The First Time Read online

  Jake drove slowly south along the Edens Expressway from Old Orchard Road, where Lisa’s office was situated, his hands strangling the wheel as if he were afraid that, should he loosen his grip, he would lose control altogether. Mattie saw the tense white skin pulling at his knuckles, distorting the raised and ragged boundaries of the scar that covered three of those knuckles, the result of a childhood accident he’d always refused to discuss. Was he tense because of the shocking news Mattie had just received, or because he was driving her to a possible tryst with another man? Did he really care about either?

  Mattie had called home from the car to check her messages and learned that Roy was running an hour behind schedule. He’d suggested meeting at a steak-house called Black Ram, located on Oakton Road in nearby Des Plaines. No problem, Mattie thought, except for Jake, who insisted on driving her.

  “You can let me out over there,” Mattie said suddenly, pointing toward the Old Orchard Shopping Center, just off the expressway on Golf Road.

  Jake immediately flipped off the radio, the resulting silence as deafening as the shrieking it replaced. “Why there?”

  “I have over an hour to kill.” Mattie almost laughed at her choice of words. “I might as well walk around the mall.”

  “How will you get to the restaurant?”

  Mattie thought that if he’d only worried about her as much before he walked out, they might still be together. “Jake, I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” he insisted, confusion lining his face like a series of unfriendly new wrinkles.

  “Well, I still have about a year left, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “For God’s sake, Mattie, that’s not the point.”

  “No. The point is that I’m a big girl. And I’m not your responsibility anymore. I don’t think I need your permission to go to the mall.”

  Jake sighed his frustration, shook his head, turned the car onto Golf Road, signaling at the entrance to the large upscale shopping center. “Why don’t we go somewhere for a cup of coffee?” he suggested, obviously deciding to try a different approach.

  “I’m having lunch in an hour,” she reminded him.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Mattie,” Jake began, pulling into the first available parking spot, between a red Dodge and a silver Toyota, shutting off the engine. “You’ve just had a terrible shock. We both have.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Mattie insisted. “As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing is a huge mistake. End of discussion.”

  “We need to figure out what we’re going to do, how we’re going to tell Kim, what steps we should be taking-”

  “How come when you don’t want to talk about something, then we don’t talk about it, but when I say the discussion is over, that doesn’t matter?” Mattie demanded angrily.

  “I just want to help you,” Jake said, his voice cracking, threatening to break.

  Mattie turned away, not wanting to acknowledge Jake’s pain. If she acknowledged it, she’d have to feel it, and she couldn’t afford to do that. “Lighten up, Jake,” Mattie said, opening the car door. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s all a big mistake. I’m perfectly fine.”

  Jake leaned back against the dark leather headrest, his eyes drifting toward the tinted sunroof above his head. “Can I call you later?”

  “What will your girlfriend say about that?” Mattie stepped out of the car, not waiting for a reply.

  “Mattie—”

  “How’d you get that scar on the back of your knuckles?” she asked, surprising them both, then waited, leaning on the car door, watching the remaining color drain from Jake’s worried face, and the blue of his eyes go from murky to opaque. Spotlight on you now, Jake, she thought, knowing how uncomfortable he was discussing his past. Would he plead memory loss, grow sullen and evasive? Or would he make something up, tell her anything to get her off his back?

  Jake absently massaged the spot in question. “When I was about four years old, my mother held a hot iron over my hand,” he said quietly.

  “My God.” Mattie’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  He shrugged. “What was the point?”

  “The point was, I was your wife.”

  “And what could you have done?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I could have helped.”

  “That’s all I want now, Mattie,” Jake said, managing to shift the focus of the conversation back to her, to get himself out of the spotlight’s harsh glare. “To help in any way I can.”

  Mattie straightened up, looked toward the mall, then back at Jake. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her voice was cold, constricted. “Drive carefully,” she said, shutting the car door and walking away without a backward glance.

  Half an hour later Mattie walked into a small travel agency called Gulliver’s Travel, located at the far west end of the Old Orchard Shopping Center, and dropped the two large shopping bags she was carrying in front of the first available desk. “I’d like to book a ticket to Paris,” she said, sitting down before she was invited and smiling at the plump, middle-aged woman, whose nameplate identified her as Vicki Reynolds. Mattie quickly surmised that Vicki Reynolds was one of those people who made a habit of looking busier than she actually was, her hands constantly aflutter, her face pinched in mock concentration. Right now she was making a great show of entering information into her computer.

  “If you’ll just give me a second,” Vicki Reynolds said, not looking up.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Mattie told her, then laughed.

  The travel agent glanced toward the two desks behind her, but both agents were busy with customers. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Mattie sat back in her seat, grateful for the opportunity to sit down. She’d been running around like a lunatic since leaving Jake’s car, racing from store to store, looking at this, trying on that, ultimately emerging with three new sweaters, including one in pink angora, two pairs of black pants, because you could never have too many pairs of black pants, a pair of Robert Clergerie shoes in forest green suede that the salesman assured her would go with anything, and a stunning new Calvin Klein jacket in bloodred leather. The jacket cost a small fortune, but the saleswoman claimed it was a classic and would never go out of style. She’d have it forever, the woman told her. “Forever,” Mattie repeated, admiring herself in the full-length mirror. She’d worry about paying for it later.

  She should also start thinking of buying a new car, she decided. She couldn’t drive around in a rented Oldsmobile indefinitely. Sooner or later she’d have to buy a car of her own, so it might as well be sooner, although she’d never shopped for a car by herself. This would be a whole new experience for her, which was good, Mattie decided. It was time to experience new things. Maybe she’d buy herself a sports car, one of those spiffy little foreign jobs in bright tomato red. Or maybe something homemade, like a Corvette. She’d always wanted a Corvette. It was Jake who’d discouraged her, pointing out how impractical it was for her to have a two-seater car, especially if she had to chauffeur Kim and her friends around the suburbs. But Jake was no longer part of her decision-making process, and most of Kim’s friends drove cars of their own. So, if ever there was a time for a shiny red sports car, this was it, finances be damned. Tomorrow morning she’d put on her pink angora sweater, her black pants, her green suede shoes, her Calvin Klein leather jacket, and go out shopping for a shiny new Corvette. Maybe she’d ask Roy Crawford to tag along.

  “Now, what is it I can do for you?” Vicki Reynolds asked, finally looking up from her computer and greeting Mattie with an alarmingly line-free face, her skin so taut and stretched she looked as if she’d confronted a hurricane head-on.

  “I’d like a first-class ticket to Paris,” Mattie said, trying not to stare.

  “Sounds good,” the agent told her, hands fluttering, lips pulling back stiffly into some
thing approximating a smile. “When would you like to go?”

  Mattie ran through a number of options in her head. It was already October, and she didn’t want her first time in Paris to be in winter, when the predominant color of the landscape would be gray. Summer was too crowded, full of students and tourists, and besides, what would she do with Kim? Much as she loved her daughter, Paris was a city she associated with romance, not teenage girls. She wanted her first time there to be carefree and romantic. Maybe she’d even talk Roy Crawford into joining her. “April,” Mattie announced decisively. “April in Paris. What could be more perfect?”

  “April in Paris it is,” Vicki Reynolds agreed, her smile a straight line that twitched only slightly at the corners of her mouth, as Mattie leaned back in her chair and grinned from ear to ear.

  “So, why do women do such terrible things to their faces?” Roy Crawford asked over his second glass of expensive red Burgundy.

  They were sitting in an intimate corner of the small restaurant, its decor typical of most steakhouses, wood-paneled, masculine, dark even in the middle of the day, and they were eating fat, juicy steaks and baked potatoes heaped with sour cream, an indulgence Mattie hadn’t permitted herself in years.

  “Why do women do such things?!” Mattie’s voice was incredulous. “How can you, of all people, ask a question like that?”

  “What do you mean, Me, of all people?” Roy Crawford patted his full head of gray hair, smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle out of his pale blue silk tie.

  “Because you keep trading in your wives for younger and younger models. You’re living with a teenybopper, for God’s sake.”

  “That has less to do with the way she looks and more with her general attitude toward life. You look very beautiful, I might add,” he continued in the same breath.

  “Thank you, but—”

  “If you hadn’t told me about the accident, I’d never have guessed.”

  “Thank you,” Mattie said again, not sure why she was thanking Roy Crawford for being so unobservant. “But you can’t seriously be trying to tell me that looks have nothing to do with why men go for younger women.”

  “I didn’t say looks had nothing to do with it. I said looks were less important than attitude.”

  “So, if a middle-aged woman with great attitude walked in here beside a sullen young blonde with great tits, you’d choose age over beauty?”

  “I’d choose neither, since I’m already lunching with one of the most attractive women in Chicago.”

  Mattie smiled, despite herself. “I suggest that the reason women, like the travel agent I was telling you about, feel the need to go under the knife is that they think they have no choice. They have to compete with women half their age for an ever-decreasing market of available men.”

  “Maybe they’re not competing with other women,” Roy Crawford said. “Maybe it’s not men they’re doing it for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe they’re competing with themselves, with the image of who they used to be. Maybe they just don’t want to get old.”

  “There are worse things than growing old,” Mattie said.

  “Name one.” Roy laughed, took a huge bite out of his steak.

  “Dying young,” Mattie said, laying down her fork, her appetite rapidly evaporating. She shook her head, tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Live hard, die young, leave a beautiful corpse,” Roy Crawford recited. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

  “Is that how you want to die?”

  “Me? Die? No way. I’m going to live forever.”

  “Is that why you keep going after younger and younger women? As a way of staving off death?”

  Roy Crawford stared across the small table, his fingers brushing invisible crumbs from the surface of the white linen tablecloth. “You’re starting to sound a little like my ex-wives,” he whispered.

  “Why do men cheat on their wives?” Mattie asked, suddenly shifting gears.

  Roy Crawford sat back in his chair, took a deep breath. “Is this some sort of test?” he asked.

  “Test?”

  “Do I get a prize if I come up with the right answer?”

  “Do you know the right answer?”

  “I have an answer for everything.”

  “That’s why I asked you.”

  Roy Crawford took another sip of his wine, hunched his upper torso over the table. “Do you have a tape recorder hidden under that pretty silk blouse?”

  “You want to search me?” Mattie asked, deliberately provocative.

  “Now that’s an interesting thought.”

  “First you have to answer the question.”

  “I forgot it,” Roy said sheepishly, and they both laughed.

  “Why do men cheat on their wives?”

  Roy Crawford shrugged, laughed, looked the other way. “You know the old joke, Why does a dog lick its privates?”

  “No,” Mattie said, wondering at the connection.

  “Because he can,” Roy answered, and laughed again.

  “You’re saying that men cheat on their wives because they can? That’s it?”

  “Men are basically simple creatures,” Roy said.

  “Is that why you’re here with me now?” Mattie asked.

  “I’m here because you invited me to lunch to discuss buying some new art for my apartment,” he reminded her.

  “The one you share with Miss Teenage America.”

  “She’s very mature,” Roy said, with a sly twinkle.

  Mattie smiled. “I’m sure she gives great attitude.”

  Roy Crawford threw his head back and laughed out loud, revealing a mouthful of perfect teeth. “That she does.”

  “Then, I repeat, what are you doing here with me?”

  “Maybe the question would be better phrased, What are you doing here with me?”

  “My husband’s having an affair with another woman,” Mattie said simply.

  Roy Crawford nodded, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place behind his eyes. “And you’re looking to return the favor?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “And the other part?”

  Mattie looked aimlessly around the darkened room, trying not to see her friend Lisa lurking behind the faces of the other women diners, struggling not to hear her ominous message in the hushed tones of the women’s voices. “Maybe there is no other part,” she said.

  Again Roy Crawford laughed. “Well, thank you for your honesty, at least.”

  “You’re angry,” Mattie said.

  “On the contrary. I’m flattered. I mean, I guess I would have been more flattered had you spoken of how handsome I am, how irresistible you find me, but revenge is good. I’ll settle for revenge. When did you have in mind?”

  Mattie searched his eyes for signs he might be mocking her, found none. “My afternoon is looking pretty free,” she said.

  “Then what say we get this show on the road.” Roy grabbed his napkin from his lap, dropped it over what remained of his steak, and signaled the waiter for the check. “Where should we go?”

  Mattie was slightly taken aback by the speed at which things were progressing. This is what you wanted, she reminded herself, recalling the new satin underwear she’d purchased on her way out of the mall. “We might as well go to my place,” she offered, knowing that Kim was planning to attend an after-school football game and wouldn’t be home till dinner.

  “Not a great idea,” Roy said. “Outraged husbands have a way of turning up when you least expect them.”

  “There’s no chance of that,” Mattie said.

  “He’s out of town?”

  “He’s out, period,” Mattie explained. “He moved out a couple of weeks ago.”

  “You’re separated?” Roy Crawford looked stunned, as if he’d just crashed into a brick wall.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s a complication,” Roy acknowledged, straining for a smile.

  “A complicati
on? I would have thought it was just the opposite.”

  “How can I put this?” Roy Crawford shook his massive head. “I quit school at sixteen, never even graduated. But I’ve done very well in life—why? Two reasons. One, I follow the opportunities, and two, I keep things as simple as possible. Now, if you were still living with your husband, then our getting together would be one of those great opportunities, a simple matter of two grown-ups getting together for a little fun. The only thing you’d expect from me is a good time. Opportunity without obligation.” He paused, waved away the waiter, who’d approached with the bill. “The fact that you’re no longer with your husband complicates things. It means your expectation level has changed.”

  “I don’t expect anything from you,” Mattie protested.

  “You don’t right now. But you will. Trust me, I speak from experience.” He paused, looked around the room, then leaned in closer, as if about to impart some deep, dark secret. “At the very least, you’ll expect a relationship. You deserve a relationship. But I don’t want any more relationships. I don’t want to have to remember your birthday or go with you to pick out a new car.”

  Mattie gasped.

  “I’ve insulted you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “No,” Mattie said, her head spinning from the combined speed of his rejection and the accuracy of his prediction. “You haven’t insulted me. You’re absolutely right.”

  “I am?” Roy laughed. “I think you’re the first woman who ever said that to me.”