Lost

by Joy Fielding

  “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.

  EIGHTEEN

  CINDY 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.

  IT 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?

  Cindy heard him rummaging around in the closet. A few seconds later, she caught sight of his shadow as it hurried by her room. He left without saying good-bye.

  “HOW HAVE YOU been holding out, Mrs. Carver?” the doctor was asking, his face drifting in and out of focus. He was a big man with a full beard, bushy eyebrows, and thinning gray hair.

  “I’ve been better,” Cindy said, adjusting the white sheet tucked around her breasts.

  “Remembering to take your pills?”

  Cindy rubbed her eyes, watching the doctor’s features flatten and slide across his face. “What pills?”

  “It’s very important that you take your pills, Mrs. Carver,” he was saying. “If you don’t take your pills, you’ll die.”

  “Oh no!” Cindy shot up in bed. “I forgot. I forgot.” She was halfway to the bathroom, her heart pounding against her chest when she stopped. “What pills?” she asked out loud, glancing toward the television set, realizing it was still on, that she’d fallen asleep sometime before midnight during a rerun of Law & Order, and that she was standing naked in the middle of her room in the middle of the night in the middle of the recurring nightmare that was her life. “What pills?” she asked again, collapsing on the floor, and staring at a handsome man in an orange jumpsuit walking glumly across her TV screen. The camera lowered to reveal the man’s hands in shackles as his head of curly brown hair was pushed roughly inside a waiting police car.

  It took Cindy a minute to realize that the man she was watching was Ted Bundy, notorious killer of dozens, possibly even hundreds, of young women. She shuddered, unable to turn away, transfixed by the announcer’s deep voice and the killer’s bottomless stare. “Stay tuned as Ted Bundy makes a daring escape,” the announcer intoned solemnly. “American Justice continues after these messages.”

  Was that what happened to Julia? Cindy couldn’t stop herself from wondering. Had she run into a man whose boyishly handsome exterior belied the heart and soul of a deranged killer? Had he tricked her into getting into his car, charmed her into going back to his place? Had she tried to fight him off? Had he used drugs or chains to subdue her? Was he keeping her prisoner in some dank underground cave?

  So many madmen out there, Cindy was thinking. So many mad men. Had one of them taken out his rage on her little girl?

  She pushed herself to her feet just as Ted Bundy’s smiling face once again filled the screen, his crazed eyes quickly settling on her own, daring her to confront him.

  “The boy next door,” the announcer proclaimed as Cindy groped for the remote control. For a station that was ostensibly about art and entertainment, it seemed to spend an awful lot of time detailing grisly murders. She clicked it off, watching the room go instantly dark, as if the TV itself had swallowed the light. Eating its young, she thought, walking to the window, pushing aside the curtains to stare at the backyard. There was only a sliver of moon, and it was pretty much hidden by the tall maple tree that sat in the center of the Sellicks’ unruly and overgrown lawn. She should really do something about the cedar fence that divided their property, she thought absently. It was starting to cave in at the far end, buckling under the extended pressure of a nearby sumac tree. All it would take was one good snowfall and that fence would collapse altogether.

  And “Good fences make good neighbors,” she thought, recalling the lines by Robert Frost, projecting ahead to the coming winter, trying to imagine herself in three months time. Would she still be standing by her bedroom window, staring into the darkness, waiting for her daughter to come home?

  It was then she saw her.

  She was sitting on the bottom step leading from the patio off the kitchen to the backyard, and while Cindy couldn’t see her face, she knew immediately it was Julia. “Julia. My God—Julia!” She pulled on her terry-cloth robe and raced down the stairs, Elvis at her heels. She ran into the kitchen, unlocked and opened the sliding glass door in one fluid gesture, and vaulted outside, the cool night air whipping against her face like a wet towel. “Julia!” she cried, as the girl on the bottom step jumped to her feet and backed into the night.

  “Mom, no. It’s me.”

  “Heather?!”

  “You scared me. What are you doing?”

  “What am I doing? What are you doing?” Cindy demanded. “It’s after three in the morning.” “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I saw you from my bedroom window. I thought you were Julia.”

  “Sorry,” Heather said. “It’s only me.” There was a strange, gargled quality to Heather’s voice.

  “Are you crying?” Cindy inched her way down the steps, as if her daughter were a stray kitten who might run away if she moved too fast.

  Heather shook her head, the sliver of moon
light catching her cheek, revealing a path of still-wet tears.

  “What is it, sweetheart? And please don’t tell me, nothing,” she added just as the word was leaving Heather’s lips. “Does it have something to do with Duncan?”

  Heather turned away. “We split up,” she acknowledged, after a long pause.

  “You split up? When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Why?” Cindy asked, her voice low.

  “I don’t know.” Heather released a deep breath of air, lifted her palms into the air. “We’ve been fighting a lot lately.”

  “About Julia?”

  Heather looked confused. “About Julia? No. What’s Julia got to do with this?”

  “What were you fighting about, sweetheart?” Cindy asked, ignoring the question.

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything. Nothing. It’s just so stupid.”

  “What is?”

  “We were at this party a few weeks ago,” Heather began slowly, “and I was talking to this guy. I was just talking to him. It was perfectly innocent, but Duncan said I was flirting, and we had this whole big argument. I thought we’d patched it up, but then it started up again last week. I’d gone to this club with Sheri and Jessica, and Duncan was really upset about it. He said I shouldn’t be going places like that without him, and I said, Why shouldn’t I? I’m not doing anything wrong. Why can’t I just hang out with my girlfriends and have a good time? And he said, if that’s what I wanted, I could hang out with my girlfriends every night. Then tonight we had another big fight, and Duncan got pretty drunk, and I got mad and left with Jessica, and when I got home, I saw his stuff wasn’t here, so I called him at Mac’s, and he said he wasn’t coming back, that it was over between us.”

  “Oh, sweetie, he doesn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, he does. He said he doesn’t want anything more to do with any of us, that we’re all crazy. Why would he say that?”

  “I don’t know,” Cindy lied, thinking of their earlier confrontation.

  “Did you see him when he came home?”

  “Yes,” Cindy admitted.

  “And?”

  “He was pretty drunk.”

  “What did you say to him?”