Arranged

by Catherine McKenzie

  “Is that why you were so upset earlier?” Jack asks.

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Szwick flips through the notebook, searching for something. “Ah, yes. We’ve spoken about this before. You called Blythe and Company right after she told you she was engaged, correct?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what, Anne?”

  “I didn’t know what Blythe and Company did when I called. I was looking for a date, not a husband.”

  “Weren’t you? Or was it simply a coincidence that you were willing to go along with the process once you learned what Blythe and Company was about?”

  Both Jack and Dr. Szwick watch me, waiting for my answer. “I don’t know. Maybe. It is why I decided to call the service, but not in the way Sarah means. She thinks I married the first man who’d have me because I couldn’t bear to be alone. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Are you feeling resentful that you have to let her think you married Jack on a whim?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “It’s difficult, I know, but are you prepared to let her be mad at you, and maybe misperceive your actions, in order to keep up the facade?”

  “I guess. If you think it’s necessary.”

  “It is.”

  “Why is that again?” Jack asks.

  “We’ve found that it’s the best formula. As difficult as it is to ask your family and friends to accept that you’ve done something they see as impulsive, they can relate to it on some level if they think you were caught up in the romance of it all. That people would choose to forgo romantic love for a deep friendship is a much harder sell, believe me.”

  Jack doesn’t look convinced. “If you say so.”

  “I do. Anne, do you think you can repair things with . . . What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Sarah. Can you talk things out? Do you have that kind of relationship?”

  “I thought we did.”

  He looks sympathetic. “Give her time, Anne. This is a big adjustment for everyone.”

  “Right.”

  “And you, Jack, how has telling your friends been?”

  “I haven’t told anyone yet.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugs. “No one to tell, really.”

  “I find that very hard to believe. You know, this will all remain make-believe if you don’t put it out into the real world.”

  “It feels pretty real to me.”

  Dr. Szwick drags his hand across his chin. “Tell me: Why do you keep putting up barriers in here?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. You have from the very beginning. And this behavior can and will create walls between you and Anne. We need to work on it and stop it before it becomes a problem.” He looks back and forth between us, thinking something over. “For our next session, Jack, I want you to find two people to tell. I don’t want any excuses about why you couldn’t get it done. All right?”

  Jack nods curtly.

  “I’ll see you next week.”

  “Class dismissed,” Jack mutters.

  How about we go on an adventure?” Jack asks as we drive to Gil and Cathy’s house in his beat-up Jeep the following Thursday. We’re caught in the snarl of rush-hour traffic. Jack’s knuckles are white against the steering wheel as we inch along the expressway. I keep switching the radio between the classic-rock station Jack favors and the top-forty station I usually listen to. Match quotient 8 doesn’t extend to song choices, apparently.

  “Why the hell does anyone live out here?” Jack asks.

  “Backyards. Block parties. Street hockey.”

  “Those things are overrated.”

  We exit the freeway near the train station and roll along the service road past a row of small boxy houses built in the fifties. The sun is approaching the horizon. A few leftover Christmas lights twinkle from front porches and bushes.

  “Take this next left. What kind of adventure were you thinking about?”

  “Have you ever been white-water rafting?”

  “White-water rafting? Going down a raging river in a raft?” My voice is all squeaky.

  “Yeah,” he says enthusiastically.

  “I’ve never felt the need. Turn here.”

  “Well?”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “Not in the least.”

  Near my brother’s house, I spy a space between two SUVs and point it out. “Isn’t it a little early in the year to be on a river? It’ll be freezing.”

  “The course opens the second week of April, and they have wet suits.”

  I don’t have any more excuses, except “Jack, why are you always trying to kill me?”

  He shuts off the loud, knocking engine. “I’m not, I swear. But I like going on adventures. It’s a nice break from what I do all day.”

  “What do you do all day?” I tease.

  “Sit and stare at a blank page, mostly. So, you want to go?”

  We get out of the car and stand facing Cathy and Gil’s front walk. I straighten the waist of my skirt. Jack fiddles with his shirt collar.

  “When were you thinking?” I ask.

  “I called, and they have an opening on the twelfth.”

  “But that’s the day of my book launch!”

  “I know. We’ll go in the morning and be back in plenty of time for the launch. And before you leave me for your big book tour.”

  I smile. “It’s just a week.”

  “And it’s just a river.”

  “True enough. Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “Great.”

  “Ready for tonight?”

  He gives me a half grin. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then let’s do this thing.”

  We walk to the front door. Before I can ring the bell, Jane flings it open, jumping up and down.

  “Aunty Anne, Aunty Anne! Mommy, Aunty Anne’s here!”

  I crouch down to hug her hello. She’s wearing footie pajamas and smells like she’s just come from the bath. She wiggles with excitement in my arms. “Who’s that?” she asks into my shoulder.

  “This is my friend, Jack. Jack, this is Jane.”

  He bends down, extending his large hand toward her tiny one. “Hi Jane, I’m Jack.”

  “Oh, I know who you are. You’re Anne’s hunnban.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who told you that, honey?”

  “I heard Daddy telling Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Great.

  “When was that? On the phone?”

  “Nah, in the living room.”

  “In the what?”

  “The living room,” Gil answers for her as he steps into the hall. He’s wearing a gray cashmere sweater, black dress pants, and a gleeful smile. All that’s missing is an unlit pipe and an audience to complete his Our Town look. “I’m Anne’s brother, Gil,” he says to Jack, shaking his hand firmly, businesslike. He looks Jack up and down. “You certainly don’t look like the right man for Cordelia.”

  “Gil!”

  “I’m the new-and-improved model,” Jack tells him.

  Gil raises his eyebrows. “I see.”

  “Gil, are Mom and Dad in the living room right now?” I ask.

  He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Yup.”

  “So when I said I wanted you to tell them, and you said no?”

  “Changed my mind.”

  “And you didn’t tell me because . . . ?”

  “Much more fun not to.”

  “What would be more fun, dear?” My mother pokes her head out from the living room. She’s wearing a classic pink Chanel suit she inherited from the same aunt who left her the fur coat she wore to my book-deal party. I knew this felt like theater for a reason.

  “Anne, what are you doing just standing there in the hall? Come in here. And you, young man, I assume you’re Anne’s . . . husband.” She sniffs the air as if she’s trying to smell whether he’s a good man.


  “Mom, cut out the Rachel Lynde impersonations, please!”

  Jack mutters to me, “A character from the Anne books, I assume?”

  “What else? There’s still time to escape,” I mutter back.

  “It’s okay, press on, press on.”

  I scowl at Gil and follow my mother into the living room. Jane runs back and forth between us, which causes Gil to threaten her with bed. My father is ensconced in Gil’s favorite chair, a large Scotch in his hand. He’s had a few, judging by the amount of vapors in the room.

  I introduce Jack to my parents, and we settle into the love seat underneath the bay window. We sit there, wordlessly staring at one another, until Cathy enters the room. She’s wearing a black dress made out of a stretchy fabric that supports her perfect baby bump. Her long blond hair falls loosely down her back.

  “What’s going on in here? Gil, why haven’t you gotten Anne and Jack drinks? They look like they could use one, and so could I.” She gives us a big smile. “But since I’m still months away from being allowed to, I’ll just look longingly at yours.”

  Gil guiltily takes our orders and walks to the kitchen to fill them.

  Cathy sits on the couch next to my mother and rests her hands on her belly. “So, Jack, tell me about yourself.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where are you from? How did you meet Anne? How did you convince her to marry you? That should do for now. And maybe when you’re done, everyone’s tongue will have loosened.”

  Jack steals a glance at me and begins to answer her questions. Cathy listens to him closely as my father nips into his Scotch and my mother affects an air of disinterest while simultaneously listening to every word.

  Thank God for Cathy, the most normal of all of us. I catch her eye and mouth, “Thank you.”

  She shakes her head gently and mouths back, “He’s cute.”

  Three hours later, we’re at the front door, trying to escape. Though it’s way past her bedtime, Jane is wrapped around Jack’s leg. A groggy, awakened Elizabeth is wrapped around mine.

  By the time Jack finished answering Cathy’s questions, my parents had finally drunk enough to overcome their shyness. Unfortunately. My mother has barely paused for breath in the last two hours, shifting from one story to the next without any pattern, and my father has been asking Jack random questions that rival the ones on the Blythe & Company questionnaire. What was his father’s name? What day was he born? Where did he live between the ages of four and six? I finally get him to stop by asking him whether he wants to plot Jack’s zodiac charts.

  “What? No. I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Why all the bizarre questions, Dad? Why do you care about any of this stuff?”

  “Aunty Anne, Aunty Anne, watch me do this flip.”

  “In a minute, honey.”

  “How else am I supposed to get to know my son-in-law?”

  “Aunty Anne, Aunty Anne, I can flip better than her. Watch me, watch me.”

  “Girls, please, I’m talking to Grandpa. I don’t know, Dad. Like a normal person.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That reminds me of when Anne was in choir in the third grade,” my mom interjects. “She had the solo, only this other girl, a much worse singer, thought she had the solo, and she was about to sing at the same time as Anne, but Anne, such a clever girl, figured out that this girl was about to sing and shushed her and then sang her solo. It was beautiful.”

  “What’s normal? Who’s not a normal person?” Dad asks.

  I reach down and pry Elizabeth off my leg. “Say good night to Uncle Jack, girls.”

  “Good night, Uncle Jack,” they say together. He gives each of them a kiss on the cheek. They giggle and run away shrieking with delight. Cathy and Gil are in for a long night.

  “Bye, Mom, bye, Dad. Thanks, Gil.” I shoot him a murderous look, though frankly, I’m glad he did me the favor of telling my parents. Plus, Dr. Szwick will be pleased. An added benefit.

  The door closes behind us, and we walk to Jack’s car. Away from the city lights, the sky is full of twinkling stars. I search for the North Star, feeling unsteady on my feet.

  “You okay to drive?” I ask.

  Jack gives me a look. “Better than you.”

  I stand up straighter. “Hey, it was the only way I could get through the evening.”

  “And I thought you drank a lot of margaritas in Mexico.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I think your father established tonight that I’m definitely not a bastard.”

  We climb into the car. I have trouble doing up my seat belt. Jack takes it from me and clicks it into place.

  “Thanks. And sorry about tonight. My parents aren’t always that . . . weird.”

  “Forget it.” He starts the engine and backs down the street. “I’ll tell you what your punishment is later.”

  “We’ll see. So, did my family scare you off of the whole starting-a-family thing?”

  “Your nieces are very cute.”

  As Jack drives us toward the freeway, I watch the detached four-bedroom houses roll past. We stop at a stop sign. In the house on the corner, the living room is lit up like a stage set, the TV a flickering strobe. Growing up, I always used to imagine what went on behind the curtains of the houses like mine. Could I pick a door and try on a whole new life?

  “Have you talked to Sarah yet?” Jack asks softly.

  I wince. “No.”

  “ ‘No’ as in ‘I’m never talking to her again’? Or ‘No’ as in ‘I haven’t had the chance, but I’ve been meaning to’?”

  “Not sure yet. She really hurt me, you know?”

  He reaches over and ruffles my hair. “Keep your chin up, kiddo.”

  “Kiddo?”

  “What?”

  “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

  “I’ve got a million more where that came from.”

  “Thanks for coming tonight.” I lean in and kiss him on the cheek.

  “Anytime.”

  Chapter 19

  Ready, Set, Go!

  A month passes. I work and hang around with Jack. I make preparations for my book launch and the small book tour I’ll be going on afterward. And though I often start to, though I want to, though it’s killing me not to, I don’t call Sarah. This mix of emotions means I’m having trouble sleeping. I fall asleep easily, tucked into the crook of Jack’s arm, but at three A.M. my eyes fly open like clockwork. The only good part is that with all the extra hours I’m getting out of the day, I have more time for writing. But every time I look at the pages the next night, I crumple them up and throw them in the trash.

  Tonight I don’t even wait that long. Three pages in, I pitch my latest effort toward the metal basket in the corner. I miss.

  “I could trip on that, you know,” Jack says sleepily from the doorway. His chest looks ghostly in the half light of the floor lamp I’m trying to write by.

  “I was going to pick it up. Sorry, did I wake you?”

  He yawns and scratches his head. “Nah. I always wake up at four in the morning so I can play bad-story basketball.”

  “Funny man.”

  He picks up my pages, smooths them out, and starts to read.

  “Hey, no fair reading something I’ve thrown away. For that matter, no fair reading anything I’ve written that’s not finished.”

  He sits down next to me. “You’re right. But why did you throw it away? It looks okay.”

  “It’s derivative and boring.”

  “That’s a little harsh for the middle of the night, don’t you think? Are you always this down on yourself?”

  “Only when I’m on five hours’ sleep.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Sarah.”

  “Maybe you should mind your own business.”

  He pulls back in surprise.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders, kneading into the
hard knots of tension. I close my eyes and concentrate on the warm strength of his fingers.

  “Better?” he asks.

  “Um, getting there.”

  He moves his hands along my neck, up my face, to my temples, kneading all the while. “Better now?”

  “I’ll let you know in a minute.”

  “If you’re this tense, I think there’s only one thing that’s going to cure you.”

  I open my eyes and smile. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think you can cure me?”

  “I think I can try.”

  “Try away.”

  We’re driving along a wet, bumpy road an hour past Cathy and Gil’s. Through the tall conifers lining the way, I catch a glimpse of the river we’ll be hurtling down. It looks wide. It looks deep. It looks fast. It looks full. And most of all, despite the glorious spring day, it looks cold.

  “Is it really safe with the river this high?”

  Jack glances at me, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. I look small and scared in the reflection. “You’re not chickening out on me, are you?”

  “No, but you know it would really, really suck to die on book-launch day, right?”

  “It’s safe, I promise you.”

  We pull into the parking lot next to a log cabin that sits on the side of the glinting black river. There’s a group of college kids in board shorts and tank tops playing beach volleyball in a sandpit. A half-dozen women about my age are sitting at two picnic tables, soaking in the sun. Bags of charcoal lie ready next to a barbecue. We go inside the cabin to pay and are handed a release form. Sign on the dotted line, and you have no rights against the rafting company, no matter how negligent. As I read it, I find myself missing Sarah—it’s only because of her that I’m trying to read this legalese in the first place.

  We sign the forms and are introduced to our guide, Steve. He’s an athletic-looking nineteen-year-old with honey-blond hair and a tanned face. He’s wearing a red life jacket over a full wet suit. The front of it is unzipped enough to reveal a reassuring set of muscles. He gives us a brief explanation on how to handle ourselves in the boat, then we get outfitted with wet suits, life jackets, and paddles. Jack tightens my life jacket, pulling the straps so snug I don’t move at all when he lifts me up by them to test it.