Free The After Party by Anton DiSclafani Page B

She had grown into herself, as the saying went; she moved across a room like she had an audience, like Joan had. Like Joan still did, wherever she was, unless her magic was less potent outside of Houston.
    Ciela would blossom while Joan was gone. She would be featured in the
Press
every week; she would be Houston’s go-to girl. Then Joan would return and replace her.
    â€œYou’ll never feel alone, at least,” Ciela said, with a smile, leaning her forehead against a window.
    That was true. I felt watched, though no one could possibly see me up there, on the fourteenth floor of one of Houston’s tallest buildings. And there was a live-in maid, too, Sari, though we mostly avoided each other.
    Ciela left and the doorbell buzzed again so quickly I was sure she’d forgotten something.
    â€œCome in,” I called.
    Instead of Ciela there was Furlow, standing hesitantly in the doorframe, even though he owned the place. I jumped up to welcome him and he kissed me on the cheek, tentatively.
    â€œHow do you like it here?” he asked. His hat was still on his head; perhaps a sign that he wouldn’t stay long. I hoped so. I didn’t think I had ever been alone with Furlow.
    His skin had begun to show age, but the years had not clouded his blue eyes; it was easy to see the handsome man he had once been in the contours of his face, in his thick, silver hair. He had celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday before Joan left.
    â€œCecilia?” he said, and I realized I hadn’t answered his question.
    â€œI like it,” I said, and nodded, though what else could I have said? Joan’s absence felt like a death. It felt worse than a death, because when my mother died I’d had Joan, and now I had no one. Furlow could have asked me anything, and I would have told him what I thought he wanted to hear.
    â€œMay I?” he asked, and gestured to the sofa I’d just straightened, a sofa he had never laid eyes on before but had, nonetheless, bought. I nodded. I watched as he sat down on the low-slung sectional. A designer had done the space in the newest style, and it was sleek and modern and utterly unlike any place I had ever lived. I felt like I was living in a hotel lobby, though it had only been a day. I would get used to it, just as I’d gotten used to Evergreen.
    Furlow looked out of place. He wasn’t a man made for the low proportions of modern furniture. He needed heft and weight to his furniture: a distressed leather chair with a tall back, a mahogany wardrobe in which to hang his cowboy hat.
    â€œJoan’s been gone for three months,” he said, and I nodded.This was a fact, though it seemed impossible. “I came here alone, without Mary, because I wanted to know if Joan had been in touch.”
    â€œThe postcard,” I said. I cleared my throat. “With the flowers.” I understood him, but I wanted to buy myself time.
    â€œI meant privately.”
    I smiled, and tried not to cry.
    â€œShe has not,” I said. And she should have! I should have been lying; Joan should have written me a letter, made a phone call. Sent a note for me to Ciela’s house. Something, anything. I should have received some signal, some sign that I still mattered to her. It had become harder and harder to take for granted that Joan loved me, that Joan was simply careless with her affections.
    Furlow studied Houston’s skyline. What a different view, I thought, than Evergreen’s copse of trees, which were visible from every window. Did he imagine Joan looking from a window? Did he wonder, as I did, what his daughter saw, wherever she was?
    â€œI had hoped she had. I had hoped you might be able to tell me something of her happiness.”
    Such an odd way to phrase it. “Her happiness?”
    â€œHer happiness has been the only thing I have ever concerned myself with. Unlike her mother.” He smiled faintly. This was a side of Furlow I had never seen