by Lisa Lutz
I found Gerty serving booze behind the bar.
“I missed that pretty face,” she said.
“He’s put you to work already?” I asked.
“I always wanted to be a bartender.”
“Really?” I skeptically replied, even though I had my turn as a bartender and I can’t deny that it had its perks.
“People tell me their troubles,” she said. “So spill it, sweetie, because you’ve got trouble written all over your face.”
I asked for a drink first. Then for another. I told her about my creepy siblings and their reciprocal experiments. I told her about my mother trying to smoke Grammy out of the house and Grammy telling me that I’d spend my life alone. I told her about the Chinese wall, even mentioning that I blackmailed our computer geek to breach it. Then I told her about Walter and his mysterious intruder and how even he found someone who could live with his grand flaws, and yet he couldn’t live with hers. I mentioned the way he raked his carpet after I’d made footprints. And then I told her about Vivien and her awful parents who insisted on surveilling their own daughter. Although I also had to admit that her behavior was highly suspicious. Then I told her about Adam, Edward, and Meg and all the rejected lovers left in their wake. I contemplated whether happy unions were possible anymore. Or ever had been. Gerty wisely mentioned my parents, but I batted that idea aside. There are always exceptions to the rule.
Then Bernie showed his face. He kissed Gerty on the lips right in front of me.
I felt a little queasy.
“Do you have to do that?” I asked.
“My bar,” Bernie replied.
“It used to be my bar.”
“I’m willing to share,” Bernie said.
I swallowed the rest of my drink and asked to use the phone. I dialed the number by memory.
“I’m drunk,” I said. “I need a ride.” Then I hung up the phone.
Twenty minutes later, Henry showed up. I noticed that the hand Bernie seemed to have permanently attached to Gerty’s waist magically detached in Henry’s presence. I wished he could show me the same courtesy. Bernie’s manners also shifted in front of Henry. He suddenly stood up straighter, enunciated better, and kept an appropriate distance from Henry’s mom. The two men shook hands and said their hellos. Henry kissed his mother, asked her how she was doing, and she suggested they have lunch the next day.
“What are you doing here?” I said to Henry.
“I heard you needed a ride.”
“I called my brother.”
“He called me.”
“He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Let’s go.”
“I don’t feel like going now,” I said. “Bartender, I’ll have another.”
Bernie turned to Henry for guidance.
“Don’t look at him. I’m the paying customer.”
Then some silent exchange must have taken place because Bernie pointed to the sign that says that he has the right to refuse service.
“Do you really want to mess with me again?” I asked.
“You’ve been drinking free all night,” Bernie said. “One of these days we’re gonna be even. Now take the ride and get outta here.”
Henry picked up my coat (which conveniently contained my wallet and keys) off the bar stool and headed out the door.
“I’ll be back,” I said, as a threat.
“Looking forward to it,” Bernie happily replied.
“How’ve you been?” Henry asked as we shot down Portola Drive.
“Great. You know, enjoying my freedom.”
“Is that how you’re going to play it?” Henry asked.
“You don’t actually want me to be honest, do you?” I said.
“Um, yeah. I do.”
“Well, I must admit, the dishes don’t wash themselves. I hope you’re enjoying your clean kitchen.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“So now you admit it.”
“We didn’t break up over dishes.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“We can still be—”
“Don’t say it.”
He didn’t. In fact, nothing else was said until Henry pulled his car in front of David’s house.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked. I don’t usually ask questions like that.
“You have some on you?” Henry asked.
“No. I meant do you want to come in for some tea? Or another beverage? I relocated1 some of David’s booze to my apartment. They shouldn’t keep it around a toddler anyway.”
“You’re inviting me inside?”
“I suppose I could grab the bottle and come back out to the car. Unless you want tea. Then that might take a while.”
“What will happen in there?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I suppose you’ll drink something, then feel the urge to straighten things up; I’ll ask you to stop. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I have no idea. I can’t see into the future. Actually, that’s kind of a lie. I can see into the immediate future. In two seconds, I’m going to get out of the car.”
In two seconds (I counted), I said, “Thanks for the ride,” and got out of the vehicle.
I circled David’s house and entered the in-law unit alone. I didn’t look back. I closed the door behind me, found that fancy booze that I had taken from Sydney, and poured myself a drink.
Five minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Some things can be predicted—a beverage was served, a few clothes were hung on hangers, a comment was made about the sink full of dishes, and another comment was made about switching in energy-saving lightbulbs for the forty-watts that remained. I told Henry to take it up with David.
What I suppose could not have been predicted was that my shirt was off as soon as we drained the above-mentioned beverages and topics. Then we were on the bed. And shoes and socks and other things were being tossed around the room. Oddly, Henry loses his ordered personality when disrobing in intimate situations. Of course, in the morning he then straightens everything up. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said as he was unbuttoning my pants. “Agreed,” I replied as I unbuttoned his shirt.
As he tangled with my bra clasp, he said, “I hate this thing. You need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
He fumbled with it while I waited patiently.
“Would you like my help or shall I call in a rocket scientist?”
“I got it,” Henry said. He didn’t.
“Just let me do it,” I said, smacking his hands away.
It’s one of those front-clasping things that require a twisting motion.
“No,” Henry stubbornly replied.
“I bet there’s a Learning Annex class you can take.”
Henry kissed me. I’m sure he wanted to kiss me, but he probably also wanted me to shut up. He wrestled with the bra clasp for another minute or so until he had tried so many different variables that one worked. It was certainly one of the most inept unclaspings since some backseat wrestling match in high school.
At some point, both of us stopped saying that it was a bad idea. My whole life I’ve done things that were bad ideas. Climbing into bed with Ex-boyfriend #13 wasn’t very high on the list of bad ideas that came to fruition. It seemed perfectly normal to crawl into bed with someone I had been crawling into bed with for two years.
Later, we fell asleep, as if nothing had changed, other than the location.
It was only when the light cracked through the curtain that we bothered with reality. Henry wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. “We probably shouldn’t do this again,” he said.
“Probably not,” I replied. While I’m not one for rule-following or discipline or anything in those schools of behavior, this one directive we managed to keep. Nothing had changed that night. The truth was, in thirty years, I didn’t know if I would be waking up next to anyone. I only knew that it wouldn’t be Henry.
Before he lef
t, we agreed to be friends. But then we decided that we should be the kind of friends who didn’t see each other for a while. Then I started to worry about losing my police contact and Henry said that I could e-mail him if I needed information. I suggested I e-mail under an assumed name, to maintain some distance, but he didn’t think that was necessary.
He made one final request, which I reluctantly agreed to.
“In the future, if you ever speak of me, please use my name, not my number.”
“Deal,” I replied.
I walked him to the door, where he kissed me good-bye. And that was the end. I closed the door, waited until I heard his footsteps quiet down the driveway. Then I cried.
But that was the last time I cried over him.
GENETICS 101
The Spellman compound was empty when I arrived the next morning. I found a manila folder on my desk. Inside it were several photocopies from a high school science textbook on the subject of genetics. Highlighted were explanations of dominant and recessive genes relating to eye color, hair color, cleft chins, and detached earlobes. Also included were family photos of Vivien Blake and her parents. Because the documents were photocopied into a large print with condescending notes in the margins, defining words like dominant and recessive—and because those margin notes were written in a familiar scrawl—I gathered that the material had come from my sister. However, she’d left no other message behind. It was simply a layman’s genetic report on the Blakes for my review.
Vivien Blake had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her mother was blond and blue eyed; her father had brown hair and blue eyes. It’s rare for two blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed child, but not impossible. Even Rae’s literature suggested that. However, in the photo of Vivien, her cleft chin was circled and yet neither parent possessed that trait. This, according to Rae’s textbook and my further research, would mean that she was at the very least not the biological child of both parents. Then I looked more closely at Vivien and it suddenly seemed startlingly obvious that she was adopted. This had not come up in conversation with the parents as far as I knew, but I wasn’t sure what it should mean, if anything, to the investigation.
I phoned my sister to gather the motive behind this latest development.
“Are you alone?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Did you get my material?”
“I did.”
“Did you understand it?”
“You keep this shit up, Rae, and you’ll lose more than your car.”
“I knew you were behind that all along.”
“Listen, I’m not enjoying this conversation and neither are you. Why don’t you tell me why you sent me this information?”
“I thought you should know,” Rae said.
“That she’s adopted?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“She got hair samples and ran the test a few years ago, although she’d been suspicious long before that, after taking a junior-high science class.”
“You could have just told me about the DNA test,” I said.
“Too easy.”
“What do you want me to do with this information?”
“I want you to keep it in mind as you continue to investigate Vivien and feed information to her parents.”
“Thank you. But let me give you a quick reminder. I never wanted to take this case. You did.”
“I had my reasons,” Rae said, ending the call.
When my mother arrived, I stuffed the folder in my desk and shuffled papers as I tried to clear the debris that had settled in my head.
“Guess who I just ran into at [none of your business]?”1 my mother asked.
I wasn’t in a guessing mood. “That little French guy who climbs skyscrapers?”
“I’ll just tell you since you’re clearly in a foul mood. Demetrius.”
“He likes that place. Why is it news?”
“He was with a lady friend and he didn’t come home last night.”
“Really? Did you say hello or did you just peek at them through the window?”
“Of course I said hello. She was lovely. Said that she’d heard all about me. It couldn’t possibly be their first date.”
“What was her name?”
“Mabel. I definitely think D has gotten over his first-date curse.”
“Yeah, me too,” I replied.
Twenty minutes later, D entered the office.
“Nice breakfast?” my mom asked.
“Yes,” D quickly replied, and then switched subjects as soon as humanly possible.
“Should I get started on the Pierson report or the Zylor background check?”
“Actually you could tell me a little bit more about your lady friend,” my mom said.
“Maybe D would like to keep his personal life personal,” I said.
While my mother did not take kindly to my interrupting her interrogation, she was often more sensitive to D’s privacy than to pretty much anyone else’s on the planet. Mom glared at me, but her expression softened when she turned back to D. “Of course. Sorry, D. It was lovely meeting her, though, and any time you’d like to invite her over—”
“Thank you, Olivia.”
“I guess the Pierson case takes priority,” Mom said, catching the hint.
We worked in silence for the next hour or so. I watched my mother out of the corner of my eye. I was itching for her to take a break. While I may have championed D’s privacy, that was all for show. This Mabel situation had more going on than met the eye. Finally, Mom left to pick Grammy Spellman up from a dog obedience class at Crissy Field. Grammy’s idea. Which was great because FourPete had been running amok since her arrival, but bad news for Mom because her allergies were on overdrive. Now she was stuck not only with Grammy but also with a dog. I could tell that the situation would eventually unhinge her.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Mom said, taking a hit off her inhaler.
Once Mom was out the door, I shoved my paperwork aside, cradled my head in my hands, and stared at D until he noticed.
“Something on your mind, Isabel?”
“Now that you mention it, I’m starting to think that you and Mabel are maybe not so recent. Like all those first dates you went on with nurses and librarians and social workers—I don’t think they happened.”
“Is that so?” D said, giving away nothing. Although he refused to make eye contact, so he was giving away something, I just didn’t know what.
“I think you’ve been dating Mabel for a while. I’m guessing two months. Am I in the ballpark?”
“Maybe,” D replied.
“Three?” I asked.
D refused to reply.
“Why keep it a secret?”
“In this house? Are you really asking me that question?” D said with an unusual accusatory tone.
It’s true we don’t respect one another’s privacy, but we’ve all made an effort with D.
“Fair enough,” I replied. “I’m just glad you met someone.”
“Thank you,” D replied.
In the interest of respecting D’s privacy, I didn’t ask any more questions. But after a few minutes had passed and I’d contemplated the various elements involved in D’s recent behavior, I deduced what should have been obvious from the start. “Oh, I get it!” I almost shouted.
“What do you get?” D patiently replied.
“You’re ashamed of us. That’s why we haven’t met her!”
D straightened papers on his desk that were already straight. I had it on the nose.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell. I’m ashamed of us too.”
I got a 911 from Walter a few minutes later. He was convinced that he’d left the toaster plugged in. It was a Wednesday, and since Walter only made toast on Sunday, that seemed unlikely. But at least this was an old-school Walter emergency. On the way over, I dropped by a hardware store and picked up a new deadbolt. It was time to take further precautions whether
Walter liked it or not.
I arrived at an empty apartment and slipped off my shoes. I padded into the kitchen to find the toaster unplugged as predicted but the blender plugged into the outlet. This was a first. I investigated the rest of Walter’s place and saw nothing amiss. I raked the carpet in my footprint wake and continued into the living room, where I sat down on the couch, with one final rake.
I sent Walter a text message: We need to talk.
Walter doesn’t text; he phoned.
“Everything all right?”
“Do you like to blend things?” I asked Walter.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re implying. Is everything all right?”
“Your apartment is just fine.”
“And the toaster?”
“Unplugged. But the blender was plugged in.”
“That’s odd,” Walter said, sounding concerned, but not that concerned.
“Why do you have a blender?”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re messy and hard to clean.”
“I agree completely.”
“Maybe you should get rid of it.”
“Maybe I should.”
“I mean, you or some unknown entity can’t plug in an appliance if you don’t have that appliance. Correct?”
“I can’t find fault in your logic.”
“When will you be home, Walter?”
“In approximately twenty-five minutes.”
“Great. In the meantime, I’m going to change the locks on your door. I think it’s time we put a few more security measures in place. Do I have your permission?” I didn’t wait for Walter to reply. “Great,” I said, and ended the call.
Walter phoned me back, but I didn’t pick up. I took an old towel from my car and placed it on the rug while I changed the deadbolt. Walter returned home just as I was testing the new keys.
“Thank you. We probably should have done this ages ago,” Walter said with a decided lack of enthusiasm.
“Probably,” I replied.
“You okay, Isabel?” Walter asked. He asked it in a way that implied he knew I was not okay.
“Why are you asking?”
“Your shirt is wrinkled. It’s normally not so wrinkled.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. Henry used to iron my shirts.