The First Time

by Joy Fielding

  “You think we fell asleep on purpose?” Kim yelled in return. “How could you embarrass me like that?”

  Mattie stared at her defiant daughter, still a month shy of her sixteenth birthday. My baby, she thought, with a bewildered shake of her head. Mattie wanted to grab Kim and shake her, but could she really yell at her daughter for doing the same thing she’d been doing herself? Surely the fact Kim was only fifteen years old was offset by her mother’s adultery. “I can’t deal with this now,” Mattie said, retreating to the safety of her own room, hearing the door to Kim’s bedroom slam shut behind her.

  Mattie lowered herself to the side of her bed, stared numbly into space. Quite a night, she thought, falling back against the headboard. “And it’s not over yet.” She reached for the phone, pressing in the numbers she’d committed to memory, listening as the phone rang, once, twice, three times before being picked up.

  “Hello?” The voice was raspy, familiar.

  “Is this Honey Novak?” Mattie asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “This is Mattie Hart,” Mattie said calmly, trying to picture the woman’s face, hearing her sharp intake of breath. “I’d like to speak to my husband.”

  TWENTY

  Less than an hour later, Mattie heard the low rumble of the garage door as it opened and closed. She climbed slowly out of her chair in the living room, pushing one foot in front of the other with studied precision, her heart bouncing so erratically in her chest she was afraid it might burst clear through. Like that creature from Alien, she thought, deciding this was as good a term to describe her as any. Her body had been invaded by some mysterious force beyond her control or understanding. It was causing her to behave in ways totally foreign to her personality. What was she if not some strange creature, alien even to herself? “Stay calm,” she cautioned herself, inching her way toward the front door, running a still-trembling hand through her just-washed hair before burying it deep inside the pocket of her powder blue housecoat. “This is not the time for unnecessary histrionics.”

  Oh, no? a little voice asked. You’re cheating on your husband; your husband is cheating on you; you discovered your fifteen-year-old daughter in bed with some boy you’ve never even met Not to mention the fact you’re dying. Can you think of a better time for histrionics?

  Mattie reached the front hall at the same moment Jake’s key turned in the lock. She took a deep breath, then another as Jake pushed open the front door, the wind howling dramatically behind him, gusts of freshly falling snow swirling around his head. A suitably grand entrance, Mattie thought, watching him.

  At first Jake didn’t see her standing there. His head was down, as if he were still braving the elements, and he was preoccupied with ridding his boots of the snow he’d acquired between the car and the foyer. It was only after he’d removed his boots and shrugged off his coat that he realized she was standing there. “That’s quite a storm picking up out there,” he said, hanging his coat in the closet and shaking the snow from his hair. “Lucky I had some boots in the car.” He paused, looked directly into Mattie’s eyes for the first time since walking through the door. Enough small talk, his eyes said. “Are you all right? Has something happened?”

  “I’m fine,” Mattie said.

  Confusion brought Jake’s eyebrows together at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand. On the phone, you said I had to get home right away. You made it sound pretty urgent. Is something wrong?”

  “You mean besides the fact I’m dying and you’re fucking other women?”

  There was a second’s silence.

  She’d gone too far, Mattie thought, holding her breath.

  “Besides that,” Jake said.

  And suddenly they were laughing. A few nervous giggles that grew into great big whoops of glee, propelled by shock, driven by tension, effortlessly bridging the distance between them. They laughed with utter and complete abandon, until their sides ached and their insides threatened to explode, until they could barely catch their breath. They laughed so hard they temporarily forgot that she was dying and he was fucking other women.

  And then she remembered, and he remembered, and the laughing stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” Mattie said.

  “What have you got to be sorry about?”

  “About calling you at your girlfriend’s house. About ruining your evening.”

  Jake had the good grace to look embarrassed. He shuffled from one foot to the other, looked uneasily from side to side. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “It wasn’t exactly the puzzle of the century.” Mattie smiled. Were men really as simple as Roy Crawford claimed? “Did you really think I didn’t know where you were going?”

  “I guess I was trying not to think,” Jake admitted after a pause. “Looks like I should be the one apologizing to you.”

  “What’s the point of an apology if you’re not really sorry?”

  Jake nodded, a sudden hardness appearing in his eyes, as if he’d just realized he’d been summoned home from his mistress’s apartment in the middle of a budding blizzard for no discernible reason. “What’s this about, Mattie?” he asked, bringing them back to the topic at hand, impatience replacing the concern in his voice, obliterating whatever traces of laughter remained.

  “Maybe we should sit down.” Mattie motioned toward the living room.

  “Can’t you just spit it out? I’m really tired. If it’s nothing urgent—”

  “Kim’s having sex,” Mattie blurted out. Was that really what she wanted to talk to him about?

  “What?” Jake’s eyes shot to the stairs.

  “Not right now,” Mattie qualified, afraid he was about to bound up the steps and confront their daughter right then and there. “Before.”

  “Before? Before when?”

  “When I got home.” Why was she talking about this now? This wasn’t what she’d brought him home to discuss. “I walked in on her.”

  “You walked in on her having sex?”

  “No, thank God.” Too late to turn back now, she thought. “They were already finished. They were asleep.” She watched Jake trying to digest this latest piece of information, to make sense of what he was hearing.

  “Who’s they?”

  “Kim and—whoever.” Mattie pictured a tall, good-looking, and unquestionably naked young man hopping around on one foot, struggling to pull up his jeans. “I don’t know his name. We weren’t exactly formally introduced.”

  Jake began pacing back and forth in front of Mattie, his frustration filling the small front hall. “I don’t understand. What’s gotten into her lately? She smokes dope in a public place. She has sex practically under our noses. What’s she thinking, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m not sure she’s thinking very clearly about anything at this point.”

  “Does she want to get AIDS? Does she want to get pregnant? Does she want to—” He stopped abruptly.

  “End up like us?” Mattie asked, finishing his sentence for him.

  “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth.”

  “It’s just that she’s so young. There’s so much time.”

  “Not always,” Mattie reminded him, her voice soft, barely audible.

  The color drained from Jake’s face. “Oh God, Mattie, I’m sorry. Jeez, that was a thoughtless thing to say.” He brought his hand to his head, massaged his forehead, closed his eyes. “You know I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.”

  “It’s okay, Jake,” Mattie repeated. “You’re right—she’s young, she has time.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “What could I say? That it’s all right for her mother and father to be having affairs, but not her?” Mattie held her breath. Dear God, what had she said? She hadn’t meant to tell Jake about her own infidelity. Or had she? Was this the real reason she’d summoned Jake home
from his mistress’s apartment?

  “It’s hardly the same thing.”

  Slowly, Mattie released the air in her lungs. “No, I guess it isn’t.” Obviously what she’d said hadn’t registered.

  There was a moment’s pause. Mattie watched Jake’s eyes flicker with confusion, indecision, and disbelief.

  “What do you mean, it’s all right for her mother and father to be having affairs?” Jake asked, as if hearing Mattie’s remark for the first time. “What are you saying?”

  “Jake, I—”

  “You’re having an affair?”

  Too late for denials. Besides, what was the point? “Well, I don’t know that I’d call it an affair exactly.”

  “That’s where you were tonight? With another man?”

  “Does that upset you?”

  “I don’t know.” Jake looked stunned, as if he’d been struck over the head with a blunt object and was just about to lose consciousness.

  Mattie found herself growing impatient with Jake’s reaction. “You think you’re the only one entitled to a sex life?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t think you have any right to be upset.”

  “I think I’m more surprised than anything else.”

  Now Mattie was angry. “Why are you so damned surprised? You don’t think a man might find me attractive?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “As your daughter so eloquently put it the other day, I’m not dead yet!”

  Jake staggered back as if he’d been pushed. “Mattie, hold on. You have to give me a minute here to catch my breath. I just found out that both my daughter and my wife are having sex.”

  “We’re all having sex,” Mattie interrupted, still bristling.

  “We’re all having sex,” Jake repeated numbly. “You know, I think we should sit down after all.”

  Mattie turned and walked into the living room, flopping down on the beige Ultrasuede sofa. Fatigue rushed to embrace her, climbing all over her, pulling on her neck and shoulders like a restless toddler. Why had she told Jake about her affair? Had it been accidental, something blurted out in the heat of the moment? Or had more sinister forces been at work? Had she deliberately been trying to shock him? To hurt him? If so, why was she so angry at his reaction? What had she been hoping to achieve? Why had she summoned him home from Honey’s apartment? What did she really want to say?

  Mattie watched Jake fold his body into one of the rose-and-gold-striped chairs across from where she sat, his feet stretched out their full length in front of him. He raised his face to hers expectantly. “Do I know him?” he asked.

  For an instant, Mattie didn’t know what Jake was talking about. “What? Oh. No,” she said, picturing her husband and Roy Crawford shaking hands. “It’s no one you know.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Jake shook his head. “I guess not.” He looked helplessly around the room. “Do you love him?”

  Mattie almost laughed. “No.” There was a long pause while Mattie tried to impose order on the random chaos of her thoughts. The inside of her head was such a jungle of dangling participles and disconnected phrases, she’d need a machete to hack her way through. Why had she summoned him home from Honey’s apartment? What was it she wanted to say to him? “Why did you come back, Jake?” she asked finally.

  “You called,” he reminded her. “You said I needed to get home as soon as I could.”

  “I don’t mean tonight.”

  Jake closed his eyes. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “You were gone. You were starting a new life. And then Lisa called us into her office and announced I was—” Mattie stumbled, quickly regrouped. “Dying,” she said, forcing the word out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” she repeated, still waiting for the word to make sense.

  Jake reopened his eyes, waited for her to continue.

  “That’s not easy for me to say,” Mattie said. “It’s even harder for me to believe. I mean, I keep telling myself that it’s not possible. How can I be dying when I’m only thirty-six years old? I still look pretty good. I still feel pretty good. Just because I fall over occasionally, and my hands shake almost all the time now—”

  “They shake all the time?” Jake sat up straight in his chair. “Have you told Lisa?”

  “I’m telling you,” Mattie said quietly.

  “But there may be something Lisa can prescribe.”

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle, Jake. Besides, that’s not the point.”

  “The point is, you’re experiencing difficulty—”

  “The point is, I’m dying,” Mattie reiterated, the words no easier to understand, despite the repetition. “And I can’t keep denying it, much as I’ve tried. My body just won’t cooperate. Every day when I wake up, I can feel a subtle difference. I tell myself it’s my imagination, but I know it’s not. I never had that great an imagination.” She tried to laugh, but the sound threatened tears instead. “I can’t keep pretending I’m going to get better, that this is all just going to go away,” she said. “It’s too much work. I don’t have the strength.”

  “No one’s asking you to pretend.”

  “You ask me to pretend every time you walk out the door,” Mattie told him, her thoughts suddenly focusing, becoming clear. “Every time you call to say you’re working late at the office, or that you have to meet a client for dinner, or go in to work for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. You asked me to pretend tonight, for God’s sake,” Mattie said, her voice rising. “I can’t do it anymore, Jake. I can’t pretend any longer. That’s why I called you at Honey’s apartment. That’s why I asked you to come home.”

  Jake said nothing for several long seconds. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he said finally. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “Why did you come back, Jake?” Mattie asked again. “What did you think would happen? What was your objective?” A lawyer’s phrase, Mattie thought. Jake’s phrase.

  “I felt I should be here,” he said, as he had said before. “For you, and for Kim. We discussed this. You agreed.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not enough,” Mattie said simply. “I need more.” She thought of Roy Crawford, felt his fingers on her breasts, between her legs. “And I’m not just talking about sex.” She pushed Roy’s hands aside. “I need more,” she repeated.

  Jake opened his mouth to speak, closed it when no words were forthcoming. He shook his head, looked helplessly into his lap.

  “Did you see how happy Stephanie looked last night?” Mattie asked.

  “What’s Stephanie got to do with this?”

  “She looked radiant,” Mattie said, ignoring his question, talking more to herself than to Jake. “I kept looking at her and thinking, I want to feel like that. Please God, just give me one more chance to feel like that. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

  Mattie pulled her shoulders back, pushed her body to the edge of the sofa. “Let me make this simple for you, Jake. The doctor tells you you have a year to live. How are you going to spend it?”

  “Mattie, this is irrelevant.”

  “It’s very relevant. Answer the question, counselor. One year—how do you spend it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you spend it living with a woman you didn’t love?”

  “It’s not as simple as that,” he argued.

  “On the contrary, it’s very simple. You married me because I was pregnant, because you’re basically a decent man who wanted to do the right thing, the same reason you came back when we learned I was dying. And that’s good and that’s admirable and I appreciate it, I really do. But you’ve served your time. You’re paroled for good behavior. You don’t have to be here anymore.”

  “You’re going to need someone to take care of you, Mattie.”

  “I don’
t need a babysitter,” Mattie insisted. “What I need is to be with someone who loves me. What I don’t need is to be with someone who loves someone else.”

  “What do you want me to do? Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “I want you to figure out why you came back,” Mattie said again. “Was it for me, or was it for you? Because if it was for you, so that you could feel good about yourself, then I’m not interested. I won’t let you feel good about yourself at my expense. I’m the one who’s only got a limited amount of time left to feel good, and I don’t want to spend it with someone who makes me feel bad.”

  “God, Mattie, it was never my intention to make you feel bad.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your intentions!” Mattie cried. “What I want is your passion. What I want is your loyalty. What I want is your love. And if I can’t have those things, if you can’t at least pretend to love me,” she said, that word again, “for a year or two or however long I have left, then I don’t want you here.”

  And then they said nothing, each one staring straight ahead, Mattie at the windows behind Jake’s head, Jake at the Rothenberg lithograph over Mattie’s right shoulder. It was so ironic, Mattie thought. She, who could pretend no longer, was insisting her husband do just that. For a year or two or three or five. Was it really so much to ask? Was she really so difficult to love?

  Her father obviously thought so. He’d walked out of her life without so much as a backward glance. Years later, she managed to track him down to some artists’ colony in Santa Fe, and she called him longdistance and demanded to know why he’d never once tried to contact her, and all he could do was mumble something lame about it being better this way, that they should let sleeping dogs lie, an expression her mother would surely have appreciated had Mattie confided in her. But her mother had long ago deserted her as well, emotionally if not physically. And Jake had only married her because she was pregnant. Yes, they were lining up to love her.

  What was she going to do if Jake got up from his chair right now and walked out the door? Call Lisa? Ask if she could borrow her husband? Or Stephanie? Ask her if Enoch had a friend? Or Roy Crawford? Just think how he’d react to anything as complicated as a wheelchair, Mattie thought, too tired to laugh. Too frightened.