Puppet

by Joy Fielding

  The events of the previous day unfold in reverse order across Amanda’s mind, like a videotape being rewound. She sees her mother lying in her hospital bed, the miles of construction along the Gardiner Expressway, the lobby of the Four Seasons hotel, Hayley Mallins standing in front of the window of her hotel suite. No, not Hayley Mallins. Hayley Walsh.

  “I saw someone yesterday you might remember,” Amanda tells Mrs. MacGiver, a way of making polite conversation as she tries ushering the old woman out the door. “Hayley Walsh. Mr. Walsh’s daughter. Do you remember him? He lived next door.”

  “That miserable bastard,” Mrs. MacGiver says with surprising strength. “Of course I remember him. He was one mean son of a bitch, that one.”

  “Yes, my mother wasn’t too fond of him either.”

  “Rumor had it he used to beat his wife. And his sons. Until they got big enough to hit him back.”

  No wonder his daughter ran away to England, Amanda thinks. Obviously she wanted to get as far away from the man as possible.

  “You said you saw his wife?” Mrs. MacGiver asks. “I thought she was dead.”

  “I saw his daughter,” Amanda corrects.

  “No.” Mrs. MacGiver shakes her head. “Mr. Walsh didn’t have a daughter.”

  Upstairs, the shower shudders to a halt.

  “Yes, he did. She used to babysit me when I was little. She called me her puppet.” Amanda’s hands bounce up and down as if manipulating the strings of a marionette. “You remember—’Puppet, puppet, who’s my little puppet?’ ”

  Mrs. MacGiver stares at Amanda as if she has taken complete leave of her senses. “That wasn’t Mr. Walsh’s daughter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. MacGiver laughs, shakes her finger into Amanda’s face, as if Amanda has been trying to put something over on her. “That was Lucy.”

  “Lucy? Who the hell is Lucy?”

  Ben suddenly materializes at the top of the stairs, a towel wrapped around his wet torso. “What’s going on?”

  “Who are you?” Mrs. MacGiver asks, a sudden twinkle in her eye. “Is that you, Marshall MacGiver?”

  “Who is Lucy?” Amanda repeats.

  “You know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Old Mrs. MacGiver waves at Ben, her fingers fluttering with girlish grace.

  “Who. Is. Lucy?” Amanda repeats a third time, each word its own sentence, as Ben slowly makes his way down the stairs to stand behind her.

  Mrs. MacGiver sighs coquettishly. “Why, Marshall MacGiver. You know you’re not supposed to be here. What will my parents say if they find out you’ve been sneaking around?”

  “Mrs. MacGiver …”

  “You’re being very naughty.”

  “Who is Lucy, Mrs. MacGiver?”

  “Lucy?” Mrs. MacGiver looks confused. Tears threaten her already watery eyes. “You must mean Sally.”

  “Mrs. MacGiver …”

  “You’re not Sally.” Mrs. MacGiver begins spinning around in awkward circles, like a top winding down, about to fall over on its side. “What have you done with my granddaughter? Where is she?”

  “Mrs. MacGiver, if you’d just calm down—”

  Mrs. MacGiver vaults toward the doorway. “I want to go home. Now.” Gathering the bottom of her nightgown up around the tops of her red vinyl boots, she throws open the door and hurries across the street. Amanda and Ben, wrapped in a pink blanket and white towel respectively, watch helplessly as the old woman’s front door opens, then slams shut, a clump of snow from an overhead windowsill landing, like an exclamation point, behind her.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “WHERE are you going?” Ben asks, trudging through the snow after Amanda.

  Amanda marches up the walkway of the house next door, rings the doorbell three times. “There has to be someone on this street who isn’t nuts, and who lived here when I was little. Hopefully they’ll be able to tell us something.”

  “What exactly are you hoping to find out?”

  “For one thing, if Mr. Walsh had a daughter.”

  “And for another?”

  Amanda rings the doorbell again. “Who the hell this Lucy is.”

  “If she is,” Ben stresses. “The old woman was obviously confused.”

  “Not that confused.”

  “She was wearing a nightgown and red vinyl boots,” he points out, as if this clarifies everything.

  Amanda rings the doorbell a fifth and final time. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.” She cuts across the snow-covered lawn to the house next door and is about to ring the bell when the front door opens.

  “Oh,” says a young woman, clearly surprised to find anyone on the other side. She balances a squirming baby awkwardly in her arms, while a toddler sways restlessly at her feet. All three are wearing heavy blue snowsuits and expressions of barely suppressed hysteria. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Amanda Travis. I live—”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman interrupts, the toddler at her feet pulling on her jacket as the baby in her arms begins stretching toward the ceiling. “Now isn’t a great time. As you can see, we’re just on our way out, and we’re pretty tapped out from Christmas anyway, so it’s probably not the best time to come asking for donations.”

  “We’re not looking for donations.”

  The woman manages to look confused, harassed, and anxious with one arching of her overly plucked eyebrows.

  “I think we have the wrong house,” Amanda allows.

  The woman nods gratefully as she lifts her now-squealing toddler into her free arm, then carries both struggling children down the front steps toward the street.

  “She obviously wasn’t here twenty-five years ago,” Amanda says, walking toward the house next door.

  The story at the next five houses is essentially the same. The residents assume Amanda is either trying to sell them something or exhort money from them, and the reception she gets is as frosty as the outside air. One man, loudly proclaiming that he’s sick and tired of Jehovah’s Witnesses disturbing him when he’s in the bathroom, slams the door in their faces before Amanda has a chance to open her mouth. None of the people they actually talk to has lived on the street for more than ten years. No one looks even vaguely familiar.

  “How many houses do you want to try?” Ben asks patiently as they approach a large brick house framed by tall, white pillars.

  “A few more on this side,” she tells him. “Maybe a few across the road.”

  Ben offers his arm to help her navigate a patch of sidewalk that hasn’t been shoveled. Amanda doesn’t move. “Something wrong?”

  Amanda stares at the old house, no less foreboding now than it was when she was a child. She tries picturing the woman who lives inside, but all she can hear is her mother’s harsh assessment—She’s a real bitch on wheels.

  “Amanda?”

  Amanda sucks in a breath of fresh resolve and trudges up the unshoveled front walkway. Her mother is hardly the world’s best judge of character. And besides, the house, like most of the others on the street, has probably changed ownership many times in the last several decades. She takes another deep breath as she reaches the front door, then rings the bell.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice calls from inside.

  “My name is Amanda Travis,” Amanda calls back. “I live down the street. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

  The door opens. A woman, stylishly dressed in black pants and a bright coral sweater, stands in front of her, jeweled fingers resting on slim hips. She is between sixty and seventy, and a wide streak of white cuts through her chin-length ebony hair, like the dividing line on a highway. Or a skunk, Amanda thinks, vaguely recognizing the cool green eyes and thin patrician nose. She glances surreptiously toward the woman’s feet, checking for wheels.

  “Mrs. Thompson?” she asks, pulling the name out of the past with surprising ease, then taking an involuntary step backward, feeling Ben at her back.


  “Yes? Who are you?”

  “Amanda Travis,” Amanda repeats. “This is Ben Myers.” Mrs. Thompson’s eyes flit back and forth between them. “My mother lives down the street.” Amanda waves in the general direction of her mother’s house. “I guess you don’t remember me.”

  “Should I?”

  “Well, no. I guess not. I haven’t lived with my mother in some time, and I’ve changed considerably.”

  “What is it you want?”

  Amanda clears her throat. “Just to ask you a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  “Maybe we could come inside?”

  “What is it you want?” the woman asks again, ignoring the request.

  Amanda gulps at the cold air. She smells coffee emanating from inside the house and longs for a cup. “Mrs. Thompson, my mother is Gwen Price.”

  Silence. The woman’s eyes blink recognition of the name. Then: “I still don’t understand what you want with me.”

  Neither do I, Amanda agrees. Aloud she says, “Do you remember Mr. Walsh, by any chance. He lived in the house next door to my mother.”

  “Mr. Walsh? No. I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Then you don’t remember if he had a daughter?” Silly question, Amanda thinks, as the woman purses her lips and rolls her eyes.

  “If I don’t remember him, how would I remember if he had a daughter?” If possible, the woman’s tone is even icier than the sidewalk.

  Amanda nods. Her mother was right.

  “What about Mrs. MacGiver?” Ben asks. “She lives across the road …”

  “That crazy old coot? The one who runs around the street in her nightgown?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What about her?”

  “She mentioned someone named Lucy,” Amanda continues. “I was wondering if—”

  Mrs. Thompson becomes quite agitated. Her shoulders twitch back and forth as if she is about to sprout wings. “What are you trying to pull?” she demands angrily.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I don’t have time for this.” She tries to shut the door, but Ben’s hand stops her.

  “I don’t understand,” he says. “What just happened?”

  “Who’s Lucy?” Amanda asks.

  “You really don’t know?” Mrs. Thompson mutters in obvious disbelief.

  “No.” Amanda feels a sharp poke in the center of her chest and realizes she is holding her breath.

  “You’re trying to tell me you don’t know your own sister,” the woman states.

  “What?”

  The door slams in Amanda’s face.

  The white Corvette races along Bloor Street toward the Four Seasons hotel. “What the hell is going on here, Ben?”

  “Take it easy, Amanda,” Ben cautions, as he has been cautioning ever since Mrs. Thompson’s startling announcement.

  “It doesn’t make any sense.” Amanda taps her feet with impatience as the traffic light at Bloor and Spadina turns from orange to red. “Just go through it,” she urges. Ben ignores her, bringing the car to a full stop. “Come on,” Amanda directs the stubborn traffic light, tapping her feet in growing frustration. “What’s the matter with the damn thing? You think it’s stuck?”

  “It’s only been a few seconds.”

  “Just go through the damn thing. Nobody’s coming.”

  “Take it easy, Amanda. We want to get there in one piece.”

  Is it possible that old Mrs. MacGiver is right? That Mr. Walsh didn’t have a daughter? That the person who used to dangle her from her arms, like a real live marionette, was someone named Lucy?

  The light goes from red to green. “Go,” Amanda instructs before Ben has a chance to react.

  Is it possible that what Mrs. Thompson said is true? That Lucy is her sister?

  “Hayley Mallins better have some answers for us.” Amanda stares out the front window, chagrined by the number of cars that have suddenly materialized, as if for the express purpose of slowing her down. “I’m not leaving her room until she starts telling us the truth.”

  And if Hayley Mallins isn’t Mr. Walsh’s daughter, but someone named Lucy, and Lucy is her sister …

  “Just remember you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” Ben says.

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying, and if I wanted advice from Ann Landers I’d ask for it.”

  … then that means Hayley Mallins is her sister.

  Ben’s fingers grip tightly on the wheel. “We’ll be there in two minutes,” he says, staring straight ahead.

  Which is impossible.

  It doesn’t make any sense. So why is she snapping at Ben when he’s the only thing in her life that does?

  Does what happened between them last night make any sense at all?

  “Sorry,” Amanda apologizes, recalling the softness of his lips as they brushed against hers, the sureness of his touch. She shakes the unwanted memory aside. How can she be thinking about such things now?

  “It’s okay,” he says, his hands relaxing their grip on the wheel. “And just for the record, I’m pretty sure Ann Landers passed away. We have Dear Ellie to advise us now.”

  Amanda nods. “I’ll be sure to write.”

  Dear Ellie, I’m having a wee bit of a problem. You see, my mother, from whom I’ve been long estranged, has been charged with killing a total stranger in a hotel lobby. Except she now claims that this total stranger was actually her ex-husband, from whom she stole vast sums of money. As well, the possibility has just been raised that the dead man’s widow might actually be my sister. Added to my woes is the fact that I seem to be falling in love with my very own first ex-husband, who just happens to be my mother’s attorney. What should I do? Follow my heart or follow my mother’s example and simply shoot everyone involved? Signed, In Trouble in Toronto.

  A minor logjam slows them down to a crawl. “Where are all these cars coming from?” Amanda asks between tightly gritted teeth.

  “It’s rush hour,” he reminds her.

  If only she hadn’t offered to buy Mrs. MacGiver that stupid tea. If only she hadn’t answered her knock on the door. If only she hadn’t mentioned damn Mr. Walsh. She and Ben could still be rolling around in front of the fireplace, instead of stuck on Bloor Street in the middle of rush-hour traffic. Amanda checks her watch. Barely eight o’clock. “It’s always rush hour,” she says as the light they’re approaching at the corner of Bloor and St. George turns from green to orange. “Step on it, Ben. We can make it.”

  Ben steps on the gas, plowing right into the back of the dark blue Toyota in front of him. “Shit,” he says over the sound of metal colliding.

  “I don’t believe this,” Amanda mutters.

  “Are you all right?” Ben asks Amanda as the driver of the Toyota jumps out of his car and marches angrily toward them, arms flailing wildly in the frigid air.

  “I don’t believe this,” she repeats, as behind them cars start honking their displeasure.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going in such a damn hurry?” the Toyota driver demands. He is about forty, wearing a black suede coat and a black hat with sheepskin flaps that cover his ears. Only his nose is clearly visible. It is large, and already turning red with the cold. He paces back and forth beside their car, flapping his arms like a giant crow.

  Ben gets out of the car. “I’m sorry. I thought you were going through.”

  “It’s a fucking red light.”

  “It was my fault,” Amanda admits, climbing out of the car, and surveying the damage to the two cars. She sees only a few scratches, all of them on the bumper of Ben’s white Corvette. Thank God, she thinks. This means we don’t have to involve the police or the insurance companies. We can just apologize and get the hell out of here. “It looks like your car’s okay,” she tells the Toyota driver. “You got lucky.”

  “I got lucky? I’ve got news for you, lady. I’ve got a bad back. God only knows wha
t this has done to it.”

  He can’t be serious, Amanda thinks, fighting to keep her temper in check. “You seem to be moving around pretty good for a man with a bad back,” she tells him dismissively. She doesn’t have time for this. She has to get to the Four Seasons hotel. She has to see Hayley Mallins, also known as Hayley Walsh, also known as Lucy, also known as …

  Who the hell is she?

  “There’s nothing wrong with your car, and there’s nothing wrong with your back,” Amanda tells the man flatly.

  “Oh, really? Are you a doctor?”

  “No, I’m a lawyer. We both are. So if you’re thinking of suing, which is the feeling I’m getting here, I’d seriously consider thinking again.”

  “Is that some kind of threat?”

  “Amanda …”

  “I don’t have time for this crap, Ben. You want to stay here and argue with this jerk, fine. That’s up to you. I’m out of here.”

  “Lady, you’re a real wack-job,” the man says.

  “Yeah? You should meet the rest of my family.”

  “Amanda. Just calm down. I’ll call the police. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t have a few minutes.” She is already running down the street.

  “Amanda …”

  “You know where to find me,” she calls back without slowing down.

  The elevator comes to a stop on the twenty-fourth floor of the Four Seasons hotel. Amanda vaults out, stopped only by the imaginary touch of Ben’s hand on her shoulder. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, she hears him say.

  She stops, takes one deep breath, then another. “Okay, listen to Ben. Slow down. Take it easy.” She then proceeds briskly down the corridor, where she takes another deep breath before knocking gently on the door to Suite 2416. No one answers. After a pause, Amanda knocks again. This time the knock is slightly more insistent.

  It’s still early, she reminds herself. They could be asleep. Give them a minute to wake up, to realize someone is at the door. “Come on,” she whispers, the gentle knocking growing louder, losing its hold on civility. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”

  No response.

  “Hayley,” Amanda shouts. “Hayley, it’s Amanda Travis. Open up.” She kicks at the door with her foot.