The Marriage Pact

by Michelle Richmond

  It occurs to me that I could die in here and no one would know. I tell myself that if The Pact wanted to kill me, they could have put a bullet in my head the moment I stepped off the plane; unless, of course, Gordon simply takes pleasure in the game—leading the rat farther and farther into the maze, until I die of terror and exhaustion.

  I hear sounds up ahead. I glance right to another hallway, wondering what would happen if I took off running. There has to be an exit somewhere. As if reading my mind, Gordon asks, “Would you like a tour of this part of the facility?”

  “I’d love one,” I reply.

  It appears to be the correct response. “Splendid. We can do it as soon as we get a few of our questions out of the way.”

  What questions? How will I possibly know the right answers? I imagine there are answers that lead to my release, and answers that lead to more dark hallways, more goons in suits.

  One last door. One last code. And then Gordon, the uniformed guy, and I are standing in a small room, about ten feet by ten feet. The room is blazingly white. There is a table in the middle, two chairs, metal rings on the table. A plain manila folder sits atop the table. One of the chairs is bolted to the ground. One wall is covered by large black plate glass. A two-way mirror? “Have a seat,” Gordon says, gesturing toward the restraint chair. I sit, trying not to focus on the metal rings directly in front of me. Upon my arrival, why did I allow myself to be lulled by the luxurious room and five-star service?

  Gordon sits across from me. The other guy remains standing beside the closed door. “Jake,” Gordon says. “Thank you so much for taking the time to help us with this inquiry.”

  I’m startled to hear my name. Members seem to have one name for each other: “Friend.” So what does that make Gordon?

  “Why am I here?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

  Gordon rests his elbows on the table and temples his fingers in front of his face—a classic posture of disdain, signaling intellectual superiority. “Inquiries are essentially a closer look we take at issues that have been brought to our attention. The issues arise in a variety of ways, and we investigate until some reasonably clear determination can be made.”

  Blah blah blah. Another thing I’ve noticed about The Pact is that they never just come out and say what they mean in clear and simple language. Everything is buried under a preamble of explanation, background, and hold-harmless clauses. I imagine a dictionary in some stuffy room, filled with phrases one must memorize and overblown words Orla and her cronies have made up. Throughout history, fascists and cults have spoken their own language—words meant to obfuscate, to hide the truth, but also to make members feel special by separating them from the general population.

  Gordon opens up the folder in front of him and shuffles through the papers. “So I was wondering if you might take a few moments to tell me about JoAnne Charles.”

  My heart sinks.

  “JoAnne Charles?” I repeat, trying to act surprised and detached. “I hardly know her.”

  “Well, let’s start with what you do know, shall we? How did you meet?”

  “JoAnne Webb, or JoAnne Charles, and I used to work together at university.”

  Gordon gives a slight nod. “Continue.”

  “We were both resident advisers during our sophomore year. We saw each other two or three times a week at RA meetings and training events. We became friends. Occasionally we met to discuss the rigors of the job, compare notes, or sometimes just pass along gossip.”

  Gordon nods again. Seconds pass. Clearly, he wants more. I know this tactic: A person in a position without power will keep talking just to avoid the awkward silence. I won’t do it.

  “I have all day,” Gordon prompts. “Hours. Days. I have as long as we need.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me. Like I said, JoAnne and I hardly know each other.”

  He smiles. The guy by the door shifts, his uniform rustling. “Perhaps you could tell me a little more about your time working together. I don’t see how there could be any harm in that.”

  I consider. What will they do if I keep my mouth shut? I have no doubt Gordon would keep me in this room indefinitely. “Our junior year,” I say, “we were two out of only four returning advisers, so we got to know each other better. We often saw each other at mealtimes or, on occasion, during social events.”

  “Did you eat meals together?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Would you say that you two were friends?”

  “I suppose. But mainly I would describe our relationship as being that of work colleagues. Of course, living in close quarters, we came to know each other pretty well.”

  “Did you ever meet her family?”

  I think back. “Maybe, I guess. But that was a long time ago.”

  The guy by the door is beginning to look impatient. This makes me nervous. “Is it possible that you met her family”—Gordon pauses while thumbing through the file—“during your junior year, when you traveled to Palos Verdes to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at her family’s residence?”

  How the hell could he know that?

  “Yes, that is possible.”

  “Did you visit her home after that?”

  “Maybe. Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

  “Is it possible that you visited her family’s home on five more occasions?”

  “It’s not like I kept a diary,” I say.

  He ignores the irritation in my voice. “Did you have a relationship with JoAnne?”

  I look down at the table, the metal restraints. Why haven’t they put me in the restraints? Are they meant as a threat? What is the answer that triggers the guy in the uniform to come over and force my wrists into the cuffs?

  “A romantic relationship?” Gordon clarifies.

  I shake my head. “No,” I say emphatically.

  “But you knew her pretty well?”

  “Yes, I suppose I did. Many years ago.”

  “Before, you said that you hardly know her.”

  I glance at the two-way mirror. Who is behind the glass? And why do they care so much about my history with JoAnne? “People change a lot in twenty years. It is, in fact, true that I hardly know her now. After graduation, we both moved on to graduate schools in different states.”

  “And you never saw her again until you met up at Villa Carina?”

  “Correct.”

  “Though it’s possible you may have exchanged a few emails or letters?”

  “I exchanged emails with a lot of people I knew in college. I didn’t keep track.”

  “When you saw her at Villa Carina, you recognized her right away?”

  “Of course.”

  “Were you happy to see her?”

  “Sure, why not? JoAnne is—was—a great person. It was nice to see an old friend in a strange, unfamiliar situation.”

  “When did you see her after that?”

  I try not to hesitate. In my mind though, I imagine someone behind the mirror studying my every move. Maybe they even have hidden electronic equipment measuring my heart rate and temperature, assessing my nonverbal cues. “It was at the quarterly party in Woodside.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “She was with her husband, Neil,” I say evenly. “They seemed very happy together.”

  “Do you recall what she was wearing?”

  “A blue dress,” I say, and instantly regret it. I know what he must be thinking: Why was I paying such close attention?

  “And after that?”

  “That was the last time I saw her.” I say this last line with as much detached definitiveness as I can muster. I’ve committed to the lie, right or wrong, and now the only option is to see it through.

  Gordon smiles, shuffles the papers, and looks up at the man in uniform. “The last time,” he says, chuckling.

  “Yes.”

  We sit in silence, my lie hanging in the air between us.

  “Is JoAnne here?” I ask finally. Stupid, maybe, but I n
eed to get in front of the questions.

  Gordon seems surprised. “As a matter of fact, she is. Would you like to see her?”

  Shit. Now that I’ve brought it up, it would seem suspicious if I didn’t want to, wouldn’t it? “Seeing as how I don’t know anyone else around here, yes, I guess I would.”

  “Perhaps we could do a short tour,” Gordon tells me. “Then we can get you on the early plane back to Half Moon Bay.”

  “Sounds good,” I say, trying not to seem too eager. Does this mean I passed the test? Will I no longer need to do the two-hour session after lunch that was printed on my schedule?

  The guy in uniform nods toward the two-way glass and the door opens. This time, the young guy leads, I’m in the middle, and Gordon follows. We pass through a couple of hallways, then step out a door to find ourselves in the exercise yard, surrounded on all sides by prison walls. I take a deep breath of the dry, warm air and blink in the sudden sunlight. There’s a basketball court and dirt track, but not much more. An older blond guy in a blood-red jumpsuit sits on a bench at the far end of the yard. Seeing us, he stands at attention. The uniformed guy walks toward him.

  Gordon gives a brief history of the prison as we walk across the yard. “This complex was built in 1983 for the state of Nevada,” he recites. “It housed nine hundred and eighty medium- and high-security prisoners on average for thirteen years. The state of Nevada decided to contract out a large portion of its prison population during the early 2000s, which led to Fernley being shuttered. The location was too inconvenient and too expensive, and there were some unfortunate escape attempts that the inmates did not survive.”

  We’ve arrived at the door of another building. I look back to see the man in uniform standing with the guy in the jumpsuit. Not with him, exactly, but behind him. He appears to be putting the guy in handcuffs.

  We pass through another door. Inside, a woman sits at a desk behind a plate-glass window. On the wall are dozens of CCTV monitors. She glances away from the monitors and nods at Gordon, then passes a bright orange badge on a lanyard through the slot under the window. Gordon takes the badge and thanks her. “Wear this,” he says, looping the lanyard around my neck.

  The woman flips a switch; a steel door swings open. Now it appears that we are in the heart of the prison. There are corridors to our right and left, and one in front of us. Each hallway extends up three levels, and I quickly count twenty cells per level. Although it’s mostly quiet, random sounds tell me that not all the cells are empty.

  “Do you want to try a cell?” Gordon asks as we walk through the cellblock.

  “Funny,” I say.

  “It wasn’t a joke.”

  In one cell, a man sits on his cot, reading The Manual. It is a sobering view. There’s something incongruous about the Spartan cell, the blood-red jumpsuit, and the guy’s nice haircut and well-manicured hands.

  We arrive at a cafeteria. No one is at the tables, but I can hear the banging of pots and pans. The long metal tables and benches, all bolted to the floor, are clearly from the original prison. The smells seem out of place—I get a whiff of fresh vegetables, spices, grilled chicken.

  “The food here is pretty good,” Gordon says, again reading my mind. “It’s all cooked by the inmates. This week, we’re fortunate to have a gentleman here who owns a Michelin-starred restaurant in Montreal. He did a chocolate mousse yesterday that was unbelievable. If you stick around, you won’t be sorry.”

  I have the distinct feeling that he’s fucking with me. If I stick around. As if I have some choice in anything that happens to me here.

  Suddenly, the kitchen noises subside. The only sounds are our footsteps on the polished concrete floors.

  “Did you say JoAnne was here?” I ask nervously.

  “Yes,” Gordon says. “Patience.”

  We walk through another door and emerge into an octagon-shaped room. There are eight doors around a central area. Each door has a narrow slot in the middle. It occurs to me, horrifically, that we’ve arrived in some sort of solitary-confinement block. I listen for signs of life from within the cells. There is a single cough, then silence.

  The therapist in me is not only horrified but incensed. How can they use solitary confinement? “Who’s there?” I say, half-expecting to hear JoAnne’s frightened voice calling back to me.

  Gordon grabs my arm. “Relax,” he says, but his grip is anything but relaxing. “Did anyone force you to be here?”

  “No.”

  “Precisely. Every inmate in this building is like you. Like your lovely wife, Alice.”

  I shudder to hear her name coming out of his mouth. “No one is here against his or her will, Jake. All of our inmates understand their crimes and are grateful to have the opportunity for realignment in a supportive environment.”

  He steps over to the cell and leans down to speak through the slot. “Are you here on your own recognizance?”

  For a moment, nothing. And then a male voice answers, “Yes.”

  “Are you being held against your will?”

  “No.” His voice is thin, tired.

  “What is the nature of your stay here?”

  More quickly this time, no hesitation: “Realignment due to repeat crimes of Emotional Infidelity.” I can’t place his accent. Japanese, maybe.

  “And how is your progress?”

  “Steady. I am grateful to have the opportunity to realign my actions within the parameters of my marriage and the laws of The Pact.”

  “Wonderful,” Gordon says into the cell. “Do you need anything?”

  “I have everything I need.”

  Shit. Can this be real?

  Gordon turns back to me. “I know what you’re thinking, Jake. I see the concern on your face. I can assure you that, while these cells may originally have been constructed for solitary confinement, we prefer to think of them as monastic rooms in which members who have gone far afield can reacquaint themselves, in their own good time, with their vows.”

  “How long has he been in there?”

  Gordon smiles. “Does one ask the monk how long he has been in his monastic cell? Does one require the nun to answer for her devotion to her God?”

  He places his hand on my arm again, gently this time. “Come, we’re almost there.”

  We step through yet another door, and he points to the right, toward what looks like a waiting room. “That section is the holding area for pretrial. I believe your wife spent some time with us over there. She was extremely cooperative. An ideal visitor, really, to our facility. The courtrooms, pretrial meeting rooms, and attorneys are all down there. But that’s not where we’re going today.”

  He turns left, toward a set of double doors. While all of the other doors have keypads, this one is secured with a chain and padlock.

  “This is our special wing for long-term pretrial. This is where we will find your friend JoAnne. Actually, this business with JoAnne is interesting, unexpected. Most of our visitors find that honesty helps move things along quickly. It’s better that way for everyone.”

  Gordon spins the wheel on the padlock. The padlock pops open, and he noisily unloops the chain. Once we’re inside, the door slams shut behind us. The motion sensor clicks and a spotlight comes on, shining down into the middle of the room, where a square platform rises out of the floor. Two concrete steps lead up to the platform. Around it are thick glass walls. One of the walls has a lock and a handle. Gordon stands on the top step, slips a key into the lock, and opens the glass door.

  “You’re free to go inside, Jake.”

  There, in the corner, pressed against the glass, beneath the harsh lights, someone is curled in a fetal position. I don’t want to go inside. I want to turn, fight off Gordon if I have to, flee this horrible building. But I know instantly that I cannot. The door has locked behind us, the sound of it still echoing around the concrete walls.

  I walk up the steps and into the glass-walled room. When I hear the door shut behind me, my stomach churns. There are n
o chairs inside this glass box. There is no bed. No blanket. Only a metal toilet in the corner and a cold, hard floor all around. The room beyond us is pitch-black. I know Gordon is there, outside the glass, but I can’t see him.

  “JoAnne?” I whisper.

  She uncurls from her ball and looks up at me. She blinks, then shields her eyes, crying out. She must have been in the dark for a day or two, possibly longer. She is entirely naked, matted brown hair falling around her shoulders. Slowly, she moves her hands, peering at me from dazed eyes as if I have yanked her out of a very deep sleep. “Jake?”

  “It’s me.”

  She sits up, back pressed to the wall. She pulls her knees up to her chest, trying to cover her nudity.

  “They took my contact lenses,” she says. “You’re a blur.”

  I look around the room for microphones. I don’t see any, but what does that mean? I sense Gordon, just outside the box. Watching. Listening.

  I sit down across from JoAnne, my back to the glass, hoping to provide her with some sense of protection from Gordon’s prying eyes. “They asked me about you.” I want to get my story out before she says something that could get us both into trouble. Of course, it’s possible that she already told them about our meeting at Hillsdale. I tremble at the thought that they already know everything.

  “I told them the truth,” I say in a loud, clear voice. “How I haven’t seen you since Gene’s party in Woodside.” She still seems groggy, so I’m not even sure if she understands what I’m saying. “I told them how you and Neil were so happy.”

  “I’m embarrassed,” she says, blinking. Have they drugged her? “It’s been twenty years since you saw me naked.”

  I am swept back to the memory of a sweet, blundering night in her dorm room. How awkward she had been.

  I cringe. Why did she have to mention that? It contradicts everything I’ve said.

  “You must be thinking of someone else.” I sense that Gordon is parsing every word, scrutinizing every movement, and it dawns on me, with horrifying clarity, that my entire trip—the deceptively luxurious room, the disorienting journey through the prison maze, the interrogation, the glimpse of solitary confinement—has been arranged to bring me to this exact moment.