I see JoAnne enter the food court through the side door that leads out to the parking lot. Her furtive glances, like a deer in a wide-open field, make me nervous. Do I really want to go through with this? I stand back, watching her. She sits across from Panda Express, at a table by the window. I wish she’d chosen a more discreet spot. She pulls a phone out of her purse and begins to fidget. I wish she hadn’t brought her phone. The words she whispered to me at the party echo in my head: Don’t fuck it up. Until now it hadn’t occurred to me that she might be the one to fuck it up.
I continue watching her, scanning the space to see if she was followed. She makes a call that only lasts a few seconds. Unlike me, she seems oblivious to the crowd in the food court. She pulls something out of her purse—a granola bar—unwraps it, and eats it with tiny bites, head down. Occasionally, she looks up abruptly, but never in my direction. She’s paranoid, it seems, but not thorough. She acts a little manic, a little edgy—nothing like the JoAnne I knew in college. That JoAnne was remarkable for her incredible calmness. Even in the most difficult situations, she seemed uncannily mellow. She was never beautiful or even striking, but it was this placid confidence, this utter lack of insecurity, that made her stand out in a crowd.
The woman across the food court from me now is unrecognizable. Although I would never say this to my clients, deep down I’ve come to believe that most people don’t change. Maybe they are able to accentuate some parts of their personality over others; there’s no doubt that good nurturing in childhood can guide one’s natural inclinations in a positive direction. I’ve spent a great deal of my professional life searching for useful tools to help people direct their personalities in a positive way. However, for the most part, I believe that we all have to work from the hand of cards we are dealt early on. When I see people who have undergone extreme personality shifts, I’m always curious to know the root cause. What is the button, the push point, the inciting action that overrides someone’s nature? What makes people appear, to those who know them well, so different?
As I said, over time stress, anxiety, and psychological difficulties always show in a person’s face. I’ve seen signs of trouble in JoAnne: the pronounced vein snaking from her left brow into her hairline, the downward tug at the corners of her mouth, lines near the eyes. Something tells me she needs help, but I’m not the one to offer it. Something tells me to walk away, but I can’t.
Because here’s the thing: I still want to hear what she has to say. I want insight into The Pact. I refuse to give up hope that there is some way out for Alice and me. Maybe JoAnne’s anxiety, the changes in her face and body, her voice, are a perfectly logical response to The Pact. If so, I don’t want to see that happen to Alice.
At Hot Dog on a Stick, I order two hot dogs and two green lemonades. I walk to JoAnne’s table and set the tray of food down in front of her.
She looks up from her phone, and the vein in her forehead throbs. “Jake,” she says. Just “Jake,” not “Friend.” There’s a weary softness in her voice. I see beyond the exhaustion in her eyes to something else—warmth—and it relaxes me.
“Hot dog on a stick?”
“You shouldn’t have,” she says, but she grabs one and takes a big bite. Then she stabs the straw through the hole of the plastic lid and takes a long drink.
“I was thinking you might not show up,” she says.
“Have I ever not shown up?”
“If you knew what was good for you, you wouldn’t have. But I’m glad you’re here.”
She puts her hands on the table, pointing in my direction. I’m tempted to glance under the table and look at her feet. It’s the direction the feet are pointing—not the hands—that indicates a person’s true interest. She has long, shiny pink nails. I remember her short unpolished nails from college. “What have we gotten ourselves into, Jake?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“When I saw you at Villa Carina, I wanted to whisper in your ear, ‘Run, don’t come back,’ but I knew it was already too late. At the same time, and I apologize for saying this, I was happy to see you—for my own selfish reasons. I’ve felt so alone.”
“You said I shouldn’t be here—but why?”
JoAnne plays with her phone. I sense she’s deciding what to tell me. I can almost see her editing the sentences in her head.
“The Pact doesn’t trust me, Jake. If they saw us together it would be bad. Bad for me, bad for you.”
“Bad how?”
“I heard Alice was at Fernley.”
“You mean the place in the desert?”
“I’ve been there.” She shudders. “The first time wasn’t so terrible—confusing, embarrassing, but manageable.”
“And then?”
“And then it gets worse.”
Her evasiveness is frustrating. “How much worse?”
She sits up straighter. I can see her editing in her head again. “Just do everything you can to keep Alice from going back.”
“Jesus, JoAnne, how did you get sucked into this?” But even as I ask the question, I imagine someone else—Huang, maybe, or Ian, or Evelyn—innocently asking me the exact same question.
“The real story?” JoAnne’s voice is sharp, and the anger seems directed at herself. “It started with a stupid car accident. I was in a hurry to get back to work. It had just started to rain, the road was slick. A Porsche cut over into my lane, clipped the bumper of my car, and I started to fishtail. I woke up in the hospital. When I came to, I’d been having such an intensely vivid dream—not vivid in a colorful, acid trip sort of way, but rather in an idea sort of way. You know how sometimes something happens and all of a sudden you see everything in your life from a different viewpoint? And the solutions, or at least the direction forward, seem so clear? Anyway, I suddenly realized what a joke the past few years of my life had been. All that schooling, the dissertation I couldn’t finish, my stupid condo—it all seemed wrong. Like I’d wasted all that time…”
“Were you hurt in the accident?”
“Concussion, stitches, broken rib, broken pelvis—something with the steering wheel. I was very lucky. Did you know that there are only two bones in the human body that, when broken, can lead to death? The pelvis is one of them.”
“Really? What’s the other?”
“The femur. Anyway, I was trying to recall the vivid dream when this doctor walked up. He introduced himself as Dr. Neil Charles. Then he started asking me all of these questions, really personal questions. You know, stuff to gauge the concussion and whether I was in shock. Everything was still pretty hazy at this point, with all the medication. He started filling out forms, asking me about my medical history, do I smoke, do I drink, am I allergic to anything, how much do I exercise, am I sexually active. Then a nurse carefully removed my gown. She stood by my bed, holding my hand, while Neil examined my whole body for bruises, scrapes, cuts from the crash. I had this incredible sense, as he touched me with these big, warm hands, that he was also analyzing all of the big and small scars of my life. He touched nearly every part of me. I was all wired up with IVs and who knows what, and I felt as if I couldn’t move, couldn’t escape—but I kind of liked it. I felt safe. I won’t bore you with the rest, Jake. Let’s just say we got married, Carmel-by-the-Sea, big crowd, string quartet. I did a one-eighty; my entire life changed.”