by Joy Fielding
Again Cindy nodded. Please, God, she was thinking, just let Julia be all right.
“It’s Lindsey Krauss.”
“What?”
“Her friend. It’s Lindsey Krauss. She’s in Peter’s class.” She pointed toward one of the closed doors beyond the cabinet at the far end of the room.
“Can I go in?”
“Well, it’s eighteen dollars and the class is almost over. Why don’t you just wait until it finishes.” She indicated the sofa and chairs with her chin.
Cindy dropped a twenty-dollar bill onto the desk, and headed toward the studio.
“Wait. Your change …” the receptionist called after her. Then, when Cindy failed to respond, “You’ll need a mat.”
Cindy grabbed a bright blue mat from the shelf as she opened the door and peeked inside the room. Ten people, eight women and two men, all with their eyes closed, stood beside their mats, balancing on the hardwood floor on one foot, like human flamingos. Their other legs were crossed over the knees of their standing legs, their hands brought together in front of them, as if in prayer, their elbows extended at their sides. Several of the women wobbled precariously on the balls of their feet, fighting to stay upright, and the face of one man was pinched in such concentration he looked in danger of imploding. There were no movie stars that Cindy could identify, but she did recognize Lindsey Krauss, a tall, willowy brunette whose surgically enhanced bosom overwhelmed her otherwise boyish frame. Cindy made her way over slowly to where Lindsey was standing in the center of the room, setting her mat down behind her and wondering how best to approach her. She isn’t wobbling at all, Cindy thought, marveling at the young woman’s effortless mastery of the exercise. She’s perfect, Cindy thought.
Like Julia.
The teacher, a supple young man with light brown hair and clear blue eyes, nodded almost imperceptibly at Cindy as she tried to assume the proper position. What the hell am I doing? she wondered, struggling to balance on one foot. Why hadn’t she just relaxed in the comfortable waiting area, sipping bottled water and eating fresh orange quarters until the class was over? What did she possibly hope to accomplish in here?
“Focus on your breath,” the instructor advised gently, his voice a whisper. “If your mind starts to wander, just bring it back to the breath. It will help you stay balanced.”
Not when you’re as seriously unbalanced as I am, Cindy thought, sliding her left foot up along her right thigh, her right foot cramping in protest.
“Now, slowly lower your leg,” Peter instructed, as Cindy’s foot hit the floor with a resounding thud. A slight grimace creased Peter’s unlined brow. “Very good. Now, let’s take a final Vinyasa before we move into relaxation.”
A final what? Cindy wondered, as the instructor lifted his hands into the air above his head. The class immediately followed suit, lifting their own arms into the air, then bending from the waist and rapidly extending one leg forward, the other one back.
Lindsey’s right leg shot back, kicked at Cindy’s shin. She swiveled around guiltily. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Lindsey,” Cindy said, seizing the opportunity.
Lindsey glanced over her shoulder as she brought her other leg back to meet the first. “Mrs. Carver?”
“And now slide gently into the Cobra,” Peter directed.
“I need to talk to you.”
Lindsey, along with the rest of the class, slid forward on her belly, then raised herself up on her arms, before pushing herself into something the instructor referred to as the Downward Dog. She stared at Cindy upside down from between legs spread shoulder-distance apart. “I don’t understand. What are you doing here? Where’s Julia?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
“Allow your shoulders to relax,” the instructor intoned, a slight edge creeping into his voice.
“I don’t understand,” Lindsey said again, pushing herself into an upright position.
“Ladies, please. Can we save the conversation until after class?”
“Sorry,” Lindsey said.
“Can we talk later?” Cindy whispered. “It won’t take long.”
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
“Ladies, please.”
“Sorry,” Cindy said.
“Very good. Now slowly, lie down on your back and concentrate all your energy on your breathing.”
Cindy lay down, feeling the muscles in her back melt into the rubber of the mat. She took a deep breath, the air filling her nostrils and traveling to her lungs, her abdomen gradually expanding. Like when I was pregnant with Julia, she thought, remembering the pride she’d felt as her stomach filled with life.
“Very good,” Peter was saying. “Now release that breath, ridding all toxins and stress from your pores. Blow the worries of the world gently from your lips. Feel them leave your body.”
Cindy had loved being pregnant despite the morning sickness and overwhelming fatigue of the first few months. She’d loved that her breasts were so voluptuous, her skin so glowing. She’d even loved the ugly, loose-fitting clothes. And she’d loved that Tom was so solicitous, so caring, so eager to be a father. Looking back, their marriage was probably its happiest during her first pregnancy.
“Now take another deep breath and open your heart, feel it fill with positive energy.”
Her second pregnancy had been a completely different story. This time the morning sickness lasted all day and water retention caused her to swell from head to toe. The constant nausea meant Cindy was unable to devote much time or energy to Julia, who’d grown used to both, and it was during those nine months that Julia’s allegiance had subtly shifted from her mother to her father. It was also during this time that Cindy first discovered Tom was cheating on her.
“If your mind starts to wander,” Peter was saying somewhere above her head, “bring it back to the breath.”
Cindy had blamed herself for Tom’s affair. The fact that she was always sick, always tired. Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. As special as she’d felt during her pregnancy with Julia was how superfluous she felt during her pregnancy with Heather, almost like an afterthought in her own home. Tom had taken over Cindy’s role with relish, playing Barbie with Julia for hours on end, reading her story after story, taking her to the park on weekend afternoons. After he’d tucked Julia into bed at night, he’d lock himself in the den, or go back to the office to catch up on his work. Or he’d go for a drive. To relax, he said.
“Relax,” the voice continued now, floating across the room. “Relax. Let go.”
The pattern had continued after Heather’s birth. The fact that Heather had proved as easy an infant as Julia had been difficult strangely only made things worse. Julia blamed Cindy for bringing this unwanted intruder into their lives, turned increasingly to her father, shut her mother out almost completely. “She’s never forgiven me for Heather,” Cindy told her mother, who said that Cindy had once felt the same way about Leigh.
“Let go,” Peter was saying, soft hands on Cindy’s, trying to manipulate her fingers. “Let go. Let go.”
“I’m sorry,” Cindy whispered, realizing how tightly her fists were clenched at her sides.
“Feel your breath seep into your fingertips. Allow your hands to relax.”
Cindy felt her fists gradually open under Peter’s expert and gentle touch. Tom used to touch her with that same kind of tender strength, she thought. The best lover she’d ever had, his caress as addictive as the most powerful narcotic. They’d made love through all his infidelities, made love that awful night he’d told her he was leaving, and for several months after he’d moved out, when she thought there was still a chance he might come home, and for several months after that, while they were hammering out a settlement, and even after their divorce was final, when she knew there was no hope at all. The lovemaking had finally stopped the afternoon Julia packed her new suitcase and left her mother’s house to go live with her father.
“That’s it,” Peter said, his voice filled with quiet pride as he patted Cindy’s fingers. “You’re smiling.”
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Lindsey asked as Cindy followed her into the main reception area. “Is Julia sick?” She grabbed an orange quarter from the bowl on the desk.
“Here’s your change,” the receptionist offered Cindy, holding out a two-dollar coin.
Cindy ignored the money, watching Lindsey suck the juice from the sliver of orange. “When was the last time you spoke to Julia?”
“This morning.”
“This morning?” Cindy’s heart began to race.
“Yeah, I called and asked her what she was doing. We were supposed to meet for coffee at nine-thirty.”
Cindy felt her heart sink. “That was me.”
“What?”
“That was me you spoke to.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you …?”
“Julia’s missing.”
“What?”
“Since Thursday.” Cindy saw the movement in Lindsey’s brown eyes as the girl retraced the last two days in her mind. “Have you heard from her since then?”
“No. No, I haven’t. I left her a message yesterday, but she didn’t get back to me.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Not really. Julia’s not great about returning calls.”
“Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Lindsey shook her head, discarded the orange peel.
“Please, Lindsey,” Cindy urged, sensing that Lindsey knew something she wasn’t telling. “If you know anything at all.…”
“Excuse me.” A woman from Lindsey’s class reached between them to grab a piece of orange.
“I know she had an audition with that big-shot Hollywood director, Michael something …”
“Kinsolving. Yes, we know that.”
“We?”
“The police have been notified,” Cindy said, hoping to shock Lindsey into revealing whatever it was she knew. Around her, several women lingered, pretending not to listen.
“The police? You really think something’s happened to Julia?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“I’m sure she’s all right, Mrs. Carver.”
“How are you sure?”
Lindsey grabbed another orange slice, stuffed it inside her mouth. “I just can’t imagine.… Look, I really have to go. My boyfriend’s waiting downstairs.”
“Let him wait, damn it.”
“Excuse me,” the receptionist asked meekly. “Is there a problem here?”
“My daughter is missing,” Cindy announced to a chorus of Oh, my’s. “And I think this girl might know something about it.”
“I don’t,” Lindsey protested to the gathering crowd. “Honestly, I don’t.”
“But?” Cindy demanded. “I know there’s a ‘but’ there. What aren’t you telling me?”
Lindsey lowered her head, spoke out of the side of her mouth, her voice no more than a whisper. “There was this guy. Maybe she’s with him.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know his name. Really, I don’t,” Lindsey insisted as Cindy was about to interrupt. “She was very secretive about him. She wouldn’t tell me anything except …”
“Except what?”
“Except that she was crazy about him.”
“She told you she was crazy about him but she wouldn’t tell you his name?”
“She said she couldn’t.”
“What do you mean, she couldn’t?”
“She said it was a very complicated situation.”
“Complicated in what way? Is he married?” Ryan Sellick winked at her from the dark corners of her imagination. “What exactly did she tell you about him?”
“Nothing. Honestly. I’ve told you everything I know. I really have to go now. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
Lindsey fled the room as a woman from her class approached. “Can I get you a glass of water?” the woman asked Cindy.
Tears filled Cindy’s eyes, causing the woman’s face to blur, her features to overlap, like a cubist painting.
“Do you need a ride home?” another woman offered.
“Thank you. I have my car,” Cindy said, her voice a monotone.
“Is there anything we can do?”
Cindy nodded. “You can find my daughter.”
THIRTEEN
AS SOON as she left The Yoga Studio, Cindy drove north on Spadina to Dupont, fully intending to go home. But instead of turning right toward Poplar Plains, she turned left, continuing west to Christie, where she pulled to a stop across the street from an old convenience store on the corner, then turned the engine off and sat staring up at Sean Banack’s apartment. What am I doing here? she thought now, pressing her forehead against the leather of the steering wheel. Hadn’t the police told her to let them handle things?
Except that the police were waiting until Tuesday.
And Tuesday might be too late.
Cindy lifted her head, looked across the street. Sean Banack was standing in front of the convenience store, staring at her.
In the next instant Cindy was out of the car and running across the road. “Sean, Sean, wait,” she shouted at him over the tops of the passing cars. “I need to talk to you.”
Sean Banack took several steps back as Cindy drew near, muscular arms raised, as if warning her to keep her distance. He was of medium height and build, handsome in a careless sort of way, his normally long blond hair cut very short, his blue jeans worn very tight, light brown eyes challenging hers. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Mrs. Carver.”
“I do.”
“So … what I want doesn’t count?” Sean lifted his palms into the air, as if already conceding defeat. “Now I see where Julia gets it.”
“Gets what?”
“Her—how can I put this politely?—her single-minded determination.”
Cindy smiled at the thought that her daughter might resemble her in any way at all. “Where’s Julia?”
“Not here.”
“Where then?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Sean Banack took another step back, until he was literally up against the redbrick wall of the convenience store. “Mrs. Carver, what’s going on here?”
“My daughter is missing, Sean. She hasn’t been home in two days.”
“And that gives you the right to show up at my apartment and hassle my roommate? To go through my things? To tell the police I had something to do with Julia’s disappearance?”
“You’re saying you didn’t?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“I read your story.”
Sean looked at the sidewalk, swayed from one foot to the other, scratched the side of his head. “It was just a story. I’m a writer. It’s what I do.”
“It was a vile, horrible story.”
“I didn’t say I was a good writer.” He looked sheepishly at his feet, as if ashamed of his meager stab at humor. “Look, Mrs. Carver, I can see that you’re really upset, and I understand why reading that story would freak you out in light of what’s happened.…”
“What’s happened?” Cindy repeated. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Please, just tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“You wrote that you had her tied up in an abandoned shack.…”
“What I wrote was a goddamn story! A story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Julia. For God’s sake, Mrs. Carver, I loved your daughter. I could never hurt her.”
Two young boys suddenly bounded from the convenience store, laughing and punching one another in the arm.
“What happened between the two of you?” Cindy persisted, stepping aside to let an elderly couple pass by. “Why did you break up?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
<
br /> “Please, Sean. Just tell me.”
Sean laughed, but the laugh was hollow, joyless. “You want to know why your daughter and I broke up, Mrs. Carver? All right, I’ll tell you. Julia and I broke up because she was cheating on me. I found out she’d been seeing someone behind my back for months.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Cindy felt her knees wobble, then give way. She crumpled to the sidewalk like a balled piece of paper tossed from someone’s fist.
Sean Banack was instantly on his knees beside her. “Mrs. Carver? Mrs. Carver, are you all right?”
“My little girl is missing,” Cindy cried helplessly.
“I’ll get you some water,” Sean offered. “Stay where you are. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the convenience store.
But when he returned, Cindy was already gone.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” her sister asked as Cindy walked through the front door, Elvis immediately at her feet. “Your phone’s been ringing all morning.”
“Julia …?” Cindy asked, staring at her sister, afraid to say more.
“No,” Leigh said, following Cindy into the kitchen. “Nobody’s heard from her. I can’t believe she’s been missing for two days and you didn’t tell me. I had to hear it from Mom.”
Norma Appleton shrugged from her seat at the kitchen table as Leigh crossed the room. “I made some fresh coffee,” Leigh said. “You want some?”
“Thank you.” Cindy sank into the chair beside her mother, feeling displaced, like an unwelcome guest in her own home, admiring the effortless way her sister had assumed control. Elvis stretched himself heavily across her feet. “When did you get here?”
“Couple of hours ago.” Leigh deposited the cup of black coffee on the table in front of Cindy. “Where have you been? It’s almost one.”
“I talked to a friend of Julia’s.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“I’ll have another cup of coffee,” her mother said.
“You’ve had enough coffee today.”
“Leigh.…”
“Mom, don’t argue with me, okay? It’s lunchtime. I’ll make you some soup.”
“I don’t want soup. What kind of soup?”
Leigh crossed to the cupboards, her eyes scanning the shelves. “Cream of mushroom, cream of asparagus, split pea.”