Lost (23 page)

The phone rang.

“Hello?” Cindy prayed for the sound of her daughter’s voice, braced herself for the inevitable disappointment.

“Are you okay?” Meg asked on the other end of the line.

“I’m fine.”

“I felt terrible after we left,” Meg continued. “Like we failed you somehow.”

“You didn’t.”

“I just wish there was something we could say or do.…”

“There isn’t.”

“I could come over later.…”

“No, that’s all right. I’m pretty tired.”

“You need your rest.”

“I need Julia.”

Awkward silence.

“Try to think positive.”

Sure. Why not? Why didn’t I think of that? “I’m trying.”

“I love you,” Meg said.

“I know,” Cindy told her. “I love you too.”

Cindy replaced the receiver, buried her face in her hands. “Think positive
ly,”
she corrected, feeling her breath warm inside her cupped palms. She lifted her head, glared
at the phone. “Did I ask for your advice?” she demanded in Judge Judy’s strident voice.

She knew she was being unfair, that Meg was only saying what she herself would probably say if their situations were reversed. She knew her friend’s concern was genuine, her love and support unwavering. She understood that both Meg and Trish wanted to be there for her, to comfort and protect her, but she also recognized that despite their best intentions, they could never really understand what she was going through. Just as they’d never wholly comprehended the sorrow she’d lived with all those years Julia spent living with her dad. Trish, with her husband and perfect son, Meg with two wonderful boys of her own. “Mothers of just sons,” her own mother had once told her. “They’re a different breed. They have no idea.”

It wasn’t that her friends were insensitive, Cindy thought. In fact, they were kind and considerate and thoughtful and everything true friends should be. They just didn’t get it. How could they? They had no idea.

This is Julia we’re talking about
.

You know how she can be
.

(Defining Moment: Tom across from her at the breakfast table, fingers digging into the morning paper he holds high in front of his face. “Nothing’s ever enough for you,” he says between tightly gritted teeth.

They’ve been fighting since last night. Cindy can barely remember what the argument is about. “That’s not true,” she counters weakly, lifting her glass of orange juice to her lips, wishing he would put the paper down so that she could see his face.

“Of course it’s true. Face it, Cindy. I just don’t measure up to your lofty standards.”

“What are you talking about? I never said that.”

“You said I stabbed Leo Marshall in the back.”

“I said I was surprised you bad-mouthed the man in front of his client.”

“His client is worth four hundred million dollars. He wasn’t getting his money’s worth with Leo. He will with me.”

“I thought Leo Marshall was your friend.”

“Friends.” Tom sniffs. “Friends come and go.”

Cindy feels the glass of orange juice tremble in her hands. “So the end justifies the means?”

“In most cases, yes. Can you get off your high horse now?”

“Can you put the paper down?”

“I don’t know what more you want from me.”

“I want you to put the paper down. Please.”

He lowers the paper, glowers at her from across the table. “There. You happy? Paper’s down. You got your way.”

“This isn’t about getting my way.”

“Paper’s down, isn’t it?”

“That’s not the issue.”

Tom glances impatiently at his watch. “Look, it’s eight-thirty. Much as I’d love to sit here arguing issues with you all morning, some of us have to go to work.” He pushes back his chair. “I have a meeting tonight. Don’t count on me for dinner.”

“Who is she this time?” Cindy asks.

Tom gets to his feet, says nothing.

“Tom?” she says, her grip on her glass tightening.

He looks at her, shakes his head. “What now?” he says.

Probably it is the
now
, and not the fact of another
woman that gets her. “This,” she says simply, then hurls the contents of the glass at his face.)

That moment was the end of her marriage.

Although she and Tom remained together for several more years, the minute that orange juice left her glass, divorce was inevitable. It became strictly a matter of time, a gathering of energy.

It was the same with Meg and Trish, Cindy realized now, an ineffable sadness seeping through her pores, settling into her bones.

This is Julia we’re talking about
.

You know how she can be
.

Maybe it hadn’t been as dramatic as a tossed glass of juice, but another defining moment had quietly, yet inexorably, slipped by. Yes, Meg and Trish were her dearest friends. Yes, she loved them and they loved her. But unforeseen circumstance had intervened, and their friendship had been subtly and forever altered. Try as the three friends might to pretend otherwise, Cindy understood that their relationship would never quite be the same again.

Another woman had come between them.

Her name was Julia.

C
INDY
opened her eyes to find Julia staring at her from across the room.

She pushed herself away from her pillow, holding her breath, watching as the familiar photo of her daughter enlarged to fill the entire TV screen. Cindy lunged toward it, straining to hear the announcer’s voice, but the words failed to register. She reached for the remote control to raise the volume, but it wasn’t beside her. “Where are you, damn it?” she said, frantic hands pawing at the folds of the blue-and-white-flowered comforter. She vaguely remembered having tossed it toward the end of the bed earlier in the day. How long ago? she wondered, glancing at the clock, noting that it was just minutes after 6
P.M
., that despite the bleakness of the sky, darkness was still several hours away.

She must have fallen asleep, she realized, as the back of her hand slapped against the remote, knocking it from the bed. It shot into the air and plummeted to the floor, landing with a dull thud on the carpet, before bouncing out of sight.

Instantly, Cindy was off the bed and on her hands and
knees, the carpet’s stale scent pushing into her nostrils as she pressed her cheek against its soft pile. She lifted the white dust ruffle and poked her head under the bed, her hands fumbling around in the dark until they connected with the stubborn object. “Damn it,” she said, bumping her head as she struggled to her feet, aiming the remote at the television screen, as if it were a gun, increasing the volume until the announcer’s voice was all but shouting in her ear. Except that he was no longer talking about Julia. Her daughter’s picture had been replaced by an aerial view of Canada’s Wonderland, where the announcer intoned solemnly, a little boy of eight had been sexually molested only hours before.

Cindy changed the channel. A farmer’s field popped into view. It took Cindy several seconds to realize she was looking at an old, dilapidated barn in a sea of swaying cornstalks. “Oh no.” Cindy clasped her hand across her mouth to still the screams building in her throat. They’d found Julia’s body in an abandoned barn off the King Sideroad. Sean’s story had led them to her torn and battered remains. “No. No. No.”

“Cindy!” her mother was yelling as Elvis began barking from somewhere beside her. “Cindy, what’s wrong?”

Her mother was suddenly beside her, sliding the remote control unit from her daughter’s hands, returning the TV’s volume to a normal level. It was only then that Cindy was able to digest the announcer’s words, to understand that the cornfield in question wasn’t anywhere near the King Sideroad, but rather somewhere outside Midland, that the story concerned bumper crops of corn and had absolutely nothing to do with Julia.

“I thought.…”

“What, darling?”

“Julia.…”

“Was there something about Julia?” Her mother began flipping through the channels.

“I saw her picture. They were talking about her.” Were they? Or had she just dreamed it?

And then there she was again: the tilted head, the dazzling eyes, the straight blond hair falling toward her shoulder, the knowing smile.

“Turn it up, turn it up.”

“Police are searching for clues in the disappearance of twenty-one-year-old Julia Carver, daughter of prominent entertainment lawyer, Tom Carver. The aspiring actress was last seen Thursday morning, August twenty-ninth, after leaving an audition with noted Hollywood director Michael Kinsolving.”

Julia’s photo was instantly replaced by one of Michael Kinsolving, his arms around two voluptuous blond starlets.

“Police have questioned the famed director, in town to preview his latest film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and to scout locations for his next movie, but insist he is not a suspect in the young woman’s disappearance.”

The newscaster’s bland face replaced Michael Kinsolving’s, while Julia’s picture reappeared in a small square at the right top of the screen.
“Anyone with any information regarding Julia Carver’s whereabouts is urged to contact local police.”

“I guess that makes it official,” Norma Appleton said, collapsing on the end of the bed, her face ashen, her eyes wide and blank.

Immediately Cindy was at her mother’s side. “Oh, Mom,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been so consumed
with my own worry. I haven’t even thought about how this might be affecting you.”

“The last thing I want is for you to start worrying about me.”

“You’re her grandmother.”

Her mother lowered her head. “My first grandchild,” she whispered.

“Oh, Mom. What if she doesn’t come home? What if we never find out what happened to her?”

“She’ll come home,” her mother said, her voice strong, as if the sheer force of her will could keep her granddaughter safe, bring her back home.

Cindy nodded, afraid to question her further. The two women sat at the foot of the bed, holding tightly onto one another, waiting for more news of Julia.

I
T WAS ALMOST
ten o’clock when Cindy heard the front door open and close. She leaned forward in her bed, pressed the mute button on the TV, and waited as footsteps filled the upstairs hall. “Heather?” she called. Heather had phoned to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner, that she was meeting up with friends but wouldn’t be late.

Elvis jumped from the bed, ran out of the room. “Heather?” Cindy called again.

“It’s me,” Duncan answered, his face appearing in the doorway, Elvis leaping against his legs with such enthusiasm he almost knocked him over.

“Duncan,” Cindy acknowledged. “Is Heather with you?”

Duncan shook his head. Dark hair fell across his forehead. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His
normally smooth skin was splotchy and pale. The stale odor of too many cigarettes wafted from his clothes. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” he said, swaying. He leaned his shoulder against the wall, as if to steady himself.

“Are you okay?” Then, “Are you drunk?”

Duncan’s eyebrows drew together at the bridge of his nose, as if he were giving the question serious consideration. “No. Well, maybe. Just a bit.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why were you drinking?”

He laughed, an annoyingly girlish giggle Cindy hadn’t heard before. “Does there have to be a reason?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk before.”

“Yeah, well …”

“When did you start smoking?” Cindy pressed.

“What?”

“Smoking and drinking—it’s just not you.”

“I don’t do it very often,” Duncan said defensively. “Just every now and then. You know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Mrs. Carver, you’re making me a little nervous here.”

“What are you nervous about?”

“Are you upset with me about something?”

“Why would I be upset with you?”

“I don’t know. You just seem …”

“Upset?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think I have good reason to be upset?”

Duncan glanced down the hall toward the bedroom he shared with Heather. “I didn’t say that.” He paused, pushed himself away from the wall, wobbled on his heels.
He took two steps, then stopped, stared hard at Cindy. “Has there been any news?” he asked, carefully. “About Julia?”

“No. Duncan …” Cindy called as he was about to turn away.

“Yes?”

“What’s going on with you and Heather?”

Duncan swallowed, rubbed the side of his nose. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Something’s obviously not right between the two of you.…”

“We’re just going through a bit of a rough patch, Mrs. Carver. That’s all. I really don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if there was anything I should know?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know something, don’t you?”

“I know I’m drunker than I thought I was.” He tried to laugh, coughed instead.

“You know something about Julia,” Cindy said over the sound of his hacking.

Blood drained from the young man’s already pale face. He seemed to sober up on the spot. “About Julia? No. Of course not.”

“You were fighting with her …”

“Yeah, but …”

“And then she disappeared.”

“Mrs. Carver, you can’t think I had anything to do with Julia’s disappearance.”

“Did you?”

“No!”

Cindy fell back against her pillow. Did she really think the boy she’d welcomed into her home, this young man who was her younger daughter’s lover, was in any way responsible for her older daughter’s disappearance? Could she really think that? She shook her head. She didn’t know what to think anymore.

Duncan stood silently in the doorway, his arms hanging limply at his sides. “Maybe I should spend the night at Mac’s,” he said finally. “You’d probably feel more comfortable if I weren’t around.”

Cindy said nothing.

“I’ll just get a few of my things.”

Cindy listened as he shuffled down the hall. She thought of running after him, wrestling him to the ground, beating a confession out of him. Then she thought of her mother asleep in Julia’s bed. What was the point in waking her up by creating a scene? Duncan wasn’t about to confess to anything. Did she really think he had anything to confess?