The Marriage Pact

by Michelle Richmond

  Eric finishes his cigarette, drops it on the ground, and grinds it under his boot heel.

  “Nice seeing you, Jake,” he says.

  I watch him walk away, the back of his shirt streaked with sweat.

  Later, Eric is onstage with his band. It’s hard to look at him. It’s hard not to think about him in my house, eating off our plates, drinking from glasses we got for our wedding.

  Eric calls Alice up to sing. She appears from the side of the stage, and the volume of the applause surprises me. She perches on a stool beside Eric. They start with a popular song from their old band, then move into one of the songs from the CD she gave me.

  I watch them up there onstage together, sitting so close, and I shudder. When we first met, Alice was inching out of music, already on a different path. It wasn’t clear where the path would lead, but it was obvious that she’d given up her old life and was determined to move forward to a new adventure. I worried that one day she would discover this new adventure, of which I was a part, to be nothing more than a tangent she was ready to discard as she returned to her former life.

  At times, I tried to distract her from returning to that life. I encouraged her to take the job at the law firm, I bought her the first designer suit she ever owned. It was stupid, maybe even manipulative, but I was scared. I wanted to keep her.

  What I didn’t fully understand was that Alice isn’t a simple idea, she isn’t an unbendable object, an unchanging showpiece. Yes, I knew she was complex, I didn’t need a degree in psychology to see that. The first day I met her, I was reminded of the Walt Whitman lines Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.

  No, I recognized Alice’s complexity from the beginning. What I didn’t grasp was that Alice is a growing, evolving organism. So am I. I want to believe that we are not like the green turtles of Ascension Island, that we have evolved beyond the basic patterns of the natural world. I want to believe that it isn’t possible for Alice to go back to being the person she was before I met her. I want to tell Eric that he’s wrong about my wife. The trip through law school, through her career, into the depths of our marriage, hasn’t just been a side trip from which she can emerge and step back onto the intended path of her life. Our marriage is not a misguided adventure, as much as Eric Wilson would like it to be.

  And it occurs to me that this is the very essence of what I love about Alice. She contains contradictions, she contains multitudes. She embraces every stage of her life, learning from each one, carrying her experiences with her, nothing left behind. Intuitively adapting, becoming a different, more complex version of herself with every passing year.

  I expected marriage to be a door that we went through. Like a new house, you step into it, expecting it to be an unchanging space to inhabit. But, of course, I was wrong. Marriage is a living, changing thing that you must tend to both alone and together. It grows in all sorts of ways, both ordinary and unexpected. Like the tree outside our front window, or the kudzu that lined the backyard of Alice’s father’s house the night we got engaged, it is a living thing of contradictions—simultaneously predictable and baffling, good and bad—growing more complicated each day.

  Then Alice turns to face Eric, as if she is singing directly to him. They sing the duet, and the whole place grows hushed, mesmerized by them together up there onstage. They’re face-to-face, knees touching. Her eyes are closed. Doubt seeps in. The worry that used to exist only at the edge of my consciousness, held at bay by my optimism and the blindness of my love, is now a black fog in my brain.

  Is that why she wanted me here tonight—so I can see what has happened between her and Eric? Is this her way of telling me that our marriage has run its course? I try to steady myself for the moment I may have to walk out of the club alone.

  81

  One of the questions I ask couples in therapy is “Do you still believe that you have the capacity to surprise each other?”

  The answer, too often, is no.

  I wish I could come up with an easy formula for inserting surprise back into a marriage. That simple change could be the salvation for so many marriages I’ve seen. The Marriage Defibrillator, I’d call it. A good, stiff shock to revive the system.

  Seeing Alice in the black minidress and Doc Martens is a surprise. But what happens onstage isn’t. Watching her sing with Eric, I think I can see the end of our story.

  As it turns out, I’m wrong. When the night is over and almost everyone has left, I’m standing outside again—worn out, troubled, confused by what I’ve witnessed—when she steps out of the club.

  Her mascara is messed up, and I can’t tell if it’s from the heat of the bar or she’s been crying. But here she is, holding on to me tightly. “Too much whiskey,” she says, her words fuzzy and slow. “I’m gonna need to lean on you.”

  On the drive home, Alice surprises me again. She flips down the passenger-side visor, peers into the mirror, grimaces. “Should have worn waterproof mascara. Some of us got to talking about him right at the end. We were telling stories about our last tour. I laughed so hard I cried.”

  When we reach Fulton Avenue, the long stretch of empty road descending toward the beach, she powers down her window. Waves of fog glow under the streetlights. “Mmm,” she says, sticking her head out the window. “Smells like the ocean.”

  And I am struck by a memory of a night just like this one, years ago, when we were newly in love. A cruel kind of déjà vu. Things were simple then. Our path forward seemed clear.

  After a moment, I ask, “Ever heard of the green turtles of Ascension Island?”

  “That’s random,” she says, snapping the mirror shut. She doesn’t look at me.

  It’s after three in the morning when we retreat into our bedroom. The curtains are open and I can see the moon rising over the Pacific Ocean. Alice is sloppy drunk, but we have sex anyway, because she wants to and I want to. I want to reclaim what is mine, what is ours.

  I lie awake, Alice sleeping noisily beside me. There’s hope for us yet. Or is there? I think of turtles swimming endlessly south across the Atlantic Ocean. More important, though, I think of The Pact, this hole we have fallen into, my mind in the background frantically still calculating, trying to figure a way out.

  At 9:12 A.M., I notice that I’ve slept straight through the alarm. It’s a gentle alarm—David Lowery of Cracker singing “Where Have Those Days Gone.” The clock lies sideways on the floor beside the bed. Alice is asleep beside me, a little drool and tangled hair the only evidence of her wild night.

  I realize that I’ve woken up because of banging next door. The walls seem to be shaking, and at first I think it’s the neighbors. Our neighbors are a friendly elderly couple, and I’ve always liked them, but they have been known to host all-day mah-jongg games.

  Then it dawns on me that the noise is coming from our front door.

  “Alice,” I whisper. “Alice?”

  Nothing.

  I shake her shoulders. “There’s someone at the door!”

  She flips over, pushing hair out of her eyes. She blinks against the light. “What?”

  “There’s someone at the door.”

  “Ignore it,” she groans.

  “They’re not going away.”

  Abruptly, she’s fully awake, sitting up. “Fuck.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  “Get dressed,” I say. “Quick. We have to get out of here.”

  Alice jumps out of bed, pulls on her dress and boots from last night, and throws on her trench coat. I tug on my dirty jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers.

  More banging. “Alice! Jake!” The doorknob rattles. I recognize the voice. Declan.

  We race out the back door and down the stairs into the yard. It’s freezing. The neighborhood is blanketed in fog, a chill breeze drifting in from the ocean. I help Alice over the back fence and into the next yard, and I hastily follow. We move quickly through the grid of rectangular
yards, over tottering wooden fences. At one point, we have to climb a bottlebrush tree to get over a high fence. Finally, at the corner of Cabrillo and Thirty-ninth, we slip through a gate and out onto the sidewalk.

  In the distance, I can still hear Declan shouting our names. His partner must be in the SUV by now, trolling the Avenues, looking for us.

  I pull Alice behind a bank of recycling cans. I check my pockets: $173, phone, house keys, wallet, credit cards. Alice is shivering, pulling her coat tight around her body. She looks at me, panic in her eyes. Leaves are stuck to her coat, sticky red petals from the bottlebrush tree.

  “Which way do we go?” she asks, petrified. I don’t have a clue.

  82

  We head east along Fulton, staying close to the trees, then slip into Golden Gate Park at Thirty-sixth Avenue. We wade through dense fog, hurrying past Chain of Lakes Drive and deeper into the overgrown paths. I hear the sound of many voices up ahead, and it occurs to me that today is Bay to Breakers, San Francisco’s annual road race that traverses the city from the Embarcadero to the beach and features an odd mix of Ethiopian four-minute milers, families, nudists, and drunk guys in cheerleading costumes bringing up the rear.

  The event must be at least half over, because when we cross Kennedy Drive, the racers are all in costume, some walking, many carrying drinks. Alice turns to me, a look of shock and relief on her face. There’s no better place to get lost than Bay to Breakers. We watch the runners go by—a dozen M&M’S costumes, a groom being chased by a bride, an all-female version of the 49ers’ offensive front line, and a throng of regular slow-moving runners, all trying to grit out the final stretch of the 7.46-mile course. A guy dressed as Duffman, pushing a cart filled with kegs of beer, hands Alice and me each a full cup.

  “Cheers,” he says.

  We sit on the grass and sip our warm beers. We are both silent, trying to figure out our next move. Alice points to twenty guys and girls dressed as Kim Jong-il. She almost smiles.

  “When do you think we can go home?” I ask.

  “Never,” she says.

  She leans into me and I put my arm around her shoulders.

  The sun comes out, and Alice spreads her trench coat across the damp grass and lies on top of it. “I haven’t been this hungover in years,” she moans. She closes her eyes, and within a minute or two she’s asleep. I wish I could do the same. But the crowd is beginning to thin, and we don’t have much longer.

  I pull out my phone and fish around for ideas on where to go next. The blue P flashes in the corner of the screen. I quickly do a search for car rental companies, then power down the phone. I search around in the pockets of Alice’s coat for her cell, but she must have left it behind.

  “Come on,” I say, shaking her awake. “We have to get moving.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a Hertz rental not too far from here.”

  We start the long walk toward Haight, moving against the thinning crowd.

  “What if they don’t have a car?”

  “They have to have a car,” I say.

  With Alice’s rumpled coat and my dirty old shirt and ripped jeans, we don’t stand out among the drunken morning Bay to Breakers crowd. We trudge east through the park toward the Panhandle, finally arriving at the intersection of Stanyan and Haight. We stop at Peet’s and order a hot chocolate and a large Americano. We use both of our bank cards at an ATM to withdraw the maximum daily limit of cash. Outside Hertz, she plops down on the curb, drinking her coffee, trying to wake up.

  When I pull up alongside her in an orange convertible Camaro, the only car they had available, she smiles.

  We weave through the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and north through Marin County. We stop at an electronics store in San Rafael and buy a new SIM card. Back on the road, Alice pulls the old SIM card out of my phone and tosses it out the window. When we hit Sonoma, she tilts her seat back, closes her eyes, and soaks up the sun. I love that she hasn’t even asked where we’re going.

  I turn on KNBR and listen to the Giants game as long as the signal will last. It’s 4 to 2, and Santiago Casilla is trying to close out the ninth when the reception finally fades. We drive down 116, along the Russian River, and out toward the ocean. At Jenner, where the river finally meets the Pacific, I pull the Camaro in to the Stop & Shop.

  Inside the store, Alice goes to the restroom while I stock up on gas station food. In the car, she pops open a bottle of vitamin water. She downs the whole thing, then peers into the bag. “Chocodiles!” she squeals.

  The road past Jenner is a narrow ribbon edging the high cliffs. It’s a scary drive but gorgeous. I haven’t driven this stretch of Highway 1 since the week before Alice and I met. So much has happened since then. Who is this man fleeing his life in an orange Camaro, with a beautiful, confusing, unshowered woman munching Chocodiles in the passenger seat?

  In Gualala, I pull into a grocery store parking lot. We buy milk and bread, a few things for dinner, some hoodies and shorts for both of us. A mile down the road, I park in front of Sea Ranch Rentals. “Sea Ranch!” Alice says. “I’ve always wanted to stay here.”

  The same pale-skinned girl who rented me the compound last time is sitting behind the desk, reading a paperback copy of The Crying of Lot 49. She glances up as I walk in. “You again,” she says, though I can’t imagine she actually remembers me. “Don’t love the new haircut,” she says. “Reservation?”

  “No.”

  She sets down the book and swivels toward the computer. “How long?”

  “I don’t know. A week?”

  “I have the same one you got last time,” she says. “Two Rock.” She really does remember me. “I never forget a face,” she says, as if she’s reading my mind. That’s uncanny, I think. Or is it? I shake off the thought, though I glance down quickly at her ring finger. She’s not even married.

  “I don’t think I can afford it.”

  “I’ll give you the returning family discount. You’re returning with your family?”

  “Does my wife count?”

  I hear someone moving around in the room beside us.

  The girl picks up a pencil, writes $225/nt, and slides the paper across the desk for my approval. I nod and give her the thumbs-up. It’s surely several hundred dollars less than the lowest posted rate. I put a credit card on the counter. “Can you just hold on to this and run it when we check out?” I ask quietly.

  “Can you leave it spotless?” she whispers.

  “Like we were never there.”

  She slips the credit card into an envelope, seals it, and hands me a clear plastic bag with the keys and directions. I thank her.

  “If anyone asks, I was never here.”

  “Ditto,” she says.

  “I’m serious,” I whisper.

  “Me too.”

  83

  When I pull down the road and into Sea Ranch, Alice leans up in her seat, gazing out at the ocean. The wood-and-glass houses get bigger and nicer as we head west toward the cliffs. When I pull into our rental compound, Alice punches me on the shoulder and says, “Holy shit!”

  I unlock the door, and she runs into the living room and looks out to the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I turn on the heater. The place looks and smells the same. Sea air and eucalyptus, a hint of cedar from the sauna.

  “Strip,” I say.

  Without asking why, she peels off her dress. “Underwear too,” I say. She steps out of her underwear and stands there naked. I kiss her—overwhelmed with relief that we’re here together, safe—pick up her dirty clothes, and go upstairs to start a load of laundry. When I come back downstairs, Alice is sitting in a chair next to the telescope, wrapped in a blanket, staring out at the ocean.

  “Maybe today is the day,” she says dreamily. I know what she’s looking for. What she’s always looking for, whenever we’re on the coast.

  Later, I’m in the kitchen, preparing the rock cod and asparagus we bought in town, when a scream startles me. I rac
e to the living room, expecting the worst, expecting to find Declan and his friend. But when I get there, Alice is looking through the telescope and pointing toward the ocean.

  “Whales, Jake! Whales!”

  I look out into the vast expanse of gray sea, but I see nothing.

  “Whales!” she shouts again, motioning me to look through the telescope.

  I peer into the eyepiece, but all I see is calm blue waves, a rocky shoreline, a freighter way off in the distance.

  “Do you see them?”

  “No.”

  “Keep looking.” Alice has plopped down in the chair and is flipping through the Lyall Watson book on whales.

  I pan left, I pan right. Nothing. One more time, but I still can’t see anything. Then I do. Two spouts slowly moving up the coast. It is nothing, just water flying into the air, yet it gives me chills.

  84

  The next morning, early, I line up for pastries at Twofish bakery. The last time I was here, the doors opened at eight, and everything was gone by eight-fifteen. I arrive early and walk away with a morning bun, a blueberry scone, a chocolate chip muffin, coffee, and hot chocolate. I remember the pall of loneliness that descended upon me during my first trip here, when I ate my morning bun in the cavernous kitchen of the huge, empty house.

  When I get back, Alice’s showered hair is damp, her face lovely without makeup. We sit eating our pastries, looking out over the ocean, saying nothing.

  We lounge about all day, both of us reading books from the eclectic collection in the master bedroom. At three, I finally manage to pull Alice away from her Norwegian mystery so we can go for a walk up the coastline. We look like some other couple in the ill-fitting clothes we bought at the local grocery store. Alice’s hoodie bears the seal from Cal State Humboldt, along with the university’s unofficial weed logo; mine says KEEP BACK 200 FEET.