The Marriage Pact (1) (8 page)

“Girl,
you’re about to find out what pigs men can be—Dan didn’t put his underwear in
the hamper for the first ten years of our marriage. I had to quit doing his
laundry entirely before he learned that lesson...” Giggles and mutters of
assent rose from around the room.

“Nicky,
just don’t lose yourself.” Marci looked up at the familiar voice and saw their
mother in tears with her hand on Nicole’s knee, but also looking up pointedly
at Marci as she said it. “Enjoy your husband, but you be sure and live your own
life, too.”

#

Ravi
had a conference call that evening, so the four Thompsons rode together to have
dinner and take Marci back to the airport. Marci held her cell phone cradled in
her hand the entire ride, and stared aimlessly out the window while Nicole and
Mom recounted the details of the shower and the gifts, and Dad feigned polite
interest.

She
couldn’t seem to stop herself from running through all the various scenarios
from this afternoon. Even though she knew it didn’t matter, the details of why
Cathy had answered Doug’s phone and whether he knew she had called, and what,
if anything, had transpired between them—all these things seemed to matter
greatly. And the fact that Doug had not called her back since it happened three
hours ago was particularly worrisome. She imagined a horrible fight in which
Cathy threw his phone out the car window. And worse.

Lost
in this reverie, it took a moment for her to realize that Nicole was now
talking directly to her: “...I don’t know how you put up with it. I am so sorry
she cornered you like that. You missed the games! What a creepy old bat.”

“Nicole
Elizabeth Thompson!” Their mother actually reached back and smacked Nicole on
the knee from the passenger seat. “You will not talk about your great-aunt that
way! She has lived a long time and she deserves your respect. Didn’t she give
you that wonderful little bowl?”

“It
was an ashtray, Mom. What am I going to do with an ashtray? It’s 2004.”

“Well,
at any rate. She is a dear old woman –”

Their
father snorted in the driver’s seat.

“Arthur!”

“What?
She’s a bitter old witch and you know it. Ease up.”

Nicole
laughed and stomped her feet in triumph, and even Marci couldn’t help but
smile.

“I
can’t believe you would say that!” Their mother was outraged with their father,
one of her very favorite emotional states.

“Elaine,”
he said slowly, “maybe if you explained why she’s such a nasty old crone, the
girls would have a little sympathy for her.”

“I
don’t know what you’re—”

He
looked at her pointedly over the glasses he used for driving.

“Oh,
come on, Arthur. That’s a silly rumor...”

“What
rumor?” Nicole asked, leaning forward.

“You
have to admit it makes sense, don’t you?” he said, looking back at the highway.

 “Whether
it makes sense or not, I am not going to spend Marci’s last hour in Atlanta gossiping
about a poor old lady who has no one left to be kind to her, Arthur. Anyway, I
think all that mess with Dottie has been blown way out of proportion.”

“What
mess?” Nicole and Marci said in unison.

Their
mother had folded her arms in what they all knew was an irrevocable refusal to
speak further, and was now staring out the window at the trees and billboards
along I-285.

“Your
mother’s Aunt Mildred,” their father began, and an exasperated sigh floated out
from the passenger seat, “is very...er, opinionated, as you may have noticed.
Especially about the subject of marriage. Well, before she married Herbert, who
you two never knew—”

“Marci
met him. She was two. The year before he died.”

“Okay,
well, yes. Anyway, before she married Herbert and had their two sons—”

“Your
Uncle Ron and Uncle Mike,” their mother put in, as though this might be
interesting enough to distract from the delicious gossip both girls could sense
was coming.

“—she
actually got married sort of late for her time. She was in her late twenties
when she and Herbert finally tied the knot. Before that, she was a teacher.”

“First
woman in our family to go to college!” Mom piped up.

“Yes,
a sharp lady, Mildred is. Anyway, during college and while she was teaching,
Aunt Mildred had...a friend.”

“A
roommate,
Arthur,” Mom corrected. “Which was not uncommon at the time.”

“Sure,
sure.” Dad went on, “Anyway, many folks in the family, including your
grandmother when she was alive, believed that Mildred and Dottie were more than
just friends, if you know what I mean.”

They
did. Marci and Nicole looked at each other, dumbstruck. Picturing mean, stony
Mildred with a husband and raising kids was difficult enough. A forbidden
lesbian lover was just too much to bear. They grinned gleefully at each other.

“They
lived together for more than seven years, and were more or less inseparable.
The story goes, your great-grandfather—maybe he was catching on, I don’t
know—anyway, he threatened to cut Mildred off entirely if she didn’t get
married in a year or something like that. He was a wealthy man, and I think
family meant a lot to Mildred. Well, we all know how the story ends.” He looked
at his wife again, all playfulness gone from his voice, and put a hand on her
knee. “Personally, I can’t imagine having to make a choice like that.”

She
seemed to soften at this. “How do you know this story anyway? I never told
you.”

“Well,
your mother hinted at it once or twice, but I got the full story from your
Uncle Alvin one Christmas. Too much eggnog, I guess. I think he always felt
ashamed that he never stood up for Mildred...just watched her marry Herbert and
hoped she’d be happy. Obviously, she never really was.”

Their
mother seemed unable to argue with this last statement. She put her hand on his
and squeezed it affectionately. Marci felt like an intruder on a private
moment.

Wow
. Marci wondered what Dottie was
like, and what had become of her after Mildred ended things. Did she go on to
her own loveless union, or escape to another relationship in a more liberal
climate than the Old South? Or perhaps her broken heart was too much to bear,
and she became a spinster librarian with eleven cats and a collection of
porcelain dolls.
How awful,
Marci thought.
No wonder Aunt Mildred
resents all the choices I have available
.

Half
an hour later, as she dragged her wobbly college suitcase through the terminal,
checking her phone every two minutes hoping to see a call from Doug, she
couldn’t help but wonder what she was really doing with all the choices she
had.

#

By
the time he called it was nearly midnight. She had unpacked fretfully, with the
windows open to let in the calming night air and the sound of Plastic Utensils
rehearsing, which made her feel less lonely. She had stalled for a while,
cleaning, knowing that she would be unable to sleep until she heard from him.
By the time the phone vibrated on her nightstand, she had been lying in bed
staring up at the ceiling for about twenty minutes.

“Hey,”
he whispered.

“Hey,”
she echoed.

“Sorry
it took me so long to call back—it was kind of a long afternoon.” She held her
breath, but he didn’t offer details. “How was your trip?”

“It
was fine. Doug, I am so sorry I called your phone today; what happened? I’ve
been so worried. Are you okay?”

He
chuckled mildly. “Yeah, using your sister’s name was pretty good thinking, I
guess.”

“She
told you?”

“I
was right next to her. We ended up driving back together because her brother
needed her car...it’s a long story. I accidentally dropped my phone in the center
console without thinking and she answered it. Anyway, I haven’t been able to
shake her all afternoon, which is why I’m just now calling you back. I knew it
was you, of course. None of my other mistresses are ballsy enough to call my
phone in the middle of the day.”

She
said nothing. She knew he was joking, but she couldn’t make herself laugh.

“Oh,
come on. I’m kidding. You should be glad I’m handling it so well, shouldn’t
you?”

“Do
you think she suspects something?”

“She
might suspect that there’s someone named Nicole with a number similar to mine,
if that’s what you mean.”

“How
did she seem? I mean, after the call?”

“I
don’t know. Normal, I guess.”

“But
she wouldn’t let you out of her sight? Don’t you think that means something? Where
is she now? Where are you now?”

“Marci,
calm down. How about ‘Hi, Doug, I love you and I missed you so much while I was
partying all night in Atlanta.’ I tried to call
you
a couple of times,
as you may have noticed.”

“I’m
sorry,” she muttered. And waited.

“All
right, all right, you need to know? My wife did not seem in any way unnerved,
confused, or angry about the wrong number call to my cell phone. She seemed
very much as if she had just received a call for the wrong number. She said
nothing else about it, though I think in the future it might be good if we
avoid that happening again, okay?

“We
were together all afternoon because her brother is borrowing her car in
Beaumont for a couple of days and she had set up dinner for us when we got back
tonight with some friends of ours and forgotten to tell me about it. After
dinner, the four of us came back to our house and played cards until late,
which is why I couldn’t get away to call you. They are really good friends and
it would’ve seemed weird for me to back out of the card game. She is now sound
asleep upstairs, and I am outside in my car on the phone with you at midnight,
and pretending to look for some work papers I need to go over by the morning.
So, Nancy Drew, does it sound like I have filled in all the holes to your
satisfaction?”

She
was embarrassed to admit it, but it actually did help to hear all the details.
Cathy had apparently not figured everything out from the phone call. Marci felt
silly for how worried she had been.

They
only talked for a few minutes and she gave him the basics of her trip, leaving
out the details about Jake and the kiss at the bar, of course. These were two
different worlds. Doug needed to go back inside, and when they hung up the
phone she realized she was completely exhausted and fell straight to sleep.

Cathy
decided to stay in Austin for the next few weeks, because her brother was
available to help in Beaumont. Work was crazy for Doug, too, so his
availability to be with or even talk to Marci diminished substantially. They
exchanged brief, thinly coded e-mails at work and talked on the phone very late
at night while he sat outside in his car. Once he even fell asleep in the
driver’s seat, telling Marci later that he had awakened to the sound of the garbage
truck and had to pretend he’d just gone out to get the morning paper. His
overall mood was rather dark, and the stress seemed to be wearing on his body,
and his patience with Marci.

In
terms of the amount of time they spent together, it wasn’t all that different
from the early days of their relationship—stolen moments here and there. But
while those brief encounters had made her happy early on, they were now a sharp
contrast to the semi-domestic bliss they had been enjoying before Marci’s trip
to Atlanta. Loneliness pressed in on her when she prepared meals for herself in
the tiny kitchen. Memories of cooking with Doug created emptiness, where before
him there had been only simple solitude.

The
second Tuesday after her return, Doug managed to come by her place for about an
hour after work. She spent all of Monday evening cleaning her apartment and ran
out to buy his favorite beer. But her preparations mattered little. As soon as
he walked in the door, he ravished her like a hungry animal. He kissed her
forcefully, not with the gentle affection she had come to enjoy most of the
time, but as though he had been in the desert for weeks and she was a first jug
of water.

The
sex was furious. As soon as she had fumbled the door locked—somewhat
challenging with Doug’s tongue taking over her whole mouth—he reached under her
lightweight skirt and tore down the tiny, cute panties she’d obsessed over
picking out the night before. He pushed her, a little roughly, toward the wall
and boosted her against it almost effortlessly. She wrapped her legs around him
instinctively to hold herself up, and it took him just seconds to lift her
skirt around her waist and to push himself into her. She wondered insanely how
long he could hold her up this way, feeling distracted and self-conscious about
her weight, but it was over quickly after all the time they’d spent apart. “I
missed you,” he said with a small grin as he lowered her to the floor,
sweating.

 She
went to the kitchen and opened two of the beers. He sat at her tiny kitchen
table and pulled her onto his lap when she tried to walk past. “I really,
really missed you,” he said hungrily into the back of her neck as she took a
swig from her bottle. “You smell amazing. God, I love you so much.” She still
felt a thrill to hear him say it.

Marci
tried to think what she wanted to talk about with their limited time—their
conversations had been so cropped lately, and his patience so short, that it
seemed important to get today
right
while they were together. “I’ve
written something new,” she offered. It was one way that her evenings alone
were actually paying off.

“Mmm...really?
What is it?” he said into to the back of her head, running his hands over her
shoulders in a half-massaging, half-smoothing motion. The feeling was so intense
that she was having trouble remembering exactly what it was that she had
written.

“Well,
it’s kind of an essay, I guess...” She started, unsure how to describe what
she’d written. A satirical look at the life of a temp, it pieced together funny
and demeaning stories from her assignments over the years. She had no idea if
it was publishable, and if it was, who would want read it. She had half-hoped
Doug would be impressed by it and give her some direction about what to do
next, but she was also pretty nervous to put it in front of his critical eye.
“It’s based on some of my work experiences from the last few years.”

“Mmm-hmm.
Great.”  But he wasn’t listening to her words. He stood, keeping an arm
around her shoulders, and moved both beers to the counter. Gently but
insistently, he pressed her upper body to the table and pushed her legs apart.
He started slowly, using his hand to massage her as he moved into her again.
But soon he grabbed both her hips and pounded with an intensity that was both
thrilling and a little bit painful. He made none of his usual effort to keep
quiet because of her thin walls, but moaned loudly and even bellowed her name a
couple of times. This recklessness was so unlike him, and yet it was everything
she’d wished for during all the times when he was so careful and quiet. No one
had ever called out her name that way.

By
the time they had finished the second time, he had only ten minutes left before
he had to go, which he used to take a shower. As she sat on the couch waiting
for him, she thought she heard the theme to
The A-Team
drifting out of
the bathroom.

When
he plopped down next to her, he looked invigorated, ready to take on the world.
“Thanks, babe, it was wonderful,” he said, brushing her cheek. She smiled
thinly back. “I’ve got to get back for that meeting. I’m sorry we didn’t have
much time to talk. I’d like to read that essay, though. Soon. Okay?”

She
nodded and he kissed her sweetly. She couldn’t explain why, but once the door had
closed behind him, she stayed in the same spot on the couch for a long time,
staring at his half-full beer bottle.

#

The
following Saturday when she got in from walking around the trail at Town Lake,
there was a message from Jake on her machine. “Hey, Marce. I was just thinking,
I don’t have plans for Memorial Day weekend and I haven’t been out to see you
in a while. Maybe it’s time for another tequila tour of Austin? Give me a call,
okay?”

A
flood of memories came back from two years earlier, when Jake, Suzanne, and
their college friend Rebecca had made the trip out to Austin for the South by
Southwest festival. Marci had managed to take half a week off from the temp
assignment she’d been working at the time—archiving files at a giant law
firm—and the four of them had spent four days and nights boozing and listening
to music in just about every bar, warehouse, and alleyway in the city. She
smiled at the recollection. That trip was one of those times in her life she
knew could never be re-created, and would never be forgotten.

Of
course, what Jake was suggesting now was something different. Not a road trip
and casual reunion of friends, but just the two of them and a long weekend
alone together. She thought of the kiss they’d shared at the bar a couple of weeks
ago and her heart began to beat faster. Could he really have feelings for her
after all these years?

She
felt guilty that she’d never told Doug about the kiss, and guilty that she’d
never told Jake about Doug at all. He was one of her best friends, and keeping
the secret from him was even more painful than keeping it from Suzanne. At
least Suzanne’s heart was not at risk. Jake’s heart...she couldn’t think about
it. She saved the message for later and headed for the shower.

#

Another
exhausting week followed. Work had become crazy for everyone at the company,
and the recent stress Doug had been exhibiting seemed to have infected the
entire office. Even Victoria snapped at Marci for asking too many questions
about an assignment, which was out of character for the always-together
accounting manager. Meanwhile, Marci’s normally empty desk became crowded with
an overflowing inbox and a slew of instructional post-it notes from the seven
people for whom she was working on minor projects.

Work
was a little nuts, but Marci was actually grateful to be busy and distracted.
Doug had little time during the day to e-mail her, and their late-night
conversations were somewhat perfunctory. He seemed to realize his
inattentiveness, however, and did actually manage to sneak out one day and send
flowers to her apartment, with a note that read simply “I love you always. –
D.” She wanted desperately to bring them into the office, but decided that even
without the card it was too dangerous.

The
good news was that Cathy would be going out with girlfriends on Friday night,
so Doug could at least make it over for dinner. Marci planned to learn from her
mistake the previous week and keep her expectations as low as possible. She did
not clean the apartment, nor did she buy special beer or plan an extravagant
meal.
If
it worked out,
if
he showed up in time for dinner, they
would order pizza and he could buy whatever he wanted to drink on his way over.

 She
tried to keep her evenings full in the meantime, talking with her mom, Nicole,
Suzanne, and Beth for at least an hour each at some point during the week, and
finally mustering the courage to call Jake and explain that Memorial Day
weekend just wasn’t a great time for her. She didn’t offer any further
explanation, because all the ones she’d thought of sounded lame when she
rehearsed them, and he didn’t ask.

In
fact, Jake seemed neither hurt nor terribly disappointed by the rejection of
his plan, and Marci decided she had created the whole idea of his feelings for
her out of thin air. They were friends. They lived six states apart. Sure, once
in college they had messed around, and maybe kissed a few times since; but that
was just what it was, and nothing more. There had to be hundreds of little
promises like theirs written on cocktail napkins across the country, and people
pulled them out to laugh at their immaturity and drunkenness. They didn’t
follow through on them.

#

When
Friday afternoon rolled around, she put all her papers into neat piles, shut
down her computer, faxed her timesheet to the temp agency at 4:55, and headed
quickly out the door. Despite her attempts to control her excitement, she
bounded up the apartment stairs like a kid finally home for the summer. In her
pocket she still had a folded post-it Doug had left on her desk while she was
in the restroom: “6:30.”

She
helped herself to a glass of white wine from the fridge and turned on the TV to
help the hour pass more quickly while she waited for him. The knock on the door
came at 6:29, and she forced herself not to bounce to the door to greet him,
but walk like an actual grown-up person who had received visitors before.

Their
reunion was passionate, but without the roughness and rush of last time. They
shared a glass of wine on the couch and argued playfully about what kind of
pizza to order. Doug rubbed her thigh under her skirt affectionately but did
not push beyond that. She wondered whether he realized that she needed him to
be more sensitive to her, or if he simply was not feeling such an intense need
this time around.

Or
maybe it was just that he knew he had most of the evening. With
uncharacteristic disclosure, Doug explained that Cathy and seven of her
girlfriends had gone all the way up to Round Rock to try a new restaurant and
were going to a movie afterward. He had until at least eleven.

After
the pizza, they made love quietly—conventionally, Marci realized—in her bed, in
the dark, under the covers. She had almost fallen asleep when he began to talk
about taking a trip with her, and it took her brain a moment to realize that he
really was saying it. “...she goes on a girls’ trip to South Padre Island every
June, for at least four or five days, and I was thinking maybe you and I could
go somewhere during that same time. Somewhere quiet, like maybe in the West...”

“You
mean go on a trip together?” Marci said, astonished. “Wouldn’t that be
dangerous? How would we pay for everything without it showing up on your credit
card bill? What if—”

“I
have a plan,” he said conclusively. “I just need to know if you want to go.”

Could
it be real? Full days and nights together? No work, no e-mail, no rushing out
at dawn? “Of course I want to, Doug, but—”

“Good.
Then it’s settled.” He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. After a
moment, he added very softly, “I’m thinking of leaving her.”

“What?”
Her heart pounded so hard she could almost see the sheet over her bare breast
moving with it.

“I’m
thinking of leaving her.”

“So
this trip is...running away?”

“No,
of course not. I guess it would be, kind of a dry run. Just to make sure you
can really stand being around me 24-7.”

Her
head was spinning. This was everything she wanted, and yet— “So this is like an
audition
?”

“No,
Marci, no. Come on, that’s not what I meant.”

“What
did you mean, then?” She got out of bed, grabbed her robe off the bathroom
door, and flipped on the light. Doug was sitting up against her pillows,
looking at her incredulously.

“I
thought you’d be happy—I was just saying I thought it would be nice to have a
trip together.”

“So
if you’re leaving your wife, why don’t you just leave her, and then we’ll plan
a trip? Why do we still have to sneak away while she’s on South Padre?” Marci’s
anger was incomprehensible, even to her own ears. She should be happy he wanted
to plan a trip; she should be happy he wanted to be with her. Why did it matter
that the two things could be happening in tandem? Yet she couldn’t hold back.
She glared at him, her eyes demanding a response.

He
surrendered entirely, for the first time since she’d known him. “You’re right,”
he said, looking down at his hands folded in his lap. “I haven’t thought it all
through yet, and I shouldn’t have said anything until I had.