Harriet the Spy, Double Agent (6 page)

“I’m back.”

“That’s nice.” Her mother sounded distracted. “Your father is late, for a change.

We’re supposed to go out with the Connellys, and he simply can’t wear his suit. It’s a black-tie reception. I bet he’s forgotten.”

“I haven’t.” Her father’s voice boomed through the doorway. “Though if I had the knack of forgetting an evening with Sylvia Connelly, I’d be a happier man.” He leaned down to kiss Harriet’s cheek. “You look like you’re swimming indoors.

I hope that’s not preadolescent moping I see.”

“No, Daddy.”

“Good. That would make me feel old.” Perhaps because Harriet’s father worked in television, it seemed to her sometimes that he had a permanent layer of sarcasm.

“Harry, you
have
to get dressed,” said her mother.

“I know, I know. Can’t a man say hello to his daughter?”

“You’re going out again?” said Harriet.

“Yes dear,” her mother answered. “You’re staying here and Cook will be staying too. I left you our number.”

“We won’t need to call you!” Harriet exclaimed. “I can fend for myself.” She picked up a pillow and headed upstairs, stamping loudly on each stair tread.

She unlocked the old toy box at the foot of her bed and took out her green notebook. As always, the sight of the volumes arrayed in numerical order gave her a ripple of pride. Ole Golly had called the green notebooks Harriet’s
oeuvre
, which was a French word for “body of work.” My oeuvre looks pretty substantial, thought Harriet, running a hand along the books’ spines. She felt better already. She picked up her favorite pen, the one with the peacock blue ink in a small plastic cartridge, and started to write.

ANNIE SMITH CLAIMS SHE’S IN LOVE WITH AN OLDER MAN. I HAVE WITNESSED NO EVIDENCE. COULD SHE BE FAKING IT?

Harriet paused for a minute, then wrote, WHY?

It didn’t seem logical that she would lie. To be sure, Annie had invented a long list of phony identities, but none of her names had been secret. The fact that she wouldn’t identify her older man gave the phantom some weight.

CLUES AND POSSIBLE SUSPECTS, she wrote, and paused again before writing, NOT MR. GRENVILLE.

It wasn’t a whole lot to go on. There was only one other male teacher at the Gregory School, Mr. Bolbach, and he was a wheezing antique with ill-fitting false teeth.

Maybe it’s somebody I haven’t met yet, she thought. This older man might be a teacher from Annie’s old school, or even an eighth or ninth grader. He might be a friend of Sport’s.

INTERROGATE SPORT, she wrote, and the instant the words were on paper, she knew what she wanted to do. She closed her notebook, locked it back in the trunk, and ran down the stairs to her parents’ room. Her father was grumbling his way into a stiff white shirt. Mrs. Welsch sat at her vanity, brushing on blush. Harriet could see three of her mother in the angled mirrors, and all of them looked very elegant.

“Can I go to Sport’s place for dinner?” Harriet panted.

Mrs. Welsch turned, one cheek deep rose and the other still pale. She looked at her husband as if for permission and said, “I suppose….”

“Thanks!” exclaimed Harriet, and clattered upstairs before they had a chance to discuss it. She grabbed hold of the phone in the upstairs hall, twining its long cord around her hand as she placed a call to a number she knew by heart.

Sport and Kate were making a big pot of two-alarm chili, a favorite from back in the days when Sport had to fix his dad dinners of rice, beans, and pasta six days out of seven. It was still Matthew’s favorite, though Kate had upgraded the recipe with big chunks of beef browned in onions and olive oil.

“Texans never use hamburger meat,” she told Harriet, who was helping her chop the cilantro. “It’s chunk beef or chicken, or if you want to be really authentic, roadkill armadillo.” Kate’s ex-husband was from Lubbock, so she was a fount of such lore.

Harriet always enjoyed eating dinner at Sport’s. The kitchen was cozy, and Kate and Sport elbowed each other good-naturedly, jostling for counter space. Matthew never emerged from his desk till the food hit the table. He still used an old-fashioned typewriter that dinged at the end of each line, and the pauses and bursts of staccato behind his closed door were a comforting sound track to life at the Rocques’. He’s a
real
writer, thought Harriet, admiring the audible rhythms of Matthew’s new novel. Sport arched to one side, still circling his spoon in the chili pot, as Kate opened the oven and took out a skillet of corn bread.

“Better than ever.” Matthew beamed, leaning back on two legs of his chair with his hands splayed out over his stomach. “Who wants some ice cream?”

“You finished the ice cream last night,” said Sport.

“I did?”

“Around three in the morning,” said Kate, scraping plates. “You told me it gave you a second wind.”

“I forgot about that. What a crime. You’ve got to have ice cream with chili.” Harriet looked at Sport. She’d been hoping to catch him alone; it didn’t do to interrogate people in front of two witnesses. “Why don’t we go to the deli and pick some up?”

“Excellent,” Matthew said. “I vote for coffee.” Sport frowned. “It’s my turn to do dishes.”

“I’ve got ’em,” Kate said. “You two scat.”

Harriet waited till Sport had bought two quarts of ice cream, one coffee, one butter pecan, before popping the question. “Who did Yolanda like at your school?”

“Like?” Sport turned. “You mean
like
like, or—”

“Crush. Did you ever notice her looking at anyone that way? He might have been older,” she added offhandedly.

Sport shook his head. “I would have punched the guy right in the nose.” He put change in his pocket and picked up the bag. “Does she still wear those green shoes?” he asked in a reverent tone.

Harriet groaned inwardly. I’m in for it now, she thought. I brought up the subject, and now I’ll be stuck with it. “Waterproof boots,” she said, shaking her head.

“Boots,” echoed Sport in a dreamy voice.

I don’t get this at
all
, thought Harriet. They’ve all gone wacko.

After they ate their ice cream, Harriet helped Kate dry the dishes while Sport and his dad watched a hockey game on TV. She looked at the wedding band shining on Kate’s left hand. Maybe she can explain this in-love stuff, Harriet thought. Kate and Matthew are newlyweds, just like Ole Golly and Mr. Waldenstein.

“Kate?” she asked.

“What?” Kate stretched up to stack bowls in a cabinet.

“How did you first fall in love?”

Kate looked at her, eyebrows arched. “With Matthew, you mean? Or when I was sixteen?”

“Either. Both.”

“Well,” Kate said thoughtfully, “it’s kind of like running a fever. You don’t always know when it starts, but at some point you realize that you’re unusually warm.

Does that make any sense?”

“I guess,” said Harriet, sounding unsure.

Kate smiled. “Is he someone you know?” she asked gently.

“Who?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Kate. Her eyes twinkled. “Sometimes it’s more fun to keep it a secret. Especially if he’s a friend.” Harriet stared at her. “You don’t think that I—”

“No, of course not,” said Kate, just a little too quickly. Her voice was amused.

“I wouldn’t be caught
dead
,” said Harriet, so loudly that Matthew and Sport turned from the hockey game to stare at her.

Harriet stood in the bathroom, brushing her teeth till the toothpaste foamed. She spit into the sink. How could Kate even think such a thing? The idea that Harriet M.

Welsch, writer and spy, would develop a crush on
anyone
, much less on Sport, was appalling. Sport was her
friend
.

True, he had changed a lot in the last year, and not just because of his crush on some fake name of Annie’s. He’d gone through a growth spurt that had suddenly made him a head taller than Harriet, so her gaze fell between Sport’s lumpy Adam’s apple and his wispy-haired chin. His manner was different too: gruffer, as if he were trying to fit with the older, more streetwise boys on his new baseball team. He still enjoyed cooking, but he no longer talked about cleansers and recipes without any self-consciousness the way he had back in the days before Kate had moved in. If somebody thought it was weird that Sport cooked and cleaned for his father, well, that was
their
problem.

He wants to be normal, she thought, shutting off the cold-water tap. What a weird thing to want.

She watched Annie closely for clues throughout the next day. As Cassandra D’Amore, making dramatic pronouncements to classmates, she might leak some key information. But Cassandra confined herself to a few airy glosses on
Romeo and Juliet
, vis-à-vis “certain occurrences witnessed at family events in my previous walk of life.” Mr. Grenville seized on the chance to paint the Montagues and Capulets as rival Mafia families or street gangs and even broke into a couple of bars of the Jet song from
West
Side Story
.

Annie wanted to walk past the Christmas tree stand after school. Harriet thought they should lie low for a while. “We were in their
bedroom
,” she said. “There’s no way we can do any serious spying.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “You’re so predictable.”

“Let’s check on the rest of the route. It’s been eons since we watched the Birdlip Twins. And what about Fabio and Naima?”

“They kiss too much.”

“True. And he smokes besides. Wouldn’t he taste like a furnace?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Annie said primly. “I’d never consider a smoker.” Nonsmoker, thought Harriet. Might be a clue.

In the end they decided to spy on the Birdlips. The Belgian embassy was a narrow white building with several flags. There was a strip of reserved parking at the curb, which usually boasted a town car or two with red, white, and blue diplomatic license plates.

Sometimes drivers lounged in their front seats, wearing brimmed hats or dark sunglasses, listening to foreign radio stations.

The ambassador and his wife had a ground-floor apartment next to the embassy building. They had three young children, a toddler girl and twin infants, and not one but two English nannies. The Birdlip Twins weren’t actual twins—they might not have even been sisters—but they were both pale and chin-less and moved with an eerie sameness, like synchronized swimmers. Even their names were close to identical: Maggie and Megan. When Harriet spotted the pair of them wheeling twin strollers through the pathways of Carl Schurz Park, she had tailed them back home to the embassy and added them to her spy route.

The Birdlips shared a bedroom/sitting room just off the nursery, whose tall casement windows made warm-weather spying a cinch. But today all the windows were closed, and Annie and Harriet couldn’t hear anything. They quickly got tired of watching Maggie and Megan sort toddler socks into pairs and stack diapers. “Let’s check in on Harrison and his nine kittens,” said Harriet. “They must be getting big.”

“My fingers are freezing,” said Annie. “Let’s check in on cocoa.”

“How about tomorrow?” said Harriet, watching her closely. “Have you got any plans for the weekend?”

“Um, I’m free on Sunday.” Annie turned her head, watching a pigeon soar skyward. She’s hiding something, thought Harriet.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she pressed.

Annie’s eyes stayed on the pigeon as it landed on top of a row of brick chimneys on one of the neighboring buildings. “I wonder if that’s where they nest.”

“Something with your aunt and uncle?”

Annie’s nod looked a little too grateful. “Aunt Barbara insisted. It’s some kind of Hanukkah thingy they do at their temple.”

“You celebrate Hanukkah?” Harriet asked, surprised. Smith didn’t sound very Jewish, though now that she thought of it, Feigenbaum did. Was Annie Smith’s “real” name fake, then?

“My mother is Jewish, my dad grew up Methodist. We kind of made up our own blend: Christmas tree and menorah, latkes with Easter eggs. Aunt Barbara and Uncle Morris never approved. I guess now it’s their chance to straighten me out.” This was far more than Annie had ever told Harriet about her family, but Harriet couldn’t help thinking that something was off. Her friend hadn’t met her eyes yet.

“What time is this temple thing done? We could meet after that.” Annie flushed. “I don’t know exactly. I’ll call you.” Bingo, thought Harriet. Caught you.

The next morning, Harriet rushed through her breakfast and took a position right next to the living room window, where she could watch the Feigenbaums’ house through the slats of the blind without being seen from the street. She held an open copy of
Romeo
and Juliet
in her lap, in case her parents happened to wonder why she was glued to the beige brocade wing chair. Her spy belt, flashlight, and notebook were in her school backpack. An outgrown ski parka that Annie had never seen hung within easy reach, along with a pair of lensless glasses frames she kept on hand as a disguise. Stakeouts were dull, but Harriet relished the heightened sense of awareness that came with a long observation. She passed the time by trying to come up with the right succinct phrase for every person who walked down the sidewalk: a jogger with legs like a greyhound; a flat-footed West Indian nanny waddling after a plastic-swathed stroller.

It was almost eleven a.m. when the Feigenbaums’ door finally opened. Harriet straightened at once. She peered through the blind slats as Morris, wrapped in a bulky tweed coat and Russian-style rabbit-fur hat, held the door open for Barbara, whose wide-belted trenchcoat made her look even tinier than usual. Then he turned back and locked the front door with a key. They walked down the stoop arm in arm. Annie was nowhere in sight. I knew it, thought Harriet, feeling triumphant. She looked at her wristwatch. I give her five minutes, she thought. As soon as they’re out of range.

A short-haired blond woman with two springer spaniels walked past, but Harriet couldn’t be bothered with finding apt phrases. She pulled on the navy blue parka, shouldered her backpack, and stared at the Feigenbaums’ door. Six minutes passed. Then she saw something move in the alley alongside the brown-stone, where they kept the trash cans, and caught a quick glimpse of a red beret.