by Joy Fielding
Cindy shook her head in defeat. “His name is Neil Macfarlane. He’s Trish’s accountant.”
“Is he cute?”
Cindy shrugged. “Trish says he is.”
“You’ve never seen him?”
Cindy blushed.
“So this is like a … Blind Date?” Heather asked with exaggerated flourish, vocally capitalizing the last two words, and pointing toward the TV screen with both hands.
“You ever been part of a threesome?” the grinning Romeo was asking his giggling Juliet while hand-feeding her lobster, then licking at the butter that dripped from her chin.
“Oh my,” Cindy said.
“Is that what you’re going to wear?” Heather indicated the clothes in her mother’s hands.
Cindy held the blouse up under her chin. “What do you think?”
“You might want to go with something a little more low-cut. You know, make more of an impression.”
“I think this is exactly the impression I want to make. Where’s Duncan?” Cindy asked, suddenly realizing she hadn’t seen Duncan since they got home.
Heather feigned indifference, shrugged, leaned back on her elbows. “Don’t know.”
“You don’t? That’s unusual.”
Heather shot her mother a look. “No, it’s not. We’re not joined at the hip, you know.”
“You two have a fight?”
“It’s no big deal.”
Cindy could tell from her daughter’s tone that it was a subject best not pursued. Besides, if Heather and Duncan were fighting, she really didn’t want to know the details. In truth, she already knew way too much about their relationship. That was the problem with sleeping down the hall from your daughter and her live-in boyfriend. You heard every whisper, every playful sigh, every enthusiastic squeak of the bed. “Could you do me a favor?” Cindy said with a smile, waiting for her daughter to ask what, then continuing when she didn’t. “Could you call your father for me?”
“Why?”
“Find out if Julia’s having dinner over there.”
“Why don’t you call?”
“I don’t want to,” Cindy admitted.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m asking you to call.”
Heather groaned. “What kind of answer is that?”
“Heather, please.…”
“I’ll call when the show is over.”
“When is that?”
“Another fifteen minutes.”
“We connected on an intellectual level,” the bimbo was telling the camera.
“Then you’ll call your dad?”
“Julia’s fine, you know. She told you she wasn’t coming to the fitting. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”
“I’m not worried.” Then, “You don’t think she could have gotten lost, do you?”
“Lost?” Heather demanded in her aunt’s voice.
The last time Julia disappeared, Cindy remembered, she was thirteen years old. Cindy was still reeling from her father’s sudden death from a heart attack two months earlier, Tom was away on a “business trip” with his latest paramour, and Heather was singing a solo with her school choir that night. Julia was supposed to be home in time to accompany her mother to the concert, but by seven o’clock, she still wasn’t back. Cindy spent the next hour calling all Julia’s friends, checking with neighbors, driving up and down the rain-soaked streets. She’d tried reaching Tom in Montreal, but he wasn’t at his hotel. Finally, at nine o’clock, distraught and unsure what to do next, she’d driven to the school to pick up Heather, only to find a defiant Julia comforting her sister. “I told you I’d meet you in the auditorium,” Julia chastised her mother. “Don’t you listen?”
Had Julia told her of her plans this morning? Cindy wondered now, throwing her clothes on the bed and walking into the bathroom. Was this mix-up all her fault? Had she not been listening?
“Look at me,” she moaned. “I look awful.”
“You don’t look awful,” Heather called from the bedroom.
“I’m short.”
“Five six isn’t short.”
“My hair’s a mess.” Cindy pulled at her loose brown curls.
“Your hair is not a mess.” Heather appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be whining about her appearance and you the one reassuring me with quaint, motherly platitudes?”
Cindy smiled. Heather was right. When had their roles suddenly reversed?
“You’re probably just nervous about your date.”
“It’s not a date,” Cindy corrected. “And I’m not nervous.” She turned on the tap, began rigorously scrubbing her face.
“Shouldn’t use soap,” her daughter advised, stilling her mother’s hand and reaching into the medicine cabinet for a jar of moisturizing cleanser. “I mean, you buy all this stuff. Why don’t you use it?”
“It’s too much work. I can’t be bothered.”
“Try this,” Heather instructed. “Then this.” She pulled an assortment of bottles off the shelf of the crowded cabinet and spread them across the cherrywood counter. “Then I’ll do your makeup. And speaking of makeup, what’s with Auntie Leigh and the Tammy Faye Baker eyes?”
“I’m hoping it’s a phase.”
“Let’s hope it’s over by the wedding.”
The phone rang.
“It’s about time.” Cindy marched back into her bedroom, grabbed for the phone. “Hello,” she said eagerly, waiting for Julia’s voice.
“Cindy, it’s Leigh,” her sister announced, as if she knew they’d been speaking about her. “I just want to apologize again for what I said earlier—about you spending all your time at the movies, and not knowing how to take care of a husband.”
“Oh,” Cindy said flatly. “That.”
“I was out of line.”
“Yeah,” Cindy agreed. “You were.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“It’s just this wedding. And Mom, of course.”
“Of course.”
“The pressure is nonstop. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed.”
Cindy nodded into the receiver.
Her sister sighed. “I wish I had your life,” she said.
Cindy laughed as she hung up the phone.
“What’s funny?” Heather asked.
“My sister’s idea of an apology.” Cindy stared at the TV. A second young woman, whose dark bikini matched her ebony skin, was climbing into a hot tub with a bald-headed, tattoo-covered man who looked like a black Mr. Clean.
“What’s she sorry for?” Heather asked.
“That’s just the point. She isn’t.” Cindy shook her head, trying to remember the last time she’d felt close to her younger sister.
(Memory: Eight-year-old Leigh shadowing Cindy’s every move, following her from room to room, as if glued to her side. “Why does she have to do everything the same as me?” Cindy protests, pushing Leigh aside.
“The same as I,” her mother corrects. “Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
“I hate her.”
“I hate her too,” Leigh echoes.
“You’ll love each other when you grow up,” their mother promises.)
Did they? Cindy wondered now, watching as Mr. Clean explained his various tattoos to his curious companion. She and Leigh were so different. They had different interests, different styles, different tastes. In clothes, in politics, in men. Try as they might, and occasionally they really did try, they never quite seemed to connect. Their empathy was forced, their sympathy strained. They tolerated each other. Sometimes just barely.
Strangely enough, their relationship had been at its best just after Cindy got married and again just after she got divorced. When Cindy eloped with Tom to Niagara Falls without a word to anyone, it had been Leigh who’d convinced their parents to get over their anger and accept the yo
ung man Cindy had chosen. Leigh had been a regular guest at their tiny apartment, a co-conspirator after the fact.
After Tom walked out, taking Julia with him, Leigh had been equally supportive, dropping over dinners, going grocery shopping for her distraught sister, offering to baby-sit Heather. For months, she’d called first thing every morning and again before she went to bed. She’d made sure Cindy had the best divorce lawyer in the city. She’d literally clapped her hands when Cindy’s settlement guaranteed her security for life.
Leigh’s own marriage, to a high school principal, had always seemed happy enough. Warren was a kind man, patient to a fault, and he seemed to genuinely love his wife. “Warren would never cheat on me,” Leigh had said on more than one occasion, and Cindy had nodded her agreement, confident in the rightness of her sister’s assessment, pretending not to hear the silent addendum, “the way Tom cheated on you.”
“Mom?” Heather was asking now. “What’s the matter? Why are you smiling like that?”
Cindy unclenched her teeth. “Just this stupid TV show.” She flicked off the remote control, watching Mr. Clean and his companion disappear into darkness.
“Hey …”
“Call your father for me. Please,” Cindy added when her daughter failed to respond.
Heather slumped toward the phone. “I don’t understand why you can’t call him.”
“I don’t want to speak to the Cookie,” Cindy muttered.
“What?”
“Just call him.”
Heather punched in the numbers, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited for someone to answer the phone. “Hey, Fiona,” she said while Cindy scrunched up her nose, as if she’d just smelled something unpleasant. “It’s Heather. I’m fine. How are you?”
Cindy walked back into the bathroom, stuck out her tongue at her reflection. “I’m just fine,” she said in the Cookie’s chirpy little voice. “Right as rain. Happy as a lark. Peachy perfect.”
“Is my sister there?”
Cindy grabbed a brush, dragged it through her hair, listened for the answer.
“Is she expected there for dinner?”
So, Julia wasn’t there. At least not yet. “Ask her if she’s heard from her,” Cindy instructed her daughter, returning to the bedroom, the brush dangling from her hair.
“Have you heard from her?” Heather asked dutifully, then shook her head in her mother’s direction. “Okay, well, if you do,” Heather continued over her mother’s continued prompting, “have her call home. Okay? Yeah, everything’s fine. I just want to speak to her. Okay, yeah. Bye.” She hung up the phone.
“Julia’s not there?”
Heather shrugged her indifference. “She’s fine, Mom.”
“It would be nice if she phoned, that’s all.”
“How come you call Fiona a cookie?”
Cindy shrugged, pulling roughly at the brush in her hair, feeling the handle break off in her hand. “Oh, that’s just great.”
“I’ll do it.” Slowly, gently, Heather extricated the head of the brush from her mother’s hair. Then she slid it back into the handle and began tenderly manipulating Cindy’s soft curls. “You’ll see. I’m going to make you absolutely gorgeous for your date tonight.”
“It’s not a date.”
“I know it’s not.”
“I probably shouldn’t even be going.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine here by myself.”
“It’s Julia I’m worried about.”
Heather stopped her gentle ministrations.
“That’s it? You’re done?”
Heather nodded, returning the brush to her mother’s hands. “You don’t need me,” she said.
FIVE
“SO, how do you know Trish?”
Cindy tucked her hair behind her right ear, less from necessity and more because it gave her something to do with her hands. She straightened the cutlery on the white tablecloth, although it was already perfectly straight, and refolded the burgundy-colored napkin in her lap. Then she tucked the hair behind her right ear a second time and stared out the long window behind Neil Macfarlane’s head, watching the blue slowly leak from the sky, bathing the expansive panorama in muted gray. Soon it would be dark, she thought, mindful that the days were getting shorter. Hold that thought, she told herself. Save it for when the conversation runs dry, for when the small talk gets so tiny it threatens to disappear altogether. Isn’t that why she stopped dating in the first place, why she vowed never to subject herself to the single scene’s unpleasant vagaries again? Or was it because the men had simply stopped calling? “We met about ten years ago. At one of the makeup counters in Holt’s. We actually walked right into one another, reaching for the same bottle of moisturizing cream,” Cindy continued, unable to stop the unexpected torrent of words. “We were both in a hurry. It was during the film festival, and we didn’t have much time between films.”
The man across the table nodded. “I understand Trish is quite the movie fan.”
“Yes. We both are.” Of course, the most logical follow-up would be for her to ask, “And you? Do you like movies too?” But she didn’t because such a question would imply she was interested in whether Neil Macfarlane liked movies or not. And she was determined not to be interested in anything about Neil Macfarlane at all. So instead, Cindy scratched at the back of her neck and reached for the bread basket, although she merely shifted it a little to the left before returning her hands to her lap. She didn’t want to fill up on bread. She didn’t want to get bread crumbs all over her white blouse and gray linen pants. She didn’t want the waiter approaching with one of those frightening little gadgets they employed to clean the tables of assorted debris, each roll offering a silent rebuke for being such a sloppy eater. All she wanted was to finish her dinner, assuming the waiter ever came by to take their order, drink her wine, assuming the wine steward could locate the expensive Bordeaux Neil had ordered, and get the hell out of the restaurant and home to Julia, assuming her older daughter had finally decided to put in an appearance. Where was she anyway? At the very least, why hadn’t she called? Cindy rifled through her purse and checked that her cell phone was on.
“Everything all right?” Neil asked.
“Fine.” Cindy smiled, careful to avoid the intense scrutiny of his eyes, eyes she’d noticed immediately that were an amazing shade of blue. Somewhere between teal and turquoise. With a sparkle, no less, as if it had been dabbed on with silver paint. Trish hadn’t been exaggerating. Neil Macfarlane was cute all right. More than cute. He was drop-dead gorgeous. Cindy had decided immediately that the less she looked at him the better off she’d be.
(First impressions: A man, tall and slender, wavy brown hair atop a boyish face, waits for her at the bottom of the elegant, open, red mahogany staircase, the city stretched out tantalizingly behind him in the long expanse of glass; he smiles, deep dimples creasing his cheeks as she warily approaches and the city blurs behind him; he is wearing a blue shirt that underlines the fierce blue of his eyes; his hands are warm as they reach for hers; his voice is soft as he speaks her name. “Cindy,” he says with the quiet confidence of someone who is used to being right. “Neil?” she asks in return, feeling instantly foolish. Who else would he be? Already she feels inadequate.)
“So what kinds of movies do you like?” Neil was asking as the wine steward approached the table, proudly displaying the requested bottle for Neil’s perusal. “Looks fine,” Neil told him, although his eyes never strayed from Cindy.
Cindy, in turn, focused all her attention on the wine steward, watching as he slowly and expertly began the process of removing the cork from the bottle. “I like all movies,” she said vaguely, disappointed when the cork put up no real resistance, sliding out of the bottle with ease.
The steward offered the cork to Neil, who dutifully sniffed at it and nodded his approval, then tasted the sampling the steward poured into his glass. “Fine,” he said. “Excellent. It just needs a few minutes to
breathe,” Neil advised her.
I know how it feels, Cindy thought, but didn’t say, watching as the steward filled her glass just short of halfway.
“So, you have no preferences at all?” Neil was asking.
What was the matter with him? Cindy wondered impatiently. Why did he insist on making conversation? He didn’t really give a damn what kinds of movies she liked, or how she and Trish had met, or anything about her, for that matter. And if he did, it was only because he wanted to sleep with her, and he knew his chances would be greatly improved if he at least feigned an interest in her. Although why he would want to sleep with her was a total mystery. Look at him, for heaven’s sake, Cindy thought, deliberately looking at the floor. On any given night, he undoubtedly had his choice of any number of much more attractive, much fitter, much younger women. Why would he want to sleep with her? That was easy, she decided. He wanted to sleep with her because she was here. It was as simple as that. It didn’t mean anything.
It doesn’t mean anything.
How many times had Tom told her exactly that?
Cindy raised her head, stared directly into Neil Macfarlane’s brilliant blue eyes. “I like sex and violence,” she stated honestly, the first time she’d admitted that to anyone.
“What?”
“You asked what kind of movies I like. I like sex and violence,” she repeated, reaching for her wineglass, taking a long sip, feeling the wine slightly abrasive as it scratched against her throat. He was right. It needed a few more minutes to breathe. Cindy tossed her hair back, took another sip. “You look shocked.”
Neil smiled, the dimples framing his mouth like quotation marks. “I understand liking sex. But blood and guts?”
“Not blood and guts so much,” Cindy countered, feeling the wine curl into her stomach, like a contented cat in a wicker basket. “I don’t like watching people get blown up ad nauseum. I guess what I like is more the threat of violence, the possibility that something terrible is about to happen.”
“Women-in-jeopardy,” Neil said matter-of-factly, nodding as if he understood, as if he already understood everything there was to know about her, as if there was nothing more to discover.
