The Marriage Pact

by Pullen, M. J.

  Jake snorted. “I know! Weird, right? I’m not sure, but I think...” He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “I think she’s actually trying to make me jealous. I know it’s crazy, but over the last few months, since before you came home, I’ve noticed that she’s been going out of her way to spend time with me and stuff. I didn’t think anything of it at first, you know; we’ve been friends for so long and all, but...”

  “Wow,” Marci said, even though she was not at all surprised.

  “Yeah. She asked me a while back to go to this concert with her—in a couple of weeks, actually—and I said ‘yes’ because it was before she was acting so intense. Now, though, I sort of feel as if she thinks it’s a date or something. I wish I could ask you guys to come, but I think it’s sold out.”

  He put his hands on her waist as they swayed, and she realized both how tired she was and how good it felt to be held. They moved closer as the music transitioned from Eric Clapton to a mournful Indian artist belting out a beautiful melody. Marci put her head on Jake’s chest and he moved one hand to her neck, cradling her against him. “You do look really great tonight,” he said softly.

  He didn’t wear cologne, but she could smell his shampoo or deodorant, clean and masculine. It mingled with the fragrance of the blooms all around them, and the thick humid scent of a summer night in Georgia. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nicole and Ravi, their faces pressed together at the forehead, whispering softly to each other. They were going to be parents. The thought was still a little unreal. Some part of her would always think of Nicky has her lanky little sister with braces and acne.

  Directly in front of her were Rebecca and John, dancing awkwardly. Behind them, Suzanne had managed to persuade Sanjay into one of the larger pool chairs and was already curled up on his lap, laughing dramatically at something he’d said. Marci felt adrift at sea; life around her seemed to be standing still and sailing onward all at once. She needed an anchor.

  She turned her head to face Jake, and kissed him lightly on the lips. He smiled. “What was that for?”

  “Jake.” She took a deep breath. The words were tensed on the catapult and ready to come out, waiting only for her brain to signal that it was time to speak.

  “Marci,” he said playfully, mocking the seriousness of her tone.

  “Jake, what if I said yes?”

  Chapter 17

  Athens, Georgia – September 2004

  The next few months passed in a surreal sort of blur. The march of time seemed marked by something significant every week. Nicole called to say they had heard the baby’s tiny heartbeat. Ravi got a long-hoped-for promotion at the station, allowing them to upgrade to a two-bedroom apartment in Georgetown. Suzanne dated and discarded two more men, not including poor Sanjay, who had been deserted entirely the day after the wedding. Marci’s mom was busy planning a 60th birthday party for her dad, which he did not want, but pretended to be thrilled about for his wife’s sake. And, of course, there was always Georgia football.

  More like a religion in their house than a pastime, Marci had, incredibly, almost forgotten during her time away how seriously her parents took the University of Georgia’s football season. As they packed the ancient family minivan with red and black everything—lawn chairs, tent, even the portable grill with an enormous red and black G on it—she tried to remember whether her parents had been this fanatical about Georgia games when she was in college. Whether it was blocked from her memory by embarrassment or vast quantities of alcohol, she could not be sure.

  Now, of course, they were tailgating with the Stillwells, whose considerable financial means took the art of school fanaticism to an entirely new level. They made the trip to Athens around midday on Friday before the Saturday home game. They had a circuit of favorite restaurants and bars they systematically visited while waiting for space to begin clearing in the student parking lots, so they could set up their camper and adjoining tent well in advance. Everyone went out to dinner and had a few drinks, and then Jake, his dad, and the other men all returned to sleep in the RV while his mom and the ladies spent the evening in Athens’ nicest downtown hotel, which the Stillwells had reserved for every home game weekend until 2020.

  The Thompsons had been invited to join this overnight ritual, but thus far they had continued their own family tradition of waking at the crack of dawn and driving up to Athens just in time for breakfast. The two families would meet by midmorning at the Thompsons’ tailgating compound on the North Quad, and then sit in lawn chairs watching the day unfold while Kitty Stillwell—clad head-to-toe in Georgia gear, including earrings, sandals, and purse—popped in and out of the RV with more food than anyone could dream of eating.

  Marci liked to watch the North Quad of campus fill with partiers as the hours wore on, particularly for late games when there was more time for the consumption of alcohol. It was people-watching at its best: the sororities and the fraternities who all dressed up for games as though they were going to a cocktail party rather than a sporting event, middle-aged drunks reliving their wonder years at the university, people playing corn hole and cards and Frisbee on the grass. Sometimes she’d focus on the quad full of people and try to picture it on a quiet spring day when she was a student here, remembering her religion class in that building or taking a nap between classes on that bench. It was difficult to imagine it was the same place.

  She was lost in one such reverie when Jake came from behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Hi, honey,” he said. “Honey” still sounded weird to her, coming from Jake. “Your dad and I were just going to walk downtown for a bit. Do you want to go?”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll hold down the fort here.”

  Jake and her dad had become very close since their engagement. This made her happy, but was also a little surreal. She’d never had a boyfriend who met her parents more than once or twice. Obviously Doug had not met anyone she loved. With Doug, she couldn’t even have dinner in a public place.

  Jake, on the other hand, had known her parents and friends for more than a decade, and he fit into her life like a puzzle piece. Her family adored him. His parents had been more than welcoming to her, especially Jake’s dad, who admired her aspirations to be a writer and never shamed her for not being successful at it, yet. She was very comfortable with the ease in which they came together but it was an adjustment being part of a relationship that was so...legitimate.

  Her mind frequently wandered back to the night they got engaged, and the decision that had changed her life so completely. She did this with something that was not quite excitement, not quite regret. It could best be described as sort of an observant awe, as though she had spent the last three months sitting in a theater, watching her own life with passive interest and wondering what would happen to the main character next.

  At Nicole’s wedding, almost immediately after Marci had mentioned Jake’s proposal—had it really been a proposal? Or more like calling in a bet?—Jake had had no time to respond. As if on cue, her mother had appeared to herd them off the dance floor as the entire party sent off the happy couple with well-wishes and birdseed and catcalls.

  As guests filed out, Jake had helped Marci and her parents direct all the packing and loading of the rented equipment, the wedding gifts, and the leftover food and cake. He helped with the lifting of boxes and shuffling of cars, and it was nearly 2:00 a.m. by the time they were alone again, with Marci driving him back to his truck at the Waterford Inn.

  At first the silence was almost unbearable, but finally Jake spoke. “So earlier... was that you or the gin and tonic talking?”

  She didn’t know the answer to this. “Both?”

  “Well, you can take it back now that you’re sober, you know. I won’t be hurt.”

  “What if I don’t want to take it back?” she said, and her whole body tingled. She loved Jake, of course. In one way or another she always had. Now it had occurred to her that they really could do this, a
nd it felt like the answer to everything. She could put Doug behind her and have the happy ending every girl had always wanted.

  But was it the right happy ending? And what if he didn’t want her? What if he’d been joking about the whole thing, or had changed his mind after seeing the train wreck that she was when she left Austin? What if she’d just made a pathetic idiot of herself by bringing it up?

  He was quiet for the rest of the ride. She gripped the steering wheel, uncertainty eating away at her. A voice inside screamed: Take it back! Make a joke! For God’s sake, do something! But words failed her. As each mile slipped away under the wheels, the opportunity to change her mind seemed to disappear, too.

  When she pulled up next to his truck at the Waterford Inn, he turned to her in the darkness. She turned off the engine and faced him. “Okay,” he said, as though getting ready to direct the action in one of his films. “I’m going to ask you this, and I don’t want you to answer right now. Go home, sleep, think about it, and call me tomorrow. Don’t do this unless you want to, unless you really want me. I will always be your friend no matter what. Okay?”

  She nodded. Unless you really want me. Was he referring to Doug? How much had he guessed?

  “I never told you this,” he went on, “but leaving you behind to go to NYU was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Did you know that?”

  No, she didn’t.

  “Yeah, I turned around twice on the drive there. I even went to a pay phone off the interstate and dialed your number. But I thought I was too young to feel about someone the way I felt about you. And I guess in a way, I was right. That’s part of the reason I went. I was afraid if I stayed in Athens we might end up together and then break up. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing you like that. Do you know what I mean?”

  She did. He took her hands in his earnestly.

  “And it’s kind of been that way ever since. I watched so many of my friends move in with people and end up never speaking again, or worse, getting married and having custody battles over their kids. Fighting over their DVD collections and Pottery Barn furniture, making stupid rules about who could go to their favorite restaurant and when. Two of my friends in grad school actually went to court fighting about their dogs. Their goddamn dogs, Marci.”

  It wasn’t funny, she knew, but she couldn’t help but imagine two adults in a courtroom with treats in their pockets, trying to get the dogs to choose them.

  “I dated these women, all perfectly nice for the most part, and it never ended well. I’d start noticing a classmate or coworker, or even just the really nice girl at the coffee shop...then we’d date, it would fall apart, and I’d lose what I had to start with. I lost friends. I lost colleagues and collaborators. I had to switch coffee shops twice.”

  “Sounds like I’m going to have to chaperone you whenever you get coffee from now on,” Marci teased.

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said, picking up on her playfulness but not losing momentum. ”Anyway, I kept thinking that if I kept you at a distance, kept you as my friend, at least I’d get to keep you. You know?”

  She realized that she did know. Looking back, with each failed relationship on her part or each girl who came and went through Jake’s life, she’d always felt a bit relieved that they still had each other. Looking back, she supposed wrapped in that relief was also hope that their turn was still to come, or at least, was out there and still possible. Now here it was, right in front of her.

  “But I guess over the last couple of years, whenever we’ve seen each other, I... Well, I guess I started feeling like maybe those other relationships didn’t work out because they weren’t you. I haven’t said anything because the timing never seemed right, and I knew you were involved with someone in Austin.”

  She sucked in a breath. Not now. Anything but Doug.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything about it,” he said, seeing her flinch. “Just tell me that it’s over.”

  “It’s over.” She knew that much.

  “Good.” He nodded, closing a mental door. “Marci, I’ve loved you for a long time. You’re my best friend. I’m sorry I don’t have a ring, but...”

  “Yes,” she said, cutting him off. She couldn’t bear to hear the actual words. “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Tears flowed down her cheeks and she hugged him tightly. A few minutes later, she followed his red truck—which had only replaced the decrepit blue Jeep a couple of years earlier—down the inn’s long driveway. As he turned toward the interstate and she headed home to her parents’ house, she tried a few thoughts on for size.

  There goes my fiancé. That’s my husband. My husband’s truck.

  Weird.

  Chapter 18

  He had come by the following evening to talk to her parents and present her with his grandmother’s engagement ring—a beautiful antique with one large diamond and a circlet of tiny sapphires in a dark silver band. “My mom said it needs to be polished,” he said. “But I wanted you to have it right away.”

  Everyone seemed thrilled with their engagement, and Marci was surprised that no one seemed to particularly regard it as news. Her own parents, of course, loved Jake and were as thrilled as they could reasonably be in their post-wedding stupor. “Just wait a year or so, okay?” her dad said in a tired voice. “We have to regain our strength.”

  Marci was relieved that no one mentioned the expense of a second wedding. Now that she had seen the excess of her sister’s nuptials, and that she actually had to start thinking about wedding plans herself, she hoped her mother’s joke about spending everything on Nicole had been just that. Not that her plans were elaborate, but the task of planning seemed daunting enough without a strained budget hanging over her head.

  Other than Rebecca, who referred to their decision through gritted teeth as, “a little sudden,” all their friends were excited and, again, not terribly surprised. Even Suzanne gave a little squeal when Marci told her and actually offered to help with the wedding plans. “There’s a first time for everything,” she said.

  Jake’s parents were kind and warm and welcoming to her. His older sister Leah had been married for several years and had three children already, so the pressure on Jake to settle down and make grandchildren was somewhat minimal, other than the unspoken understanding that he would carry on the family name. But he was over thirty now, and Marci suspected his mother had begun to wonder whether he was in danger of becoming a confirmed bachelor.

  So even though being presented to his family as his fiancée that summer had been intimidating, it was not the scary experience she would’ve pictured after first meeting the Stillwells a decade earlier. Now they were all tailgating together, and her mother was helping Kitty make snacks in the RV, just as if they were old friends. She could hear them chit-chatting and laughing from her seat under the tent.

  She took another swig from her can of Bud Light. Strange: under no other circumstances would it be socially acceptable to drink like a fish before noon in front of her parents and future parents-in-law. Across the quad, she could see Jake’s dad, Robert, talking with some old buddies. By profession, he was a high-end insurance salesman, which suited his personable and lively temperament. But Marci suspected that he didn’t really need to work at all. Several generations back, the Stillwell family had founded a successful textile mill that had long ago been sold off, but the proceeds of which more or less ensured that the Stillwells would be independently wealthy for generations to come.

  This included, Jake, of course, though Marci had been absolutely floored to learn it. Nothing about Jake—from his clunky Jeep and ragged khaki shorts to his crazy-serious work ethic—indicated that he was from “Old Money.” He loved to talk about his family, but rarely talked about their wealth; when he did, it was always at a distance, as though it had no effect on him personally. Like his dad, Jake intended to work his whole life as though the money weren’t there. Marci liked this about him, because even the relatively small excesses of the S
tillwells’ home and lifestyle made her feel a little ill at ease sometimes. She was glad Jake didn’t expect her to be one of Atlanta’s white-glove socialite wives.

  Robert caught her eye across the lawn and gave a slight wave. He finished the conversation with his buddies who, despite being all in their late 50s or older, all looked rosy-cheeked and young on a sunny football morning. Clapping of shoulders and pretend punching joined the calling of insults as they joked their way out of one another’s presence. Boys never change, Marci thought with a smile.

  Robert plopped down in the camp chair next to her and cracked open another beer. “Crazy, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing at the quad crowded with people, tents, and so much red and black clothing it was dizzying.

  “It is,” Marci agreed. She was not sure what to say next. Insurance was not exactly a profession that lent itself to easy small talk (“So how’s business?” “Anything new on this year’s actuarial tables?”), and her current state of unemployment was not exactly interesting, either—at least, not in a good way. She knew from Jake that he loved history, especially World War II era stuff, but Marci’s knowledge in this arena was scant at best.

  So, she went with an old standby, “It’s a beautiful day.” Urgh. How ridiculous that she had to resort to talking about the weather. He must think she was about as deep as a puddle.

  But to him, this seemed as good a place to start as any. “It sure is.” He looked straight up as though confirming it. “This is my favorite time of year. Cool, crisp days...football, family...”

  During the short, awkward silence, Marci mentally willed her mother and Kitty to emerge from the RV and relieve the tension, or Jake and her dad to return. But it wasn’t long before Robert spoke up. “Marci, can you keep a secret?”

  Now this was something. “Sure.”