I answered the phone. “Everything is good,” I said. “We’ll meet you outside my office.”
As we stood waiting for Isobel’s mom to drive up, I texted Alice. Do you have a second?
Type fast.
Can you teach Isobel some of your secret makeup tricks from the old days?
Hells yeah.
The blue Saab station wagon pulled up, and I opened the door for Isobel. “Saturday morning at nine,” I said. I gave her the address and leaned into the open window to confirm with her mom, who grabbed Isobel in a long, tight hug. I was happy to see that Isobel hugged her back.
22
Alice hadn’t mentioned the bracelet at all that week. Occasionally, though, I would notice her running her fingers over its smooth surface. Workdays, she always wore long sleeves, though that may have had more to do with the winter weather. When she got home—she’d started coming home much earlier than usual—she would quickly slip out of the long-sleeve blouse and into a T-shirt, or sometimes change right away into some sort of lacy nightgown, or a camisole with flimsy pajama bottoms.
I hate to say it, but she was far more attentive to me after her lunch with Vivian. If the purpose of the bracelet was to remind her to pay more attention to her marriage, then it was working. Of course, it was possible that its purpose was more nefarious. So I tried to watch what I said, to muffle my sounds when we were in bed together, to put the thought of surveillance out of my mind. Still, I made the most of our time together. I enjoyed cooking and eating together, I enjoyed all of our great sex, I enjoyed watching Sloganeering on the couch with our ice cream.
When Isobel got to our house on Saturday morning, the first thing she said to Alice was “I love love love your bracelet. Where did you get it?”
Alice glanced at me and smiled. “It was a gift from a friend.”
As promised, Isobel had brought all the fixings for French toast and set about making us breakfast. Alice put on some music and stretched out on the couch to read the paper. She was wearing her old Buzzcocks T-shirt and some ripped-up jeans; she looked exactly like my old girlfriend Alice, not my lawyer wife Alice.
Later, as the three of us ate breakfast together, I felt as if I’d been zapped into a time machine. I had a sense of what it might be like to have a child of our own—but far in the future, after the diapers and the Mommy-and-me music time and the Daddy-and-me gymnastics, after the relief and heartbreak of kindergarten and the thrill of our kid’s first trip to Disneyland, after a hundred visits to the doctor’s office and a million hugs and kisses and a thousand temper tantrums and all the things that come between birth and the teenage years. It was nice. I could totally see Alice and me doing exactly this, one day, with a kid of our own. Although I understood that, with our own child, it would likely be more complicated. Isobel could be here with us, like this, because there was no history between us, no baggage. We hadn’t disappointed her, and she hadn’t worried us to death. Still: a family of three, together on a Saturday morning. I could see it.
After breakfast, Isobel and Alice retreated to the back room to do their makeup thing. Isobel had brought her laptop so she could pull up one of Alice’s old videos. “This is the Alice I want to imitate,” I heard her say.
“That one?” Alice said, laughing. “Are you sure? Back in 2003 I was going a little heavy on the eyeliner.”
I left them alone, reading my book in the living room. Still, I could hear them laughing, and it made me happy, as if we were this perfect imperfect family. It seemed to be exactly what Isobel needed; it also may have been what Alice needed. Because of her own history, which she rarely discussed but which sometimes hung over her like a cloud, Alice had a fragile view of family. Seeing her with Isobel, I understood she’d make a great mom.
23
The following Thursday, I was invited to speak at a conference at Stanford. On the way home, I stopped at Draeger’s Market in San Mateo. I was in the frozen foods section, looking for my favorite vanilla bean ice cream, when JoAnne from the Pact party, JoAnne from college, JoAnne from my old life, turned the corner. She seemed surprised to see me. Her hair was combed down straight over her ears and shoulders, and she had a gold scarf wrapped around her neck.
“Hello, Friend,” she said with a slightly evil smile. Then she looked over her shoulder, as if watching for someone.
“This is so weird,” she said. “I wanted to call you after I saw you. I found your practice online. I must have picked up the phone a dozen times.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It’s complicated, Jake. I’m worried about you and Alice.”
“Worried?”
She took a step closer. “Neil is here.” She seemed nervous. “If I tell you something,” she whispered, “can you promise me that you will absolutely keep it to yourself?”
“Of course.”
To be honest, she seemed a little off. She used to be so normal, so calm. “No, really, don’t even tell Alice.”
I looked her in the eyes and said seriously, “I never saw you, we never talked.”
She was holding a bag of coffee beans in one hand, a baguette wrapped in paper in the other. “I’m sorry to be paranoid, Jake, but you’ll understand eventually.”
“Understand what?”
“The Pact. It’s not what it seems. Or worse, it is what it seems—”
“What?”
She looked over her shoulder again, and her scarf slipped an inch or two. And that’s when I noticed the angry red mark on her neck. It was partially obscured by the scarf, but it looked painful, still fresh.
“JoAnne—are you okay?”
JoAnne pulled the scarf back into place. “Neil’s very well connected inside The Pact. I’ve heard him on the phone, and I know they’ve been talking about Alice.”
“Yes,” I said, confused. “She has this bracelet—”
JoAnne cut me off. “It’s bad. You can’t have them focused on her, Jake. You need to turn their attention elsewhere. Alice needs to get out from under this. It only gets worse, I promise you. Be good. Read the damn manual. There are so many ways to trip up, and the punishments range from innocuous, if you’re lucky, to severe.” Her hand went to her neck, and she winced in pain. “Make them think everything is fine—no matter what. If that doesn’t work, if they still seem to be watching her, have her blame you. That’s very important, Jake. Spread the blame, the focus, across the both of you.” JoAnne’s cheeks were turning red. It was startling to see her in a panic, undone. I thought of the boy she’d talked down from the roof, the Dr Pepper, the way she’d sit in those weekly RA meetings, pen in hand, observing everyone. She’d always been so unflappable.