I reach for Alice. Of course she’s already gone. In the kitchen, there’s the usual chaos of coffee and empty yogurt containers. But I feel stronger today. Nervous yet strangely calm. Last night, Alice and I made love. I can still smell her on my skin.
As I shower and dress for my eight o’clock appointment with the Chos, I think about JoAnne. After last night, after everything Alice said, even thinking about JoAnne feels like a betrayal. But how can I not? I replay our conversations in my head. Her fear seemed palpable; I can’t recall even a single false note. In hindsight, I understand that she had given me a few nonverbal signals in the past. That night at the Woodside party, she walked away from me. Was she trying to stop me from asking questions? Or was she trying to protect me from Neil, from The Pact?
Or was it that she was trying to protect me from myself?
I think of JoAnne in the glass cage. Her tangled hair. Her bare legs, spreading open. I think of Alice’s accusation—that all of it turned me on. And even as the guilt rushes over me, I get hard. Making love to Alice last night, I was thinking only of Alice. Mostly, I was thinking only of Alice. Yet in the midst of it, the image flashed through my mind, just for an instant: JoAnne, naked and vulnerable in the cage, beneath the spotlight. Her bare skin against the glass. Her arms reaching up to cover her imperfect breasts, then falling to her sides, as if she was daring me to look. Last night, I opened my eyes and stared at Alice’s face, trying to push away the image of JoAnne, even as I was entangled in my wife’s arms.
“I know you,” Alice said, in a hard, throaty voice that didn’t sound like the Alice of our wedding, the Alice of our home, the Alice of our life. It sounded like Alice from the band, years ago, before I knew her, the voice I’ve heard in the angrier, harsher songs, the ones she must have sung in black eyeliner and torn fishnets, the songs that were equal parts fury and lust. “You want to fuck her,” Alice said. And then she came.
Yes, there’s that. My complicated, beloved Alice.
64
When I get home from work on Friday night, a fire is burning in the fireplace and Alice is almost finished making a complicated dinner.
“I thought we should do something special,” she says, “for your last supper.” And then she laughs. A genuine, sweet, real laugh. She hasn’t been in such a good mood in months. She hands me a cocktail, Bailey’s on the rocks. “I made your favorite. Sit.”
The old Alice is back. No mention of last night, no mention of the bizarre thing she said while we were making love. And I begin to think I imagined it. That my subconscious really is fucking with me on a supremely cruel and unusual level.
The big dinner, though, the special attention, leave me tense, worried about what tomorrow might bring. Alice tries to reassure me. “It will be fine. It’s your first offense. Okay,” she admits, “maybe not entirely fine. You’re looking at a pretty extensive indictment: Omission of Facts with Partner, Dishonesty with The Pact Apparatus, and Unsanctioned Meetings with Nonspouse Pact Member.”
“Don’t forget Crime of Interpretation.”
And that’s all we say about The Pact. After dinner, we head to the back balcony to enjoy the ocean breeze before stepping back inside to our comfortable bed. Sex is long, nice, and somehow feels different. More loving. Although we’ve been married now for quite a while, and we’ve had our share of fun in the bedroom, there is something this time that feels unique, even momentous.
I can’t describe how I know, but I do: In her own way, and without ambiguity, Alice has finally consummated our marriage.
65
On Saturday morning, I walk down to Nibs on the corner and order a bag of scones—lemon chocolate chip for me, orange ginger for Alice, and two random ones for our visitors. I figure it can’t hurt. I grab a large hot chocolate and a newspaper. Alice was still asleep when I left home, so I sit down and try to calm my nerves. I open the newspaper and start to read. One minute becomes ten, then fifteen, then twenty. I am dreading going home and facing whatever comes next. What if I were to fold my newspaper up, grab my hot chocolate, walk out the door, and head east—away from our house, away from The Pact, away from our future?
Instead, I head home. I turn the corner, expecting to see the black Lexus SUV in the driveway, but it’s empty. Inside, I put on a pot of coffee for Alice. When the smell doesn’t wake her, I strip and climb into bed next to her. Without a word, her body slowly forms to the contour of mine. Her lips touch the back of my neck. Her warm breath feels so good on my skin. I have made the right choice, I decide. I drift off to sleep in her arms.
Later, the house smells of bacon. I wander into the kitchen in my boxer briefs to discover Alice at the stove in her underwear and old Sex Pistols T-shirt, transferring bacon from her grandmother’s cast-iron pan to a plate lined with paper towels.
“You should have some protein; you might need it.” Buried deep in her tone, I sense an odd giddiness. Although she would likely deny it, Alice seems to find some pleasure in my predicament.
“I brought you a scone,” I say.
She points to a plate full of crumbs. “I already ate it. But I’m still hungry.”
We both eat ravenously. Under the table, Alice touches my foot with her own.
“I guess we better both put on some pants and brush our teeth,” she says. But as I’m getting my clothes out of the closet, she drags me to bed. I don’t know what’s gotten into Alice. All I can figure is that she’s turned on by my willingness to put myself through the rigors of The Pact. Eventually, with both of us showered and dressed, the kitchen clean, and my belongings organized, we wind up on the couch. Alice with her guitar on one end, and me, nervous, on the other end.
Alice, fiddling with the guitar strings, begins playing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” I close my eyes and lean my head back. I hear the ping of Alice’s email somewhere in the house.
Seconds later, her phone rings on the coffee table. She ignores it. The violence of the song she sings unnerves me.
Her phone rings again.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“It can wait.”
She works her way into an old favorite by the Mendoza Line. “Anyway,” she sings with a wry smile, “I was never interested in your heart and soul. I just wanted to see you, and make love on parole.”
Again, the phone rings. “The office?” I ask. She shakes her head. She plays for a minute longer, a nice instrumental, and then the phone rings once more.
She groans, sets down her guitar. “Hello?”
Someone on the other end of the line is speaking fast and loud.
“Are you sure? Can you send it to me? I haven’t looked at my email today. Are you at your desk? I’ll call you back.” Alice hangs up the phone. She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she jumps up, hurries into our bedroom, and returns with her laptop.