Puppet Read online

  “Nice coat,” the taxi driver says before turning up the melancholy wail of a saxophone on the radio, signaling an end to the conversation.

  Five minutes later, Amanda exits the cab and runs for the large glass door of Ben’s condominium. The wind from the lake turns her hair into hundreds of tiny whips, lashing at her face. It fights her efforts to open the already heavy door, then pushes past her into the marble foyer, as if it too is desperate to escape the cold. Amanda shivers as she pushes the hair away from her eyes to scan the list of occupants, finally locating Ben’s name, and pressing in his code.

  “Come on up. Ten twelve, in case you forgot,” he announces over the intercom, not even bothering to ask who it is. Did he see her taxi pull up from his window? Does his apartment wrap around the corner of the building, affording him a look at both Lake Ontario and Lake Shore Boulevard? The buzzer sounds to unlock the inner door, and Amanda hurries into the large, marble lobby, taking scant notice of the tastefully muted furniture and bright modern tapestry that hangs on the wall beside the elevators. Luckily, an elevator is waiting, its door already open, and she steps inside, pressing the button for the tenth floor.

  By the time she reaches Ben’s apartment, Amanda is almost starting to feel her toes again. What she needs is a nice cup of hot peach-and-raspberry tea, she thinks, knocking gingerly on Ben’s door.

  “What took you so long?” he asks as he opens the door, then stops, his face freezing in surprise. “Amanda!”

  “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to let people into the building without even asking who they are?”

  “I assumed I knew who it was.” He looks up and down the hall.

  “Never assume. Didn’t they teach you that in law school? Are you going to invite me in or what?”

  Ben takes another look down the hall, as if considering the “or what?” part of the question, then steps aside to let her enter. “What are you doing here?” he asks, watching as she leans against the high black table that sits underneath the oval mirror in his small foyer and pulls off her boots. “Good God—you went out in this weather without any socks?”

  “I was in a hurry.” She pulls off her coat. “Can we hang this up?”

  “Can you tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “I have something to show you.”

  “Aside from your purple toes?”

  “They match my sweater,” Amanda jokes, proceeding into the living room, feeling strangely at ease, considering the circumstances. After all, she’s freezing, it’s closing in on midnight, and she’s standing in the middle of her ex-husband’s apartment in her bare feet, her toes are numb, and said ex-husband is obviously and anxiously awaiting the arrival of his new girlfriend. Not to mention, she’s clutching a purse that is heavy with bewildering new information. And yet, she feels … what? Happy. Peaceful. Even serene. Like Renoir’s girl on a swing, she realizes, leaning forward into an imaginary ray of sunlight.

  “Have you been drinking?” Ben asks, following her into the living room.

  “No, although that sounds like a wonderful idea.”

  He shrugs, as if realizing he is no longer master of his own domain. “What’ll it be?”

  “A cup of tea?”

  “You want tea?”

  “Peach-raspberry, if that’s possible.”

  “Peach-raspberry,” he mutters, shaking his head as he walks toward the kitchen.

  Amanda’s eyes sweep across the casually furnished living and dining areas. The walls are cream-colored, the sofa a soft, butterscotch-colored suede that doesn’t quite go with the black leather lounger across from it. Six smoky-gray plastic chairs are grouped around a rectangular glass table in the dining area, and several geometrically abstract paintings hang on the walls across from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. Amanda walks to the window, leans her head against it, and peers into the darkness, thinking she can almost hear the waves rustling through the icy waters of Lake Ontario.

  “I don’t have any peach-raspberry tea,” Ben announces from the kitchen. “I only have Red Rose.”

  “Red Rose it is.” Amanda approaches the kitchen, watches from the doorway as Ben fills a kettle with water and drops a tea bag into a mug whose sides are decorated with sunflowers. “I like your place,” she tells him, sitting down at the small glass kitchen table.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I know who Turk is.”

  “What? How?”

  “I found something. In my mother’s house.”

  Ben lowers himself to the chair across from her, leans forward on his elbows, giving her his full attention. He is wearing jeans and a blue shirt, open at the collar. Amanda thinks she has never seen him look so handsome. “What did you find?”

  “These.” Amanda pulls the pink envelope from her purse, extricates the business cards, and spreads them around the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “See for yourself.”

  “ ‘Triple A Water Purification Systems, Walter Turofsky, Sales Manager,’ ” Ben reads, his eyes moving warily from card to card. “ ‘Triple A Flooring Company, Milton Turlington, Sales Representative … Rodney Tureck … George Turgov.’ ” Ben lifts his face to Amanda’s.

  “Turk,” she says as their eyes connect.

  “Where did you find these?”

  “In the spare bedroom,” Amanda says simply, deciding to spare him the gory details of exactly how she came to find them. “I must have missed them the first time around.”

  “Anything else?”

  Amanda pushes the photograph she found in front of Ben. “That’s our man with his daughter, Hope. Probably taken about four years ago.”

  “How did your mother get it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think she took the picture?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So what exactly do we know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He smiles. “Okay, then. Good. Well, there you go.” A whistle sounds, signaling the water is ready. Ben rises from his chair, pours the boiling water into the waiting mug. “Milk and sugar?”

  Amanda nods. “So, what do you think this means?” She wraps her hands around the mug he hands her, feeling the sunflowers glow against her palms.

  “It means we have something else to ask your mother about.”

  “You think she’ll tell us anything?”

  “Probably not.” He sneaks a glance at his watch. “Drink your tea.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  A long pause, tempered only by his smile. “Truthfully, I’m still not sure what you’re doing here.”

  Amanda motions toward her findings on the table. “You don’t think this was worth a trip?”

  “I think it could have waited till tomorrow.”

  Amanda feels his gentle rebuke with the same force as a violent shaking of her shoulders. He’s right, of course. This could easily have waited until morning. There was no need for her to rush over at midnight. He’s obviously misinterpreted her enthusiasm for something else entirely, assumed her being here is really about him, and not her mother. She’s made a fool of herself, she realizes, suddenly seeing herself through his eyes, finding the image disdainful, even—what was the word he once used?—desperate. She has to get out of here. She gulps at her tea, feels it burn the tip of her tongue as the steam rises to her eyes, causing them to tear. “Dammit. I burned my tongue.”

  “I told you to drink your tea, not swallow it whole.”

  “Can’t do anything right, can I?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Look, it’s obvious you want me out of here. So, fine. I’m out of here.” She jumps to her feet, her hands shaking with anger, and tries unsuccessfully to maneuver the photograph and the business cards back into their pretty pink envelope. After several seconds, she gives up, tossing the items loose into her purse. “Thanks for the tea. Sorry I bothered you.” She marches into the dining area, slamming her hip a
gainst the corner of the glass table. “Shit!” she hollers, picturing a nice purple bruise and picking up her pace.

  Ben is right behind her, his hand grazing her elbow. “Amanda, wait. What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving before the next shift arrives.” She shrugs away his arm and continues through the living room to the foyer. “Isn’t that what you’re afraid of? That Jennifer might see us together and jump to the wrong conclusions?” She pushes her foot inside one still-freezing boot, begins struggling with the other.

  “Amanda, wait,” he says again.

  “What?” She looks up at him, her right foot half-in, half-out of the stubborn boot.

  “Would her conclusions really be so wrong?” he asks simply.

  For a moment, the only sound is their breathing. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look. I’ve obviously never been very good at reading you. So maybe I’m all wet here.”

  “You’re all wet,” Amanda agrees.

  “It’s just that you show up at my apartment in the middle of the night—”

  “Midnight is hardly the middle of the night.”

  “—with some information that, however intriguing it might be—”

  “I’m sorry I disturbed you. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “—could have waited until morning.”

  “The last time I withheld information from you, you got angry.”

  “I got angry because you went off half-cocked on your own. I got angry because you put yourself in danger.”

  “I’m not in danger now,” Amanda says.

  “And I’m not the one who’s angry.”

  Amanda kicks off the boot dangling from her right foot. “Okay, this is getting us nowhere. And I’ve never been very good at subtleties, so spit it out. What are you saying exactly? That you think I came over here to seduce you?”

  “Did you?”

  “I came over here because I found something I thought might be important. And maybe it could have waited till tomorrow, I don’t know. But I couldn’t. And maybe that was selfish, but I was excited and confused and I knew I’d never get back to sleep. And I tried to call you, but I got the wrong number, and then I tried again, but I forgot to use the area code, and I just couldn’t stay in that house another minute. It was making me crazy. I had to get out of there. And where else was I going to go but here? And I’m really sorry. Sorry I bothered you. Sorry you got the wrong idea. Sorry for every awful thing I’ve ever done to you.”

  “Sorry you married me?”

  The question catches her off guard, momentarily takes her breath away. She shakes her head. “No. I’m not sorry about that.”

  He smiles. “In that case, your apology is accepted.”

  Amanda tries to smile in return, settles for a slight twitch of her lips. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “What for?”

  “For being so off base and egotistical.” He shrugs, his hands lifting from his sides, then lingering in the space between them, as if unsure where to go next. “Probably just a case of wishful thinking.”

  Again Amanda feels her breath being sucked from her lungs. “What are you saying?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore. You’d better tell me.”

  “Tell you what? That I want to hold you so badly, I can hardly see straight? That I’ve been wanting to rip that stupid purple sweater off you ever since you walked in the door?”

  “You don’t like purple?” Amanda reaches down and pulls the mohair sweater up over her head, tossing it toward the high black table against the wall of the foyer. She stands in front of her former husband, one foot inside a heavy black leather boot, the other bare, her naked breasts rising and falling in anticipation. “Can I seduce you now?”

  And suddenly she is in his arms, his lips pressing against hers, her mouth opening to receive his gentle tongue, and it feels just like the first time they kissed, each kiss bursting with that same tender urgency, except now it’s even better because the hands that are caressing her body are practiced and knowing, as if they have never stopped touching her, as if the two of them have never been apart, as if they have been this way forever, will be this way forever.

  The buzzer sounds.

  They break apart.

  Forever is over.

  “Shit,” he says, looking toward the floor.

  “Shit,” she agrees, looking at him.

  They stand this way until the buzzer sounds a second time.

  “You don’t have to answer it,” she says.

  “If I don’t answer it, she goes away.”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  “And you?” he asks, looking up from the floor, staring directly into her eyes. “When do you go away?”

  Amanda takes a deep breath. What she wants to say is never. What she says is, “Friday. Saturday at the latest.”

  Ben reaches over to scoop her sweater off the floor. “That’s what I thought,” he says as the buzzer sounds a third time.

  “Saved by the proverbial bell.” Amanda takes the sweater from his hands and pulls it down over her head as he stretches his hand toward the intercom.

  “Jennifer?” she hears him say as she buries her head inside the thick mohair, like a turtle inside its shell. The soft hairs fill her nostrils, make the tip of her nose itch.

  Jennifer’s voice fills the foyer. “There you are. You had me worried.”

  “Sorry. I was in the bathroom. Come on up. Apartment 1012.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “She’s on her way,” Amanda mimics, poking her head out of the sweater and spitting a few stray woolen hairs out of her mouth. Grabbing her boot from the floor and her coat from the closet, she opens the door to the apartment and steps into the hall. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she doesn’t see me.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can find somebody who wants to sleep with me.”

  “Amanda …”

  “I’m fine, Ben. It was a whim. It didn’t work out. No big deal. Honestly.”

  He nods understanding. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Two o’clock sharp.” Amanda walks away without saying good-bye. She stands in the corridor on the other side of the elevators until she hears an elevator pull up and its doors open. Soft footsteps quickly disappear down the carpeted hall. A door opens in the distance.

  “Hey, you,” a female voice says lovingly.

  “Hey, you,” Ben’s voice echoes back.

  The voices disappear inside Ben’s apartment as Amanda presses the button for the elevator. Doors open almost immediately, and Amanda steps into an elevator redolent of lemons.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  AMANDA wakes up with a jolt at nine thirty the next morning, wondering (a) what day it is, (b) where she is, and (c) who she is. The first two questions are by far the easiest of the three to answer. It’s Wednesday, and she’s in her mother’s living room, where she’s spent the hours since midnight lying on the uncomfortable sofa, staring at the plastic plant on the mantel over the fireplace and thinking about last night’s fiasco with Ben. “That was definitely not me last night,” she states emphatically, pushing herself to her feet and stumbling toward the window, pulling back the dusty white sheers and shielding her eyes from the surprisingly bright sun.

  What she sees: a deserted street that seems frozen in time, like a picture on a Christmas card. The white snow covering the front lawns of the houses on either side of the road glistens like hard metal. Huge clumps of frozen slush have been shoveled haphazardly from the middle of the road to the curbside and now stand, leaning like drunken sentries, at irregularly spaced intervals, making parking almost impossible. Several cars have been abandoned almost in the middle of the street, their tail ends sticking away from the sidewalk precariously. “It looks cold,” Amanda mutters, wrapping her arms around her body, feeling the soft tickle of mohair against her hands
, trying not to feel Ben’s fingers digging at her flesh through the delicate wool.

  Whatever had possessed her?

  “I need a shower,” Amanda announces to the empty house, heading for the stairs she was both too tired and too frightened to climb last night, although what exactly she was so frightened of is a mystery to her now. Did she think the puppets might attack her in her bed, payback for her having so thoughtlessly gutted their own resting place? Or was she afraid she might find something else hidden in unlikely places? “Like my heart?” she scoffs, avoiding the bedrooms and proceeding directly to the bathroom. “Not bloody likely.” She turns on the shower, extending her hand beneath the old-fashioned nozzle. It used to take forever for the water in this shower to heat up, she remembers, smiling as a torrent of cold water splashes down on her waiting hand, strangely comforted by the fact that some things, at least, haven’t changed. She makes a face at her reflection in the mirror over the sink, noting how the purple of the sweater brings out the blue in her eyes. Then she pulls her sweater up over head and tosses it toward the hall, the move mimicking her action of the night before.

  “Oh, God,” she groans, lifting her face to the ceiling, reliving the touch of Ben’s lips on hers, his hands at her breasts and buttocks, his fingers fumbling with the zipper of her pants. “Damn it,” she says, roughly pulling off her slacks, and standing naked in the middle of her mother’s bathroom. It was a blessing that Jennifer had showed up when she did. There was enough confusion in her life at the moment. The last thing she needed was to compound that confusion by sleeping with her ex-husband.

  Still, she couldn’t remember the last time a man had turned her down.

  So why hadn’t she simply taken a cab to the Metro Convention Center hotel and surprised Jerrod Sugar with another late-night treat? “Been there, done that,” she says with a shrug, as the small bathroom fills with steam. Besides, any more late-night surprises and Jerrod Sugar might go into cardiac arrest. She smiles as she steps inside the tub and pulls the shower curtain closed, recalling the stunned look on the poor man’s face when Ben showed up unexpectedly at her door in the middle of the night. “Which makes us even,” she decides, pushing her head underneath the water’s spray, the now hot water running into her open mouth. “One unexpected late-night visit from you, one unexpected late-night visit from me.”