Tears now flowed freely over her cheeks. His eyes were wet, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, meekly.
“Me, too,” he said, softening. She reached for him and ran her fingers through his hair. He pulled her close and they embraced in silence. After a minute, he seemed to continue a previous thought. “I think that’s why it drives me so crazy to see you with Jeremy.”
“What?” This astonished her. Jeremy?
“Because anybody with eyes can see that kid’s got it bad for you. And I get so jealous because I want to drive you home from happy hour; I want to be able to hang out with you at the Christmas party. I want to protect you. But the reality is I know that he would be so much better for you than me. He could give you more of what you deserve, even if he is a whiney little douchebag.”
“He is not!”
Doug rolled his eyes. “Oh, you know he is. You deserve better than him, too, but even he would be less likely to hurt you than I am.”
His tone was sadness and playfulness and frank appraisal of reality all at once. This odd combination attracted her to him even more. She pulled him closer, whispered an apology, and kissed him as sincerely as she ever had.
Too soon, light came streaming through her tiny bedroom window. Marci’s head ached from the margaritas and total failure to eat anything substantial the day before. She felt Doug’s warm body curled tightly behind her and had the sense that they had been this way most of the night. She debated getting up to take an Advil and drink some water, which would make her workday more tolerable in a few hours, but couldn’t bring herself to move.
What felt like ten minutes later, her eyes opened again to brighter light. She heard footsteps coming from the living room and Doug was lying next to her again, except this time he was fully dressed. His hair was wet and he smelled like steam and some sort of manly body wash or deodorant. She inhaled deeply and started to turn toward him.
He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. His voice was husky and gentle in her ear. “Don’t... You can go back to sleep. It’s only seven. I have an early meeting. And I think we both know you aren’t going to roll in until around 9:30 today at best.”
Gently, he kissed her neck and she felt something cool around her throat. “The internet said that the April birthstone is diamonds, but you didn’t seem like a diamond kind of girl. It’s not as much as you deserve. Anyway, happy birthday.” He hesitated for a second as she turned her head to look at him and added, “You know I love you, don’t you?”
She nodded, breathless. She realized she had known it, even though this was her first time hearing it. She looked up at his freshly shaven face. His eyes were bright, and face pink, apparently embarrassed with his bald display of emotion. He kissed her perfunctorily and pushed himself to standing, winking at her. “Don’t get up. You can thank me later if you like it.” The front door closed and she could hear him jogging down the stairs outside.
Naturally, it was absurd that any woman would go back to sleep after her secret boyfriend had given her jewelry and run away. Marci wrapped herself in the bed sheet and went to the mirror. Hanging from a thin leather strap around her neck was a roughly shaped pewter heart surrounding a small, shiny oval turquoise. The simple and rustic piece was beautifully understated. Much more Marci’s taste than diamonds would’ve been. He loved her, and he had bought her jewelry. She heard herself make a squealing noise a lot like those she’d heard in her seventh-grade locker room.
Contrary to Doug’s teasing prediction, Marci made it in to the office early. Even with the luxury of a long, hot shower and a stop at Kerbey Lane for her belated birthday pancakes—not to mention a couple of Advil—she still managed to check in with Victoria at 8:45. The hangover was painful, and Victoria was in one of her demanding moods, but Marci didn’t really notice. The heart around her neck seemed a talisman against anything unpleasant.
She’d chosen a tailored white blouse and denim miniskirt with her brown cowboy boots because they seemed to fit best with the necklace. She had coaxed her chestnut curls up into a heap that had miraculously left her with perfect wispy ringlets along her jawline—a look that she could never seem to achieve, even with hours of time and loads of hairspray. Rarely did Marci feel completely satisfied with her appearance, but today was different. Maybe thirty wasn’t going to be so bad.
She made excuses to walk around the office, hoping to catch Doug’s eye and let him see how his gift looked on her. But his door was closed all morning, presumably for the meeting he had mentioned. She caught the sound of his voice once or twice as she dawdled in the hallway for no good reason. Finally, she gave up on stalking him and returned to her desk to attempt focusing on work.
Jeremy stopped by her desk around 10:30, and she dreaded what might be coming, but his manner showed none of the tension or concern from the previous evening. Apparently, he had either forgotten their conversation or decided to pretend that it never happened. Either way was fine with Marci. He complained about the strong margaritas and asked whether she had any pain relievers. As she handed him the bottle from her purse, his eyes came to rest on the heart necklace, but he said nothing. He thanked her for the pills and was gone.
At 11:30, a new e-mail from Doug appeared in her inbox, Do you like it?
She replied quickly. SO much. Thank you.
Good.
She waited expectantly, and stalled before finally going to lunch, but did not hear from Doug again until almost 2:00.
Then, another new e-mail. Did you look at the back?
She couldn’t see the back of the pendant without taking the necklace off, so she undid the clasp and held it in the palm of her hand. She could see etched in tiny letters, “You are more than I deserve. Love always, D.” A rush of feeling swelled in her chest as she ran her fingers over the tiny letters affectionately.
“Did it break?” The sudden voice startled her so much she almost dropped the necklace. Marci had not heard Candice appear in her cubicle, but now she leaned against the gray wall, looking directly at Marci’s hand, where the inscription seemed to burn.
“Um...sorry?” Marci stuttered.
“Your necklace,” Candice said, “did you break it? I have those tiny pliers at my desk if you need them.”
“Oh,” Marci breathed, “no, I don’t think it’s broken. It just...fell. Maybe I didn’t have it clasped all the way.” She quickly put it back on.
“Pretty,” Candice continued, leaning closer, and Marci wondered why she would choose today to notice such things. “Is it a Kim Tate?”
“Thanks. Um, I’m not sure. It was a—a gift.”
“Looks like Kim Tate. I just love her stuff. Have you been to that shop down on SoCo yet? The one with the purple walls? I can’t think of the name of it, but it’s fabulous.”
“No, but I’ve been meaning to check it out,” Marci said enthusiastically, feeling ridiculous. She had never so much as laid eyes on the place. Why did she feel the need to lie about that?
“Anyway,” Candice said, peeling herself off the wall. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m trying to cut out early today to head to Dallas for the weekend, so if you want me to sign your timesheet, just bring it by before 3:00 or so.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Sure.” Was it Marci’s imagination that Candice’s eyes flickered toward the computer screen behind her?
“Okay, then. I’ll get it to you in a minute. I’m just finishing something.”
When Candice clicked away, Marci turned back to her computer, cheeks burning. The e-mail was still up on the screen. Fear swept over her. How much had Candice seen? Would she have noticed anything? Feeling a bit absurd, she stood and went to where Candice had been standing against the wall and looked over at the computer screen. She could see the e-mail window, but did not think it looked particularly suspicious. It took some focusing to make out Doug’s name above the standard company signature line, but the text of the question was more easily readable.<
br />
Did you look at the back? Nervously, she thought, it could mean anything, right? The back of an invoice or expense report, maybe. Surely a casual observer like Candice would not immediately assume the e-mail and the necklace to be related. She probably did not even read the e-mail. Who reads what’s on another person’s computer screen? Wasn’t it natural for eyes to dart to the bright screen whenever anyone had a conversation in a cubicle? She tried to think about her own habits when she visited someone else’s desk.
Stop it. Marci scolded herself. You’re like a detective on the world’s worst crime show. She closed the window and forced herself to fill out her timesheet.
When she took her timesheet to Candice, the latter was on the phone with someone at the payroll company, but smiled politely as she signed Marci’s sheet and handed it back to her. She gave a brief little wave that was, if anything, friendlier than usual. Before allowing herself to analyze it too much, Marci reminded herself that she and Candice had been at happy hour together for a while the night before, and that would certainly explain any increase in familiarity.
As she sat to input invoices for the rest of the afternoon, she vowed that however this ended, she would never have a secret life again. It was exhausting.
Chapter 3
The next three weeks were a roller coaster. Cathy was spending much of her time in Beaumont with her sister, who had started chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Doug was therefore back and forth frequently, sometimes taking half days on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings to be there for her over the weekends. Marci felt admiration for his dedication to his wife and her family, tinged only slightly with moments of intense jealousy.
On the plus side, Cathy’s absence during the week seemed to help Doug settle into his relationship with Marci. At least twice a week they had dinner together in her tiny apartment; about once a week he spent the night, rising before dawn to sneak home and dress before work. It was as close as Marci had been to domesticity in a relationship since her early 20s, when she had attempted to move in with an artist boyfriend, whose incredible mood swings proved completely insufferable after two short months.
Sometimes she and Doug cooked together, squeezing in the four-foot strip of her apartment that barely qualified as a kitchen. He taught her how to make a spicy Texas dry-rub for pork loin and ribs; she introduced him to collard greens and buttermilk-fried chicken.
After that meal, which also included homemade biscuits and okra with tomatoes, he smacked his full belly appreciatively and said, “Whew! A man could get used to this.”
“Sugar,” Marci teased, in her best Southern drawl, “you’d better just hush up, or I’ll hold you to that!”
His smile faded a little, and then he pulled her onto his lap. “My little Southern belle,” he said, softly.
Other nights, they did not cook, but ordered pizza and spent the evening in front of her tiny thirteen-inch television. He kept threatening to buy her a larger one, which she vehemently insisted would not fit in her tiny space. Rather than concede the point, he would reimagine the room repeatedly, rearranging her furniture in his mind to accommodate the twenty-seven-inch unit he thought was a minimum requirement. Only when she pointed out that the purchase of a new television on his credit card statement would have looked slightly suspicious, particularly when it did not appear in his house, did he drop the subject permanently.
Cathy and his home life were touchy subjects. Other than her teasing about the television, she let him take the lead on the rare opportunities he mentioned his family. She also became accustomed to his occasional forays outside to talk with his wife. He often used it as an opportunity to make a run to the grocery or liquor store, never failing to bring back something—a dessert or a bottle of wine—for Marci when he returned. An unspoken peace offering and apology for the situation, she learned to accept the little gifts in that spirit as much as she could.
Weekends, Doug spent in Beaumont, but he tried to call when he was in the car alone or away from Cathy for some reason. These opportunities were sporadic, and he had little time to talk when they occurred. She kept her cell phone on her at all times to avoid missing his call.
One Saturday afternoon, Marci nearly broke her neck trying not to miss him. She had been waiting eagerly all day, and finally decided that if she were going to keep her date with Wanda to paint pottery that evening, she would have to get in the shower. She had just worked shampoo through her thick curls when “Walk the Line”—her ringtone just for Doug—echoed against the tile.
As she fumbled hurriedly for the shower curtain, shampoo dripped in her eye, stinging painfully. Unable to see, she slipped awkwardly over the side of the tub, pulling the shower curtain with her and twisting into a sudden seated position on the toilet. The curtain rod clanged into the tub, and water soaked everything, including the bath mat. Marci made the split-second decision to turn off the water before reaching for the phone, which stopped ringing as soon as she could get to it.
Two minutes later, she listened to the voicemail. “Hey, Marce, it’s Doug. I didn’t think you had any plans today, but apparently you changed your mind. You’re probably out on a date or something. Anyway, I was hoping to talk to you. This is probably the last chance for today. Hope you’re having fun. See ya.” His sulky tone annoyed her. A date? Really?
She spent the next hour wringing out her bathmat and wiping up the floor with every towel she could find. By the time she had carted everything to the laundry room and back, it was time to meet Wanda. Three glasses of wine and one jet-black coffee mug with red polka-dots later, she had recovered from the afternoon’s frustration. By the time Doug called again the next evening, she was able to laugh about her little mishap, and to ignore the vague sense that he did not fully believe it was why she had not answered her phone.
#
A few times during this period, Doug even brought work “home” to her apartment in the evenings, marking up storyboards on the couch while Marci attempted to hammer out something on her computer that could pass for an original work of writing. Though she found it hard to concentrate on what she was doing, she treasured this companionable parallel activity. It felt so normal, so domestic, so...right.
One night he brought home a stack of résumés he was reviewing for the two office intern positions opening next fall. While she sipped her wine and pecked away at the same sentence she had been editing for two weeks, he sat on the floor and placed résumés into various piles, snorting and scoffing as he went. He hated hiring interns, but the other three partners had long ago saddled him with the task, because he complained more than anyone about the competence and abilities of those selected.
“You have to see this one,” he said when he was about halfway through the original stack. “This idiot forgot to change my name in the body of his cover letter. Obviously he sent this out to every open internship in town.”
Feeling the tiniest bit of guilt, she squeezed next to him on the floor and read:
Mr. Doug Stanton, Hiring Manager
T,D, L & S
400 Cesar Chavez
Suite 1560
Austin, TX
Dear Mr. Stanton:
Thank you so much for the opportunity to apply for the internship position your company will be sponsoring in the fall. I am including my résumé so that you can see that I am a hard worker, a great student, and very involved with extracurricular activities at the University of Texas.
My goal is to find a company that will help me break into advertising or marketing through a position in copywriting or editing. Thank you again, Mr. Walters, for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Houston Lee Stevens
“I mean, first of all,” Doug said when Marci had finished reading, “aside from calling me Mr. Walters for some reason, which part of this says why he wants to work at our company? I mean, take ten minutes to look at our website, for God’s sake. And it’s all about him and what he wants. Wha
t is he offering us? And WHY would I hire someone for copywriting or editing who didn’t even edit his own damn cover letter, which was about as original as a Kleenex? Not that interns get to do that stuff anyway...”
“It is a pretty generic letter,” Marci admitted, though she remembered her experience of job hunting during and after college and felt just a little sorry for Houston Lee Stevens.
“Yeah, to say the least,” he said, still gathering steam. “This is why I hate doing this bullshit. The only thing worse than cover letters are thank-you notes. ‘Dear Mr. Stanton, Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you about Job X. It was a pleasure meeting you and I look forward to hearing from you soon...blah, blah, blah.’ They’re all the same.”
“I hate writing thank-you notes,” Marci said. “My mother insists that we write them for everything. But I never know what to say.”
“I mean, I get that it’s hard to be creative when you only met someone for an hour, but come on! Remember something about our conversation, say something about the job, give me something to go on...”
Marci remembered the few job interviews she’d had in recent years, and how never once had it even occurred to her to send a thank-you note, despite it being drilled into her that a note was expected for every gift and invitation to someone’s home. She felt stupid for not realizing it was something you were supposed to do after a job interview. Is that why she never got hired? Or were her cover letters too generic? She was making mental notes for future job searches when she realized Doug had moved on to complaining about a note he got from his niece after her high school graduation.
‘“Dear Uncle Doug,’” he was saying in his best impression of a teenage girl, which was pretty awful. “‘Thank you so much for the graduation gift. It was nice of you to think of me during this special time in my life. Love, Annabelle.’ She didn’t even mention what the gift was! It’s as if she had all these notes pre-written and just added people’s names at the top. She’s lucky I didn’t go over there and take the gift back, ungrateful little brat.”
The Marriage Pact Page 4
