The Other Woman

  The Other Woman By Joy Fielding

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 1

  "Excuse me, Mrs. Plumley?”

  The girl was young and pretty, with large breasts and a surprisingly husky voice. Jill Plumley shifted uncomfortably, the heels of her shoes making fresh holes in the uneven knoll of newly manicured grass. She had wanted to wear flat shoes—it was an outdoor picnic, after all, even if it was being held at the chic Rosedale Country Club—but David had insisted that all the other wives would be more formally dressed, and he was right. Except for this girl, who wore a casual red T-shirt and a pair of defiantly non-designer jeans pulled tight across her equally defiant young bottom? Whose wife was she anyway?

  Jill smiled, quickly taking in the girl's violet eyes and flawless skin, artfully made up to look as if she wore no makeup at all. Her discomfort increased when she realized she was being similarly inspected. She felt instantly self-conscious about her hair—it always looked as if she were just about to comb it—and her height—five foot nine inches. This girl had silky black hair and stood a more reasonable five foot six, or so Jill quickly estimated, feeling her own shoulders slump instinctively to compensate for the difference in eye level, feeling generally awkward and too large, the bull in the china shop confronted by the porcelain doll.

  "Yes?" It was half-statement, half-question. Yes, I am!

  Mrs. Plumley; yes, what is it you want? Jill was surprised at how husky her own voice had suddenly become.

  The girls face lit into a broad, perfect smile. "I'm Nicole Clark," she said, extending her hand. "I'm going to marry your husband.''

  Everything stopped. Like a movie which suddenly snaps in mid-reel, the annual firm picnic of Weatherby, Ross jerked violently out of sync and was abruptly pulled from view.

  It was one of those days. She'd known it from the minute her stomach had catapulted her out of bed toward the bathroom at not quite seven that morning to rebel against the shrimp dinner of the night before. David had followed her with his spray can of Lysol and there they had remained, alternately heaving and spraying, until Jill was able to sustain sufficient breath to yell at David to kindly stop that damn spraying—the smell was making her sick. He, in turn, wished her a happy anniversary—their fourth—and got back into bed, leaving her to contend with the final arrangements for picking up the two children from his previous marriage and bringing them to the picnic, an event they looked forward to with almost as much anticipation as a trip to the dentist's. Or a visit with their stepmother.

  On top of all that. Her Royal Highness, the first Mrs. Plumley, had greeted Jill at the door to David's palatial former home— looking just past her as if she really wasn't there—to request that David and Jill also feed the children supper—she had a date.

  An anniversary, an upset stomach, two hostile stepchildren, her husband's ex-wife, and now this. Jill stared wordlessly at the girl, this Nicole Clark, who stared back as directly and pleasantly as if she'd just asked her for the correct time. Slowly, the scene around her began to reform, regain its shape and colors, and impose its reality on the absurdity of the situation. She was standing in the middle of some one hundred lawyers, all members of one of Chicago's largest and most prestigious law firms, their various spouses and offspring. It was a white-hot day in the middle of June; her sundress was sticking to her back and underarms; her white shoes were slowly burying themselves into the soft earth beneath her, and she was talking to a girl at least a decade younger than herself, with perfect skin and hair that didn't frizz up with the humidity, who had just informed her that she was going to marry her husband.

  It had to be a joke. Someone—possibly even David— had put the girl up to it as a gag on their anniversary. Jill allowed her mouth to relax into a friendly grin, feeling a little foolish at having taken so long to catch on to what was happening.

  "This isn't a joke," the girl said, reading Jill's mind. "I'm very serious." Jill's grin stretched even farther across her face. This girl was good, whoever she was. Maybe even a professional actress brought in especially for the occasion or possibly she was a client of David's. That thought made Jill vaguely uncomfortable, recalling as it did a remark her mother had made to her once long ago and one she had confronted David with on their first memorable meeting. Then she had appeared in her role of brash young television producer and him as the ever-cocky, potential interviewee, one of the city's most successful divorce attorneys and quite probably the most gorgeous hunk of legal training she had ever seen. Without seeming to move her eyes, she had taken in his artistic face, his athletic body and his plain gold wedding band, and thought of her mother's caustic observance when her cousin Ruth had begun dating the divorced divorce attorney who had handled Ruth's own recent separation. Is it true, Jill had asked David almost six years previously, wishing that her mother's casual observations weren't so frequently uncannily astute, that divorce lawyers who are themselves divorced often fool around with their clients? I couldn't answer that, he had stated, a wicked half-smile slowly curving the comers of his mouth, I've never been divorced. How long have you been married? She pushed, knowing the question was irrelevant, not anywhere in her notes. Fifteen years, he said, his face suddenly without expression.

  Jill continued grinning at Nicole, hoping nevertheless that she wasn't a client. She had also had enough of the gag and wished fervently that the girl, whoever she was, would just take her magenta fingernails and go home.

  "I thought it was only fair to warn you," Nicole continued, about to say more.

  'That's enough," Jill said, cutting her off abruptly, surprising them both with the sudden fierceness of her tone, the soft huskiness having disappeared altogether from her voice.

  "I mean," she continued, softening, "you had me going a bit there, I admit it. So it was a cute gag and V\ get a good laugh out of it when I tell my friends, but the trick is to leave 'em laughing—"

  “This isn't a joke," the girl repeated.

  Jill's mouth closed tight. Her voice turned low, barely audible against the sound of her heart pumping fresh blood past her ears. "Then I think you better get the hell away from me." Jill drew her body up to its full height, pushing her shoulders back as proudly as if she had just been named this year's Posture Queen, and stared down at Nicole Clark. I am not afraid of you, she shouted wordlessly. I am not afraid of you or your youth or your threats.

  Nicole Clark shrugged, her smile undisturbed. With almost deliberate slowness, she turned in a half circle and disappeared into the well-dressed crowd.

  Where was David? Jill suddenly wondered, spinning around quickly, feeling her body shaking with sudden indignation as she searched the crowd, recognizing that despite her earlier self-assurances, she had never been so afraid in all her thirty-four years. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of Nicole snaking her way languorously through the crowd, smiling comfortably at those she passed, obviously headed in a specific direction. Where? Jill watched her with fresh intensity.

  “Jill Plumley!" The voice was male and carried with it a recognizable
insistence. Reluctantly, Jill turned in its direction. "I said to Harvey, if anyone knows the answer to this one, it's Jill Plumley. Jill knows trivia.”

  Jill smiled at Al Weatherby, the firm's original founding father, though he hardly looked the role with his wiry boy's body and wavy brown hair, and subtly angled her glance back toward the crowd. She couldn't find Nicole.

  "Who's the girl who starred with Dick Benjamin in The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker?" he asked, his broad smile filling his face. “I bet Harvey Prescott fifty dollars you'd know the answer." Harvey Prescott hovered anxiously nearby.

  “Joanna Shimkus," Jill answered absently, her body shifting slightly.

  "No, not the wife. The other one—you know, the other woman, the real sexy one who sprawled out on the bed and lifted her skirt—"

  "Tiffany Boiling," she answered, feeling her body being pulled like a magnet toward the crowd.

  "Right!" she heard him call after her as she moved away. "You're terrific! I knew you'd know! Did you hear that, Harvey?"

  Jill hoped she hadn't been too noticeably rude as she pushed herself farther into the crowd. Al Weatherby was more than just the kingpin of a successful law firm who had single-handedly built his own legal empire from its humble beginnings over a drycleaner's shop. He was the man most responsible for her husband's own rapid rise to prominence, the one who had recognized David's early potential and first brought him into the growing firm, nurturing and guiding him along the way, and in the process becoming a close personal friend. He had even taught the two wary novices to play bridge, displaying at all times the legendary patience he was most noted for. She heard him laugh, turned in his direction in time to catch his playful wink, and realized she needn't have worried. Al Weatherby was not a man who took easy offense. Her mind returned quickly to the girl in the red T-shirt.

  Nicole Clark had disappeared. Maybe she went home, Jill hoped, taking a deep breath and doing a quick turn. She caught sight of David's daughter, Laurie, sulking over by the dessert table (though she would never touch a bite of anything on it), and his son Jason halfheartedly deigning to participate in an impromptu game of hide-and-seek with some of the other, more animated youngsters. Were all teenagers this sullen? Jill found herself suddenly smiling, the thought of Nicole having to contend with these two delights making her feel instantly better. Laurie's younger brother, though not yet into his teens, bore an uncomfortable resemblance to his mother, and was almost unbearably shy. If either youngster smiled at all, especially in her presence, it was usually to the accompaniment of news that their mother was going back to court to ask for an increase in alimony payments or that she was about to re-carpet the entire house in white plush because she was feeling a little low since her return from her holiday in Europe and was in need of perking up. For a man of David's considerable reputation, he'd certainly been taken for a royal ride when it came to his own divorce. Judges were always toughest on members of the legal profession, David had explained, quickly bypassing seventeen years of marriage, two children and an undisclosed number of illicit liaisons, their own included.

  Laurie looked directly at her, shooting her a look filled with such perfect disdain that Jill almost had to admire the skinny child's skill, for it told her in a glance that not only was she still considered a homewrecker six years after the fact, an interloper, an outsider, a temporary inconvenience who would surely be discarded when their father came to his senses—in short, a total yuck—but she was also weird, dumb, gross and all those other peculiar adjectives fourteen-year-olds seem so drawn to.

  I did not break up your parents' marriage, Jill tried to communicate to the young girl with her eyes, recalling Elizabeth Taylor's choice remark when Eddie Fisher left Debbie Reynolds to her diaper pins and pigtails—you can't break up a happy marriage. Laurie turned away from Jill's gaze. Sure, she thought, expect a fourteen-year-old girl to buy that one! Did Debbie Reynolds buy it?

  Jason appeared, accidentally brushing up against her side, the heel of his shoe jamming into her exposed toes. “0h," he said, recognizing her. "S-sorry. Did—did I step on you?"

  "It's all right," Jill told him, trying subtly to extricate her right foot from the earth which now covered it. "I have another one." Jason looked close to tears. "Sorry, old joke," she continued, forcing a chuckle. "So—are you having a good time?" Why was she asking that? Any idiot could see the answer.

  "It's okay," he answered slowly, so as not to stutter, a stutter which Elaine had been quick to point out had only developed after his father had left home, and which served as a constant reminder to David of his failure as a parent. The boy had lately taken to talking more slowly in an effort to control it. If only David's guilt could be as easily controlled, Jill thought, watching Jason, who always appeared so much older than his years. She could almost hear his mother's voice—you're the man of the house now, Jason.

  For an instant, Jill felt the overwhelming urge to throw her arms around the young boy, but the look in Jason's eyes suddenly hardened and Jill felt herself pull back as Jason shuffled away, his growing boredom reflected in his walk. Maybe he'd find his father, persuade him to leave the picnic early.

  Where was David?

  Jill found him posed beneath a monstrous weeping willow —an appropriately dramatic setting, she thought— engaged in what even from this distance she could recognize was an earnest, and therefore, probably long, conversation with one of his partners, a conversation nobody would dare to interrupt. She felt her body relax a little, the acid in her stomach gamely trying to return to its normal level, admittedly never low.

  Just looking at him made her feel good. People were always telling her he looked like Robert Redford, but even with his wheat-blond hair falling carelessly across his forehead and his mischievous pale green eyes, she thought that was stretching things a bit. What he was, however, was absolutely, unquestionably handsome, and if he lacked the singular presence that went into the making of a major movie idol, well, so what? She doubted that Robert Redford knew the difference between a tort and a tart. She only hoped David would remember, thinking unwillingly of Nicole Clark.

  Undoubtedly, if you were going to be objective about it, they made the more appropriate-looking couple, her husband and this other woman. They complemented each other well, both sculpted from the same mold of casual perfection. Even her black hair coordinated with his blondness, each accenting and highlighting the other. The hell with being objective, Jill suddenly decided, shaking her own reddish mane, feeling several stray hairs sticking spitefully to her back. In happier moods, she told herself she looked like Carly Simon, but as no one else had ever commented on the resemblance, she had concluded that it must be somewhat subtle. At any rate, it didn't really matter. She was the one David had married—and he'd left one conventionally attractive woman in order to do so. Somehow the thought of her husband's earlier infidelity and divorce didn't make her feel any better. She wanted to go home. Perhaps she could plead illness—her stomach, the heat—

  "So, how's university life?"

  The voice startled her and she visibly jumped, turning to confront Beth Weatherby, wife of Al and one of the few office wives with whom she felt any sort of kinship at all.

  “Fine," Jill lied, seeing instantly that Beth didn't believe her.

  "The hell it is," laughed Beth, who was, at forty-five, twelve years younger than her husband. They had been married twenty-seven years, a fact which constantly amazed Jill: to know what it was you wanted when you were eighteen and to still want the same thing almost three decades later. "I saw Al trying to comer you before,'' Beth said, as if recognizing Jill's sudden change of thought.” Honestly, a grown man and he's just like a kid. He sat up half the night trying to think up movie trivia that would stump you." Jill laughed. "You really miss it, don't you?" she asked suddenly.

  "Miss what?" Jill asked, although she already knew the answer to the question.

  "Television," came the expected response.

  "Yes," Jill said
simply, her attention suddenly diverted anew by the sight of Nicole Clark re-emerging and maneuvering her way toward David. Jill watched as her husband moved to include the newcomer easily in the conversation.

  "Who is that?" she asked Beth Weatherby.

  Beth looked toward the towering weeping willow. "The girl talking to your husband? I can't remember her name, but she's new. One of the law students, I think, working at Weatherby, Ross for the summer."

  "She's going to be a lawyer?"

  "Al says she's very good. Very smart. In fact, now that I remember it, he hasn't spoken as highly of anyone since he met David and asked him to join the firm. He says she has an absolutely brilliant future ahead of her. Wouldn't you know she'd be absolutely gorgeous to boot!"

  Jill felt her stomach beginning to turn over. "Excuse me, I'm not feeling very well." She retreated to an unoccupied corner of grass. She felt her heels submerge, locking her in place. Beth Weatherby was instantly at her side, pulling some large white pills from out of her yellow straw bag.

  "Antacid," she explained before Jill could ask. "Take a couple."

  Jill did as she was told and put the two tablets in her mouth.

  "Chew them."

  Jill began to chew, her face reflecting growing displeasure.

  "I know, they're terrible. Taste just like chalk. But they work. I’ve been taking them for more years than I can remember. Ulcers," she said, again not waiting for the obvious question.

  "Why do you have ulcers?" Jill asked, genuinely surprised.

  "Occupational hazard," Beth said, smiling. "Lawyer's wife." /

  Not to mention having raised three children, Jill thought, remembering that David had recently told her that the youngest, a boy of seventeen, had dropped out of school to join the Hare Krishnas. At the same time David was telling her this, he had given Jill permission to shoot his own son should a similar insanity ever overtake the boy.