The Marriage Pact Page 9

  I thought of Isobel huddled on the beach, unable to call anyone to pick her up, and my heart ached for her. I guess that’s what I mean when I say kids seem a little younger these days. Back in my day, you memorized your phone number and your address before your first day of kindergarten.

  “You know, you really need to go home,” I said. “If not for you, then for your parents. Maybe they don’t communicate as well as they should, but you know they love you. Maybe you don’t want to hear this, but they’re going through a tough time now too. You’re certainly old enough to understand that parents are just regular adults, with regular adult problems that don’t always revolve around their kids.”

  Isobel went to work on the tinfoil, meticulously folding it into smaller and smaller squares.

  “I remember the first life lesson I learned,” I ventured. For all their eye rolling and disdain, teenagers actually depend on adults having more life experience than they do, more wisdom. That’s why it shatters their world when adults don’t behave well, when they let their flaws and mistakes hang out like dirty laundry.

  “Life lesson?”

  “You know, something real, something that strikes a chord and sticks with you.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding interested.

  “I won’t waste your time with the specifics, but let’s just say I was fifteen, things were bad for a few different reasons. I’d messed things up, and I just wanted to disappear. I was wandering around town, trying to figure out what to do, and I ran into my English teacher out at the Camera Obscura. It was so weird seeing him out of context. He was alone. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, not his usual coat-and-tie thing. He was clearly in a funk, nothing like the even, consistent teacher I’d come to know, or at least thought I knew.

  “Anyway, when I texted you this morning, I was thinking of him. The day I ran into him, he must’ve been able to tell right off that I was in a bad way too. He asked if he could buy me a cup of hot chocolate.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Isobel said, smiling.

  “Long story short, I told him my troubles, and he didn’t give me a lecture or anything. He didn’t make me feel bad about the mistakes I’d made. He just looked at me and said, ‘You know, sometimes you just have to walk back across that burning bridge.’ That was it. When I saw him the following Monday, he didn’t say anything about our conversation. He just asked, ‘Did you make it across that burning bridge?’ And when I said yes, he just gave me a nod and said, ‘Me too.’ That was it, but I remember it more than anything else I learned in high school.”

  As we walked back in the direction of my office, my cell rang. “That’s my mother, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” she said, “make you a deal. If your wife promises to teach me makeup tricks this weekend, I’ll go home.”

  “Deal,” I agreed, “but you really have to give your parents a chance.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I answered the phone. “Everything is good,” I said. “We’ll meet you outside my office.”

  As we stood waiting for Isobel’s mom to drive up, I texted Alice. Do you have a second?

  Type fast.

  Can you teach Isobel some of your secret makeup tricks from the old days?

  Hells yeah.

  The blue Saab station wagon pulled up, and I opened the door for Isobel. “Saturday morning at nine,” I said. I gave her the address and leaned into the open window to confirm with her mom, who grabbed Isobel in a long, tight hug. I was happy to see that Isobel hugged her back.

  22

  Alice hadn’t mentioned the bracelet at all that week. Occasionally, though, I would notice her running her fingers over its smooth surface. Workdays, she always wore long sleeves, though that may have had more to do with the winter weather. When she got home—she’d started coming home much earlier than usual—she would quickly slip out of the long-sleeve blouse and into a T-shirt, or sometimes change right away into some sort of lacy nightgown, or a camisole with flimsy pajama bottoms.

  I hate to say it, but she was far more attentive to me after her lunch with Vivian. If the purpose of the bracelet was to remind her to pay more attention to her marriage, then it was working. Of course, it was possible that its purpose was more nefarious. So I tried to watch what I said, to muffle my sounds when we were in bed together, to put the thought of surveillance out of my mind. Still, I made the most of our time together. I enjoyed cooking and eating together, I enjoyed all of our great sex, I enjoyed watching Sloganeering on the couch with our ice cream.

  When Isobel got to our house on Saturday morning, the first thing she said to Alice was “I love love love your bracelet. Where did you get it?”

  Alice glanced at me and smiled. “It was a gift from a friend.”

  As promised, Isobel had brought all the fixings for French toast and set about making us breakfast. Alice put on some music and stretched out on the couch to read the paper. She was wearing her old Buzzcocks T-shirt and some ripped-up jeans; she looked exactly like my old girlfriend Alice, not my lawyer wife Alice.

  Later, as the three of us ate breakfast together, I felt as if I’d been zapped into a time machine. I had a sense of what it might be like to have a child of our own—but far in the future, after the diapers and the Mommy-and-me music time and the Daddy-and-me gymnastics, after the relief and heartbreak of kindergarten and the thrill of our kid’s first trip to Disneyland, after a hundred visits to the doctor’s office and a million hugs and kisses and a thousand temper tantrums and all the things that come between birth and the teenage years. It was nice. I could totally see Alice and me doing exactly this, one day, with a kid of our own. Although I understood that, with our own child, it would likely be more complicated. Isobel could be here with us, like this, because there was no history between us, no baggage. We hadn’t disappointed her, and she hadn’t worried us to death. Still: a family of three, together on a Saturday morning. I could see it.

  After breakfast, Isobel and Alice retreated to the back room to do their makeup thing. Isobel had brought her laptop so she could pull up one of Alice’s old videos. “This is the Alice I want to imitate,” I heard her say.

  “That one?” Alice said, laughing. “Are you sure? Back in 2003 I was going a little heavy on the eyeliner.”

  I left them alone, reading my book in the living room. Still, I could hear them laughing, and it made me happy, as if we were this perfect imperfect family. It seemed to be exactly what Isobel needed; it also may have been what Alice needed. Because of her own history, which she rarely discussed but which sometimes hung over her like a cloud, Alice had a fragile view of family. Seeing her with Isobel, I understood she’d make a great mom.

  23

  The following Thursday, I was invited to speak at a conference at Stanford. On the way home, I stopped at Draeger’s Market in San Mateo. I was in the frozen foods section, looking for my favorite vanilla bean ice cream, when JoAnne from the Pact party, JoAnne from college, JoAnne from my old life, turned the corner. She seemed surprised to see me. Her hair was combed down straight over her ears and shoulders, and she had a gold scarf wrapped around her neck.

  “Hello, Friend,” she said with a slightly evil smile. Then she looked over her shoulder, as if watching for someone.

  “This is so weird,” she said. “I wanted to call you after I saw you. I found your practice online. I must have picked up the phone a dozen times.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “It’s complicated, Jake. I’m worried about you and Alice.”

  “Worried?”

  She took a step closer. “Neil is here.” She seemed nervous. “If I tell you something,” she whispered, “can you promise me that you will absolutely keep it to yourself?”

  “Of course.”

  To be honest, she seemed a little off. She used to be so normal, so calm. “No, really, don’t even tell Alice.”

  I looked her in the eyes and said seriously, “I never saw you, we never talked.”


  She was holding a bag of coffee beans in one hand, a baguette wrapped in paper in the other. “I’m sorry to be paranoid, Jake, but you’ll understand eventually.”

  “Understand what?”

  “The Pact. It’s not what it seems. Or worse, it is what it seems—”

  “What?”

  She looked over her shoulder again, and her scarf slipped an inch or two. And that’s when I noticed the angry red mark on her neck. It was partially obscured by the scarf, but it looked painful, still fresh.

  “JoAnne—are you okay?”

  JoAnne pulled the scarf back into place. “Neil’s very well connected inside The Pact. I’ve heard him on the phone, and I know they’ve been talking about Alice.”

  “Yes,” I said, confused. “She has this bracelet—”

  JoAnne cut me off. “It’s bad. You can’t have them focused on her, Jake. You need to turn their attention elsewhere. Alice needs to get out from under this. It only gets worse, I promise you. Be good. Read the damn manual. There are so many ways to trip up, and the punishments range from innocuous, if you’re lucky, to severe.” Her hand went to her neck, and she winced in pain. “Make them think everything is fine—no matter what. If that doesn’t work, if they still seem to be watching her, have her blame you. That’s very important, Jake. Spread the blame, the focus, across the both of you.” JoAnne’s cheeks were turning red. It was startling to see her in a panic, undone. I thought of the boy she’d talked down from the roof, the Dr Pepper, the way she’d sit in those weekly RA meetings, pen in hand, observing everyone. She’d always been so unflappable.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to go. Never saw you, never had this conversation.” She turned to walk away, but then she looked back at me. “I like to shop at this Draeger’s two or three times a week.”

  With that, she walked away, leaving me stunned and confused and, I’ll admit, scared. Punishments? Severe? What the hell? Was JoAnne going insane? Surely, she must be. Or worse, was she a perfectly sane person trapped in a sadistic club? A club in which Alice and I were now members?

  I milled about in the cookie aisle, still shaky, wasting time, not wanting to run into JoAnne and Neil at checkout. After a few minutes, I made my way toward the registers. I could see them heading toward the sliding glass doors—Neil in front, JoAnne walking behind. As the doors opened and Neil walked through, I saw JoAnne hesitate for a split second, then glance back into the store. Looking for me, I thought. What the fuck?

  24

  Up 101, across 380, north on 280, all the way home I tried to recall JoAnne’s specific words. When I pulled into the driveway, I looked down to see that the entire pack of Stella D’oro cookies I’d just bought were gone, crumbs everywhere, though I couldn’t recall eating even one.

  Alice wasn’t home yet, so I set about making dinner. Chicken over romaine lettuce, with bottled dressing. I didn’t have the concentration to make anything more complex.

  Alice showed up after seven, looking tired in her vintage Chanel suit. I gathered her in my arms and kissed her, held her tight. The bracelet felt smooth and warm as she laced her hands behind my neck. But now, after the conversation with JoAnne, it sent shivers up my spine.

  “I’m glad you’re home early,” I said, maybe more for the bracelet than either of us.

  She massaged the back of my neck with her fingers. “I’m glad to be home early.”

  I pulled her wrist toward my mouth and spoke into the bracelet, “Thank you for bringing home my absolute favorite ice cream, that was so thoughtful of you!”

  Of course, I was the one who brought home the ice cream, but there was no way for them to know that, right?

  She smiled. “Well,” she said, speaking into the bracelet, “I did it because I love you. And because I’m happy I married you.”

  I wanted to tell her about the meeting with JoAnne. I considered picking up the pad of paper on the kitchen table and writing it all down, handing it over to Alice so we could silently discuss this thing together, figure out how to proceed. But JoAnne’s warning raced through my mind: not a word to anyone, not even Alice. The more reasonable part of my brain told me that JoAnne was going through something, losing her grip. I’d seen it happen before—perfectly normal people, mentally stable, late onset cases of schizophrenia and paranoia. Unexpected reactions to certain drugs. Triggers that brought up some trauma from childhood and seemed to change someone’s personality overnight. Middle-aged professionals who’d done too much acid in college and suddenly found that a weird, buried portal to insanity had opened up inside their brains. I wanted to believe that JoAnne’s panic, her bizarre story of punishments, was caused by some personal demon she couldn’t get out from under. I wished I had spent more time talking with her husband at the party, so I could get a sense of the kind of person he was. But the threat of action against Alice, the idea that Neil and others were discussing her supposed crimes and the appropriate punishments, gave me the creeps. How could I know what was real and what was a product of JoAnne’s feverish imaginings?

  As we were setting the table, Alice told me that she was meeting Vivian for lunch the next day. “It’s been fourteen days,” she reminded me. “Tomorrow the bracelet comes off.”

  Alice skipped her half hour of reading that night. A long dinner, no TV, a walk through the neighborhood, loving conversation, a slow, uncharacteristically loud encounter in the bedroom. Our performance of the happy couple was so complete that it would make other happy couples, like Mike and Carol Brady or Samantha and Darrin Stephens, seem like they were on the edge of a nasty divorce. The strange part was that we never acknowledged that our performance was for the bracelet or that it even was a performance, so that for me it became something else, something more genuine, as the night wore on. Yet when I woke up the next morning, my perfect wife of the night before was gone. There were her heels in the hallway, strewn haphazardly so I almost tripped over them, her mess of lotions and mascara and lipstick scattered on the bathroom counter, her empty yogurt container and coffee mug, smeared with lipstick, on the table. I half-expected a note—Thanks for the amazing night, I love you more than words can express—but there was nothing. When the clock struck five A.M., my devoted wife Alice had turned back into the laser-focused attorney she was. For her, I feared, last night’s performance really had been for the bracelet.

  As I was getting ready for work, I had a memory of the first time we spent the night together. It was in her apartment in the Haight. We’d stayed up late the night before, making dinner and watching a movie, and we fell into bed together at the end of the night but didn’t make love. Alice wanted to take things slow, and that was fine with me. I loved lying next to her, holding her, listening to the sounds of the street down below. The next morning, Alice and I sat in bed, reading the paper. There was some music on—a great piano piece by Lesley Spencer. The sun was shining through the windows, and the apartment had a beautiful yellow glow. For some reason, the moment just felt right. And I knew the picture would remain with me for a long time.

  I’ve always been surprised by the fact that our most indelible memories are often seemingly mundane things. I couldn’t tell you my mother’s age, or how many years she kept her nursing job after she had us kids, or what she did for my tenth birthday party. But I can tell you that one time on a hot Friday evening in summer in the 1970s, she took me to the Lucky grocery store in Millbrae, and as we walked through the door, she said that I could buy any food I wanted.

  I can’t remember the details of many of the significant markers of my life, the events that are supposed to carry so much meaning: First Communion, confirmation, college graduation, the first day of my first job. I can’t even remember my first date. But I can, with incredible clarity, describe for you my mother on that summer night in Millbrae: the yellow dress she wore, the cork wedges with the flowered straps, the smell of Jergens lotion on her hands mingling with the clean, metallic smell of the freezer, the big silver shopping cart, the brigh
t lights of the grocery store, the Flaky Flix and Chocodiles stacked in the seat at the front of the cart, the teenage clerk who told me I was a lucky kid, and the warm, happy feeling I had, my intense love for my mother at that moment. Memories, like joy, always seem to sneak up on me when I’m not seeking them out.

  25

  That night I got home at five. I wanted to have dinner waiting when Alice returned. I was nervous and strangely excited to hear the details of her lunch with Vivian. I wasn’t sure if dinner should be something celebratory, or something restrained, so I made a simple paella, opened a bottle of wine, and set the table with candles.

  At fifteen minutes after six, I heard the garage door open and Alice’s car pull in. It was taking her so long to get upstairs, it made me nervous. I didn’t want to show my anxiety, in case things with Vivian had taken a bad turn. Eventually I heard her on the back stairs, and then the door opened. She was carrying her computer bag, her coat, a file box—loaded down, as usual. I immediately looked down to her wrist, but it was covered by the sleeve of her trench coat.

  “Yum,” she said, noticing the pan on the stove. “Paella!”

  “Yes,” I said, “Michelin-starred nouvelle cuisine.” I took the box from her and carried it into the living room. When I returned, her shoes and stockings and skirt were on the floor, her hair down. She was standing there in her blouse, trench coat, and underwear, looking like she could finally breathe. She’d developed a small imperfection on the inside of her left thigh, a vein that just months before had popped out a little. She’d shown me the vein on the day it appeared, upset beyond reason, I thought. “What the hell is this?” she’d demanded. “I’m in decline. Pretty soon I won’t even be able to wear skirts.”

  “It’s sweet,” I’d assured her, getting down on my knees and kissing the vein, working my way up. It became a kind of code: Whenever she wanted that particular favor, she’d point to the vein and say, “Honey, I’m feeling really bad about this.” The effect was that now, whenever I saw that small imperfection, it gave me a little erotic thrill.