The Marriage Pact Read online

  “I wouldn’t entirely argue with that.” I thought of Alice’s late nights before the bracelet and how the gears of my own mind sometimes churned all night long with concerns about my clients and their problems.

  Alice mimicked Dave’s deep voice. “ ‘Don’t get me wrong, Alice. Work is very important to all of us. Look around. You’ve seen the models in my conference room, you’ve seen the photos of past projects in the lobby.’ Then he brags about how the structure he helped design for the Jenkinses’ guest place out at Point Arena, Pin Sur Mer—”

  “Jeez, name-drop much?” The Jenkinses owned a good percentage of the commercial buildings on the Peninsula, and Pin Sur Mer had been in the paper several times, not to mention Architectural Digest. I was growing increasingly irritated with Dave.

  “I know. Anyway, he goes on about how he put a gazillion hours into it, how he spent three full months fighting with the architect.”

  “Pin Sur Mer,” I said. “How pretentious.”

  Alice picked at her mango salad.

  “He told me how he lost himself in the project, how his priorities got all fucked up. ‘Maybe you don’t want to hear this right now, Alice,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad I had The Pact to help me refocus and see what was important. It was very difficult, I won’t lie, but I’m glad they were there for me, and I wish they’d done it earlier.’ Then he listed off a bunch of awards Pin Sur Mer won, but—” Alice did the voice again: “ ‘Not a single project, not a single detail, not a single bolt on any of these projects is as important as my wife or my family. Pin Sur Mer isn’t there for me at the end of the day. Kerri is. Without her, I would be adrift.’ ”

  “You’re sure we met Kerri at the party?” I asked, still trying to picture her.

  “Yes, remember? The sculptor slash painter slash writer in the Jimmy Choos. Personally, if I had to pick between Kerri and Pin Sur Mer, I might be tempted to take the house. Anyway, ‘The Pact,’ he tells me, ‘is special. I know it’s early for you, and maybe you’re still trying to figure it out. But just let me tell you this: The Pact knows the fuck what it’s talking about.’ ”

  “Yikes.”

  “He said that twenty years from now, we’d be sitting next to each other at a quarterly dinner, laughing about this small misunderstanding.”

  “Twenty years? I don’t think so.”

  “ ‘You will thank me,’ he said, ‘and you and Jake will be happy that Finnegan brought The Pact into your lives. Right now, maybe not so much, but that’s a hurdle we have to cross. Right now, it’s my job to help get your priorities properly aligned, Alice. It’s my job to help rid you of your wrong thinking.’ ”

  I thought of a seminar on propaganda I’d taken back in college. “Didn’t Mao use the phrase ‘wrong thinking’ during the Cultural Revolution?”

  “Probably.” Alice sighed. “The whole speech sounded very authoritarian. ‘I like you, Alice,’ Dave said, ‘and Jake seems like a good guy. The work-home balance is tough. That’s why we need to make a mind readjustment and get you refocused.’ ”

  “A mind readjustment? What the hell did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know. He told me that he had someone waiting in the conference room and our time was almost up. But he wanted me to know that, in the history of The Pact, not a single couple has ever gotten divorced. No trial separations, no living apart, none of it. ‘The Pact may ask a great deal of you,’ he said, ‘but trust me, it provides a lot in return. Like marriage.’ ”

  I took a big swig of my beer. “We have to get out of The Pact. Seriously.”

  Alice was picking at her salad, separating the mangoes from the cucumbers. “Jake…I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  “What can they do, cart us off to marriage jail? There’s no way they can force us to stay.”

  Alice bit her lip. Then she pushed the plates away and leaned forward to take my hands in hers. “That’s the scary part. As I got up to leave, I said to him point-blank, ‘I don’t really like any of this. I feel like you’re bullying me.’ ”

  “Nice. How did he respond?”

  “He just smiled and said, ‘Alice, you need to make your peace with The Pact. I have made my peace with The Pact, Jake will make his. It’s necessary. You don’t leave The Pact and The Pact doesn’t leave you.’ Then he leaned over, held my arm so firmly it almost hurt, and whispered in my ear, ‘No one leaves alive, that is.’ I pulled away from him; I was totally freaked out. And then he went back to being the jovial guy from the party. ‘I’m joking about that last part,’ he laughed. But Jake, honestly, it didn’t sound like he was.”

  I imagined that bastard putting his hand on my wife, threatening her. “That’s it. I’m paying him a visit tomorrow.”

  Alice shook her head. “No, that would only make things worse. The good news is, I don’t have to see him again. He walked me out. And in front of his office, he told me this was our final meeting. ‘Focus, Alice, focus,’ he said. ‘Get it right. Give my regards to my friend Jake.’ Then he walked inside and left me standing there. It was so fucking creepy.”

  “We have to find a way out.”

  Alice gave me a quizzical look, like I had totally missed the point. “No shit, Jake. But what I’m telling you is this: I don’t think there is a way out.” She squeezed my hands tighter, and I suddenly saw something unfamiliar in her eyes, something I’d never seen there before. “Jake, I’m scared.”

  29

  Here’s the thing: I didn’t tell Alice about my daily trips to Draeger’s that week. I wasn’t exactly hiding it from her, I just didn’t want to increase her anxiety. When we were together, I acted casual, trying to convey the sense that I wasn’t losing any sleep. When she mentioned The Pact, usually to say that she hadn’t heard from Vivian or Dave that day, I tried not to look too worried. “Maybe we got all worked up for nothing,” I’d say. I didn’t really believe it, and I don’t think Alice did either, but as the week wore on and nothing happened, our nerves seemed to calm.

  Still, I finally understood how my patients felt, the teenagers who told me they’d been waiting for their parents to confront them with the news of their impending divorce. I went through each day fighting off anxiety, looking for JoAnne at Draeger’s, waiting for bad news from The Pact. We figured that the most likely scenario would be a call from Vivian, an invitation—or a veiled order—to meet for lunch. Then she would hit us with something from out of the blue—some rule we’d violated, some order that had come down from above.

  As the days went on with no call, I told myself that this fear of The Pact was absurd. Why were we so afraid of a thing that had done nothing more than invite us to a great party and provide my wife with a temporary piece of jewelry and four weeks of free counseling that, except for the final week, was fairly wise and reasonable? Just as often, though, I’d succumb to paranoia. I would walk home from work, and as I turned the corner at Balboa onto our block, I would scan the street for anything unusual. One night, I saw a guy sitting in a black Chevy Suburban across the street from our house. Instead of going up our steps, I walked around the block and up the other side of the street, noting his license plate, trying to get a glance through the blacked-out windows. When a door of one of the houses opened and an elderly Chinese lady walked toward the Chevy and got in, I felt like an idiot.

  After a few days had gone by with no word, Alice finally started to relax. But she didn’t entirely go back to her old self. She still made it home for dinner every night, but she seemed distracted and wasn’t in the mood for sex. The stress pimple beside her left dimple would vanish, then reappear. There were smudges under her eyes, and I knew that she was tossing and turning at night, getting up earlier and earlier to work on cases before she left for the office. “My hair is falling out,” she said one morning, sounding more resigned than alarmed. “Nonsense,” I said, but I could see evidence in the shower and the bathroom sink, tangled strands of it on her clothes. I went back to Draeger’s, still with no l
uck. I started to have all kinds of weird thoughts. Why hadn’t JoAnne shown up? I wondered. Was she in trouble? I didn’t like the way The Pact was making me feel, and I didn’t like the way it had turned into a black cloud over Alice.

  On Tuesday, I called Vivian and asked if we could meet for coffee. She immediately suggested Java Beach in the Sunset district. “See you in half an hour,” she said. I hadn’t really expected her to pick up, nor had I expected her to suggest we meet so soon. More important, I hadn’t really thought out exactly what I wanted to say.

  Yes, I wanted out of The Pact, but how best to broach the topic? In my work over the years, I’ve found that people often react less to what you say than to how you say it. Everyone expects good and bad news—that is the contract of life, after all. The good and the bad are unavoidable, and at some point they strike us all. The news is the news. But the delivery of the news, the gestures, the words, the empathy and understanding—that’s the gray area where the messenger has the power to make things a little easier or a lot more difficult.

  On the drive over to Java Beach, I kept revising and editing the thing I had to say to Vivian. I wanted to get it right. I wanted to be clear but not confrontational, casual but considered. I wanted it to come out as part question—in order to deflect any anger she might feel—but mostly as a direct statement. Alice and I needed to leave The Pact, I would tell her. It was causing us stress and anxiety, and it was putting a strain on our marriage—the very institution that The Pact was designed to protect. It would be best for us and the wonderful people of The Pact to part ways, I would say. I would thank Vivian for her kindness and apologize for our change of heart. I would make the discussion short, but my meaning unmistakable. And then it would all be over. This weird fog of doom that had been shadowing Alice and me would disappear.

  I found a parking spot a block and a half from Java Beach. As I walked toward the café, I could see that Vivian was already there, at a table on the patio. She had two cups in front of her. How had she gotten there so quickly? Her purple dress looked casual but expensive, her handbag simply expensive. She was wearing large sunglasses despite the fog, drinking her coffee, gazing off toward the ocean. She was exactly as Alice described her: perfectly ordinary at first glance but, upon closer inspection, not ordinary at all.

  While others around her fidgeted incessantly, Vivian was relaxed, her face serene, not a cellphone or computer in sight. She was, it occurred to me, supremely at ease in her own skin.

  “Friend,” she said, standing. She pulled me in tight and held me for a second longer than I’d expected. She smelled nice, like the ocean breeze.

  “Hot chocolate, right?” She motioned to the mug waiting in front of my seat and removed her sunglasses.

  “Exactly.” I took a sip, mentally rehearsing my speech.

  “Jake. I’ll save us a moment of awkwardness. I know why you’re here. I understand.”

  “You do?”

  She put her hand on mine. Her fingers were warm, her nails perfectly manicured. “The Pact can be frightening. It even scares me to this very day. But a little fear, when used for a noble purpose, can be a positive thing, an appropriate motivator.”

  “Actually,” I said, slowly pulling my hand back, trying to regain control of the conversation, “about the fear tactics—” I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Wrong tone. Too aggressive. I started again. “The reason I called is twofold. First, I want to thank you for your kindness.” I tried to make it light. “Alice felt terrible that she never sent you a proper card.”

  “Oh, but she did!” Vivian exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “After our last lunch. Please tell her the yellow tulips were gorgeous.”

  Weird. Alice hadn’t mentioned sending flowers.

  “I will,” I said, bracing to forge on.

  Vivian reached across the table to put her hand back on mine. “Jake, Friend, please, I know why you’re here. You and Alice want out.”

  I nodded, surprised at how easy this was turning out to be. “We love everyone we’ve met in the group. It’s nothing personal. It just isn’t right for us.”

  Vivian smiled, and I relaxed a bit. “Jake, I hear what you’re saying. But sometimes, Friend, what we want and what is best for us are not exactly the same things.”

  “Ah, but sometimes they are.”

  “I’ll be frank.” Vivian let go of my hand, and the warmth in her eyes died. “I will not let you give up on The Pact. And The Pact, quite assuredly, is not going to give up on you. Not during good times, not during times of difficulty. Many of us have been in your position. Many of us have felt what you and Alice are feeling right now. Fear, anxiety, a lack of clarity about what the future might hold. And all of us have pushed through. All of us have—in the end—been the better for it.” Vivian smiled, totally calm. I realized that she had been through this identical conversation with others in the past. “Jake—hear my words—you need to make your peace with The Pact. That is what is best for you, best for your marriage. The Pact is a river, strong and powerful if one resists but peaceful and serene if one is willing. If you move with it, it can transport you, Alice, and your marriage to a place of perfection, to a place of beauty.”

  I forced myself to remain calm. And as I do when therapy sessions suddenly get intense, I began to speak more quietly. “Vivian, Alice and I will be okay without this place of beauty. We need to find our own way. We will find our own way. The Pact is scaring Alice. It is scaring me. In all honesty, it sounds like a cult. The veiled threats, the fake contracts.”

  “Fake?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I assure you, Jake, there is nothing fake about any of it.”

  I thought about that first day, when Alice and I had signed our names, imagining that it was all just a fun game with no real consequences. Those damn pens. The slide show. Orla and her cottage in Ireland.

  “You’re not the law, Vivian. You and Dave and Finnegan and the others. The Pact has no authority of any kind. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  Vivian sat motionless. “I’m sure you recall who invited you into The Pact,” she told me. “Finnegan is the biggest client your wife’s firm has, is he not? Truly a man of global stature, a man of influence. I believe he is worth a great deal to the firm, and it was his good word that prompted Alice’s assignment to her big new case. Jake, as I’m sure you’ve seen by now, The Pact isn’t just me and Orla and Finnegan. The Pact is a thousand Finnegans, all brilliant in their own way, all wielding their own unique brand of influence. Lawyers and doctors and engineers and judges, generals, movie stars, politicians—people whose names would make your head spin. Jake, your thinking is small, shortsighted. You need to take a moment, look carefully at the big picture, understand the road ahead.”

  I felt light-headed. I reached out for my hot chocolate, but somehow misjudged the distance. The mug crashed onto the concrete below, spattering brown spots all over Vivian’s bag. People around us turned to stare. Vivian dabbed at her bag with a napkin, unfazed. I began picking up the shattered pieces.

  A waitress came over. “Leave it. I’ll get Anton to sweep it up.” She had rings in her nose and her lip and tattoos on her arms and neck, and she gave off a faint whiff of wet dog, as if she lived with a lot of animals. I suddenly wanted to reach out and put my arms around her, as if she were some kind of life raft. I felt intensely jealous of her, jealous of the normal life she was living.

  “I want the best for you,” Vivian said coolly after the waitress walked away. “I am here to help you reach that destination.”

  “But you’re not fucking helping us, Vivian.”

  “Trust me.” Vivian was almost robotic in her persistence, her utter refusal to hear what I was saying. “Trust The Pact. What I’m saying is this, Jake: You need to step away from this small thinking, this wrong thinking, and see the big picture. You and Alice must accept the message that Dave communicated.” Vivian put her large sunglasses on. “You must accep
t the strength The Pact can bring to your marriage, to your careers, to your lives. Like so many things—like earthquakes, tidal waves, tsunamis—The Pact will happen for you. It is unavoidable. The only question is how you will respond.”

  “You don’t seem to have heard me. Alice and I are finished.”

  “No.” Vivian stood, picking up her bag. “Go home. Go be with your lovely bride. You are my friend, Jake. Forever.”

  With that, she turned and left.

  30

  Alice is stretched out on the couch, books and legal research scattered around her. Her laptop is open on the table, but she’s preoccupied with her guitar, playing that Jolie Holland song I love, a beautiful acoustic piece she sang at our wedding. Her guitar playing is so nice, her voice soft and gentle. The house seems to be soaking it up, straining in silence to hear. She looks up and smiles at me, then sings, “I’m still dressed up from the night before, silken hose and an old Parisian coat. And I feel like a queen at the bus stop on the street. Look what you’ve done to me.”

  My heart aches at the purity of her voice, at the sight of her sitting there. I hate that I failed her in my conversation with Vivian.

  It has been a long time since Alice picked up one of her instruments. The song is so gentle, and in an instant it seems to strip away the layers from Alice, the invisible walls that are always there. How many times have I wondered about the Alice who rests beneath the veneer of her lawyer persona, the Alice underneath the conservative navy suits? Even as a child, Alice dreamed of being a musician. Her mother taught piano and guitar to the neighborhood children, and there was always music playing in their house. I can’t imagine the childhood Alice dreaming of one day becoming a lawyer, but when I met her she was in her second year of law school. Although she was still recording songs, still playing shows, still updating her website, answering email, even producing occasional records for other musicians, I could tell she had already veered onto a different road. She started law school the year she turned thirty, “derailed by the passions of my youth,” she said, and as a result she was one of the oldest members of her class. She felt she had a lot of catching up to do, a lot of lost time to make up for. But how could those years doing what she really wanted to do ever be considered lost time? They were the opposite of lost time, it seems to me.