08 Illusion

by Frank Peretti

  “Go ahead. Say it.”

  Mandy looked into those friendly green eyes. “I look clean. You look great.” And Bernadette did look great. Nice jacket, cool jeans, slick pumps.

  Bernadette nodded, even chuckled. “I’m the one in the civvies and you’re the one in the scrubs.”

  “Right on.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “How should I feel? You weren’t locked in your room with a camera trained on you. You didn’t have to take a shower with Nurse Baines watching you. You got to fix your hair this morning and pick out your own clothes. You even get to wear a bra because nobody thinks you’ll use it to hang yourself.” Mandy, you’re getting angry. “But you do look great. And I like your lipstick.”

  “Thank you. It’s called Deep Blush.”

  “It goes with your complexion.”

  “So how do you usually fix your hair?”

  “Oh, straight, with combs and sometimes a clip. I have some headbands, they’re kind of a trip—hey, I made a rhyme!”

  Mandy had no grudge with Bernadette and Bernadette was sweet enough. They talked—maybe a little testy at first, checking each other out—but they got on a roll, and every once in a while Bernadette would jot a note on her writing pad or circle an item on a form. Mandy settled within herself that Bernadette was only doing her job; it wouldn’t be fair not to like her.

  “So,” Bernadette finally said with a little clap and rub of her hands, “let’s do the questions and the games. What’s my name?”

  “Bernadette.”

  “Do you remember my last name?”

  Mandy had to work a bit. “N … Nolan?”

  “Right. And you know where you are?”

  “Behavioral Health, Spokane County Medical Center.”

  “And what year is it?”

  Mandy had to think about that one. It depended on who you asked, so she asked, “Is it 2010?”

  “That’s right,” Bernadette answered, but she jotted something down. “And when were you born?”

  “January fifteenth, 1951.”

  It was fun watching Bernadette trying not to react. She looked at Mandy and smiled, studying her a bit. “Do you think it’s 2010?”

  “That’s what I’m told and that’s what I’m seeing.”

  “But you were born in 1951.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That would make you …” Bernadette had to work it out on her pad. “Fifty-nine. Are you fifty-nine?”

  “No, I’m nineteen.”

  She chuckled. “Does that puzzle you at all, your being born in ’51 but you’re only nineteen?”

  Mandy threw up her hands. “I am completely puzzled!”

  “That’s good. That’s actually very good.” Jot, jot. “Okay, I’ll give you three words: cadillac, zebra, purple. Can you say them back to me?”

  “Cadillac, zebra, purple.”

  “Can you count backward from one hundred by threes?”

  Oh-oh. Mandy and numbers didn’t get along. She counted down as far as fifty-two before Bernadette let it go.

  “What were the three words I gave you?”

  “Cadillac, zebra, and purple.”

  “How about the days of the week? Can you say those backward?”

  Mandy felt nervous about that one, but they tumbled out just fine.

  “Got a favorite TV show?”

  “Carol Burnett. And Daddy and I always watch Gunsmoke.”

  “On DVD?”

  “Uh … no, Channel Four.”

  Jot jot. Hopefully she jotted something positive.

  And it went on and on.

  “Spell the word world backward.”

  “Explain what happened yesterday. What do you think should have happened?”

  “Can you tell me my name again?”

  “Can you name the last four presidents?” Jot jot.

  “What were those three words again?”

  “Can you give me two different definitions for the word right? How about the word bit? How about left?”

  “What do people mean when they say ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’?”

  Mandy had no trouble answering the questions and doing the thinking, but it was getting tedious. She never thought to pick up the deck of cards; she just noticed she was shuffling them as she spoke.

  “What do you think people mean when they say ‘When the cat’s away the mice will play’?”

  Brrrriiiip! Riffle shuffle on the table. “When the authority figure is absent, people push their boundaries and see what they can get away with.”

  “What about hallucinations or delusions? Have you experienced anything like that?”

  Brrrrrriiiip! Riffle shuffle off the table, hands in the air, like a skilled cardsharp. “You mean, besides thinking I’m living in 2010?”

  “Well, aren’t you?”

  Fffffoooot! Waterfall, the cards cascading through space from her raised right hand into her waiting left. “You think I’m living in 2010 and think I’m from 1970. I think I’m living in 1970 and think I’m living in 2010. That’s the difference.”

  Jot jot. “Wow. Does that scare you at all?”

  “Very much.”

  “Do you feel afraid right now?”

  Ribbon spread, the cards spread out across the table like a long ribbon, perfectly lapped and spaced. Mandy had to pay attention to the cards for a moment, it looked so good. “I’m making lemonade.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Mandy gathered the ribbon, squared the deck, and looked Bernadette in the eye. “What do you think people mean when they say, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’?”

  Bernadette nodded. “Got it.” Jot jot.

  “Daddy told me that.” She spread the cards into a ribbon again, all facedown except for two in the middle faceup, the king and queen of hearts, side by side.

  “You’re very good at that,” Bernadette observed.

  “Daddy showed me.”

  “You must practice a lot.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you ever feel the need to do something over and over until it’s perfect?”

  “Practice doesn’t make perfect. It makes better. Daddy told me that, too.”

  “How about worry? Do you worry a lot?”

  Not until yesterday, she would have answered, but her eyes were locked on a memory: Daddy in his Gonzaga T-shirt, sitting with her in the kitchen, teaching her how to shuffle a deck of cards and do a ribbon spread. She didn’t ask for the emotion; she didn’t even expect it, but now her throat was tightening up and tears were filling her eyes.

  “You miss your father, don’t you?”

  Mandy just looked at her, the tears overflowing onto her cheeks.

  “Sorry.”

  Mandy wiped her tears with one hand and gathered the ribbon into a deck with the other. She shuffled the cards and spread out the ribbon again, faceup except for one card facedown in the middle. Her voice quivered and she couldn’t help it. “He didn’t know a whole lot of tricks, but he got me started, and he always told me, ‘Don’t worry about getting perfect, just keep getting better.’ And he wasn’t just talking about card tricks.”

  “Those were wise words.”

  Tremors of emotion made it hard to talk. “He was a guy trying to raise a teenage daughter all by himself, and he did it.” She lifted one card at the end, starting a wave, and flipped all the cards over as the wave swept through the ribbon. “That’s why I don’t want it to be 2010, because if it is, then my daddy might be dead and that’s why nobody can find him.” With that, she couldn’t talk at all.

  Now all the cards were facedown except for the king in the middle, all by himself.

  Bernadette offered her a Kleenex to wipe her nose.

  Mandy blew and wiped and then steadied herself, at least enough to speak. She tried not to sound angry, but doggone it, she was. “Maybe you should stop asking me all these find-out-if-she’s-crazy questions and just ask me what I want.”

&
nbsp; Bernadette glanced at the form she was marking with little underlines and circles.

  Mandy covered the form with her hand and would not let Bernadette look anywhere else but into her eyes. “Ask me.”

  For a moment, something a little more human came back to her through those green eyes. “Mandy, what do you want?”

  She felt so tired of being not herself but a question, angry at that stupid form that was supposed to be her, bitter toward the people who acted so concerned but locked her up and went home at night. “I want to go home.” She tapped on Bernadette’s form and on her writing pad with all the little scribbles. “Write this down: I don’t know what’s wrong with me and I’m sorry I don’t know what year it is, but Bernadette Nolan can drive her purple Cadillac through a zebra on her way home and all I can do is sit here feeling scared and alone and embarrassed until somebody will just let me be who I am and go home. I didn’t ask for this and I don’t want to hurt anybody and I don’t want to hang myself. I just want to go home. I want to go home to my father!”

  And that was the end of the questions and games as far as she was concerned. She dropped her gaze and settled back in her chair, looking down at the ribbon of cards. Sure was a nice ribbon. She did that well. She did a lot of things well—not perfect, but pretty doggone well, and Daddy would be proud. He always was.

  Bernadette made one more little note on her form, then put everything back in her valise, double-checking the table, the chair, and the floor to make sure all her pens and pencils were accounted for. “Mandy, I really appreciate your time. This was a nice interview.”

  “Sorry I got upset.”

  “That’s no problem at all. You were being honest.”

  “You really are a nice lady.”

  “Thanks. So are you.”

  “So how’d I do?”

  “Oh, we’ll let you know. I’m going to talk with the other DE and then—”

  “DE?”

  “Sorry. Designated examiner. That’s what we call ourselves. The other one is Karla Harris, and she’ll be coming by tomorrow to talk with you.”

  “About … ?”

  “About you, pretty much the way I did.”

  “I hope I get an A.”

  “Well, like your father said …”

  Mandy eased a little and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much. Just be yourself.” Bernadette threw her a wink, then rose to leave. “Karla’ll talk to you, and then she and I will talk to each other, and we’ll see where we go from there. By the way”—she scanned the ribbon of cards, passing a pointing finger over them—“are you going to tell me where you put the queen of hearts?”

  “She’s in your pocket.”

  “In my …” Bernadette didn’t believe it.

  Mandy guided her with a gaze and a nod toward her outside jacket pocket. Bernadette reached in, and her professionally pleasant face clouded with amazement when she found something. She withdrew her hand, and there between her fingers was the queen of hearts.

  This felt so good. Bernadette held that card up, looking dumbfounded. “How did you do it?”

  Now it was Mandy’s turn to put on a professional face and withhold an answer to a direct question. “Oh, I’ll let you know. We’ll see.”

  Bernadette shook her head with a smile, laid the queen next to the king, and went to the door. An orderly let her out, and the door clicked shut.

  Mandy stared at the queen; she touched the card with her index finger and moved it in little circles. These cards were sure cooperative. They seemed to fall right into place like a little drill team under her command. There was nothing special about this deck, nothing rigged, no short cards or gaffs. It was just one deck of cards Nurse Baines brought her from the activity room. It had only one queen of hearts.

  That was what had her puzzled. The Queen in the Pocket trick needed two queens, one to plant in the pocket and one to vanish from the deck. Mandy stared at the cards, trying to remember.

  How did she do it?

  chapter

  * * *

  7

  The black Lexus entered the parking lot of Christian Faith Center with the inertia of a yacht easing into a marina, rolling up the first row of parked vehicles, then down the next row, then up the third, then down the fourth, chrome wheels lazily rotating without blur, brake lights mostly on, the turning engine barely audible. There were plenty of empty parking spaces by about the seventh row, but the Lexus didn’t go there, not without its occupants viewing every occupied space first.

  The driver called himself Mr. Stone, an apt name for a man whose face looked like he just woke up from a nap on a bed of pea gravel. He was blond, masked behind black sunglasses, and well dressed in black. He drove with his left hand, and with his right hand he held a digital camera propped in the open window, discreetly recording every license plate of every vehicle.

  Mr. Mortimer, his associate in the passenger seat, made a near opposite: handsome, Mediterranean, dressed in expensive black. He was also using a digital camera, capturing every license plate on his side, the back ends of the cars reflecting and distorting in the lenses of his designer shades.

  The Lexus moved steadily, efficiently, recording every vehicle, and finally came to rest in a parking space of its own. Stone and Mortimer got out, put on a personable, respectful demeanor, and headed for the church doors.

  A nice lady with a white corsage greeted them in the foyer and handed each a folded bulletin: In Loving Memory of Mandy Eloise Collins. A voice came through the open doors to the sanctuary, what sounded like a testimonial: “… always remember her wonderful sense of humor, her way of finding the up side to just about anything …”

  They smiled at the lady, then strolled to a large display, a collection of photographs from the life of the deceased set up among bouquets of flowers in baskets, stands, and vases. Memories. Great moments. The men smiled, nodded to each other, pointed and acted in every way like two old friends of the deceased now remembering how great it was to know her. “Hey, remember that?” “She looks great, doesn’t she?” “Now, that illusion baffled everybody!” “Is that her mom and dad? She really takes after her mother, doesn’t she?”

  And with an appearance of fondness, love, and whatever else would make the act seem natural, Mr. Mortimer took out his camera and started recording the photographs: Mandy the teenager, straight-haired and tie-dyed; Mandy no older than twelve, sitting between her mom and dad with a new puppy; Mandy in her high school talent show performing the Chinese Sticks illusion; Mandy at eighteen, in jeans shorts and One Way T-shirt with four white doves perched on her arm.

  Mr. Stone made his way through the door into the sanctuary. Neither he nor Mortimer was a churchgoer, but the venue was not unfamiliar, comparable to a theater or Vegas showroom without the lavish theme and decor. Pews were arranged in a fan-shaped room sloping toward a central stage set up for a band and possibly a choir. On the back wall was a large cross and above that the words “Jesus Is the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.” At front center stage was a diminutive Plexiglas pulpit where the minister delivered his sermons. At the moment, no one stood there. The voice was coming from an attractive young woman down in front, probably a friend in show business, speaking into a wireless mike: “… and I will always smile and laugh when I think of Mandy. I know she’d want it that way.”

  She set the mike on the edge of the stage and then bent and gave a hug to a silver-haired man in the front row, recognizable as Dane Collins, the bereaved husband. From this position in the back of the room, Stone could catch only a glimpse of Collins’s profile before the man looked forward again, but Stone determined to get close enough, perhaps during the reception following, to study the face and get to know it.

  A video began to play on two large screens on either side of the stage. Stone gave it his full attention because it was a collection of scenes from Mandy Collins’s life. The first clip was a grainy, scratchy film—the original had to be Super 8—of Dane and Mandy, two
kids barely in their twenties, performing on a truckbed before what appeared to be a company picnic, pulling white doves out of sleeves, from under silk handkerchiefs, from an audience volunteer’s hat, out of nowhere. Stone noted Mandy’s hair in curls, medium length, and her figure youthful, slender.

  As the video played in the sanctuary, Mortimer continued recording photos in the foyer and noting when they may have been taken: Dane and Mandy’s wedding in June 1971—beautiful bride, long hair in graceful waves and lacy ribbons; Dane and Mandy with his folks and her father, 1975, Mandy looking about the same.

  Stone edged halfway down an aisle and found a seat as he watched a grainy VHS recording from somewhere in the 1980s: Mandy in an evening dress, hair magnificently coiffed atop her head and jeweled earrings dangling, drawing laughs from an audience as she fumbles with two narrow tubes, a glass, and a pop bottle on a table. “Now, you put this tube over the glass and this tube over the bottle and they will magically trade places …” The tubes go out of control, producing a bottle where the glass should have been “… Oops! You weren’t supposed to see that! …” then producing bottles, bottles, and more bottles. “No no no, let me try that again!”

  Mortimer recorded a 1990 photo of Mandy in jeans, shirt, and baseball cap with her aging father and two llamas. Mandy was thirty-nine at the time and still looked great: big smile, engaging eyes, neck-length haircut.

  Somehow the video historian found a clip of Dane and Mandy appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. That had to be prior to 1992. Mandy could have been entering her forties or still in her late thirties; it was hard to tell.

  “Now, I’ve seen you do this,” Carson was saying, sitting behind his host’s desk and holding a Rubik’s Cube. “And of course there’s a magician’s way of solving it instantly, a magical effect, but you can solve a real one—”

  Mandy, in the chair closest to Carson, gave a playful nod, “Uh-huh,” which got the audience stirring and squealing. Dane sat in the next chair, exuding full confidence. Ed McMahon sat to his right.