“I need verbal confirmation that you’re ready to proceed,” she said. She looked at Alice, waiting.
In hindsight, I realize we should have known, right then, that something was wrong. We should have sent Vivian away and refused to take Finnegan’s calls. We should have ended it all, before it really began. But we were young and curious, and our marriage was still fresh. And Finnegan’s gift was so unexpected, his messenger so eager, it would have seemed impolite to refuse.
Alice nodded. “We’re ready.”
8
Vivian switched on the projector, and a slide displayed on the wall where my Martin Parr photo had been just minutes before.
THE PACT, it read.
Nothing more, nothing less. Courier font in big black letters against a blank background.
“So,” Vivian said, wiping her fingers on a napkin left over from our wedding. It still came as something of a shock—a happy shock—to see our names printed on the napkin: Alice & Jake. “I need to ask you both some questions.”
She pulled a black leather folio from her bag and opened it to reveal a yellow legal pad. The projector still shone the phrase THE PACT onto our wall. I tried not to look at those imposing words looming over us, over our new and fragile marriage.
“Neither of you has previously been married, correct?”
“Correct,” we replied in unison.
“What is the length of your longest previous relationship?”
“Two years,” Alice told her.
“Seven,” I said.
“Years?” Vivian asked.
I nodded.
“Interesting.” She wrote something on her notepad.
“How long did your parents’ marriages last?”
“Nineteen years,” Alice said.
“Forty-something,” I said, feeling an unearned pride in my parents’ matrimonial success. “It’s still going.”
“Excellent.” Vivian nodded. “And, Alice, did your parents’ marriage end in divorce?”
“No.” The death of her father was too recent, and I could tell she didn’t want to get into it. Alice is something of a closed book. As a therapist, not to mention her husband, I sometimes find it’s not the easiest trait to accept.
Vivian leaned forward, resting her elbows on the yellow pad. “What do you think is the most common reason that couples in the Western world get divorced?”
“You first,” Alice said, tapping me on the knee.
I didn’t have to think too hard. “Infidelity.”
Vivian and I looked at my wife. “Claustrophobia?” Alice offered.
Not the answer I was hoping for.
Vivian recorded our answers on the legal pad. “Do you think people should take responsibility for their actions?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think marriage counseling can be helpful?”
“I sure hope so.” I laughed.
She scribbled. I leaned over to see what she was writing, but her handwriting was too small. Snapping the folio shut, she named two famous actors who had recently split. Over the past month, the tawdry details of their divorce had been everywhere. “So,” she asked, “which one of them, do you think, is responsible for the divorce?”
Alice was frowning, trying to figure out what Vivian wanted to hear. Like I said, Alice is an overachiever—she doesn’t just want to pass the test, she needs a perfect score. “I imagine the responsibility lies with both of them,” she replied. “While I don’t think the things she did with Tyler Doyle were all that mature, her husband could’ve handled it differently. He shouldn’t have posted those tweets, for one thing.”
Vivian nodded, and Alice sat up a little straighter, clearly pleased. It occurred to me that this must have been the way she acted back in school, always the girl with her hand in the air, eager and prepared. Now it made her seem vulnerable, in a good way; there was something sweetly incongruous about my wife—with her big job and her multimillion-dollar settlements and her very adult wardrobe—trying so hard to get the answer right.
“As always, I completely agree with my wife.”
“Good answer,” Vivian said, winking. “Just a few more. What is your signature drink?”
“Chocolate milk,” I said. “Hot chocolate when it’s cold.”
Alice thought for a second. “It used to be cranberry juice and vodka on the rocks. Now it’s Calistoga berry. What’s yours?”
Vivian seemed mildly surprised to have the tables turned. “Probably Green Spot, twelve year, neat.” She flipped through her packet. “The biggie: Do you want your marriage to last forever?”
“Yes.” I said it automatically. “Of course.”
“Yes,” Alice said. It seemed like she meant it, but then again, what if she was only saying it to pass the test?
“Finished,” Vivian said, sliding her folio into her leather bag. “Shall we look at the slides?”
9
“The Pact is a group of like-minded individuals intent on achieving a similar goal,” Vivian began. “Created in 1992 on a small island off Northern Ireland by Orla Scott, The Pact has increased exponentially in size and commitment since that day. While our rules and bylaws have changed, our membership has grown, and our members have spread far and wide, the mission and spirit of The Pact remain true to the concept that Orla conceived in the very beginning.”
She edged forward in her chair, so that our knees were inches apart. Her computer still projected THE PACT on our wall.
“So it’s a club?” Alice asked.
“Kind of, yes,” Vivian said, “and also kind of no.”
The first slide featured a tall, trim woman standing in front of a white cottage, with the ocean in the background. “Orla Scott was a barrister, a criminal prosecutor,” Vivian narrated. “She was extremely driven—a careerist, in her words. She was married, no children. She wanted to be able to devote all of her time to her position, she wanted to rise within the Ministry of Justice, and she wanted nothing to hold her back. In her late thirties, all during the course of one year, Orla’s parents died, her husband left her, and her position was made redundant.”
Alice stared at the image on the wall. I imagined she felt a kind of kinship with Orla. She knew a thing or two about loss.
“Orla had prosecuted more than three thousand cases,” Vivian continued. “The rumor is that she won all of them. She was a cog in the Thatcher machine, and in an instant Thatcher was out of power and Orla was out of a job.