The First Time

by Joy Fielding

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Mattie was smiling.

  Jake stared lovingly at the photograph in his hands, his fingers tracing the line of Mattie’s curved lips as she smiled at him from her chair in front of the Tuileries. “C’est magnifique, n’est-ce pas?” he heard her ask, as he moved to the next photograph, this one of Mattie leaning happily against a bronze nude statue by Maillol. “Magnifique,” he agreed softly, glancing toward the window of his den, watching the still-green leaves of the outside trees dancing in the surprisingly warm October breeze. He looked back at the stack of photographs in his hands. Had it really been six months since their trip to Paris? Was that possible?

  Was it possible that almost three weeks had passed since Mattie’s death?

  Jake closed his eyes, reliving the last night of Mattie’s life. He and Kim had left the baseball game at the bottom of the eighth inning, picked up some milk and apple juice from a nearby 7-Eleven, and returned home a little earlier than expected. Viv’s car was still in the driveway, and he heard her shuffling around upstairs for several seconds before she made her delayed appearance. “How is she?” he asked. “Sleeping peacefully,” Viv replied.

  Sleeping peacefully, Jake repeated now, watching himself approach their bed, his hand reaching out to smooth some hairs away from Mattie’s face, careful not to disturb her. She felt warm, her breathing slow and steady. He watched himself undress and climb into bed, his arm falling gingerly across Mattie’s side. “I love you,” he whispered now, as he’d whispered repeatedly as he lay beside her, his eyes struggling to stay open, to keep watch over her, to carry her safely into the light of day. At some point, he must have drifted off to sleep. And then, suddenly, it was three o’clock in the morning and he was wide awake, as if something, or someone, had tapped him on the shoulder, shaking him gently until he opened his eyes.

  His first thought was that it was Mattie, that she’d somehow regained the use of her arms and was poking at him playfully, but then he saw her, still lying in the same position she’d settled in hours earlier, and he found himself holding his breath. It was only then he heard the profound and utter silence that filled the room, and realized it was this awful stillness that had shaken him awake. He sat up, bent forward, grazed Mattie’s forehead with his lips. She felt unnaturally cool, and he automatically secured the blanket across her shoulders, stubbornly waiting for the steady rise and fall of her breathing. But there was none, and he understood, in that instant, she was dead.

  Jake glanced back at the pictures of Mattie in Paris, tears blurring his vision, as he watched himself gather his dead wife in his arms and lie beside her till morning.

  “What are you doing?” Kim asked from the doorway, her voice tentative, as if she were afraid of disturbing him.

  “Looking at pictures of your mother,” Jake replied, swiping at his tears while making no attempt to disguise them. He smiled at the small dog glued to Kim’s left ankle. “Trying to decide which ones to frame.”

  Kim sank down beside him on the sofa, leaned against his arm, George immediately jumping up, curling into a little ball on her lap. “She looks beautiful in all of them.”

  “Yes, she does. I guess that’s what makes it so hard to choose.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Kim lifted the photographs from his hands, sifting through them with care. “Not this one,” she said, straining to sound objective, although Jake noted the slight quaver in her voice. “It’s not focused. And you didn’t frame this one properly. Too much sidewalk. But this one’s nice,” she said, stopping on a picture of Mattie in front of Notre Dame cathedral, her hair attractively tousled, her eyes bluer than the clear Parisian sky.

  “Yeah,” Jake agreed. “I like that one.”

  “And this one.” Kim held up a picture of Jake and Mattie in front of the Eiffel Tower, taken by the Japanese tourist Jake had corralled.

  “Even though it’s not quite centered?”

  “It’s a beautiful picture,” Kim told him. “You guys look really happy.”

  Jake smiled sadly, squeezed his daughter tightly against him, mindful of George’s jealous eyes. “How’re you doing today?” he asked.

  “Okay, I guess. How about you?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “I really miss her.”

  “Me too.”

  The outside sun poured in from the windows, ricocheting off their backs, scattering across the room, like dust. A sound, like a distant rumble, filtered through the air.

  “Sounds like someone’s car in the driveway,” Kim said, gently lowering George to the floor and extricating herself from her father’s side. She walked to the window, peered outside. “It’s Grandma Viv.”

  Jake smiled. Mattie’s mother had visited often since Mattie’s death, dropping by for an impromptu cup of coffee or a surprisingly heartfelt hug.

  “Looks like she brought something with her.” Kim stretched to see what it was.

  Jake joined his daughter at the window as Viv struggled to retrieve something from the backseat of her car.

  “What is it?” Kim asked.

  Whatever it was was large, rectangular, and completely covered in brown paper. “Looks like it might be a painting of some sort,” Jake said.

  Mattie’s mother saw them watching her from the window, almost dropping her parcel as she reached up to wave.

  “What’ve you got, Grandma?” Kim asked, opening the door, George jumping excitedly around Viv’s feet.

  “Okay, George, make way. Make way.” Viv propped the parcel against the wall, hugged Kim, nodded warmly toward Jake. “Let me get my coat off. That’s a good dog.”

  Jake hung Viv’s coat in the closet beside Mattie’s, the arm of one falling across the arm of the other. He hadn’t yet dealt with Mattie’s clothes, although he knew he’d have to attend to it soon. It was time. Time for him to go back to work, for Kim to resume her classes, for all of them to resume their lives. The time for hesitating’s through, he hummed absently to himself, wondering why that old chestnut had suddenly popped into his head.

  “What is it, Grandma?” Kim repeated.

  “Something I thought you might like to have.” Viv carried the parcel into the living room, arranging herself on the sofa, waiting as Jake and Kim occupied the two chairs across from her. Then she tore off the protective brown paper to reveal a painting of a little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and the slightest hint of a smile. The painting was amateurish, its technique limited, its execution crude, a series of bold, colorful strokes that never quite connected, a curious amalgam of styles that never coalesced. And yet the subject of the painting was unmistakable.

  “It’s Mattie,” Jake said, getting out of his chair to examine the painting more closely, propping it against the coffee table in the middle of the room.

  “That’s Mom?

  “When she was about four or five.” Viv cleared her throat. “Her father painted it.”

  Both Kim and Jake stared at Viv expectantly.

  Viv cleared her throat again. “I must have put it in the attic after he left. Forgot all about it till this morning. For some reason, I woke up thinking about it. Must have had a dream.” Her voice drifted to a halt. “Anyway, I went up there, which was no easy feat, let me tell you, and I rifled around, and there it was, still in pretty good condition, and much better than I remember it being. Anyway, I thought you might like to have it.”

  Jake brushed some invisible hairs from the child’s painted forehead. Mattie had been such a beautiful little girl, he thought. She’d only grown more beautiful with age. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank you, Grandma.” Kim rose from her seat, buried herself against her grandmother’s side.

  “I could never understand how he could just leave the way he did,” Viv said to no one in particular. “How he could just walk away from his daughter like that. They’d always been so close.” She shook her head. “I used to be so jealous of the bond they shared. I used to think, why is it always Mattie-this and Dadd
y-that? Why is it never me? Stupid,” she continued before anyone could interrupt. “Stupid to resent your own flesh and blood, to turn your back on a child who needs you.”

  “You didn’t turn your back on her,” Kim said.

  “I did. All those years when she was growing up—”

  “You were here when she needed you the most. You kept your promise, Grandma,” Kim whispered as Mattie’s mother covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a cry. “You didn’t turn your back.”

  Jake watched the exchange between Kim and her grandmother, a chill traveling the length of his spine, confirming what he’d suspected all along. He closed his eyes, took a long deep breath. Then he sank down on the sofa, drawing both women into his arms.

  They rocked together for several minutes in silence, the dog moving restlessly from lap to lap, trying to find a comfortable spot in which to settle. “What will we ever do without her?” Mattie’s mother asked.

  Jake knew the question was rhetorical, answered it anyway. “I’m not sure,” he told her. “Carry on, I guess. Take care of each other, the way Mattie wanted.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever be happy again?” Kim asked.

  “Some day we will,” Jake told her, kissing Kim’s forehead, looking at the painting propped against the coffee table, seeing Mattie’s grown-up smile shining through the face of the shy little girl. “In the meantime,” he said softly, “we’ll just have to pretend.”

  DOUBLEDAY CANADA

  PROUDLY PRESENTS

  GRAND AVENUE

  JOY FIELDING

  Hardcover available October 2001

  from

  Doubleday Canada

  Turn the page for a preview of

  Grand Avenue.…

  We called ourselves the Grand Dames: four women of varying height, weight, and age, with shockingly little in common, or so it seemed at the time of our initial meeting some twenty-three years ago, other than that we all lived on the same quiet, tree-lined street, were all married to ambitious and successful men, and each had a daughter around the age of two.

  The street was named Grand Avenue, and despite the changes the years have brought to Mariemont, the upscale suburb of Cincinnati in which we lived, the street itself has remained remarkably the same: a series of neat wood-framed houses set well back from the road, the road itself winding lazily away from the busy main street it intersects toward the small park at its opposite end. It was in this park—the Grand Parkette, as the town council had christened the tiny triangle of land, unaware of the inherent irony—that we first met almost a quarter of a century ago, four grown women making a beeline for three children’s swings, knowing the loser would be relegated to the sandbox, her disappointed youngster loudly wailing her displeasure for the rest of the world to hear. Not the first time a mother has failed to live up to her daughter’s expectations. Certainly not the last.

  I don’t remember who lost that race, or who started talking to whom, or even what that initial conversation was about. I remember only how easily the words flowed amongst us, how seamlessly we moved from one topic to another, the familiar anecdotes, the understanding smiles, the welcome, if unexpected, intimacy of it all, all the more welcome precisely because it was so unexpected.

  More than anything else, I remember the laughter. Even now, so many years later, so many tears later—and despite everything that has happened, the unforeseen, sometimes horrifying detours our lives took—I can still hear it, the undisciplined, yet curiously melodious collection of giggles and guffaws that shuffled between octaves with varying degrees of intensity, each laugh a signature, as different as we were ourselves. Yet, how well those diverse sounds blended together, how harmonious the end result. For years, I carried the sound of that early laughter with me wherever I went. I summoned it at will. It sustained me. Maybe because there was so little of it later on.

  We stayed in the park that day until it started raining, a sudden summer shower no one was prepared for, and one of us suggested transferring the impromptu party to someone’s house. It must have been me, because we ended up at my house. Or maybe it was just that my home was closest to the park. I don’t remember. I do remember the four of us happily ensconced in the wood-paneled family room in my basement, shoes off, hair wet, clothes damp, drinking freshly brewed coffee and still laughing, as we watched our daughters parallel play at our feet, guiltily aware that we were having more fun than they were, that our children would just as soon be in their own homes, where they didn’t have to share their toys, or compete with strangers for their mothers’ attention.

  “We should form a club,” one of the women suggested. “Do this on a regular basis.”

  “Great idea,” the rest of us quickly agreed.

  To commemorate the occasion, I dug out my husband’s badly neglected Kodak Super 8 movie camera, at which I was as hopeless as I am with its modern counterpart, and the end result was something less than satisfactory, lots of quick, jerky movements and blurred women missing the tops of their heads. A few years ago, I had the film transferred to VHS, and strangely enough, it looks much better. Maybe it’s the improved technology, or my wide-screen TV, ten feet by twelve, that descends from the ceiling with the mere push of a button. Or maybe it’s that my vision has blurred just enough to compensate for my failure as a technician, because the women now seem clear, very much in focus.

  Looking at this film today, what strikes me most, what, in fact, never fails to take my breath away, no matter how many times I view it, is not just how ineffably, unbearably young we all were, but how everything we were—and everything we were to become—was already present in those miraculously unlined faces. And yet, if you were to ask me to look into those seemingly happy faces and predict their futures, even now, twenty-three years later, when I know only too well how everything turned out, I couldn’t do it. Even knowing what I know, it is impossible for me to reconcile these women with their fate. Is that the reason I return so often to this tape? Am I looking for answers? Maybe it’s justice I’m seeking. Maybe peace.

  Or resolution.

  Maybe it’s as simple—and as difficult—as that.

  I only know that when I look at these four young women, myself included, our youth captured, imprisoned, as it were, on videotape, I see four strangers. Not one feels more familiar to me than the rest. I am as foreign to myself as any of the others.

  They say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. Can anyone staring into the eyes of these four women really pretend to see so deep? And those sweet, innocent babies in their mothers’ arms—is there even one among you who can see beyond those big, tender eyes, who can hear the heart of a monster beating below? I don’t think so.

  We see what we want to see.

  So there we sit, in a kind of free-form semicircle, taking our turns smiling and waving for the camera, four beguilingly average women thrown together by random circumstance and a suddenly rainy afternoon. Our names are as ordinary as we were: Susan, Vicki, Barbara, and Chris. Common enough names for the women of our generation. Our daughters, of course, are a different story altogether. Children of the seventies, and products of our imaginative and privileged loins, our offspring were anything but ordinary, or so each of us was thoroughly convinced, and their names reflected that conviction: Ariel, Kirsten, Tracey, and Montana. Yes, Montana. That’s her on the far right, the fair-haired, apple-cheeked cherub kicking angrily at her mother’s ankles, huge navy-blue eyes filling with bitter tears, just before her chubby little legs carry her rigid little body out of the camera’s range. No one is able to figure out the source of this sudden outburst, especially her mother, Chris, who does her best to placate the little girl, to coax her back into the safety of her outstretched arms. To no avail. Montana remains stubbornly outside the frame, unwilling to be cajoled or comforted. Chris holds this uneasy posture for some time, perched on the end of her high-backed chair, slim arms extended and empty. Her shoulder-length, blond hair is pulled back and away from her heart-shaped face int
o a high ponytail, so that she looks more like a well-scrubbed teenaged baby-sitter than a woman approaching thirty. The look on her face says she will wait forever for her daughter to forgive her these imagined transgressions and come back where she belongs.

  It seems inconceivable to me now, and yet I know it to be true, that not one of us considered herself especially pretty, let alone beautiful. Even Barbara, who was a former Miss Cincinnati and a finalist for the title of Miss Ohio, and who never abandoned her fondness for big hair and stiletto heels, was constantly plagued by self-doubt, always worrying about her weight and agonizing over each tiny wrinkle that teased at the skin around her large brown eyes and full, almost obscenely lush, lips. That’s her, beside Chris. Her tall helmet of dark hair has been somewhat flattened by the rain, and her stylish Ferragamo pumps lie abandoned by the front door amidst the other women’s sandals and sneakers, but her posture is still beauty-pageant perfect. Barbara never wore flats, even to the park, and she didn’t own a pair of blue jeans. She was never less than impeccably dressed, and from the time she was fifteen, no one had ever seen her without full makeup, and that included her husband, Ron. She confessed to the group that in the four years they’d been married, she’d been getting up at six o’clock every morning, a full half hour before her husband, to shower and do her hair and makeup. Ron had fallen in love with Miss Cincinnati, she proclaimed, as if addressing a panel of judges. Just because she was now a Mrs. didn’t give her the right to fall down on the job. Even on weekends, she was out of bed early enough to make sure she was suitably presentable before her daughter, Tracey, woke up, demanding to be fed.

  Not that Tracey was ever one to make demands. According to Barbara, her daughter was, in every respect, the perfect child. In fact, the only difficulty she’d ever had with Tracey had been in the hours before her birth, when the nine-pound-plus infant, securely settled in a breech position, and not particularly anxious to make an appearance, refused to drop or turn around and had to be taken by caesarean section, leaving a scar that ran from Barbara’s belly button to her pubis. Today, of course, doctors generally opt for the less disfiguring, more cosmetically appealing crosscut, one that disturbs fewer muscles and lies hidden beneath the bikini line. Barbara’s bikini days were behind her, she acknowledged ruefully. Something else to fret over. Something else that separated the Mrs.’s from the Miss Cincinnatis of this world.