Spy in the Alley

by Melanie Jackson

Mr. Wellman lapsed into a rueful, and rather sad, smile. “It is my fault, in a lot of ways,” he sighed. “All the time, when Rod was growing up, I was busy at work, trying to make a go of the business. He and I had very little time together. In his last years of high school, he begged to help out at Wellman Talent — to be with me.

  “Then, last spring, I realized how tired I was. All those years of work — and I’d never bothered with a vacation, and worse, not bothered nearly enough with my family. I suggested we all take off — my wife, Rod and me — but he wanted to stay here. To prove himself. To take control of Wellman Talent and impress me. So we could work together, he said, when I got back.”

  Mr. Wellman massaged his forehead. Feeling sorry for him, I decided to inject some humor. “Rod does tend to be a headache, doesn’t he?” I said cheerfully.

  Madge gave me a sharp elbowing. “Ow!” I yelped. Mr. Wellman laughed. “You’re an honest soul, Dinah. I can see now that I haven’t been honest with myself for years. But I’ll change that. I intend to spend lots of time with Rod — and not at the office. He’s not ready for that: my kid has the business sense, it seems, but none of the insights. Going hand in hand with a tobacco company, in this time of awareness about the dangers of smoking — what a mistake!”

  Mr. Wellman shook his head. “I think that, as well as just hanging out with my son over the next months, which is the most valuable thing I can do for both of us, I’ll put him in some of the arts courses he disdained so much at school. If the boy admitted a few ideas into his head, from the creative people in our past, he’d see things in a much more balanced, thoughtful way. People like Emily Carr, with her appreciation of nature. Or Plato, with his concepts about caring, involved citizenry.”

  “Wow,” I commented. “You talk just like our mother when she gets on a rant — I mean,” I said, blushing, “on, a, um — ”

  “Quit while you’re behind,” Madge advised me kindly.

  Roderick staggered into the doorway. His arms were loaded with books and files from the desk he’d hurriedly cleaned out — and, on top of them all, wavered a can of paint. The lid rested crookedly on it; dried pink paint smeared the can’s sides.

  Mr. Wellman eyed the can with distaste. Then, with sorrow more than anger, he shook his head. “You had that buck-toothed goon vandalize your car — my gift to you, Roddy. You intended GASP to take the blame, which, for a while, it did. Did a business deal mean that much to you?”

  The tower of items Roderick was carrying swayed as his face crumpled. “Aw, Dad, I — ”

  Mr. Wellman held up a weary hand. “Never mind, son. It’s my fault as much as yours. We’ll talk, you and I. But for now — ”

  “I’m going, I’m going,” Roderick sniffled. He retreated a step — only to back into the starchy-looking man with the tie clip.

  “Our cabs have arrived,” Starchy informed Roderick and Mr. Wellman. “But, before I leave, I want to tell you that I intend to blacklist Wellman Talent among all my contacts in the business world. Nothing can stop me.”

  “A little girl with a big voice seems to have stopped you for the moment,” Mr. Wellman pointed out mildly. “I imagine that, over time, a lot of little people could eventually stop you altogether. It might be a long time, I’ll grant you that, but it will happen.”

  Starchy spluttered, unable to think of an immediate comeback.

  “Would you like some pizza?” asked Mr. Wellman.

  “Ha!” Starchy shouted. “Don’t think you can whitewash today’s events by offering us pizza!”

  “Um, sir,” pleaded Roderick, trying to move away.

  “Don’t you um me, boy.” Starchy grabbed Roderick by the collar. “There will be no whitewashing, I tell you!”

  “Uh, really, I beg you … ”

  “Into begging, are we! I knew it would come to this!”

  Shaken by the collar, Roderick had less and less control of his tower of items. The paint can rattled atop a book called Better Business Practices; the lid slipped sideways.

  “Watch out!” cried Mr. Wellman.

  “No whitewashing, I say!” Starchy shouted.

  The lid flew off, and the can overturned, drenching Starchy in a coat of pink.“Pinkwashing, maybe,” chuckled Mr. Wellman.

  The corporate types left, with Starchy trailing pink splotches like sulky teardrops. Jack asked, “Sir, could we back up a bit here? Not that I don’t agree with you about arts courses. That’s one of the reasons I want to become a teacher — to open up kids’ imaginations, so they’ll see lots of different points of view. But I couldn’t help noticing that you said ‘going hand in hand with a tobacco company’ was a mistake. Do you mean you would consider never accepting a business deal with a tobacco company again?”

  “I’m not considering it,” Mr. Wellman replied. Then, as Jack’s eager expression started to fade, Roderick’s dad assured him, “I’ve decided it. No more cigarette sponsorships of any kind. In fact, even if Huck Finn shows up here with his corncob pipe, he’ll be tossed out.”

  Madge glowed. Jack reached across the table to shake Mr. Wellman’s hand. I leaped out of my chair and whooped with joy.

  Cindi shouted from the next room, “Hey, is somebody giving me competition?”

  I stopped whooping, but only because I was growing hoarse. “You are a hero, Mr. Wellman,” I proclaimed. “An inspiration. A saint. A — ”

  “I am not a saint,” he said quietly, taking my hand. “Do I like tobacco personally? No way. I’m well acquainted with its effects on health, and its addictive properties.

  “However, here at Wellman Talent, I’m a businessperson first and foremost, and I can see the way public opinion is bending. I don’t want to associate with the tobacco industry — for the sake of our image.”

  “Oh,” I said, deflated.

  He smiled. “However, saint though I am not, I am an honest businessperson. I will always be straight with you, Ms. Dinah Galloway. Always upfront, as I am being now. Do you think you would find that an acceptable foundation for a friendship?”

  “Y-yes,” I said, struggling against my normal tendency, which was to view things in extremes. Maybe it was okay for someone to be neither saint nor villain, but somewhere in between. As long as they were honest about what they were. Not like Buzz, Theo and — ahem! — Roderick the dweeb.

  “Yes,” I said, more definitely. “We can be friends.”

  “Great!” Then Mr. Wellman said:

  “To repeat what I said a short while ago, Ms. Galloway — that was one heck of an audition.”

  Which was how I became part of the “talent” at Wellman Talent. Mr. Wellman, as my agent, started finding me jobs singing, a suburban theater musical here, a charity event there.

  The work didn’t pay well; in fact, sometimes not at all. That’s how it is when you’re just beginning, Mr. Wellman says. It’s fine with me. I just like to sing. Wherever and whenever.

  Like I’ve said, it was Dad who encouraged me to make the most of singing. After his death, when I sang, I sang to him. Well, the thought of him, if you know what I mean. The memory. It was my way of missing him, okay? Not for me, the snuffling into Kleenexes and all that, which Mother and Madge did for a long time.

  But something happened when I was singing in the broom closet. When I was singing to get somebody’s attention and break out of there.

  What I realized that day was that, ultimately, I have to sing for myself. Just like Madge has to draw for herself, and, well, Cindi has to scream for herself. I realized that creativity is a gift, just like Dad always told me. Whatever creativity you have is yours, and to make the most of it, you have to take it out and use it first of all for yourself.

  Not that I don’t still miss Dad — and feel frustrated with him for throwing his life away, even while I feel grateful to him. I guess there will always be sad notes and happy notes to my life.

  And annoying notes. Now I have to put up with Mother referring to all this as another godsend. But when she overdoes it I can
always escape down to Julio’s Gelati and earn an ice cream cone by belting out “After You’ve Gone,” or find Pantelli and play catch or climb trees.

  Oh, I don’t mean climb trees for exercise, you understand. We’re keeping an eye on the neighborhood. We figure it needs careful watching over, after the excitement of the spy in the alley.

  “You just want more excitement,” my sister says.

  Speaking of whom, you should know that Mr. Wellman got Madge into an animation program with the film school. She’s slowly easing out of modeling. “When people recognize my face and figure, I’d like that face and figure to be something that I’ve drawn, not a photo of me putting on some silly pose,” she says firmly.

  At first she was worried about not bringing in so much money, but Mother assured her, “We three and Wilfred have each other, and we’ll get by. After all, we love each other.”

  Yech! What is it about mothers?

  Mr. Wellman found Buckteeth, a.k.a. Theo Nickablock, a position as assistant janitor in the office building. Sometimes I see Theo in the hall, swabbing down the linoleum with his mop, and he flushes and mumbles, “Sorry about that spy stuff, Ms. Galloway.”

  As he says this, his buckteeth flash silver. His new job, it seems, comes with an orthodontic plan.

  Now there’s an ending with a bite to it, right?

  The Last Word

  (I always like to have it, too)

  Except that there’s Roderick waiting outside, and Madge heading out to meet him, and that’s not a satisfactory ending at all.

  Shoving the window up, I position myself on the sill. I’m ready to start shouting insults at Roderick: you guessed it, a lot of them will begin with d and end with b.

  Madge is on the path now. She strolls past the bluebells and phlox that, to the Dubuques’ disapproval, crowd thickly over it. Their path, needless to say, is pruned back cleanly as a crewcut.

  Roderick has been volunteering at the lung cancer clinic, an arrangement made by his dad to show him the effects of smoking. Roderick’s no grudging volunteer, I’ll give him that. Within a month of arriving at the clinic, he organized plans for a newsletter and brochures for community centers, warning about the dangers of smoking.

  Roderick’s jumping out of his car. He’s smiling delightedly at Madge. “I was hoping you’d be home,” he gushes.

  “Hi, Roderick,” she says. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Glad? Oh, no.

  She continues, “I wanted to give you these neat tomato recipes. My mom was telling your mom about the spy chase through the Rinaldis’ tomato patch, and — well, you know how moms are. They got to talking recipes.”

  She pulls a sheaf of papers from her bag.

  His delighted smile grows slightly dimmer. “Recipes? I, uh — great, but I thought maybe we could — ”

  “Not today, Roderick.”

  Madge crosses the street. With all the chestnut trees being in full foliage, I have to duck to see where she’s headed.

  Huh! Some detective I am. A rattly old jeep with a sunroof that only goes partway back is parked there, in the shade, and I hadn’t even noticed it.

  Jack jumps over the driver’s door to greet her. It’s a pretty neat move, though also pretty practical: the driver’s door doesn’t actually open anymore.

  He and Madge grin at each other. He escorts her round to the passenger-side door, which, not being stuck fast, he is able to open for her.

  I’m getting a crick in my neck, so I straighten up. “Ow,” I say, massaging it, to Wilfred the cat. He’s arrived in the den to bask in a patch of sun.

  “Things have turned out satisfactorily, after all,” I inform him. “You and I can both congratulate ourselves for that. After all, you uncovered Theo to start with.”

  The jeep roars off along Wisteria Street. The white scarf Madge has fastened around her hair to keep it from blowing flutters in the distance like a daisy petal.

  I remember that Madge had a part in solving the case of the spy in the alley. “I guess she deserves some congratulations, too,” I tell Wilfred grudgingly. “Some minor ones.”

  I snuggle into Father’s ripped, but extremely comfortable, old chintz armchair, from which foam is bursting everywhere like bubbles. I have a music sheet to read over for my next audition. If Roderick sticks around, gazing glumly off the sidewalk at the retreating jeep, he’ll soon be able to hear me belting out notes.

  “Music for the lovelorn,” I tell Wilfred, and giggle.

  Then, more seriously, it occurs to me how proud Dad would have been to know that my singing was starting to reach audiences. There will never be an audience as appreciative as he was, I think. Boy, I miss him! What makes people do dumb things to themselves?

  Wilfred begins cleaning his paws. I swallow the lump that’s been building in my throat. I’m reminded yet again what a mixture life is. It doesn’t fit into convenient extremes, into good or bad. You just take them both, one with the other. Much like how at breakfast, you take gobs of the rich blackberry jam you adore — plus the thick, whole-grain bread your mother insists you spread it on.

  Wilfred glances at me while paw-cleaning. “As for you,” I say. “Do you ever intend to escape down our back path again?”

  I’m thinking that Madge was right. I wouldn’t mind if Wilfred, however unintentionally, sniffed out another exciting case someday.

  But Wilfred, as usual, isn’t giving anything away. He merely switches from cleaning a white paw to a pumpkin-colored one.