My head is pounding. “What’s the punishment for a misdemeanor?” I think of the “enhancement” section of The Manual, how it leaves everything open to interpretation.
“Two-hundred-fifty-dollar fine. Eight more weeks of probation with Dave.”
I relax. Sure, it’s weird to be fined for lack of focus. Still, it occurs to me that I expected worse. “That’s manageable, right?”
“After it was all decided, the judge gave me this long lecture on the importance of marriage, the importance of setting goals and seeing them through. He talked about honesty, directness, trustworthiness. Everything he said was reasonable, there wasn’t really anything I could disagree with, but it seemed so ominous coming from the bench.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. Alice is clearly shaken, and I feel bad. I want desperately to be with her.
“In the end he told me to go back to my husband.”
“Well, that’s a sentence I can agree with.”
“He said that I seemed like a nice person, and he doesn’t want to see me here again. It was like in real court, when they admonish minor criminals for first-time drug offenses and petty theft—only I was the one being admonished. I mean, standing where I was standing, for the first time in my life, I finally understood how some of my clients must have felt back when I was working for Legal Aid.”
“And that was it?”
“Yes and no. The judge ordered that I be outfitted with a focus mechanism.”
“What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know yet.” Alice sounds scared, and my heart aches for her. “Look, Jake, I have to go. But Victor promised me I’ll be released this afternoon. He said you should pick me up at the Half Moon Bay Airport at nine P.M.”
“Thank God,” I breathe. “I can’t wait to see you—”
“I have to go,” she interrupts, and then, quickly, “I do love you.”
40
I drive south through Daly City, then down into the bleakness of Pacifica, up the hill and through the beautiful new tunnel. When I emerge on the other side, into a terrain of mountain cliffs, winding turns, and beaches glowing in the moonlight, it feels like a different world. And I think what I think every time I exit the tunnel: Why don’t we live here? The peacefulness is undeniable, the views impressive, the real estate less expensive than San Francisco. The smells of the artichoke and pumpkin farms mix gently with the salt air of the Pacific.
Minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of the Half Moon Bay Airport, expecting to spend some time in the café while I wait for Alice’s flight to arrive. I’m disappointed to find everything dark, the café closed, no lights on anywhere.
I park by the fence near the end of the runway. I’m half an hour early. I didn’t want Alice to land in Half Moon Bay and be stuck here alone, in the dark, waiting for me. I turn the lights off and the radio on and recline my seat. I roll my window down to let in the breeze and to listen for Alice’s plane. There’s no air traffic control here, no lights on the runway, and I wonder how the pilots find this narrow strip of asphalt by the sea. Small airplanes scare me, just the random precariousness of it all, tumbling suddenly out of the sky. Every week, it seems, there’s a new report of a dead sports star or musician or politician or the CEO of some tech company, some guy who decided to take his family on vacation in his private plane. It seems crazy to me, trusting one’s life to flimsy aerodynamics.
KMOO is on the radio. It’s that great show Anything Is Possible. The host, Tom, is just wrapping up an interview with the creator of Sloganeering. The showrunner is outlining the direction for the new season. He brushes off their loss in court to Alice’s client as a small misunderstanding, no mention of the judicial nastiness. “Wonderful book,” he says. “We’re working with the writer, and in the end I think this will actually make the show better.” The show concludes, the news starts, and I flip the radio off. I think I can hear the ocean in the distance, though maybe it’s the wind blowing through the artichoke fields.
I read for a while, one of Alice’s music magazines. The feature story is a long article on Noel and Liam Gallagher. Then I put the magazine down and sit in the dark. I obsessively check the clock on the dashboard: 8:43. 8:48. 8:56. I start to think they’re not going to arrive. No lights on at the airport except for a dim glow in a room at the back of the café. Did I get it wrong? Did they change their minds and decide not to release Alice? Did something happen?
It’s 8:58. Maybe the plane never took off. Maybe she’s not coming home yet. Or worse, maybe there was bad weather in the mountains.
And then, the clock hits 9:00 and the world comes to life. Brilliant yellow lights spark on both sides of the runway. I hear the faint hum of an engine. I look up, but I can’t see anything. Then in the distance, coming in over the trees, is the outline of a small plane. The aircraft flies low and slow, touching down smoothly. It glides to a stop at the end of the runway, not more than fifty yards from where I’m parked. The engine goes silent, leaving the night still again. I flash the headlights to signal that I am here. The plane sits motionless.
Where’s Alice? I flash the lights again and step out of the car. And then a door on the plane pops open and the staircase descends, opening onto a rectangle of light. I recognize Alice’s ankle as it emerges from the plane and hits the first stair. My heart surges. Her legs and waist appear, her chest and face, and then she is standing on the runway. She’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing when Declan put her into the SUV days ago. She’s walking carefully, oddly upright. Something’s wrong, I think. Is she in pain? What have they done to her? Behind her, the staircase folds into the plane. As Alice walks through the fence, under the lamppost, toward the car, I see the reason for her strange posture. There is something around her neck.
She turns her body and waves to the pilot, who flicks on his runway lights and revs his engine. As we meet, she puts her arms around me, shivering. I pull her in close as the plane lifts into the sky. My hands touch the soft mass of her hair and, beneath it, something rigid. The pilot flashes his lights one last time as he soars over the trees and out toward the ocean.
Alice holds me close, and I can feel the stress and tension passing out of her body, but she is standing so straight, so stiff. As I lean back to look at her, I see tears on her cheeks, though she is smiling. “So,” she says, as she steps back to model the large collar around her neck. “Here it is, the Focus Mechanism.”
The collar circles her neck, extending all the way up to her jawline, where it cups her chin, holding it firmly in place. Like the bracelet she wore on her wrist, it has a smooth, hard gray surface. A narrow ridge of black foam lines the top of the collar where it meets her chin and jawbone. The collar disappears into her shirt, extending just below her shoulders and halfway up the back of her head. She is staring at me, her eyes full of tenderness.