The Final Act

by Joy Fielding

“How long have you been doing that?”

  “About seven years.”

  “Since your divorce?”

  “Trish told you about that?”

  “She said you’ve been divorced seven years.”

  This was the part of dating Cindy liked least. The emotional résumé, where you were expected to trot out your dirty laundry and bare your soul, vent your frustrations, recount your pain, and hope for a sympathetic ear. But Cindy had no interest in trotting, baring, venting, and recounting. And she’d long since given up on hope. She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to get this over with as quickly as possible, so listen carefully: My husband walked out on me seven years ago for another woman, which was no huge surprise since he’d been cheating on me for years. What was surprising was that my older daughter chose to go with him, although I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised because she was always her father’s little princess. Anyway,” Cindy continued, glancing toward the phone in her purse, “my settlement ensured I didn’t have to worry about finding a job, which was good because I only had a high school education, having eloped when I was eighteen. Still with me?”

  “Hanging onto every word.”

  “After I got married, I worked at Eaton’s for a couple of years, selling towels and bedding and exciting stuff like that, helping put my ex through law school, pretty standard stuff, and then I got pregnant and I quit work to stay home with Julia, and then two years later, Heather came along, something for which Julia never quite forgave me.” Cindy strained to keep her voice light. “Witness her decision to go live with her father.”

  “But you saw her, didn’t you? Weekends? Holidays?”

  “She was a teenager. I saw her whenever she could fit me into her busy schedule. Which wasn’t too often.” Cindy felt her stomach cramp at the memory.

  “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It was awful. I felt as if someone had ripped my guts out. I cried every day. Couldn’t sleep, wondering what I’d done wrong. Sometimes I could barely get out of bed. I honestly thought I’d lose my mind. That’s when Meg, my friend, offered me a job working at her little boutique. At first I said no, but eventually I decided I had to do something. And it’s been great. I work three afternoons a week; I take off whenever I feel like it. And to top it off, my daughter’s come back.” Again Cindy glanced toward her purse.

  “Do you keep her in there?” Neil asked.

  Cindy smiled. “Sorry. It’s just that she was supposed to call. Anyway, sorry about unloading on you like that. Can we do us both a favor and never mention my ex-husband or my divorce again?”

  “I’ll drink to that.” They clicked glasses.

  “Your turn.” Cindy leaned back in her chair, sipped on her wine. “Family history in fifty words or less.”

  He laughed. “Well, I was married.”

  “For how long?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “And you’ve been divorced for how long?”

  “I’m not divorced.”

  “Oh?”

  “My wife died four years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “She woke up one morning, said she wasn’t feeling quite right, and six weeks later, she was dead. Ovarian cancer.”

  “How awful. Trish didn’t tell me. . .”

  “I doubt she has any idea. I’ve only known her a short time, and all she asked me was whether I was married, and if I’d be interested in going out with her friend.”

  Cindy shook her head. “And you, poor man, said yes.”

  “I said yes.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “A son. Max. He’s seventeen. Great kid.”

  Cindy tried picturing Julia at seventeen, but the years between fourteen and twenty-one had pretty much melted together in Cindy’s mind, like chocolates left too long in the sun. All those years lost. Years she could never get back.

  The waiter was suddenly standing beside them. “Endive and pear salad for the lady,” he announced, as if she might have forgotten. “Calamari for the gentleman.” He put the dishes on the table. “Enjoy.”

  “Thank you.” Cindy lifted her fork, stabbing it into her salad as she stole another glance at the phone in her purse. Hi, Mom. Sorry about not calling earlier, but I’ve had the most incredible day. But Cindy’s phone remained stubbornly silent, and Julia remained, as ever, tantalizingly out of reach.

  SIX

  THE phone rang at just after 2 A.M., cutting through Cindy’s sleep like a dull blade. She flung her arm toward the sound, knocking the back of her hand against the night table beside her bed, and crying out in pain as she groped for the receiver. “Hello?” she said, barely recognizing the sound of her own voice.

  “I understand you’ve lost your daughter,” the caller said.

  Instantly Cindy was wide awake, her body rigid, her feet on the floor, poised to run. “Who is this?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is, I found her.”

  Cindy’s eyes shot through the darkness to the window, as if Julia might have been spirited through the slats of the California shutters and was now hidden among the leaves of the red maple trees in the backyard. Her heart pounded loudly against her ears, like a restless ocean surf. “Where is she? How is she?”

  “You should take better care of your children,” the caller scolded.

  “Please, can you just tell me where she is?”

  “You know what they say, don’t you? Finders, keepers. . .”

  “What?”

  “. . . losers, weepers.”

  “Who are you? What have you done with Julia?”

  “I have to go now.”

  “Wait! Don’t hang up. Please, don’t hang up!” Cindy felt the line go dead in her hands, as if Julia herself had just died in her arms. “No! No!”

  “Mom?” a frightened voice called from the doorway. “Mom, what’s the matter?”

  Cindy spun around, the blankets falling from her naked body as she jumped from the bed, her pupils dilating with disbelief as she absorbed the identity of the person walking toward her. “Julia! You’re here. You’re all right.” She threw her arms around her daughter, wrapped her in a smothering embrace. “I was having the most awful nightmare. It was so real. But you’re okay. You’re okay.” She kissed Julia’s cheek and forehead, felt Julia’s skin grow colder with each brush of her lips. “My poor baby. You’re freezing. Come get into bed. What’s the matter, darling? Are you sick?” Cindy maneuvered her daughter into her bed, Julia’s body going limp as she lay back against the pillow, her blond hair floating around her face, like seaweed in a shallow lake. “Everything’s okay now, sweetheart. Mommy’s here. I’ll take care of you.”

  Julia stared at her mother through cold, dead eyes. She spoke without moving her lips. “This is all your fault,” she said.

  Cindy screamed.

  And then suddenly someone was at her side, touching her shoulder, stroking her arm. “Mom! Mom! What’s the matter? Mom, wake up. Wake up.” And then something wet on her cheek, a rhythmic thumping at the side of the bed.

  Cindy opened her eyes, saw Heather trembling beside her, the moonlight through the bedroom shutters drawing a series of broad horizontal stripes across her face. Elvis was on his hind legs at the side of the bed, his eager tongue extending toward her face, his tail slapping enthusiastically at the sideboard. “What’s happening?”

  “You tell me. Are you all right?” Somewhere behind Heather, something stirred.

  Cindy arched forward, strained through the darkness past her younger child. “Is someone there? Julia? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mrs. Carver,” Duncan replied, joining Heather and Elvis at Cindy’s side. He was wearing only the bottom half of a pair of blue-and-white-striped pajamas; Heather was wearing its matching top.

  “Oh.” Cindy quickly pulled the covers up around her chin. “My robe,” she said, motioning vaguely toward the foot of the bed.

  Heat
her reached for the green-and-navy terry-cloth robe, draped it across her mother’s shoulders. “You must have been having a nightmare.”

  Cindy stared blankly toward the foot of the bed, the details of her dream already receding, bursting like bubbles against the night air, evaporating, taking Julia away. “A nightmare. Yes. It was awful.”

  “You want some warm milk or something?” Heather asked. “I can make you a cup.”

  Cindy shook her head. “Is Julia home?”

  Even in the dark, Cindy could see the frown on her younger daughter’s face.

  “Her door’s closed,” Duncan volunteered.

  “It’s always closed,” Heather reminded him. “You want me to check?”

  “I’ll do it.” Cindy secured her robe around her and climbed out of bed. “You two go back to bed. Get some sleep. It’s late.” She followed them out of the room and into the wide hall, stopping with them in front of Julia’s door, Elvis licking at her bare toes. Her fingers stretched toward the doorknob.

  “She’s gonna be real mad if you wake her up,” Heather warned.

  She’s going to be really angry, Cindy corrected silently, too tired to say the words out loud. She felt the doorknob twist in her palm, heard the loud creak as she pushed open Julia’s door. Cindy poked her head inside the room, her eyes straining through the darkness toward the bed.

  It was empty.

  Cindy knew it instantly, even before Elvis went charging past her and began wrestling with the stuffed animals propped against Julia’s pillows. Heather ran after him, stubbing her toes on several of the CDs scattered across the blue carpet, and swearing loudly.

  “Shit,” she cried as Cindy flipped on the overhead light.

  “Good thing Julia’s not here,” Duncan observed wryly as Elvis began barking.

  “Where the hell is she?” Cindy surveyed the mess that was her daughter’s room. Discarded clothes lay scattered across the floor, on the bookshelves lining one wall, on the walnut desk propped against another, and over the back of the black leather chair in front of it. A hot pink mini-dress was draped across the top of the white shutters; a pair of outrageously high-heeled sandals hung from their straps on a bedpost.

  “She’s probably at Dad’s,” Heather said, shooing Elvis off Julia’s bed.

  “Then why hasn’t she called?”

  “Because she’s Julia,” Heather reminded her mother. Then, “Maybe she’s with Sean.”

  “I thought they broke up.”

  “So?” Heather asked.

  Cindy nodded, wondering whether she could call Sean at this hour of the morning.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Heather warned, as if reading her mother’s mind. “She’s fine, Mom. Stop worrying. You can bet she’s not worrying about you.”

  “You’re right,” Cindy said, trying not to picture Julia lying bleeding and alone in some ditch at the side of a dark road. Or worse.

  “You never said how your date went tonight.” Heather stared at her mother expectantly.

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Yeah, okay, so, the question is, did you connect on a deep intellectual and spiritual level?”

  Cindy pictured Neil’s wondrous dimples when he laughed, felt the touch of his skin as his hand repeatedly brushed up against her arm as he walked her home, tasted his sweet breath as he leaned in to kiss her cheek good night. “We connected.”

  “So there’ll be a second non-date?”

  “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, st
omping 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.”