As you know, I refused to tell her who you were. But what you don’t know is that I tried to leave her. Right then and there, I decided nothing was worth being apart from you, and that I didn’t care about my family’s opinion if it meant being stuck in a loveless marriage. I told her I was in love with you, and I told her—finally—that I hadn’t felt the same way about her for years. I was terrified but excited. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, but that everything we had dreamed about together was waiting for me at the end.
I had my hand on the door handle, Marci, ready to come back upstairs to you.
That’s when she told me about the pregnancy. She pulled out a sonogram, which later turned out to be a friend’s that they had altered to show Cathy’s name. She told me that if I left the car, or ever saw you again, she would make sure I never saw my own child and that my parents would never know their only grandchild. I know it’s no excuse, but I can’t tell you what that did to me. My heart is one thing; my parents’ are something else. I couldn’t do that to them.
Next is the worst part. Cathy made me promise to break it off with you, and to do it in a way that there would be no chance of you wanting to continue. She threatened to monitor my cell phone activity and credit cards every day. She told me that she had told at least twenty people what was going on, including people at the office, and that if there were any calls, any communication, anything even remotely fishy going on, she would divorce me and take my baby to Beaumont forever.
I didn’t know if she knew that we worked together or if she was just guessing, but I couldn’t take any chances. I knew getting you the job at the firm was risky, but I hoped it would help, in some tiny way, to make up for everything else. And that maybe we’d have a chance to talk so I could explain.
Marci, I know you can’t forgive me for the way I treated you that night in my office. It was all wrong and I see it now. But at the time, I guess I thought it was the only way to make sure that I didn’t lose my family, my child. I thought if you hated me, it might make it easier for you to move on. I guess it worked because you’re back in Atlanta now and I heard that you’re engaged already.
The rest of the story is just ugly, so I’ll keep it short. I started realizing Cathy was not getting bigger, and I confronted her about it. At first she tried to pretend she was just small from morning sickness. Then a few weeks later she pretended she’d had a miscarriage. I was devastated—it was a despicable, hurtful lie. Worse than anything you or I ever told. I didn’t love her anymore but I had come to love my child, or thought I did. Finally one of her friends, someone who knows both our families from back home, I guess she felt sorry for me because she called me one day and told me the truth.
By the time I found out the whole pregnancy was a lie, you were long gone and building your new life. I moved out the same day, and it took a while to finalize the divorce because Cathy and her lawyer kept stalling. I gave her everything she asked for. None of it means anything to me anymore.
Since then, I have been trying to get the courage to find you, talk to you. I have written this letter twenty times or more. It will never be enough to say it right. I honestly don’t want to disrupt your new life, if you are truly happy in it. I just couldn’t let you marry someone else without knowing the truth about what happened. And without hearing how truly, deeply sorry I am. I have made lots of mistakes, but hurting you is the biggest regret of my life.
Love always,
Doug
Tears splattered the letter as they fell from Marci’s cheeks and nose. She hated him for bringing back all the pain she had left behind her. All the months she’d spent healing were gone, and the wound was fresh again. She hated him and felt sorry for him, too. His pain was clear in the words on the page and the look on his face when she looked up.
He wiped her tears with his thumbs, cradling her head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. She had no idea what to say. He pulled her toward him and kissed her lightly on the lips. She felt dizzy and sad and scared.
“You’re trembling,” he said softly. “Come here.” He kissed her again, more deeply this time. A protest rose somewhere in the back of her brain, but communication with her body seemed to be blocked. She moved toward him and kissed him back, putting her arms around his neck. The next thing she knew, he was lifting her off the floor and carrying her through the still-open door to his hotel room. So often she had dreamed about this moment—while they were together in Austin, and even after that, when she lay awake late at night, crying in the enormous guest bed at Suzanne’s apartment.
Doug settled her softly on the bed, still kissing her. She was shaking now, almost violently. “Are you cold?” he asked. She shook her head. She thought of Jake, sleeping in a crappy motel off some rural highway, hating her. And now he has every reason, she thought vaguely.
Doug handed her the wrapped box. “Maybe this will warm you up.”
Hands trembling, she pulled on the baby blue ribbon and opened the package. Inside the velvet cube was the last thing she expected: an enormous diamond engagement ring. Nearly twice the size of the more modest antique on her left hand, it was surrounded by her favorite tiny blue sapphires. She felt dizzy, in shock. She looked up to see that Doug was kneeling in front of her.
“I figured every girl is a diamond girl at some point. Like I said, I just wanted you to know that I am 100% serious. And that you really do have options.” He took her left hand in his and looked at the simpler ring Jake had given her three months earlier. “I guess I’d better let you decide whether you want to take this one off or not. You can’t really wear two of these. It’s Georgia, not Utah.”
She was completely dumbstruck. Words failed her, and the tears began to flow more freely than before. “Why don’t you take some time to think about it, okay?” Doug was saying. “It’s a huge decision, I know. I can be back in town next weekend if you want, and you can tell me then. Or, hell, mail it to me if you decide to stay with your Southern gentleman. Just be sure to get the insurance on it. This baby wasn’t cheap.”
Marci knew his rambling jokes were to cover his nervousness. She had to smile because it was so very rare to find Doug Stanton in this state. He sounded like a complete idiot, which helped to counter the feeling she sometimes had when she was with him that he was superhuman.
“I won’t mail it,” she said and he smiled back at her. He kissed her folded hands and burrowed his head into her lap, nuzzling his way under her arms. She sighed deeply.
“Doug, the answer is no.” She tried to say it quickly, so his hopefulness would not last long. Despite how much energy she had spent hating him all these months, she now had no desire left to hurt him.
“Look, honey, I know you’re mad—”
“I’m not.”
“Maybe you just need time—”
“I don’t need time. I’m sorry, Doug, but our time is over. No matter what our reasons, this relationship was wrong. From the beginning, right until this very moment. I’m sorry about you and Cathy, I really am. But I’m with someone else now. Maybe I deserve him and maybe I don’t. But I know that he deserves better than this. I shouldn’t be here.”
She stood and found that the trembling had stopped and her head was clear for the first time in days. She handed him the velvet box. “Good luck, Doug,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Please don’t ever contact me again, okay?”
“Marci, what are you saying? Don’t you think we should talk about this? Don’t you want to take some time to think it over?”
She supposed she never should have expected the great salesman to take no for an answer. She picked up her purse where it had landed next to the bed and turned toward the door.
“Look, Marce—I love you, but if you walk out that door now, I am not coming here again. Do you understand? I’m not playing games here.”
When the door closed behind her, she did not look back. “Neither am I,” she muttered and strode toward the elevators.
Chapter
21
There was a spot on a hill, just south of town, where Marci had gone sometimes with an old boyfriend after college. You could sit in the parking lot of a tiny church and watch the planes taking off and landing at Hartsfield-Jackson, crisscrossing in the sky as they danced in their flight patterns. As soon as she left the hotel parking lot ($15 for two hours!), she knew it was where she wanted to go next. It took her a few minutes of experimenting with various familiar-sounding roads and one scary turnaround—watched suspiciously by a cluster of hooded teenagers whose party in the dead end of a residential street she had obviously interrupted—but she eventually found the road that curved uphill to the little church.
As she crunched into the gravel driveway, she was surprised that nothing appeared to have changed in the past eight or so years. In the part of the world where her parents lived, everything had been expanded and updated or torn down and rebuilt altogether since she had moved away. But the rickety old church was exactly the same, except for two new signs that designated general areas of the gravel lot for “Pastor Parking,” and “Deacon of the Month.”
It was quiet, at least for one of the higher-crime areas of town on a Saturday night. The parking lot was deserted, but she could hear the rhythmic thumping of cars in the near distance. She knew her father would kill her, so would Jake for that matter, if they knew she was here alone at night. She just wanted some time to process before heading back to the inevitable inquisition at Suzanne’s.
She thought about Vann Peterson—Patterson? No, definitely Peterson—the guy who had brought her here a few times after dates. They had met in a mailroom during one of her first temporary office assignments after college, and dated for about four months before she called it off. She tried now to remember why. Had it been a good reason, or was it just one of the early examples her dad was pointing out about running away?
Vann had been cute, charming, and really smart. Like Jake, he was obsessed with old movies, and outraged to learn on their first date that she had never seen Casablanca. Their second date had been ordering pizza and watching all four hours of it at his apartment. She remembered wondering whether he might not really be interested in her that night—because despite her best efforts to make herself available during the movie, he hadn’t so much as kissed her until the credits rolled.
On their third date, though, he had brought her here, where he loved to watch the planes take off and guess where they might be going. They sat on the hood of his car and made out for nearly an hour, putting her fears of his indifference to rest, especially when his hand found its way underneath her bra. She laughed at the memory of his sheepish smile when he did this. Why had she broken up with him?
It seemed so long ago now, but Marci thought she remembered her friends had suggested he had not been good for her. Had they all hiked in the North Georgia mountains one weekend or something? And Vann had some kind of family thing that night so the rest had gone to dinner without him. Suzanne had said something about the way he always steered the conversation back to old movies, Rebecca had noticed his “lack of fashion awareness” or something like that, but it was Jake’s take that made an impression.
She remembered with sudden clarity. “He just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would put you first,” Jake had said, in a big-brotherly tone.
He had been dating the microscopic blonde girl with huge breasts named Regan at the time, and Marci remembered Regan cuddling close to him and gushing, “That’s what I love about him, always looking out for his friends. Isn’t he just the best?”
Nearly a decade later, she felt a surge of nauseated jealousy remembering Regan smearing her perky self all over him at the table, and Jake kissing her playfully in return. No one in their little group had cared for her much, either, but unlike Vann, Regan had not required an intervention to oust her. Jake had always managed that process pretty well on his own. In fact, despite a steady stream of beautiful companions over the years, she couldn’t remember a time when Jake had dated anyone for more than a couple of months.
A car passed by on the main road, slowing visibly as it passed the church. A black man with a gray mustache and suspenders looked out at her from the driver’s seat and came to a slow stop on the shoulder, just past the gravel driveway. She imagined it was one of the church members, wondering what a solitary car was doing here on a Saturday night. She waved at him, but he continued to stare at her stonily. She supposed the fact that she was a white girl in jeans and a GAP sweater with a Toyota Corolla didn’t mean she couldn’t be a prostitute or a drug dealer.
As she watched him watch her, she knew it was time to go. The man kept his vigil, foot on the brake, until she had re-entered her car and pulled out of the driveway. As she coasted down the hill, she saw him in the rearview mirror, backing into the driveway and starting back up the hill.
Returning to the apartment, she hoped Suzanne would be awake so they could talk. She had so much to tell, so much to sort out; what Marci needed most was a stiff cocktail and some time with her best girlfriend.
When she pushed open the door, however, there were two faces staring at her from the oversized leather couch, lighted by the erratic flashes of some movie on TV. Suzanne’s eyes were wide in an “I tried to warn you” expression, while Jake looked cold and sullen, still staring at the TV. In that instant, Marci realized she had turned her phone off to avoid calls from Doug after leaving the hotel and never looked at it again.
“Hey...everyone,” Marci said lamely.
“Hi, baby doll,” Suzanne trilled, her voice unnaturally high and sweet, even for her. “Jakie and I have just been sitting here watching Spiderman for a couple of hours. It’s been just like old times, sitting around watching movies, drinking beer. I was just saying that we need to do this more often, just get together and relax like this, you know, doing nothing, and I already told him I wasn’t sure where you were tonight. But here you are! Okay, then, I’m going to bed! Nighty-night, y’all!”
She was up and off the couch by the time she finished this hasty speech, and her silky pink bathrobe fluttered as she closed the door to her bedroom, leaving Jake and Marci alone.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re back early. How was your trip?”
“Fine. How was your evening?” He spat the question out as though the taste of it offended him.
“It was, okay, actually,” she said, answering genuinely. Might as well get it over with. “I saw Doug.”
“I guessed that,” Jake retorted coldly.
“It’s not what you think.” Great, Marce. Really original.
“Really, Marci? It’s almost midnight. And how the hell do you know what I think?”
Even though she expected it, still it was like being hit with a steel pipe. He had never been this angry with her before. In all their years of friendship, he had been the voice of reason, the cooler head. She had only ever seen him occasionally angry with anyone, and had always known she did not want to be on the wrong end of it. During the few times they had fought, he had simply remained calm and waited for her to come to her senses. Now she saw the hurt in his eyes and had to fight to stay where she was rather than run out the door.
“I’m sorry. I went to Doug’s hotel—”
“To his hotel?”
“Well, the restaurant at his hotel,” she clarified, though it felt like a lie of omission. “To explain why I don’t want him to contact me anymore.”
“Oh, of course, I should have known,” Jake fumed. “Whenever I never want to see someone again, the first thing I do is go visit their hotel.”
“Well, it’s just that he had called me a whole bunch, and after everything we had been through, I felt I owed him an explanation in person, you know?” He was silent for a second and she hurried through the rest of her explanation before he could cut her off again. “Anyway, we had dinner, and he gave me this note explaining everything that happened all those months ago. I told him it didn’t change anything and not to contact me ever again and I left. That
was hours ago. I went to go watch the planes for a while by myself. I thought you were staying in south Georgia. If I’d known you were here—”
“Jamal was in a car accident and shattered his leg. His career is probably over. The family opted out of the documentary.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry—” Poor Jamal. And his family. And all of Jake’s hard work.
“It wasn’t his fault,” he said simply. “Suzanne called you. I called you. Three times.”
“I turned off my phone. I’m sorry; I just knew he would be calling me trying to get me to come back and I didn’t want to deal with it. I thought you were out of range, so—”
“What were you thinking, going down to that place alone at night with your phone turned off? Do you have a death wish or something?” His anger was veering toward concern for her safety, and she began to feel relieved.
She took a step toward him. “I’m sorry, it was stupid. I—”
“So you didn’t go to his hotel room?”
She froze. His voice was calm, but she sensed the mass of anger just below the surface. “Well?”
Lying had become such a habit for Marci over the past year that the justification sprang to her mind immediately. The truth, that she had gone to Doug’s room, seemed so opposite everything she had intended and everything she felt. If Jake knew the truth, they were over. As a couple, and probably as friends, too. She knew this instinctively, the way she knew his gestures when he talked about something important, or how he reached for her in his sleep. The thought of losing him now was unbearable.
But if she lied to Jake, she would have nothing left anyway. She looked up and said, “Yes, I did go to his room.”
He winced as though she had touched him with a hot poker; his face returned to its previous stony expression. “And you kissed him?”
Marci looked at her shoes. “Yes.”
The Marriage Pact Page 23
