Alice filled her glass with water from the tap. “It’s all about focus, Dave said. Each day, life tries to pull us in a thousand different directions. Sometimes, a shiny object catches our eye and we have to have it. It’s when these things demand priority over marriage that we get into trouble.” She sank back into her chair. “Dave said that work is especially insidious. He said that we spend so much time with our co-workers, we invest so much of our time and mental pursuits in our profession, that it’s easy to forget that it shouldn’t be our main priority.”
“I wouldn’t entirely argue with that.” I thought of Alice’s late nights before the bracelet and how the gears of my own mind sometimes churned all night long with concerns about my clients and their problems.
Alice mimicked Dave’s deep voice. “?‘Don’t get me wrong, Alice. Work is very important to all of us. Look around. You’ve seen the models in my conference room, you’ve seen the photos of past projects in the lobby.’ Then he brags about how the structure he helped design for the Jenkinses’ guest place out at Point Arena, Pin Sur Mer—”
“Jeez, name-drop much?” The Jenkinses owned a good percentage of the commercial buildings on the Peninsula, and Pin Sur Mer had been in the paper several times, not to mention Architectural Digest. I was growing increasingly irritated with Dave.
“I know. Anyway, he goes on about how he put a gazillion hours into it, how he spent three full months fighting with the architect.”
“Pin Sur Mer,” I said. “How pretentious.”
Alice picked at her mango salad.
“He told me how he lost himself in the project, how his priorities got all fucked up. ‘Maybe you don’t want to hear this right now, Alice,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad I had The Pact to help me refocus and see what was important. It was very difficult, I won’t lie, but I’m glad they were there for me, and I wish they’d done it earlier.’ Then he listed off a bunch of awards Pin Sur Mer won, but—” Alice did the voice again: “?‘Not a single project, not a single detail, not a single bolt on any of these projects is as important as my wife or my family. Pin Sur Mer isn’t there for me at the end of the day. Kerri is. Without her, I would be adrift.’?”
“You’re sure we met Kerri at the party?” I asked, still trying to picture her.
“Yes, remember? The sculptor slash painter slash writer in the Jimmy Choos. Personally, if I had to pick between Kerri and Pin Sur Mer, I might be tempted to take the house. Anyway, ‘The Pact,’ he tells me, ‘is special. I know it’s early for you, and maybe you’re still trying to figure it out. But just let me tell you this: The Pact knows the fuck what it’s talking about.’?”
“Yikes.”
“He said that twenty years from now, we’d be sitting next to each other at a quarterly dinner, laughing about this small misunderstanding.”
“Twenty years? I don’t think so.”
“?‘You will thank me,’ he said, ‘and you and Jake will be happy that Finnegan brought The Pact into your lives. Right now, maybe not so much, but that’s a hurdle we have to cross. Right now, it’s my job to help get your priorities properly aligned, Alice. It’s my job to help rid you of your wrong thinking.’?”
I thought of a seminar on propaganda I’d taken back in college. “Didn’t Mao use the phrase ‘wrong thinking’ during the Cultural Revolution?”
“Probably.” Alice sighed. “The whole speech sounded very authoritarian. ‘I like you, Alice,’ Dave said, ‘and Jake seems like a good guy. The work-home balance is tough. That’s why we need to make a mind readjustment and get you refocused.’?”
“A mind readjustment? What the hell did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. He told me that he had someone waiting in the conference room and our time was almost up. But he wanted me to know that, in the history of The Pact, not a single couple has ever gotten divorced. No trial separations, no living apart, none of it. ‘The Pact may ask a great deal of you,’ he said, ‘but trust me, it provides a lot in return. Like marriage.’?”
I took a big swig of my beer. “We have to get out of The Pact. Seriously.”
Alice was picking at her salad, separating the mangoes from the cucumbers. “Jake…I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”
“What can they do, cart us off to marriage jail? There’s no way they can force us to stay.”
Alice bit her lip. Then she pushed the plates away and leaned forward to take my hands in hers. “That’s the scary part. As I got up to leave, I said to him point-blank, ‘I don’t really like any of this. I feel like you’re bullying me.’?”
“Nice. How did he respond?”
“He just smiled and said, ‘Alice, you need to make your peace with The Pact. I have made my peace with The Pact, Jake will make his. It’s necessary. You don’t leave The Pact and The Pact doesn’t leave you.’ Then he leaned over, held my arm so firmly it almost hurt, and whispered in my ear, ‘No one leaves alive, that is.’ I pulled away from him; I was totally freaked out. And then he went back to being the jovial guy from the party. ‘I’m joking about that last part,’ he laughed. But Jake, honestly, it didn’t sound like he was.”
I imagined that bastard putting his hand on my wife, threatening her. “That’s it. I’m paying him a visit tomorrow.”
Alice shook her head. “No, that would only make things worse. The good news is, I don’t have to see him again. He walked me out. And in front of his office, he told me this was our final meeting. ‘Focus, Alice, focus,’ he said. ‘Get it right. Give my regards to my friend Jake.’ Then he walked inside and left me standing there. It was so fucking creepy.”
“We have to find a way out.”
Alice gave me a quizzical look, like I had totally missed the point. “No shit, Jake. But what I’m telling you is this: I don’t think there is a way out.” She squeezed my hands tighter, and I suddenly saw something unfamiliar in her eyes, something I’d never seen there before. “Jake, I’m scared.”
29
Here’s the thing: I didn’t tell Alice about my daily trips to Draeger’s that week. I wasn’t exactly hiding it from her, I just didn’t want to increase her anxiety. When we were together, I acted casual, trying to convey the sense that I wasn’t losing any sleep. When she mentioned The Pact, usually to say that she hadn’t heard from Vivian or Dave that day, I tried not to look too worried. “Maybe we got all worked up for nothing,” I’d say. I didn’t really believe it, and I don’t think Alice did either, but as the week wore on and nothing happened, our nerves seemed to calm.