For Alice and me, as for many couples, Christmas plans are tricky. When I was growing up, my family always celebrated in a strange way. When my father came home from work on Christmas Eve, my parents would load us kids into the car, then my dad would disappear inside for a few minutes, claiming to have forgotten his wallet. By the time he came back, my mom would have the radio tuned to Christmas carols, and we’d all be singing along. Then my dad would climb behind the wheel and the search for pizza would begin, on a night when most of the pizza joints were closed. When we got back to our house, Santa would have come. The presents, never wrapped, would be scattered under the tree, and pandemonium would ensue.
Alice’s childhood Christmases were more traditional. Early to bed on Christmas Eve, cookies left out for Santa, wrapped presents discovered under the tree on Christmas morning, followed by a long service at a Baptist church.
Our first Christmas together, we decided that it was only fair to split the holiday calendar. On odd years, we would celebrate my way, and on the even years we’d honor Alice’s family traditions. But the nice thing about Alice was that she always conceded to me on the matter of Christmas Eve dinner; she loves pizza just as much as I do. This happened to be an even year, which was why I was wrapping everything.
I wandered around the house all afternoon, waiting for Alice. I cleaned and watched A Christmas Story. By seven o’clock, Alice still wasn’t home.
Just as I was becoming a little annoyed that we’d probably missed our chance to get pizza, I heard the garage door open and her car pull in. I heard her shoes on the back stairs and, before I even saw her, I smelled pizza. She was holding a large pepperoni. She even had a few wrapped presents stacked on top of the pizza for me.
“Those look nice,” I said, noticing the shiny plaid wrapping paper, the intricate green bows, the telltale gold SFMOMA sticker. I imagined that Alice had totally forgotten until this morning that it was Christmas Eve and probably stopped by the museum store on her way to lunch.
As Alice opened the pizza box and slid a slice onto my plate, I noticed that she was wearing a cuff bracelet that I hadn’t seen before. It was modern, silver, some sort of hard molded plastic or maybe aluminum or fiberglass. It was two inches wide and very snug. I didn’t see a clasp, or even how it was attached, or more important, how it might be detached. It was a cool piece of jewelry, but I was surprised that she would have bothered to shop for herself with everything she had going on.
“Nice bracelet,” I said. “MOMA?”
“Nope,” she said, folding her pizza in half lengthwise. “Gift.”
“From whom?” My first thought was that guy at her firm’s party, Derek Snow, the one with the curly hair.
“From our friend Vivian.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved, “that was nice of her.”
“No, not really.”
“What?”
She took a moment to eat her pizza. “Lunch was weird. Beyond weird. I’m not even supposed to talk about it—I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
That made me laugh. “Vivian is hardly the Gestapo. I’m sure I’ll be fine. What did she say?”
Alice frowned, fidgeting with her new bracelet. “Apparently, at the party, I really did talk too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Vivian said that someone at the party had concerns about me. They were worried that I am not as focused on our marriage as I should be. They filed something with The Pact.”
I stopped midchew. “Filed something? What does that mean?”
“A friend-of-the-court brief.” Alice was twisting the bracelet. “Basically, somebody ratted me out—wrote some complaint and sent it in.”
“In where?” I asked, incredulous.
“To ‘headquarters,’ whatever that means.”
“What? Surely it’s a joke.”
Alice shook her head. “That’s what I thought at first, that Vivian was just having a laugh at my expense. But it wasn’t a joke. The Pact has a court that decides matters among members, even meting out fines and punishments.”
“Punishments? For real? I assumed that part of The Manual was just symbolic.”
“Apparently not. They use all of the jargon and methods of the regular court.”
“But who would tattle on you?”
“I don’t know. It’s anonymous. Vivian pointed out that if I’d read the entire manual, I would understand. Everyone in the group is responsible to report anything of concern that might reflect negatively on another member and their marriage. She kept saying that the person filed it ‘because they are our friends.’?”
“But who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I keep thinking of this one conversation I had. The guy with the French accent.”
“Guy?”
“Yes, I can’t recall his name.”
“No, that is his name,” I clarified. “Guy. His wife was Elodie. He’s an attorney. International law. Elodie is a vice something at the French consulate.”
“Exactly. He kept asking questions about my firm, my cases, the workload. I remember going on and on about all the hours I’d been working, and how I hadn’t been sleeping. He gave me a disapproving look when I mentioned that we often don’t sit down to eat dinner until super-late. It caught me off guard. He’s a lawyer—how could he not work those hours sometimes?”
Alice was pale. I could tell she was exhausted from too little sleep and too much work. I put another slice of pizza on her plate and nudged it toward her. “This is weird, right?”
“The friend-of-the-court brief said that they liked both of us, that we both seemed committed to our marriage, but they were concerned that I spend too much of my energy and time on my work. According to Vivian, it’s a common issue.”
“I hope you told her it’s nobody’s business how much you work.”
But from the look on Alice’s face, I could tell she didn’t say any such thing. “Vivian brought her copy of The Manual, and she’d bookmarked the page. Apparently, I might be headed toward a violation of Section 3.7.65, Primacy of Focus. The complaint wasn’t that I had violated any of the rules, but the informant was concerned that if there was no intervention, I’d be likely to commit such a violation in the future.”
“Informant? Jesus! I take back what I said about the Gestapo.”
But then I realized that something else was bothering me—the calmness in Alice’s expression, the resigned and nonchalant way she relayed all of this to me. “You don’t seem angry,” I said. “How can you not be angry?”
Alice touched the bracelet again. “To be honest, I guess I’m intrigued. All that stuff about The Manual, Jake, they take it very seriously. I need to reread it.”
“So what’s the penalty, then? A nice lunch with Vivian? I guess it could be worse.”
Alice held up her arm, drawing my attention to the bracelet. “This is the penalty.”
“I don’t get it,” I insisted.
“Vivian said that headquarters had decided I was a candidate for further observation.”
Finally, it dawned on me what she was saying. I reached for Alice’s hand, taking a closer look at the bracelet. It was warm and smooth to the touch. When I looked closely, I saw that the underside had a ring of tiny green lights embedded in the plastic, tracing a circle around Alice’s wrist. On the front, where the face of a watch would be, was an arrangement of tiny holes in the shape of the letter P. “Does it hurt?” I asked.
“No.” She seemed so calm, almost content. I realized that she hadn’t mentioned work even once since she got home, except in the context of The Pact’s concern that she was devoting too much time to it.
“How do you take it off?”
“I don’t. Vivian said we would meet again in two weeks. Most likely it can come off then.”