Free Spy Mom by Beth McMullen Page B

usually goes. The uncomfortable sound of crunching metal is the final straw.
    â€œShit!” I scream. “Double shit!” I pound my steering wheel with my fists.
    And from the backseat I hear, “Mommy, what is double shit? Double shit, double shit, double shit,” Theo gleefully cries.
    I try not to smile, but it’s hard. “Theo, Mommy said another naughty word. It’s best not to say it, okay?”
    He smiles, widely, happily, such a well-adjusted little boy, and shouts out “Fucking! Double shit!” as loud as he can.
    I haul him out of his car seat. Now he is dancing around the garage, singing a song of pure obscenity. At that moment my neighbor Tom chooses to appear on the sidewalk right outside my garage.
    â€œLovely song, Lucy,” he says, pointing at Theo, as if I don’t know what is happening right in front of me.
    â€œYes,” I say, exasperated. “We’re working on the follow-up. It’s called ‘Go Fuck Yourself.’”
    And to my surprise, Tom laughs. He grabs one of the bags of toys wedged into my trunk. “Let me help you.”
    We climb up the front steps to the house. Tom carries the toys into the kitchen and puts them on the table. It occurs to me he has never been in my house before.
    â€œDo you want some coffee?” I offer. He nods. “Always.”
    For the moment, Theo has stopped singing and is now pulling impatiently at my leg.
    â€œYogurt pop, Mommy. Yogurt pop, yogurt pop, yogurt pop.” I lean over to the freezer, Theo still attached to my pants, and pull out a frozen yogurt. He snatches it from my hands and takes off down the hallway.
    â€œTheo,” I call after him, “don’t you want me to open it?” But he’s gone. I shrug and set about getting some coffee for Tom. He settles in at the kitchen table. The nesting dolls are sitting on the tabletop. Tom picks them up, turns them slowly in his manicured hands. A little pile of sand tumbles out onto the floor.
    â€œThese are lovely,” he says. “An amazing example of the craft. Where did they come from?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I reply honestly. “Someone sent them as a present when Theo was born, but with no note and no indications on the box about where they came from. I think they must have been hand delivered. They’re nice though, aren’t they?”
    Tom carefully extracts each smaller doll and lines them up on the table. He gives the tiny one a shake.
    â€œInteresting. They are probably quite valuable. They look old. Anyway, some of your mail ended up in my box,” he says, pulling a few envelopes from his jacket pocket. He looks around my kitchen with an odd expression. “I’ve never been in here before. That seems strange. And you’ve never been in my house either, now that I think about it. How can that be? Tell me about yourself, neighbor.” He means it in a friendly way. He wants to know the people whose walls touch his. It’s only natural.
    But as I stand with my back to him, pouring coffee, I feel a familiar tingling in my spine that always seems to show up right before I get into serious trouble. I clear my throat and turn back toward Tom, who is staring at me intently.
    â€œOh, I’m not very interesting,” I say. “This is pretty much the whole picture.”
    â€œIf you say so,” he says, taking the coffee. I lean against the counter, sizing him up. Mid-fifties, bald, bad teeth, gay, short with a slight paunch that I imagine was not always there. He has visitors, mostly younger men with a lot of hair. They stumble home with him after midnight, drunk, laughing. And they are always different. We are all hiding something. I take a slow sip of coffee.
    â€œWhat is it you do, Tom, when you are not delivering my mail?” I ask. I’ve discovered, after years of informal field-testing, that the best way to distract a person is to invite him to talk about