The Marriage Pact

by Pullen, M. J.

  “I’m fine to drive,” Jeremy said matter-of-factly, “and Marci, you’re on my way home. I’ll drop you off.” Marci cringed. He had to be kidding.

  “Great,” Doug said, and Marci was slightly wounded by his enthusiasm. “Cristina?”

  Cristina seemed to hesitate between the reality of her situation and disappointment that Jeremy wanted to take Marci home. “I can actually walk from here,” she finally relented. “I just live two blocks down.”

  “Oh, Jeremy, you should walk her home!” Marci threw in, perhaps too quickly.

  Before anyone could debate further, Doug took charge again. “Well, as long as no one’s driving drunk...I have to get going, but thanks for inviting me. It’s nice to find out what’s really going on in my own company once in a while. Cristina, if you don’t want to walk I’ll be happy to drop you. Jeremy, do NOT let her drive.” He pointed at Marci and she frowned at him.

  The new receptionist seemed to have sobered up enough to realize that she could only hurt her chances with Jeremy by hanging around, so she grabbed her purse and followed Doug out the patio gate toward the darkening parking lot. Marci fumed in her chair as Jeremy swallowed the last of his beer. Why was Doug walking out on her? And taking Cristina home? On her birthday!

  She stood without speaking and stumbled to Jeremy’s red pickup. The truck was familiar enough from the times they had been out to lunch together, and once when he’d taken her to a movie. As he opened the door for her now, she saw these moments in a new light. The slight inkling about Jeremy’s feelings for her that she’d chosen to ignore was beginning to tighten around her.

  Ugh. The last thing she needed tonight was to have to let a friend down easy, while her boyfriend—if you could call him that—was driving the hot new receptionist around in his BMW. She stared out the window, hoping to avoid Jeremy’s eye.

  They were at her building in less than ten minutes. To her surprise, when he pulled up, Jeremy made no move to take off his seat belt or shut off the car. “You okay? Got your keys?” he asked sincerely. She nodded. “Don’t need me to come in, do you?” She couldn’t tell whether he was hopeful, resigned, or just worn out.

  “No, thanks,” she said curtly, and then added quickly, “I really do appreciate the ride, Jeremy.” He smiled wanly and she swiveled to get out of the truck. As she did, he grabbed her hand. She tried not to appear annoyed. Why couldn’t some guys take a hint?

  “Jeremy...”

  “Marci, be careful, okay?”

  “What? I’m fine; it’s just up those stairs.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Marci. Just, please, be careful. I... I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He was looking at her uncritically, with genuine concern in his eyes.

  The realization of what Jeremy meant, what he knew or had guessed, stopped her cold. No one knew about her and Doug. She had barely, and only recently, summoned the courage to tell Suzanne, who had been her best friend since sixth grade. For six months she had been holding on to a secret so precious and so well-guarded, she was even hiding it from parts of herself. And now this guy, who she knew only casually, had figured it out. And he didn’t hate her. He didn’t call her a slut or a home wrecker. He was just concerned about her.

  For a moment, it was all she could do to hold it together.

  She took a breath and patted his hand. “Thanks, sweetie. I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Her voice sounded far more casual than she felt, but it seemed that she had managed the nonchalance she’d hoped. Jeremy nodded and put the truck in gear.

  She was in her apartment for less than five minutes before the knock at the door.

  “I thought he would never leave,” Doug said, and held Marci’s head in both hands, kissing her hard. His smile faded as he pulled back to look at her. “Have you been crying?”

  “No.” She hesitated. “Well, a little. Nothing serious; just weepy from the margaritas, I guess.”

  Anger swept over Doug’s handsome features. “Did that little twerp try something with you in the truck? I will so fire him.”

  The reference to everyone’s working relationship pulled her back to the precariousness of the situation; she felt protective of both Doug and Jeremy. She had to fix this. “No, nothing like that. I guess I am just...homesick. And a little drunk.”

  “You said you got an e-mail from home?” Doug seemed to remember it suddenly.

  “Yeah, from my college friend Jake. It’s a long story.”

  “I like long stories,” he intoned softly. He had taken her hands in his and was leading her to the tiny couch. For a split second she imagined trying to explain Jake to Doug, their college friendship—with benefits—and the e-mail she’d received earlier that was surely, surely, a joke. An affectionate memento of many shared drunken nights and one silly promise...

  She tried to focus instead on the man in front of her. It had taken them hours to get away from work and colleagues; their meeting in the elevator with Candice seemed like far more than just twelve hours ago. She would not let herself be distracted from him, not now. She gently kissed the fingers interlaced with hers, and looked into his ice-blue eyes. “Can you really stay?”

  “Did I say I could stay?” he said, and her heart sank. A smile crept to the corners of his mouth, and he cradled her jaw with his palm. “Oh, I guess so. It is your birthday. How old are you, anyway? Twenty-seven?”

  “You know I’m thirty.”

  “Wow. A milestone. At least we get to be in the same decade for a few months. And no big party?”

  “Nope. This is it.”

  “Wow, that’s pathetic. Spending the big three-oh with some old guy from your office.”

  “Shut up,” she pleaded. Even though he was teasing, she didn’t like being reminded of their age difference or their work situation. Too much reality.

  He shook his head. “Rude, rude. Young people today have no manners.”

  She hit him in the head with one of the couch cushions. His blue eyes were sparkling and playful. “Oh, that’s it. Guess your birthday present is staying in the car.”

  She brandished the cushion at him again, but it tumbled to the floor as he grabbed both wrists and brought them down by her sides. Keeping her hands pinned, he leaned forward and kissed her hard, the same as he’d done hours earlier in the stolen moment in her cubicle. He sat back for a moment, looked at her intently, and made a soft growling noise—like a puppy with a rawhide bone—as he moved forward to kiss her again.

  The next kiss was far softer, lingering. She wanted to reach for him but her arms were still immobilized in his surprisingly strong grip. He kissed her chin next, nudging it up with his nose and lips as he turned his attention to her exposed throat. He remained there for what felt like a long time, and between the margaritas, the inability to move her arms, and his stubbly chin rubbing against her throat as he kissed her mercilessly, she began to lose herself. The ceiling above her shimmered and she yielded to gravity until her head came to rest on the rough fabric of the worn couch.

  She was not sure when precisely her arms had been freed; only that she was able to shimmy out of her knit blouse. She hungrily reached beneath his shirt to feel the soft, white undershirt she had longed to touch hours ago—and the heat of him beneath it. He did not allow her to enjoy this tactile luxury for long, though, for soon he had pulled away from her and sunk to his knees on the dingy white carpet. She felt his firm grip on her thighs, his warm breath against her skin, her fingers clutching his thick blonde curls. Soon all thought left her, and she melted into bliss and oblivion beneath his touch.

  An hour or so later, they lay in silence on a pallet of cushions and throws, listening to the cicadas swelling outside and the screech of the band rehearsal next door. Being able to lie here curled in his bare arms was positively heavenly. She was almost afraid to break the spell with words. “You’re really not leaving?” she whispered.

  “Well, maybe for a minute,” he whispered back. “Got to get stuff from the car.”

/>   “Not yet,” she whined, tightening her grip on the arms wrapped around her. “Not yet.”

  But he kissed her bare shoulder and extracted himself. “I’ll be two minutes. And you must promise not to move an inch, or the punishment will be severe.”

  He pulled on his khakis and the blue shirt, slipping on his loafers as he neared the door. He looked deliciously disheveled and strangely vulnerable as he headed out into the night. She tried not to notice that he paused to find his cell phone on the bookshelf before exiting.

  Marci lay there for a while, battling a drowsy sleep that kept threatening to overtake her. After some time, she heard Doug’s footsteps outside and his voice on the phone through the thin wall. He was clearly talking to Cathy in Beaumont, his tone familiar and casual. Of course with Cathy out of town, he would have to check in with her at some point. Obviously he was using the trip to the car as an opportunity to do that preemptively, so she would neither interrupt his evening with Marci nor call an unanswered phone later.

  Cathy was apparently telling him some sort of story about her evening, because there were long stretches of silence punctuated by, “uh-huh,” and “really?” and “What did she say to that?” Whether it was genuine or simply to avoid suspicion, he sounded interested in what she was saying and did not rush her off the phone. Marci wondered whom they were talking about. Cathy’s mother? A friend? They had been together for twenty-three years, so there must be very few people Cathy knew that Doug did not, and vice versa.

  Bitter jealousy swept over Marci like an icy wind. Doug could not understand that this, exactly this, was what made her feel the worst in their relationship. Of course, it was bad enough knowing that he slept in the same bed with Cathy every night and awoke to her each morning. She could not bear to think—much less ask—whether he was still intimate with his wife, though his descriptions of his marriage always led her to believe he was not, or at least, not very often.

  But conversations like the one he was having now, familiar, with a shared history and the sound of friendship and support that had become second nature, these were what she envied and resented most. Doug would never meet her family, never know Jake or Suzanne or any of her other friends. The people most important to her could never even know he existed. Given the nature of their relationship, the stolen moments and limited hours...would he ever just sit and listen to her recount a conversation with a friend or complain about a fight with her mom or Nicole? Would Doug ever stand out on a balcony and listen while she talked about her day?

  Suddenly, Marci was sharply conscious of her nakedness and the fact that she was still lying on the floor where he had left her. She got up, went to the bedroom, threw on a ratty t-shirt and sweats. She felt the urge to be busy, but unsure with what, and finally decided to turn on the computer.

  Her desktop was in the corner of the tiny living room, under the window where Doug paced back and forth on the narrow landing a few inches away. Marci assured herself that she had not chosen this activity to better overhear his side of the conversation.

  Even though she had several more unread birthday messages since this morning, and she knew exactly what it said, Jake’s e-mail seemed to draw her to open it again. She forced herself to focus on a new message from her dad, updating her on how his garden was coming along this spring and acknowledging that her mother had already wished her happy birthday on his behalf. She smiled. Dad always found a way to speak for himself.

  Outside she could hear Doug explaining the punk rock band next door. “Yeah, I have the music on kind of loud in the garage—some demo CD Kevin wanted me to listen to.”

  She opened Jake’s e-mail.

  To: marci.b.thompson

  From: jakedawg96

  Date: April 8, 2004 12:01 a.m.

  Subject: [none]

  Message: Happy birthday, Marcella Beatrice Thompson. I’m game if you are.

  Attachment: napkin.jpg

  As the attachment loaded, she knew what she would see. The bar napkin was at least eight years old and obviously had been through some careless treatment since she had signed it herself so long ago. It was discolored, either from the years or from Jake scanning it to mail it, she wasn’t sure. But it still had the distinctive Globe logo in the corner, a stain from some kind of pink beverage Suzanne must’ve been drinking, and the contract, smudged but legible in blue ink from a waitress’ pen.

  I, WE, Jacob Cartwright Stillwell and Marcella Beatrice Thompson, being of sound mind and ^somewhat sober body, swear hereby promise that on April 8, 2004, when we are both 30, if we are not married or seriously involved in a relationship, we will get married to each other.

  And there underneath, almost identical to the one on last week’s temp agency timesheet, was her signature.

  She had forgotten this silly agreement until this morning. Thinking back, Marci remembered Jake would occasionally bring it up jokingly when she went back to Atlanta for the holidays or vacation. But it was never serious. Right?

  The door behind her creaked open and she jumped. Doug was looking down at his phone and didn’t notice her alarm. “There. It’s off for the night, I promise.” He tossed it back on the bookshelf with finality and crossed to her.

  “Oh, so you have time for me now, do you?” she challenged, swiveling back to face the monitor and quickly closing out the window.

  Solicitously, he began rubbing her shoulders. “Oh, come on, don’t be that way. Hey, you’re not where I left you,” he mockingly scolded, “and certainly not wearing the lovely nothing from before.” He ran his hands forward in one sweeping motion over her shoulders, into her t-shirt and over her breasts. Did he really think it was going to be this easy?

  “Well, you were gone for a while.” She tried to sound merely cold and dismissive, but her words came out bitter, petulant. She removed his hands from her shirt angrily, but did not object when he replaced them on her shoulders.

  “Marci, I’m sorry,” he said, softly. She did not answer, staring at the black keyboard as though the crumb between the G and H keys were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.

  He bent down and swiveled the chair around, getting on her level as though he were comforting a child with a skinned knee. His eyes implored her.

  “It’s just, when you are talking to Cathy...” She saw him flinch at the mention of the name and immediately regretted saying anything. Why could she never just enjoy the time they had? She had an average of twenty-three hours a day to obsess without him; why ruin a rare evening like this one?

  His expression was fixed. He waited for her to finish. “Well, I just don’t understand how you can be so casual and normal with her, and then two minutes later, you’re...”

  “I’m what? Groping you?”

  “Well, yes. I was going to say ‘being affectionate with me’ or something nicer like that, but...yeah.”

  He smiled, his lips upturned only slightly. “Always the delicate one. You know you can always just say what you really feel with me, right?” Why on earth was she nodding at him, placated and stupid? His ability to disarm her under any circumstances was infuriating.

  “Listen, babe,” he put his hand on her cheek, “I know you think this is easy for me, but it’s not. I wish I didn’t have to answer that damn phone. Hell, I’d like to throw it in the river. But you know I have to, and you know why. “

  “I know,” she conceded.

  “That, out there,” he gestured toward the landing on the other side of the wall, “that’s me doing the right thing by her, at least...somewhat. And, if I don’t do that, then all of this comes crashing down tomorrow and I have to come move in here with you and the Blues Brothers.”

  “They’re punk.”

  “Okay, fine, the Punk Brothers.”

  “They’re called Plastic Utensils.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Look, Marce, I know this is hard for you, but it’s hard for me, too. This is uncharted territory for me and I don’t know the best way of handling it. I never, ever, planned t
o cheat on Cathy. I love her; I married her.”

  “Stop. Please stop.” Marci could feel tears coming from nowhere.

  “No, wait. You brought this up, okay? You asked me how I can talk to my wife, who I promised my life to, and then touch you. Well, you make me wish my life was still mine to promise. And the answer is either that I’m some lecherous creep with no feelings...” He was looking at her pointedly as though to verify that this was in fact what she’d been thinking.

  She could not speak.

  “Or, Marci, it’s that I’m just as confused as you are and I’m doing the best I can to not hurt anyone while I figure things out.”

  “Okay,” she squeaked, deeply regretting having said anything, longing for the playfulness to return to his voice.

  “It’s not okay. Don’t you think I know how not okay this is? I am not this guy. I know guys who spend every other week on the road, and think nothing of taking a waitress back to their hotel room after saying goodnight to their kids on the phone. That’s not me. I’ve always been proud not to be that guy, always deplored that behavior. And then you...” He stumbled; his voice cracked.

  “I don’t know how to explain this, what’s happened between us. I know the right thing to do is walk out that door right now and go work on the car like I told Cathy I was, but I can’t. Something happened to me that night in my office, all those months ago, and I just honestly don’t know what to do. So I separate the two things: marriage is marriage, and this...well, I think we both know that this is turning into love.”

  Marci looked up at him now. They had never allowed themselves to use that word.

  “Maybe it’s chicken-shit to think that I can keep from hurting her, and minimize how much I hurt you, while I try to figure everything out. I know it’s selfish. But I just don’t know what else to do. So I take the phone outside and talk to my wife about her sister who has cancer.”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t know.”

  “I try to do what a husband should do. And I absolutely hate that when she’s talking about chemotherapy and radiation and whether we’ll be able to have the anniversary party for my in-laws this summer, all I can think about is getting back in here to you.”