“It’s for me.”
“That’s weird.” Is it just me, or does she not sound as surprised as she should?
“I haven’t read it yet. I wanted to wait until I had you on the phone.” I tear open the envelope. Inside, there’s a single sheet of paper. In the background, I can hear Alice’s associate telling her something.
“Read it.” Alice sounds impatient.
“Dear Jake,” I read aloud. “Periodically, Friends are invited to travel to participate in inquiries both broad and specific. An inquiry is an opportunity for the board to obtain and evaluate information related to a subject of relevance to one or more members of the organization. While your attendance is optional—this is an invitation, not a directive—you are strongly encouraged to attend and assist the Reeducation Committee in this matter. The goals of each individual Pact member are the goals of all members.”
“It’s a subpoena,” Alice says, her voice tense.
I read the fine print at the bottom of the page. “They want me at the Half Moon Bay Airport tonight at nine.”
“Are you going?”
“Do I have a choice?”
There’s another commotion in the background. I’m waiting for Alice to talk me out of this, to tell me it’s a very bad idea, but instead she says, “No, not really.”
I toss the letter onto the table and walk back to my office. I wish I hadn’t come home for lunch.
A session in the afternoon with my preteen trouble-diversion group keeps my mind off of the matter for a few minutes, at least. Preteens are always the most difficult to assess, so I have to focus intensely on every comment and every nonverbal cue. Adults’ motivations are generally easier to discern; with kids, it can be difficult to pinpoint motives they usually don’t consciously recognize themselves.
Afterward, I’m exhausted, so I go for a walk in the neighborhood. I buy the last lemon chocolate chip scone at Nibs. By the time I get back to the office, I already know that I’m going to the airport tonight. With The Pact, the best policy is to always do the thing that will attract the least amount of attention. There’s no question that I love Alice, but if The Pact were to comb through my actions or nonactions as a husband, I’m certain they could paint me as a one-man crime wave. Evelyn frowns when I tell her I won’t be in tomorrow. I feel terrible canceling on clients again, but what choice do I have?
At home, I pack an overnight bag with toiletries and a change of clothing, something nice but not too formal. When Alice gets home at 7:03, I’m sitting in the blue chair, the packed bag at my feet.
“You’re going,” she says.
“Every bit of logic tells me not to answer their beck and call. On the other hand, I don’t want to deal with the consequences of not showing up.”
Alice stands in front of me, biting a nail. I want some acknowledgment that she’s proud of me, or at least grateful, for the sacrifice I’m about to make, but instead she seems irritated. Not with The Pact, but with me. “You must have done something,” she says.
“The gift was late,” I say. Then I throw a bomb into the whole situation: “How do you think they knew?”
“Jesus, Jake. You think I ratted you out? It’s clearly something else.” She gives me an accusing look, as if she’s waiting for me to confess to some grand crime, but I just smile and say, “I’m clean.”
She hasn’t even taken off her coat or shoes. No hug or kiss. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“You want to change first?”
“No,” she says, glancing at her watch. “We better go.” I have the strange feeling that she just wants to get rid of me.
Traffic is light on Highway 1, so we have time to stop for a burrito in Moss Beach. “Please tell me you had a bad day at work,” I say, setting guacamole and two beers on the table between us. “I can’t stand it if all this coldness is about me.”
She scoops up guacamole with a chip and chews it slowly before answering. “The freaking deposition was hell. The executive called me petulant. I hate that bitch. Let me see the letter.”
I pull the letter out of my bag. While she’s reading it, I go over to the counter and grab our burritos. When I get back, she’s wiping up the last of the guacamole with the last chip. It’s a small thing, but it’s unlike her. She knows how much I love guacamole.
She folds the letter into thirds and slides it back across the table. “How bad could it be? They didn’t send some big guy in an SUV to frisk you and drag you out to the desert.”
“Jesus, Alice, you almost sound disappointed.”
“Like you said, you haven’t done anything. Right?”
“Right.”
“After all, if you’d done something, I would know.” She takes a long swig of her beer. Then she looks me in the eye, smiles, and says the next part in this funny James Earl Jones voice that we’ve each been using whenever quoting The Manual: “The rules of The Pact come down to one essential rule: no secrets, tell your spouse everything.”
“You’ve told me everything, right?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“Then you’ll be fine, Jake. Let’s get out of here.”
At the Half Moon Bay Airport, all of the lights are off. Alice and I sit in the car in the dark and talk as we wait. Gone is the edge in her voice, the accusation. It’s as if my Alice has come back to me, and I’m grateful. I start to wonder if I misconstrued everything she’s said for the past few hours. At 8:56, a light in the office building comes on and then the landing strip flashes and ignites the night sky. I roll the window down a crack, and I can hear the sound of a plane turning over the water and angling toward the runway. Across the parking lot, the light comes on inside a car. It’s a Mazda hatchback.
“Isn’t that Chuck and Eve’s car?” Alice says.
“Shit. Who do you think is more likely to be in trouble?”
“Chuck, for sure.”
The plane lands and taxis down the runway just outside the gate. We watch as Chuck and Eve get out of the car. They stand and give each other an awkward hug, then Eve gets into the driver’s seat. We get out of our car. I kiss Alice, and she holds on tight to me for a minute before letting go.
Chuck and I reach the gate at the same time. I’m carrying my bag; he’s carrying nothing. “Friend,” he says, motioning me through the gate.
“Friend,” I reply. The word sticks in my throat.
As we approach the plane, a stairway descends. “Mates,” the pilot says with an Australian accent. I climb the steps and take the first seat behind the cockpit. Chuck goes one row behind me. The plane is remarkably nice—a row of leather seats on each side, a beverage bar in the back, magazines and newspapers in the seat pockets.
“Could be a bumpy one,” the pilot warns as he pulls the stairs up and closes the hatch. “Want a Coke? Water?”