“What did you get her?” Marci asked.
He hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. After a long pause, he admitted, “I had my secretary send it.”
They laughed for a long time.
The last week in April, Doug was over every night until at least nine, and spent the night twice. Despite all his recent trips to Beaumont, he seemed the tiniest bit resentful that Marci was taking Friday off and leaving early to head home to Atlanta for Nicole’s shower.
“I don’t like you being so far away,” he whined Thursday evening as they sat on her tiny couch watching TV. He was running his hand in circles on her back beneath her shirt, coaxing her. Her suitcase waited by the door for an early morning departure to the airport.
“I have to go,” she insisted. “It’s my sister’s bridal shower, and my mom is co-hosting with my aunt. Don’t you think my absence would be noticed?”
“I guess,” he pouted. His hand moved up and began working on her bra clasps. “But what about me? I need you, too.”
“You need me? You’re going to be in Beaumont all weekend. You won’t even know I’m gone.”
“I’ll know,” he said, suddenly serious.
“Shut up,” she said, and kissed him. It was a silly conversation and he knew it. Doug resisted at first, as though there were more he wanted to say, and then relented. He pulled her onto his lap and held her head in both hands as they kissed.
Later that night as they lay curled together in her bed, he whispered, “I want to take a trip with you.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, sleepy.
“I want to go to Atlanta and meet your family.”
She remained quiet.
After a moment, he went on, even more softly, “I want to be free to be with you.”
Her heart pounded, but she forced herself to preserve the illusion of sleep. This was too serious a conversation to start now. She wanted him to be able to take back what he’d just said if he regretted it later. She lay looking at her alarm clock, every muscle tensed, until she heard his breathing become steady and soft. Even after that, it was a long time before she drifted into sleep.
In a state of confusion and sleep-deprivation, Marci boarded her 6:55 flight to Atlanta the next morning. She sat huddled in the window seat with her worn leather satchel draped across her body, staring out the window and fiddling with the edge of the Newsweek she’d picked up at the bookstand. She tried to avoid thinking of Doug. It was too intense to experience directly, like looking at the sun. And yet she could think of nothing else.
He had dropped her off at the airport before going into the office for the morning, refusing to allow her to take a shuttle. As they had navigated the darkness in his sleek black car, he did not reiterate what he had uttered in the middle of the night. He did, however, hold her hand the entire ride. His mood seemed different. Nervous, maybe. Excited.
Whatever it was seemed to be infectious, because Marci fidgeted uncontrollably in the passenger seat as she stared out the window. “Relax,” Doug had said at one point, kissing her hand. “You’ll make it. We’re not that late.”
Now she fingered his necklace at her throat and fidgeted in her seat on the plane. Her back and knees ached with sleeplessness; she wished she were at home in bed instead of gearing up for an intense day with Nicole and her mom. Nicole, normally the sanest member of their family, had been increasingly intense and pushy about the wedding plans now that the event was so close. She had sent Marci at least fifteen e-mails in the past week, confirming and reconfirming details and re-asking questions that had been decided months ago. As annoying as it was, Marci was relieved to know her baby sister was human after all.
A chipper lady with a smear of bright orange-red lipstick and too much perfume sat next to her and immediately introduced herself. Marci smiled politely and began rummaging in her back for her headphones. The last thing she wanted was a conversation with a real estate conventioneer or Baptist missionary. She put on music and tuned out the safety announcements. As the plane taxied, she began to feel sleep overcome her, and her next awareness was a brown layer of smog amid the grey clouds, and the pilot announcing the descent into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Chapter 4
Mom and Nicole both looked like poster children for caffeine overdose as they waved to her from the top of the baggage claim escalator. Until she fell into their joint embrace, Marci didn’t realize how much she had been missing her family.
Wiping away tears, Marci collected her duffel and listened to Nicole chatter nonstop about the wedding plans as they schlepped out to the parking deck and drove to the Flying Biscuit for breakfast. Apparently Ravi’s mother was still boycotting their nuptials, angry that Ravi had chosen Nicole over the woman from Mumbai she had arranged for him to marry. Much of the rest of Ravi’s family had relented, however, including his brother and sister who also lived in the States, and they were helping Nicole create an Indian-Presbyterian blended ceremony.
Marci pushed eggs and black bean cakes around on her plate as she listened to Nicole. “...the reception hall was damaged in a fire two weeks ago, so of course I’m completely freaking out about that. Plus, it’s so hard to find a reliable rental company with enough of the right kind of tents. There are all these different parts of the ceremony, and they require so many tents. But wait until you see the dresses!”
As a concession to Ravi’s family, Nicole had decided to wear a traditional white wedding dress for the ceremony and a custom-made sari for the reception. With Nicole’s amazing but expensive tastes, Marci could only imagine what the bill would be for those two items alone.
As though reading her mind, Mom shook her head. “Four thousand dollars for two dresses. I think that was the cost of mine and your dad’s whole wedding!” She glanced at Nicole and hastily added, “Worth every penny, of course, honey. It’s just a good thing your sister has no wedding plans on the horizon or we’d have to sell the house!”
Thanks, Mom.
She spent the day trailing behind her baby sister through a slew of department stores, alterations shops, and various coordinators’ offices. Somehow Nicole had mysteriously evolved into a self-assured, gorgeous woman in the last several months. She spoke to sales clerks and catering managers with an assertiveness that might have been demanding from someone less radiant, and yet no one seemed to respond to her with anything but an increased desire to make her happy. It reminded Marci of her best friend Suzanne, whose self-assuredness was legendary. Marci watched Nicole with a touch of awe and just the slightest hint of jealousy.
She worked hard to control the urge to check her cell phone every few minutes for something from Doug. She knew it was silly to expect anything—he was at work, and they’d seen each other just hours before—yet she longed to hear from him. Around lunch, she turned the phone off entirely to force herself to be more present for Nicole. Let him be the one to wait for her this weekend.
By the end of the day, the tired ache in Marci’s knees and back had eclipsed nearly everything else. She was beyond relieved when they piled into their mother’s sedan for the last time and steered toward home. Marci’s dad and Ravi met them in the driveway. She was so happy to see her dad she could hardly stand it. He gave her a desperately needed hug as she entered the house. The five of them ordered pizza and spent the rest of the evening playing cards and drinking beer.
The next evening, Nicole’s local friends had scheduled a combination engagement/bachelor party/shower for her and Ravi. Living in DC meant that many of her old Atlanta friends had not met Ravi, so Nicole’s childhood best friends Ellie and Rachel had combined everything into one huge party at an upscale restaurant/bar in midtown Atlanta. Because Marci’s presence was non-negotiable, Nicole had allowed her to add Suzanne, Jake, and her longtime friend Beth to the invitation list as well.
After nearly two hours of musical banquet chairs, dinner, and seemingly endless weepy toasts from Nicole’s sorority sisters, the party broke into smaller groups
at the bar. Marci and the other three were finally able to get a small table to themselves to catch up.
They moved from the wine that had been served with dinner to beer and cocktails. They talked about Beth and her kids, Suzanne’s big event in Chicago, and Jake’s recent move to freelance video production. He had managed to secure an in with Atlanta’s professional hockey team for a couple of their promotional videos, and was hoping this would lead to bigger things with the other major sports franchises down the road. He was also shooting footage for a couple of local hip-hop artists, but documentaries and sports were his real loves.
Suzanne related the latest man-drama in her life, a conversational staple since college. Suzanne was an acknowledged serial dater; she went through relationships as fast as most women went through bottles of shampoo. Her latest victim was a nice, funny stockbroker named Reggie who Marci and Jake had both met. Though she always tried not to get too invested in Suzanne’s love life, Marci had been quietly rooting for Reggie, who was handsome and self-effacing and—maybe to his detriment—seemed to see through the smartass Southern-girl veneer Suzanne wore as protection.
“What happened to Reggie, anyway?” Jake said, when Beth opened the door by asking about Suzanne’s single status. “I liked that guy.”
“Ugh,” she said dramatically. “Let’s just say it was a hygiene issue, okay?”
“What? Did he have crabs or something?” Jake probed, grinning. Marci, who knew the story, snickered.
“Ew! No, nothing like that. Never mind. Let’s move on, okay?”
“No,” Beth pleaded. “I never get to hear the gossip! Please tell.”
“Alright,” Suzanne relented, and Marci knew that she was only half sorry to have all the attention focused on her. “As y’all know, Reggie and I had dated for about three months, so he was staying at my place pretty often by the end, a few times a week when we were both in town. Anyway, I started noticing that he didn’t seem to wash thoroughly after, um...” She hesitated here, looking for the words.
“After sex?” Beth asked. A few cocktails before, it probably would have occurred to Beth that Suzanne would not have hesitated to discuss intimate details of her love life. Other base human functions, however, were another story. In high school, she had once maintained for weeks that she had never farted, holding her ridiculous ground against a persistent onslaught of teasing from a couple of football players who sat at her table in chemistry class.
A trace of that childish discomfort appeared now. “No, after using the bathroom. You know, Number Two.” The other three exchanged smiles at the fact that Suzanne actually whispered the last two words. “I started noticing that he’d come out of the bathroom really quickly after he’d been in there a while, and that his hands were usually really dry.”
“It couldn’t be that he dried them, like maybe using the towel?” Jake teased.
“No, I checked,” she answered seriously. “I mean, sometimes the towel was damp, but not always.”
“Yuck,” Beth said sympathetically. “That is pretty gross.”
“Yes,” Marci said. “But tell them what you did next.”
Color rose in Suzanne’s face and she shot Marci the tiniest glare before going on. “Well, I didn’t want to just dismiss him for no good reason…”
“Because that would be totally unlike you.”
“So I went in one morning and made a tiny mark on the back of the soap container where the level of the soap was. He was over for a whole weekend, and when he left I went back and checked. No change.”
“Wait,” Jake said. “Wouldn’t it be lower from you using it? You do wash your hands, don’t you? Or have you given up going to the bathroom altogether?”
“Of course I thought of that,” she said resentfully. “I bought a second bottle of soap and kept it under the sink for me to use during the experiment. At the end of the weekend, I told him it wasn’t working out.”
By this time, Jake and Marci were both in stitches. Beth was some combination of amused, grossed out, and impressed that Suzanne went to such lengths to discover whether her boyfriend washed his hands after pooping. “Did you explain why you ended it?” she asked.
“I said we had different interests.”
“Yeah,” Marci snorted. “Like how you’re interested in not getting some weird bacterial infection and he’s interested in shaving thirty seconds off his dump time.”
Suzanne held her serious face for as long as she could, and then threw the straw from her drink at Marci before breaking. The laughter of her three best friends washed over Marci like a healing salve, and for the first time in weeks, she felt at home and completely free.
An hour or so after dinner, two minivan taxis arrived outside the restaurant to transport the party to a trendy new place in the Virginia Highlands. “You’re coming, right?” Nicole tottered as she approached their table, now sporting a bridal veil hanging from a plastic tiara. Marci was glad Ellie and Rachel had sense enough to reserve hotel rooms and obviously intended to use taxis for their bar-hopping. She looked at her table for a verdict; but her own friends’ faces indicated a less than strong interest in following along. Suzanne’s head gave a nearly imperceptible shake to the side.
“I think us old folks are going to find a quiet place to hang out. Like a nursing home.”
“Noo...” Nicole pleaded, though Marci was positive their presence would not be missed in the slightest. “You have to come; it’s going to be So! Much! Fun!”
Ellie was pulling on Nicole’s arm, urging her toward the door and giving Marci a farewell wave. Ravi had obviously already been hustled into the cab by some of the guys in the group.
“Go ahead,” Marci said. “Be safe, okay?”
“I love you,” Nicole slurred. “You know that? I love my sister! And my sister’s friends!” She moved around the table and launched herself at Suzanne and Beth, throwing an arm roughly around each of them. “You guys are like, my other big sisters!”
“Thanks, Nick,” said Jake.
“Oh, Jakie! And my big brother!” She turned to the entire bar behind her. “Everyone, this is my big brother Jake and I will fight anyone who messes with him. Anyone!!” She balled up her petite fists in what was clearly supposed to be a menacing gesture. Even ridiculously drunk, Nicole managed to be adorable. Marci was gratified that the composed, businesslike woman she had experienced the previous day had not entirely eclipsed her silly little sister.
When no one at the bar seemed interested in challenging Jake’s honor in any way, Nicole turned back to the table and became suddenly solemn. “Seriously, Jake, when are you going to make it official and really be my brother?’
Marci laughed uncomfortably and pushed her drunken sister toward Ellie. “Go! Love you.”
She could not help but hear, however, that Jake’s answer had already floated past her: “As soon as your sister will let me.”
As Jake flagged down a server for another round, Beth excused herself. “Ray is going fishing early tomorrow and the kids are not going to let me sleep in. Marci, it’s been amazing to see you.” She blew kisses all around and was out the door.
Suzanne, Jake, and Marci made it through two more rounds before finally winding down the evening. By 1:00, the bar was so thick with people and noise it was difficult to believe it was the same restaurant where they’d sat at the beginning of the evening. Suzanne went to call a cab and wait in line for the restroom while Marci and Jake pushed their way through the crowd to settle up at the bar. He held her hand as they walked.
The young bartender looked completely overwhelmed. They signaled to her and waited while she poured a line of six cosmopolitans, maybe for another bachelorette party. “Hey,” Jake said, turning Marci around by her hips and placing his hand beneath her chin. His skin looked ruddy and healthy as always, his thick brown hair rebelling against his attempts to slick it down. He still had a few faint freckles on the bridge of his nose. “Look at me.”
She knew where this was going.
She supposed she had always known.
“You know I would do anything for you, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Jake, I –”
But before she could even formulate the next words in her mind, Jake was kissing her. It was soft and wet and familiar. Nice. He pressed against her, pushing her into the bar a little as they were jostled by the crowd. She allowed herself to push back against him, to kiss him back. She felt familiar warmth spreading through her as the bar and the crowd and even thoughts of Doug receded. For a moment, she wanted to allow herself to be carried away by this kiss.
But he pulled away, looking serious. “So are you going to tell me about it?”
“What?”
“Whatever it is you’re hiding from everyone.”
Marci could think of nothing to say. His brown eyes gazed at her patiently and waited. She shook her head pathetically.
“Okay,” he said, sadly. “Listen, Marci, I know that whole thing wasn’t really supposed to be serious, you know. The napkin thing? But I do love you and I think we both know we’d be great together. What could be better than marrying your best friend, right?”
She had swallowed a piece of granite, apparently, the size of an egg. Her lips moved but no sound would come out. Again, he waited, but not for long. Suzanne appeared from the restroom hallway thirty feet away and began picking her way through the crowd toward them.
“Okay,” he said softly, reaching over her to collect the tab from the bartender. “I’m here for you if you want to talk about...whatever, okay?”
“Okay,” Marci said, more ashamed than ever.
Chapter 5
By the time she had left the cab, staggered up her parents’ impossibly long driveway, stumbled pseudo-quietly up the stairs, brushed her teeth, and fallen into her childhood bed, it was after 3:00. Her old room still had posters of R.E.M. and Pink Floyd from her high school days, and her stuffed animal collection cushioned her drunken collapse.
The Marriage Pact Page 5
