My aunt was the head of a labor union, serious stuff. Her husband-to-be was a labor leader of equal stature, though from another region. The place was so crowded, so festive. Even at my age, I sensed something important was going on. People flowed in through the doorways, loud and happy, checking their coats and bags and car keys, clearly planning to stay awhile. To say there was drinking and dancing and speeches and music and more drinking and dancing would sell the event short. It was the wildest, longest party I’d ever attended. I don’t remember it ending, and I don’t remember going home. To this day, the hazy memory stays with me, like a strange, noisy dream perched on a precipice, somehow, between childhood and adulthood.
I don’t recall ever hearing that my aunt’s marriage ended. Instead, it just seemed to fade away. One day my uncle was there, and one day he was not. Years passed. They both went on to success and notoriety in their respective careers. And then one morning, reading the Los Angeles Times, I saw that my former uncle had died.
Not long ago, I dreamed of the wedding—the music, the food, the drink, the crazy happiness in the packed, smelly room—and I wondered if it had really happened. It was my first real wedding, or at least the first wedding that taught me that marriage was supposed to be about happiness and joy.
11
It’s late on the night of Vivian’s visit and we’re in bed when Alice hands me my copy of The Manual. “Better study up. I don’t want you getting carted off to marriage jail.”
“No fair. You went to law school. You have an advantage.”
The Manual is divided into five parts: Our Mission, Rules of Procedure, Laws of The Pact, Consequences, and Arbitration. The longest part by far is Laws of The Pact. The parts are divided into sections, the sections into units, the units into paragraphs, the paragraphs into sentences and bullet points, all of it in tiny print. It’s a real doorstopper, and I can tell just from glancing at it that I won’t do more than skim it. Alice, on the other hand, lives for details and legalese.
“Uh-oh,” she says, “I could be in trouble.”
“What?”
“Unit 3.6, Jealousy and Suspicion.” It’s no secret that Alice has an issue with jealousy. It’s a complicated ball of insecurity that I’ve been trying to unravel ever since we started dating.
“You could be looking at some hard time,” I say.
“Not so fast, mister. What about this: Unit 3.12, Health and Fitness.”
I try grabbing The Manual from her hands, but she pulls it back, laughing.
“That’s enough reading for one night,” I say. She drops The Manual onto the bedside table and presses her body against mine.
12
My office is filled with books and articles on marriage. A Rutgers University study found that when a woman is content in her marriage, her husband is much happier; a man’s level of satisfaction within the marriage, however, appears to have no bearing on his wife’s happiness.
Short men stay married longer than tall men.
The best predictor of a marriage’s success? Credit scores.
Babylonian law required that if a woman cheated on her husband, she should be pitched into a river.
When it comes to academics, a good study with a sound conclusion is usually the product of a large amount of data. The larger the data, the more the outliers fade and the real truth comes into focus. Sometimes, though, I find that too much data provides an overabundance of information, in which case the truth starts to slip out of reach. I can’t say how it is with marriage. Certainly there is something to learn from the successes and failures of past marriages. Yet isn’t every marriage unique?
Liza and John are my first clients. I study up on everything before they arrive in my office, because that’s how I am, that’s what I do. It’s a rainy day, even more gloomy than usual in the Outer Richmond. He’s a contractor, she works in marketing. They wed five years ago in an elaborate ceremony at a golf course in Millbrae.
I immediately like them. She wears a multicolored hat she knitted herself, which seems the opposite of vanity, and he reminds me of a good friend I had in high school, only smarter. Maybe this sort of counseling will be a nice counterbalance to my usual work with kids. I might like being around adults for a change, having adult conversations that don’t turn to Nietzsche or Passenger or the scientifically proven benefits of pot. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids. But what makes them so vulnerable—their sense of discovery mingled with despair, their na?ve belief in the originality of their thoughts—can also make them repetitive. At times I’ve been tempted to put a sign on my door that says YES, I’VE READ FRANNY AND ZOOEY, AND NO, ANARCHY IS NOT A VIABLE FORM OF GOVERNMENT. So Liza and John are fertile new territory. I like the idea of helping people solve problems closer to my own. I could almost be friends with them, if the circumstances were different.
John works insane hours at his tech startup, developing an app that does something groundbreaking he can’t quite explain. Liza is bored with her job advertising the wonders of a hospital that looks to her like a factory system for sick people. “I feel like a fraud,” Liza confesses, adjusting her knitted hat. “I miss my friends. I want to move back to D.C.—”
“You miss one friend,” John interrupts. “Let’s just be clear on that.” And then, looking at me, he repeats, “She misses one friend.”
She ignores him. “I miss the excitement of life in the nation’s capital.”
“What excitement?” John scoffs. “Nobody in D.C. goes outside, even in the best weather. Nine out of ten restaurants are brewpubs. You can’t get a decent salad. Don’t tell me you want to go back to a life of onion rings and iceberg.” I can see how maybe his negative energy would get on Liza’s nerves.
She explains that six months ago she was contacted by a high school boyfriend who found her on Facebook. “He’s in politics,” she says. “He’s doing something.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” John says. “That my wife is having an affair, or that she’s having an affair with some pompous policy hack.”
“Liza,” I say. “John believes you are having an affair. Would you describe your relationship with your former boyfriend as an affair?” Sometimes directness is good, but other times you need to come at the subject from the side. I’m not certain which type of situation we’re in now.
Liza shoots him a dirty look and continues without answering my question. “We met for coffee while he was out here for work. And the next time, we went out to dinner.” She mentions an outrageously expensive restaurant, describing the event with a sense of wonder and surprise at odds with the complete ordinariness of the situation. I want to tell her there is nothing original about leaving one’s spouse for an old flame you hooked up with on Facebook. I want to tell her that she and the ex aren’t reinventing the wheel, they’re just riding a worn path that never leads anywhere good. But I don’t. It’s not my place. I have a hunch that John would be better off without her. A few months after Liza is gone, he’ll find a nice coder girl and bike off into the sunset.
Liza mentions “mental and sexual compatibility,” as if she’s read some sort of manual. She uses the word self-actualization—which, though sound in principle, has become a catchphrase for “doing what’s best for me, no matter whom I hurt.” She’s getting more irritating by the second, and John is getting more despondent. It doesn’t take long to realize I’m just a short rest stop on their journey to divorce. Two Thursdays later, when John calls to cancel their appointments, I’m sad for him and disappointed in myself, but not surprised.