The Final Act

by Joy Fielding

  “Yes, I know. I’m really sorry I haven’t returned your messages.” I wanted to call you, she thought. So many times. “It’s been so crazy,” she said.

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “Thank you.” Cindy smiled, fought the urge to caress his cheek. Had his eyes always been so blue? she wondered, before deliberately looking away.

  “Are you ready to go back inside?”

  Cindy straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath. “Ready or not.”

  *

  IT WAS COMPLETELY dark in the auditorium as Neil led Cindy up the steep rows of stairs to where Meg and Trish were sitting near the back of the theater. The two friends greeted her with prolonged hugs and kisses.

  “You okay?” Meg grabbed Cindy’s hand and held it tightly in her lap. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “We were afraid you’d bolted,” Trish said.

  “I thought about it.”

  “You don’t mind . . . about Neil?” she whispered.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Ssh,” said several nearby voices as a large spotlight jumped across the stage, ultimately coming to rest on a solitary figure standing to the left of the giant screen.

  “Hello, I’m Richard Pearlman, and I’m one of the organizers of this year’s festival,” the casually dressed young man announced to a smattering of light applause. “First, I want to thank our sponsors,” he said, gamely naming each one in turn. “Tonight, we are extremely privileged to be hosting the North American premiere of Michael Kinsolving’s amazing new movie, Lost, a film of astonishing power and resonance. We are also honored to have Michael Kinsolving here with us this evening.”

  A pleased gasp trickled through the audience, like a breeze through a wheatfield.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . . Michael Kinsolving.”

  The applause was heartfelt and enthusiastic as the famed Hollywood director in his trademark black T-shirt and tight jeans, hopped onto the stage and waved. Then he cupped his right hand over his eyes, and stared out at the audience.

  Can he see me? Cindy wondered, torn between leaning forward and sinking low in her seat.

  “I hope you still feel like clapping after you see the film,” Michael said to much laughter. “Anyway, what can I say? I love this festival. I love this city. As you may know, I’m planning to film my next movie here.” Another burst of applause. “We tried to do something a little different with Lost, so I hope you don’t mind. Anyway, I’ll be available for a Q&A after the film.” More applause. “Enjoy.”

  He jumped from the stage and the spotlight promptly evaporated. Enjoy, Cindy repeated silently as a haunting musical refrain began swirling about her head, and the screen filled with a group of ghostly, semi-nude dancers, whose arms and legs were painted in the black-and-white stripes of a movie clapboard, an arresting series of images that were part of this year’s festival’s logo. After several more promos, the movie began.

  Cindy sank back in her chair as Meg squeezed her hand. What am I doing here? she wondered again, as the credits rolled across a deserted inner-city street. What do I hope to achieve? What is my objective?

  (Documentary Footage: Cindy, in the bedroom of the house on Balmoral Avenue, the month before Tom packs his bags and moves out. It’s a few minutes after 10 P.M. and he’s just come home. Cindy has been waiting for him all night, intent on putting their marriage back on track, ready to accept at least part of the blame for its derailment. It’s possible she’s been too demanding, too critical, too angry all the time, as Tom is always saying. They’ve been married for seventeen years, nearly half her life. They were children when they eloped. Her entire adult life has been interlocked with his. Could she survive without him? And what of their two beautiful daughters, daughters who would be devastated should she fail to make things right between them? While she finally recognizes that she can’t change her husband’s behavior, she can certainly change her own. She can show Tom the love and respect he needs, even if he is not always deserving of either. To that end, she is wearing a new, short, red satin nightgown and pointy-toed shoes with skinny stiletto heels, the kind he’s always admired on other women.

  He pleads exhaustion as she burrows into his arms and tugs at his tie. She can smell another woman’s perfume on his skin. Stubbornly, even recklessly, Cindy closes her eyes, covers her husband’s lips with her own. She tastes another woman’s lipstick, and fights the urge to gag, determined to ignore the bile rising in her throat, as Tom’s body slowly, reluctantly, begins to respond to her ministrations. Soon, they are on the bed and he is unzipping his pants, lifting up her nightgown, although he doesn’t look at her, has barely looked at her since he walked into the room, as if she no longer exists for him, as if she no longer exists at all. Can you see me? Cindy wonders, feeling herself shrink beneath his weight, become less visible, less viable, with each mindless thrust of his hips. “Look at me,” she demands suddenly, grabbing his chin in her hands, forcing his eyes to hers, the fierceness in her voice catching them both by surprise. Immediately she feels him grow soft. He pulls away from her in disgust.

  She tries to apologize, to explain, but apologies and explanations lead only to recriminations, recriminations to accusations, accusations to more accusations. They end up fighting, the same fight they’ve been having for weeks, months, years. “What do you hope to achieve when you say things like that?” he asks. “I mean, really, Cindy. What is your objective?”)

  I don’t know, Cindy acknowledged now, watching as a young woman’s face overtook the screen, light bouncing off her long black hair, so that it sparkled like diamonds against the night sky. Her full lips were open and trembling. Huge, coffee-colored eyes scanned the desolate street.

  I don’t know anything anymore, Cindy thought, following the young woman on the screen into a rundown diner, noticing the hungry looks from the men and boys already inside.

  “Has anyone here seen Julia?” the girl asked the decidedly motley crew.

  Cindy gasped, clutched her stomach, the sandwich in her lap dropping to the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” Neil leaned forward as Meg’s hand tightened its grip on Cindy’s fingers.

  “Jimmy doesn’t come around much these days,” someone answered.

  Jimmy, Cindy realized, collapsing forward in her seat, the air rushing from her lungs as if she’d been sucker-punched. Jimmy. Not Julia.

  “Are you okay?” Trish asked.

  Cindy nodded, unable to find her voice.

  “I’ll get you another sandwich,” Neil offered.

  “No,” Cindy whispered hoarsely, her appetite gone. “It’s all right.”

  “Ssh,” someone said from the row behind.

  The rest of the movie passed in a merciful blur. Cindy saw a succession of faces, a panorama of flesh. Raised voices, loud sighs, long silences. Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Love and pain, and the whole damn thing. When it was over, the entire audience jumped to its feet, hooting and hollering its prolonged approval. “I think he finally has another hit,” Meg exclaimed, sitting back down, clapping wildly.

  Cindy realized that, although her eyes had never left the screen, she hadn’t absorbed a single frame. Although she’d heard each word, she couldn’t recall a single one. If there’d been anything of value to be gleaned by being here, she’d missed it. She’d missed everything. As usual.

  The lights came up. Richard Pearlman vaulted back to the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, once again I give you Michael Kinsolving.”

  The director acknowledged the deafening ovation with a modest bow. “Does that mean you approve?”

  The audience roared. Loud whistles pierced the air.

  “Thank you,” Michael said, clearly revelling in the sound. “You’re very kind.”

  The applause abated as Richard Pearlman leaned his lanky torso into the microphone. “Michael’s generously agreed to answer some questions.” He peered into the audience.

  Can he see me? Cindy thought. Can anyb
ody see me?

  “Yes,” Richard Pearlman said. “You, there, in the middle.”

  A heavyset woman in stretch leopard-print pants scrambled to her feet. “First, I want to congratulate you on a brilliant film. And I couldn’t help but be struck by the parallels to Dante . . .”

  “Show-off,” Trish muttered.

  “What parallels to Dante?” Meg asked.

  “And I wondered whether you were consciously going after something more literary with this film?” the woman continued.

  “More literary?” the director repeated, obviously tickled by the question. “First time I’ve ever been accused of that.”

  The audience laughed.

  Richard Pearlman pointed to a man in the second row. “Yes?”

  “How long did it take you to shoot the film?”

  “A little over three months.”

  “Where did you find the lead actress?” a woman shouted, not bothering to wait her turn.

  “Monica Mason, yes. She was great, wasn’t she?”

  More applause.

  “I wish I could say that I discovered her sitting at the soda fountain at Schwab’s, or tell you one of those apocryphal Hollywood stories you always hear about, but the truth is that she was just one of dozens of very talented young actresses who auditioned for the part. Her agent sent her over one afternoon, she read for us, and that was that. Nothing very dramatic, I’m afraid.”

  Richard Pearlman pointed to a middle-aged woman in the upper right corner of the theater. “Yes?”

  “Speaking of dramatic stories,” the woman began, “do you know anything about what’s happening with the police investigation into the two missing girls?”

  “Oh, my God,” Cindy whispered. Was this what she’d been waiting for? Was this the reason she was here?

  “No,” Michael answered curtly. “I don’t know any more than you do.”

  “I understand one of the girls is an actress,” the woman continued.

  “Yes, I believe that’s true.”

  “Didn’t she audition for you the morning she disappeared?”

  “I believe she did, yes.” Michael scratched uncomfortably at the tip of his nose, looked to Richard Pearlman for help.

  “Could we confine your questions to the wonderful movie we’ve just seen?” Richard asked. “Thank you.” He pointed to another woman on his left.

  “How does it feel to be the subject of a police investigation? Do you feel like you’re in the middle of one of your own movies?”

  Michael laughed, but the laugh was strained. “A bit, yes. Any more questions about Lost?”

  “If they find her, you should give her the part,” a man shouted out from the last row. “Then you’d have that apocryphal Hollywood story to tell us next time.”

  “That’s true,” Michael conceded as the audience laughed.

  An apocryphal Hollywood story, Cindy thought, feeling sick to her stomach. Her daughter’s disappearance reduced to an amusing anecdote for the film cognoscenti. “I have to get out of here,” she said, jumping to her feet, Neil right beside her.

  “Are you all right?” Meg asked.

  “I have to go.”

  “We’ll come too,” Trish offered.

  “No.”

  “I’ll take her home,” Neil said.

  “We’ll come with you,” Meg insisted, following after them down the stairs.

  “No,” Cindy said forcefully, spinning around. “Please.”

  Meg stopped, tears filling her eyes. “You’re sure?”

  Cindy nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “The gentleman in the third row,” Richard Pearlman was saying as Cindy and Neil clambered down the steps and into the lobby.

  The man’s voice trailed after her. “Has being questioned by the police changed your opinion about Toronto?”

  *

  AN HOUR LATER, Cindy was quietly ushering Neil inside her front hall. “I think everyone’s asleep,” she whispered. “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

  “I’m fine,” he whispered back.

  “Follow me.” Cindy tiptoed down the stairs leading to the bottom floor, cringing at each creak of the floor beneath her feet, feeling like a teenager sneaking home after curfew. “Can you see okay?” she asked, relying on the half-moon peeking through the windows to guide them, reluctant to turn on any lights.

  “I’m fine,” he said again, settling in beside her on the family room sofa.

  “Thanks for dinner.” Cindy was glad it was too dark to make out the stains on the old brown corduroy couch, a couch that pulled out into a queen-size bed, Cindy thought, and felt her face flush. “I was hungrier than I realized.”

  And suddenly she was moving toward him, taking his face in her hands and drawing his lips toward hers, then kissing him full on the mouth, her tongue seeking his, her arms wrapping around him, crushing him tightly against her, her hands burying themselves in his hair, pulling him closer, as if there were still too much space between them, her, legs curling around his hips, as if she could somehow manage to climb out of her own body and escape into his, as if she needed the air in his lungs to breathe.

  “Oh God,” she cried, abruptly pulling away and pushing herself toward the far end of the sofa. “What am I doing? What’s the matter with me?”

  “It’s all right, Cindy. It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right. I was all over you.”

  “Cindy,” Neil said, trying to calm her, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “What you must think of me.”

  Neil stared at her through the semidarkness. “I think you’re the most beautiful, most courageous woman I know,” he said softly.

  “Courageous?” Cindy swiped at the tears now falling the length of her cheeks. “Courage implies choice. I didn’t choose any of this.”

  “Which makes you all the more courageous in my book.”

  Cindy stared wistfully at the man beside her. Where had he come from? Were there really men like this in the world? “Make love to me,” she said. Then more forcefully, “I really need for you to make love to me.”

  Neil said nothing. He simply reached for her, strong arms surrounding her like a cape. He kissed her once, then again and again, tender kisses, like the gentle flutter of a butterfly’s wings against her skin, then deeper, his touch sure, unhurried, deliberate, as he began to caress and undress her. She felt the warmth of his fingers, the cool wetness of his tongue, and cried out with joy when he entered her, urgency replacing delicacy as he rocked inside her. Gradually, almost reluctantly, she felt her body building to a climax and tried hard to fight it, to prolong the moment as long as humanly possible, until it was no longer something she could control, and she cried out again, her nails digging into the flesh of his back, her fingers clinging to him as if he were a life preserver in a treacherous ocean. Seconds later, they collapsed against one another, their bodies bathed in a thin coating of sweat.

  “Are you all right?” Neil asked after a silence of several seconds.

  “Are you kidding?” Cindy asked in return, then laughed out loud.

  Neil laughed with her, kissed her forehead, gathered her inside his arms.

  “Thank you,” Cindy said.

  “Now who’s kidding?”

  He kissed her again, drawing her back against the well-stuffed pillows, their bodies folding comfortably together, their breathing steady and rhythmic.

  And then there were footsteps shuffling above their heads, and upstairs’ lights being turned on, and familiar voices sliding down the banister. “I told you there’s no one here,” Cindy’s mother was saying as Elvis began barking beside her.

  “And I’m telling you I heard something,” Leigh argued. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Hello?” Norma Appleton echoed. “Is someone there?”

  The dog raced down the steps, bounded into the family room.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Cindy said, fending off Elvis’s eager paws as she scram
bled into her clothes.

  “Cindy? Cindy, is that you?”

  “It’s me, Mom,” Cindy called out, pulling her T-shirt over her head as Elvis jumped against Neil’s thighs. “It’s all right. You don’t have to come down.”

  “What are you doing downstairs?” Two sets of footsteps headed for the stairs.

  “Please don’t come down,” Cindy urged, pulling her slacks over her hips, knowing such exhortations were futile, that it was only a matter of seconds before her mother and sister peeked their heads into the room. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered to Neil, who was hurriedly tucking his shirt inside his pants. “It’s like when I was fifteen and she caught me making out with Martin Crawley.”

  “What do you mean, don’t come down?” Leigh was asking, her voice edging closer. “What are you doing down here in the dark?” Her hand reached into the room, flipped on the switch for the overhead light, her eyes taking a second to adjust to the sudden brightness, another second to adjust to the fact that Cindy wasn’t alone. “Oh.”

  “What’s going on down here?” Norma Appleton asked.

  “I think maybe we should go back upstairs,” Leigh ventured, trying to back out of the room.

  But her mother was already blocking her exit. “Don’t be silly. What’s . . .? Oh.” She stared at Neil Macfarlane. “I’m sorry, Cindy. I didn’t realize you had company.”

  “You remember Neil,” Cindy ventured meekly.

  “Yes, of course,” her mother said. “How are you, Neil?”

  “I’m fine, thank you, Mrs. Appleton.”

  “Hi,” Leigh offered weakly.

  “Nice to see you again,” Neil said.

  Nobody moved.

  “I guess I should probably go,” Neil said finally.

  “Please don’t leave on our account,” Norma Appleton said.

  “It’s late. I really should get going.”

  “I’ll walk you to the door.” Cindy followed him up the stairs. She, in turn, was trailed by her mother, her sister, and the dog.

  Cindy closed the front door behind her as she walked Neil to his car. “I don’t suppose I’ll hear from you again,” she said, smiling as he leaned over to kiss her good night.