“So what should I do?”
“Be careful, Jake. Fit in. Be less interesting. Be less argumentative. Don’t give them reason to think about you; give them even less reason to talk about you. Don’t write anything you can say, don’t say anything you can whisper, don’t whisper anything you can nod. Don’t wind up at Fernley. Don’t ever wind up at Fernley.”
JoAnne reaches for her purse. “I need to go.”
“Wait,” I say. “I have more questions—”
“We’ve already stayed too long, Jake. This wasn’t smart. Let’s not leave together. Stay here for a few minutes, then go out a separate entrance.”
I point to her phone, which still sits on the table between us. “That thing makes me nervous.”
JoAnne looks down at the phone. “Yes, but turning it off or leaving it at home might be more problematic.”
“Can we meet again?”
“It seems like a bad idea.”
“Not meeting seems like a worse idea. Last Friday of the month?”
“I’ll try.”
“Leave your phone at home next time.”
JoAnne picks up the phone and turns away from me without saying goodbye. I watch her walk all the way across the food court. She’s wearing tall shoes. The shoes don’t seem like the JoAnne I once knew, and it occurs to me that maybe they’re Neil’s idea too. Marriage is a compromise; so says section two of The Manual.
I sit at the table for another ten minutes, running through the conversation in my mind. I don’t know what to make of it. When I came to meet JoAnne, I’d been secretly hoping that one of two things would happen; either we were going to commiserate about all of The Pact’s weird rules and punishments, or I was going to discover that she fell somewhere on the spectrum for paranoia. And maybe she is paranoid. Maybe I am too. But paranoia must be considered in context. Fear of a group is only paranoia if the group is not out to get you.
I walk back through the mall. I need to get Alice a gift for this month. In Macy’s, I select a scarf. I like her in scarves, even though she never wore them before we met. I decide that the bright blues will go well with her complexion. On the train back to the city, I pull the scarf from the bag and run my hands over the silk, suddenly ashamed. The first time I gave Alice a scarf, she said she loved it. But she wore it only when I asked her to. With the second scarf, it was the same, as well as the third. What if I’m no better than Neil, dolling my wife up according to my own tastes, my own inclinations? I shove the gift back into the bag and leave the bag on the train. What compromises has Alice made, already, for this marriage? What unfair things do I demand of her, and she of me?
50
The following week, Alice and I celebrate my fortieth birthday with a low-key dinner at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, The Richmond. She gives me a beautiful watch that must have cost a whole paycheck, with the inscription TO JAKE—WITH ALL MY LOVE. ALICE—on the back. The week after that, I end up working late, writing session reports, editing an academic paper an old colleague talked me into co-authoring. On the way home, I stop to get a couple of burritos for dinner. As I walk up the steps to our house, I feel the vibration of music coming from our garage.
When Alice and I moved into the house, she had recently finished law school. The gilt had rubbed off of the idea of a life in law, and she was a little depressed, slogging through a clerkship for a local judge. She often worried that the whole idea had been a mistake. She missed her music, her freedom, her creativity, and maybe, I suspected, she missed her old life. If she hadn’t already committed to a law career by taking on so many outrageous loans, I think she might have quit.
During one of her low periods, while she was upstairs studying through an entire Sunday, I worked downstairs in the garage to build a special music area for her. It seemed important to give her that outlet, a small door into her old life. I sectioned off one large corner in the back, put some mattresses against the walls, and layered shag rugs on the floor. I gathered up the many musical instruments, stands, amps, and microphones that had been hiding in boxes, some stored away in the tiny secret room. At dusk, taking a break, Alice came down to see what all the racket was. When she saw the cozy little studio, she was so happy she actually cried. She gave me a hug, and then she played for me.
Since then, I’ve heard her down there a bunch of times. Usually I respect her privacy. I just let her play her music, and wait for her to come upstairs. I like that she has such an outlet, and I like that she always comes back upstairs to me.
Tonight, as I walk into the house, I notice that the music coming from the garage is different. At first, I assume she has the stereo on, but then it occurs to me that it is indeed live music, but she isn’t the only one playing. I change and put the burritos on plates, expecting the music to stop, expecting her and the guests to come upstairs—I wish I’d bought more burritos—but it doesn’t happen. Eventually, I open the kitchen door to get a better listen. It sounds like there are three or four people down there. I take a few steps down toward the garage, not enough to be seen, just enough to hear the music better.
The next few songs are from Ladder’s first album. I recognize the male voice blending with Alice’s. I’ll be honest: Over the past couple of months, it’s possible that I may have done some more Internet surfing related to Eric Wilson. It’s also possible that I noticed he and his new band were playing the Great American Music Hall this week.
A few songs in, the noise gives way to acoustic guitars, organ, and the Grateful Dead’s “Box of Rain.” I sit on the stairs, listening to the guitars build. Alice’s voice works its way through the cacophony, always finding the melody and the groove. It makes me shiver. The way Eric’s rich baritone voice intertwines with Alice’s voice is seductive and disturbing.
I love music, but I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, as my mother used to say. Hearing them, I feel like an outsider, a foreigner eavesdropping on a private conversation between the locals. Still, I want to hear the entire song. I don’t want to tug Alice away from this thing she is so clearly enjoying. Their voices work superbly together, hers circling around his, then coming together at the right moment, hitting the perfect harmony. I’m not sure why, but sitting here in the dark, on the stairs, as the song finds its way to the final reveal, tears well up in my eyes.