Revenge of the Spellmans

by Lisa Lutz

  DR. RUSH: How about we make a deal?

  ISABEL: What kind of deal?

  DR. RUSH: I promise you that when your twelve sessions are up with me, we’re done.

  ISABEL: What’s the hitch?

  DR. RUSH: The next time you step through that door, bring an open mind.

  LUNCH WITH DAD

  M y father picked me up from therapy and drove directly to No-Name Sushi 1 in the Mission. My dad’s sudden and recent interest in longevity prompted a massive U-turn in his dietary habits. Sushi had not been a staple of my father’s diet until very recently. I say this only because it justifies, or at least partially explains, his refusal to use chopsticks. Instead of using his fingers, Dad asks for a fork and knife, which makes sitting through a sushi meal with him a tad on the embarrassing side.

  “What’s new?” Dad asked, slicing into his salmon nigiri like a filet mignon.

  Well, all sorts of things were new. I had a new therapist and now eleven more therapy sessions in my future. I had a new secret home. I had a new case I was working on. I even had new shoes, but somehow the adolescent in me surfaced and I found myself immediately on guard.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Something has to be new,” my father insisted.

  “I’m not great with vague questions like that.”

  “Would you like me to be more specific?”

  “Not really.” Truth is, I’m not great with specific questions, either.

  I was getting the feeling that Dad hadn’t invited me to lunch because he couldn’t find anyone else to eat with. This lunch was supposed to be meaningful.

  “Are you happy?” my dad asked.

  See? I told you this would happen.

  “If this is going to be one of those conversations, I’m going to need a drink,” I said.

  I ordered a large sake and downed two thimblefuls while holding up my pointer finger, instructing my father that he wasn’t allowed to speak until I was done.

  “What were you saying?” I asked after the second thimble.

  My dad first looked annoyed, then disappointed, and then his expression suddenly shifted to some kind of sympathy/concern hybrid. Frankly, I was more comfortable with the first two expressions.

  “Why is this so hard for you? Is it me? Or do you have this problem with everyone?” Dad asked.

  “Oh, it’s everyone,” I said, but then I felt the need to clarify. “However, most people learn their lesson after one or two conversations with me and then quit with the honest and open communication.”

  “Now that you’re back in therapy, maybe this is something you can work on.”

  “Sure,” I replied. “I’ll put it in the queue.”

  Had I wanted to answer any of my dad’s questions with full disclosure, I had an endless supply of material. To refresh your memory: I had moved into my brother’s house without his knowledge, I was recently fired from my primary source of income, one of my best friends was in the hospital and soon would have to move to Florida, and then there was the Henry Stone situation, which I really don’t feel like going into right now.

  After lunch, Dad offered to give me a ride home. My first response was, “Sure,” because I never turn down offers of free transportation, but then I realized that I’d have to go to the home that Dad thinks is my home, and since I didn’t want to go anywhere in that vicinity, I decided to take a Muni train instead. I kissed my dad on the cheek and almost made my exit. But then my father asked me the oddest question: “Do you want to do this again next week?”

  MORE MAGGIE

  B efore my phone lost reception in the Muni tunnel, I got a call from Maggie. She wanted to meet me later for a drink. She had something to discuss. I agreed, since the time she suggested—happy hour—was a tricky time for me to enter or exit David’s house.

  I suggested we meet at the Philosopher’s Club so I could get a peek at Milo’s Irish cousin, heir to the Milo kingdom.

  Connor, black Irish and handsome in a way that’s so obvious it’s annoying, stood behind the bar, regaling the two customers—Clarence and Orson—with some story about the potato famine or something. I’m pretty sure he was speaking English, but his accent was so thick, I could barely make out a word.

  I sat down at the other end of the bar and waited for him to finish his story and serve the customers like he was supposed to. His story might not have been about the famine after all, since its close was punctuated by uproarious laughter. Connor made a silent motion to Clarence’s and Orson’s glasses, asking them if they were good for now, and then he made his way over to me, his left hand sliding along the bar the whole way. As if he was marking his territory.

  “At can eye getcha, orgeous?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, although I could have translated.

  “At urr ya drinkin?”

  “Guinness,” I said, because it really annoys Milo when I order that.

  “My kinda girl,” Connor said, and winked. As he pulled the pint, he looked me over and smiled.

  “Ya wouldn’t be Isabel, wouldya?”

  “I wouldn’t be if I had any say in the matter.”

  Connor served my drink, held out his hand, and said, “A pleasure.”

  Then Milo exited his office and shouted into our general vicinity, “You be nice, Izzy.”

  “I’m nice,” I said very rudely to Milo.

  “Let me tell you about this one here,” Milo said, preparing to launch into some sort of long-winded character study of me. Fortunately, Maggie entered the bar and spared me the details.

  She ordered a pint of something easier to pull and we sat down at a corner table, out of anyone’s earshot.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Maggie said while reaching into her purse.

  “What’s going on? Are you still being followed?”

  “Oh yeah, but I didn’t ask you here to talk about that.”

  “So, what’s up?” I asked, maybe a little confused.

  “I’m going to kill Henry.”

  Uncomfortable silence.

  “But you haven’t yet, right?” I asked.

  “No, but I spend most days thinking about it.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He cleaned my entire apartment while I was on a camping trip,” Maggie said as if she were relaying the details of a sordid affair.

  Long pause. “And…?” I asked.

  “There’s no more. That’s it,” Maggie said, the tension mounting on her face.

  “Does he not have a key to your place?”

  “He has a key,” she replied.

  “Do you have strict rules about when he can come and go?”

  “No. He also organized my sock drawer.”

  “Did it need organizing?”

  “He replaced the herbs in my spice rack. Said something like ‘They’re no good after two years.’ Bullshit. My mother’s got spices that are twenty years old. Did I mention that?”

  “You didn’t,” I replied. “I see how that might complicate matters,” I added, just to be sympathetic.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m not sure I see the problem,” the good me replied.
>
  Now imagine a small Isabel on my shoulder in a red jumpsuit, carrying a pitchfork, whispering, “Break up with him, break up with him.” You get the picture. I was keeping Devil Isabel at bay, but it wasn’t easy.

  “The problem is,” said Maggie, still fuming so intensely you could practically see the smoke, “it’s so passive-aggressive.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s like he’s saying I don’t know how to take care of my own home.” 1

  Devil Isabel kept me silent a little too long. I was in a pickle here and I had to overplay my part to make sure I could release myself from guilt at a later date. All that aside, this is how I responded to Maggie’s conflict. I think you will agree this was a mature, selfless, and accurate response. 2

  “I think Henry thought it might be nice for you to come back from your trip to a clean home. He’s not judging you. I know Henry. He likes to clean. He can’t stop himself. There’s no agenda beyond that.”

  “He also goes through my pockets,” Maggie said, her indignation dimming just a bit.

  “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” I said.

  “He’s looking for crumbs,” Maggie explained.

  Long pause, waiting for the lightbulb.

  “Oh, because you keep baked goods in your pockets!”

  “Not all the time,” she said defensively.

  “Of course not,” I replied.

  “He says he doesn’t want my pockets to get ants in them. It’s never happened before.”

  “Well, better safe than sorry,” I replied diplomatically.

  Maggie gulped some beer, tapped her foot, stopped tapping, and then switched topics with as much grace as a drunken gazelle.

  “I asked him if he wants to go camping with me sometime and he said he was willing to negotiate.”

  “Do you like opera?” I asked.

  “I’m okay with it,” Maggie said, wondering where that question came from.

  “Under no circumstances are you to admit that you’re okay with it. You’ll need your hatred of opera as a bargaining chip.”

  “Oh, I see what you’re saying,” Maggie replied.

  Maggie finished her beer shortly after I finished mine and asked me if I wanted another. I reached for my wallet; she gave me a look that I read as Are you insane?

  “I’m buying,” she said, and went to the bar.

  In her brief absence I tried to work up a plausible reason for hating her, but I couldn’t. In fact, I could only come up with plausible reasons for being friends with her. Of course, I was over Henry Stone, remember? I remember. So there’s no problem here.

  Maggie returned with two beers and a whole new subject.

  “Now I’m one hundred percent certain that someone is following me.”

  “How often?”

  “Not every day. I’ve noticed it a few times when I’m driving. Always a different car, though, and I’ve never been able to get a license plate. Also, my secretary mentioned that there have been a few more calls to my office and the person just wants to know if I’m at the office and how long I’ll be there. She answered that question the first few times, but now we just make something up.”

  “Different cars. What kind?”

  “It was at night. It was hard to see. Some kind of sedan, I think. I just had a feeling.”

  It’s not unusual to be unable to identify a car during a nighttime tail. In your rearview mirror often all you can see are headlights.

  As if reading my mind, Maggie said, “It’s not Rae. That I know for sure. She was actually with me one of those times I was being followed and told me how to lose the tail. And the phone calls to the office. She already calls me and knows where I am.”

  “She does?” I asked, not realizing that Maggie and Rae’s “friendship” had reached this stage.

  “Henry still won’t really speak to her, so she’s replaced him with me.”

  Interesting, I thought. What was Rae’s angle?

  “Here’s the plan,” I said. “The next time you’re being followed, call me with your current location and I’ll try to track down your pursuer.”

  “Thanks,” Maggie replied. “One more thing: Any chance you can convince your parents to buy Rae a car?”

  My sister has virtually every Bay Area bus, Muni, and BART schedule memorized and yet she always, if given the opportunity, will demand the services of a personal chauffeur. My family has learned how to say no, for the most part, but Henry never quite got the hang of solidifying this particular rule. Instead, he acquiesced when the drive didn’t take him too far out of his way and Rae would do her best to make it convenient for him. Ironically, Rae has no problem using public transportation to arrive at the source of her ride, but she resists it in terms of reaching her final destination. It was clear from the question that due to Henry’s current policy of not speaking to Rae, by association, Maggie had become Rae’s primary transportation victim.

  THE YIDDISH PATIENT

  I hadn’t seen Morty in a week, since his release from the hospital. The doctor suggested keeping visitors to a minimum and I had hoped that some alone time with Ruth would suddenly solve all their problems. Although no one would accuse me of being a relationship expert, I’m almost always wrong these days. Morty phoned and told me he was feeling better, so shortly after my meeting with Maggie I decided to take the bus to his home in the Avenues.

  What should have been a fifteen-minute ride turned into a two-hour ordeal. I fell asleep on the bus, only be awoken an hour later by the bus driver, who was changing shifts. Then I had to wait for another bus in the opposite direction.

  When I arrived, Ruth met me at the door and smiled pleasantly, but the smile was masking an undercurrent of extreme annoyance.

  “Good, you’re here,” she said.

  “How’s the patient?” I asked.

  “On his deathbed, if you ask him.”

  Ruth led me into their bedroom, where Morty reclined, wrapped in blankets over a robe over pajamas. Newspapers surrounded him and the television was on at full volume.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked sympathetically. His pallor had improved, but both his carriage and his voice were frail.

  Ruth asked me if I needed anything and I declined. She didn’t ask Morty, which I thought was odd.

  “What took you so long?” Morty said.

  “You know the buses in this city.” 1

  “What’sa matter with your eyes?” he asked.

  “What’sa matter with your eyes?”

  “I’m old. Your excuse?”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Guilty conscience?” Morty asked.

  “You should talk. How are you, really?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  Morty lightened up on some of his sick act and said, “I’m not one hundred percent.”

  “You’re eighty-four. Say good-bye to one hundred percent.”

  “I don’t need your negativity in my current condition.”

  “What are you doing, Morty?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I’m recovering.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Watch your language, young lady.”

  “Ruth knows what you’re up to. You know that, right?”
/>   “Bah.”

  “What do you think is going to happen here?”

  “Once she’s back for a few weeks, she’ll forget all about that Florida business.” His voice then shifted to a whisper. “I got us symphony tickets.”

  “So what?”

  “So I never took her to the symphony before.”

  “Did she want to go?”

  “Yes. She used to have season tickets. Always went with a girlfriend.”

  “Some husband you are.”

  “I’m an adoring husband. Have you seen the rocks on her fingers?”

  My phone rang, thankfully. I’m not sure how much more conversation with Morty I could have tolerated.

  “Hello?”

  “Izzele, it’s Gabe. I’m here.”

  “Where?”

  “In front of your apartment.”

  “Which one?”

  “You have more than one?”

  “Oops,” I said, suddenly remembering that he was going to pick me up at my old place.

  “You forgot about our date?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” I replied.

  “Where are you?”

  “At your grandpa’s house. I’m sorry. I forgot what day it was.”

  Silence. More awkward than the therapy kind.

  “Do you still want to go out?”

  “Sure,” I replied, thinking quickly. I didn’t want to go back to a home where I no longer lived and I couldn’t clue him in to my new living situation, so I suggested he pick me up at Morty’s place and we go from there. Gabe agreed.

  When I got off the phone, Morty had a number of comments for me on the overheard phone call. “Keep your opinions to yourself,” I snapped before he managed a single word.

  Morty once again locked his mouth shut and threw away the key.

  “I like you better that way,” I said.