough time, too.”

Madge answered for Mom. “I guess you could say it was our family priest who got us through Dad's death. Unlike you, though, I can't go into the same profession as the person who helped us.”

Everybody laughed, though Roderick only managed a grimace. He wasn't used to having a conversation switch away from himself. “University,” he jeered. “Wow. Talk about avoiding the real world.”

What a bore. Changing the subject, I asked Jack, “You didn't leave a girlfriend back east, did you?”

“Dinah,” said Mother reprovingly. Jack, who was sitting beside me, gave my ear a tweak and replied, “Nope. Lots of friends, but no girl in particular, kid. Why? You want to go out on a date?” he teased.

“Oh, not
me
,” I assured him — and immediately caused an uncomfortable silence on Madge and Roderick's side of the table. I took my time chew ing and swallowing a large mouthful, thoroughly enjoying myself. “I mean, an attractive, eligible bachelor like yourself,” I resumed, waving my fork for emphasis. “A girl would be crazy not to set her sights on you.”

Throwing her napkin on the table, Madge glared at me. I couldn't blame her. I
was
at the top of my form that evening.

Mother was even more confused than before. She was much more at home in the quiet library world of book cataloguing and soft-voiced inquiries about obscure titles. Sisterly trench warfare was totally beyond her. “Are you a Catholic?” she asked Jack. “There's a nice youth group at our church. Madge belongs, and I'm sure she would be glad to — ”

“I'm sure he couldn't care less about that,” Madge interrupted, quite rudely for her, and not looking at Jack. She likes him, I thought in satisfaction.

Roderick, meanwhile, was giving me the evil eye. Evil
dweeb
eye, I should say.

“There are at least three baked potatoes left,” he said. “Why don't you have them, Dinah? I'm sure you could easily tuck them back.”

“You have them,” I invited. “I hear they're good for preventing hair loss.”

After that I got sent from the table. I didn't mind: I usually was, when Roderick came to dinner. Sometimes I lasted to dessert, but not often.

Chapter Four

Jack tackles a goon

Mother and I were trudging up the long 3rd Avenue hill. Atop our heavy bundle buggy of groceries was the
Vogue
we'd bought at Madge's request. I'd laid it face-down because the rouged young woman pursing her lips on the cover was too much for me. I mean, she looked like a
fish
.

From the back cover, a male model in a tank top regarded us soulfully — and, it seemed at that moment, rather scornfully. We continued to push our groceries up and up, seemingly forever. Like the myth of Sisyphus and his rock, I thought. Always and always, Sisyphus had to keep pushing it up a hill. I giggled. I remembered my friend Pantelli, who had an ear infection the day we learned about the myth of Sisyphus in school. Misunderstanding the teacher, Pantelli assumed that Sisyphus had a rock
band
. Since Pantelli prided himself on knowing everything about pop music, he demanded to know if Sisyphus was new. “New?” the teacher had scoffed. “He's
ancient
,” which had mixed Pantelli up even more.

“Dinah, your collapsing in laughter every two minutes doesn't make this any easier,” said Mother, her cheeks faintly pink with the effort.

Mother was pretty in a vague, delicate way, which Madge had inherited. But where Mother's vagueness was due to confusion about the world outside her comforting library stacks, Madge's vagueness was deliberate, a sort of remote retreat she withdrew into to block the world off.

I found the real world very interesting, and at all times tried to plant myself right in its face. Madge said I was like a truck with flashing lights and a lot of noisily clattering tin cans attached. The world, she added, wasn't
quite
ready for me.

I had forgotten Pantelli, and was gainfully helping push the bundle buggy up the hill, when I heard a shout.

“Hey, Galloways!”

Jack French caught up with us. He'd been shopping on Commercial Drive, too. In his cloth shopping bag, TV dinners stuck out between film rolls.

Jack swung his bag over his shoulder and took over the pushing of the bundle buggy. “So how's everybody at your house?” he asked cheerfully.

I knew he meant Madge. I wasn't the sister of a gorgeous teenage girl for nothing. “She's fine,” I told him. “I think you should keep trying with her. I, naturally, will continue working on your behalf from the sidelines.”

“
Great
,” Jack said — could that have been a note of insincerity in his voice? In any case, Mother, who'd been eyeing the TV dinners doubtfully, interrupted, “I do urge you to sign up for our church's youth group. I'm involved with the leaders of the group, helping them plan activities and so on.

“Well,” Mother continued, as Jack, not used to her rambling discourses, looked increasingly puzzled, “one topic we often get speakers to tell the kids about is healthy diets. Fresh vegetables are part of the daily regimen these speakers invariably recommend. You'd find these talks informative, I'm sure.”

“Um, Mrs. Galloway,” Jack broke in apologetically, “I'm actually not a Cath — ”

“Yo!” came a shout from the branches of a horse chestnut tree.

Jack glanced around. “I hope that isn't God, calling down from on high to reprimand me.”

I giggled. “Hardly, Jack. It's my friend, Pantelli.”

The tree in front of the yellow house we were passing, which happened to be Pantelli Audia's, shook vigorously. Leaves and twigs cascaded down. These were followed by Pantelli, landing not
quite
on top of the bundle buggy. He beamed at me, his dark eyes bright with self-congratulation at this scene-stealing method of arrival.

He grabbed an apple from one of our bags, chomped into it and importantly informed us, mouth full, “By the way, there's a goon snooping around your backyard.”

Jack and I instantly took off. “Hey, wait for me!” called Pantelli, and raced after us. Luckily, we'd been almost at the top of the hill, so Mother wasn't left with far to push the heavy bundle buggy.

The three of us arrived, colliding, at the back gate. We could see the back of an unfamiliar head beyond the gate. A squarish, crewcut head; whereas Buckteeth had, as I remembered, wispy straw-colored hair sticking out from his powder-blue sun hat, and a sort of narrow head.

Before I could note to Jack that this new person was not the spy in the alley, he charged through the gate, jumped Crewcut and tackled him to the ground.

“Wow,” said Pantelli admiringly.