by Joy Fielding
“I had that,” Leigh said.
“You had hemorrhoids,” her mother said.
Marcel winced, wrapped the tape measure across Norma Appleton’s expansive bosom.
“I had postpartum depression with both Jeffrey and Bianca.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Of course not. Now if I were Cindy.…”
“Cindy never had postpartum depression.”
“And speaking of Bianca,” Cindy interjected, “just where is the beautiful bride-to-be?” She looked around the salon, realizing for the first time that neither her niece nor her daughters were anywhere in sight.
“They got tired of waiting and went to Starbucks.”
“Heather looks so beautiful in her dress,” Norma Appleton said.
“And the bride, Mother?” Leigh asked pointedly. “How does Bianca look in her gown? Or doesn’t she rate a mention?”
“What are you talking about? I said she looked beautiful.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I most certainly did.”
“What about Julia?” Cindy interrupted.
“Julia?” Leigh scoffed. “Julia has yet to honor us with her presence.”
“She isn’t here yet?”
“I’m sure ‘things just got away from her,’ ” Leigh said, forcing a smile.
“I said I was sorry.” Cindy reached into her purse for her cell phone. “She had an audition. Maybe she had to wait.…”
“What kind of audition?” Her mother turned around so that Marcel could measure her back.
“For Michael Kinsolving, the director. He’s in town for the film festival.” Cindy pressed in her daughter’s number, listened to the telephone ring.
“You and that stupid festival,” Leigh said dismissively.
“Isn’t Michael Kinsolving dating Cameron Diaz?” their mother asked. “Or maybe it’s Drew Barrymore. Ever since Charlie’s Angels, I can’t keep the two of them straight. Anyway, I hear he has quite a reputation with the ladies.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother,” Leigh exclaimed impatiently. “How would you know anything about this Michael whoever-the hell-he-is?”
Her mother pulled her shoulders back with just enough righteous indignation to cause Marcel to lose his balance and drop his tape measure. “I read about him in People magazine.”
“Michael Kinsolving is a very important director,” Cindy said, as Julia’s breathy voice caressed her ear.
“I’m so sorry I can’t answer your call at the moment,” the recording whispered seductively. Cindy immediately hung up, dialed Julia’s cell phone, listened to the same breathy message.
“He hasn’t had a hit in a long time,” their mother said knowingly. “Apparently he’s some sort of sex addict.”
“I believe that’s Michael Douglas,” Marcel piped up enthusiastically, regaining his footing and retrieving the tape measure from the floor.
“Really?”
“Before he married Catherine Zeta-Jones.”
“Are we actually having this conversation?” Leigh threw her hands into the air in frustration.
“What’s your problem, dear?” her mother asked.
“My problem,” Leigh began, as little beads of perspiration began breaking out across her forehead, causing her newly streaked bangs to curl in several awkward directions, “is that my daughter’s wedding is less than two months away, and nobody seems to give a good goddamn that time is running out and there’s still tons of stuff to do.”
“It’ll all work out, dear.” Her mother tugged at the long taffeta skirt. “Doesn’t there seem to be an awful lot of material here? It makes me look very hippy.”
“She’s not answering.” Cindy returned the phone to her purse and stared at the front door, as if willing Julia to walk through.
“She’s forty minutes late.”
“Maybe she got lost.”
“Lost?” Leigh asked incredulously. “She gets on the subway at St. Clair; she gets off at Finch. How could she possibly get lost?”
“Maybe she missed her stop. You know Julia. Sometimes she gets distracted.”
“Julia’s never had a distracted moment in her life. She knows exactly what she’s doing at all times.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Leigh, why don’t you show us your dress?” their mother suggested.
“Yes,” Cindy agreed wearily. “Mom says it’s wonderful.”
“Mom hasn’t seen it.”
“Good try,” her mother whispered to Cindy as Leigh retreated to the dressing rooms at the back of the shop, shaking her head and muttering to herself. “You’ve got to say something to your sister, darling. She’s driving me nuts.”
Cindy caught her reflection in one panel of the three-sectioned full-length mirror, and advanced steadily toward it, horrified by what she saw but unable to turn away, as if she’d stumbled across the scene of an accident. When did I get so ugly? she wondered, hypnotized by the creases clustered around her large eyes and small mouth, staring at them until her still-delicate features blurred, then disappeared altogether, leaving only the telltale lines of middle age. She squinted, trying to find the young woman she’d once been, remembering that at one time, she’d been considered beautiful.
Like Julia.
When was the last time a man had told her she was beautiful? Cindy wondered now, backing away from the mirror, and pushing a bolt of fabric off one of the chairs. She sat down, her head heavy with conflicting emotions: impatience with her sister, anger at her older daughter, curiosity about Neil Macfarlane. Was he really as smart, funny, and good-looking as Trish claimed? And if so, why would he be interested in a forty-two-year-old woman with less-than-perky breasts and a collapsing rear end? Undoubtedly such a prize catch could have his pick of any number of perfect young females eager to make his acquaintance. Certainly Tom had considered the choice a no-brainer.
Cindy checked her watch. Almost four forty-five already. By the time she finished up here and got home, assuming she wasn’t a raving lunatic and was still capable of handling an automobile, she’d be lucky if there’d be enough time to shower and change, let alone make sure there was something in the house for the kids to eat. She sighed, thinking that Heather and Duncan could order in a pizza, and remembering that Julia had mentioned she might be having dinner with her father. Was that where she was?
“Ta dum!” Leigh announced, pulling back the dressing room curtain and appearing before her mother and startled sister in yards of pink taffeta.
This is not happening, Cindy thought. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged.
“Of course, I’m planning to lose ten pounds before the wedding, so it’ll be tighter here.” Leigh pulled at the tucks at her waistline. “And here.” She flattened the taffeta across her hips. It made a swishing sound. “So, what do you think?” She lifted her hands into the air above her head, did a slow turn around.
“I wouldn’t do that, dear.” Norma Appleton pointed to the underside of her daughter’s arms.
“Do what?”
“Your ‘Hi, Helens,’ ” her mother said, grimacing. “My what?”
“Your ‘Hi, Helens,’ ” her mother repeated with a point of her chin.
“What are you talking about? What is she talking about?” Leigh demanded of Cindy.
“Remember Auntie Molly?” Cindy asked reluctantly.
“Of course I remember Auntie Molly.”
“Remember she had this friend Helen, who lived across the street?”
“I don’t remember any Helen.”
“Anyway,” Cindy continued, bracing herself for the explosion she knew would follow, “whenever Auntie Molly saw Helen, she used to wave to her and say, ‘Hi, Helen. Hi, Helen.’ And the skin under her arms would jiggle, and so Mom started referring to that part of the arm as the ‘Hi, Helens.’ ”
“What!”
“Hi, Helen,” her mother said, waving to an invisible woman on the other side o
f the room. “Hi, Helen.”
“You’re saying my arms jiggle?!”
“Everybody’s arms jiggle,” Cindy offered.
“Yours don’t,” her mother said.
“No, Cindy’s arms are perfect,” Leigh agreed angrily, pacing back and forth in front of her mother and sister. “That’s because Cindy has time to go to the gym five times a week.”
“I don’t go to the gym five times a week.”
“Because Cindy only has to go to work when she feels like it …”
“That’s not true. I work three afternoons a week.”
“… so she has lots of time to do things like go to the gym and the film festival and …”
“What’s this problem you have with the film festival?”
“I don’t have any problem with it. In fact, I’d dearly love to spend ten days doing nothing but running from one movie to the next. I love movies as much as you do, you know.”
“Then why don’t you go?”
“Because I have responsibilities. Because I have four kids and a husband to look after.”
“Your daughter’s getting married, your sons are in college, and your husband can take care of himself.”
“As if you’d know anything about taking care of husbands,” Leigh said, then blanched visibly. “I didn’t mean that.”
Cindy nodded, unable to find her voice.
“This is all your fault,” Leigh accused her mother. “You and your damn ‘Hi, Helens.’ ”
“You take things much too seriously,” her mother said. “You always did. Besides, that’s no excuse for being mean to your sister.”
Leigh acknowledged her guilt with a bow of her head. “I’m really very sorry, Cindy. Please forgive me.”
“You’re under a lot of stress,” Cindy acknowledged, trying to be generous.
“Trust me, you have no idea.” Leigh hugged her arms to her sides, kept them absolutely still. “It’s been one disaster after another. The hotel double-booked the ballroom, which took days to get straightened out; the florist says lilacs are out of the question for October.…”
“Who has lilacs in October?” their mother asked.
“My future in-laws haven’t offered to pay for a thing, and now Jason has decided he wants a reggae band instead of the trio we hired.”
“He’s the groom,” Cindy reminded her sister.
“He’s an idiot,” Leigh shot back as the front door opened.
“Who’s an idiot?” Leigh’s daughter, Bianca, marched into the store, followed by Cindy’s daughter, Heather, two steps behind.
Cindy smiled at the two denim-clad young women standing before her. Like Leigh, twenty-two-year-old Bianca was slightly overweight, the extra weight concentrated mostly in her hips, which made her appear shorter than she actually was. Also like her mother, Bianca’s eyes were hazel, her mouth full, her smile wide.
(Snapshots: Six-year-old Cindy, dressed in a Wonder Woman costume on Halloween, smiling shyly at the camera, while three-year-old Leigh, naked except for an awkward black mask, mugs outrageously in the background; thirteen-year-old Cindy and ten-year-old Leigh standing on either side of their mother in front of their new house on Wembley Avenue, Leigh’s right hand stretched behind her mother, her fingers raised above Cindy’s head like donkey ears; mother and teenage daughters sitting on a large rock at the edge of Lake Joseph, Cindy squinting into the sun, Leigh’s face hidden in the shadows.)
“Hi, Aunt Cindy.”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Who’s an idiot?” Bianca asked again.
Leigh shrugged off her daughter’s question, pretended to be busy with the folds of her gown.
“Hi, Mom.” Heather greeted Cindy with a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, darling. I hear you’re a knockout in your dress. Sorry I missed it.”
“I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities,” Heather said with a wink. “Julia here yet?”
“Of course she isn’t here,” Leigh answered before Cindy had the chance.
“You look nice,” Heather told her aunt.
Leigh raised one hand to her head, fiddled girlishly with her hair, before dropping her arm self-consciously back to her side, massaging the flesh above her elbow.
“Is your arm hurt?” Heather asked.
“Let me try Julia one more time.” Again Cindy retrieved her phone from her purse, quickly punching in Julia’s cell phone number. Again she heard the breathy voice, the fake regret. I’m so sorry I can’t answer your call at the moment. Where are you, Julia? she wondered, feeling her sister’s angry eyes burning holes in the back of her blue blouse. “Julia, it’s almost five o’clock,” Cindy said evenly. “Where the hell are you?”
FOUR
THE first time Julia disappeared, she was four years old. Cindy had taken the girls to a nearby park and was busy pushing Heather on a swing when she realized that Julia was no longer among the children playing in the sandbox. She’d spent the next twenty minutes running around in increasingly frantic circles, accosting strangers, and shouting at hapless passersby: “I’ve lost my little girl. Please, has anyone seen my daughter?”
Cindy had run home to call the police, Heather slung across her shoulder like an old purse, only to find Julia sitting on the front steps. “What took you so long?” the child demanded. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Was Julia somewhere waiting for her now? Cindy wondered, entering her bedroom and walking past her younger daughter, who lay sprawled across Cindy’s king-size bed, watching television, Elvis beside her. “What on earth are you watching?” Cindy asked, mesmerized by the sight of a staggeringly well-endowed young woman with big hair and a tiny white bikini rubbing great gobs of green fingerpaint over the expansive chest of a muscular young man. The young man was grinning so hard, his face looked as if it might explode. Cindy inched back, picturing white teeth spraying toward the pale blue walls of her bedroom, like confetti.
“It’s called Blind Date.”
How appropriate, Cindy thought, sitting down on the end of her bed, trying not to think of the night ahead. “What are they doing?”
“Getting to know each other,” Heather deadpanned.
“I guess some people will do anything to get on TV.” Cindy found herself thinking of Julia despite her best efforts not to. She was still angry that her older daughter hadn’t shown up for her fitting, that she hadn’t so much as called to offer an excuse. “Get down, Elvis,” Cindy said sharply, transferring her anger at her daughter to her daughter’s dog. Elvis looked at her with sleepy brown eyes, sighed deeply, and rolled over on his side.
The second time Julia had disappeared was less than a year after the first. This time Cindy had put Heather in bed for her afternoon nap and come downstairs to find the front door open and Julia gone. Cindy had torn the house apart looking for her, then raced up and down the block, screaming out her daughter’s name. When she’d returned to the house, her phone was ringing. It was Tom. “Julia’s here,” he’d said simply, a smile lurking behind his words. Apparently, Julia had grown impatient with her mother, and walked the twelve blocks to her father’s office. “You took too long with Heather,” Julia scolded her mother when Tom brought her home.
Had Julia grown impatient with her mother yet again? Cindy wondered, pushing herself to her feet and walking toward her closet.
“You see, the premise of this show,” Heather was explaining, “is that they fix two people up and then send them off to the beach, or rock climbing, or something like that, for the afternoon, and then later, they go out for an intimate dinner …”
Where was Julia? Why hadn’t she phoned?
“… and at the end of the date,” Heather continued, “they each tell the camera whether or not they’d go out with that person a second time.”
“Based on a deep spiritual connection, no doubt,” Cindy said, snapping back into the present, her eyes scanning the line of wooden hangers in her closet for something that could conceivably pass for stylish and
sexy. “There isn’t a damn thing.” Julia would be able to put together something, she thought.
“What?”
“I said I have nothing to wear.”
“Me neither. Can we go shopping tomorrow?”
Cindy rifled through her pantsuits, dismissing one as too heavy, one as too lightweight, another as too formal for a first date, although it looked like something an accountant might like. She finally settled on a pair of gray linen slacks and a loose-fitting white blouse. At least they were clean.
“Oh, wow. You won’t believe what they’re doing now,” Heather cried, her voice a mixture of shock and delight. “Mom, you’ve got to get out here and see this.”
Cindy bolted from the closet in time to see the toothy muscleman aim a flowing waterhose down the bottom half of his companion’s minuscule bikini, while the big-haired, big-breasted bimbo squealed with delight. “How can you watch this garbage?”
“Are you kidding? It’s great.” Then, noticing the clothes in her mother’s hands, “What are you doing? Are you going out?” The latter question carried just a trace of indignation.
“I won’t be late.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just out for dinner. I won’t be late.”
“So you said. Who are you going to dinner with?”
“No one special.”
“What does that mean?” Heather sat up on the bed, crossed her legs, balanced her chin in the palms of her hands, her radar on full alert.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re being very evasive.”
“You’re being very nosy.”
You’re being obstinate, she’d told Julia this morning.
You’re being anal.
“I’m just curious,” Heather was saying. “You always ask me where I’m going.”
“That’s because I’m your mother.”
“Do you have a date?” Heather pressed. “You do, don’t you? With who?”
“With whom,” Cindy corrected. “I thought you were majoring in English.”
“With whom are you going out, Mother?” Heather asked in Julia’s voice, the word “mother” snapping at Cindy like an elastic band.