She walks to the counter and fiddles with the controls. Music fills the house. “Has The Pact made mistakes? Have I made mistakes? Yes. A thousand times yes! Yet I am still proud of trying. Friend, perhaps we come at things from opposite sides, but we meet in the middle. We want the same thing. We do the best we can, and we either succeed or fail. Neither outcome is to be feared. Doing nothing, Jake, that is what terrifies me.”
I walk over and stand directly in front of her. I put my hands on her frail shoulders. I can feel her bones through the thin fabric of her sweater. My face is inches from hers. “All your theory,” I say, “all this talk. It means nothing to me. Are you so blind you can’t see that? Alice and I want out.”
She winces in pain, and I realize that I’m squeezing her shoulders tightly. I let go and she steps back, startled but unyielding.
A young woman in a gray linen dress appears, whispers something into Orla’s ear, hands her a green folder, then disappears. And that’s when I hear other voices in the back of the house, men’s voices, at least three of them. What do they plan to do with me?
“I know that you and Alice have been tested. It was necessary.”
I remain still, though my mind is racing.
“Some didn’t see you and Alice in the same way that Finnegan and I did,” Orla says, watching me carefully. “They didn’t understand your potential.”
“Potential for what?” I ask, confused. What game is she playing now?
“I have been a questioner all my life, Jake. I rarely take things at face value. It is a quality I admire in you too. Doubt is a useful tool, so much more desirable than blind belief. Your doubt has made your journey through The Pact infinitely more difficult, yes. But it has also made me respect you. Believe me when I say that you have enemies, but I am not one of them.”
“What enemies?”
I think back to the first party, in December in Hillsborough. Everyone was so friendly, so welcoming.
Orla stands there, studying me. Behind her, the vast and roiling sea. It is as if she is waiting for me to complete a complex math problem in my head, to see what she has seen all along.
“Perhaps it’s better if you just read the documents.” She hands me the green folder. The file is heavy. It has a faint smell of decay, as if it has been unearthed from a musty warehouse.
I look down and see that there is a name on the cover: JOANNE WEBB CHARLES.
Orla has left the room. I am alone with the file. For a long time, I don’t open it.
93
The first page contains a photo from many years ago. JoAnne as I knew her in college, relaxed, tan, and happy.
Page two is her résumé, both professional and personal—no unfinished degrees, no MBA, no job at Schwab. In no way does it resemble the story she told me that day in the food court. Instead, a PhD in cognitive psych, with honors, but then an abrupt end to a postdoc she was pursing at a prestigious university in Sweden, followed by marriage to Neil.
There’s a photo of Neil and JoAnne on their wedding day, holding hands against a brilliant desert background. On the following page is a photo of Neil with another woman. Below the photo, the typed words Neil Charles. Widowed. Pictured with first wife, Grace. Cause of death: accidental.
What the fuck? I read the caption three times, not wanting to believe it.
The next page contains a clipping from a Swedish newspaper, along with a translation. The article announces a seven-figure settlement in a lawsuit against JoAnne Webb and the Swedish university. The plaintiffs in the suit were volunteers from a psychological experiment that had gone horribly awry. Reading the details—so cruel yet so familiar—I feel sick to my stomach.
The following pages contain an unpublished draft of an academic article, co-authored by JoAnne, on the correlation between fear and desired behavioral changes. A footnote has been highlighted: Subjects who show little or no fear for their own safety can usually be persuaded to act in direct conflict with their own moral code when they witness a friend or loved one in danger of violence.
I flip through the file, shaking. The final sheaf of papers is stapled together with a red cover, the words Report on Subjects 4879 and 4880 scrawled across the front.
These pages are not typed. Instead, they are in JoAnne’s familiar handwriting. Met 4879 at the Hillsdale mall. Audio file attached. Responses to my questions and comments reveal disloyalty to The Pact.
I shudder and turn the page. Glass Cage Experiment, JoAnne has written at the top. 4879 shows continued disloyalty to The Pact while exhibiting strangely detached tendencies. Seemed to be horrified by my predicament but at the same time clearly took some pleasure from it.
I’m fighting the urge to vomit. JoAnne wasn’t the subject of the Glass Cage Experiment; I was.
I turn the page. Infidelity Report: Subject 4880. My hands begin to sweat.
Clipped to the page is a grainy photograph of a man walking up the stairs of my house, carrying a guitar. Even though his back is to the camera, I know exactly who it is.
Witnessed non–Pact member, identified as Eric Wilson (see attachment 2a), visit home of Subjects 4879 and 4880 while Subject 4879 was at Fernley. Wilson arrived at 10:47 P.M. on Saturday night and departed at 4:13 A.M. on Sunday morning. Music was heard from within the house during the entire night.
There was music throughout the night. Five to six hours is Alice’s ideal span of time for a serious rehearsal. Any less, she insists, and it’s impossible to get deep into the music; any more and it stops being productive.
I look up to realize that Orla has silently returned. She’s sitting in the chair across from me, drinking her wine, staring.
“I have to know,” I say. “The charge against Alice, Adultery in the First Degree. Was it based solely on this report?”
Orla nods.
The truth hits me: Alice wasn’t sleeping with Eric. Yes, Eric was in my house. Yes, it looked as though Alice was unfaithful. But simple facts, taken out of context, do not always point to the truth. He wasn’t screwing my wife—they were rehearsing. How stupid I’ve been. How wrong I was to doubt my wife.
I shake my head, disbelieving. “Why would JoAnne do this?”
“The Pact has become unexpectedly wealthy, incredibly strong. There are those who desperately want to lead. When Neil and JoAnne learned of my illness, they saw an opening. They envisioned themselves at the very head of The Pact. But those who strive to lead rarely make good leaders.”
Orla hesitates. “Now I have to decide what to do with them.” A sly smile crosses her face. “What would you do?”
As I mentioned earlier, there is always a shadow that hovers between the person we want to be and the person we are. In our minds, we carry a vision of ourselves, naïvely certain of our own moral boundaries. I want to be that person who embodies the ideal of doing something good, rather than doing nothing at all. But good and evil are complicated, aren’t they? And doing something, anything, is so much more difficult than doing nothing at all.
I respond without hesitation, without even a shred of doubt. When I am finished, Orla takes a sip of her wine and nods.
94
At the airport in Belfast, I plug my phone into the wall and wait. Staring out at the wet runway, I consider my next step. The phone finally beeps, the power comes on, and there, in the corner, is the blinking blue P.
There are emails and texts whizzing past. I’ve only been gone for seven days, yet my old life seems impossibly distant. I scroll through the texts and emails, searching for one from Alice. I’m surprised to discover that my old life is still there, waiting for me. There are texts from Huang, Ian, and Evelyn. Dylan has started a new play—he’ll be Hook in Peter Pan—and wants me to save the date for opening night. Isobel writes, Conrad took me to this new Buddhist bakery that makes the most amazing bread. We made French toast. Here’s the secret to life: It’s all in the bread.
Finally, buried among the others, several screens down, is Alice’s name. The feeling of relief is ph
ysical, as if a tight band around my chest has snapped, allowing me for the first time in so long to really breathe. I click on the message, hoping for news, something to go on. It is from two days ago, when I was still at Altshire. When are you coming home? That is all. I can almost hear her voice.
I text back, On my way, are you OK? but there is no response. I call. Her phone rings and rings.
The flight from Belfast to Dublin is bumpy, from Dublin to London crowded, and the night spent at Gatwick cold and uncomfortable. Finally, the plane touches down at SFO. Walking through the clean, gleaming terminal, I’m exhausted. My pants hang so loose on my waist, I must have lost ten pounds since I was last here. I move resolutely through the airport, hoping not to run into anyone I know. At the bottom of the escalator, I pull my hood up over my head and push my way through the crowd.
I think I hear my name being called, but when I glance back I don’t see anyone I know. I keep moving. Outside, as I’m walking toward the taxi stand, I hear my name again.
“Friend,” says a familiar voice.
I turn, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“The car is this way.” Vivian tugs gently at my arm.
“I’d rather take a cab,” I insist.
“Orla called me.” Vivian is smiling. “She wanted me to make sure you’re completely comfortable.”
Vivian leads me to a gold Tesla parked at the curb. It’s not a model I’ve seen before—probably a prototype. The driver is up and out of the car, placing my bag in the trunk. His tailored suit barely disguises the fact that he’s excessively large and muscular. He is behind me now, the rear door to the car open. I glance longingly at the line of people up ahead stepping into an endless stream of yellow taxis. Vivian motions me into the car. “Relax. You’ve had a long journey.”
There on the seat beside us is a basket filled with bottled water and pastries. She leans forward between the seats to say to the driver, “We’re all set.”
Vivian reaches into the console and hands me a cup of hot chocolate. Then she settles back into her seat. As the driver negotiates the airport gridlock, I take a sip. It’s rich and minty. I take another sip. Then I notice that Vivian is leaning toward me, her hands outstretched, ready to take the cup.
Suddenly, I am profoundly sleepy. The flights were so long, the trip and these past few months so draining. I struggle to keep my eyes open—where are we going? I need to know that I am headed home.
“Go to sleep,” Vivian says soothingly.
“You’re taking me to Alice, right?” I say to Vivian, but she’s fiddling with her phone. Her face blurs.
The driver angles toward 101 North. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth, and I feel dizzy. I try to stay alert until the 80 split, where one route leads toward our house by the beach and the other leads over the bridge and eastward into the mountains, but the sweep of the road beneath us is hypnotizing.
95
In my dream, I go up the front stairs, fish the key out of my bag, let myself in.
“Alice?” I call, but there is no response.
On the kitchen table, there is a note. It is written in electric-blue crayon, and at the bottom she has drawn a picture of us in front of our house, a bright orange sun shining down from above. I love her optimism. I can’t recall the last time I saw the sun shining through the fog of our neighborhood. At the bottom, she has clipped a single ticket.
Then I am no longer in our home. I am standing in line outside Bottom of the Hill. By the time I walk through the door, the show has started. Alice is standing front and center, leading the band through one of her new songs. The lights are low. A waitress slides up beside me and hands me a Calistoga. She holds her tray at her side and leans back against the wall next to me. I feel her bump against my shoulder, then another bump. It’s jarring. I turn to look at her, but instead I see the tinted windows of the Tesla. My head is so heavy, my mind so groggy. I want to keep dreaming. I’m not ready to turn the page.
I will myself back to sleep, I will myself back to that music club. I will Alice back onto the stage.
“She’s amazing,” the waitress says, her eyes on Alice, “isn’t she?” And then she’s gone.
A bump on the shoulder, light streaming through the tinted windows, Alice’s voice almost a whisper, fading. Where am I? Reluctantly, I open my eyes just a sliver. Why am I not home yet?
Another bump. The car is swaying back and forth. We’re on a dirt road, dust swirling, obscuring the view. The sun is so bright, blinding, really, even here behind the tinted windows.
Sun? I realize that we are nowhere near Ocean Beach; we are nowhere near San Francisco. In our neighborhood, the sun is not scheduled to shine for at least another three months.
Dust rises around the car, a thick cloud enveloping us. The heat, the intense glare, the flatness of the landscape, the absence of color. It feels as if we are traversing one of those massive valleys on the planet Mars. Am I still sleeping?
Something is wrong. Very wrong. I jerk to my right, expecting to see Vivian. I will demand answers, I will demand to know where we are, and more important, where we are going. But then I realize that I’m in the back of the car, alone. A glass partition now divides the front and back seats. I shade my eyes from the relentless glare of the sun. Through the glass, I can barely discern the outline of two heads in the front seats.
I panic. I feel so stupid. Again. So naïve. Trusting Orla. Trusting her kindness and her reason. How could I have been lulled into believing her?
I don’t want Vivian to know that I’m awake. I scan the backseat. There’s nothing of use. Just the bag of scones, and a gray woolen blanket that someone has placed over me, now tangled around my legs. I look for the window controls. They aren’t on the door but on a central panel, attached to the side of the console. Slowly, barely moving my body, I reach toward the buttons. I have no plan. I just want to get out. I need to escape.
My outstretched finger reaches the switch labeled REAR LEFT. I’m about to press it when it occurs to me that perhaps I should press the other one, REAR RIGHT. Although it would be harder to make a jump across the backseat before climbing out the window and sprinting through the dirty, barren landscape, I figure that’s my best chance. If I jump out this side, the driver will catch me in a matter of steps. If I jump out the other side, it will be up to Vivian in her three-inch heels to initiate the chase. Yes, I can outrun Vivian, I am certain.
I reposition my body, sliding across the backseat, quietly pushing the blanket off of my legs, my finger near the window control. I think for a second or two, reviewing my incredibly limited options, and it occurs to me that this unlikely escape is my only real choice. To save myself, to save Alice. Is she even still alive?
In a single motion, I push the button and lurch toward the window. I will dive headfirst. It will hurt, but somehow I will roll, stand up, and run.
Then this happens: nothing. The windows are locked. Desperate, I pull up on the door handle, positioning my body to drop and roll, but still nothing. All of the rear controls have been disabled. I’m trapped.
96
The Tesla comes to a stop. The clouds of dust outside the window take forever to subside. I can’t see anything. I hear the driver’s-side window purr down, the mumble of voices.
Then I hear the clatter of a gate opening, and I feel the tires of the car rising up onto concrete. My heart sinks. I no longer need to look out the window to know where we are. Fernley.
What have they really done with Alice?
As we drive through the gate, the guard in his gray uniform peers inside the car to get a look at me. I shudder, hearing the second gate opening up ahead. The car sweeps forward and the gate closes behind us. Inside the compound grounds, we skirt the runway, taking the long way around. Above, there is the hum of a Cessna coming in low for a landing. The plane pulls in just ahead of us.
The Tesla parks behind the plane, waiting. A man is being led from the Cessna. Something about the way he stands, the
uncertainty in his posture, tells me this is his first time here. Two guards take him from the landing strip and usher him into the fenced breezeway that leads toward the massive structure.
I’m staring at the prison, the horror of it sinking in, when the car door opens. I look up to see my driver. Heavyhearted, I step out, using my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. He motions me into the front seat of a golf cart. His hand goes to his pocket, and I instinctively recoil, but he pulls out a pair of Ray-Bans and hands them to me. They fit perfectly.
A uniformed man is in the driver’s seat, red-haired and absurdly tall, his pale face burned from the desert sun. He glances at me nervously, then faces forward. Vivian slips in behind us. I twist to confront her, but she smiles, her face calm. The smile only makes things worse.
“Where’s Alice?”
Neither the driver nor Vivian says a thing. Something about Fernley demands this behavior, like church, the principal’s office, or something far worse.
The golf cart speeds around the side of the building, down a long narrow passageway that leads underneath the complex. The tunnel is damp and cold. The cart is moving so fast that I have to reach out and grip the bar in front of me. I consider leaping, but where would I go? After a time, we come to rest at a loading dock. A well-dressed man with silver hair stands waiting for us.
The Marriage Pact Page 37
