The Marriage Pact

Alice has been caught up in another new case; a reclusive writer hired her firm to file suit against a television studio, claiming that the studio stole three of his short stories for their new series. Because the man has a limited budget, Alice was made the lead on the account. She’s been putting in a lot of extra hours, working late nights and early mornings; however the case turns out, it will have her name written all over it.

I leave work early and head over to the School of the Arts. A former patient, an eighteen-year-old I treated during his first two years of high school, invited me to a matinee production of A Christmas Carol in which my patient plays the lead. He’s a sweet kid with some socialization issues. He put a lot of work into the production, and I’ve been excited to see it.

Alice and I haven’t even discussed the Hillsborough party scheduled for tonight. When Vivian called, I immediately put it on our shared iCloud calendar, but then I forgot to follow up. Alice and I used to talk for hours, but since her work has ramped up, our opportunities for conversation have dwindled. My workday doesn’t start until nine in the morning, and I have a hard time forcing myself to get up at five to see her off. Most nights, she comes home after eleven, holding takeout from a mediocre Chinese place around the corner. I’m embarrassed to admit we’ve gotten into the habit of eating our late-night dinner in front of the television.

We’ve been watching the show that forms the basis of Alice’s case with the writer Jiri Kajan?. The stories in contention were part of his collection Some Pleasant Daydream. The television show is a series about a couple of male friends, one old, one young, who live in a small town in an unnamed country. The show is called Sloganeering, which also happens to be the title of one of the stories in her client’s book. It’s a pay cable sort of thing, too quirky for network television but just weird enough to have amassed a surprisingly large and devoted audience over its five-season run. In the legal discovery process, Alice’s firm received DVDs of the entire run of the show, so each night we watch an episode or two.

Maybe it sounds like we’re in a rut, but it’s not like that at all. We enjoy the show, and it’s the perfect way to relax at the end of mentally taxing days. Besides, it feels soothingly domestic. If marriage begins as a wheelbarrow of wet cement, unformed and with endless possibilities for what shape it will eventually take, the nightly routine of takeout and Sloganeering is giving our marriage a chance to harden and set.

During the play’s intermission, I text Alice to make sure she has seen the Hillsborough party on the calendar.

Just noticed it, she texts back. What the hell?

We should go. Could be interesting. Can you make it?

Yes, but what does one wear to a cult meeting?

Robes?

Mine are at the cleaners.

Gotta go. Deposition in 5.

Let’s leave by 6:15.

ok. XOXO.

A journal article I read recently cited research indicating that couples who text each other throughout the day have much more active sex lives and report higher satisfaction with their spouses. I’ve taken the research to heart, and I never let a day go by without picking up my phone to send my wife a message, however small.





17


Hillsborough was founded in the 1890s by railroad and banking barons who wanted to escape the riffraff invading San Francisco. The city consists of a maze of narrow, twisty roads, working their way through the canyons like origami. Hillsborough has few sidewalks, no businesses, just large houses set behind ivy-laden walls. If not for the vigilant and neighborly police force, which has a reputation for always being willing to show interlopers the way out of town, one could get lost in its maze for days, eventually running out of gas and being forced to survive on a diet of caviar scraps and organic truffled lamb shanks from the compost bins perched outside the imposing walls.

We get to the freeway exit at seven-fifteen. After arriving home late from work, Alice hastily tried on seven different outfits before we could get out the door. I’m twitchy and anxious as we take the exit, punching the GPS, which says NO SIGNAL AVAILABLE.

“Relax,” Alice says. “What kind of party starts exactly on time?”

A 1971 Jaguar XKE flies past. The car is beautiful, British racing green, hardtop, rounded in back. My partner Ian has told me it’s his dream car. I drive quickly, hoping to catch up. “Snap a picture for Ian,” I tell Alice. But before she can find the camera icon on her phone, the Jaguar turns up a long driveway and disappears.

“Four Green Hill Court.” Alice points to the mailbox where the Jaguar just turned in.

I slow to a crawl, pausing to look at her. “Are we sure we want to do this?”



The house at 4 Green Hill Court has a name: Villa Carina. The title is engraved on a stone plaque attached to the wrought-iron gate. Originally, Hillsborough consisted of nine estates—complete with guest homes and stables and servants’ quarters—set amid hundreds of acres of gardens and trees. From the looks of it, this used to be the main entrance to one of those estates.

The long brick driveway is lined by manicured trees. Eventually, we come upon a broad area paved in stone, where a row of cars is dwarfed by a sprawling, four-story mansion. Alice counts fourteen cars, mostly Teslas. There’s also an old Maserati, a restored 2CV, a blue Bentley, an orange Avanti, and the Jaguar.

“Look,” Alice says, pointing reassuringly at a black Audi—perhaps Vivian’s—and a dark gray Lexus sedan, “cars of the people, almost. And we thought we’d be out of place.”

“Maybe we can still back out,” I say, not entirely kidding.

“Forget it. This whole place is probably rigged with cameras. I’m sure we’re already on video somewhere.” I park at the far end, putting my Jeep Cherokee beside a Mini Countryman.

Alice opens the passenger mirror to check her lipstick and dab on some powder, while I check my tie in the rearview.

I step out of the car and go over to Alice’s side to open her door. She unfolds herself from the car, stands, and takes my arm. Up ahead, lights shine down from the upper floors. Walking toward the door, past the cars, I catch a glimpse of the two of us reflected in the window of the Jaguar. Me in my Ted Baker suit and new tie, Alice in the deep red dress she purchased for our honeymoon. “Mature Sexy,” she calls it. Her hair is pulled back in a serious but nice way.

“When did we grow up?” I whisper.

“We should have taken a picture,” she says, “in case it’s all downhill from here.”

Whenever I feel old—which seems to be happening more and more often these days—Alice tells me to imagine taking a picture of myself, then to imagine myself twenty years in the future looking at that picture, thinking how young I looked, hoping that I had enjoyed or at least recognized my youth. That usually does the trick.

As we approach the house, I hear voices. When we round the hedge, there is Vivian at the bottom of the steps, waiting.

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