The Cast

by Amy Blumenfeld

  Despite the early evening hour, it remained as hot and humid as it had been at midday. It was, after all, summer in New York. My long hair was sticking to the back of my neck, so I sat down on a shaded bench to dig a clip out from my tote bag. I twisted the strands into a messy bun, which offered some relief. After a swig from my water canteen, I whipped out the yellow legal pad containing my six-page, color-coded to-do list for the upcoming weekend and reviewed the final items. The system—my method of organization—had been in place for years. It was as natural to me as breathing. Checking off those green (grocery items), blue (nonfood shopping), black (work stuff), purple (kid-and-family stuff), and red (miscellaneous) tasks has always given me a sense of accomplishment—something I never felt when tapping the delete button on a smartphone-generated list.

  My remaining to-do’s:

  • Get kosher wine, cheese, and meat for Holly/Adam (green)

  • Buy produce, preferably organic (green)

  • Buy henna tattoo–making materials? Only if have time . . . (red)

  • Pack Sal’s clothes and my clothes (purple)

  • Call garage attendant to pull car near lobby—have cash for tip (red)

  • Ask doorman to help load car—have cash for tip (red)

  • Get Lex from airport at noon (red)

  • Head to country house (red)

  Miraculously, I was able to get all the kosher items, as well as the henna materials, within two blocks of Arlene and Jerry’s apartment. I was in great shape. Sal had already dropped off our boys at his parents’ house for the weekend, so all that remained for the evening was to pack and get a good night’s sleep.

  I hailed a cab and minutes later was in front of the brass poles and hunter-green awning of my building on Fifth Avenue. As I waited in the lobby for an elevator, my cell phone whistled yoohoo. I realized I had missed several messages: five texts, one voice mail, and two e-mails of quasi-dirty jokes sent from my father, who passed along everything his bored retirement buddies forwarded to him.

  Text #1, 5:25 p.m., from Lex:

  Sooooo excited for the weekend. Been WAY too long. We’re coming in on United #366 from O’Hare and should land at LaGuardia around noon. You picking us up or should we get a taxi from airport to your apt.? Either way totally fine. Can’t wait to see you guys! Xoxo

  Text #2, 5:43p.m., from Holly:

  Hello Jordana. Thank you again for your hospitality. Adam and I will meet you at the house right before Shabbas starts. Probably about 7:30 p.m.–ish. Need to make deliveries to a couple of overnight camps in the Catskills in the afternoon and will then head over to you. Please send address. Looking forward.

  Text #3, 6:59 p.m., from Seth:

  hey, jord. psyched for weekend. how can I help?? need anything??

  Text #4, 7:01 p.m., from Becca:

  Blank

  The empty-speech-bubble text was unusual. A slip of the finger? I wondered. I dismissed it and checked my voice mail. There was a call from Becca around the same time as the text, and the only sound on the message was that of a phone receiver hanging up.

  “That’s odd,” I said aloud when I got into the elevator. My arms needed a rest, so I dragged the packages into the car, pressed the button for my floor, and sent a quick text before the elevator doors shut.

  Hi Bec! Saw you called. What’s up? Had a great day with Emma. Hope you had fun too! Can’t wait to hear about it!

  I figured she was probably getting Emma ready for bed and would call me back later. When we were little, we would get so pumped up for our birthday parties that we wouldn’t be able to sleep. One of us would flick our bedroom lights on and off late into the evening before the celebration, hoping the other was watching from across the street, and then flicker back. The night before each of our weddings, we had a sleepover in the bride’s childhood bedroom. The bride slept in her bed, the maid of honor just an arm’s reach away beside her on a rollaway cot, just like the old days.

  Yoo-hoo, my phone whistled again, as the elevator whizzed up.

  Becca:

  Hey, Jord. Something came up. Change of plans. Can’t go tomorrow. Will definitely be there at some point over the weekend, just not sure yet when. Maybe Saturday? SO sorry. Love you.

  I reread the message. What the fuck? I thought. I crafted, edited, rewrote, and erased various responses. Then, as the elevator opened onto the fourteenth floor, it occurred to me that the text must be a joke. I pulled the packages onto the carpeted hallway and responded with a simple LOL.

  A few minutes later, while I was rearranging my overstuffed refrigerator to accommodate the final items for the weekend, my phone whistled again.

  Becca: Not kidding. SO sorry.

  Me: Call me! You okay?!

  Becca: Can’t now. Will call tomorrow. All should be fine.

  “All should be fine?” I reread aloud, utterly exasperated, as if the phone were another person in the room. I wondered if Becca had gotten a consulting gig that was too good to pass up. Though she’d mainly stayed home since Emma’s birth, every now and then a call came in from a former colleague asking if she could pinch-hit and produce a story for the morning or evening news. But the thought of her holing up in an editing suite on this of all weekends was asinine and implausible.

  Me: “All should be fine”?! What’s the “All”? Totally confused . . . She didn’t respond.

  I shoved the last triangle of Brie into a corner of the produce drawer and slammed the refrigerator. A fingerprint painting my sons had made for Sal on Father’s Day fell off the stainless door and landed on the floor. I didn’t even pick it up. I grabbed a wineglass from the cabinet and slammed that door, too. But because Sal had insisted on “soft close” cabinets when we’d renovated the apartment, the door shut unsatisfyingly, without a sound. I uncorked a new cabernet and settled onto a barstool at my marble-topped kitchen island. Suddenly, my eyes welled up with tears. I was the little girl whose birthday party had just been canceled. This was not a part of my color-coded weekend itinerary.

  Why would Becca bail now? She knows how much effort I put into this! She’s not a flake. She doesn’t cancel plans unless there’s a legitimate reason. My shoulders tensed. I could feel my heartbeat quicken and my underarms beginning to sweat. I pulled off my shirt and sat on the barstool, drinking alone in my bra, imagining every possible excuse she might offer.

  As a forty-year-old public defender with a second full-time job mothering five-year-old twins, I knew quite well that things didn’t always go according to plan. It wasn’t the hiccup in the schedule that threw me; it was the sense of being disconnected from something important in Becca’s life. I couldn’t stand not knowing. Becca always explained. Whether she was running late to our yoga class because she couldn’t put down a book or forgot to pick up the fruit salad she had promised to bring to a dinner party, she always told me the truth, even if it wasn’t flattering. The last time she had been this opaque was when we were kids and she was sick, but even then, it wasn’t intentional. No one knew what was wrong with her. She’d been losing weight and getting really tired and pale; we all thought it was a bad virus.

  When I did learn Becca had cancer, I hadn’t a clue what it meant. Back then, images of kids with the disease weren’t ubiquitous. There were no Make-A-Wish Foundation ads. I don’t recall ever seeing a television commercial with celebrities playing with bald children. I was unaware of how grave it was, and that death was a possibility. All I knew for certain was that my best friend had “the disease that makes hair fall out.” That’s how my parents explained it to me over bagels and lox one Sunday morning in our kitchen. Becca had missed a bunch of school days, and when I asked if they thought she would go back soon, they gave each other a knowing glance and then uttered those words. We didn’t discuss it much after that. My parents and I have always been incredibly close and can have lengthy discussions about virtually anything. For some reason, however, this topic rendered them tight-lipped. Anytime Becca’s illness came up, the conversatio
n became clipped, succinct. Had I been an adult, or even in my upper teens, I might have felt more bothered and pressed them for additional information. But I was just a good kid who took what her parents said at face value. I didn’t know enough about the disease to ask. All I knew was that my best friend wasn’t at school, wasn’t at our lunch table, wasn’t on the bus, wasn’t there at night. I hated being without her.

  The day we visited her in the hospital was a nightmare. On the subway ride into the city, we decided we’d be upbeat and not talk about anything depressing. Our mission, we agreed, was simple: make her smile. Though Seth, Lex, and Holly were able to do the job, I couldn’t get my act together. Seeing Becca attached to all those tubes, looking so pale and bald—my God, bald!—elicited feelings not only of pity, but of exclusion. I realized I was on the periphery of Becca’s life, and the loss of that connection reverberated deeply, leaving me lonely and scared, as if a little part of Becca had already died. That was the day I realized my best friend had become part of a world to which I couldn’t relate.

  Sitting on the windowsill of Becca’s hospital room, shrouded in a blue gown, cap, mask, gloves, and booties, I stewed with anger. I was pissed at the disease for hurting my friend. I was upset with my parents for withholding, or sugarcoating, the truth about her health: that her limbs had grown frail, her pasty face was puffed up from steroids, and a catheter emerged from her chest in the spot where her half of our “Best Friends” necklace used to rest. But more than anything else, I wanted to stand on that windowsill and scream down to the people walking along East 68th Street, It’s not fair!

  As I stared off into the subway-tile backsplash behind my kitchen sink, I swirled the stem of my wineglass a little too vigorously, splashing cabernet onto the white Carrara marble countertop.

  “Shit!” I ran to grab a fistful of paper towels.

  Moments later, Sal walked in from work.

  “Heeey,” he said slowly, taking in the scene of his teary, partially naked wife drinking alone. He placed his attaché case onto the kitchen counter, loosened his tie, and walked over to kiss my forehead. “You okay? What’s going on?”

  I looked at him the way our boys did when their lips quivered just before letting out a guttural wail. I did my best to keep it together but erupted in sarcasm instead. “Oh, Becca’s just being a flake. She said she wasn’t sure if she’d make it up tomorrow. She probably got a better offer from one of her new mom friends at Emma’s school.”

  “That’s interesting,” he said.

  I had fully expected Sal to snicker at my insecurity, roll his eyes, and insist I was being ridiculous. “Why is that interesting?”

  “Well, Nolan just left me a voice mail about an hour ago saying he’s not going to go with me tomorrow. We were supposed to take the train upstate together after work. Remember?”

  “What?” I screamed. “He’s bailing, too? Are you frickin’ kidding me?” I tossed my wineglass into the sink, cracking the crystal lip.

  Sal widened his eyes and raised his brows, which I interpreted as a subtle message that my decibel level and aggression might have been a bit over the top. I balled my hand into a fist as my mind raced for a way to figure out what was happening.

  I grabbed my cell phone and sent a text message to Seth.

  Seth—Need a favor. Looks like I have more stuff to do in the morning than I thought. Can you pick up Lex and her husband at airport tomorrow and drive them up to the house? United flight 366 lands at LaGuardia at noon. Let me know if that works. THANK YOU!

  His response, two minutes later:

  I’ve got a couple of early sessions with clients in the morning but can definitely pick them up. Not sure I’ll recognize her, though—she still have those mile-high hairspray bangs?! Yowza! Give her my number and we’ll figure out the rest.

  Thank God for Seth, I thought. Now I had the morning free to deal with the Becca situation. I decided to text her again.

  Me: Still up?

  Becca: Yup.

  Me: Want to go for a quick walk tomorrow, 8 a.m.?

  Becca: I have something at 9. Sorry.

  I wanted to respond, Yeah, you were supposed to meet ME at 9 for the weekend I’m hosting in YOUR honor! But instead I inhaled deeply through my nose and breathed out through my mouth—a technique I often used to retain composure in the courtroom. I couldn’t start a fight with Becca. We prided ourselves on being the only girlfriends we knew who’d never fought over anything—not toys, or who got the bigger piece of cake, or who got the lead in the silly plays we’d created in my basement. I could have tiffs with others, but not with her, and I wasn’t going to be the one to end our long-standing run of peace, even if she was the one creating the problem.

  Me: Okay. Good night.

  Becca: You too. I’ll let you know when I can come up.

  Me: All right . . .

  I knew ellipses could talk. They were the perfect punctuation mark to convey resignation, hesitation, or a disappointed sigh. My message could be interpreted as Fine, you win, or I’m confused and not buying into this whole enigmatic act. Either way, I knew Becca would hear me loud and clear. She could be cagey with others, but not with me.

  I placed my phone in the docking station on my nightstand, neatly laid out my clothes for the next morning on the leather stool beside my vanity, and got ready for bed—a ritual that typically calmed me, simply by nature of being a routine. This night, however, it wasn’t working. I still felt unsteady.

  Sitting on the edge of my duvet, about to turn off the light switch, I was overcome by a need to recite a prayer, something I hadn’t done since I was a little girl. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and was transported back to my childhood bedroom with the purple carpet and Kirk Cameron posters on the wall. I could feel the orthodontic retainer in my mouth, as well as the roominess of the hand-me-down nightgown I got from my cousin in Boston. I thought about my father—who, at this moment, was probably watching a late-night Barney Miller rerun—and how he used to tuck me snugly under my sheets, like an Egyptian mummy. He’d sit on the edge of my Wonder Woman comforter as we asked God to bless our family and friends with health, happiness, and peace.

  “Good night, sweetheart. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite. But if they do, beat them with a shoe until they’re black and blue,” my father would say. He would then pretend to shadowbox with me but would kiss my head instead. It never failed to lift whatever worry I carried and ease me into a peaceful slumber. Now, though, I lay there wondering what was happening with my friend, conjuring up one horrible scenario after another, until finally, sometime around four o’clock Friday morning, I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 4: Seth

  I pulled into the far end of the Departures area at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and nervously tapped on my steering wheel, hoping a cop wouldn’t make me move. Illegally hanging out in the no-standing zone of Departures was significantly less chaotic than jockeying with the triple-parked cars in the Arrivals section and would make it much easier for Lex and her husband to spot me when they exited the terminal on the Friday of a holiday weekend.

  As usual, I was early. I’ve always been a stickler for punctuality. Plus, I knew that if I arrived fifteen minutes before their flight was scheduled to land, I’d have just enough time to write up the progress reports for my morning clients.

  While I used the armrest as a desk to write up my evaluations, someone started knocking on the trunk of my car. I squinted into the rearview mirror, expecting to see a traffic cop asking me to move. Instead was a skinny-jeaned brunette wearing a fitted white tank top and dark, oversize sunglasses, carrying a large leather bag with tassels hanging off the side. She looked like a model in a fancy luggage commercial.

  “Hey,” I yelled in warning, bursting out of the car to shoo the woman away. She may have been attractive, but she was still banging on my trunk.

  “Hey yourself!” she said exuberantly, bouncing over to give me a hug.

  Oh no—did I sleep wit
h this girl? was my first thought.

  “You were right,” she said, after kissing my cheek. “This place is so much better than the zoo at Arrivals!”

  “Leeeex?” I stepped back and slowly said her name in disbelief. My mental image of her involved stiff, gravity-defying bangs that stood at least two inches above her forehead.

  “Seeeeth?” she said, mimicking me playfully.

  Her smile was expansive—like, Julia Roberts expansive. It was similar to the wide-mouthed, toothy grin I remembered from childhood, but back then I found it dorky. Now it was stunning. “Holy crap, Lex!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t recognize . . . You look amazing!”

  She lifted the sunglasses, nestled them atop her elegant, shoulder-length bob, and smiled. “Honestly, I would have walked right past you, too, if you hadn’t told me to look for an illegally parked, shit-brown Mitsubishi.”

  I laughed.

  “You know, Seth, we might have recognized each other if you had a Facebook account. I think you’re the only person I know who’s not on some form of social media.”

  “It’s not for me. I like my privacy,” I said dismissively. I reached for her small roller suitcase, as well as the bag on her shoulder, and loaded them into the backseat. “Where’s your husband?”

  She lowered the sunglasses back over her eyes. “Jack chose to stay home,” she said flatly, as she sashayed over to the passenger side. That strut hadn’t changed.

  “Oh,” I said. Her tone made me think this was not an amicable or joint decision. I racked my brain for a visual of her husband and came up with nothing, though I vaguely recalled that he was undeservedly cocky. “Does he have to work?”