Lost Read Free Page B

exaggerated by the unnatural blackness of her hair, hair that hung in dramatic swirls past bony shoulders, toward the ample cleavage that peeked out over the top buttons of her bright yellow blouse. “You’re married,” Cindy reminded her.
    “Not for me, silly. For you.”
    Cindy lowered the back of her head to the top of her spine, lifting her face to the sun and inhaling the faintest whiff of fall. A month from now it would probably be too cool to be sitting on a picnic bench in a friend’s backyard in the middle of the day, choosing what movies to see at this year’s festival, while eating open-faced tuna sandwiches and sipping glasses of chardonnay. “Not interested.”
    “Let me tell you about him before you make any hasty decisions.”
    “I thought we were here to discuss movies.” Cindylooked to her friend, Meg, for help. Meg Taylor, looking closer to fifteen than forty, was as fair and flat-chested as Trish was dark and voluptuous. She sat on the other end of the long picnic bench, wearing cutoff jeans and a red-and-white-striped tank top, seemingly engrossed in the dauntingly thick catalog for this year’s festival.
    “The new Patricia Rozema film sounds good,” she offered, her voice small and crinkly, like tin foil unraveling.
    “What page?” Cindy asked gratefully, eager to move on. The last time Trish had fixed her up, just before Julia’s move home, had been an unmitigated disaster. At the end of the relentlessly confrontational evening with the thrice-divorced divorce attorney, the man had leaned in for what Cindy assumed was a conciliatory peck on the cheek, then rammed his tongue so far down Cindy’s throat, she’d had visions of having to call a plumber to get him out.
    “Special Presentation,”
Meg told her. “Page 97.”
    Cindy quickly flipped through the pages of her festival catalog.
    “ ‘Elegantly shot and finely performed,’ ” Meg read from the notes, “ ‘what is finally so impressive about Rozema’s new work.…”
    “Isn’t she the one who makes films about lesbians?” Trish interrupted.
    “Is she?” Meg asked.
    Cindy’s eyes traveled back and forth between her two closest friends. Cindy and Meg had been inseparable since the eleventh grade; Cindy and Trish had bonded after colliding at the Clinique counter at Holt’s ten years ago.
“Mansfield Park
wasn’t about lesbians,” Cindy said,thinking that neither woman had changed substantially over the years.
    “It had lesbian overtones,” Trish said.
    “Mansfield Park
is by Jane Austen,” Meg reminded her.
    “It had definite overtones.”
    “Your point being …?”
    “I don’t want any lesbians this year.”
    “You don’t want any lesbians?”
    “I’m tired of lesbians. We saw enough films about lesbians last year.”
    Cindy laughed. “You have a quota on lesbians?”
    “Does that include gays?” Meg grabbed a green apple from a nearby basket and took a loud bite.
    “Yes.” Trish pushed a thick layer of dark bangs away from her forehead, adjusted the heart-shaped diamond pendant at her throat. “I’m tired of them too.”
    “Well, there go half the movies.” Cindy took a sip of wine, held it inside her mouth, feeling the late-August sun warm against her cheeks. Every year for the last six years, the three women had gathered in Meg’s backyard to eat, drink, and select from the hundreds of movies being previewed at the annual Toronto International Film Festival. Another year had come and gone. Another festival was upon them. Not much had changed in the interim, except Julia had come home.
    Which meant everything had changed.
    “You’d really like him,” Trish said, suddenly shifting gears, although it was obvious by the way she leaned into the table that she’d only been biding her time, waiting for her next opportunity to reintroduce the subject. “He’s bright, funny, good-looking.”
    Cindy watched a parade of clouds float past her line ofvision, several wisps breaking free to