The First Time (22 page)

“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, fighting 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.

“Enough,” Kim was shouting. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“I’m not through with you, young lady,” Jake bellowed.

“No? Well, I’m through with you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s going on?” Mattie reached the bottom of
the stairs just as her husband and daughter bounded into view. They look awful, Mattie thought, their eyes flashing daggers at one another, their cheeks flushed with rage. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Dad’s gone off the deep end.” Kim threw her hands into the air, headed for the kitchen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jake demanded.

“I thought I’d get a glass of water, if that’s all right with you.” There was no disguising the contempt in Kim’s voice. What the hell happened? Mattie wondered, eyes appealing to Jake for an answer.

“She brought marijuana into the courtroom! Can you believe that?” The pained expression on Jake’s face echoed the outraged disbelief in his voice.

“What? No! That’s impossible.”

“Of all the stupid, lame-brained stunts to pull,” Jake sputtered.

“So you’ve said at least a hundred times since we got in the car,” Kim yelled from the kitchen.

“I don’t understand,” Mattie said. “There has to be some mistake.”

“The mistake was treating our daughter like a responsible human being.”

“Responsible?” Kim called out over the sound of running water. “You mean like you?”

“Please, Jake. Tell me what happened.”

“Can you imagine what would have happened if she’d been caught?”

“Think of the shame,” Kim said from the kitchen doorway, lifting her glass of water into the air in a mock toast.

“You could have been arrested. You could have been charged and sent to juvenile hall.”

“Would somebody please tell me what happened.” Mattie was almost in tears.

“Nothing happened,” Kim said flatly. “Dad’s getting all bent out of shape over nothing.”

“You smoked marijuana in court?” Mattie asked, incredulously.

Kim laughed. “Hardly.”

“No,” Jake said. “She saved that little stunt for the restaurant.” Jake began pacing back and forth in front of Mattie. “I take her over to Fredo’s—”

“A major dump,” Kim interjected.

“She acts like a total spoiled brat—”

“Hey, I didn’t want to be there in the first place. The whole stupid day was your idea.”

“The place is crawling with lawyers and cops, and she goes down to the bathroom and smokes dope. Lucky it was a friend of mine who discovered her.”

“Yeah. Real lucky,” Kim said. “She should have minded her own damn business.”

“She’s an assistant state’s attorney, for God’s sake. She could have had you arrested.”

“But she didn’t, did she? So what’s the big deal? I made a mistake. I said I was sorry. I won’t do it again. Case closed. You win. Another poor sucker bites the dust.”

“Kim, I don’t understand,” Mattie said, trying to make sense of what she was hearing.

“What is it you don’t understand, Mother?” Kim snapped.

Mattie felt the word
Mother
slap against her cheek,
as if she’d been struck. Tears filled her eyes, ran down her face.

“Watch how you talk to your mother,” Jake said.

“My mother is perfectly capable of speaking for herself. She isn’t dead yet!”

“Oh, God,” Mattie sighed, the air rushing from her body as if she’d been punctured by a sharp object.

Jake’s face grew beet red, as if someone had wiped a paintbrush across his skin, starting with his neck and stroking upward until it reached his scalp. He looked as if he were about to burst. “How could you say such a horrible thing?” he asked.

“I didn’t mean it,” Kim protested. “Mom, you know I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

“You disgust me,” Jake told his daughter.

“You
disgust
me
,” came the immediate reply.

“That’s enough. Both of you,” Mattie interjected, the bottoms of her feet tingling ominously. “If we could just go into the living room and sit down, discuss this calmly.”

“I’m going up to my room.” Kim took several long strides toward the stairs.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mattie said, grabbing her daughter’s arm.

“What? You’re taking
his
side?”

“You’re not giving me much of a choice.”

Kim wrestled her arm away from her mother with such force that Mattie lost her balance. She teetered for several seconds on feet she could barely feel, then crumpled to the floor, trembling hands extended in front of her in a vain effort to block her fall.

Kim was instantly at her side, on her knees, trying to
help her up. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” she cried repeatedly. “It was an accident. You know it was an accident.”

“Leave her alone,” Jake ordered, approaching the two women, gathering Mattie into his arms. “Get away from her.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Kim kept saying, refusing to let go of Mattie’s arm as Mattie struggled to her feet.

“Haven’t you done enough damage for one day?” Jake demanded, pushing Kim aside, so that it was her turn to lose her balance. Kim’s hands shot reflexively into the air, the glass she was holding flying toward the ceiling, the water spurting into the air like a geyser before the glass came crashing to the floor, bouncing across the rug and shattering against the wall. “Now look what you’ve done,” Jake was shouting.

“What
I’ve
done?” Kim yelled back even louder.

“Please, can we just stop this now?” Mattie pleaded.

“Clean the mess up,” Jake instructed his daughter.

“You made it. You clean it.”

“Goddamn you,” Jake shouted, his hand swooping into the air, ready to strike.

“You want to hit me?” Kim screamed. “Go on, Daddy. Hit me. Hit me!”

Mattie held her breath as Jake’s arm swayed in the air, lingering above his head for what felt like an eternity before it eventually collapsed at his side. Behind her, she heard Kim’s footsteps racing up the stairs, the door to her room slamming shut. Mattie watched as Jake fell back against the wall, hands over his closed eyes, his skin ashen. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I almost hit her.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I wanted to. I came so close.”

“But you didn’t,” Mattie repeated. She reached out her hand, withdrew it when she saw it shaking. She knew how disappointed Jake must feel, how much he’d wanted his daughter to be proud of him.
I’m
proud of you, she wanted to say, but said nothing, standing still by his side until she could no longer feel the bottoms of her feet. “I think I need to sit down.”

Jake led her into the living room, wiping tears away from his eyes and nose, settling her into the soft beige sofa, all without a spoken word.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she offered.

He swayed from one foot to the other, as if physically weighing his alternatives. “Listen, do you think you’ll be all right if I go out for a few minutes? I could really use some air.”

Mattie swallowed her disappointment. Why won’t you let me comfort you? she asked silently. “I’ll be fine,” she said out loud.