Free The Marriage Pact (1) by M. J. Pullen Page A

phone neglect.
    “Hello?”
Cathy’s upbeat voice hit Marci like sharp steel in the chest. Her breath caught
in her throat.
    “Hello?”
Cathy repeated.
    “Um—hi,
may I speak with,” she searched her brain, panicked, “Nicole, please?”
    A
pause. Or did Marci imagine it? Cathy’s voice was polite, however: “I’m sorry,
you have the wrong number.”
    “Oh,
sorry. Um, thanks,” Marci stuttered. The call had ended before she’d finished.
    Shit,
shit, shit. Why
had she called him? Why hadn’t she checked her phone last night and called when
he had told her it was okay? He was going to kill her. What was going on there now?
Were they together in the car? An absurd jealousy began to mingle with her
panic. Why would Cathy be answering his cell phone?
     “You,
too, huh?” The voice startled her out of her miserable spiral, and she looked
up to see Melissa, the cousin from Valdosta, sucking hard on a cigarette near
the bushes. “I keep trying to quit, but damn I hate bridal showers.”
    Marci
laughed weakly. “Uh, yeah, me, too,” she muttered, and pushed herself back
toward the house. Forgetting the clandestine nature of her trip to the car, she
walked directly past the window and through the front door in a daze.
    Inside,
the gift-opening portion of the festivities had finally drawn to a close, and
everyone seemed to be giving the bride advice about marriage. Marci hovered in
the entryway.
    “Try
to live near family if you can; it makes things so much easier, especially once
you have kids.”
    “Don’t
have kids too soon. You need time to enjoy being together.”
    “But
don’t wait too long, either; those eggs of yours won’t be young forever!”
    “Never
go to bed angry. Even if you have to fight it out until three in the morning.”
    “Don’t
fight about the little things. Don’t get mad because he doesn’t pick up his
socks.”
    “Girl,
you’re about to find out what pigs men can be—Dan didn’t put his underwear in
the hamper for the first ten years of our marriage. I had to quit doing his
laundry entirely before he learned that lesson...” Giggles and mutters of
assent rose from around the room.
    “Nicky,
just don’t lose yourself.” Marci looked up at the familiar voice and saw their
mother in tears with her hand on Nicole’s knee, but also looking up pointedly
at Marci as she said it. “Enjoy your husband, but you be sure and live your own
life, too.”
    #
    Ravi
had a conference call that evening, so the four Thompsons rode together to have
dinner and take Marci back to the airport. Marci held her cell phone cradled in
her hand the entire ride, and stared aimlessly out the window while Nicole and
Mom recounted the details of the shower and the gifts, and Dad feigned polite
interest.
    She
couldn’t seem to stop herself from running through all the various scenarios
from this afternoon. Even though she knew it didn’t matter, the details of why
Cathy had answered Doug’s phone and whether he knew she had called, and what,
if anything, had transpired between them—all these things seemed to matter
greatly. And the fact that Doug had not called her back since it happened three
hours ago was particularly worrisome. She imagined a horrible fight in which
Cathy threw his phone out the car window. And worse.
    Lost
in this reverie, it took a moment for her to realize that Nicole was now
talking directly to her: “...I don’t know how you put up with it. I am so sorry
she cornered you like that. You missed the games! What a creepy old bat.”
    “Nicole
Elizabeth Thompson!” Their mother actually reached back and smacked Nicole on
the knee from the passenger seat. “You will not talk about your great-aunt that
way! She has lived a long time and she deserves your respect. Didn’t she give
you that wonderful little bowl?”
    “It
was an ashtray, Mom. What am I going to do with an ashtray? It’s 2004.”
    “Well,
at any rate. She is a dear old woman –”
    Their
father snorted in the