The Marriage Pact (1) (18 page)

During
these meetings, she was always struck by the fact that Jake didn’t seem to have
a type. He dated quiet, artsy girls with black fingernails and perky blondes
with big tits. Her favorite had been a robust black woman, less than five feet
tall and nearly as wide. She chewed up and spit out the waiter at a Mexican
restaurant for getting her order wrong, seconds before placing a solicitous
hand on Marci’s and saying, “Now, tell me all about
you
, sweetie.”

The
girl after that was a mousy little thing with big teeth who giggled at
everything Jake said. Then there was a Brazilian accountant with flawless skin
who moonlighted as a DJ in a Latino dance club. A redheaded swimmer with broad
shoulders and tiny hips whom Suzanne referred to unkindly as “The Triangle.” At
one point, she teased Jake that he was dating a Benetton ad, one piece at a
time.

Typically,
Marci met these women once, made polite conversation, picked them apart with
Suzanne the next day, and never saw them again. Jake almost always managed to
get some time alone with Marci, or at least to whittle the crowd down to Marci,
Suzanne, and possibly Beth and Rebecca. This was her comfort zone, and his,
too, she suspected. The sacred and lasting space of friendship.

Only
once over the last ten years had anything happened to remind Marci of their
encounter in Athens that summer. For the New Year’s Eve at the end of 1999, the
whole group had paid a ridiculous cover charge to get into a bar they probably
would’ve passed up on any other night as too sleazy and smoky. The place was
festive enough, though, and while certainly filled to the brim with partygoers,
it was the only place within a five-mile radius that didn’t have a line out the
door a mile long.

They’d
been drinking cocktails all evening, dancing to Prince’s “1999” about once an
hour. At 11:45, they switched to the cheap-tasting but free champagne being
passed out. It had an aftertaste reminiscent of SweeTarts mixed with diet soda.
Drunken toasts to their friendship were made repeatedly. Beth and Ray were
enjoying a night out without the kids by overindulging and making out on the
dance floor. Rebecca had brought Rick, a boorish guy prepared to demonstrate
his manhood to any hot girl, offensive guy, or inconvenient wall that crossed
his path. She had lured him to the dance floor after talking him out of a fight
with the bouncer, which had come close to ruining their whole evening.

Suzanne
was at the bar, talking to the bartender, leaning over in a way that ostensibly
allowed her to hear him better, but not coincidentally highlighted her ample
cleavage and low-cut shirt. She’d been there for more than two hours, coming
back to their table for little spurts of time with her bounty of free drinks.
As midnight drew near, she actually hopped up on the bar and swung her legs
over it with the bartender’s assistance, ready for a well-earned kiss at the
stroke of midnight and probably violating several laws about alcohol service in
the process.

As
the crowd counted down to the New Year, Marci smacked Jake on the chest and
pointed at the spectacle of Suzanne behind the bar, laughing. When she turned
to him, however, he did not laugh, but pulled her close and kissed her deeply.
She felt awkward that she had failed to mention a guy she’d been seeing for a
few weeks, but decided that it was a harmless New Year’s Eve kiss, and what
Burt the math teacher didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “Happy New Year,” Jake
murmured in her ear. “I love you.”

She
remembered gaping at him, trying to figure what to say or how to say it, but
Beth and Ray had invaded their table with an exuberant but off-key version of “Auld
Lang Syne” and broken the spell. The evening drew to a close as they piled into
cabs and Marci returned to Suzanne’s for the evening, and then on a plane back
to Austin the next afternoon. By the time she and Jake had seen each other
next, some occasion or other in late spring that same year, it seemed too late
to mention it. Marci had pretty much dismissed it as friendly indiscretion,
attributable to bad champagne and the threat of the Y2K Apocalypse.

That
was four years ago. Since then, nothing beyond friendship had happened between
them, until the e-mail with the napkin and the kiss in the bar after Nicole and
Ravi’s bachelor party. Another kiss in a bar. It occurred to Marci as she
followed the U-Haul off an exit ramp for gas, how many significant moments in
her relationship with Jake had occurred in bars.

Maybe
that’s all there was to it. Maybe they were friends who occasionally got drunk
and stuck their tongues down each other’s throats, or promised to marry each
other later, or whatever. Maybe all of Jake’s suggestions about the two of them
had been spurred by, if not owed completely to, the influence of alcohol. It
certainly explained the lack of discussion afterward, and why Jake had not
bothered to ask her about the mysterious calls on the cell phone. How did she
know the birthday e-mail wasn’t a silly joke he’d thought of after sharing a
bottle or two of wine with a large-breasted debutant?

As
she pulled her car up to a gas pump and waved to Jake on the other side of the
parking lot, she told herself that this was entirely plausible. And that there
was no use in thinking about it right now anyway. Her heart had just been
broken by a guy four states away and the last thing she needed to worry about
was whether this friend was just a friend. But only part of her was convinced.

“What
happened to you?” he asked when she emerged from the pump to head to the
restroom. The mud had dried on her clothes in a bright red-brown smear.

She’d
been thinking about how to answer this question for the last two hundred miles
and come up with nothing. “I slipped.”

“Where?”

“By
the river. I—I had something I needed to do.”

He
looked nonplussed for a minute; she could see questions lingering in his
expression. But he decided against asking, apparently, and settled for wiping
her cheek with his thumb. “It’s dried here. You’d better check the mirror
inside,” he said. He added with a grin, “You’re such a klutz.”

They
got to the gate of Suzanne’s apartment around 11 p.m. Georgia time. The three
of them unloaded the immediate necessities from Marci’s car and then gathered
on Suzanne’s living room floor for a beer. Jake would be sleeping on the couch,
and then helping get Marci’s stuff into storage and the truck back to the
U-Haul place the next day.

“I’m
sorry you both had to take off work tomorrow,” she said to them as they sipped
from the cold bottles.

“What
are friends for?” Suzanne said. “Mondays are a slow day for me anyway.”

“No
problem,” Jake said. He thought for a minute, weighing his words. “I’m not
going to press you, Marce, on what all this is about. I just need to know one
thing. Are you safe?”

“What?”
What did he mean?

“I
mean, I don’t need to know what’s going on, or who this guy is if there’s a
guy. I just need to know that you’re safe. You know, because you’re running
away...”

The
question embarrassed her. It had occurred to Marci how much she was asking of
her friends, but she had never stopped to think they might be worried about
her. She wondered how long Jake had been waiting to ask this question.

“Oh,
Jake,” Marci said, putting a hand on his. “Yes, I’m fine. There’s no danger,
honestly.”

“Good,”
he said, with a tone that meant the matter was closed until she chose to bring it
up again. After all the crying in the car, she had thought she would have no
tears left. Yet looking at her two best friends sitting there with their beers,
rescuing her without questions or judgment, she wept with gratitude anyway.

For
the next few days, Marci more or less lived in her pajamas. She had somehow
managed to assist with unloading her things and taking the rest to storage, but
after that she’d collapsed into a pile on Suzanne’s couch and stayed there,
only sometimes making her way to the guest bedroom or the shower. Suzanne
brought her a cup of coffee before heading out to work each morning, and that
same cup was often still half-full next to her as late as two or three in the
afternoon, when she would paddle to the refrigerator for a can of Diet Coke.

She
watched TV nearly twenty-four hours a day—lots of crime dramas, but also a
variety of soap operas in both English and Spanish. “Do you even understand
what they’re saying?” Suzanne asked her one afternoon. Marci shrugged.
Who
needed to understand?

In
the evenings the Diet Coke was replaced with a glass of red wine, as Suzanne
joined her on the couch and forced her to eat something while they talked or
watched reality TV together. Marci’s family called daily, partly to see how she
was doing and partly to not-so-subtly remind her that Nicole would be coming
down next week to start the wedding preparations in earnest. Jake called a
couple of times to check in, but kept these conversations short, respecting
Marci’s need for space. “If he was sitting where I’m sitting, he’d be
respecting his own need for space,” Suzanne teased, kicking Marci gently with
her socked feet. She had been patient with her friend, withholding comment on
both Marci’s approach to mourning and her lack of personal hygiene all week.

By
Saturday morning, however, Suzanne had reached the breaking point with Marci’s
lolling around. At exactly 7:00 a.m., she yanked Marci off the couch, despite
protests that she was missing a particularly good episode of
True Crime
.
She piled her into the shower and threw the ratty pajamas in the washing
machine. Suzanne pulled her into a skirt and top from her own collection, and
then literally sat on her lap on the toilet while she applied makeup to Marci’s
face.

They
went to Suzanne’s favorite breakfast spot, where Marci was forced to consume a
no-yolk vegetable omelet and Bloody Mary for good measure. They went for
manicures and massages, and then to Lenox Square Mall for a couple of hours of
shopping. Despite her constant protests and whining that she’d rather be home
in her pajamas, Marci had to admit that it was the best day she’d had in a long
time. By dinner time, she felt ready to talk. She bent Suzanne’s ear for nearly
two hours about Doug, Cathy, and everything else. Now it was time to stand up
again; falling apart with her best friend had been the first step.

#

Nicole’s
wedding was two weeks away. Given the elaborate Indian traditions they were
trying to combine with the Thompsons’ very milquetoast Presbyterianism, Nicole
had her work cut out for her. She had taken a month’s leave of absence from
work to manage the festivities and the honeymoon. Ravi was joining her in a
week, and his brother and sister had both been enlisted to help with the
preparations.

Ravi’s
mother was still refusing to attend the ceremony or even speak to Nicole. Ravi
came from a very traditional family, and his marriage to a family friend had
been arranged since his infancy. He had foiled his parents’ plans for him from
the start, however—first by choosing journalism over medicine in college, next
not only by dating Nicole but by choosing to marry her without his parents’
blessing.

His
older brother Kal had also stepped outside the tradition of arranged marriage,
but he had wisely chosen to fall in love with an Indian doctor, whose family
was well-respected in the community. His wife, Pritha, had received a slightly
frosty reception at first. It had warmed a good bit when the two families met
and Mrs. Argawal learned that Pritha was a third-year resident at Washington’s
most prestigious pediatric hospital. Once Ravi had chosen Nicole, however,
Pritha became Mrs. Argawal’s second daughter overnight. Pritha would teasingly
thank Nicole for this from time to time.

Always
the optimist, Ravi had assured Nicole that his mother would come around
eventually and that she was a stubborn woman, but nearly always saw reason in
the end. “Nearly always?” Nicole had asked, at which Ravi muttered something
about a feud and a sister she hadn’t spoken to in forty years. “But that won’t happen
to us. I’m her favorite,” he reported brightly. Somehow, Nicole confessed to
Marci later on, she did not find this all that reassuring.

Still,
Nicole could be pretty stubborn herself, and she had tasked herself with
throwing the most spectacular Indian/WASP wedding Atlanta had ever seen. She
spent hours combing through books and online articles to learn about various
traditions, and then grilling Ravi and his siblings about which were the most
important to their family and which ones could be sacrificed in compromise with
the Thompson family traditions (not to mention the fantasy wedding Nicole had
been imagining since she stopped thinking boys were icky). She could not
control whether Mrs. Argawal decided to attend the festivities, but she could
do her best to ensure there would be as little as possible to complain about
whether she did.

Marci
had observed this process, largely by phone and e-mail, with a kind of awe.
Just reading a few articles Nicole had forwarded to help acclimate her to the
culture made Marci dizzy. She couldn’t imagine trying to glean enough useful
information to plan a multi-day party and hope to impress her future
mother-in-law at the same time.
If it were me, I’d tell Ravi we were going
to Vegas or he could take his chances with the arranged marriage.

Now
that the wedding was so near, Nicole was losing her grip on her calm resolve,
and bridal neurosis was beginning to take over. Marci’s first task after
Suzanne had helped snap her back to reality was to pick Nicky up at the airport
the following day and she could tell right away that the stress was getting to
her. Her normally perfect hair was frizzy and disheveled, and there were dark
circles under her eyes. Her carry-on luggage consisted of a thick stack of
books with tiny post-its sticking out from various pages, and an enormous navy
blue binder marked “WEDDING.” 

She
met Marci at baggage claim with a cell phone tucked under her chin, pausing
only for a second to give her sister a peck on the cheek before resuming a
heated conversation with someone Marci could only assume was the caterer. “No,
no, that is not what we ordered... Absolutely not, it all has to be vegetarian
_...
Well, I don’t care what your notes say, as I told Chris—you know what? If
I could just talk to him directly that would be great...Why not? So? I work on
Sundays all the time...Never mind, I’ll just find his cell phone number and
contact him directly. Thank you so much for not being even a bit helpful.” She
snapped the phone shut and gave Marci a tired smile. “A little bitchy or Leona
Helmsley?”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“Full
on Leona.”

“Yeah,”
Nicole sighed. “I thought so. Oh, Marci, this wedding is killing me. If you
ever get married, you’ll understand. It just takes over your whole life.”

Marci
mumbled something noncommittal. She was beginning to dislike the way people
kept saying, “
IF
you get married,” as though being thirty years old and
watching her younger sister prepare for nuptials meant that she was basically
ready to be put to pasture.

Nicole
made four other calls on their half hour ride home from the airport: one to the
cell phone of the elusive “Chris,” two to the wedding coordinator, and one to
the photographer. By the sound of the calls, Nicky might’ve been managing the
merger of two multi-national corporations, rather than a celebration of love
between two people. They were just over halfway home when she ended a call and
turned to Marci. “So, how are you doing, anyway? I’m sorry about your breakup
with that guy. What was his name?”

“Doug.”
It tasted like saltwater in her mouth. “But it’s really not that big a deal.”
She had told Nicole and her parents the essentials about her flight from
Austin, the nothing job, the end of a relationship, but had also glossed over
most of the key details. Like the fact that she had been offered a
something
job just days before leaving town. And that she was an adulteress and that her
boyfriend’s wife was pregnant.
Minor details
.

“Well,
I’m sorry. Mom said you seemed pretty upset when—Oh, hang on!” She answered the
ringing phone in her purse and Marci was alone again, surrounded by the sounds
of details clicking into place.

Since
leaving Austin, Marci had counted more than thirty-two voicemails from Doug.
After getting Nicole back to her parents’ and accepting her mother’s absolute
insistence that she stay in her old bedroom for a few days—“to help your
sister”—she went through her phone’s overfull inbox and deleted every one. The
only one she could not resist listening to was the final message, reasoning
that it could represent the last time she would ever hear from Doug.

It
was apparently a continuation of a previous message, which she had already
deleted.

“Urgh!
Your phone cut me off again. Anyway, I don’t even know whether you’re listening
to these messages at all, but it makes me feel better to tell you all this
anyway. It always made me feel better to talk to you. I know this whole
situation has hurt you most of all, but I hope you’ll see that I’m hurting,
too, and call me back. Okay? Please, Marci? Call back. Anytime.”
Click
.

Doug’s
voice still ringing in her ears, she stared at the phone for a moment before
hitting Delete. She scrolled through her list of recent missed calls—“D.S.”
accounted for at least two-thirds of them in the past week—and paused on the
most recent call, from 10:00 this morning. Her finger hovered dangerously over
the Send button on her phone. She argued with herself, and tried to imagine
what Suzanne would say to her right now: “Is there anything he could say to
make himself seem like less of a shithead?”

No.
There wasn’t. Marci clicked the number, but instead of dialing it, she went to
the options menu and selected Block. She did not know whether she was strong
enough to make this choice every day, so she decided to take the choice out of
her hands. Her phone asked whether she was sure she wanted to block all calls
and text messages from this number. She was.
I did it,
she thought.
I
am a strong, independent woman who will not be ruled by some charming Texas
asshole. And now I need a drink.

#

Monday
morning she awoke in her childhood bedroom, wearing an oversized t-shirt of
Ravi’s he’d left on his last visit—the only thing in the house she could find
to sleep in. She’d have to run to Suzanne’s today to pick up some clothes, the
bulk of which were still in boxes. She had more or less relented to the idea of
staying with her parents and Nicole for a few days, but vowed to go back to
Suzanne’s for a couple of nights sometime before the wedding.