Arranged (23 page)

“You have a life.”

“Not the life I want.”

“Whoever said you get everything you want?”

“You did.”

“Oh, Anne.”

I wipe my tears away with my knuckles. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Please don’t.”

“But you fell in love with him, right?”

“How did you know?”

“I knew it when we got into that fight. You weren’t just defending your decision. You were defending him too.”

“I feel so pathetic. But I thought it would work. I thought it
was
working.” I shake my head. “Oh my God, I’m going to have to get divorced.”

“No, you’re not, Anne.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah bites her lip. “Please don’t be mad.”

“What is it?”

“Well . . . I contacted that divorce lawyer I mentioned before, you know, in case you changed your mind, and he looked into it for me as a favor. And, well . . . I kind of filed annulment papers for you . . .”

“You did what?”

She cringes. “Shit, you’re mad, right? Will you let me explain?”

“I’m listening.”

“It was when we had that fight, and I thought you’d come around eventually, and things between you and Jack wouldn’t work out. And the idea was, when they didn’t, you wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble and the waiting time. I thought you’d be happy.”

“But that was months ago. Does that mean—”

“No, it’s not final yet. You still have to sign the papers. And Jack.”

I’m only half listening. Jack and I are two signatures away from being unmarried. Does that make it better or worse? I can’t tell.

Sarah is biting her thumb, anxious. “Are you mad?”

“I should be, but . . . I don’t know. I’m trying not to feel anything right now.”

“I hear you. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Do you think Jack’s going to publish his book?”

“Not after he gets my cease-and-desist letter, he’s not.”

Mike looks up. “This guy’s a really good writer, you know.”

Sarah gives him a look that could kill. “Mike! We’re on Anne’s side.”

“Of course we are. He’s a complete fucking asshole. But still. This is well written.”

“Mike!”

“I think you’re sleeping on the couch tonight, buddy.”

He looks rueful. “Taking one for the man team. Got it.”

Sarah gives him a loving smile, which she tries to hide from me. “What happened after you found the book? Did you confront him?”

“Yeah. I came home early from my book tour to tell him how I felt about him—can you fucking believe it? Anyway, I found
that
lying on the couch. He was bringing it to his editor, and he forgot it. So I read it, and threw up, and sat crying forever
on the bathroom floor. When he came home, we had it out.”

“What did he say?”

I reenact the scene, playing my part, then his.

“I’m impressed. I think I would’ve just curled up into a ball.”

“I did curl into a ball for a while, but then I got really mad, and I didn’t want to cave in front of him. I’m not sure he bought it, but I’m glad I tried.” I start to cry again. Sarah puts my head on her shoulder and strokes my hair. “You were right, you know,” I tell her.

“Right about what?”

“I did just do all this because you were getting married.”

“That’ll teach you to copy me . . .”

We laugh together through my tears.

God, it hurts to laugh.

Chapter 22

Shut the Fuck Up!

T
hat’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I’m curled up on the couch in William’s office with my legs tucked under me and Jack’s manuscript on my lap. I just dropped the fake-marriage bomb and am managing to keep my tears in check. So far.

“I swear.”

“No. Fucking. Way.”

“I promise you it’s true.”

“Anne, it can’t be.”

“Do you think I’d make this up?”

William meets my eyes, probing them for any possibility that I might be messing with him. He looks both intensely curious and intensely sad. The tears I’ve been holding back start to well up.

“To summarize, your marriage was actually an arranged marriage. And Jack, who seemed great and into you, was really just doing research for his latest book, and is so dedicated to his craft that he
married
you for it. And you were totally fooled, and when you came home to tell him that you’d fallen in love with him, you found his book, discovered his secret, and kicked him out?”

“That about sums it up, yes.” I pat the manuscript on my lap. “You wanna read all about it?”

“Really?”

“It’s a pretty good read, though I hate to admit it.”

He stretches out his hand. “In that case, hand it over.”

I give it to him. He holds it cautiously, moving it up and down as if he’s weighing it. “Is this the whole thing?”

“As far as he got.”

Almost as far as
we
got.

“It doesn’t feel heavy enough to be so devastating.”

“What’s weight got to do with it?”

“Not sure. It just seems like there aren’t enough words in here to change your whole life.”

“It only took two words to change my life.”

“Which ones?”

“I do.”

C
an you tell Mom and Dad?” I ask Gil later that day on the phone.

“Why am I always your messenger?”

“Because you’re the best brother ever?”

He chuckles. “Of course I can, Anne. If you want me to.”

“Thanks, that means a lot to me.”

“You want me to beat the crap out of him?”

“It’s amazing how tempting that is.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Anne I know.”

“I’m not sure the Anne you know exists anymore.”

“You want to come over for dinner?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please come.”

My throat feels tight, a feeling I’m too familiar with these days. “I’ve got to go, Gil. I’ll call you later.”

I hang up and start to clean off my desk, getting ready to go home. I haven’t been back to the apartment since I left Jack. Sarah went to pick up some things for me and to confirm that Jack was indeed gone. She came back with my clothes and a letter from Jack.

I stared at the envelope for a long time. Then I put it away, unsure whether I wanted to read what was in it. Instead, we rented a silly action-adventure movie and ordered pizza. When Sarah and Mike went to bed, I finally opened the envelope, unable to resist anymore.

The look of the letter almost killed me. Jack had typed it, so it looked just like his book. A bad choice, even though I didn’t think he did it consciously. Still, the sight of the words on the paper, the knowledge that it was Jack who wrote them, suddenly hurt too much, and I couldn’t read it after all. I had an urge to burn it. To put it in Sarah’s fireplace, set a match to it, and watch it turn to ash, to smoke, to disappear.

I couldn’t quite manage that in the end. I needed to have the whole story. The part Jack hadn’t written yet. I wanted to know if he could surprise me any more. Turns out he couldn’t.

Dear Anne,

I apologize for typing this, but I can’t seem to keep my hand from shaking, and I’d like, if you read this, for you to be able to understand what I need to tell you.

Because I need you to know that I’m more sorry for this than for anything I’ve ever done. I know you can’t believe me, that I’ve done nothing to deserve your trust. I don’t know if what I did is forgivable.

You see, all this is confusing to me too. Marrying you is both the worst and best thing I ever did in my life. Actually, the worst thing was writing the book; I can see that now. Because if I hadn’t gone through with that, you wouldn’t ever have had to know any of this. We could’ve been happy. I really believe that.

I love you, Anne. I hope you know that and can believe it. What I’m going to have to live with is why that wasn’t enough for me. Why it didn’t stay my hand from writing. Why I didn’t throw my pages away after the first time we slept together.

Why wasn’t I strong enough to do that?

The only answer I have is that I’m a weak man. I know I have no right to hope that there can ever be anything between us again. But yet I have to hope. I have to hope that you’re both better than me and as weak as me.

I have to hope, Anne. Please forgive me.

Love, Jack

I felt surprisingly numb, reading the letter. Not because I didn’t believe him. I do. I know he’s sorry, that he cares for me. And that same small, stupid part of me even wants to forgive him, to feel his arms around me, his lips on mine, and to hear him tell me he loves me. That’s the part of me that still believes in fairy tales. That’s the part of me that’s still waiting for the little boy who pulled my pigtails to turn up and be this perfect man. That’s the part of me that thought I was in love with Jack.

Halfway home, I change my mind and decide to go to Cathy and Gil’s, to put off the sight and smell of the apartment a little longer. I flag a cab and let it crawl its way through the end-of-day traffic to their house, not caring about the sure-to-be-enormous expense.

When we exit the highway, something in me shifts. Rather than the usual alien feeling I get as I cross the county line, I feel reassured. The pitter-patter of rain on the windshield, the slap of the wipers, the smell of the wet concrete and grass coming in through the window feels like home.

I ask the cabdriver to let me off a few blocks from their house. I don’t have an umbrella, but it’s a light rain, harmless. I walk past the comfortable houses, looking in at the lit-up lives.

A car splashes through a puddle behind me, snapping me back to the real world. I’ve spent enough time in fantasyland.

I head up Gil and Cathy’s front walk and ring the bell. The ever-vigilant Jane answers it, swinging it open with a flourish. “I opened the door.”

“I can see that, honey.”

“Next year, at school, I’m going to have a key and come home by myself.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“No, it’s true.” She stops and studies me for a moment. “Why are you sad, Aunty Anne?”

Oh, to have the perception of a nearly-seven-year-old.

“Because my heart hurts, little one.”

“Can the doctor fix it?”

“I don’t think so.”

She thinks about it. “Maybe Uncle Jack can fix it?”

“No, honey, not him either.”

“Can I fix it?”

I bend down to look her in the eyes and feel that time warp back to me at her age. It’s funny, because all I remember from then are the times I hurt myself. How I broke my arm at Brownies. How I burned my hand on the stove. How I got food poisoning at school. I don’t remember the actual physical pain, only the events surrounding it. But looking at Jane, I
can
remember how excited I was by everything then. How I didn’t realize anything
actually
bad could ever happen to me or the people around me.

I pull her to me. Her little arms circle my neck. “Maybe you can, little girl, maybe you can.”

W
e’re sitting around the dinner table, finishing off a second bottle of wine and talking about anything other than Jack. Or really, I’m finishing off a second bottle of wine. Gil had a glass, and Cathy pleaded pregnancy.

“Now, Anne. Please tell us the whole story,” Cathy says with a serious look.

I shake my head. “Can’t do it. But hold on a sec.” I walk into the hall, looking for my purse. I locate it in the entryway and bring it back to the table, stumbling as I go.

“I still can’t believe it,” Cathy says as I plunk the manuscript down on the table.

“I know, I know. Anyway . . . I’ve written an addendum.” I did this last night at Sarah’s when I couldn’t sleep. The writing isn’t up to Jack’s, but that’s not really the point.

“An addendum?”

“That’s right. I can’t handle having to tell everyone what happened over and over again, so I’ve written an addendum to Jack’s book. Instead of telling people, I’m just going to give them the package, and they can read it and get the whole story. I won’t have to explain anything.”

Cathy looks skeptical. “You need to talk to someone, Anne. Maybe a therapist or—”

“No. No more therapists.” I drain my glass. “You know, I was reading this article about the fact that, blindfolded, most people can’t tell the difference between white and red wine. Do you think that can be true?”

Gil starts clearing the plates. He pointedly picks up the bottle of wine and takes it with him to the kitchen.

“I don’t think Gil approves of my drinking,” I whisper to Cathy.

She puts her hand on mine. “He’s just concerned for you, Anne. He loves you very much, you know. We both do. And so do the girls.”

“I know, Cathy. Thanks.” I swallow hard. “You want to read it?”

“All right.”

I hand her the manuscript and go into the kitchen so I can’t hear the exclamations of shock that are sure to follow. Gil is standing at the sink, rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. I fill my glass with the last of the bottle.

“You know, that’s just wasting water,” I tell Gil.

“When did you become so concerned about the environment?”

“I’m just saying.”

He puts the last dish in the machine, closes the door, and turns toward me. He frowns when he sees the glass in my hand. “Haven’t you had enough?”

“You really shouldn’t worry so much about me. I’m gonna be okay. I’m strong. I’ve been through this before. I’ll survive.”

I like the sound of that. I will survive. Like the Gloria Gaynor song. Yeah, totally. Don’t be afraid, don’t be petrified. Dum-da-dum, yeah, that’s right . . . I’m going to have to change the goddamn locks, ’cause I forgot to make you give back your key
. . .
And then some other part, and then the good part, so go, go, go, walk through my door, and don’t turn around, no, I won’t welcome you here anymore, you think I’m going to crumble, that I might want to die, but no, no, no, I’m going to survive!

“Anne, what the hell are you doing?”

I stop mid-twirl. “Dancing to a song in my head.”

Gil takes the glass from my hand. “Definitely enough wine for you.”

“Party pooper.”

I sit at the breakfast bar and rest my head in my hands. I click my heels together, trying to find the beat again, but the song is gone. My clicking heels remind me of that night so many months ago. The night I found the Blythe & Company card lying on the sidewalk. I clicked my heels together three times, trying to get somewhere else, I’m not sure where. And it worked, after a fashion. Maybe not in a good way, or any way I’d want to repeat, but it could work again. I close my eyes and click my heels. Click, click, click.

“Anne, what are you doing now?”

My eyes fly open. “Wishing on a star.”

“You’re one crazy-drunk girl, Cordelia.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

He goes into the living room to watch TV. After a moment I follow him, but not before I hear an uncharacteristic “Fuck me!” from Cathy in the dining room. Hearing her reminds me why I’m here, and the hurt that receded for the brief seconds of wishing and dancing and teasing Gil comes back in a rush and settles on my shoulders like a weight.

Gil is sitting in his favorite armchair, so I curl up on the couch. We sit there together, not talking, watching an episode of
The Daily Show
that Gil has TiVoed.

“You know, I met one of the writers on that show in Costa Rica,” I tell him.

“You’re full of fascinating facts this evening.”

I throw a pillow at him. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Nice language.”

“You should hear your wife right now. I’m sure she’s saying lots of worse things.”

“Anne, shush, I’m trying to listen.”

I snuggle back into the couch and don’t say another word. At some point, I fall into a half-sleep state where I can hear the TV but can’t put together the words or tell whether they’re funny. After a long time, Gil—it must be Gil—clicks off the TV and pads across the room. He drapes a blanket over me and kisses me on the crown of my head.