The Marriage Pact Page 3

  After that, we waited, but no more emails came. Alice and I stared at the phone, waiting for it to ping again.

  “Does any of this strike you as—complicated?” I asked finally.

  Alice smiled. “How bad can it be?”

  6

  A little about me. I work as a therapist and counselor. Although I had loving parents and, from the outside, what appeared to be an idyllic childhood, growing up was sometimes difficult. In hindsight, I didn’t choose my career so much as it chose me.

  I arrived at UCLA as a biology major, though it didn’t last long. At the beginning of my second year, I took a job as a peer counselor for the College of Letters and Science. I enjoyed the training, and after that, the work. I liked talking to people, listening to their problems, helping them find a solution. When I graduated, I didn’t want my “career” in counseling to end, so I entered the graduate program in applied psychology at UC Santa Barbara. My postdoc internship brought me home to San Francisco, where I worked with at-risk teens.

  Today I run a small counseling practice with two friends from that internship. When we started the group eighteen months ago in the remnants of an old vacuum repair shop in the Outer Richmond district, we worried we wouldn’t be able to make ends meet. At one point, we even considered selling coffee and my secretly famous chocolate chip cookies as a side business to help pay the rent.

  In the end, however, the practice did seem to be surviving without any desperate intervention. My two partners, Evelyn (thirty-eight, single, super-smart, an only child from Oregon) and Ian (British, forty-one, also single, gay, the eldest of three), are both engaging, likable, and generally happy people, and I think this happiness just somehow willed the business to survive.

  We each handle our own areas. Evelyn deals primarily with addiction, Ian specializes in adult anger management and OCD, and I take the kids and young adults. Patients who fit clearly into one of those categories are assigned to the appropriate partner, while everything else is divided evenly. Recently, though, we decided to branch out, or at least Evelyn did. I returned from the honeymoon to discover that she had arranged for me to lead our expansion into marriage counseling.

  “Because I have so much experience with marriage?”

  “Exactly.”

  Evelyn, being the marketing genius, had already secured three new clients for me. When I protested, she showed me the emails in which she made it clear to the clients that I had a number of years of experience in counseling and precisely two weeks’ personal experience with marriage.

  I have a fear of being unprepared. So when Evelyn dropped the news, I immediately went into panic mode and started studying up. I researched the evolution of marriage and was surprised to discover that monogomous marriage was only established in Western societies about eight hundred years ago.

  I also discovered that married people live longer than single people. I’d heard that factoid before, but I never examined the actual studies. They’re quite convincing.

  At the other end of the spectrum, Groucho Marx said, “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?”

  I wrote down other quotes as well, gleaned from the Internet and a shelf of marriage books I purchased from the bookstore near my office.

  A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

  Don’t smother each other, nothing grows in the shade.

  Things like that. Quotes may be an oversimplification, the last refuge of the dilettante, but I like having them on hand in counseling sessions. Occasionally, something will come up and I won’t know what to say. A little Groucho Marx can break the ice, lead somewhere unexpected, or just give me a minute to collect my thoughts.

  7

  Saturday morning, we got up early to prepare for Vivian’s arrival. At 9:45, Alice finished the vacuuming, and I took the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. Without discussion, we had both slightly overdressed. When I stepped out of the bedroom in a button-down shirt and khakis I hadn’t worn in months, Alice laughed.

  “If I need a flat-screen TV from Best Buy,” she said, “you’re my man.”

  Of course, we were just trying to present a slightly better version of ourselves and our tiny house with its sliver of a view of the Pacific Ocean. I’m not sure why we felt we needed to impress Vivian, but without ever acknowledging it out loud, we understood that we wanted to.

  At 9:52, Alice finished changing clothes for the third time. She came into the living room and did a spin in her flowery blue dress. “Too much?”

  “Perfect.”

  “What about the shoes?”

  She was wearing serious pumps, the kind she only ever wore to work. “Too formal,” I said.

  “Right.” She disappeared down the hallway and returned in a pair of red Fluevogs.

  “Just right,” I said.

  I glanced out the front window, but there was no one there. I felt a little nervous, as if we were waiting to interview for a job that we hadn’t even applied for. Still, we wanted it. Between the box and the pens and the cryptic emails, Finnegan had made it sound so appealing—and, I’ll admit, so exclusive. At her heart, Alice is a true overachiever; anything she starts, she wants to complete. Anything she completes, she wants to win—whether it’s good for her or not.

  At 9:59, I looked out the window again. The fog was thick, and I could see no cars in either direction.

  Then the sound of shoes on the stairs. Heels, serious heels. Alice looked down at her Fluevogs, then at me, and whispered, “Wrong choice!”

  I walked self-consciously to the door and opened it. “Vivian,” I said, more formally than I intended.

  She was in a well-tailored but extraordinarily yellow dress. Tour de France yellow. She looked younger than I’d expected.

  “You must be Jake,” she said. “And you,” she added, “must be Alice. You’re even more ravishing than your picture.”

  Alice didn’t blush; she’s not a blusher. Instead, she tilted her head and gazed at Vivian, as if assessing her. Knowing Alice, she probably suspected Vivian had ulterior motives, but I could tell that Vivian was being sincere. Alice has that effect on people. Still, I knew Alice would have traded her high cheekbones, her big green eyes, her thick black hair—all of it—for a normal family, a living, loving family, a mother who hadn’t poisoned her liver, a father who hadn’t poisoned his lungs, and a brother who hadn’t taken what people erroneously call “the easy way out.”

  Vivian herself was attractive in a way that comes from confidence, a good upbringing, and taste. She looked 80 percent business, 20 percent “Saturday-morning brunch with friends.” She carried a fine leather satchel and wore a strand of gleaming pearls. As the light caught her face, it occurred to me that she was actually in her late forties. Her hair was shiny, her skin had a glow—I imagined it was the result of an organic diet, regular exercise, and everything else in moderation. I imagined her with a good position in tech, some stock options, and a yearly bonus that never disappointed.

  In my practice, when I meet potential clients for the first time, I can usually gauge the depth of their problems from one good glance. Over the years, anxiety, stress, and insecurity reveal themselves on a person’s face. Like a bend in a river, the stress or anxiety can wear on the face in tiny increments, until a slight pattern becomes noticeable to the naked eye.

  In that instant, when the light broke through the fog, flooded into our living room, and literally shone upon Vivian’s face, it occurred to me that this woman had no stress, no anxiety, no insecurities.

  “Coffee?” I asked.

  “Please.”

  Vivian sat in the big blue chair that cost half of Alice’s first paycheck from the law firm. She opened her briefcase and removed a laptop and a tiny projector.

  Reluctantly, I went to the kitchen. Thinking back, I realize I was nervous about leaving Alice alone with Vivian. When I returned with the coffee, they were talking about our honeymoon and the b
eauty of the Adriatic coast. Vivian asked about our hotel by name. How did she know where we had stayed?

  I sat next to Alice and lifted three rolls from the tray onto three dessert plates.

  “Thank you,” Vivian said. “I love cinnamon rolls.”

  Vivian connected her projector to the laptop, then stood up. “Mind if I take this picture down?” But she was already removing the frame from its spot on the wall. It was a Martin Parr photograph Alice had given me for my last birthday, a picture I had always admired but had never been able to afford. From far off, the photo showed a solitary man on a stormy day, swimming laps in a shabby public pool beside a wild green sea in a run-down Scottish town. When I asked Alice where she had bought it, she had laughed. “Bought it? If only it had been that easy.”

  “So,” Vivian said, turning. “How much has Liam told you?”

  “Actually,” Alice said, “he didn’t tell us anything.”

  “Can we open the box?” Vivian asked. “You only need to bring the smaller one. We’ll need the pens too.”

  I walked down the hallway into the back room, where we had stored the wedding gifts we hadn’t gotten around to addressing. Miss Manners says you get exactly one year to write a thank-you note, but in the world of email and instant messages that seems like an eternity. Every time I saw the gifts, I felt guilty for all the cards we’d yet to send out.

  I placed the box and the pens on the coffee table in front of Vivian.

  “Still locked,” she said with a smile. “You passed the first test.”

  Alice nervously sipped her coffee. It wasn’t until after the honeymoon that she’d seen the box. When she did, she tried and failed to pick the lock with a pair of tweezers.

  Vivian reached down into her briefcase and pulled out a set of gold keys. She found the right key and inserted it in the lock but didn’t turn it.

  “I need verbal confirmation that you’re ready to proceed,” she said. She looked at Alice, waiting.

  In hindsight, I realize we should have known, right then, that something was wrong. We should have sent Vivian away and refused to take Finnegan’s calls. We should have ended it all, before it really began. But we were young and curious, and our marriage was still fresh. And Finnegan’s gift was so unexpected, his messenger so eager, it would have seemed impolite to refuse.

  Alice nodded. “We’re ready.”

  8

  Vivian switched on the projector, and a slide displayed on the wall where my Martin Parr photo had been just minutes before.

  THE PACT, it read.

  Nothing more, nothing less. Courier font in big black letters against a blank background.

  “So,” Vivian said, wiping her fingers on a napkin left over from our wedding. It still came as something of a shock—a happy shock—to see our names printed on the napkin: Alice & Jake. “I need to ask you both some questions.”

  She pulled a black leather folio from her bag and opened it to reveal a yellow legal pad. The projector still shone the phrase THE PACT onto our wall. I tried not to look at those imposing words looming over us, over our new and fragile marriage.

  “Neither of you has previously been married, correct?”

  “Correct,” we replied in unison.

  “What is the length of your longest previous relationship?”

  “Two years,” Alice told her.

  “Seven,” I said.

  “Years?” Vivian asked.

  I nodded.

  “Interesting.” She wrote something on her notepad.

  “How long did your parents’ marriages last?”

  “Nineteen years,” Alice said.

  “Forty-something,” I said, feeling an unearned pride in my parents’ matrimonial success. “It’s still going.”

  “Excellent.” Vivian nodded. “And, Alice, did your parents’ marriage end in divorce?”

  “No.” The death of her father was too recent, and I could tell she didn’t want to get into it. Alice is something of a closed book. As a therapist, not to mention her husband, I sometimes find it’s not the easiest trait to accept.

  Vivian leaned forward, resting her elbows on the yellow pad. “What do you think is the most common reason that couples in the Western world get divorced?”

  “You first,” Alice said, tapping me on the knee.

  I didn’t have to think too hard. “Infidelity.”

  Vivian and I looked at my wife. “Claustrophobia?” Alice offered.

  Not the answer I was hoping for.

  Vivian recorded our answers on the legal pad. “Do you think people should take responsibility for their actions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think marriage counseling can be helpful?”

  “I sure hope so.” I laughed.

  She scribbled. I leaned over to see what she was writing, but her handwriting was too small. Snapping the folio shut, she named two famous actors who had recently split. Over the past month, the tawdry details of their divorce had been everywhere. “So,” she asked, “which one of them, do you think, is responsible for the divorce?”

  Alice was frowning, trying to figure out what Vivian wanted to hear. Like I said, Alice is an overachiever—she doesn’t just want to pass the test, she needs a perfect score. “I imagine the responsibility lies with both of them,” she replied. “While I don’t think the things she did with Tyler Doyle were all that mature, her husband could’ve handled it differently. He shouldn’t have posted those tweets, for one thing.”

  Vivian nodded, and Alice sat up a little straighter, clearly pleased. It occurred to me that this must have been the way she acted back in school, always the girl with her hand in the air, eager and prepared. Now it made her seem vulnerable, in a good way; there was something sweetly incongruous about my wife—with her big job and her multimillion-dollar settlements and her very adult wardrobe—trying so hard to get the answer right.

  “As always, I completely agree with my wife.”

  “Good answer,” Vivian said, winking. “Just a few more. What is your signature drink?”

  “Chocolate milk,” I said. “Hot chocolate when it’s cold.”

  Alice thought for a second. “It used to be cranberry juice and vodka on the rocks. Now it’s Calistoga berry. What’s yours?”

  Vivian seemed mildly surprised to have the tables turned. “Probably Green Spot, twelve year, neat.” She flipped through her packet. “The biggie: Do you want your marriage to last forever?”

  “Yes.” I said it automatically. “Of course.”

  “Yes,” Alice said. It seemed like she meant it, but then again, what if she was only saying it to pass the test?

  “Finished,” Vivian said, sliding her folio into her leather bag. “Shall we look at the slides?”

  9

  “The Pact is a group of like-minded individuals intent on achieving a similar goal,” Vivian began. “Created in 1992 on a small island off Northern Ireland by Orla Scott, The Pact has increased exponentially in size and commitment since that day. While our rules and bylaws have changed, our membership has grown, and our members have spread far and wide, the mission and spirit of The Pact remain true to the concept that Orla conceived in the very beginning.”

  She edged forward in her chair, so that our knees were inches apart. Her computer still projected THE PACT on our wall.

  “So it’s a club?” Alice asked.

  “Kind of, yes,” Vivian said, “and also kind of no.”

  The first slide featured a tall, trim woman standing in front of a white cottage, with the ocean in the background. “Orla Scott was a barrister, a criminal prosecutor,” Vivian narrated. “She was extremely driven—a careerist, in her words. She was married, no children. She wanted to be able to devote all of her time to her position, she wanted to rise within the Ministry of Justice, and she wanted nothing to hold her back. In her late thirties, all during the course of one year, Orla’s parents died, her husband left her, and her position was made redundan
t.”

  Alice stared at the image on the wall. I imagined she felt a kind of kinship with Orla. She knew a thing or two about loss.

  “Orla had prosecuted more than three thousand cases,” Vivian continued. “The rumor is that she won all of them. She was a cog in the Thatcher machine, and in an instant Thatcher was out of power and Orla was out of a job.

  “Orla retreated to Rathlin, the island where she had grown up. She rented a cottage, expecting to stay a week or two, figure things out, and plot her next move. In the days that followed, however, she found herself increasingly drawn to the pace of island life, the quiet existence she’d known as a child. She realized that the things she valued the most seemed flimsy. She went to the island to help herself work through the stress and anxiety of losing her job, only to find that the layoff wasn’t as devastating as she’d imagined. What really threw her for a loop, it turned out, was the end of her marriage.

  “Her husband was a man she had loved passionately in college. They married at a young age, then slowly drifted apart. When he asked her for a divorce, she was relieved—it was just one more complex set of problems she wouldn’t have to think about. When she was brutally honest with herself, she realized she’d seen the marriage as a nuisance—something that made her feel guilty every time she had to work late.

  “She had gotten into criminal prosecution out of an idealism and a desire to help victims. In the months following the divorce, however, she took a hard look at her career. She lived on adrenaline, moving quickly from one case to another, no time to examine things from a larger perspective. Over time, she became part of a changing political landscape for which she had no deep respect. The inertia of day-to-day events swept her along.

  “When all of this became clear to her, she began analyzing the arc of her marriage. She made an effort to rekindle their relationship, but he had already moved on.”

  Vivian was talking faster now, enthralled with a story that she had probably told dozens of times.