by Joy Fielding
"Thanks. I probably will."
"Goodbye, Nicole," Beth called before veering off in another direction. "You did extremely well in there for someone who never exercises."
"'Bye. Thank you," Nicole answered. "Nice lady."
"Yes. Very."
"Have you been friends long?"
"About four years." Jill turned a comer. “This way," she said coldly.
Nicole followed Jill into the deep purple womb of the lounge. Ricki Elfer was already there, seated at a table with two other women. She waved enthusiastically at Jill. "Come on over and join us," she called. "We're talking about sex."
"Later," Jill laughed, indicating an empty table for two at the far side of the room.
"Now, that's what you call a body," she heard Ricki say as they passed, knowing the body to which Ricki was referring was not her own.
"Do they serve milk shakes here?" Nicole asked, sitting down.
"Do you sit up nights thinking of these things to say?" Jill asked, deciding to eliminate small talk altogether.
"I don't understand."
"Look, I'll admit to a few things right off the top, okay?"
Jill told her. "I am thirty-four years old. My hair is too wild, my mouth is too wide, and my features in general are far from perfect, as is my body, which I'm sure you've already noticed. It's a nice enough body, but its thirty-four years old, and milk shakes are a thing of the past." She paused. "You, on the other hand, are what? Twenty-four?"
"Twenty-five."
“Twenty-five," Jill repeated. "So, you're younger, you're better-looking, you're obviously in terrific shape and your innocent little remark about the milk shakes lets me know that you don't have to worry a whole lot about staying in shape. Good for you. You may stay lucky or you might wake up one morning—fat. I don't know. I hope so." She paused. "Anyway, I concede your youth, your beauty, and your body. I give you all that. What I won't give you is my husband." Nicole said nothing, listening intently. "You may have it all over me in the looks department; you may even be smarter than I am. I don't know; I don't care. The fact is that / am married to the man you say you want and I intend to keep it that way. I was there first," she continued, conveniently overlooking Elaine. "That gives me some rights." Still, Nicole said nothing. "Now, I don't know. Maybe you've changed your mind; maybe you were a little drunk when you said those things; maybe I'm reading more into your remarks than you've intended. David thinks I am. You'll have to straighten me out, I guess. Tell me exactly where things stand. Unlike you, I hate games. They make me very nervous."
Nicole's voice was almost inaudible. "You told David what I said at the picnic?" she asked.
"Wasn't I surprised to? I assumed it was part of the plan."
"What did he say?"
"He thought it was a joke. When I explained it wasn't, he got quite angry."
"He didn't say anything to me.”
"I asked him not to."
There was a long silence. Nicole lowered her head. "I'm very embarrassed," she said at last. "And I'm very sorry."
Jill said nothing, waiting for the girl to elaborate. The apology had come so quickly, seemed so genuine, she wasn't sure how to react. She'd been right to level with Nicole, to get things out in the open. Honesty is the best policy, she could hear her mother saying. She waited. When Nicole raised her head again, Jill could see her eyes were cloudy with tears.
"What can I say?" she began. "The whole thing is so stupid. I don't know why I said those things to you at the picnic Maybe I was a little drunk, although that's no excuse." She looked around the room, avoiding Jill's eyes. "I'm from Maine originally. I've been here for four years now. I went to law school here and my family, my father actually—my mother's dead—he stayed back East. He got married again a few years ago and moved to New Hampshire. Anyway, I guess that's my roundabout way of telling you that I don't have any friends here. Girls have always shied away from me." She looked at Jill. "I know you're thinking that's no surprise. Maybe you're right. Whatever the reason, even though I know it's in vogue and all that, I've never had a strong attachment with another woman. There have always been a lot of men around, obviously. But I've never cared much for men my own age." Her eyes froze on Jill's. "Which brings us to David."
Jill held her breath.
"I took one look at your husband and—well, you know. I don't have to tell you." She looked away. "He's quite overwhelming, isn't he? Everything about him. The way he moves, the way he talks, the way he thinks—-"
"You know what he thinks?" Jill interrupted.
"I know how he thinks," Nicole corrected. "He's a brilliant lawyer. I've watched him a few times since that morning we were all in court. He's never less than incredible."
Jill hoped her eyes didn't register the surprise she felt at hearing of Nicole's subsequent trips to observe David in court. Why hadn’t David told her?
"What can I say?" Nicole asked. "I guess it's like a high school kid with a crush on her teacher. David is everything I ever wanted." Jill looked away, not sure she wanted to continue this discussion. She remembered using almost the same phrase when she had described David to her mother some six years before. "I remember when my mother and I used to talk about men," Nicole said, as if reading Jill's thoughts, “and she always said I should find someone whom I really respected. Someone who respected me. Well, right from the first, David treated me with respect. There aren't a whole lot of women lawyers at Weatherby, Ross. Not proportionately, anyway, and when I first walked in at the end of May, well, I took a lot of kidding. A lot of the men had trouble reconciling the way I look with the way I can do my job. Except for David. He treated me like a lawyer from the start. In fact, it didn't take me long to start wishing that he'd think of me more as a woman than as an attorney, and once I thought of that, well, fantasies don't need much room to grow. I knew he was married. I heard from some of the secretaries that his wife was tall and used to work in television and that David had left his first wife to marry her—you," she added, unnecessarily.
Jill said nothing, still pondering the secretaries' description of her—tall and used to work in television. Did that really sum her up?
“I guess I've just been watching too many soap operas," Nicole said disarmingly. "When I saw you at the picnic, I thought I might as well be brazen about the whole thing and come right out with my intentions. I may even have realized you'd tell David. I guess I thought he'd be intrigued enough to, I don't know, approach me, maybe. I thought that once I got him into bed, the rest would fall into place." She stopped talking. Both women looked directly at each other. It was at least a minute before Nicole spoke again.
"Anyway, I knew how edgy you were at Don's house the other week and I decided to come today to try and explain, to apologize. I’m sorry that I said those things at the picnic." She waited for Jill to speak, her eyes still fogged with the threat of tears.
Jill felt strangely sorry for the girl despite the open admission of her feelings toward David, or maybe because of them. She felt her shoulders slump with relief. It was over. Nicole Clark—Nicki—was pulling in her long magenta fingernails and backing away. The game was over. She had won.
"That's all right," Jill said, finding her voice. "I guess we all say stupid things occasionally. Things we don't mean—"
Nicole's voice caught Jill by surprise. She wasn't through being magnanimous. It wasn't time for Nicole to interrupt. Her words hit Jill with all the force of a sharp slap across the face. "I didn't say I didn't mean them," Nicole said, her eyes suddenly very dry—("I'm Nicole Clark. I'm going to marry your husband.")—"I just said that I was sorry I said them."
Before Jill had sufficient time to recover, the other woman was gone.
Chapter 10
It was five forty-eight when the phone rang. David reached over and fumbled for the alarm on the clock radio before he realized that the insistent ring wasn't music and that it wasn't time for him to get up yet.
"Well, answer it," Jill said groggily, si
tting up beside him. "God, I hope everybody's all right." It was the first thing she thought of whenever the phone rang when it shouldn't.
David picked up the receiver. "Hello?" he demanded.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," the voice sang as if through a meat grinder. David looked at his wife in disbelief, holding the phone up so that Jill could hear. "Happy birthday, dear fuckface, happy birthday to you!"
"For Christ's sake, Elaine, it's not even six o'clock."
Jill could hear Elaine's voice clearly on the other end. “Yes, but if I waited another few minutes, you'd be in the shower. You see, I remember all your habits. And I didn't want to miss the opportunity of letting you know how I feel." She paused. "You're getting on, old boy. Forty-five, isn't it?"
"Elaine—"
"No, wait, I have something to say."
"You always do."
“I was thinking about your life insurance policy.''
"What about it?" Jill and David, the phone now resting between them, exchanged puzzled glances.
"Is it all paid up?"
David shook his head in disgust. "What are you getting at, Elaine?"
"Well," the woman replied, "when I realized it was your forty-fifth birthday, it occurred to me that you are, after all, only mortal, and that with your workload and your other assorted—appetites, shall we say—that it's just conceivable you might drop dead on all of us one of these days."
David moved the phone to his other ear. "I’m hanging up, Elaine."
"So I think you should change your policy." Jill heard Elaine's voice as clearly as if she were right there in the bed between them.
"You think I should change my policy," David repeated numbly.
"To include me." She paused, giving her ex-husband time to absorb her words. "Because if you should suddenly die, I'd be out in the cold. I mean, the money would just stop, wouldn't it?"
David started to laugh. "It almost gives one something to look forward to," he said.
"Well, as the mother of your children, surely you'll want to make sure they're protected—"
"My children will be looked after, Elaine."
"And me?"
"Goodbye, Elaine." David hung up the phone, allowing his body to fall back against his pillow. "Jesus," he said. "Can you believe that?"
"She never misses an opportunity," Jill said, snuggling up to her husband. "Where does she get her ideas? And at six in the morning—"
"She's been calling the office all week. I haven't answered any of her calls."
Jill ran her band across her husband’s chest feeling the blond hairs beneath her fingers stand up and rub against her flesh, like a cat brushing up against a pair of bare legs. The thought of cats began tickling at her nose, and she instinctively moved h^ hand away to block an imaginary sneeze.
“Why'd you move your hand?" be asked.
”I thought I was going to sneeze” she answered, moving her hand back to its previous position.
"Lower," he said.
''Happy birthday," she whispered, stretching over and kissing him, her hand moving down his body.
"I'm getting old” he said, almost to himself.
“Oh, don't let Elaine get to you, forty-five isn't old. It's barely middle-aged."
"Really?" he asked. "How many ninety-year-olds do you know running around?"
She laughed. "Well, they're not exactly running—" He sighed. "Oh, God” Jill said suddenly, sitting up but leaving her hand where it was, "you're not having a mid-life crisis, are you?"
"If you're not going to show a little respect for my age," he admonished playfully, "at least make yourself useful."
He forced her head down to where her hand was.
Jill moved herself into a more comfortable position, thinking of the man she was ministering to, remembering the first time she had seen him nude, the first time they had made love, when she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. He'd been so overwhelmingly physical. Their first two years together had been so intense. It couldn't have gone on that way forever, she realized, trying to move her bead up so they could align their bodies for consummation. But his hand held her head down firmly. He was not interested in consummation this morning. What the hell, she thought, addressing herself to the task at hand (at mouth?) with renewed vigor. It's his birthday!
This thought catapulted her mind ahead to the evening to come. Jason, freshly back from camp, and Laurie, bored after a week back home with nothing to do, would be coming for dinner. As would the rest of David's family and her own parents. The first time she'd had the courage to invite everyone over together. How, was she going to get everything ready on time, she wondered, thinking of the menu she'd planned and the shopping she had to do. She was even baking David's birthday cake this year. Luckily, Fridays were a light day at the university. She'd canceled her morning class, which left two in the afternoon. Hopefully, by then she'd have everything under control. She felt herself beginning to worry. Maybe she'd taken on too much. David was always telling her she bit off more than she could chew. David, she thought. My God! Biting, chewing! What was she doing to him? He groaned, his hand still gripping her head. Had she hurt him? This was awful. How could she be doing this? Thinking about menus and classes when she was supposed to be caught up in the throes of passion.
David would know. He always knew what she was thinking. He'd know her mind had been elsewhere. He'd be hurt, angry. He might not even come, she thought with dismay, which would leave him frustrated and unsatisfied, the perfect target for Nicole's subtle advances. Nicole, she thought angrily. The dear thing had been quiet again the last few weeks, no phone calls, and no surprise appearances. David hadn't so much as mentioned her name. But then David hadn't mentioned Nicole's visits to court with him either. It made them even, she decided—she hadn't told David about Nicole's visit to Rita Carrington's. What good would it have done? She'd take her cue from David and act as if nothing had happened. It was better to let the whole thing rest. Let it die of boredom—what was she doing? What was she thinking about? Concentrate, for God's sake, concentrate.
She was aware of some faint groaning in the background. David. Had she hurt him? She tried to move her head but the hand held firm. The groans grew louder.
''Jesus, Jill," he gasped, then suddenly exploded. Jill gulped several times, swallowing hard before she felt his hand relax and she was able to sit up. "That was incredible, Jill,'' he said, kissing her forehead.”Wow! I think that was the best you've ever done."
Wonderful, Jill thought, and I missed it.
David pulled her close against him. Jill thought of that other morning not long ago when her dream had awakened them at a similar hour and David had responded by dragging her into the shower. Perhaps he'd do the same today. She began playing with the hairs on his chest. This time they lay still and soft, a kitten well fed and purring contentedly. Her body longed to be touched, caressed—
She heard a slight click and suddenly sounds of Stevie Wonder filled the room. David reached over and turned down the volume with one hand, while his other arm extricated itself from around Jill's shoulders.
"Time to get up," he said, moving quickly out of bed.
Jill sat up. "Feel like some company in the shower?"
He smiled. "Not this morning, honey, okay? I have a really busy day ahead of me." He paused. "You angry?"
"Just disappointed," she admitted, trying to look brave, the way Ali MacGraw had in Love Story.
"I'll make it up to you." He waited until he saw her smile. "Why don't you go back to sleep for a couple of hours?"
"No, I'm too awake for that," she said. "Besides, I have a lot to do, too. It's your birthday party tonight, remember?"
"Oh, shit. I forgot."
"You don't have a meeting, I hope—"
"No," he assured her. "I don't think so. I'm sure there's nothing—"
"Please try not to be late. I have the whole family coming—"
"I’ll try” he said, before disappearing do
wn the hall.
Jill sat on the bed, the words of Elaine’s caustic birthday greeting filling her head. The woman must still have so much hate inside her, she thought. After all these years. What could make a woman hang on so tightly to that much hate? A man, her thoughts responded to Ricki Elfer's voice. A man could make you hate that much.
"Let's get out of bed and go to Winston's for brunch!" she whooped, jumping out of bed and pulling the covers off his naked body.
"It's two o'clock in the afternoon," he laughed, making no move to cover his nakedness. She could see he was already aroused.
"Well, then, we'll have lunch, or afternoon tea or something." She moved to the window and looked out, saw her landlady and the Doberman out sunning in the backyard.
"The 'or something' sounds good," he said, coming up behind her and covering her breasts with his hands.
"What are you doing?" she squirmed, smiling widely. "Hey—what—" He was lifting her body up, fitting himself into her from behind. "Mrs. Everly's downstairs," she reminded him. "What if she looks up?"
"Then she'll see two very happy people."
"And you’ll probably have to start looking for a new apartment."
"That would suit me," he said. "I still don't think this neighborhood is very safe."
"Yeah," she agreed, feeling her breath starting to get shorter. "You never know when someone might sneak up behind you—"
They finally went out for something to eat at around four o'clock. Jill was as happy as she could remember being in a long time. They'd had the whole day—a day of loving and talking and being together. It seemed that there were no problems in their way, no people they had to consider, feelings they had to be mindful of hurting. There was only their love for each other.
“Smile and wave," he was saying, as he drove to the restaurant.
“What?" she asked, cognizant of the change in his tone.
"Smile and wave," he repeated through clenched teeth. Obviously, something was wrong but this was not the time to ask what it was. She turned her head to the right, smiled at the two women in the silver Buick, acknowledging them with a nod of her head instead of a wave of her hand. The women smiled back—had the driver looked vaguely puzzled as well?—and continued driving. No one had said anything.