Free The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz Page A

asked, when what I should have done was race across the room and throw myself on top of the coffee table.
    “What ta hell is this mess? It smells like rubbish!” he said.
    “It is rubbish,” I said. “Don’t touch it!”
    I watched as Connor swept his hand across the table, sliding my paper puzzle into a paper bag.
    “You’re going to pay for that,” I said in my most villainous voice.
    Connor pulled a quarter out of his pocket and tossed it at me.
    “Will that do?” he asked.
    I threw the quarter back at him, aiming for his eye. He ducked.
    “That was four hours of hard labor you just extinguished with a sweep of a hand! I charge seventy-five dollars an hour. You figure it out.”
    “Why? Because ya can’t?” he shouted back.
    “I want my three hundred dollars!” I said. Loudly.
    “Then I guess I’ll be starting a tab for you at the bar. We’ll call it even in, say, a week’s time.”
    I scanned the room looking for something to throw. My brain was too tired for any comeback more sophisticated than “You’re a dead man.” Besides, I’ve found these empty threats carry no weight. Now, a pet rock, on the other hand . . .
    I was angry, but I was also tired and devastated by the idea that I would have to spend another four hours trying to reassemble some obnoxious feel-good movie that had done nothing but make me feel bad. I did what any tough, self-reliant, overburdened, sleep-deprived, seasoned investigator would do: I cried. And, to my delight, I discovered tears were the weapon of choice against Connor. Better than any pet rock known to man.
    “Ah, no, Isabel, pleeease don’ cry,” he said in his most soothing and thick accent. He put his arms around me and walked me back to bed.
    A few hours later, Pratt’s stupid puzzle nagged at my subconscious. I woke, returned to the living room, and began the painstaking task of reuniting the slices of screenplay. After an hour at task, Connor woke up, turned on the overhead light, and joined me on the couch.
    “When I was a lad, I had a knack for any kind of puzzle,” he said, carefully sliding shreds of paper out of the bag of recycling.
    I kissed Connor on the cheek and for the next two hours we worked in silence and ended up right back where I started. Although this time, we taped the matching strips together. Then we returned to bed and slept through the morning.
    The next afternoon, I phoned Pratt and explained that Shana was shredding the scripts and that in keeping with his budget, the best I could do was pick up the confetti and deliver it to him.
    Jeremy said that he liked puzzles. If only I’d known that the night before.

RULE #28—MANDATORY SUNDAY-NIGHT FAMILY DINNERS
AUTHOR: ALBERT SPELLMAN
VETOES: NONE (UNDER DIRECT THREAT BY MY MOTHER)
    Rule #28 originally started as mandatory individual lunches with Dad but shifted when I pointed out that there was something utterly pathetic about essentially offering your children the choice between having lunch with you or taking out the trash for a week. While I didn’t necessarily want every Sunday night ad infinitum to be ruled by a meal with my immediate relatives, I figured it was the kind of event I could occasionally miss since other parties could make up for my absence. Besides, Connor worked Sunday nights anyway.
    Dad wasted no time in initiating Rule #28. In retrospect, one could view the meal as a collision of varying agendas. My father wanted quality family time. My mother needed information on David’s big blonde. David wanted my mother to take a cooking class. Maggie encouraged another camping trip. I wanted more wine. And Rae, Rae wanted to free Schmidt. In fact, she made T-shirts. Navy-blue cotton with yellow felt letters spelling out her slogan.
    At this point in the evening, I slipped into the office, grabbed the digital recorder, and turned it on. Sometimes it just makes me feel better if I have hard evidence.
     
    [Partial transcript reads as follows:]
RAE : I need everyone to