by Joy Fielding
Cindy waved the plastic bag full of poop above her head. “What do you think this is?” she snapped. “A purse?”
The woman quickly retreated, lowering her window with a loud bang.
So many angry people, Cindy thought, proceeding up Avenue Road, dropping the plastic bag into a garbage bin already overflowing with them. She turned west on Balmoral, heading for home. I’ve always had trouble dealing with your anger, she heard Tom say, as she ran up the steps and banged on her front door.
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND how you could leave the house without your keys,” Heather scolded her mother, yawning as she poured herself a large bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and plopped down at the kitchen table, burying her face in the morning paper.
“You didn’t tell me Duncan and Julia had a fight yesterday,” Cindy said in return.
“It was no big deal.”
“Big enough to concern several of the neighbors,” Cindy embellished.
“Really? Who?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“There is no issue.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Nothing.” Heather shrugged, tossed the front section of the Globe and Mail onto the round pine table. “You know Julia.”
“And you know what Julia and Duncan were fighting about. Tell me.”
Heather lowered the paper and released a deep breath of air, looking imploringly toward the doorway, as if hoping Duncan would miraculously appear. But the shower was still running and it was unlikely Duncan would be down for a while. “It was nothing. Really. Her Highness was running late, as usual, and she wanted a ride to her audition. When Duncan said he was going in the opposite direction and didn’t have time to chauffeur her around, she got angry and started yelling. She even followed him to his car.”
Cindy silently berated herself for not having been home to drive her daughter to her audition. “Would it have killed him to give her a lift?”
“Would it kill her to get her driver’s license? How can anyone fail that stupid test three times?”
Cindy had occasionally wondered the same thing. But not even the sight of Julia’s mesmerizingly long legs had been enough to influence the instructor’s decision. “That’s not the point.”
“The point is that not everyone’s life revolves around Julia. Stop worrying, Mom. She’s fine.”
“Then where is she? Why hasn’t she called?” Cindy braced herself for her daughter’s careless shrug, but surprisingly, none came.
“Did you check with Dad?”
Cindy nodded.
“And Sean?”
“He says Julia is no longer his problem. He hinted she might be seeing someone else.”
“Really?”
“You have no idea who that might be?”
“No, but then I’m not exactly Julia’s main confidante. You could ask Lindsey.”
“Lindsey?”
“Lindsey—Julia’s latest, greatest, best friend ever. She met her last month. The one with the enormous implants.”
A huge bosom balancing precariously atop a skinny torso flashed before Cindy’s eyes. The implants wafted into the air like two helium-filled balloons, blocking the young woman’s face. “Do you know her number?”
“It’s probably in Julia’s address book.”
Several minutes later, Cindy was in Julia’s bedroom, guiltily rummaging through her things. But if Julia had an address book, she’d taken it with her. Cindy looked under every piece of clothing, searched through every drawer. Amid a sea of debris, she found a crumpled five-dollar bill, a sweater she’d been looking for all winter, and several packets of condoms, but no address book. Did it matter? She couldn’t remember Lindsey’s last name. Cindy slapped angrily at her thighs. What kind of mother doesn’t know the names of her daughter’s friends?
“I’m absolutely positive she’s okay,” Heather said when Cindy returned to the kitchen. “But maybe you should call the hospitals,” she added quietly. “Just in case.”
• • •
CINDY SPENT THE next hour calling every hospital in the city. She started with the downtown hospitals—Mount Sinai, the Toronto Hospital, Women’s College, the Western, St. Mike’s, even the Hospital for Sick Children, and then she branched out, calling Sunny-brook, North York General, Humber Memorial, and even Scarborough. They all told her the same thing. No one named Julia Carver was registered as a patient; no one fitting her description had been brought into the emergency department in the last twenty-four hours.
She called the police, asked whether there’d been any accidents or incidents that might have involved her daughter, but the answer was no, and she hung up, feeling relieved, grateful, and alarmed all at the same time.
She noted the time on the microwave oven. It was ten o’clock. A full day had elapsed since she’d seen Julia.
Cindy looked around the now-empty kitchen. Heather and Duncan were upstairs, engaged in a quiet but unmistakable argument. They’d tried to pretend nothing was amiss, but Cindy could feel the tension between them. Was Julia in any way responsible for that tension? She found herself remembering how often she and Tom had put on similar fronts, smiling pleasantly for the children before retreating to their bedroom to unleash angry words between tightly gritted teeth, their hostility all the more intense for being so zealously suppressed. Cindy reached for the phone, punched in Tom’s office number, smiling tightly as she waited for his secretary to answer.
“Thomas Carver’s office,” the secretary chirped in her little-girl voice, although the woman was almost Cindy’s age.
“Mr. Carver, please.”
“Cindy?” the secretary asked. “Is that you?”
“Irena,” Cindy acknowledged, amazed her voice was still recognizable after all this time. “How are you?”
“Great. Run off my feet, as usual. Haven’t heard from you in forever. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing very well, thank you,” Cindy lied. “Is he in?” she asked, not sure exactly what to call her ex-husband. Couldn’t very well ask to speak to “the shit-head.”
“He’s not. He’s in meetings most of the day, and I don’t think he’s planning on coming back to the office. Being Friday and the long weekend and everything. You know.”
Cindy nodded, although she didn’t know. When she and Tom had been married, one day was pretty much the same as the next. There’d been no such thing as a weekend, let alone a long one. He was always at the office. As was Irena. “Will he be checking in this morning?”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Could you please tell him to call me as soon as possible? It’s very important.”
“Is it anything I can help you with?” Irena asked.
“I don’t think so.” Cindy pictured the attractive, middle-aged woman leaning forward in her chair, crossing one dimpled knee over the other, and tucking her short blond hair behind her right ear. She’d known about Irena’s long-standing affair with her husband almost from its inception. It wove in and around his other affairs like threads in a large tapestry. Cindy wondered if it was still going on, or whether it had ended with the Cookie’s arrival. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, she found herself thinking as she hung up the phone.
It rang immediately.
“Julia?” Cindy felt her heart pounding against her chest, the blood rushing to her ears.
“No, it’s Trish. Just calling to see how last night went.”
“Last night?”
“Your date with Neil Macfarlane?”
“My date with Neil,” Cindy repeated, trying to calm herself down.
“It didn’t go well?”
“No, it went great.”
“Details,” Trish pressed with a girlish giggle. “I need details. Tell me everything.”
“Trish, can I call you later?” Cindy implored. “I’m expecting an important call.”
“Everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.”
There was a brief pause. �
�Okay. Call me later.”
Cindy replaced the receiver, glared at the phone. Why hadn’t she told Trish about Julia? “Damn it, Julia. Call me.” As if on cue, the phone rang. “Julia?”
“No. Me,” her sister said.
Cindy felt her shoulders slump toward the floor. “Leigh, can I call you back later?”
“Are you kidding? Your line’s been busy all morning. I’m not waiting around for you to fit me into your busy schedule.”
“It’s just that I’m expecting Julia to call.…”
“Yeah, and when she does, would you tell her that I rescheduled her fitting for next Wednesday at two o’clock, and that if she doesn’t show up then, there’s no way Marcel can have her dress ready on time, which would mean she won’t be in the wedding party.”
“I’ll tell her.” What was the point in saying anything else?
“Tell her Bianca’s counting on her,” Leigh said instead of good-bye.
As soon as Cindy hung up, the phone rang yet again. “Hello? Julia?”
“It’s Meg. How’d your date go last night?”
Cindy felt her knees go weak. She grabbed onto the side of a chair for support. “It was fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Great. It was great.”
“Was he as cute as Trish claimed?”
“He’s very cute,” Cindy said.
“Are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“Actually, I’m not feeling so hot.”
“Oh no. You can’t get sick now. The festival starts next week.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Well, we’re not taking any chances. Don’t come in this afternoon. I can manage the store by myself.”
“Would you mind terribly?”
“Of course not. Just feel better.”
Cindy hung up the phone, wondering why she hadn’t told her two closest friends that Julia hadn’t come home last night, that she hadn’t seen or heard from her since yesterday morning? She’d been desperate to tell them, but something had held her back. What? Embarrassment? Shame? Fear? Fear of what exactly? That if she spoke the words out loud, they might come true, and Julia might be lost forever?
She thought of Lindsey, Julia’s latest, greatest, best friend ever. Who was she anyway? Unlike both Cindy and Heather, Julia was always forming attachments that were as short-lived as they were intense. Men and women flitted around the circumference of Julia’s life, drifting in and out, occasionally penetrating the inner circle, but more likely succumbing to the force of gravity and falling, unheralded, off the ever-rolling curve. Some emerged unscathed, grateful for the ride, however brief. Some left resentful and angry, nursing ugly wounds that refused to heal.
Why hadn’t she kept a closer vigil? What kind of mother was she?
Cindy crossed to the counter on the other side of the room, holding her hands beneath her arms to keep them from shaking. Luckily, there was still some coffee in the coffeemaker, and she poured herself a cup. It tasted bitter, but she drank it anyway, repeatedly glancing back at the phone, silently begging Julia to call, assure her she was alive and well. “This is silly. You’re making yourself nuts,” Cindy said out loud. “Just calm down. Breathe deeply. Repeat after me: there is nothing to worry about, there is nothing to worry about.”
The phone rang.
Cindy lunged at it as if she’d been shot from a cannon. “Hello? Julia?”
“Neil Macfarlane,” the voice announced. “Cindy, is that you?”
Cindy swallowed the threat of tears. “Yes. Neil. Hello.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“My daughter didn’t come home last night,” she heard herself whimper. “I’m so scared.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
EIGHT
“HAS she ever done anything like this before?”
“You mean, stayed out all night?”
Neil nodded. He was sitting beside Cindy on one of two tan leather sofas in her living room. Behind them a wall of windows overlooked the spacious backyard. Facing them were three paintings of pears in varying degrees of ripeness. Cindy couldn’t remember the name of the artist who’d painted these pictures. Tom had bought them without asking either her opinion or approval, I make the money; I make the decisions, being pretty much the theme of their marriage. Along with the never-ending parade of other women, Cindy thought, smiling sadly at the good-looking man perched on the opposite end of the couch and wondering if he’d ever cheated on his wife. She ran her hand across the sofa’s buttery surface. Fine Italian leather. Guaranteed to last a lifetime. Unlike her marriage, she thought. The sofas had also been Tom’s decision, as was the checkered print of the two wing chairs sitting in front of the black marble fireplace. Why had she never bothered to change anything after he left? Had she been subconsciously waiting for him to return? She shook her head, trying to excise her former husband from her brain.
“Cindy?” Neil was asking, leaning forward, extending his hands toward hers. “Are you all right? You have this very strange look on your face.”
“Yes, she’s stayed out all night before,” Cindy said, answering his question, wondering how long ago he’d asked it. “But she always calls. She’s never not called.” Except once just after she moved back home, Cindy recalled, when she was making a point about being an adult and no longer answerable to her mother. Her father, she’d argued pointedly, had never placed any such restrictions on her. Her mother, Cindy had countered, needed to be assured of her safety. It was a matter of consideration, not constraint. In reply, Julia had rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room, but she’d never stayed out all night again without first phoning home.
Except one other time when she forgot, Cindy remembered, but then she’d called first thing the next morning and apologized profusely.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked Neil, trying to prevent another example from springing to mind.
“I take Fridays off in the summer.”
Cindy vaguely recalled him having told her that last night. “Look, you don’t have to stay. I mean, it was very thoughtful of you to come over and everything. I really appreciate it, but I’m sure you have plans for the long weekend.…”
“I have no plans.”
“… and Julia should be home any minute now,” Cindy continued, ignoring the implications of his remark, “at which point I’m going to strangle her, and everything will be back to normal.” She tried to laugh, cried out instead. “Oh God, what if something terrible has happened to her?”
“Nothing terrible has happened to her.”
Cindy stared at Neil imploringly. “You promise?”
“I promise,” he said simply.
Amazingly, Cindy felt better. “Thank you.”
Neil reached over, took her hands in his.
There was a sudden avalanche of footsteps on the stairs, and Heather bounded into view. “I heard the door. Is Julia home?”
Cindy quickly extricated her hands from Neil’s, returned them primly to her lap.
“Who are you?”
“Heather, this is Neil Macfarlane.”
“The accountant.” Heather advanced warily, quick eyes absorbing Neil’s black jeans and denim shirt.
“Neil, this is my younger daughter, Heather.”
Neil stood up, shook Heather’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Heather.”
Heather nodded. “I thought maybe Julia was back.”
“No,” Cindy said.
Heather swayed from one foot to the other. “Duncan and I were just going to head down to Queen Street. Unless you need me for anything.”
“No, honey. I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? ’Cause I can stay if you want.”
“No, sweetheart. You go. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll call me as soon as Julia gets home?”
Cindy nodded, looked anxiously toward the front door.
“You know my cell number?”
“Of course.” Ci
ndy pictured a series of numbers, realized they were Julia’s. “Maybe you’d better write it down.”
Heather walked into the kitchen. “I’m leaving it by the phone,” she called back as Duncan came barreling down the stairs.
“Julia home?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
He stared blankly at Neil, crossed one arm protectively over the other. “Are you a cop?”
Cindy blanched. Why would he ask that?
“He’s an accountant,” Heather said, reentering the room. “We should go.” She guided Duncan toward the front door. “Remember to call me when Julia gets home.”
Cindy nodded, watching them leave. “Do you think I should call the police?”
“If you’re worried, yes,” Neil said.
“It’s only been twenty-four hours.”
“That’s long enough.”
She thought of Tom. Probably she should wait for him to return her call, discuss the matter with him before she did anything rash. “I should probably wait a little longer.”
“Have you checked with the place where Julia had her audition, to make sure she showed up?”
“I don’t know who to contact,” Cindy admitted. “I mean, I know the audition was for Michael Kinsolving, but he’s probably just renting some space, and I don’t know the address or the phone number.” I don’t know anything, she wailed silently. What kind of mother am I, who doesn’t know anything? “Tom will know,” she said. “My ex-husband. Julia’s father. He arranged the audition. He’ll know.” All the more reason to wait until she spoke to him before calling the police, she acknowledged to herself.
Neil walked to the fireplace, lifted a Plexiglas frame from the mantel. “Is this Julia?”
Cindy stared at the picture of Julia that had been taken several days after her eighteenth birthday. She was smiling, showing a mouthful of perfect, professionally straightened and whitened teeth, elegant shoulders thrust proudly back in her new cream-colored Gucci leather jacket, a present from her father. Diamond studs sparkled from each ear, another present from Daddy. The night this picture was taken, Cindy had presented her daughter with a delicate necklace with her name spelled out in gold. Less than a month later, Julia had broken it while trying to pull a turtleneck sweater over her head. I forgot I had it on, she’d announced nonchalantly, returning the necklace to her mother to be fixed. Cindy dutifully had the necklace repaired, only to have Julia lose it a few weeks later. “That’s an old picture,” Cindy said now, taking the photograph from Neil’s hands and returning it to the mantel, one finger lingering, caressing her daughter’s cheek through the small square of glass.