The Marriage Pact Page 10

  “How did it go with Vivian?” I asked, kicking the shoes under the kitchen table so I wouldn’t trip over them. I’ve often thought that any burglar who dared breach our front door would have a fatal accident with Alice’s shoes long before he could steal anything.

  And then she did a slow, sexy dance, taking off her trench coat, unbuttoning her silk blouse, baring her shoulders, and eventually removing the final sleeve to reveal that the bracelet was gone.

  I took her hand in mine and gently kissed her wrist. It looked raw. “I’ve missed you,” I said. I was so relieved, as if a physical weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

  “So have I,” she said, and then she danced around the kitchen in just her bra and underwear, her hands up in the air.

  “Does this mean we passed the test?”

  “Not exactly. Vivian said you can’t always take the order to remove the bracelet as an indication that you’ve been cleared of subversive acts against marriage.”

  “Subversive acts? Are you kidding?”

  “Sometimes,” Alice said, “they continue their review after the bracelet has been removed.”

  In the dining room, I pulled out a chair for her and she sat, pale legs sprawled out in front of her. “Start at the beginning,” I said.

  “Well, I got to Fog City first so I could get us a table.”

  “Good move.”

  “Vivian had the tuna salad again, and I went with the burger. She didn’t mention the bracelet until after we’d finished our entrees. Then she said, ‘Good news, I’ve been given the key for your bracelet.’ She asked for my wrist, I laid it on the table, and she pulled a metal box out of her bag. It had a bunch of tiny blue lights on the top. She opened it, and there was a key attached to the inside of the box by a wire. Vivian took my wrist and slid the key into the bracelet. Then she hit a button inside the box, and the bracelet just popped open. And she said, ‘You’re free.’ ”

  “Weird.” I brought the paella in from the kichen, then sat down with Alice at the table.

  “Then Vivian put the bracelet and the key back in the box, closed it up, and put it in her bag. I was happy to see that thing gone. It wasn’t all good, though. There were conditions for my release from the bracelet.”

  “No!” I said, thinking of my conversation at Draeger’s. Punishments. I had the uncomfortable feeling that there was some truth in what JoAnne had said.

  Alice took a bite of the paella and declared it delicious. “You know how, when she explained that whole thing about Orla and how The Pact is based on the British criminal justice system, we thought she meant it figuratively, not literally? As it turns out, we were wrong.”

  Alice explained the conditions of her release. It really was like the world of criminal courts. She had to sign some papers, pay a fifty-dollar fine, and agree to see an adviser once a week for the next four weeks. “Probation,” she said.

  “There’s something I should probably tell you.”

  I described my encounter with JoAnne at Draeger’s and how it had weighed on my mind the past couple of days.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” she asked, sounding hurt.

  “I don’t know. The Pact is making me paranoid. I didn’t want to say anything while you were wearing the bracelet. After everything JoAnne said, I didn’t want to get you into trouble. And I didn’t want to get JoAnne into trouble either. She seemed so nervous.”

  A cloud passed over Alice’s face. I recognized it, and knew what she was going to say before the words were out of her mouth. “You said you worked together in college. But you didn’t tell me whether you ever slept with her. Did you sleep with her, Jake?”

  “No,” I said emphatically. “And anyway, do we really have to go there? I’m trying to tell you something important.”

  “Go ahead,” Alice said, but I could tell that the suspicion lingered.

  “What I’m saying is, after your meeting today with Vivian, I have to reevaluate JoAnne’s warning. We have to consider everything she said in a new light.”

  Alice pushed her plate away. “Now I’m getting paranoid.”

  It wasn’t until we’d cleared the table and were washing the dishes that Alice told me the other piece of news from her day: The firm had announced the yearly bonuses. The amount Alice would receive was large enough that it almost cut her law school loans in half.

  “That calls for champagne,” I said. We got out the glasses and raised a toast to the bonus, as well as to our victory against, or perhaps within, The Pact. We toasted our happy life. Then we went to bed, and we made love in our private, quiet way.

  Afterward, as we were falling asleep, Alice wrapped her arms around me and whispered, “Do you think the bracelet made me a better wife?”

  “You are the perfect wife, no matter what. Does The Pact make me a better husband?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Looking back on that night, it strikes me that we were both a little scared, but not nearly as cautious as we should have been. The Pact had the mysterious draw of those things that both repulse and attract you at the same time. Like a sound in the garage in the middle of the night, or a romantic overture from someone you know you ought to stay away from, or a strange, shining light you follow deep into the woods, not knowing where it will lead, or what kind of danger awaits you there. We were both drawn to it, despite reason. It had a strong, inexplicable magnetic pull, which we were unable, or unwilling, to resist.

  26

  There’s a lot of data about what predicts a good marriage. While statistics are open to interpretation, one of the conclusions that researchers across the board agree on is this: The higher your income, the more likely you are to get married. More important, the higher your income, the more likely you are to stay married. On a side note, while you might expect that the amount a couple spends on their wedding is directly proportionate to their chances of a successful marriage, in fact, the opposite is true: Those who spend less than five thousand dollars are far more likely to stay married than those who spend more than fifty thousand.

  When I shared this information with my partners, Evelyn speculated that it had to do with expectations: Someone who’s willing to blow fifty grand on a wedding is someone who wants everything to be perfect, and when marriage turns out to be less than perfect, the letdown is greater. “It also shows a preference for short-term satisfaction and impressing others over long-term stability,” she said.

  Ian agreed. “Let’s say you put that extra forty-five grand toward a house instead of a wedding. You’ve given yourself a leg up. You’ve made an investment in your future. I don’t mean to sound sexist, but I think women run the show when it comes to weddings. And a bride who needs a fifty-thousand-dollar wedding, with a hairdresser and a wedding planner and a five-course meal and all the rest, is probably high-maintenance.”

  I thought of our own low-key wedding, where the food was nothing to write home about, but everyone was drinking, everyone was having fun. Alice’s dress looked amazing on her, though it was off the rack from a little vintage shop, because she refused to spend more than four hundred dollars on a dress she would only wear once. She bought her shoes half off at Macy’s, because, she said, “how often am I going to wear white satin shoes?” My own suit was expensive, but that was because I wear my suits for years, and Alice had insisted that I invest in a good one.

  Other interesting statistics: Those who date for more than a year or two before getting married are less likely to divorce. The older people are on the date of their wedding, the better their chances for success. And here’s one that seems to defy intuition: Individuals who start dating their spouses when they are entangled in another relationship are not more likely to eventually divorce; in fact, the opposite is true. “Because they made an active choice,” Evelyn speculated. “They had one thing, and they found something better, so maybe they’re grateful to the spouse for showing up at just the right time, rescuing them from the wrong decision. Also, the spouse,
in that case, feels chosen. The spouse knows that their husband or wife gave up someone else to be with them.” I liked that logic and made a note to bring it up in my next meeting with Bella and Winston. “Bella chose you,” I would tell him. I hoped it would help.

  All the research I was doing made me feel pretty good about my own marriage. Given the price of our wedding, combined with the fact that Alice and I lived together before marriage and were both older when we wed—Alice thirty-four, me inching up on forty—plus her entanglement with her old bandmate when we met—statistics would say that Alice and I are pretty solid. In the end, though, every marriage is unique. Every marriage is its own universe, operating by its own intricate set of rules.

  27

  The only time we really talked about The Pact over the next few weeks was on Thursdays, after Alice made her weekly visit to her probation officer. Dave was a structural engineer with an office in the Mission. He was in his midforties, Alice guessed, moderately intelligent, mildly attractive. We had met him and his wife at the Hillsborough party, Alice insisted, although I didn’t remember them. She was a little artsy, Alice said, although in a trust fund sort of way. She had a separate studio in Marin and had participated in a couple of local joint shows, but she didn’t appear to have any need or desire to sell her work.

  On Thursdays, Alice would slip out of work early, take BART over to Twenty-fourth and Mission, and then walk the long blocks to Dave’s office for their appointment. She always gave it plenty of time she didn’t have, so as not to be late. My conversation with JoAnne had made her extra-vigilant. She usually arrived early to the block where Dave’s modern office sat tucked beside a taqueria.

  Alice’s visits with Dave only lasted for half an hour. She didn’t reveal the specific details because Dave had told her that was “strictly against the rules,” though she did say the meetings usually consisted of the two of them sitting at his design table, drinking Philz coffee brought in by his secretary, talking about their weeks. Dave would pepper the conversation with a few direct questions about me and our marriage. He sometimes used lingo from The Manual, things one wouldn’t ordinarily say in normal conversation, the result being that Alice was always acutely aware that she was in unknown territory. The conversations were pleasant, she insisted, but the questions were direct enough that she never felt entirely comfortable, nor did she feel relaxed enough to accidentally reveal any detail that might be used against us.

  In the most recent meeting, Dave asked her about our travel. Having now become completely versed in the minutiae of The Manual, Alice relayed in great detail the weekend trip to Twain Harte that I’d planned and the four-day trip to Big Sur, which she’d planned for three months hence. We hadn’t yet gone on either trip, but the fact that they were on our calendars should fulfill the travel requirement for this quarter and the next one. Alice used these conversations with Dave to check off as many boxes as she could, things that might get The Pact authorities looking elsewhere, as JoAnne had so emphatically said we must.

  Dave talked about his recent trips as well, even writing down some hotel suggestions. While she knew he was likely reporting the details of their conversations back to someone, she felt that he was a nice guy who genuinely had our welfare in mind. He never came on to her in even the smallest way, which was a big plus in her book. After the first week, she didn’t seem to mind the visits. As difficult as it was for her to slip away from work in the afternoon, she said it was a good way to clear her head. “Like therapy,” she said. Although she’d never actually been to therapy, unless of course you counted those group circles in rehab the week we met.

  Then, on her fourth and final week of conversations, she called me. I hit the Answer button, and all I heard was “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  “Alice?”

  “The fucking judge kept us late.” She was breathless and running, and I could hear the street sounds around her. “I only have nine fucking minutes to get to Dave’s. There’s no way I’ll make it. Uber or BART?”

  “Um—”

  “Uber or BART?”

  “BART is your only chance. Blame it on me,” I said, thinking of JoAnne’s warning. “Tell him I made you late. Tell him—”

  “No!” she yelled. “I’m not a rat.”

  “Listen to me,” I said, but the phone had already gone dead. I called her back, but there was no answer.

  28

  If I drove quickly, I could get to Draeger’s at the exact time I last saw JoAnne. I was worried that Alice’s tardiness was going to put her back on the radar, and I wanted to talk to JoAnne to find out what exactly that would mean.

  I got there early, parked my car, grabbed a shopping cart, and started wandering the aisles. No sign of JoAnne. I held my phone, willing it to ring. Alice would surely call to say everything was fine. The whole thing was ridiculous. After all, showing up ten minutes late to a meeting in Northern California is like showing up ten minutes early for a meeting anywhere else.

  I wandered for nearly half an hour, bought some cereal, Ovaltine, muscovado for my cookies, flowers for Alice. Eventually, I gave up, took my pricey bag of groceries, and left.

  By the time I got back to the city, there was still no word from Alice. I drove home, but her car wasn’t there, so I parked in the garage and walked to my office. I had several clients the next day, and I hadn’t yet done any preparation. Email had stacked up in my in-box. Documents, journals, and internal billing items covered my desk.

  Later, I got a text from Alice. Went badly. Have to go back to work. Will be late. We’ll talk when I get home.

  OK. Text when you leave. I’ll get Burma Superstar for dinner. Love, me.

  She texted back one word, love, followed by a sad-face emoji.

  It wasn’t until after ten o’clock that Alice and I finally sat down together at the kitchen table. Alice had kicked her shoes off at the door—her coat, suit, and pantyhose forming a trail to our bedroom and the dresser where she keeps her flannel pajamas. She wore the pajamas now, a ridiculous, oversize pair that I’d bought her one Christmas, covered with monkey faces. She had mascara smeared under her eyes, and a tiny pimple had emerged just to the left of the dimple on her left cheek—the exact same spot where she gets a pimple every time she’s especially stressed out. It occurred to me that I knew this woman, really knew her, better than anyone else ever had, and probably better than I knew myself. Despite the walls she was so good at putting up, I specialized in my own course of study: the Observation of Alice. While there was much she could hide from me, there was much she could not. God, I loved her.

  “So?”

  Alice got up to grab a couple of beers from the fridge, then she relayed her meeting with Dave.

  “I ran about a mile in my heels, and got there fourteen minutes late. If I hadn’t just missed the first Daly City train, I almost could’ve made it. Anyway, I sprinted down Twenty-fourth Street, through the alley, up the stairs to his office. I was sweating through my blouse, and my shoes were pretty much destroyed.” Her legs were crossed, and she swung the top one back and forth while she ate, as jittery as I’d seen her in a long time. “Dave could tell that I had raced over there. He got me a glass of water and led me into his office.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “So he understood.”

  “That’s what I thought. I expected that when I apologized for being late, he’d say no problem. I thought he’d be impressed that I’d booked it all the way across town, even running a good part of the way. You know me, I never run anywhere. So I’m half-expecting Dave to give me a pat on the back and tell me how much he appreciates that I worked so hard to make our meeting. Instead, as soon as he closed his office door behind me, while I was still standing there catching my breath, he went and sat behind his big desk in his big chair and said, ‘Alice, frankly, I’m kind of surprised that you’re late. Fourteen minutes.’ ”

  “Jerk,” I muttered.

  “I know, right? So I explain about being in Federal Court. I mention the
case, the finicky clients, the difficult judge, and Dave doesn’t say a word. He just sits there, turning a paperweight over and over in his hands, like the villain in a James Bond movie. No empathy at all. He just says, ‘Alice.’ He uses my name a lot, did I tell you that?”

  “I hate it when people do that.”

  Alice took a bite of sesame beef and pushed the plate toward me to share. “He says, ‘Alice, in our lives, we are forced to prioritize many different things each day, some large, some small, some short-term, some long-term.’ I felt like a kid in the principal’s office. He was so different from how he had been in our earlier meetings. It was like a switch had flipped from Friendly Dave to Bossy Dave. He goes on about how most of our priorities—family, work, eating, drinking water, exercise, leisure—are such ingrained habits that we don’t even have to think to put them above the usual mundane things that life throws at us. The longer something remains a priority, he said, the more it becomes second nature, hardwired in our minds and actions.”

  Alice had finished her beer, and went to the cabinet for a glass. “Anyway, he says that one purpose of The Pact is to help people get their priorities straight.”

  “Vivian said the purpose was to strengthen our marriage. She never mentioned anything about priorities.”

  Alice filled her glass with water from the tap. “It’s all about focus, Dave said. Each day, life tries to pull us in a thousand different directions. Sometimes, a shiny object catches our eye and we have to have it. It’s when these things demand priority over marriage that we get into trouble.” She sank back into her chair. “Dave said that work is especially insidious. He said that we spend so much time with our co-workers, we invest so much of our time and mental pursuits in our profession, that it’s easy to forget that it shouldn’t be our main priority.”