Excerpt from The First Time by Joy Fielding, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Was that what she wanted?

Maybe she was as tired of this charade of a marriage as her reluctant husband. "Maybe," she said out loud, staring at her reflection in the smoky glass door of the microwave oven. She wasn't unattractive -- tall, blond, blue-eyed, the stereotype of the all-American girl -- and she was only thirty-six years old, hardly old enough to be put out to pasture. Men still found her desirable. "I could have an affair," she whispered toward her gray, tear-streaked reflection.

Her image looked surprised, aghast, dismayed. You tried that once. Remember?

Mattie turned away, stared resolutely at the floor. "That was only that one time, and it was just to get even."

So, get even again.

Mattie shook her head, drops of water from her wet hair forming little puddles at her feet. The affair, if you could properly call a one-night stand an affair, had taken place four years ago, just before they'd moved to Evanston. It had been fast, furious, and eminently forgettable, except that she hadn't been able to forget it, not really, although she'd be hard pressed to recall the details of the man's face, having done her best to avoid actually looking at him, even as he was pounding his way inside her. He was a lawyer, like her husband, although with a different firm and a different area of expertise. An entertainment lawyer, she recalled his volunteering, along with the information that he was married and the father of three. She'd been hired by his firm to buy art for their walls, and he was trying to explain what the firm had in mind before he leaned in closer, told her what he had in mind. Instead of being shocked, instead of being angry, as she'd been earlier in the day when she'd overheard her husband on the phone making dinner plans with his latest paramour, she'd arranged to meet him later in the week, so that on the same evening her husband was in bed with another woman, she was in bed with another man, wondering, with joyless irony, if their orgasms were simultaneous.

She never saw the man again, although he'd called several times, ostensibly to discuss the paintings she was selecting for the firm. Ultimately he stopped calling, and the firm hired another dealer whose taste in art was "more in keeping with the sort of thing we had in mind." She never said anything about the affair to Jake, although surely that had been the point -- where was the sweetness of revenge if the injured party remained unaware of the injury? But somehow she couldn't bring herself to tell him, not because she didn't want to hurt him, as she'd tried to convince herself at the time, but because she was afraid that if she told him, she would be handing him the excuse he needed to leave her.

And so she'd said nothing, and life continued as it always had. They carried on the pretense of a life together -- talking pleasantly over the table at breakfast, going out for dinner with friends, making love several times a week, more when he was having an affair, fighting over anything and everything, except what they were really fighting about. You're fucking other women! she screamed underneath her rants about wanting to renovate the kitchen. I don't want to be here! he shouted beneath his protests that she was spending too much money, that she had to cut back. Sometimes their angry voices would wake up Kim, who'd come running into their bedroom, immediately taking her mother's side, so that it was two against one, another joyless irony Mattie doubted was lost on Jake, who was only there because of his daughter.

Maybe Kim was right, Mattie thought now, glancing at the phone on the wall beside her. Maybe all that was needed was a little show of support, something to let her husband know that she appreciated how hard he worked, how hard he tried -- had always tried -- to do the right thing. She reached for the phone, hesitated, decided to call her friend Lisa instead. Lisa would know how to advise her. She always knew what to do. And besides, Lisa was a doctor. Didn't doctors have an answer for everything? Mattie pressed in the first few numbers, then impatiently dropped the receiver back into its carriage. How could she disturb her friend in the middle of her undoubtedly busy day? Surely she could solve her own problems. Mattie quickly punched in the proper sequence of numbers, waited as Jake's private line rang once, twice, three times. He knows it's me, Mattie thought, trying to shake away the annoying tingle that had returned to tease the bottom of her right foot. He's deciding whether or not to pick up.

Copyright © 2000 by Joy Fielding