“I’m taking my girls out for dinner,” he announced, flipping Emma upside down and tickling her belly. She squealed with delight. As he set her feet back onto the floor, his cell phone rang in the outer pocket of his bag. I caught him glancing at it and then looking away.
“Sugar and Plumm! Please! Sugar and Plumm!” She jumped up and down ecstatically. It was no surprise she’d selected our favorite local bistro, known for its decadent desserts.
“Sounds good to me! Now go get dressed,” he said.
As Emma scurried off, Nolan’s phone rang again, but this time he didn’t even look at the bag. Instead, he gripped my face and leaned in so that our eyes were only inches apart.
“She can’t know,” he whispered firmly. “Not yet.”
I nodded in agreement, and we both blinked away tears. A moment later, Emma skipped back into the hallway, wearing a sundress and glittery flip-flops and carrying a small zippered clutch—an Estée Lauder freebie my mother had received with the purchase of two lipsticks and passed along to her granddaughter for dress-up.
“Well, look at the lovely Ms. Scardino,” Nolan said, admiring our daughter. Emma curtsied. “Sugar and Plumm, here we come!”
I grabbed my bag, and as we walked through the doorway, his phone rang again. “I’ll get that for you,” I said. Nolan’s cell was practically an appendage. He never left home without it and never ignored a call.
“Don’t bother,” he said, and raced Emma down the corridor to the elevator bank.
Emma danced for the elevator’s security camera as we rode down to the lobby and high-fived Eddie, our doorman, when we passed him at the front desk.
“Enjoy your evening, folks,” he said, and playfully stuck his tongue out at Emma. She giggled, and the three of us waved goodbye, heading out onto the warm city streets as if this had been just another ordinary day.
Chapter 2: Nolan
The first time I saw the video was a few days after our college graduation. I didn’t actually watch it; I merely became aware of its existence. I was helping Becca pack up her dorm room and noticed a cassette on her bookshelf, sandwiched between a high school yearbook and a Roget’s thesaurus.
“What’s this?” I asked, holding the tape in my hand. I was about to transfer it into a plastic carton with other books but stopped to inspect a slightly oxidized pink sticky note on the outer sleeve. The note’s edges had begun to curl, and there was a tiny tear fastidiously repaired with glue beneath the words “With Love, The Cast.”
Becca had been standing on her twin bed, simultaneously removing a wall poster of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and swaying to the Dave Matthews album we were playing on her portable CD player. When she pivoted toward me and noticed the videotape in my hand, she froze as if I had aimed a remote control in her direction and pressed pause.
After a few seconds, she said, “Oh, that’s just something my friends made,” and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “Would you mind sticking that on top of my backpack, instead of in the carton? I’m going to carry it with me. Don’t want it to get lost.”
Had she been one of my friends, I would have known whether to proceed with a joke or a follow-up question or simply leave it alone. But we’d met only a few days earlier and I didn’t have a handle on her yet. Her evasiveness had piqued my curiosity, but I wasn’t going to push. Slow and steady, I decided, would be my approach. There was something different about this girl.
Our introduction was improbable for a hundred different reasons. It was Senior Week at Columbia University—a series of celebrations in the days leading up to commencement—and I certainly didn’t expect to meet my future wife during Game Show Night in the student center auditorium.
The five-hundred-seat theater was packed. After my buddies and I settled into the last available row, the curtains opened halfway to reveal three barstools and a screen partition. The house lights dimmed, and a spotlight shone on our school mascot—a six-foot, furry lion—frantically running through the aisles, searching for participants. Some students jumped or hooted to attract his attention; others sank in their seats and lowered baseball caps over their eyes. The lion pulled the first two contestants and then slowly roamed the auditorium for his final prey. As he neared the rear of the theater, he stopped, dramatically placed a paw over his brow, and did a gradual 360-degree turn to search the cheering crowd. When his spin came full circle, he planted his foot on the floor, extended his arm, and pointed down the row, directly at me. Flooded with adrenaline, I jogged up to the stage and took my place on the last stool, where I nodded to my buddies chanting my name.
“Welcome to the Dating Game!” the emcee announced, and a familiar tune began to play on the sound system overhead. I immediately flashed back to being a kid home from school on a snow day, watching daytime television in my parents’ family room as the aroma of Mom’s homemade minestrone soup filled the house. “Please give a warm welcome to our three lucky bachelors and our lovely bachelorette, Becca!”
“Hi, I . . .” was all I heard before high-pitched audio feedback reverberated through the room and everyone cringed.
“Um, hi,” the girl on the other side of the screen repeated softly. Her voice didn’t sound familiar. “This first question is for all three bachelors, but I’ll start with Bachelor Number One. Which well-known—”
“We can’t hear you!” several people shouted from the audience. “Speak up!”
She cleared her throat. I sensed she was nervous, and imagined an index card shaking in her hand.
“Okay,” she continued. “Which well-known character—real or fictional—most closely resembles who you are, and why? Bachelor Number One?”
“Uh, hi. I have a question. Do you mean, like, physically resembles me or resembles my personality?”
“I’ll leave that up to you,” she replied, sounding more confident now. “Define it however you want.”
“Hmm, okay. Well, I guess I’d say the Fonz, from Happy Days. Chicks dig me, I look good in leather, and I learned to ride a motorcycle before I could drive a car.”
The crowd moaned.
What a loser, I thought. “I look good in leather”? Who says that?
“Interesting,” she responded diplomatically, “Okay, Bachelor Number Two, same question.”
“I’d have to say Ringo Starr,” Number Two said, with a thick English accent. “I’m from outside London. I’m a drummah, I’ve been told on occasion that I have puppy-dog eyes, and I suppose I can be quite goofy.”
“Nice,” she said, sounding intrigued. I could almost feel her smile. “Bachelor Number Three, your turn.”
I threw my shoulders back and sat up straight.
“First of all, hello. It’s very nice to meet you,” I said, and hoped my slight lisp wasn’t apparent. “I would say I’m a combination of a few. Is that allowed?”
“Sure, that’s all right,” she said. “Go ahead.”
I could tell she came from somewhere in the metropolitan area when she said “awl right.” It was subtle, but her New York accent was unmistakable. As a Jersey boy, I felt at home with it.
“First, I’d say I’m a little Chevy Chase because I’m tall, with a similar build, and I tend to trip over myself and fall into things. Next, I’d say I’m a bit Alex P. Keaton, from Family Ties, because I was the only kid growing up who wanted to wear a clip-on necktie and a sport jacket on class picture day; plus, I liked being on student government. And third, I’d say there’s definitely a part of me that’s Harold, from Harold and the Purple Crayon . . . I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, but it was my favorite book when I was little.”
On one of our first dates, I learned that I’d sealed the deal with Harold and the Purple Crayon—a book about the power of imagination and the belief that anything is possible. She told me my answers had been “charming,” and that she’d noticed people in the audience smile and sort of light up when I mentioned Harold.
After Becca announced the winner and bade farewell to
the Fonz and Ringo, I emerged from behind the screen in my baseball cap, jeans, and red Lawrenceville T-shirt—which I’d bought in triplicate from my high school because the cut made my midsection appear more buff. I glanced over at the delicate, freckle-faced brunette wearing a miniskirt and pearls. She was attractive—not 007 James Bond–girl hot, like my last girlfriend, but very pretty, with a natural elegance. Had I not been standing on a stage in front of five hundred people, I would have offered to buy her a drink and found a quiet corner to talk. But, given the circumstances—and the fact that my buddies were standing on their seats, doing a lascivious, grinding dance while shouting my nickname, Dee-no (a derivative of my last name, Scardino)—I had to ham it up.
Not one to disappoint, I turned to the audience, dramatically dropped my jaw, and motioned with my thumb in her direction, as if to say, Get a load of this! I hit the jackpot! Then I lifted up her petite frame and carried her off the stage, to a soundtrack of hollers and whistles from the crowd. Thankfully, she didn’t protest. In fact, she laughed and played along, which I found endearing. I don’t know if it was the setting, if I admired her for having guts to get up in front of that crowd, if it was a look in her eye that made her seem real, or if I was just a sucker for a short skirt and pearls, but I was overcome with a sense of wanting to protect her. We exchanged numbers, and when I called a few days later, she mentioned that she’d just begun packing up her dorm room. I offered to come over and help, and we now think of that afternoon as our first date. We sat in shorts and T-shirts on the edge of her extra-long dorm mattress, sifting through her music collection and discussing the books we were packing into cartons. We ordered pizza from V & T’s on Amsterdam Avenue, and by the end of the day I was smitten.
It wasn’t until our third date—when we were beginning to think we had fallen for each other—that the video came up again in conversation. It was Fourth of July weekend, and the city felt like a ghost town. The weather was perfect: sunny, warm, low humidity, and ideal for the picnic I’d planned for us in Central Park. Becca and I were living just blocks away from each other in apartments on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and working as summer interns. She was shadowing a television producer at Good Morning America, and I was the head counselor at a YMCA day camp. I’d been offered a coveted research position at a big litigation firm but turned it down. My buddies thought I was insane for passing up such a plum résumé-builder, but I’d spent every summer of college working at large firms or in local government to boost my law school application. Now that I had been accepted to my top-choice school, I wanted to clear my head before I was enmeshed in torts and contracts for the rest of my life.
When I arrived at her apartment that afternoon, she looked particularly cute in denim overalls, a fitted white shirt, and a new haircut—that shoulder-length style that made all the girls I knew look like they had just walked out of a casting call for Friends.
“Hey,” she said, welcoming me with a kiss. “Sorry, I need a couple more minutes. The phone’s been nonstop this morning.”
“Take your time; there’s no rush.” I placed a grocery bag filled with cheeses, olives, and a two-foot French baguette on the tiny kitchen counter. I knew nothing about gourmet food, so I had spent half an hour with a sommelier at a shop on Columbus Avenue, trying to pair the right wine with the cheeses.
As she headed into the bathroom, I took in her one-room studio, which was super-small but tastefully decorated in a style she described as “high-end IKEA with a splash of Pottery Barn.” It definitely trumped the five-story walk-up I shared with a roommate and a bunch of mice. I gazed at the framed photographs of no one I knew lined up along the radiator cover and then noticed a video sticking out of the VCR tape deck. I picked up the cassette sleeve from the coffee table and realized it was the same one I’d asked about when we’d packed up her dorm.
“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go!” she said, bouncing out of the bathroom.
“Isn’t this the video your friends made?” I asked, holding up the cardboard sleeve. “The one from your bookshelf?” Something about that tape still made me curious.
Becca looked toward the VCR, and when she opened her mouth to speak, the phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and picked it up.
“Hey, Jord,” she said. “Uh-huh. Yes, a picnic. Leaving as soon as I hang up with you.” She paused, then said, “Really? I don’t know. . . . Okay, fine.”
Becca stretched the landline’s coiled cord from the wall beside her bed to where I was sitting on the couch. “Call’s for you.” She smiled. “It’s Jordana.”
For me? I mouthed, taken aback. Becca had mentioned that an old friend of hers was going to be in my law school class, but I hadn’t been expecting to speak with her now.
She nodded, pointing to a chiseled-cheeked, sylphlike blonde in one of the photos on her windowsill.
“Hi, Jordy!” I said, as if we were old pals. “How ya doin’? I feel like I know you! Becca’s told me so much about you.”
“Me too,” Jordana said. Her voice had a soothing, full-bodied tone, like a yoga instructor’s. “So, Becca tells me we’re going to be in the same class.”
“I know. You get your schedule yet?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “Someone told me it should arrive in a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, I heard the same. You have big plans for today? Fireworks, parties, barbecue?” I was good at small talk, and I wanted to pack on the charm to impress Becca.
“Actually, this is the first time in a long time that I haven’t spent it with Becca.” She sighed. “But that’s okay. I don’t mind getting dumped for you.”
“You want to join us?” I asked. Though I hoped she wouldn’t accept, extending an invitation to our picnic seemed like the right thing to do. Plus, who was I to object to a two-to-one girl-to-guy ratio? I could think of worse predicaments.
“Thanks, but I made other plans. You guys have fun.”
“Okay, then. Well, I’m looking forward to meeting you.”
She paused for a moment. “Hey, Nolan?”
“Yeah?”
“Give her an extra hug today from me, okay? You get it, right?”
“Sure thing,” I said, but I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. Is it Becca’s birthday? Is that why the phone’s been ringing all morning and making her late?
I hung up the receiver and pulled Becca in for a hug. “This is from Jordana,” I said.
Then I cradled her in the crook of my elbow, dipped her toward the floor, and kissed her. “That”—I lowered my voice—“is from me. Happy birthday. Thanks for spending it with me.”
“Um, Nolan?” She smirked, still lying in my dipped embrace. “My birthday’s in October.”
“I was just testing you,” I deadpanned. I felt like a fool. “Then why did Jordana imply today was so special? She said you guys always spend the Fourth together, and she asked me to give you a hug. Am I missing something?”
“Come here,” she said, leading me to the couch. “I wasn’t going to do this so soon, but I guess it’s as good a time as any.” As we sat down, she grabbed the cassette sleeve.
“See this?” she asked, pointing to the sticky note. “My friends gave this to me exactly seven years ago.”
“Well, I know it wasn’t a birthday present,” I joked.
She winked. “You’re a quick study, Mr. Scardino. No, it wasn’t my birthday. They made it for me because I’d been in the hospital for a while and they wanted to cheer me up.”
“That’s sweet. When my brother broke his toe skateboarding, all I got him was a Three Musketeers bar from the gift shop,” I said. I’m a babbling moron, I thought. My palms got clammy. I wasn’t sure if her telling me about the video was an invitation to probe or if I was supposed to respect her privacy and not ask any questions. But wouldn’t avoiding her bait make me appear disinterested? I lifted the sticky note and looked at it. “So, your friends, are they the Cast?”
She smiled. “Yes. I mean, no one ever actu
ally uses that name. It’s just how they signed the note.”
She went on to describe her friends, the various Saturday Night Live–style skits they’d created, and how they’d all watched the video together in her hospital room.
“Sounds like you have a pretty incredible group. I could tell from thirty seconds with Jordana how much she cares about you.”
“Yes, I’m very lucky.” She nodded. “Jordana’s like a sister. She’s very . . .” She seemed to be choosing her words carefully.
“What?” I asked, curious to see how she’d fill in the blank.
“Sometimes I think she’d put me in bubble wrap if she could. She’s über-protective.”
“Has she always been like that? I mean, it’s flattering, but I’d think that could be kind of exhausting.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love her—I absolutely do. I’d do anything for her. She’s not just a friend; she’s like a part of me. But I think when I was sick . . .” She paused for a split second and looked directly into my eyes. “I had cancer when I was younger, and I think it was hard on her. I mean, I know it was.”
Becca wove this fact into the conversation so casually, I thought for a moment that I had misheard.
“Really? You had cancer?” I could feel my eyes widen. My grandmother had died of cancer. So had my friend’s sister.
“Hodgkin’s disease. It’s a form of lymphoma.”
I had sensed a subtle strength in Becca ever since the Dating Game. Knowing what she had overcome confirmed my intuition.
“Actually, a guy I went to boarding school with had lymphoma. I wasn’t very close with him, but we lived on the same hall senior year. One night I happened to be in the bathroom when he was puking into a toilet. I wet some paper hand towels and offered to press them against his forehead. My mom did that for me whenever I puked as a kid, and it always made me feel better.”
“That was sweet of you. I can’t imagine anyone other than my parents wanting to hold my head when I threw up.”
I started thinking about that guy, whose name escaped me. I could picture his narrow blue eyes, his tie-dyed shirts, and how he hung a map of the world upside down on his wall. It didn’t occur to me back then, but I suddenly wondered if the South Pole near the ceiling was a metaphor for how his whole world had been turned upside down. I wondered if he had made it—if he was still alive.
The Cast Page 3
