Puppet

by Joy Fielding

  Amanda swallows, ignoring her mother’s voice reminding her to wipe her feet on the frayed patch of gray carpet inside the front door. “Let’s do this quickly, okay?”

  “I’ll take the main floor,” Ben tells her. “Think you can handle the bedrooms?”

  Amanda proceeds cautiously, as if half-expecting a deranged figure with a knife to come shrieking out of the shadows at the top of the stairs, as in Psycho. Already she can hear Ben rifling through the cabinets in the kitchen. What exactly is he looking for? she wonders, her boots leaving a wet trail as she climbs the steps. What are we doing here?

  Her old bedroom is to the left of the landing. She stands in front of the door for several long seconds, her gaze traveling from the small twin bed against one pale pink wall, to the Renoir print of a girl standing on a swing that sits above the desk on the opposite side of the room, to the light wood dresser that fits just underneath the side window overlooking the mutual driveway. A perfect little girl’s room, she thinks. Except that she was far from the perfect little girl.

  Amanda steps into the room, spins slowly around, feels herself growing smaller with each spin, like Alice after that mysterious pill, until she is toddler-size. She hears laughter, feels strong female arms lifting her into the air, then dangling her from a great height, as her little legs kick happily at the air. “Who’s my little puppet?” she hears a woman trill.

  And then the laughter suddenly stops, freezing in the air, and raining down upon her head, like hail pellets. The toddler drops from the woman’s arms, lies like a broken doll on the gray-carpeted floor, arms and legs splayed akimbo. Amanda sinks down onto the bed, wounded.

  When she was a teenager, she begged her parents to let her make some changes to the decor. Her friends all had much cooler rooms, with queen-size beds and wallpaper that reflected their maturing, if questionable, tastes. She was tired of all the pink, she protested. Tired of all the girlish clutter. She’d long ago outgrown her collection of soap animals and glass paperweights. What she wanted were black walls, like Debbie Profumo. What she wanted was a state-of-the-art stereo system, like Andrea Argeris.

  What she got was a warning to keep her voice down, her mother was resting.

  In protest, she stopped hanging her clothes in the closet or tucking them neatly into drawers. She wallpapered her room with posters of Marilyn Manson and Sean Penn, listened to heavy-metal music, blasting her radio all night, until the time her father stormed into the room, tore it from the wall, and hurled it to the floor, damaging it beyond repair. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, his eyes drifting to the packet of birth control pills she’d deliberately left on top of her desk. “You know your mother can’t sleep with all that damn noise.”

  Her response had been to buy a new radio, play it even louder. Her response had been to stay out later and later, until she barely came home at all, and when she did, it was always with a resounding slam of the front door. Her response had been to sleep with every male who caught her eye, because she couldn’t catch the eye of the one male who mattered most. Because his eye was elsewhere.

  On her mother.

  At least that’s what Oprah would probably say, Amanda decides now, growing bored with all this amateur psychology and pushing herself off the bed, impatiently pulling open the various drawers of her dresser, looking for God only knows what.

  What she finds: a few sweaters belonging to her mother, some old costume jewelry, a silk scarf bordered by a thick black line and decorated with colorful butterflies. Amanda crumples the delicate silk into the palms of her hands, raises the scarf to her nose, sniffs at its folds for traces of her mother, finds none. Absently she wraps the scarf around her neck, her attention shifting from the dresser to the desk. Restless hands sift through boxes of blank stationery and empty date books. In the bottom drawer, she finds a collection of old fashion magazines and thumbs lazily through them.

  “Nothing here,” she says aloud, returning the magazines to the bottom drawer, and walking back into the hall.

  “Don’t go,” a small voice calls from behind her, and Amanda turns, even though she knows no one is there.

  The second bedroom is only a few short steps away. It too is essentially as she remembers, its decor almost the same as the first, except that the bed that sits against the opposite wall is a double, and the walls are a subtler shade of pink. A desk is propped up against the window overlooking the street, a low dresser sits on the wall beside the closet. A Renoir print—this one of a field of flowers—hangs over the bed. Amanda can’t remember anybody ever actually occupying this room. Her parents never had any guests. On impulse, she marches over to the closet and pulls open the door, then falls back, shields her eyes, as if blinded by a sudden light.

  The puppet stage sits on the floor of the otherwise empty closet, two wooden dolls folded neatly in the middle of the stage floor, their bodies stretched across their legs as if exercising, their hands folded over the tops of their feet, their eyes closed as if sleeping, their strings spread out around them, as if they’d stumbled into a spider’s web.

  Amanda gingerly carries the two-foot-high stage into the center of the bedroom, lowering it to the gray broadloom and sitting down, cross-legged, beside it. With trembling fingers, she lifts the first puppet into her hands. It is a boy with a big wooden head and a high pompadour of painted-on black hair. Immediately the marionette’s eyes pop open, revealing orbs of bright neon green. His lips are thick, his smile wide. He is wearing a cotton shirt that is white and crisp, and blue sneakers peek out from beneath a pair of stiff denim jeans.

  Amanda dangles the puppet from its strings, watching his awkward dance. Then she gathers the second puppet, this one a red-cheeked girl with huge blue eyes and waves of painted blond hair, into her other hand and brings her around to face her friend. Slowly she manipulates her fingers, watching as the girl puppet responds with a curtsy and the male puppet bows. In the next instant they are swirling gracefully around the stage.

  “How are you doing up there?” Ben calls from downstairs.

  The marionettes jerk up and apart, their hands rising into the air, as if someone is pointing a gun at their heads. “I’m fine,” Amanda calls out, letting go of the dolls’ strings, the puppets collapsing one on top of the other, as if they have, in fact, been shot.

  “Find anything?” Ben asks from the bottom of the stairs.

  “No. You?”

  “Nothing so far. I’m heading for the basement.”

  “I should be through here soon,” she calls after him, staring guiltily at the puppets. She carefully untangles the two sets of strings and returns the dolls to their former position in the center of the stage, their bodies folded neatly over at the waist, their eyes closed. “It’s better that way,” she tells them in a whisper, returning the stage to the closet and shutting the door.

  She feels movement behind her and turns in time to see her mother’s face contorted with rage. “What are you doing in here?” her mother cries, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her as if she were nothing but a puppet herself.

  “I was just playing,” the child Amanda stammers, wiggling out of her mother’s reach. “I’m sorry.”

  “Get out of here. Get out of here right now.”

  Amanda hurries out of the room, stops in the middle of the tiny hallway, tears filling her eyes and clinging to her mascara. “No,” she says, resolutely patting the tears away. “You are through making me cry, Mother.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever told you how beautiful you are.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Did you say something?” Ben calls from two flights down.

  The dull gray of the sky is slowly turning to slate as Amanda steps into her mother’s bedroom. Soon it will be dark, she thinks, flipping on the overhead light and glancing toward her mother’s queen-size bed. The floral bedspread that Amanda remembers from her youth has been replaced by a simple white duvet, not unlike the one in her own Florida bedroom, Amanda realize
s with a shudder, but other than that, the room is essentially the same as it always was: the ubiquitous pink walls and gray broadloom, the assorted crystal knickknacks that are displayed in two raised alcoves on either side of the bed. Several photographs of Amanda’s father sit on the dresser in front of the large side window, his forced smile at odds with the obvious worry in his eyes. Amanda lifts one of the pictures into her hands, runs a delicate finger across her father’s handsome face, then returns the photograph to the dresser, placing it between two baby pictures of herself. On the nightstand beside her mother’s bed, she sees the other photos Corinne Nash mentioned: her high school graduation picture, and a lovely candid shot of her staring out the living room window. When was that taken? she wonders, her body swaying toward it.

  “What are you doing in here?” her father asks suddenly. “You know you shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Sorry, Daddy,” Amanda apologizes to his photograph. “I’ll try to make this quick.”

  She rifles quickly through the drawers of her mother’s dresser, her fingers floating across the assortment of bras and camisoles, nightgowns and pajamas. “Okay, don’t go in there,” she warns the little girl standing at the closet door. “You know what happened the last time you opened that door.” She rushes over to stop her, but the child has already succeeded in pulling open the door. Amanda stares openmouthed at the shoe box sitting on the top shelf of her mother’s closet.

  She wonders whether to call for Ben. Don’t be silly, she assures herself. There’s no gun there. “She already used it,” Amanda says out loud, and almost laughs.

  Amanda leans against her mother’s clothes—a blue wool dress, tailored slacks in navy, black, and brown, a couple of pastel silk shirts, several A-line skirts, a brown corduroy jacket—as she stretches on her toes to reach the shoe box. The box feels empty as she brings it to her chest. Even still, Amanda hesitates to open it. “You’re being really silly,” she castigates herself, tearing off the top of the box and throwing it to the floor, peering inside.

  She sees nothing in the box except a passbook for a long-standing savings account at the Toronto Dominion Bank. The remaining balance is an unimpressive $7.75. Clearly, not a bank her mother frequents often, Amanda thinks, hearing something drop from the box onto the floor. Her eyes scan the carpet, finally alighting on a small key. “Looks like a key to a safety-deposit box,” she says, hearing Ben’s footsteps on the stairs. Without further thought, she pockets both the passbook and the key.

  “Find anything?” Ben asks, coming into the room.

  Amanda displays the empty shoe box, says nothing.

  “There’s nothing downstairs either.”

  Amanda nods. “Oh, well. Can’t say we didn’t try.”

  They stare through the growing darkness at one another, her words bouncing off the walls and echoing in the still air of the late afternoon.

  FOURTEEN

  TAKE a hot bath, order room service, and get some sleep,” Ben instructs as they pull into the driveway of the Four Seasons hotel. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  Amanda forces her lips into a smile. She’d been just about to suggest they go somewhere nice for dinner. Her treat, she was about to say, when he beat her to the punch. So instead she flashes a knowing grin, says, “Say hi to Jennifer,” then climbs out of the car, pushing against the revolving door into the lobby without so much as a backward glance. Seconds later, standing just inside the doors, pretending to be searching for her room key, her eyes drift sideways toward the glass door, and she sees that the white Corvette is already gone.

  “A hot bath, room service, and a good night’s sleep,” she repeats with mounting irritation, stepping inside an empty elevator. “Good idea.” Her fingers hover over the button for the sixteenth floor for several seconds before pressing the one for the twenty-fourth floor instead.

  This, on the other hand, is probably not such a good idea, she thinks as she exits the elevator, following the corridor as it winds around to the south side of the building. “Now what?” She walks slowly down the long hall, stopping briefly in front of each set of doors, hoping to hear something from inside one of the rooms that might indicate which suite to choose. “Are you behind door number one or door number two?” she whispers at the cream-colored walls, but no answer is forthcoming.

  Amanda knows she’s being silly, that she has no business being up here, that Ben will be more than pissed when he finds out what she’s done. It’s not too late. She can still do as he instructed: go back to her room, order room service, take a hot bath, and get a good night’s sleep. She could even treat herself to a massage, she decides, about to turn around, do exactly that, when she sees the door to the room at the far end of the corridor open, and a man and a woman step into the hall, their arms around each other’s waists.

  She scratches suite 2420 from her invisible list and smiles at the couple as they pass by. Which only leaves five more rooms to choose from. All she has to do is start knocking on doors. “You’re out of your mind,” she tells herself, but such admonishments come too late. Already she is standing in front of suite 2410; already her fist is raised and poised to strike. Hello, she hears herself say to the suite’s curious occupant. We don’t know each other, but it seems my mother killed your husband, and I thought you might like to talk about it.

  No one answers her knock.

  It’s unlikely Mrs. Mallins and the kids are out sightseeing. “Another one down,” Amanda mutters, moving on to the next room. Although she might have taken them out for dinner and a much needed change of scenery. “Doubtful,” Amanda decides, knocking on the door to suite 2412.

  “Who is it?” a woman calls from inside as Amanda holds her breath.

  “Amanda Travis,” Amanda answers truthfully, not sure how else to respond.

  “Who?” the occupant of the room asks, but she opens the door anyway. Just a crack, but it’s enough for Amanda to see that she’s at least seventy years old and therefore not the woman she’s looking for.

  “Who is it, Bessie?” a gray-haired gentleman asks, coming up behind his wife.

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda apologizes. “I must have the wrong room.”

  The man shuts the door in Amanda’s face. “What are you doing opening the door to strangers?” she hears the man lecturing his wife.

  Amanda continues down the hall, gets no response from room 2414, and proceeds to room 2416, about to knock when she hears the high-pitched British accent of a young boy. “Mom, I think someone’s knocking at the bedroom door.”

  The door to room 2416 opens before Amanda can decide what to do next. An attractive woman with dark, chin-length hair and piercing hazel eyes stands before her. She is several inches shorter than Amanda and wears no makeup save for a hint of lipstick. Her pale skin is noticeably splotchy from crying. Amanda quickly estimates the woman’s age at around forty. She is wearing a black sweater and pants, much the same as what Amanda has on beneath her coat.

  “Mrs. Mallins?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Amanda Travis.”

  “Are you with the police?” the woman asks in the same soft lilt as her son.

  “No. I’m a lawyer,” Amanda stammers. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  Mrs. Mallins steps back to allow her entry. Amanda finds herself in the middle of the suite’s spacious living area, beautifully appointed in shades of beige, red, and gold.

  “Who is it, Mom?” A young girl enters the room from one of the bedrooms. She is in her early teens, tall and slender, with her mother’s dark hair and piercing eyes.

  “This is Amanda Travis,” Mrs. Mallins says, introducing Amanda. “She’s a lawyer with the Crown Attorney’s Office.”

  Amanda is about to correct her when a boy of about ten or eleven comes bounding into the room. “What’s going on?” he asks, eyeing Amanda suspiciously.

  “Amanda Travis, these are my children, Hope and Spenser.”

  “Hello,” Amanda say
s simply, almost afraid to say more.

  “Can we go back to England now?” the boy asks. Long brown bangs fall into eyes that are lighter than either his mother’s or his sister’s, though no less intense.

  “I’m afraid not just yet,” Amanda tells him, watching the boy’s round face cloud over with disappointment. She turns back to Mrs. Mallins, lowers her voice. “Do you think we might talk in private?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about dinner?” Spenser demands.

  “Your sister can take care of that,” Mrs. Mallins says. “Can’t you, love?”

  “Of course,” Hope replies in the same measured tones of her mother. She takes her brother’s hand, leads him from the room. In the doorway, he pauses to look back, scowls at Amanda from over his shoulder.

  Mrs. Mallins closes the door after them. “Can I take your coat?”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine. Mrs. Mallins …”

  “Please call me Hayley.”

  “Mrs. Mallins …,” Amanda repeats.

  “Has there been any news? Do you have the results of the autopsy?” Mrs. Mallins grips the side of one of two red-and-gold wing chairs for support.

  “No, I don’t. Mrs. Mallins … Hayley … Listen, I’m really sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “What sort of misunderstanding?”

  Amanda takes a deep breath, pushes the reluctant words from her mouth. “I’m not with the Crown Attorney’s Office.”

  “You’re not a lawyer?”

  “I am a lawyer,” Amanda corrects, silently debating how much information to divulge. “Just not with the Crown Attorney’s Office.” She pauses, waits for Hayley Mallins to demand just who the hell she is working for and what she’s doing in her hotel room, but no such questions are forthcoming. “I’m working with Ben Myers.”