Spy Mom

by Beth McMullen

  “I would have called,” she’d say, not really looking at me, “but William likes the element of surprise now that we’re A.C.” She often talked about her life in terms of B.C. and A.C. Just thinking about life Before Cancer filled her with such obvious longing that it was almost painful to watch. She did not take solace in a deeper relationship with Theo. He would climb into her lap and get red marker all over her pale green silk suit. He would rest his blond head on her chest and his hair would stick in her carefully applied lipstick. He would slip a half-finished corn muffin laced with spit into her pocket and not tell her. When she discovered it, she’d shriek like it was a dead rat in there, a scenario Theo found hilarious.

  But William II was a man with a sweet tooth who had just discovered chocolate. He was insatiable, unable to absorb enough childish energy. His eyes sparkled as he sat on the floor and built block towers or played horsey ride or read story after story until his voice began to fade.

  My husband would stand in the doorway, watching his father and son, head to head over some game or puzzle, a confused look on his face.

  “I have no memory of him ever playing with me,” Will would say. It was almost as if he had caught a fleeting glimpse of what it would have been like to grow up in that alternative universe, the one where his dad sat on the floor and did Thomas the Train puzzles. And he missed the possibility of it.

  Will sits on the side of the bed, popping the earpiece out and tossing it across the room onto the bureau.

  “It’s Saturday,” I say, nodding at the computer. Looking appropriately guilty, he offers me the coffee in peace.

  “I was almost done when my dad called,” he says. “Only a few more e-mails and that’s it.”

  It’s never it but I don’t want him to reclaim the coffee, so I let it go.

  “And then I have that meeting later this morning,” he whispers. “Remember, I’m going to miss the S-O-C-C-E-R G-A-M-E this morning.”

  “Why are you going to miss my game, Daddy?” Theo asks, crawling out from under the covers. “You said you’d come to all of them. You said that.”

  Will looks to me for guidance but I refuse to help him. He works weekends at his own peril.

  “He’s a good speller,” I say. “We practice a lot.”

  “How about chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast?” Will says with a wink. Theo takes the bait and leaps onto Will’s back from about six feet away. I consider if now is a good time to discuss Teacher Wendy’s concerns about Theo’s relationship with gravity but decide against it. It’s the kind of behavior that might secretly make a dad proud.

  As Will and Theo head downstairs, I pull the covers back up to my nose and burrow into my pillow. The pillowcase smells of Theo’s new shampoo, light and fragrant and distinctly hibiscus. Normally, the smell of hibiscus makes me giddy in a fruity-cocktail-and-sandy-beach kind of a way. But today my guard is down and it takes me to another place entirely.

  8

  I was still fairly new to the Agency the first time I went to Kathmandu but not so new that I was going to flat-out embarrass myself. No, I’d already passed through Stage One of being a covert operative, the stage known as complete humiliation, and was feeling rather smug about surviving intact. So to a certain extent, I probably deserved what was to come. After all, smugness isn’t an attractive quality in anyone and certainly not in a sophomore-level spy.

  I was in Kathmandu to gather information about an arms dealer named Claude Chevalier, known affectionately as Chemical Claude. When I asked for the backstory on the nickname, there was much laughter from my fellow agents but no one who would tell. I was the new kid and they weren’t done hazing me yet.

  In any case, the last time I checked, Chemical Claude had been whiling away his days in Guantánamo, which made it a little surprising to be handed a folder stamped top secret with his smiling mug clipped to the inside cover.

  “We caught this guy,” I said. “Isn’t he on a forced tropical vacation?”

  “Yes, we did,” Simon said. “And yes he was.”

  “So?”

  “Well, things change, Sally.”

  “He got out?” I asked, indignant. “He must be a really good swimmer. It’s a long way to Miami.”

  “People escape,” Simon said, a flush of red rising in his cheeks. “It happens.”

  “It’s not supposed to,” I reminded him.

  “I would rather not talk about this anymore,” he said, quietly enough to scare me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Your job is to go out and get him back.”

  “Alive, sir?”

  “Yes.” Whether the answer was yes because those were Simon’s orders or because he wanted to wring Chemical Claude’s neck himself, I could not say.

  “There’s one more thing you should know about him,” Simon said. This was the part where Simon usually told me all the things that were too heinous to include in the Top Secret folder. Inevitably, there would be some delightful colorful detail, like perhaps that my new target enjoyed rolling around naked on a bed of rose petals and hundred-dollar bills while being sprinkled with yellowcake uranium or something like that. But what I got was a whole lot stranger.

  “It’s not in the file,” Simon said, “but Chemical Claude is Canadian.”

  “What?” I said, unable to hide my disbelief. “They only have thirty-five million people in their whole country; statistically, it’s barely even enough to produce a decent lunatic. How did this happen?”

  Simon shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea,” he said, which was terrifying because Simon always had an idea, even if it was a really bad one. “The world is going completely to shit, Sally.”

  And for once, I suspected he was right. If you can’t trust the Canadians, well, it might be time to just pack it in and go home.

  Thirty-five hours later, I got off my plane in Kathmandu with a half-assed plan of trekking toward Mt. Everest and stopping once in a while to ask if anyone had seen Mr. Chemical hanging around acting naughty. My file said Nepal was the last place he’d been seen. Of course, I realized this meant he could be anywhere but I guess I had to start somewhere.

  As I pushed open the terminal doors to the outside, the smell of burning garbage and exhaust rushed in. I maneuvered my way around little old ladies carrying chickens in rusty cages and small boys tethered to the family goat by lengths of fraying rope, all milling about on what could have been the airport’s front lawn gone to seed. There was a complete lack of the urgency I usually associated with airports. People, chickens, goats—no one seemed to care if they ever actually went anywhere. Off to the side of the terminal, a row of 1970s rusted-out Toyota Corollas lined the dirt road, their drivers waiting patiently for a fare to town. I hopped into the first one and tried to close the door.

  “Grab it from the bottom and pull up,” my driver advised. “Pull hard.” I did as he instructed and the door almost shut.

  “Very good,” he said. “Don’t lean on it. Now, pull your feet up or your shoes will get dusty.” I looked down and could plainly see the road beneath me. The car appeared to have no bottom. The man started driving. I held my breath and my feet.

  “Where are we going today?” he asked, in lightly accented English.

  “Hotel Kathmandu.”

  “Good choice,” he said. “They have toilet seats in most rooms.” This made me a little sad. I was getting used to taking it on the chin for the Agency but a girl could still pine for the occasional fully assembled toilet and not be labeled a sissy.

  “I’m Min. You need a tour guide while you’re in town?” he asked. “Planning a trek to Everest? Annapurna? Want to see the monkey temple? Buddhas? Stupas? I can arrange anything you need. You just let me know.”

  Min was somewhere between thirty-five and seventy years old. It was hard for me to tell in this part of the world. Crow’s feet danced around his bright and lively eyes when he smiled and his dark hair was parted on the right side and perfectly slicked back. He wore a pr
essed French-blue button-down shirt, khaki pants, and flip-flops. Not only did he have a better sense of style than I did, he was cleaner.

  Lining the sides of the road into the city center were mountains of garbage, baking in the hot sun. Naked children frolicked at the edge of a river running an unnatural brown. Plastic bottles floated downstream like little cruise ships headed off to Hepatitis Island.

  Eventually we pulled up in front of a ramshackle building missing its third floor. A haphazard sign out front indicated that I had indeed arrived at the Hotel Kathmandu.

  “Plenty of room at the Hotel Kathmandu,” Min sang softly. “Such a lovely place.” The possibility that he was warning me against forces of evil residing inside the hotel never occurred to me. In retrospect, I probably should have paid more attention.

  “Ah, Madam, welcome.” A small man emerged from a room hidden behind beaded curtains. “I am Kirin. You have reservation?”

  I glanced around. It hardly looked as if reservations were necessary.

  “No. Are you full?” I asked.

  Kirin shrugged. “Let me check the register.” On a table buried under a stack of old magazines was a plastic bound notebook with the word “Guests” scrawled across it in uneven letters. Kirin blew the dust from the cover and flipped through the first few pages.

  “You are in luck. It seems we have a room for you. Sit please. Ayushi!” he bellowed. From behind the curtains a beautiful little girl appeared. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old. A faded flower garland hung around her slender neck.

  “Tea,” Kirin demanded. Ayushi bent her head in acknowledgment and slipped back into the darkness.

  “You don’t need to trouble yourself with getting us tea,” I said, hoping to cut through the formalities and escape to my room. Kirin looked at me as if I’d grown a second head. And I was so tired I was starting to hallucinate that maybe I did, in fact, have a second head, although it clearly lacked a brain.

  “Sit,” Kirin barked. Min, also responding to the order, plunked down in the seat next to me. We were now a couple of some strange sort. Then again, maybe Min just liked free tea.

  Minutes later, Ayushi came back carrying a tray laden with a teapot and a plate of steamed dumplings. A ceiling fan turned slowly above us, barely circulating the heavy air. The paint on the walls peeled and the patchwork floor of mismatched linoleum tiles was covered in a thin layer of dry dirt. Ayushi picked up a straw broom and began to move the dirt around in figure eights.

  “How long will you stay with us?” Kirin asked, handing me a dumpling. His fingers left brown smudges on it, but not wanting to offend him, I popped it into my mouth, said a quick prayer to the gods of immunity, and swallowed.

  “Just a night,” I said, washing down the sticky dumpling with a gulp of tea. “I need a trekking guide to take me to Namche Bazaar.”

  “Are you heading to Everest Base Camp?” Min asked.

  “No. Not all the way to base camp,” I clarified. “Just Namche.”

  The two men looked at me curiously. “Who goes only as far as Namche?” they asked together. A strange tickling sensation ran the length of my spine. I was blowing this. I cleared my throat and tried again.

  “I’m a photographer,” I explained. “National Geographic wants some shots of the vendors at Namche. And some of the Tibetan market, too.” A moment passed and the two men both seemed to relax. Was I in the clear? Was I ever?

  “I’ll take you,” Min said, as if the deal was done. “Now you go and get some sleep.” That seemed such a fine idea I didn’t bother to mention I preferred to travel alone. “I’ll wait outside. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Kirin shot a look at Min. “Not necessary. We will take good care of her. You can go and begin gathering supplies for your expedition.”

  Min sat up straighter and squared his shoulders. “I prefer to wait,” he said. Kirin continued to glare at him but seemed unable to come up with a convincing counter-argument. Finally, Kirin bent his head and began to collect the used teacups.

  There was something so obviously strange about the exchange even I, clearly in the grips of sleep-deprived dementia, could see it. But I no longer cared if someone tried to kill me as long as they didn’t wake me up in the process.

  My square room was unfinished, with no glass in the single window. The fatigue clinging to my body as if it were part of my cellular structure was something new. In this line of work, there was no built-in recovery time, no nap after the pressure was off, no restorative long weekend on the beach. It didn’t matter if I was awake for seventy-two hours straight. I still had to come off as a person in possession of most of her faculties. Failure to do so would inevitably lead to disaster, followed by professional humiliation.

  It wasn’t until Theo was born that I began to see the value in it. I was well-trained for the endless sleepless nights, trying to console a crying infant, walking the halls with my little bundle of fury as if I were nothing more than a ghost. In a twisted way, it was comforting. I might not have known a thing about babies but I was a champion at staying awake.

  I pulled the crooked shutters closed and tumbled gratefully onto the thin, hard mattress. There, I slept without moving until I smelled a smell just like the one filling my nose right now, the soft scent of the hibiscus flower.

  It rose up from Ayushi’s starched school uniform in a cloud. She sat cross-legged on my bed, playing with a lock of my greasy travel hair. Sitting next to her on the bed was a single roll of toilet paper and a small bar of bright pink soap I knew would burn my skin if I dared use it. In Nepal, the ritual of toilet paper and soap delivery was taken very seriously. The rules were for the guest to accept the toilet paper and soap gratefully and under no circumstances ask for any more.

  “I asked to bring these,” she whispered in a sing-song voice, “because I wanted to tell you there is a man downstairs. He is talking to Father and Father is telling him you are sleeping up here in this room and that he is free to come up here to get you at any time. He is paying Father a lot of money. He has a gun.” She cocked a finger at me and fired.

  The image of that pretend gun is enough to send me leaping out of bed. I take the hibiscus-scented pillow and throw it into the dark recesses of Will’s closet. I want that smell as far away from me as possible. I have no interest in this trip down memory lane because I have the disadvantage of knowing how it ends.

  Downstairs, I hear noise in the kitchen, pots and pans being moved around, the refrigerator opening and closing, Theo going on and on about whether you can take college classes in Batman. When we met yesterday, Simon was perfectly clear on the point that I was to go home and pretend I knew nothing about Gray’s kidnapping. Whatever happens to Director Gray is none of my business. In addition, as Simon was kind enough to point out, Gray didn’t even like me, so why should I care what happens to him? Let the experts handle it. That’s what they get paid for, after all.

  But try as I might, I cannot drown out the voice of my instinct demanding that I do something.

  9

  “Lucy,” Will shouts from downstairs, “get up! I’m leaving.”

  “Okay,” I mutter. “I’m doing it right now.” But I don’t want to. My body wants to stay right here and sleep until at least after lunch and then maybe squeeze in a little nap before dinner.

  I used to take sleep for granted. It was something that happened on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes it was in my nice comfy bed and sometimes it was under a tangle of vines in the jungle, but at least it happened. Now, my sleep is as thin as a wedding veil. If Theo so much as rolls over, I’m awake, fighting the urge to get up and check on him one more time. Just to be sure.

  I come downstairs to find Theo in the playroom surrounded by Star Wars LEGO people. Their square little bodies are lined up in preparation for what can only be an epic battle. They wear a random assortment of tiny helmets and carry little plastic weapons of moderate destruction. Theo whispers to them. I pause for a second to see if they answer h
im, but he notices me loitering in the doorway and stops.

  “Hi, Mommy,” he says. “Daddy went to his meeting. He kissed me good-bye twice. One was for you.”

  Daddy’s phoning it in a little bit more than usual these days.

  “That’s nice,” I say.

  Theo spends a minute trying to bring me up to speed on the reasons behind the impending LEGO man war but I ask too many questions about motivation and he soon dismisses me, kindly suggesting I go away.

  I wander into the kitchen and make an attempt to clean up after Will’s pancake project. I wipe down the countertops, start another pot of coffee, and glance through today’s headlines. I even go so far as to check the dryer for clothes in need of folding. But it’s empty and I think that must be a sign of something because it has never happened before. I stand at the bottom of the stairs, twirling a strand of hair around my finger. But it’s no use. I have the willpower of your average street-corner junkie.

  I take the stairs on tiptoe, afraid that if Theo hears me trying to escape, he’ll forget he sent me away in the first place and demand I return immediately and create a replica of the Chrysler building out of microscopic LEGO pieces. To scale.

  Sitting down at Will’s desk, I power up his computer. As I wait, I work on convincing myself I’m here for only one reason and that is the voice that keeps nagging at me to do something. Maybe if I figure out why Righteous Liberty wants me, and only me, to trade Richard Yoder for Director Gray, I can confidently tell the voice to shut up and leave me alone.

  So far, the only logical reason I can come up with for their request is that the name Sally Sin is not the kind of name you quickly forget. It sticks to the memory like old chewing gum. Clearly, I would’ve been better served by being Jane Rogers or something equally bland, but how was I supposed to know it would matter? Had I known, I might have stayed holed up in my dorm room smoking cigarettes rather than trudging out in the snow to volunteer with the psychology grad students and answering a bunch of weird questions that turned out to have nothing to do with a Ph.D. thesis and everything to do with an Agency recruiting exercise. One of the tests asked for a nickname and I gave them one. I even remember being amused by my own wit. All these years later, I’m still embarrassed for my younger self.