by Joy Fielding
“Are you all right?” her father asked as Kim slid back into the booth.
Kim nodded, trying to concentrate on the chicken salad sandwich on the plate in front of her. But it kept slipping in and out of focus, and she had trouble getting it to stay still.
“I saved you some French fries,” Jake said.
Kim shook her head, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The motion made her dizzy. She lifted the sandwich to her mouth, took a large bite. “It’s good,” she heard herself say, as if her voice belonged to someone else.
“Look, Kimmy,” her father said. “I know how difficult a time this must be for you. I know you have a lot on your plate.”
“I’m eating as fast as I can,” Kim said, and giggled.
“You know what I mean. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
“I already told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I do,” Jake said, and Kim laughed out loud.
“So, what you really mean is that I’m here if you want to talk about it.” She laughed again, very pleased with her cleverness.
“Kim, are you all right?”
“Fine.” Kim took a huge bite of her sandwich, felt some of the chicken salad dribble down her chin. “This is very good,” she said. “Fredo makes a mean sandwich.”
“I know you’ve been upset about my moving back home,” Jake persevered.
“Why did you move back?” Kim demanded, surprising herself with the vehemence of the question she hadn’t meant to ask. “And please don’t insult my intelligence by saying you did it for me.”
There was a long pause.
“Do you even know why you moved back?” Kim asked. Then, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re back. It’s a moot point. Isn’t that the expression you lawyers use?” She finished the first half of her sandwich, started on the other.
“You’re very angry, Kim. I understand that.”
“You don’t understand anything. You never have.”
“Maybe if you gave me half a chance—”
“Listen,” Kim interrupted, slapping the remains of her sandwich down on her plate, watching it fall apart. “If my mother agreed to let you move back in after everything you’ve done, well, that’s her business. I told her what I thought of the idea, but obviously she didn’t agree with me, so what choice did I have? None. Whatever Jake Hart wants, Jake Hart gets. He wants to play around, he plays around. He wants to leave, he leaves. He wants to come back, he comes back. I guess my only question is how long you plan to stick around once Mom starts getting better.” Kim struggled to put her sandwich back together, trying to scoop the errant pieces of chicken back between the thin slices of bread.
“Kim, sweetheart, she’s not going to get better.”
“You don’t know that.” Kim refused to look at her father. If she looked at him, she might toss what remained of her sandwich into his face.
“She’s going to get worse.”
“So now you’re a doctor too, are you?”
“And it’s important that we work together on this-”
“I’m not listening to you.”
“—that we do everything in our power to make your mother comfortable and happy.”
“To ease your conscience?” Kim shot back. “To make you feel better?”
“Maybe,” Jake agreed. “Maybe that’s part of it.”
“That’s all of it, and you know it.”
Jake rubbed his forehead, shook his head, ultimately rested his chin in the palm of his hand. “You really hate me, don’t you?” he said, more statement of fact than question.
Kim shrugged. “Aren’t children supposed to hate their parents?” she asked. “You hated yours.”
“That I did,” he agreed.
Kim waited for him to defend himself, to point out the obvious differences between their two situations, but he said nothing. Her father rarely spoke about his childhood. Kim knew her father and his brothers had been abused. There were many times she’d wanted to ask him about it, and now he was handing her the perfect opportunity, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her curiosity. He looks exhausted, Kim thought, almost feeling sorry for him. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to court?” she asked.
Jake checked his watch, immediately signaling the waiter for the bill. Seconds later, leaving the cash on the table, Jake ushered his daughter toward the front of the restaurant.
“Jake,” a woman called from somewhere behind them.
Kim turned to see Jess Cousins, or Koster, or whatever her name was, approaching. Her father quickly made the appropriate introductions.
“How’ve you been?” Jake asked.
“Fine,” Jess Koster said, looking from Jake to Kim, then back again to Jake. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.”
“Certainly.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Kim volunteered.
“Is something wrong?” Kim heard her father ask, as she opened the door and stepped out onto the street, the sound of his words immediately picked up by the outside wind. Something wrong? the wind echoed. Something wrong? Something wrong?
Somethingwrong?Somethingwrong?Somethingwrong?
SIXTEEN
Mattie stood in the doorway to the guest bedroom, studying Jake’s unmade bed. In typical fashion, he’d thrown the white-and-yellow-striped comforter over the top of the queen-size bed so that it appeared to have been made, but Mattie could tell from the checkered sheets peeking out carelessly beneath it that underneath the comforter they were a crumpled mess. How can anyone get a good night’s sleep in an unmade bed? she wondered, slowly approaching. She reached over to fluff out the pillows, watching a pillow fly out of her hand and land on the night table beside the bed, almost dislodging the delicate pleated lamp shade from its white porcelain base. “That was cute,” Mattie said out loud, plopping down on the bed. “And now for my next trick.” She retrieved the pillow, propped it up behind her neck against the headboard, and lifted her legs to the top of the bed, checking her watch. Almost five o’clock. Jake and Kim would be home from court soon. She should probably start getting dinner ready, although she was feeling quite listless. Maybe they’d just order in.
Mattie closed her eyes, inhaling Jake’s smell on the pillow behind her head. The pillow tickled her neck, like a lover’s kiss. She’d always loved the way Jake smelled, Mattie acknowledged, imagining Jake’s lips at her ear-lobe, his tongue grazing her hairline as he buried his face deep in her hair. She heard herself sigh, opened her eyes. “Don’t go there,” she said, unable to prevent Jake’s hands from reaching through her subconscious to slide across her breasts and belly. Mattie reclosed her eyes, allowing her body to slide down the bed so that she was lying stretched out on top of it. Suddenly Jake was everywhere—beside her, above her, below her, on top of her. She felt the weight of his body as it pressed into hers, felt his legs gently prodding her own legs apart. “No way,” Mattie said, sitting up sharply, knocking Jake’s image roughly to the floor. “I am not doing this.”
That’s for sure, Mattie thought. In the three months since Jake moved back home, they’d had next to no physical contact. He’d simply moved his things into the guest bedroom without any discussion, as if he assumed this was what Mattie would want, or more likely, because it was what he wanted. For all intents and purposes, they were still separated. Jake’s home consisted of the den and guest bedroom, while Mattie shared the rest of the house with Kim. Occasionally Jake visited, but for the most part he remained the outsider he’d always been, trying to be of help while maintaining a safe distance between them.
Even his routine hadn’t changed that much. He was still working an average of ten hours a day. Assuming he was working, and not with his little friend, his honey, his Honey, Mattie thought derisively, knowing that even when Jake was home, his mind was a million miles away. At the courthouse. At her house. That on the rare occasions when his body actually sat by her side throughout an entire evening, his spirit w
as decidedly elsewhere.
His body, Mattie thought again, seeing it stretched out and naked beside her on the bed, her hand playing with the soft dark hairs on his chest, caressing his enviably flat stomach, his strong thighs. She pushed several fingers inside her mouth, sucked restlessly on their tips, heard a groan escape her lips.
The phone rang somewhere beside her head. Mattie extricated her fingers from her mouth, eyes still closed, and threw her hand toward the phone on the night table. “Hello?”
“It’s Stephanie. Did I wake you?”
Mattie forced her eyes open, her body upright, her feet to the floor. “No, of course not. How are you?” She pictured her friend, short frosted hair, brown eyes, pudgy cheeks that perfectly suited the rest of her plump frame.
“How are you? You sound tired.”
“I’m fine, Steph,” Mattie said, with only a hint of impatience. Ever since she’d told her friends about her condition, they’d been flooding her with their solicitations and goodwill, offering to drive her to this appointment or that, to do her grocery shopping, pick something up for her downtown, anything she needed, they were ready, willing and eager to be of help.
Except they didn’t help, Mattie thought, transferring the phone from one ear to the other. They hovered. Like waiting helicopters, poised to take flight.
“What can I do for you?” Mattie asked.
“Enoch and I were wondering whether you and Jake would like to join us for dinner tomorrow night. We’re going to Fellini’s, over on East Hubbard Street. It got a great review in last weekend’s paper.” Stephanie giggled, sounding disconcertingly like one of her ten-year-old twins. Enoch Porter had come into Stephanie’s life six months ago, almost three years to the day since her ex-husband had wiped out their joint bank account and taken off for Tahiti with the babysitter. Enoch was Stephanie’s revenge—ten years her junior, tall, gorgeous, and so black he shone.
“Sounds great,” Mattie told her. “We’ll be at Pende Fine Arts in the late afternoon, if you’d like to join us.”
“I don’t think art galleries are Enoch’s thing,” Stephanie said, and giggled again. “You’re not doing too much?”
“What time should we meet?” Mattie asked, ignoring her friend’s concern.
“Seven o’clock okay for you guys?”
“Seven o’clock is perfect. We’ll meet you there.”
Probably she should check with Jake first, Mattie thought, hanging up the phone. Maybe he had other plans. “Screw his other plans,” she said, thinking of Honey, trying to imagine what the other woman looked like. In the next second, the phone was back against her ear. Mattie pressed in 411, waited as the automated voice welcomed her to the system.
“For what city, please?” the recording asked.
“Chicago,” Mattie said plainly. What was she doing?
“Do you want a residential number?” the recording continued.
Did she? “Yes,” Mattie stammered.
“For what name please?”
“Novak,” Mattie said, clearing her throat. Was she crazy? What on earth was she doing? “Honey Novak. I don’t know the street.” Why had she added that? Did the recording care? What did she want with Honey’s phone number anyway? Was she planning on actually calling the woman? Why? What exactly was she planning to say?
“I show no listing for a Honey Novak,” a human voice announced suddenly, catching Mattie off guard.
Mattie nodded gratefully, about to hang up. Obviously someone was looking out for her. What had she been thinking?
“I do show three listings for an H. Novak,” the operator continued, as the phone almost slipped from Mattie’s hand. “Do you know the address?”
“No, I don’t,” Mattie told the woman. “But if you wouldn’t mind giving me the three numbers …”
“There’ll be a separate charge for each one,” the operator explained, as Mattie grabbed a ballpoint pen from the drawer of the nightstand and searched in vain for a scrap piece of paper, ultimately scribbling the numbers on the inside of her left hand.
Not allowing herself time to think, Mattie dialed the first of the three numbers. The phone rang three times before being picked up. Mattie found herself holding her breath. What was she doing? What was her objective? as Jake might say. What was she trying to prove?
“Hello.” A man’s voice. Mattie quickly hung up the receiver, her breath coming in short, uneven spurts.
Immediately, her phone rang.
Mattie stared at the ivory phone with growing apprehension, raising it gingerly to her ear. “Hello?” she asked.
“Who’s this?” the man’s voice demanded.
“Who’s this?” Mattie asked in return.
“Harry Novak,” the man answered. “You just called my house.”
Call display! Mattie realized with growing horror. Or *69. Or another one of the growing number of electronic horrors invading modern life. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought at all, for God’s sake. What was she doing? “I called the wrong number,” Mattie explained. “I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you.” The man hung up before she could embarrass herself further.
“That’ll teach me,” Mattie whispered, noting her hand shaking as she returned the receiver to its carriage, although even as she was saying the words, she was remembering the number to circumvent the system. Once again, she lifted the receiver to her ear, tapping in *67 before dialing the second number.
This time the phone was answered almost immediately, as if the person on the other end had been sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring. Typical of a woman involved with a married man, Mattie thought. “Hello,” the woman said. A low, somewhat raspy sound. A nice voice, Mattie thought. A little saucy. Was it her? Mattie wondered. “Hello,” the voice said again. “Hell-lo-o.” No, Mattie decided. The voice was too playful, too confident. Not the voice of a woman who lived alone, who didn’t know the identity of the person on the other end of the line. Mattie was about to hang up, move on to the third and final number.
“Jason?” the voice on the other end asked suddenly, as Mattie’s breath froze in her lungs. “Jason, is that you?”
Mattie dropped the receiver toward its carriage, watched it miss, land with a thud on the white carpeted floor. She quickly retrieved it, trying to return it to its proper place, but the receiver wiggled in her hands as if it were alive, and she dropped it again. Only on her third try was Mattie successful. “Goddamn,” she whispered, her breathing increasingly shallow, almost painful. “Goddamn.”
She sat on the side of the bed for several more minutes, the echo of her husband’s name on the other woman’s tongue repeating in her ear. “Jason,” Mattie repeated out loud. Hadn’t he always hated that name? Mattie threw her head back against the top of her spine, trying to regain control of her breathing, folding one shaking hand inside the other. “That was a very stupid thing to do,” she admonished herself, pushing herself off the bed, quickly exiting the room. Time to get a grip. Splash some cold water on her face, put on a little makeup, give her husband something pleasant to look at, a reason to stay home.
Seconds later Mattie faced her reflection in the mirror of her bathroom as she reached across the cherry wood counter for her blush. She wondered what Honey looked like, whether she was tall or short, blond or brunette, slightly overweight or reed-thin. “I’m thinking Julia Roberts,” she said, expertly brushing the powdered pink blush across her cheekbones. “That’s better. A little color was definitely called for.” As well as a healthy application of mascara, Mattie decided, reaching for the long silver tube, raising the mascara brush to her lashes. But the brush ignored her lashes and jabbed directly into her eye. “Damn it,” Mattie cried as the brush dropped from her shaking hand and fell into the sink. She blinked furiously, the mascara jumping from her eyes to her freshly pink cheeks, leaving behind a series of little black streaks, like tiny scratches. “Oh, that’s just great.” Mattie sighed. “I look wonderful. The anti-Honey,” she said, f
ighting back tears as she reached for a tissue, tried wiping the black stains from her face. “Now I look like I’ve been in a fight. And I lost,” she said. You lost, she silently admonished her mirror image, using a wet washcloth to rub her face clean, watching traces of those thin black marks resurface, like a ghostly series of commas.
“Nonsense, I have only begun to fight,” Mattie said, once again applying the soft pink blush to her cheeks. But her hand refused to cooperate, her fingers unwilling to close around the handle of the brush. She dropped it to the counter, watching her fingers shake as if being buffeted by invisible winds. “Oh, God,” she said. “This is not happening. It’s not happening.” You’re just upset because you did a stupid thing. Nothing else. Take a deep breath. Now another. Stay calm. Everything’s going to be all right. This is nothing to get upset about. You’re taking your medication. You are not going to die. You’re going to Paris in April. With your husband. “You’re not going to die.”
Mattie used both hands to lift the tube of mascara out of the sink. Slowly, she applied the mascara to her lashes with the greatest of care. “That’s better,” she said, as the trembling gradually came to a halt. “You’re just tired and upset—and very horny,” Mattie admitted with a laugh. “Your hands always shake when you’re horny.”
Things are going to change around here, she decided. Starting tonight. Starting with a little mascara. Continuing with a little wine at dinner. Maybe a midnight visit to the guest room. She’d never had any trouble seducing Jake Hart before. Of course that was Jake, not Jason. She didn’t know this guy Jason at all.
Mattie heard the rumble of the garage door. “They’re home,” she announced to her reflection, satisfied that she looked all right. Better than all right, she decided, holding her hands in front of her face, satisfied the trembling had ceased. She fluffed out her hair, straightened the shoulders of her red sweater, took one last deep breath, and headed for the stairs.
She was almost at the bottom when the front door opened with a sharp whoosh and her husband and daughter exploded into the hall.