The First Time (21 page)

Kim pushed open the door to the stall of the single cubicle and lowered the toilet seat, sitting down. She didn’t need to pee. What she needed was a cigarette. And not some dumb ordinary cigarette either, but one of the special kind that Teddy had rolled for her on the weekend. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she coaxed, searching through her floppy leather purse, finding several loose joints at the bottom of her bag and lifting one to her mouth. “What are you doing? You have something caught in your teeth?” she asked, mimicking her father as she lit the sloppily rolled cigarette, giggling even before she inhaled. She sucked in a big deep breath, felt the acrid smoke immediately scorch her lungs, as she held it for a full five seconds, the way Teddy had shown her. “All my troubles up in smoke,” she said, slowly releasing her breath, the sweet taste of marijuana lingering on her tongue. She took another drag, leaned back against the exposed plumbing of the hospital-green wall, willed her body to relax. Teddy was right. Only two drags, and already her father’s words had lost a large part of their sting. Mr. Self-Righteous. Mr. Mitigating Circumstances.
Another drag, and nothing he said would hurt her. A few more, and who knew, even justice might return. My job isn’t to do justice, he’d said, quoting Sherlock Holmes or somebody like that. His job was to play the game according to the rules.

Except that he didn’t, did he? The rules of marriage dictated fidelity, loyalty, love. Jake Hart didn’t play the game according to the rules there.

Kim closed her eyes, savoring the tightness in her chest. Why had her mother allowed her father to come home anyway? They didn’t need him. She could take care of her mother until she got better. And she
would
get better, no matter what Kim had said earlier. The pills she was taking seemed to be working. She wasn’t in any pain. She looked terrific. Occasionally her foot would fall asleep and she’d lose her balance, or she’d drop something, but that could happen to anybody. No way her mother was going to lose the ability to walk, to move, to speak, to swallow, like the doctors all said. Besides, scientists were
this
close to finding a cure, her mother had assured her. Surely the two of them could have coped until then without Jake.

Kim heard footsteps on the stairs outside the tiny room, listened as they stopped in front of the bathroom door. In the next second she heard the door open and close, bent down to see a pair of black pumps and shapely calves filling the narrow space between the toilet and the sink. Kim jumped to her feet, raising the lid and dropping the little that remained of her cigarette into the toilet. She flushed it down, watching as it disappeared. Then she frantically swatted at the air, trying to rid the small cubicle of smoke. Only when she was
satisfied the air was clear did Kim venture out of her stall.

Kim immediately recognized the woman waiting by the sink as the assistant state’s attorney who’d waved to her father. Jess Cousins, or Costner. Something like that. Kim smiled at the woman, who stared back at her without returning her smile. Sourpuss, Kim thought, washing her hands even though there was no need, leaving the room without a backward glance.

“Are you all right?” her father asked as Kim slid back into the booth.

Kim nodded, trying to concentrate on the chicken salad sandwich on the plate in front of her. But it kept slipping in and out of focus, and she had trouble getting it to stay still.

“I saved you some French fries,” Jake said.

Kim shook her head, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The motion made her dizzy. She lifted the sandwich to her mouth, took a large bite. “It’s good,” she heard herself say, as if her voice belonged to someone else.

“Look, Kimmy,” her father said. “I know how difficult a time this must be for you. I know you have a lot on your plate.”

“I’m eating as fast as I can,” Kim said, and giggled.

“You know what I mean. I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“I already told you I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I do,” Jake said, and Kim laughed out loud.

“So, what you really mean is that
I’m
here if
you
want to talk about it.” She laughed again, very pleased with her cleverness.

“Kim, are you all right?”

“Fine.” Kim took a huge bite of her sandwich, felt some of the chicken salad dribble down her chin. “This is very good,” she said. “Fredo makes a
mean
sandwich.”

“I know you’ve been upset about my moving back home,” Jake persevered.

“Why
did
you move back?” Kim demanded, surprising herself with the vehemence of the question she hadn’t meant to ask. “And please don’t insult my intelligence by saying you did it for me.”

There was a long pause.

“Do you even
know
why you moved back?” Kim asked. Then, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re back. It’s a moot point. Isn’t that the expression you lawyers use?” She finished the first half of her sandwich, started on the other.

“You’re very angry, Kim. I understand that.”

“You don’t understand anything. You never have.”

“Maybe if you gave me half a chance—”

“Listen,” Kim interrupted, slapping the remains of her sandwich down on her plate, watching it fall apart. “If my mother agreed to let you move back in after everything you’ve done, well, that’s her business. I told her what I thought of the idea, but obviously she didn’t agree with me, so what choice did I have? None. Whatever Jake Hart wants, Jake Hart gets. He wants to play around, he plays around. He wants to leave, he leaves. He wants to come back, he comes back. I guess my only question is how long you plan to stick around once Mom starts getting better.” Kim struggled to put her sandwich back together, trying to
scoop the errant pieces of chicken back between the thin slices of bread.

“Kim, sweetheart, she’s not going to get better.”

“You don’t know that.” Kim refused to look at her father. If she looked at him, she might toss what remained of her sandwich into his face.

“She’s going to get worse.”

“So now you’re a doctor too, are you?”

“And it’s important that we work together on this-”

“I’m not listening to you.”

“—that we do everything in our power to make your mother comfortable and happy.”

“To ease your conscience?” Kim shot back. “To make you feel better?”

“Maybe,” Jake agreed. “Maybe that’s part of it.”

“That’s
all
of it, and you know it.”

Jake rubbed his forehead, shook his head, ultimately rested his chin in the palm of his hand. “You really hate me, don’t you?” he said, more statement of fact than question.

Kim shrugged. “Aren’t children supposed to hate their parents?” she asked. “You hated yours.”

“That I did,” he agreed.

Kim waited for him to defend himself, to point out the obvious differences between their two situations, but he said nothing. Her father rarely spoke about his childhood. Kim knew her father and his brothers had been abused. There were many times she’d wanted to ask him about it, and now he was handing her the perfect opportunity, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her curiosity. He looks exhausted, Kim thought,
almost feeling sorry for him. “Shouldn’t we be heading back to court?” she asked.

Jake checked his watch, immediately signaling the waiter for the bill. Seconds later, leaving the cash on the table, Jake ushered his daughter toward the front of the restaurant.

“Jake,” a woman called from somewhere behind them.

Kim turned to see Jess Cousins, or Koster, or whatever her name was, approaching. Her father quickly made the appropriate introductions.

“How’ve you been?” Jake asked.

“Fine,” Jess Koster said, looking from Jake to Kim, then back again to Jake. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.”

“Certainly.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Kim volunteered.

“Is something wrong?” Kim heard her father ask, as she opened the door and stepped out onto the street, the sound of his words immediately picked up by the outside wind. Something wrong? the wind echoed. Something wrong? Something wrong?

Somethingwrong?Somethingwrong?Somethingwrong?

M
attie stood in the doorway to the guest bedroom, studying Jake’s unmade bed. In typical fashion, he’d thrown the white-and-yellow-striped comforter over the top of the queen-size bed so that it
appeared
to have been made, but Mattie could tell from the checkered sheets peeking out carelessly beneath it that underneath the comforter they were a crumpled mess. How can anyone get a good night’s sleep in an unmade bed? she wondered, slowly approaching. She reached over to fluff out the pillows, watching a pillow fly out of her hand and land on the night table beside the bed, almost dislodging the delicate pleated lamp shade from its white porcelain base. “That was cute,” Mattie said out loud, plopping down on the bed. “And now for my next trick.” She retrieved the pillow, propped it up behind her neck against the headboard, and lifted her legs to the top of
the bed, checking her watch. Almost five o’clock. Jake and Kim would be home from court soon. She should probably start getting dinner ready, although she was feeling quite listless. Maybe they’d just order in.

Mattie closed her eyes, inhaling Jake’s smell on the pillow behind her head. The pillow tickled her neck, like a lover’s kiss. She’d always loved the way Jake smelled, Mattie acknowledged, imagining Jake’s lips at her ear-lobe, his tongue grazing her hairline as he buried his face deep in her hair. She heard herself sigh, opened her eyes. “Don’t go there,” she said, unable to prevent Jake’s hands from reaching through her subconscious to slide across her breasts and belly. Mattie reclosed her eyes, allowing her body to slide down the bed so that she was lying stretched out on top of it. Suddenly Jake was everywhere—beside her, above her, below her, on top of her. She felt the weight of his body as it pressed into hers, felt his legs gently prodding her own legs apart. “No way,” Mattie said, sitting up sharply, knocking Jake’s image roughly to the floor. “I am not doing this.”

That’s for sure, Mattie thought. In the three months since Jake moved back home, they’d had next to no physical contact. He’d simply moved his things into the guest bedroom without any discussion, as if he assumed this was what Mattie would want, or more likely, because it was what
he
wanted. For all intents and purposes, they were still separated. Jake’s home consisted of the den and guest bedroom, while Mattie shared the rest of the house with Kim. Occasionally Jake visited, but for the most part he remained the outsider he’d always been, trying to be of help while maintaining a safe distance between them.

Even his routine hadn’t changed that much. He was still working an average of ten hours a day. Assuming he
was
working, and not with his little friend, his honey, his Honey, Mattie thought derisively, knowing that even when Jake was home, his mind was a million miles away. At the courthouse. At
her
house. That on the rare occasions when his body actually sat by her side throughout an entire evening, his spirit was decidedly elsewhere.

His body, Mattie thought again, seeing it stretched out and naked beside her on the bed, her hand playing with the soft dark hairs on his chest, caressing his enviably flat stomach, his strong thighs. She pushed several fingers inside her mouth, sucked restlessly on their tips, heard a groan escape her lips.

The phone rang somewhere beside her head. Mattie extricated her fingers from her mouth, eyes still closed, and threw her hand toward the phone on the night table. “Hello?”

“It’s Stephanie. Did I wake you?”

Mattie forced her eyes open, her body upright, her feet to the floor. “No, of course not. How are you?” She pictured her friend, short frosted hair, brown eyes, pudgy cheeks that perfectly suited the rest of her plump frame.

“How are
you?
You sound tired.”

“I’m fine, Steph,” Mattie said, with only a hint of impatience. Ever since she’d told her friends about her condition, they’d been flooding her with their solicitations and goodwill, offering to drive her to this appointment or that, to do her grocery shopping, pick something up for her downtown, anything she needed,
they were ready, willing and eager to be of help.

Except they didn’t help, Mattie thought, transferring the phone from one ear to the other. They hovered. Like waiting helicopters, poised to take flight.

“What can I do for you?” Mattie asked.

“Enoch and I were wondering whether you and Jake would like to join us for dinner tomorrow night. We’re going to Fellini’s, over on East Hubbard Street. It got a great review in last weekend’s paper.” Stephanie giggled, sounding disconcertingly like one of her ten-year-old twins. Enoch Porter had come into Stephanie’s life six months ago, almost three years to the day since her ex-husband had wiped out their joint bank account and taken off for Tahiti with the babysitter. Enoch was Stephanie’s revenge—ten years her junior, tall, gorgeous, and so black he shone.

“Sounds great,” Mattie told her. “We’ll be at Pende Fine Arts in the late afternoon, if you’d like to join us.”

“I don’t think art galleries are Enoch’s thing,” Stephanie said, and giggled again. “You’re not doing too much?”

“What time should we meet?” Mattie asked, ignoring her friend’s concern.

“Seven o’clock okay for you guys?”

“Seven o’clock is perfect. We’ll meet you there.”

Probably she should check with Jake first, Mattie thought, hanging up the phone. Maybe he had other plans. “Screw his other plans,” she said, thinking of Honey, trying to imagine what the other woman looked like. In the next second, the phone was back against her ear. Mattie pressed in 411, waited as the automated voice welcomed her to the system.

“For what city, please?” the recording asked.

“Chicago,” Mattie said plainly. What was she doing?

“Do you want a residential number?” the recording continued.

Did she? “Yes,” Mattie stammered.

“For what name please?”