usually kept a bottle of Wild Turkey in his desk drawer. While Petra waited in the car, I returned to the school grounds and caught Len and a football player making out in Coach Walters’s office. Because I never said anything, Len thought he owed me. What he didn’t know was that I was good at keeping secrets, having so many of my own. One more made no difference to me.
“I am not a snitch” was all I ever said.
My father took me home that night without uttering a single word. Nothing happened to Len. They had only a nickname to go on. As for me, I got off easy, at least compared to my father, who endured endless jeering from his former colleagues; they found it infinitely amusing that Al couldn’t crack his own daughter as an informant. Yet I know that for a man who spent years working the streets, he understood the codes that criminals live by and to a certain extent respected my silence.
If you can imagine me without my litany of crimes or my brother as a point of comparison, you might be surprised to find that I stand up all right on my own. I can enter a room and have its contents memorized within a few minutes; I can spot a pickpocket with the accuracy of a sharpshooter; I can bluff my way past any currently employed night watchman. When inspired, I have a doggedness you’ve never seen. And while I’m no great beauty, I get asked out plenty by men who don’t know any better.
But for many years, my attributes (for what they’re worth) were obscured by my defiant ways. Since David had cornered the market on perfection, I had to settle for mining the depths of my own imperfection. At times it seemed the only two sentences spoken in our household were Well done, David and What were you thinking, Isabel? My teenage years were defined by meetings at the principal’s office, rides in squad cars, ditching, vandalism, smoking in the bathroom, drinking at the beach, breaking and entering, academic probation, groundings, lectures, broken curfews, hangovers, blackouts, illegal drugs, combat boots, and unwashed hair.
Yet I could never do as much damage as I intended, because David was always undoing it. If I missed a curfew, he covered for me. If I lied, he corroborated. If I stole, he returned. If I smoked, he hid the butts. If I passed out on the front lawn, he moved my lifeless body into my bedroom. If I refused to write a paper, he wrote it for me, even dumbing down the language to make it believable. When he discovered that I wasn’t turning in his work on my behalf, he took to delivering the papers directly to the teachers’ mailboxes.
What was so infuriating about David was that he knew. He knew that—to a certain extent—my failure was a reaction to his perfection. He understood that I was his fault and he genuinely felt contrite. My parents would occasionally ask me why I was the way I was. And I told them: They needed balance. Added together and divided evenly, David and I would be two exceedingly normal children. Rae would eventually throw everything off balance, but I’ll get to that later.
1799 CLAY STREET
T he Spellman residence is located at 1799 Clay Street on the outskirts of the Nob Hill district of San Francisco. If you walk half a mile to the south, you’ll reach the Tenderloin—San Francisco’s heterosexual red-light district. If you head too far north, you’ll land in some variety of tourist trap, whether it’s Lombard Street or Fisherman’s Wharf or, if you’re really unfortunate, the Marina.
Spellman Investigations is conveniently located at the same address. (My father loves to joke about his commute down the stairs.) The building itself is an impressive four-level Victorian, painted blue with white trim, that my parents could never have afforded had it not been passed down from three generations of Spellmans. The property itself is valued at close to two million, which means my parents threaten to sell at least four times a year. But those are empty threats. My parents would
“I am not a snitch” was all I ever said.
My father took me home that night without uttering a single word. Nothing happened to Len. They had only a nickname to go on. As for me, I got off easy, at least compared to my father, who endured endless jeering from his former colleagues; they found it infinitely amusing that Al couldn’t crack his own daughter as an informant. Yet I know that for a man who spent years working the streets, he understood the codes that criminals live by and to a certain extent respected my silence.
If you can imagine me without my litany of crimes or my brother as a point of comparison, you might be surprised to find that I stand up all right on my own. I can enter a room and have its contents memorized within a few minutes; I can spot a pickpocket with the accuracy of a sharpshooter; I can bluff my way past any currently employed night watchman. When inspired, I have a doggedness you’ve never seen. And while I’m no great beauty, I get asked out plenty by men who don’t know any better.
But for many years, my attributes (for what they’re worth) were obscured by my defiant ways. Since David had cornered the market on perfection, I had to settle for mining the depths of my own imperfection. At times it seemed the only two sentences spoken in our household were Well done, David and What were you thinking, Isabel? My teenage years were defined by meetings at the principal’s office, rides in squad cars, ditching, vandalism, smoking in the bathroom, drinking at the beach, breaking and entering, academic probation, groundings, lectures, broken curfews, hangovers, blackouts, illegal drugs, combat boots, and unwashed hair.
Yet I could never do as much damage as I intended, because David was always undoing it. If I missed a curfew, he covered for me. If I lied, he corroborated. If I stole, he returned. If I smoked, he hid the butts. If I passed out on the front lawn, he moved my lifeless body into my bedroom. If I refused to write a paper, he wrote it for me, even dumbing down the language to make it believable. When he discovered that I wasn’t turning in his work on my behalf, he took to delivering the papers directly to the teachers’ mailboxes.
What was so infuriating about David was that he knew. He knew that—to a certain extent—my failure was a reaction to his perfection. He understood that I was his fault and he genuinely felt contrite. My parents would occasionally ask me why I was the way I was. And I told them: They needed balance. Added together and divided evenly, David and I would be two exceedingly normal children. Rae would eventually throw everything off balance, but I’ll get to that later.
1799 CLAY STREET
T he Spellman residence is located at 1799 Clay Street on the outskirts of the Nob Hill district of San Francisco. If you walk half a mile to the south, you’ll reach the Tenderloin—San Francisco’s heterosexual red-light district. If you head too far north, you’ll land in some variety of tourist trap, whether it’s Lombard Street or Fisherman’s Wharf or, if you’re really unfortunate, the Marina.
Spellman Investigations is conveniently located at the same address. (My father loves to joke about his commute down the stairs.) The building itself is an impressive four-level Victorian, painted blue with white trim, that my parents could never have afforded had it not been passed down from three generations of Spellmans. The property itself is valued at close to two million, which means my parents threaten to sell at least four times a year. But those are empty threats. My parents would
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