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Authors: Lisa Lutz

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BOOK: The Last Word
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• Specialized in dispute management and kitchen fork retrieval.

• Had only one disciplinary citation in fifteen years.

2011 to present: Spellman Investigations

Assistant Investigator

• Research assistant; specializes in database research and background checks; in-office
catering; types 35 words a minute.

• Specializes in dispute management and food preparation.

• Employee of the month 12 months running.

• Other interests:
Getting innocent people out of prison, origami, cooking, television,
Judge Judy
, Zumba.

“What’s Zumba?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” D said. “But everyone lies on their résumé.”

I looked over D’s résumé and said, “You’re hired.”

“Thank you, Ms. Spellman. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.”

“This was a dumb idea, wasn’t it?”

“Girl, what were you thinking?” D said, finally out of interview character.

“I was drunk,” I said. That’s not a figure of speech. I really was drunk.

“Were you drunk when you wrote
all
the memos?”

“Not the filing one. That was a stone-cold-sober calculation. The interview was just
payback. When I was eighteen or something my dad made me interview for a job I already
had.”

“What did you do?” D asked.

“I wore a ridiculous outfit, ate a sandwich, and called him Mr. Mellman repeatedly.”
9

“You didn’t think he’d remember that?”

“Now what do I do?”

“Watch your back,” D said.

“It’s not that bad, is it?”

“It’s worse than you think.”

“What are they going to do?” I asked.

“There’s something you need to put in your mind. Spellman Investigations, to most
clients, is Albert and Olivia and the relationships they’ve maintained for twenty
years. The office is in their house. They’re entitled to thirty percent of the equipment
if they decide to go their own way.”

“You don’t think they’d branch off and start their own business, do you?”

“How hard would it be? Same location, switch the name a bit—you don’t have a copyright
on
Spellman
. They could downsize, take only the cases they want. It could be perfect for two
people thinking about retiring,” D said.

“What would be the advantage of that?”

“They’d be their own bosses and wouldn’t work under the dictatorship of Madame President
Isabel anymore.”

“Is that what it looks like to you?”

“I’m Switzerland, remember?”

“So you’re telling me they have all the power.”

“They have most of it.”

“If that happened and they offered you a job, where would you go?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Who gives me the better offer.”

•  •  •

After the interviews, my parents took a disappearance to Big Sur. I left a series
of increasingly apologetic messages on their cell phones. None were returned.

Three days later, when I pulled up to 1799 Clay Street, I was elated to discover Dad’s
Audi in the driveway. I raced out for bagels and lox from some bagel shop
10
and pastries from
none of your business
; picked up flowers, champagne, and orange juice from
a store
; and attempted to improve morale with a sleep-inducing feast for all. My parents
partook of the buffet, filled their bellies with baked goods and cured fish and drank
at least a bottle of champagne on their own. They appeared rested and restored from
their holiday, and I thought this might be the time to say a few words.

“I think I owe you all an apology, especially Mom and Dad. When the company structure
changed, I didn’t fully consider the ramifications of my actions, nor was I sensitive
to my parents’ feelings about the manner in which I handled the transaction. While
I still do not regret my decision to buy out the company shares from my siblings,
I must admit that all of my
actions since then have been immature, lacking in leadership, and utterly pointless.
Please accept my apologies. I hope we can restore the office to its previous state
of mutual respect.”
11

“Anyone need a nap?” my dad said, tossing his napkin on his plate and stretching his
arms in a long, leisurely yawn.

“I’m in,” Mom said, not even considering clearing the table. “Thanks, Isabel. That
was an excellent spread.”

After my parents ambled up the stairs, Vivien said, “Maybe the champagne was a mistake.”

Viv carried a stack of dishes into the kitchen; I turned to D, hoping for an explanation,
guidance, anything.

“People forgive at their own pace,” D said.

“Maybe you could take them to church with you sometime and speed it up. I hear forgiveness
is really big in those places.”

“So is humility,” D said.

“Point taken,” I humbly said. Right now D was my only real ally (otherwise known as
not-an-enemy) and I couldn’t afford to lose him.

•  •  •

In the days that followed, my parents came to work sporadically and rarely did any
actual work. Mom collected office supplies for a decoupage project she’d decided to
embark on; Dad made long-distance calls on the company line; Mom filed her nails (she
apparently kept her nail file in her desk drawer); Dad played marathon games of Plants
vs. Zombies; Mom handled her online shopping. Occasionally one or the other would
answer the phone, always with the same line: “Isabel Spellman Investigations. How
can we help you today?” If the client was an old friend, my parents would lead with
the ugly truth.

“Our daughter participated in a hostile takeover. Yeah. She’s now the boss. You think
you can trust family, but you can’t. What do you need, Bob/Jim/Tony/Sally? Olivia
and I are always here to help. You have our cell numbers, right?”

Since direct communication was fraught with conflict and I had no idea what work my
parents were doing for the clients who were in their purview, I would occasionally
phone their clients, pretend I had misdialed, make small talk, and ask if I needed
to relay any messages to the unit. That’s how I learned that my folks were indeed
handling the bare bones of their casework. That’s also how the unit learned I was
checking up on them, when I accidentally “misdialed” a client twice.

While the memo business got off to a bad start, I had to keep it in operation because
when I spoke to my parents they would often not even register that I was in the room.
Some days it felt like being a ghost. My attempts to draw my parents into conversation
covered a range from banal to sensational.

“Some weather we’re having.”

“Did you see the 49ers game last night?”
12

“Did you read about the triple-murder cannibalism case in the Netherlands? All connected
to bath salts, I hear.”

Sometimes I’d snow them just to see if they were listening.

“Did you hear Princess Banana has measles, mumps, and rubella?”

Mom would promptly call my brother’s house, learn otherwise, engage in a chatty conversation
with D, and then take an early lunch or leave the house and not come back until the
end of the workday.

As far as I was concerned, the worst had passed. My parents were accomplishing some
work after hours. I’d find database research and background reports for the major
clients on my desk in the morning. I assumed this was all a phase that would pass,
and since we were getting by, I chose to ride it out.

Then a slew of past-due bills began sliding through the door, and notices from the
IRS and EDD (who the hell are they?). Apparently the payroll taxes were not being
paid. Other than me, all the employees were receiving their checks as usual. I simply
handwrote my usual check and figured that refusing to write my paycheck was my mother’s
only form of fiscal dissension. I was foolish enough to believe that even in our hostile
work environment we could maintain the status quo.

I had always put the bills on top of my mother’s desk. She had always put them in
her top right-hand drawer until she paid them. The first part had remained the same;
the second part had not. One morning when I questioned Mom about whether the bills
were being paid, she opened her desk drawer to reveal a bountiful stash of unopened
envelopes and said, “Is that what those are?”

“Mom, why aren’t you paying the bills?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

“I thought you were,” Mom said.

I was lucky to get an answer.

“That was always your job.”

“Maybe in the old days, when your father and I had a say in how the company was run.”

“You still have a say,” I said.

“Well then, I think—and your father agrees—that you should take over all the fiscal
duties. You should certainly understand the financial responsibilities of running
a company. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I didn’t disagree. However, I didn’t actually know how the payroll was handled, nor
was I educated on our accounting software. I asked my mother if she could train me
on the financial protocol.

“Of course, dear,” she said. “How does June of next year work for you?”

So that’s when I officially took over all of the fiscal responsibilities for Spellman
Investigations. If I didn’t understand something, I looked it up on the Internet.
If I wasn’t sure if there was enough money in the account to pay a bill, I checked
the balance and calculated how many checks hadn’t cleared. Every night I read the
manual for the accounting software and it put me right to sleep.

Between the “bookkeeping” and the client billing, this added another fifteen hours
to my workweek. With my parents’ hours trimmed at least 50 percent and the limitations
of delegation to Demetrius (refuses to do surveillance)
13
and Vivien (too green for most jobs), I was working seventy hours a week and getting
paid the same as before. Given the rampant disrespect
and the fact that I was being held hostage by my employees, you must understand that
I was itching to fire someone. When my father’s computer caught a virus from what
was obviously a dodgy online game, and it spread throughout the office, I phoned Robbie
Gruber, our disagreeable computer consultant, to repair the problem.

He arrived two hours late, soaked in an obscene body spray, which was only camouflaging
an odor so rank you didn’t mind the body spray. Every computer has access to the server,
but Robbie sat down at my desk, pulled out a bag of Cheetos, and while annihilating
our computer virus, chomped on his snack nuggets, licked his fingers, and finger-painted
my keyboard with his DNA and yellow dye #4.

“How much?” I asked when he was done.

“One fifty.”

“Your rates have gone up by fifty percent?”

“You no longer get the friend-and-family rate.”

“Why is that?”

“You know why.”
14

“I’m deducting thirty bucks for a new keyboard.”

“I might not be available the next time you call.”

“I won’t call. You’re fired.”

“Al, Olivia. Good luck with your new arrangement,” Robbie said as he wadded up his
dead bag of Cheetos and headed out the door. He twisted his beefy torso to throw the
junk food carcass into the trash bin and missed, sending a cascade of orange dust
onto the carpet.

There were times when I thought that every move I’d made in the last three months,
year, decade, maybe, had been a mistake. I had thought the business might thrive under
my new leadership. Now I wasn’t sure if we could survive. Apparently, the worst had
not passed. But before it gets worse, and I tell you all about it, how about a bedtime
story?

1
. Coincidentally I took and lost power in March.

2
. A great idea, but to keep even recent files up to date would involve a great deal
of scanning.

3
. Didn’t yet trust anyone to be my right arm . . . or my left.

4
. I count my infancy.

5
. It ended up being incredibly annoying and a directive that was quite difficult to
shake.

6
. What was I thinking allowing for such an early time slot?

7
. Probably shouldn’t have put my feet up on my desk.

8
. If I went to church, I think this is one of the things I would thank God for.

9
. See document #4.

10
. We’re not known for bagels, so I’m not going to provide free advertising for a meh
bagel distributor.

11
. Yes, I did write the speech out ahead of time, and the part about the “previous
state of mutual respect” was baloney.

12
. Not the best conversation starter, since football season was long over.

13
. “Why is it so hard for you to understand why I don’t want to follow white people
around?”

14
. I blackmailed Gruber a year ago. I kind of had it coming.

PRINCESS BANANA AND HER WICKED GREAT-GRANDMOTHER

O
nce upon a time a modest defense attorney and a slick corporate lawyer fell in love.
Maggie Mason and David Spellman were their names. At first their differences made
the match seem improbable. Maggie stashed baked goods in her pocket and wore old dresses
with the hems coming undone at the seams; David went to a personal trainer a couple
times a week and would hide sweets in his house, hoping to forget where he put them.
But somehow they made it work, though not by meeting each other in the middle; David
bent purely in Maggie’s direction.

After the unlikely couple married, Maggie had a baby, a little girl named Sydney,
and it was Sydney who turned David into a shadow of his former self.

After the child was born, David decided to give up his old life and become a full-time
father. No one remembers exactly when David stopped looking in the mirror and only
at his beloved wife and daughter, but it was
probably right around the time they brought Sydney home from the hospital. The next
thing everyone knew, David’s custom-made suits had found their way to the back of
the closet. Jeans, old T-shirts, sweatshirts, pajamas, and bathrobes became his daily
uniform. He lost his hairstylist’s phone number and eventually the barbershop around
the corner was just fine. He shaved a couple times a week and he went to the gym as
often as your average family man.
1

BOOK: The Last Word
11.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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