The Marriage Intervention (5 page)

“So?” Summer said. “How often do you guys hug, Josie?”
 

“Like, I don’t know, every few days or something?”
 

“Wait. So how do you say good-bye when he leaves for work or whatever?” Delaney wanted to know.

“He’s sleeping when I leave for work. I’m sleeping when he gets home. I’m telling you, ships passing in the night and all that.”

“Yikes,” Summer said to Delaney. “This is worse than we thought.”
 

Delaney nodded. “I think it’s time to lay out The Rules.”
 

Josie sighed. “Fine. But I’m not promising anything.”
 

“Geez, Josie, it’s your
marriage
. It’s not like we’re going to make you go out with guys who feed you ham sandwiches while wiping hog’s blood off their boots from that morning’s butcher.”
 

“That was only one date, Delaney,” Josie said. “And how could we have known that Jesse the Rancher would be obsessed with hogs?”
 

“Didn’t he have, like, a pig as his online dating profile picture?”
 

“He was very good-looking, if I recall,” Summer said, and Josie added, “And he had exceptional manners.”
 

“That’s true,” Delaney said. “But still. Be patient, Josie. Give us a chance, here. I followed your rules.”

“Kind of!” Josie said. “You used loopholes. Like when you went shopping for office supplies when you were supposed to be writing your resumé.”
 

“I needed a good atmosphere for working.”
 

“Whatever. Fine,” Josie said. They all laughed. Their use of “fine” had become a running joke since Delaney started using it every time Summer and Josie coaxed her into following their rules during The Dating Intervention.

“All right,” Delaney said. She turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote
The Marriage Intervention
at the top. “Let’s get started.”
 

***

“First of all,” Summer said, “she’s got to start initiating sex.”
 

“Who says I don’t?”

“Whether you do or not, once a month just isn’t going to cut it,” Summer said. “Research has proven that sex makes you feel closer to your partner. So even if you initiate it now, you’ve got to initiate it more.”
 

“What if I never see my partner?”
 

“Write it down, Delaney,” Summer said, pointing to the notebook. “Rule One. Initiate sex with Paul at least once per week.”
 

Josie thought,
What if he rejects me?
but she remained silent.
 

“Rule Two,” Delaney said. “Date nights. Once every two weeks.”
 

“How is going out to dinner and a movie any different from staying home and watching a movie while eating dinner?” Josie said.
 

“Oh my God,” Summer said to Delaney. “She really is clueless.”
 

“I know,” Delaney said. “She’s all practicality, no romance.”
 

“That’s not true!” Josie said. “I can be romantic.”
 

“Give me one example,” Summer said.

Dozens of images flashed through Josie’s mind. Images of her and Scott together. Him feeding her grapes at the top of Granite Mountain as they both gazed over the twinkling lights of Juniper. Her surprising him on July Fourth with a home-baked apple pie and homemade ice cream. Him braiding her hair in a horribly messy braid, and both of them cracking up as he stood behind her at the bathroom mirror.
 

Of course, she’d promised Scott she’d always keep their relationship a secret, so it was impossible to use these moments with him as proof of her romantic capabilities. Plus, how would it look if all of her examples came from a previous relationship? And furthermore, if she told the girls about Scott, she’d feel obligated to tell Paul. If she didn’t, he’d be the only one who didn’t know.

She shifted her attention to Paul, searching her memory for examples of romance, but she came up dry.
 

“See?” Summer said, her voice self-satisfied and cheerful.
 

“Well, don’t look so smug about it.”

“Wow, you’re a bit prickly about this, Josie,” Delaney said.
 

“Come on,” Josie said. “What’s Rule Three?”
 

“Rule Three,” Summer said. “Hug at least twice a day, for at least twenty seconds each time.”
 

“Wait. You’re going to help me restore my marriage through hugging? I think it’s you guys who are clueless, not me.”

“After twenty seconds of hugging, your body produces oxytocin,” Summer said. “It’s a feel-good hormone.”
 

“Oh my God,” Josie said. “I cannot believe I’m letting you two take over my marriage. And secondly, where are you coming up with these statistics?”

“FriendZoo,” Summer said, raising an eyebrow at Josie. “Aren’t all those articles accurate?”
 

Josie shook her head. Delaney continued: “Rule Four. Go to marriage counseling.”

“I will not get through this with my dignity in tact,” Josie said. “I guarantee it.”
 

“Rule Five,” Summer said. “Participate in an adventure date every month.”
 

“What does that even mean?”
 

“It means rock climbing or water skiing or sledding,” Delaney said. “Or something like that. Something new. An experience you and Paul can share.”
 

“How about bringing Paul to our next Happy Hour?” Josie said. “That’s an experience everyone should have.”
 

Delaney shook her head. “Rule Six. Enter a race.”
 

“A race? Like a running race? Or, like, a political race?”
 

“Yeah,” Summer said. “Like a running race.”
 

“I don’t run,” Josie said. “You guys know that. I walk.”
 

“I don’t run unless I’m being chased by coyotes,” Delaney said.
 

“Don’t mock me.”
 

“It can be, like, a five k or something,” Summer said. “Three miles. That’ll take you like a half-hour.”
 

“Fine,” Josie said.
 

“Fine,” Summer and Delaney echoed.
 

The three of them dissolved into giggles, although Josie was thinking,
Yeah, right. I’ll be lucky to get three yards.
 

***

What would Mama say about The Marriage Intervention?
 

Josie couldn’t be sure. Although their mother had always taught Josie and Juan they could support themselves, no spouse necessary, Josie also knew she often felt lonely and missed her husband, Ricardo, who left when Josie was four and Juan was two.
 

“He was a dreamer,” Mama said. “He lured me away from Mexico with the promise of a new life, and I believed him. Our time together was short, but it was big. Big and bright as the full moon. But just like the moon, he couldn’t be tied down. We were living what he told me was the dream, but he was dreaming of another life, and couldn’t resist it. Mind you, I wouldn’t have gotten you two if I hadn’t followed him to the States. But I want more for you, Josie. I want you to share a long life with the man you marry.”
 

Josie remembered nodding solemnly, believing with every atom of her being that she would be a dreamer, too. After all, her father was three states away in Texas, enjoying himself on some fishing boat while she and Mama worked the fields, Juan strapped to Mama’s back, all of them sweating in the heat.
 

Then she’d grown up. Mama moved them to Arizona, where she got a job as a translator for the government and began attending college to get her accounting degree.

That same year, they learned that Ricardo died in an accident just a few hours away. He’d taken yet another new job, probably following another new dream, and the train he was conducting derailed, killing him.
 

As Josie began to understand how the world worked, she learned to respect her mother’s determination. She began to emulate it.
 

She worked hard in her classes, joined the speech and debate team and took college courses in high school so she could start her career as soon as possible.

Practicality paid off.
 

The Marriage Intervention was practical, and Mama would love it. But was Mama right about practicality?

She died just short of her fiftieth birthday. Yes, she was making tamales, doing something she loved. But how much of her life had she really enjoyed? How much had she worked away? And how much would she miss?
 

Josie continued teaching after her mom’s death, because she loved it, because she loved the students and because it was a good, stable job. But now, seven years later, she found herself looking for adventure. And romance.

If Paul was Scott’s opposite, Josie’s first date with Paul was equally different from her first date with Scott.
 

She still felt heartbroken over the dissolution of her relationship with Scott. But in his absence, she stopped bargaining for her mom’s life. She moved beyond depression and embraced acceptance. In acceptance, she found she wanted to follow her mother’s advice and give up romance in favor of practicality.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” Paul said when she finally managed to track down his number and call to ask him out a couple of weeks after she first saw him in Susie Lockhart’s classroom.
 

(By pursuing him, Josie was following one of her mother’s best tips: “Don’t wait around for Prince Charming,
mija
. If you find him, snap him right up and show him where to sit. On the throne right beside you.”)
 

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

“Actually, I’ll probably be sitting in your driveway at three minutes ’til, waiting for six o’clock to roll around.”

That Saturday she looked out her front window at five fifty-seven to see his truck parked on the street. He knocked just as the big hand on her clock reached the twelve, and they were both smiling when she opened the door.
 

Josie couldn’t help herself: she compared Paul to Scott at every stage of the date.
 

Scott was always a minute or two late, rushing in with some excuse designed to make him sound important or chivalrous. (“Sorry ’bout that, they really needed me at work,” or, “I stopped to help a little kid get his basketball out of the street without getting run over.”) For some reason, although Carla had taught Josie to value punctuality, she found this quirk charming.
 

Paul was three minutes early every time they met, without exception.
 

Despite the poetry and flowers, Scott said he was a feminist. He believed in equal rights for women. So he never hurried to open doors for her. On the other hand, Paul opened every door they encountered, including the passenger door of his truck. This was real gallantry, she thought, not the fabricated kind. Scott avoided all the serious topics, and Paul dove right in. Scott seemed to want to skim the surface, while Paul wanted to know everything. Every why, every how, and every what. Once Scott learned his way around Juniper’s restaurant industry, he always chose the most romantic restaurants and insisted they take turns paying (another indicator of his feminism, he said). He chose tables on the outskirts of the room, so no one they knew would notice them together.
 

On their first date, Paul chose a casual, cozy diner where they sat right in the middle of the room. Josie felt a higher level of intimacy with him than she had on any of her dates with Scott. The server never delivered the bill, and when they walked out, Paul revealed he’d paid it when Josie was in the bathroom.
 

During that first dinner, Paul quizzed Josie on her reasons for becoming a teacher, her motivations for buying a historic house downtown rather than a new house in a subdivision, and why she hated working out.
 

And when she asked him questions, he answered them thoughtfully, as if he wanted her to know him.
 

He told her he decided to become a cop when he was ten, after a burglar broke into the house where he lived with his mother. One of the police officers who responded to the midnight call sat with him until morning while a team of detectives and evidence technicians scoured the house and interviewed his mom.
 

“He even ran to the store to grab me some Doritos,” Paul said, laughing. “And when he found out the burglar had stolen some of the gifts my mom planned to give me for Christmas, including my first brand new bike, he got together with a bunch of the other guys and bought me another one.”
 

Once they finished dinner, they went for drinks at a little Irish pub just around the corner from the diner. The Blarney Stone. It had since closed, but Josie had fond memories of sitting in the crowded room at a high top table, feeling like she and Paul were the only people there, maybe the only people in the world.
 

At one point, he reached across the table and took her hand.
 

“I’m having a really great time,” he said.
 

“I bet you say that on all your dates,” she answered, although somehow, she knew there weren’t that many.
 

“The truth is,” he said, still serious, “I don’t date very often. I put it all out there, no secrets, and I guess I’m a take-me-or-leave-me kind of guy. You either love me or you hate me.”
 

Yes, this was only their first date, and she wouldn’t call it love just yet, but judging by the way she felt whenever they made eye contact—as if he’d never laid eyes on another woman and never would again—she had a really good feeling about Paul Comstock.

And judging by the way he kissed her when he walked her to her door that evening, he had a good feeling about her, too.