It’s estimated that more than 10 percent of married couples got engaged on Valentine’s Day. I’ve taken to asking my clients about the whys and whens of their engagements; interestingly, I’ve read that couples who got engaged on Valentine’s Day have weaker marriages with far less resolve. All I can figure is that a marriage with an impetuous, overly romanticized beginning is likely to end with less resistance.
If engagements occur in February, then divorces, more often than not, occur during the month of January. Studies show that January divorces are slightly more prevalent in the cold-weather states, although January isn’t a great month for marriage in places like L.A. and Phoenix either. If I had to guess, I’d say the holiday effect has something to do with it—expectations not met, or maybe the pressure of spending too much time together under the prying eyes of disapproving family members. If close relatives are divorced, it puts even more pressure on a couple. Divorce within a family, in fact, is a strong predictor of other divorces in the same immediate family. When Al and Tipper Gore divorced after forty years of marriage, a year after their daughter Kristin’s divorce, the dominoes started to fall. Within the year, another one of their three daughters had also divorced, and by the end of the following year the final shoe dropped; the third daughter was divorced as well. There is some indication that, when people close to us end their marriages, divorce suddenly becomes a viable option.
If divorce begets divorce, it stands to reason that belonging to a private club in which divorce is not only frowned upon but actively discouraged with a strict set of rules and regulations may make divorce far less likely. What I mean to say is: For all its questionable tactics, its weird manual and legal jargon, its secrecy, The Pact may really be onto something.
44
On March 10, Alice comes home early to prepare for The Pact party in Woodside. Our host, a guy named Gene, mentioned his love for pinot noir when I met him at the last party, so I stopped at a wine store to pick up a fancy bottle from a Russian River vintner. The production was small, the bottles were hard to get, and the cost was substantial. Alice and I decided the investment was appropriate and necessary.
Ever since Alice returned home from the desert, we haven’t discussed our earlier intentions to free ourselves of The Pact. Her time there was so intense, and our relationship since then has felt on such solid ground, that all of the things we hated about The Pact seem, somehow, less onerous. Even the memory of Declan and Diane taking her away has been cast in a new light. It was necessary, Declan said as Diane fastened the cuffs around Alice’s ankles, and though I don’t believe that’s true, I do see how the experience changed her, how it changed us. How it has made us, if possible, more married. I can’t deny that we are closer now. I can’t deny that we are even more in love. If we haven’t made our peace with The Pact, we have, at least for the moment, ceased to resist it.
When I finally get home, Alice is already dressed and ready to go. After almost thirty days in the collar, after nearly thirty days of Alice clad in turtlenecks, scarves, blouses with high bows, and baggy trench coats, it’s a shock to see her in a tiny gray strapless dress, tall sparkly shoes, and stockings. The collar almost appears to be a part of the dress. She has arranged her hair to work with it, teased up and out. Her hair and her long dark blue nails are Alice circa 2008, her dress is Alice circa now, and the collar is something else altogether.
“So?” she asks, doing an awkward turn.
“Gorgeous.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Still, I can’t figure out what statement she’s making. Is she thumbing her nose at the people of The Pact? Is this her way of telling them that they can’t shame her, can’t imprison her? Or is the opposite true? Is she showing them that she has accepted their punishment and she is stronger for it? Then again, maybe I’m overanalyzing things. Maybe Alice is just relieved to be going somewhere she doesn’t have to hide, doesn’t have to answer questions.
I throw on my gray Ted Baker jacket, the one I didn’t wear to the first party. I skip the dress tie and opt for dark jeans and the funkier shoes. As I slip the shoes on, it occurs to me that Alice and I are becoming more comfortable in our role in The Pact. Humans, like all animals, have an incredible ability to adapt. Survival requires it.
The traffic is light, so we reach the Woodside Road exit with plenty of time to spare. In town, I ask if Alice wants to grab a drink at the bar in the Village Pub. She thinks for a second, then shakes her head. She doesn’t want to be late.
“I could use a drink, though,” she says. So I stop at Roberts Market for a six-pack of Peroni. I drive to Huddart Park, pull the car under a sprawling elm tree, and pop a beer for each of us. I can use one too. Eventually I stopped going to Draeger’s to look for JoAnne. I worry that she’ll be at the party tonight, and I worry that she won’t. Alice clinks our bottles together and says, “Bottoms up!” She has trouble bending her head to guzzle it down, but guzzle she does, with only a few drops trickling down her neck and into the top of the collar.
Maybe we are a little nervous, after all. I know the look in her eyes as she swigs the last sip; she’s fortifying herself. I check the rearview mirror, half-expecting the police to show up soon.
“Do we have time for another?”
“Maybe.” I pull two more out of the bag.
Alice snatches the bottle out of my hand and sucks it down. “Lightweight,” she says. “Don’t let me have even one more drink tonight. I can’t afford to say something I’ll regret.”
Alice sometimes has trouble controlling herself at parties. Her residual middle school nerves make it hard for her to initiate conversation, and when she does start talking, she doesn’t always know when to stop. At the opening party for my new office, she mistook the head caterer for Ian’s partner. Of course, at parties like that, one beer too many and a few wrong words only lead to embarrassment and maybe an awkward apology down the road. Tonight, one wrong sentence and she might find herself in a black SUV speeding into the desert.
“Ready?”
“No,” Alice says, taking a deep breath.
We turn onto Bear Gulch Road and pull up to a keypad in front of a large, intimidating gate. 665544, just like the card said. The gate rumbles to life.
“It’s not too late,” I say. “We can turn and run, maybe head for Greece.”