The Marriage Intervention

by Hilary Dartt

  But he was a great husband in so many ways. He did dishes, laundry, even ironing. He did everything she asked. He was sensitive. To her moods, to her needs in bed, to what she wanted for dinner and whether she wanted to cook.

  What was wrong with her? Really, he had just the one tiny flaw. And really, didn’t it show his dedication and commitment to work? At least he wasn’t a deadbeat.

  Her phone buzzed. A text. She sighed and ignored it. She knew it was Summer or Delaney. Probably both of them, calling her out for not showing up at the gym. It buzzed again and she took it out of her pocket. Sure enough, she had one text from each of her friends, asking where she was. Feeling lonely and in need of their company even though she knew she risked a good chastising, she told them. They pulled up fifteen minutes later. Delaney’s short pigtails had little curls springing out of them, and sweat spread over the back of Summer’s t-shirt.

  “Have a good workout?” Josie asked.

  “Oh my gosh, have you been crying?” Delaney wanted to know.

  Josie rubbed a knuckle under her nose. “Yeah.”

  “What’s going on?” Summer said.

  Summer and Delaney sat down, one on either side of her, and within a moment, she was wrapped in their arms, her body relaxing like warm caramel. Josie explained the fallout from her confession during their session with Dr. Strasser, and her friends remained silent for a few moments when she finished. Summer went back to her car to get a tissue and came back with a wadded up piece of toilet paper, shrugging.

  “Not sure if this has been used or not, but it doesn’t feel crunchy.”

  Josie laughed and wiped her eyes and nose.

  “So, we were talking on the way over here,” Delaney said.

  “And?” Josie said.

  “And we agree that you’re not following The Rules of The Marriage Intervention.”

  Wait,” Josie said. “So you’re telling me this, right here, is an intervention for The Marriage Intervention?”

  Delaney and Summer looked at each other, shrugged, then looked back at Josie and nodded.

  “You’ve got to follow The Rules,” Summer said. “We put them in place for your own good. I cannot believe you were late for your romantic evening with Paul. Especially when you were having drinks with your ex-lover! You have to put as much into your marriage as you say you want to.”

  Not for the first time, Josie felt like a teenager whose mother caught her drinking cheap white zin in her bedroom after lights out.

  “I know you’re right,” Josie said. “It’s just that I’m afraid it’s not going to work. All this trying with Paul. It seems like he’s checked out. And when it fails, I’ll feel so stupid.”

  “I know,” Delaney said. “Summer’s been through that with Derek, right, Summer?”

  “I have,” Summer said. “I understand. But even when he seems like he’s at a standstill, especially when he seems like he’s at a standstill, you have to keep trying. That’s the only way a marriage can work.”

  ***

  If the conversation had ended with Summer giving her some solid marriage advice, Josie would have driven home feeling somewhat bolstered.

  But after the girls sat in silence for a few moments, the brilliant watercolor sunset fading to a dusky rose, Summer cleared her throat.

  “Not to change the subject,” she said, “but we have something to tell you.”

  “Great,” Josie said. “Now that you set it up like that, I can hardly wait.”

  Delaney laughed. “It’s no big deal. It’s just that, per The Marriage Intervention Rules, we signed you up for a race.”

  Josie groaned. “A running race? Or, like, a wine-drinking race?”

  “Running,” Summer said into her shoulder. “But there’s wine involved.”

  “Great,” Josie said. “As if this whole marriage thing wasn’t taking enough of a toll on my mental state? Now I have to stress over a race, too?”

  Summer began rubbing Josie’s back.

  “It’s going to be a super fun race,” Delaney said. “It has a wine and chocolate theme. They hand you a glass of wine and a cup of chocolate fondue when you cross the finish line. You have two months to train for it.”

  Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.

  “Fine,” Josie said.

  “Fine,” Summer and Delaney said.

  “It’s a good thing too,” Delaney added, “Because we already paid for it. We’ll send you the link to the website. Your login name is your email address and of course, your password is bigpenis, all one word.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In the week since Josie revealed her secret to her husband and Dr. Strasser, Paul had not spoken to her. Not surprisingly, he spent all his time at work, coming home only to shower, eat and sleep, and then only during school hours when he knew Josie would be gone.

  He probably racked up about thirty hours of overtime. Normally, they daydreamed together about what they’d buy with the big paycheck, but not this week. This week they passed like ships in the night. Only, Josie thought, they weren’t even on the same sea.

  Now she sat in Dr. Strasser’s spotless office, staring at a palm frond just to the left of Dr. Strasser’s bald head. She could never get plants to grow, and she hoped that curse didn’t carry over to children. That is, if she and Paul ever spoke again, much less procreated.

  “Paul’s not coming,” she said when the clock showed five after four. “He warned me last week, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “So why did you come alone rather than rescheduling?” Dr. Strasser asked, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on them.

  Must be his go-to position. Do I have a go-to position?

  “What? Oh, I came because …” Because Summer and Delaney insisted.

  The clock ticked. The air conditioner clicked on. The palm frond shifted. Dr. Strasser waited.

  “I came because I thought it would be a good idea to talk to you about a past relationship. One I had before I met Paul.”

  “Go on,” Dr. Strasser said.

  “Coincidentally” (or not coincidentally) “it was with that same guy I had drinks with last week. The drinks that made me late for my romantic evening with Paul.”

  Once she started, she had difficulty stopping. She went on and on, the words rising in the air like steam from the espresso machine at Umbrella Coffee. She explained how she met Scott, how they had a very intense relationship for a short time, and how she continued to feel a bit of sexual tension even to this day.

  “And the reason Paul isn’t here today is because I never told him about this relationship until last week after our session. In the parking lot.”

  Now she burst into tears, and kept talking. “I know I should have told him years ago, but I kept putting it off. And since I kept putting it off, it felt like a bigger and bigger secret.”

  “Why do you think you didn’t want to tell him?” Dr. Strasser asked.

  Why, indeed.

  “That’s what I’m not sure of,” Josie said. “When Scott and I dated, he insisted we keep it a secret. He was the new principal at the school and didn’t want anyone to know we’d been together. He thought they might think he was giving me preferential treatment. Or that he was distracted by our relationship. So at first, it seemed like a special secret we shared. It bonded us. I think I always thought of it as confidential.”

  “Did you ever feel like you should share that information with Paul?”

  “I felt like I should, yes. Not because my fling with Scott was a huge deal, but because I knew he’d want to know since I see Scott every day at work.”

  “What stopped you from telling him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Josie said again.

  Dr. Strasser leaned forward now, his elbows on his desk. He looked straight at Josie. “Give me some guesses,” he said.

  “I thought he’d be angry.”

  “Why would he be angry? Lots of people have relationships before they get married. Surely Paul d
id, too.”

  Josie nodded. “He’d be angry because I still see Scott every day.”

  “Why would that make him angry?”

  “I don’t really know.” She felt her shoulders lift into a shrug and hoped the movement didn’t come off as disrespectful.

  “Give me some guesses.”

  “Because he’d think I couldn’t get over Scott if I still saw him every day? Because he wouldn’t like me interacting with Scott, remembering the, um, things we shared?”

  “Do you remember those things fondly?”

  A beat of silence ensued. Then Josie nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  “And I take it Scott is different from Paul? The relationship you shared with him was different as well?”

  Josie nodded.

  Dr. Strasser continued. “So when things are tough with Paul, do you find yourself comparing?”

  “Isn’t it inevitable?”

  “Is it?”

  ***

  An entirely new kind of feeling was spreading throughout Josie Garcia’s body, and she didn’t know what do make of the unfamiliar sensation.

  Guilt. Guilt over her enduring feelings for Scott. Dr. Strasser hadn’t said as much, but his questions definitely got her wheels turning. Why hadn’t she told Paul about her relationship with Scott? Would he really be jealous? Would he really think she couldn’t get over it?

  Probably not. He was a reasonable guy, and yes, he had past relationships, too. Josie hadn’t told him because she thought she couldn’t get over it. The secret started out as a tiny seed, planted just after she met Paul. Every day, she watered it when she saw Scott at school. It grew and grew, its tendrils, in the form of comparison, curling into every aspect of her marriage.

  If Paul came home late, Josie told herself Scott would always be on time. If Paul got called out, Josie told herself Scott would stay home. If Paul was too tired for sex because he’d worked an extra-long shift, Josie told herself Scott would never turn her down. She became angry and resentful, picking apart Paul’s every move.

  In this way, she constantly tore down their marriage, one event, one criticism at a time.

  Paul may be to blame for some of their problems, but suddenly Josie realized she was, too.

  In fact, she was to blame for most of their problems.

  How had this happened? Why hadn’t she seen the situation this way before?

  ***

  If Summer and Delaney were going to insist that she run that stupid race, Josie needed the proper attire. Tuesday afternoon, she hit the mall. Although she had vivid memories of her reaction to Delaney shopping for office supplies and a new suit when she was supposed to be writing her resume and applying for jobs, she walked from the parking lot to the shoe store with growing excitement.

  Shopping always warmed her up from the inside out like a bowl of her mother’s tortilla soup on a winter day. When she told the salesman (who was actually a sales-teenager with a wispy goatee) she needed running shoes, he pointed to the treadmill.

  “Let’s get an analysis of your stride,” he said.

  Josie froze. “I didn’t realize this was actually going to involve running. I thought I was just shopping.”

  The kid laughed.

  “We like to analyze your stride so we can select the right shoe for you. It prevents injury. Obviously, you can’t run in those heels.” He laughed and she glared at him. “Let’s start with a neutral shoe. What size do you wear?”

  When he disappeared into the back room, anxiety took root in Josie’s stomach. She sat down on the metal bench and took off her three-inch heels. There was no getting out of this. The kid reemerged, introduced himself as Mark, and handed her a pair of running socks and some cushy-looking, gaudy shoes slathered in fluorescent pinks and oranges. She cringed, but dutifully put them on and stepped onto the treadmill. Mark pressed the start button and the machine gave a tiny jolt. Josie jumped.

  “Just relax, now,” Mark said. “I’m going to put it on four miles per hour, which should be a comfortable jogging pace for you.”

  Josie nodded, gripping the handrails as the belt sped up. She was already out of breath. When she saw the speed indicator reach four miles per hour, she took her hands off the handrails.

  Mark walked back to a computer in the corner. “I’m just going to get a quick video.”

  “A video?” Josie shrieked. “You are not getting this on video!”

  He laughed. “Just your feet. To see how you strike. Keep jogging.”

  Josie nodded, and noticed she hadn’t even run a tenth of a mile yet. Why did she feel so tired? She plodded along, waiting for Mark to tell her she could stop. After what seemed like several minutes (but was, according to the machine’s timer, less than two), Mark reappeared at her side and pushed the stop button.

  More than anything, Josie wanted to put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Instead, she played it cool, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth like that twig of a yoga instructor always told them to do. A few minutes later, she walked out of the shoe store with a new pair of neutral shoes and a package of fancy running socks designed to prevent blisters (as if I’ll be doing that much running! Ha!).

  She spent the next hour shopping for leggings, tank tops and sports bras, and was pleasantly surprised to discover some genius had designed underwear specifically for running. Everything came in a variety of colorful patterns, fancy fabrics and complete outfits, and Josie felt a rush of pleasure putting together a full running wardrobe. Maybe this whole running thing wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  As she walked to her car, arms loaded with shopping bags, she said, to herself or maybe to Paul’s invisible audience, “Well, I’ve got my workout in for today. I’m on my way to a ten K.”

  ***

  She should have known it would be a disaster. Josie never had enjoyed running, and even a great outfit couldn’t take away from the fact that it made her feel like she was drowning. Or like she was a fish in honey. A snail in peanut butter. Whatever.

  The Internet research she did on running suggested morning was the best time to exercise. And so what if researching running rather than actually doing it looked a bit like procrastination?

  Thursday morning, Josie set her alarm to go off an hour earlier than normal. Paul wasn’t in bed.

  No surprise there.

  She turned on the lights and pulled on some leopard print leggings and a black tank top. The temperature this morning felt balmy, and she walked for a few minutes to warm up.

  “I can do this,” she whispered to the rising sun, which was just peeking up over the horizon.

  With that, she started jogging. Slowly, yes, but jogging nonetheless.

  “Summer and Delaney would be so proud,” she said.

  One foot in front of the other.

  Her lungs began to burn.

  Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

  Her legs began to burn.

  Right, left, right, left.

  This sucks.

  I hate this.

  I can’t do this.

  Keep going. Right, left, right, left. One foot in front of the other.

  It felt as though a half-hour had passed, but Josie’s lying watch told her it was three minutes. She groaned, but forced herself to lift her feet, keep moving forward.

  A car passed. She wondered how stupid she looked, a curvy girl barely able to get her feet off the ground to run a measly two miles per hour.

  Why had she let Summer and Delaney force her to agree to running a race? This was stupid. She should have taken on some kind of exercise contest, like hula hooping or something.

  Another car passed by. The driver was probably wondering what the hell she was doing out here at this time of day. The sun had ascended past the mountains now, and it burned her eyes. Why hadn’t she worn sunglasses?

  Her eyes watered. Her lungs protested. Her legs weighed a million pounds each.

  Half a block ahead, an old lady walked her tiny w
hite poodle. The woman’s back was slightly hunched, and her white hair stood out brightly against the gray of the early morning.

  Josie wasn’t even gaining on the woman. Her jogging speed was the same as the old lady’s walking speed. The moment that realization dawned on her, she stopped. She stood there on the sidewalk, her hands interlaced on top of her head and her breath whooshing in and out like a dragon breathing fire.

  When she walked home a few minutes later, she noted with plenty of anger and stomping that she’d jogged only a couple of blocks. How could the girls expect her to run six-point-two miles? She could barely run six-point-two blocks. Because she felt like vomiting and crying at the same time, Josie growled. “They’re ruining my life.”

  ***

  Okay, so maybe Summer and Delaney were onto something. The six-block run this morning felt truly awful, and she felt truly grumpy as she stomped home. But after showering, drinking a few cups of hot coffee and eating a veggie scramble, Josie felt refreshed and even a little accomplished.

  So what if she was a terrible runner?

  She’d get better. Little by little. Step by step.

  She hated to admit it, but after the run, or half-run, or whatever she decided to call it, her mood felt lighter.

  Summer said something about exercise creating endorphins. Was is possible the phenomenon was real?

  All morning, she thought about Paul, and the memories played in her mind like a movie reel, viewed through a filter of endorphins.

  One fall night they went to the county fair, determined to recreate their teenage years. They took shots of tequila in the parking lot, licking salt off each other’s necks and wrists, matching each other shot for shot, until they were buzzed and warm and giggling.

  Then they bought wristbands and corn dogs and lemonades and went on every ride, some twice. They went on the Ferris wheel three times, making out like hormone-crazed kids whenever they rounded the top.

  They shared funnel cake in the grandstands while they watched the demolition derby. When it was over, they sat in the silence, ears ringing, discussing their plans for the future: a house with a pool, a Goldendoodle puppy, and a couple of kids. Annual camping trips to the beach, family movie nights and long weekends in the mountains.