by Joy Fielding
“So there’ll be a second nondate?”
“We’ll see.” Cindy kissed Heather’s forehead, patted Duncan’s bare arm. “Get some sleep.”
“You too,” Heather said. “Come on, Elvis.”
Elvis immediately spread himself across Cindy’s feet, refused to move.
“Looks like he’s sleeping with you tonight,” Heather said, following Duncan into their bedroom and closing the door.
“Great.” Elvis rolled over onto his back, offered his stomach to be rubbed. “Come on, you nut. Let’s go to bed.” Elvis flipped back onto his feet, took two steps, then stopped, sat down, and stared back at Julia’s room, as if he, too, were confused by her absence. “She’s fine,” Cindy told him, as Elvis cocked his head to one side attentively. “Except that I’m going to kill her when she gets home.” She shuffled toward her room, plopped down on her bed, then lay down on top of her covers. Elvis immediately jumped on the bed and burrowed in against the inside of her knees. Cindy turned on one side; Elvis snuggled closer. “I don’t think this is going to work,” Cindy told the dog after several minutes spent in a futile effort to get comfortable. “I guess I’m just not used to sharing my space anymore. Sorry about that.” She sat up, flipped on the light beside her bed, reached for the phone.
Don’t even think about it, she heard Heather say.
But it was too late. Already Cindy’s fingers were punching in the numbers she hadn’t realized she knew by heart.
The voice that answered the phone on its fourth ring was wary and weighted with sleep. “Hello?”
Cindy pictured the young woman sitting up in bed, pushing lush red ringlets away from her Kewpie-doll face, the strap of an expensive pink silk peignoir slipping down one milk-white shoulder, full bosom heaving fetchingly in the soft moonlight. A book cover, Cindy thought, picturing it in her mind: Romance for Cookies.
“Fiona,” Cindy said, imagining Tom sitting up beside his young wife, playful fingers sliding the errant strap back over her shoulder. “It’s Cindy.”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning, Cindy.”
“I know what time it is.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Is Julia there?”
“Julia? No.”
“What’s going on?” Cindy heard Tom grumble.
“She’s your ex-wife. You ask her,” the Cookie said, as Cindy pictured her flopping back on her pillow and covering her eyes with a disinterested hand.
“Cindy, what the hell’s going on? It’s after two o’clock.”
Cindy felt her throat constrict, as it always did when she was forced to actually speak to her former husband. “Fiona has already told me the time. And I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, I really am, but Julia’s not home, and I haven’t heard from her all day, and I just wondered if you’d spoken to her.”
There was a long pause. “Not since around ten-thirty this morning.”
“She didn’t call you after her audition?”
“No.”
“And you’re not worried?” Cindy heard the growing panic in her voice.
“Why would I be worried?” Cindy recognized the once-familiar tone. His lawyer’s voice. I don’t have time for your petty insecurities, it said. “I don’t demand that my daughter check in with me every minute of the day and night.”
“Neither do I.”
“You have to let go, Cindy …” Tom said.
Tears stung Cindy’s eyes. How can I let go of something I never had? she thought.
“… or you’ll drive her away again.”
I didn’t drive her away, Cindy thought bitterly. You drove her away. In your goddamn BMW.
“She’s probably with Sean.”
Cindy nodded.
“Don’t even think of calling him now,” Tom said.
Cindy hung up without saying good night. “Bastard,” she whispered, as if afraid he could still hear her. She remained motionless in her bed for several seconds, Elvis pressing against her side. “What about you?” she asked the dog. “You think I’m overly protective? You think I’ve driven her away again?”
In response, Elvis jumped off the bed and ran to the bedroom door, then stopped and looked back, as if expecting her to follow.
“I don’t think you understand.”
The dog began pacing restlessly back and forth in the doorway.
“What? You have to go out?”
Elvis barked.
“Ssh! Okay, okay. I’ll take you out.” Cindy tightened the sash of her terry-cloth bathrobe and slid her feet into a pair of well-worn white slippers, stomping down the stairs to the front door. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You better have to pee, that’s all I can say.” She opened the door to the cool night air and stepped onto the front landing. Elvis immediately took off down the front steps and disappeared. “Elvis, wait! Where are you going?” A sudden blur raced across her front lawn, cutting through the bushes that separated her property from her next-door neighbor’s. “Elvis! Get back here. I can’t believe this.” Her slippers flopping noisily around her feet like rubber flippers, Cindy inched her way down the front steps. “Elvis, get back here. You’re a very bad dog.” Oh, sure, she thought, that’ll get him back here in a hurry. “You’re a really good dog, Elvis,” she said, trying again. “Come to Mommy.” Except she wasn’t his mommy. Julia was his mommy. Which made her Elvis’s grandmother. “Dear God,” she wailed.
“It’s okay, Cindy. He’s over here,” a voice announced from somewhere beside her.
Cindy gasped, her head snapping toward the sound.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The voice was coming from beyond the bushes. “It’s me. Ryan.”
Cindy kicked off her slippers and pushed herself through the bushes, several branches slapping against her face as she stepped onto Ryan Sellick’s front lawn, the damp grass creeping between her bare toes. Ryan was sitting on his top step, in much the same position his wife, Faith, had occupied earlier in the day. Light from two brass lanterns hanging to either side of the front door illuminated his fine features: the long, straight nose; the thin lips; the sculpted cheekbones; the slight cleft in his chin. Dark hair fell across his forehead and over the back collar of his shirt, a shirt that was either black or brown, as were his eyes. Julia had always considered him terribly handsome, Cindy remembered as she approached, seeing Elvis with his head resting comfortably in Ryan’s lap, contentedly licking at the crisp denim of Ryan’s jeans. She noticed Ryan’s feet were as bare as her own, and that there was a long, fresh scratch beneath his right eye that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. “I’m sorry to bother you.” Cindy remained at the foot of the outside steps, not wanting to intrude any further into his privacy. “Elvis, get down here.”
“He’s fine.” Ryan stroked behind the dog’s ears. “Actually, I’m grateful for the company.”
“Are you okay?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Cindy nodded. “How’s Faith?”
He shrugged, as if he weren’t sure how to answer the question.
“My sister had postpartum depression,” Cindy offered. “With two of her children.”
“Really? And what happened?”
Cindy struggled to remember, but like her mother, she actually had no recollection of Leigh having suffered from any such affliction. “I guess it just went away with time.”
“That’s pretty much what her doctor says will happen. Apparently it’s not all that uncommon.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You never had it?”
“No. I was lucky, I guess.” Cindy had sailed through both her pregnancies and their aftermath, relishing the time when her daughters were infants, despite the fact that Julia had been colicky and demanding from the moment of her birth. Heather, on the other hand, had slept through the night at ten weeks, settled into a three-feedings-a-day schedule the week after that, and potty-trained herself at thirteen months. Cindy sat down on the bottom step and stared down th
e quiet street, half expecting to see her older daughter emerge from the shadows of the streetlamps. “Has the doctor recommended any medication?”
“He prescribed Valium, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. Maybe she needs something stronger.”
“Maybe she needs to talk to a psychiatrist.”
“Maybe.” Ryan Sellick massaged the bridge of his nose, as if trying to keep a budding headache at bay.
“What about Faith’s mother? Any chance she could help out for a few weeks?”
“Her mother’s been back and forth from Vancouver several times already. I can’t expect her to keep flying over every time there’s a problem. And my parents are both dead, so …”
“What about hiring a nanny?”
“Faith won’t hear of it. ‘What kind of mother can’t take care of her own child?’ she says whenever I so much as mention the idea.” Ryan shook his head, gingerly patting the deep scratch beneath his eye. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep taking time off work, that’s for sure. I didn’t get to the office today till almost noon, and then I had to leave again when you called.”
“Maybe I could drop by a few times a week,” Cindy suggested.
“No. I couldn’t put you to that much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” Cindy assured him. “And I’ll talk to Heather and Julia, see if they’d be willing to baby-sit occasionally.”
Ryan laughed, an unexpectedly hearty sound.
“What’s funny?”
He shook his head. “Julia just doesn’t strike me as the baby-sitting type.”
Cindy had to agree. “I didn’t realize you knew my daughter so well.”
“It’s all in the way she walks. Nobody struts a street quite like Julia.”
Cindy watched Julia’s image step out of the shadows and walk toward them, head high, shoulders rotating in time with her hips, arms swinging at her sides. She moves as if a camera is following her, Cindy thought, recording her every move.
“Everything all right at home?” Ryan asked.
What was he talking about? “What do you mean?”
“Well, Julia and Heather’s boyfriend, I’ve forgotten his name.…”
“Duncan.”
“Yeah, Duncan. They were going at it pretty good this morning.”
“They were fighting?”
“In the driveway. I heard the yelling from inside my house.” He motioned toward the dining room to the left of the front door.
It must have been when I was out shopping for chardonnay, Cindy thought, recalling today’s lunch with genuine nostalgia. Already it seemed so long ago. Why would Julia have been fighting with Duncan? And why hadn’t he mentioned their argument to her earlier? Why hadn’t Heather?
“What time was that?”
“A little before eleven, I think.”
So Julia had been fighting with Duncan just before she’d had to leave for her appointment. Maybe the argument had upset her, caused her to blow the most important audition of her career. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t come home—because she was too angry and embarrassed and upset. Damn that Duncan anyway, Cindy thought, pushing herself to her feet. She should never have allowed him to move into her house. “I should get home. Let you get some sleep,” she said. “Come on, Elvis. Party’s over.” Surprisingly, the dog immediately jumped to his feet and followed after her.
“Thanks for being such a good neighbor,” Ryan called as Cindy reached the sidewalk in front of the house.
Cindy waited while Elvis relieved himself against the side of a tall maple tree. “Everything’s going to work out fine. You’ll see.” Confidence radiated from her voice, and it was only later, when she was lying in her bed, wide awake at nearly 4 A.M., Julia still not home, that Cindy wondered who it was she’d been trying so hard to convince.
SEVEN
AT precisely seven-thirty the next morning Cindy phoned Sean Banack. “Sean, this is Julia’s mother,” she said instead of hello. “Is Julia there?”
“What?” The sleepy voice was raspy with cigarettes and alcohol. “I’m sorry, what?” he said again.
“It’s Cindy Carver. Julia’s mother,” Cindy repeated, picturing Sean Banack slowly propping himself up on one elbow in the middle of rumpled white sheets, his free hand pushing long blond hair away from his forehead, then rubbing at tired brown eyes. She wondered if Julia was stretched out beside him. I’m not here, she could almost hear her daughter whisper before flipping onto her other side and covering her head with a pillow.
“Mrs. Carver?” Sean asked, as if he still wasn’t sure who she was.
“I’m sorry to be calling so early, but I need to speak to Julia.”
“Julia’s not here.”
“Please, Sean. This is really important.”
“She’s not here,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Do you know where she is?”
Sean made a sound halfway between a laugh and a cry. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Carver, but Julia is no longer my problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we broke up. It means I don’t have a clue where she is. It means it’s seven-thirty in the morning and I didn’t get to bed till after three. Which means I’m still a little drunk and I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Sean,” Cindy cried before he could disconnect. “Please. Julia didn’t come home last night and I’m very worried. If you have any idea at all where she might be.…”
“Sorry, Mrs. Carver,” Sean said before hanging up the phone. “I’m not the one you should be speaking to.”
“What do you mean? Who should I …?” Cindy stared at the dead phone in her hands for several long seconds before dropping it back into its carriage. “Great. Just great.” Elvis stirred beside her, then jumped from the bed, stared at her expectantly. “What does that mean, ‘I’m not the one you should be speaking to?’ ” she asked the dog, who cocked his head from side to side, as if carefully considering his response. Then he ran to the bedroom door and barked. “That’s all you have to say?” Elvis barked again, and began digging at the carpet. “I know. I know. You have to go out. Give me a minute, okay?” Elvis promptly sat down, patiently waiting as Cindy showered and slipped into a pair of jeans and an old orange T-shirt. “Did Julia come home while I was in the shower?” she asked the dog as he dutifully followed her into Julia’s empty room.
Cindy glanced toward the closed door of the bedroom Heather shared with Duncan. It bothered her that neither of them had said anything about Duncan’s fight with Julia, a fight so acrimonious it had spilled from the house to the street, so loud it had attracted the attention of their next-door neighbor. She thought of storming into their room and demanding an explanation, but decided such confrontations were better left till she got back from walking the dog. Perhaps by that time, Julia would be home.
“Come on, boy.” Cindy attached Elvis’s leash to his collar and grabbed a plastic bag from the kitchen. It was only after she’d stepped outside and closed the front door behind her that she realized she’d forgotten her key. At least now she had an excuse for having to wake everyone up early.
“Where are you, Julia?” Cindy asked the sun-dappled street, listening to the whir of cars already clogging Avenue Road. Avenue Road, she repeated silently, turning in the opposite direction and waiting as Elvis relieved himself on a neighbor’s front lawn. What a strange thing to call a street. Almost as if the city council had run out of names. “Where are you, Julia?” she repeated, stopping again while Elvis left his mark on a newly planted strip of grass.
She turned left on Poplar Plains and proceeded south, letting Elvis lead the way. It was going to be a beautiful day, she thought, feeling the sun warm on her arms, the slightest of breezes teasing the leaves on the trees. A week from now, the University of Toronto’s fall semester would be getting under way, and Heather and Duncan would be back in class, Cindy would be sitting in a crowded movie theater with hundreds of other avid film devotees, and Julia … Julia would
be where?
Where was she now?
“Where are you, Julia?” Cindy asked again, tugging on Elvis’s leash when he stopped too long at the corner of Poplar Plains and Clarendon, picking up the pace as they turned the corner onto Edmund. “Hurry up and do your stuff,” Cindy instructed, amazed when the dog immediately squatted, leaving a large, steaming deposit in the middle of the sidewalk. Cindy held her breath as she scooped the dog poop into the clear plastic bag. “Good boy,” she said. All my children should listen so well, she thought.
What had Sean meant when he said Julia was no longer his problem? Clearly he was upset about their breakup, but he’d sounded so bitter. I’m not the one you should be speaking to. What did that mean exactly? Whom should she be speaking to?
“Damn it, Julia. Where are you?” Cindy nodded hello to a heavyset man who was skipping rope in front of a mustard-yellow apartment building on the other side of the street. Even from this distance she could see he was sweating profusely, and she wondered if such intense exercise was good for him. She checked her watch. It was a little past eight o’clock. Maybe that’s where Julia was—at an early-morning exercise class. Yes, that was it. She’d probably met up with a group of friends after her audition and they’d spent the afternoon together, gone out for a dinner of sushi and wine, then partied until it was too late to call home. When she woke up, she’d gone directly to her yoga class. There was nothing to worry about; nothing awful had happened. Julia hadn’t been hurt, molested, kidnapped, murdered, dismembered, her body parts hurled into the middle of Lake Ontario. She was perfectly fine, and she’d be back within the hour to shower and blow-dry her hair razor-straight for the undoubtedly busy day ahead. She hadn’t called because she simply wasn’t used to reporting her whereabouts to her mother. Her father had never demanded that she—how was it he so sensitively put it?—check in with him every minute of the day and night.
“I hope you’re picking up after your dog,” a woman called from a nearby apartment window.