Arranged

by Catherine McKenzie

  I extend my hand and put on a pleasant smile. If my eyes are daggers, I can’t help it. “You must be Ted. Jack’s told me . . . well, not that much really, but I’ve been reading all about you.”

  Ted shakes my hand, looking puzzled. Jack comes over and kisses me on the temple. I try not to flinch when his lips touch my skin.

  “Hey,” he says, “you’re back early.”

  My lucky day.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you mean when you said you were reading all about me?” perceptive Ted asks.

  “Oh, in Jack’s book.” I motion to the manuscript under his arm.

  Their faces turn to shock. Jack’s mouth actually falls open. I’ve never seen anyone do that before, like in a cartoon.

  I make myself laugh. “Boys, boys, no need to look so surprised. I read Jack’s book, and I know this has all been a big experiment, a project.” I wave my hand around the room, as if this room is the project, Jack’s half-finished shelves. “So I know. And now you have the ending for your book. It’ll come out of nowhere. Whammo!” I smash my hands together. They make a loud smacking sound. “No one will see it coming.”

  Jack finds his tongue. “Anne, please—”

  “Please what? You can explain? Don’t even bother trying. I’ve read the book, remember? Now, Ted, I think you can see that Jack and I have a few things to discuss, so why don’t you leave?”

  I shoo him toward the door. He opens it and turns to me, a sad look on his face. “Anne, let me apologize . . . I don’t think either of us really thought this through before we did it—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you did. You just didn’t think about me. Now, why don’t you give me that manuscript? No point in reading it if it’s never going to be published, is there?”

  Like a child who’s been busted for stealing candy, he hands it over.

  I hold it tightly to my chest. “Goodbye, Ted.”

  He opens his mouth to say something but decides otherwise. He nods to Jack and leaves. Jack is sitting limply on the couch, his hands loose between his knees.

  “Now, Jackson. Or do you prefer Jackass?”

  “Anne, babe, please—”

  “Don’t you dare call me that. Don’t you even fucking dare.”

  Jack stands and walks over to me. His palms are open and facing me as if he’s surrendering to the police. His face is his white flag. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m going to Sarah’s. When I get back here tomorrow, I don’t want there to be a trace of you left in this apartment. It shouldn’t take you long to get your stuff out. Remember what you said when you moved in? A couple of hours should do the trick. And when you’re done, I want you to forget you ever met me.”

  “Anne, can we please talk about this?”

  “No.”

  “Will you just give me a chance to apologize, to explain?”

  “No.”

  He steps closer and takes hold of my arms above the elbow. “Anne, I love you. I know you don’t believe me right now. I know you might never believe me, but what I wrote in there, it’s just the way I had to write it.”

  I step away from him. “That’s such horseshit, Jack. You didn’t have to write anything. And you certainly didn’t have to write about me.”

  “No, you’re right, I didn’t. I started writing it before I met you, and it was too late to change it . . . but I want to. That’s what I was telling Ted.”

  “Jack, stop lying to me, okay? You’ve been happy with the way your book’s turning out. You’ve been telling me that every day.”

  This silences him. His hands hang limply by his side.

  “I thought so.”

  “Anne, I love you. And I know you love me. We can work this out.” His voice is wavering.

  My throat constricts. The only reason I’m not crying is that I left all my tears in the bathroom.

  “Anne, please. Can’t we start over? Can’t I do or say something to change all this?”

  A small, stupid part of me wants that to be possible. But I can’t give in. I can’t. I take a deep breath. “No.”

  His eyes crowd with doubt. “Why not?”

  “Because . . . I don’t love you.” My voice sounds shaky and unconvincing. I try again. “I know I said I did the other night, but I was drunk and tired, and I didn’t mean it.”

  “Anne—”

  “No, Jack. It’s true. You were just my friend. And now you’re my friend who’s done this completely shitty thing to me. So I don’t need you in my life anymore. I want you to pack up your stuff and go.”

  His face is filled with sadness, but the doubt is gone. He believes me now.

  I take his rings off my finger and place them on the table. They clink against each other, making a hollow sound. I imagine this is what the inside of my heart would sound like if it weren’t shattered.

  “Anne, please. I know I fucked everything up. I know I’ve been a complete asshole. But please . . . don’t go.”

  There they are. The words I wanted to hear six months ago from another man. The words that might have kept me in place. But not now. Not today.

  “Goodbye, Jack,” I say, and then I walk out the door.

  When Sarah opens her door, I fling myself into her arms and hold on as if she’s a life raft.

  “Anne, what’s wrong? Did someone die? Anne?”

  I can’t talk. All I can do is gulp for air. She walks me to her couch and sits me down. “Anne, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  I wipe my nose with my sleeve and take several shaky breaths. My words come out in staccato bursts. “You’re never . . . going to believe . . . you’re going to think . . . insane.”

  “Is this about Jack? Did you have a fight? Fighting doesn’t make you insane, Anne, it’s normal.”

  I shake my head and pull Jack’s manuscript from my purse. “Sarah, you have no idea.”

  While Sarah reads, I change into a pair of her pajamas and curl up on the couch to watch a Gilmore Girls rerun. It’s the episode where Luke and Lorelai finally kiss for the first time. I love this show, this episode especially. It’s perfect and romantic and the last thing I should be watching right now. But what can I say? I like fairy tales.

  Every page or so Sarah reads something that makes her exclaim “No fucking way” or “You’re shitting me.” Thirty pages in—I can guess it’s when Jack starts speculating about what would make me use a service like this—she says, “Fuck you, asshole,” in a particularly vicious tone. I enjoy these exclamations. There’s a strange comfort in being involved in this drama, this crazy, sensational story, and listening to Sarah’s reactions to it all.

  When Sarah is halfway through, Mike comes home and wants to know what’s going on. She wordlessly hands him the part of the manuscript she’s already read. He sits down on the couch next to her and starts reading. His first “holy shit” escapes about two minutes later. Sarah shushes him and keeps reading. They read through two more episodes (it’s a Gilmore Girls marathon, apparently), almost never at a loss for words.

  Sarah gets to the last page, further than I could. No surprise. She’s always been stronger than I. She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Anne, how could you?”

  I wrap a fleece throw tighter around my shoulders. “I don’t know. I just thought it might work out, you know?”

  “But all that money. All your book money.”

  “It’s only money, Sarah. It was for my life, and I was trying to have one.”

  “You have a life.”

  “Not the life I want.”

  “Whoever said you get everything you want?”

  “You did.”

  “Oh, Anne.”

  I wipe my tears away with my knuckles. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Please don’t.”

  “But you fell in love with him, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I knew it when we got into that fight. You weren’t just defending your decision. You were d
efending him too.”

  “I feel so pathetic. But I thought it would work. I thought it was working.” I shake my head. “Oh my God, I’m going to have to get divorced.”

  “No, you’re not, Anne.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sarah bites her lip. “Please don’t be mad.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well . . . I contacted that divorce lawyer I mentioned before, you know, in case you changed your mind, and he looked into it for me as a favor. And, well . . . I kind of filed annulment papers for you . . .”

  “You did what?”

  She cringes. “Shit, you’re mad, right? Will you let me explain?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It was when we had that fight, and I thought you’d come around eventually, and things between you and Jack wouldn’t work out. And the idea was, when they didn’t, you wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble and the waiting time. I thought you’d be happy.”

  “But that was months ago. Does that mean—”

  “No, it’s not final yet. You still have to sign the papers. And Jack.”

  I’m only half listening. Jack and I are two signatures away from being unmarried. Does that make it better or worse? I can’t tell.

  Sarah is biting her thumb, anxious. “Are you mad?”

  “I should be, but . . . I don’t know. I’m trying not to feel anything right now.”

  “I hear you. And I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Do you think Jack’s going to publish his book?”

  “Not after he gets my cease-and-desist letter, he’s not.”

  Mike looks up. “This guy’s a really good writer, you know.”

  Sarah gives him a look that could kill. “Mike! We’re on Anne’s side.”

  “Of course we are. He’s a complete fucking asshole. But still. This is well written.”

  “Mike!”

  “I think you’re sleeping on the couch tonight, buddy.”

  He looks rueful. “Taking one for the man team. Got it.”

  Sarah gives him a loving smile, which she tries to hide from me. “What happened after you found the book? Did you confront him?”

  “Yeah. I came home early from my book tour to tell him how I felt about him—can you fucking believe it? Anyway, I found that lying on the couch. He was bringing it to his editor, and he forgot it. So I read it, and threw up, and sat crying forever on the bathroom floor. When he came home, we had it out.”

  “What did he say?”

  I reenact the scene, playing my part, then his.

  “I’m impressed. I think I would’ve just curled up into a ball.”

  “I did curl into a ball for a while, but then I got really mad, and I didn’t want to cave in front of him. I’m not sure he bought it, but I’m glad I tried.” I start to cry again. Sarah puts my head on her shoulder and strokes my hair. “You were right, you know,” I tell her.

  “Right about what?”

  “I did just do all this because you were getting married.”

  “That’ll teach you to copy me . . .”

  We laugh together through my tears.

  God, it hurts to laugh.

  Chapter 22

  Shut the Fuck Up!

  That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I’m curled up on the couch in William’s office with my legs tucked under me and Jack’s manuscript on my lap. I just dropped the fake-marriage bomb and am managing to keep my tears in check. So far.

  “I swear.”

  “No. Fucking. Way.”

  “I promise you it’s true.”

  “Anne, it can’t be.”

  “Do you think I’d make this up?”

  William meets my eyes, probing them for any possibility that I might be messing with him. He looks both intensely curious and intensely sad. The tears I’ve been holding back start to well up.

  “To summarize, your marriage was actually an arranged marriage. And Jack, who seemed great and into you, was really just doing research for his latest book, and is so dedicated to his craft that he married you for it. And you were totally fooled, and when you came home to tell him that you’d fallen in love with him, you found his book, discovered his secret, and kicked him out?”

  “That about sums it up, yes.” I pat the manuscript on my lap. “You wanna read all about it?”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a pretty good read, though I hate to admit it.”

  He stretches out his hand. “In that case, hand it over.”

  I give it to him. He holds it cautiously, moving it up and down as if he’s weighing it. “Is this the whole thing?”

  “As far as he got.”

  Almost as far as we got.

  “It doesn’t feel heavy enough to be so devastating.”

  “What’s weight got to do with it?”

  “Not sure. It just seems like there aren’t enough words in here to change your whole life.”

  “It only took two words to change my life.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I do.”

  Can you tell Mom and Dad?” I ask Gil later that day on the phone.

  “Why am I always your messenger?”

  “Because you’re the best brother ever?”

  He chuckles. “Of course I can, Anne. If you want me to.”

  “Thanks, that means a lot to me.”

  “You want me to beat the crap out of him?”

  “It’s amazing how tempting that is.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Anne I know.”

  “I’m not sure the Anne you know exists anymore.”

  “You want to come over for dinner?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Please come.”

  My throat feels tight, a feeling I’m too familiar with these days. “I’ve got to go, Gil. I’ll call you later.”

  I hang up and start to clean off my desk, getting ready to go home. I haven’t been back to the apartment since I left Jack. Sarah went to pick up some things for me and to confirm that Jack was indeed gone. She came back with my clothes and a letter from Jack.

  I stared at the envelope for a long time. Then I put it away, unsure whether I wanted to read what was in it. Instead, we rented a silly action-adventure movie and ordered pizza. When Sarah and Mike went to bed, I finally opened the envelope, unable to resist anymore.

  The look of the letter almost killed me. Jack had typed it, so it looked just like his book. A bad choice, even though I didn’t think he did it consciously. Still, the sight of the words on the paper, the knowledge that it was Jack who wrote them, suddenly hurt too much, and I couldn’t read it after all. I had an urge to burn it. To put it in Sarah’s fireplace, set a match to it, and watch it turn to ash, to smoke, to disappear.

  I couldn’t quite manage that in the end. I needed to have the whole story. The part Jack hadn’t written yet. I wanted to know if he could surprise me any more. Turns out he couldn’t.

  Dear Anne,

  I apologize for typing this, but I can’t seem to keep my hand from shaking, and I’d like, if you read this, for you to be able to understand what I need to tell you.

  Because I need you to know that I’m more sorry for this than for anything I’ve ever done. I know you can’t believe me, that I’ve done nothing to deserve your trust. I don’t know if what I did is forgivable.

  You see, all this is confusing to me too. Marrying you is both the worst and best thing I ever did in my life. Actually, the worst thing was writing the book; I can see that now. Because if I hadn’t gone through with that, you wouldn’t ever have had to know any of this. We could’ve been happy. I really believe that.

  I love you, Anne. I hope you know that and can believe it. What I’m going to have to live with is why that wasn’t enough for me. Why it didn’t stay my hand from writing. Why I didn’t throw my pages away after the first time we slept together.

  Why wasn’t I strong enough to do that?

  The
only answer I have is that I’m a weak man. I know I have no right to hope that there can ever be anything between us again. But yet I have to hope. I have to hope that you’re both better than me and as weak as me.

  I have to hope, Anne. Please forgive me.

  Love, Jack

  I felt surprisingly numb, reading the letter. Not because I didn’t believe him. I do. I know he’s sorry, that he cares for me. And that same small, stupid part of me even wants to forgive him, to feel his arms around me, his lips on mine, and to hear him tell me he loves me. That’s the part of me that still believes in fairy tales. That’s the part of me that’s still waiting for the little boy who pulled my pigtails to turn up and be this perfect man. That’s the part of me that thought I was in love with Jack.

  Halfway home, I change my mind and decide to go to Cathy and Gil’s, to put off the sight and smell of the apartment a little longer. I flag a cab and let it crawl its way through the end-of-day traffic to their house, not caring about the sure-to-be-enormous expense.

  When we exit the highway, something in me shifts. Rather than the usual alien feeling I get as I cross the county line, I feel reassured. The pitter-patter of rain on the windshield, the slap of the wipers, the smell of the wet concrete and grass coming in through the window feels like home.

  I ask the cabdriver to let me off a few blocks from their house. I don’t have an umbrella, but it’s a light rain, harmless. I walk past the comfortable houses, looking in at the lit-up lives.

  A car splashes through a puddle behind me, snapping me back to the real world. I’ve spent enough time in fantasyland.

  I head up Gil and Cathy’s front walk and ring the bell. The ever-vigilant Jane answers it, swinging it open with a flourish. “I opened the door.”

  “I can see that, honey.”

  “Next year, at school, I’m going to have a key and come home by myself.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “No, it’s true.” She stops and studies me for a moment. “Why are you sad, Aunty Anne?”