“I forgot about that,” I said softly, a pang of guilt washing over me. I wondered if I had unintentionally soured all of their childhoods by wrecking their innocence. Would my health now sour my marriage, too?
Holly shifted in her chair. “Do you remember how you made me a ‘VIP’ bat mitzvah party at your house because you were too sick the day of my real party? We played limbo using a closet rod and did the electric slide in your parents’ living room. My brother came over with mix tapes to be the DJ.”
I smiled, recalling that day. “Remember the sign-in board I made?”
“You were the only one to sign it!” Holly laughed.
Jordana cleared her throat. “Maybe it’s the defense lawyer in me,” she said, jumping back in, “but I’m thinking everyone should ease up on the Nolan bashing and give the guy some time to grieve.”
“Grieve?” Lex said. “She’s not dying!”
“I know. I don’t mean grieve as in death; I mean he needs to mourn a loss.”
“Mourn a loss?” Lex was exasperated. “What’s wrong with you?”
If it were socially acceptable to slap a guest across the face, Jordana might have taken a swing at Lex. Instead, she simply rolled her eyes.
“All I’m saying is, he’s facing a major change affecting the love of his life,” Jordana said. “I mean, none of you is married to Becca. None of you has that intimacy. None of you is affected as deeply and daily as he is. I know there’s a lot of love at this table, but, realistically, you’ll all go back to your lives at the end of this weekend and life will march on. But she’s his family. She’s his person. So maybe all of you should cut him some slack and accept that it’s simply different . . .” Her voice trailed off, before she added, “for him.”
If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she was talking about herself.
“I don’t know, Jord. I kinda think if it acts like a jerk and sounds like a jerk and disappears like a jerk, it’s probably a jerk, no matter how many times you ‘check your privilege,’” Lex said, forming air quotes with her fingers, the way she did when we were kids.
At that moment, Sal and Adam returned to the room, wine bottles in hand.
“Can we change the topic, please?” I asked. The tension in the room was making my chest tighten.
“Actually, my sciatica is killing me. I think I’m going to lie down,” Holly said resting both hands on her back. Minutes later, she and Adam had disappeared into their bedroom.
Lex and Seth offered to help Jordana load the dishwasher, but she insisted she and Sal had a “system” and that they should grab a bottle of wine, go outside, and enjoy the beautiful country night. They followed her advice and took their glasses out to the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. I was about to offer to help package up the leftovers and place them in the fridge, when my cell phone buzzed with a new message. It was a video my mother had sent to both Nolan’s phone and mine.
The clanging of dishes and running tap water from the sink made it impossible to hear, so I walked down the hall to my guest room and pressed PLAY.
“Hi, Mommy and Daddy,” Emma said softly. She was lying on my parents’ duvet, wearing the pajamas with watermelons I’d bought her. “I just wanted to say good night, and that I miss you, and that I love you, and . . .” Emma’s voice began to tremble.
“It’s okay, honey,” I heard my mother say sweetly in the background. “Mommy and Daddy love you very much and are going to be home on Sunday. I promise. Don’t cry, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy always come home.”
Emma forced a smile and looked as if she were summoning all of her strength to appear brave. “Mommy and Daddy”—she spoke our monikers as if they were one name—“I love you and I miss you. I hope you are having a good time with your friends, and that you come home as soon as you can on Sunday. Good night.” She blew a kiss, and the video ended.
I exploded into tears. I buried my face in the quilted pillow sham to muffle my cries. I would have given anything to be curled up in bed, snuggling beside her. Though it seemed like self-inflicted torture, I had to watch the video again. Just as it ended, another came in. This one was from Nolan.
He appears! I gasped and immediately pressed PLAY.
“Hi, sweetie pie!” he cooed. He was holding the phone close to his face. “I love you and miss you, too. Looks like you’re having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa! That makes me happy. Have a good night. I’ll see you on Sunday. I love you soooooooo much.”
Where is he? I played the video a second time. When he blew a kiss to Emma, he pulled the phone back a bit and I caught a glimpse of something green on the wall. I played it again and again. It looked like a woman wearing something green. Is it a photo? Why does that look so familiar? And then it hit me. Oh my God! It’s the poster of Kathy Ireland in the green bikini that he’s had tacked to his childhood-bedroom wall since sixth grade!
A torrent of adrenaline shot through me. I couldn’t tell whether it was anger, resentment, shock, or devastation, but my body practically ejected itself from the bed and shot into the bathroom to prepare itself for whatever would come next. I brushed my teeth so vigorously, my gums bled. I splashed water on my face with such ferocity, I soaked the collar of my shirt. After I spackled on enough makeup to cover my splotchy cheeks, I perfected my best happy face in the mirror and hatched a plan. I’d record a quick video wishing Emma good night and tell her how much I loved and missed her. I’d send it off and then call Nolan. We needed to speak—have a real conversation, instead of exchanging bedtime videos intended for our child.
After texting Emma’s video to my mom, I dialed Nolan’s number. No answer. I waited a few minutes and tried again. Direct to voice mail, no ring. He turned off the damn phone to avoid me. What kind of man does that? Any guilt I had about having betrayed him at dinner had now vanished.
I could no longer sit still. I had to leave the bedroom and get some air. When I walked outside, Seth and Lex were slouched in the Adirondack chairs, holding wineglasses and engaged in an intense conversation. I felt as if approaching then would be an intrusion but reminded myself that it was just Seth and Lex. What could I be breaking up?
“Hi, guys,” I said stepping onto the porch. “Seth, you’ve got to help me out. Do you know where Nolan went after his appointment with you this morning?”
“I’m pretty sure he went to work,” Seth said.
“Did he seem like himself? I mean, did he say anything odd?” I wondered if I sounded as frenetic as I felt.
Seth shot Lex a quick glance, before looking back at me—and suddenly I understood: they knew something about Nolan that I didn’t.
“He definitely seemed more stressed than usual,” Seth said. “He didn’t exactly say why, but now that I know what’s going on with you, it makes total sense.”
Seth was lying. I debated whether to command him to tell me the truth or to leave it alone. I desperately wanted to know what Nolan and Seth had discussed that morning, and yet, by asking, I’d be putting Seth in the middle of our marital drama—a predicament I didn’t want and he didn’t deserve. I said good night and returned to the house. But as I shut the door and started down the hall toward my guest room, I heard Seth and Lex’s hushed tones through an open screen window. I stopped to listen.
“Stay out of it,” she warned him. “Don’t get involved. Ultimately, you’re her friend, not his.”
“Of course Becca comes first, but the guy seemed so sad. How can I just turn my back when a buddy asks for a favor?”
“It’s easy. If the favor could potentially create more stress for Becca, then you just say no,” she cautioned again.
I stood frozen by that screen window. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to walk back outside and pump them for information, but I resisted and retreated to my room. I changed into pajamas, turned down the quilt, and slid between the crisp cotton sheets. The space from one corner to the other seemed vast and lonely. So this is what it would be like, I thought. Unlike the rare oc
casion when Nolan traveled for work and I enjoyed having the whole mattress to myself, along with control of the television remote, this felt different. When you’ve had the worst fight of your marriage and can’t track down your husband, 800-thread-count Egyptian-cotton linens and unlimited movie channels somehow lose their appeal.
I tossed and turned. I repositioned pillows. What were Seth and Lex talking about? I wondered. I got out of bed, pulled a sweatshirt over my tank top, and headed back to the front porch. I opened the door, expecting to see them in the same spots on the chairs, but they were gone. I heard whispers coming from the driveway. The country night was pitch black, and it was difficult to see even a few feet ahead. I walked to the edge of the front steps and with my eyes continued to follow the voices down the pebbled driveway until I noticed the distinct glow of a cell phone coming from the bed of Sal’s beaten-up old pickup truck and illuminating Lex and Seth’s faces. I watched as she tilted her head back, smiled, and flipped her hair. I noticed how he stretched out an arm and laid it across the rim of the truck behind her back. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn they were two flirtatious sleepaway-camp counselors stealing a private moment in the middle of the night while their campers slept soundly in cabins.
I tried to listen in but couldn’t make out the words. I turned and tiptoed back to my room, concluding that it would be unfair to entangle them in my marital mess any more than I already had. After all, I thought, they seem to be quite capable of getting entangled in a marital mess of their own. Maybe we’ll all end up single again.
Chapter 10: Seth
It was a magnificent July night. The cool country air smelled like fresh pine, and I hadn’t seen a sky so clear and full of stars since the summer my mother sent me to fat camp in Pennsylvania. Sitting in an Adirondack chair on Jordana’s front porch with a glass of wine in my hand and an old friend by my side would have been absolute perfection, had it not been what it was—a reprieve from the conversation at dinner.
“Some night, eh?” I said, when Lex and I stepped outside, away from the group.
“Not at all what I anticipated.” She sighed, settling into her chair.
“I don’t think it’s what any of us anticipated.” I took a sip of wine and thought about Lex’s impassioned defense of Becca at the meal. Before I could edit myself, the words tripped out of my mouth. “So, you were pretty fired up in there.”
She straightened and turned to face me. “Well, how can you not be angry? It sounds like Nolan’s been a total ass! Do you disagree? I mean, I know you two are buddies, but come on, Seth!”
“I wasn’t really talking about Nolan or Becca. I was just saying you spoke with, I don’t know, authority. Or wisdom? Like you had some sort of insight that the rest of us didn’t.” Maybe it was the moonlit ambience or the alcohol or both, but I felt emboldened to learn more about the girl I had eaten Play-Doh with in kindergarten and consoled in eleventh grade when she hit the curb parallel-parking and automatically flunked her first driver’s test.
“Believe me, I had no inside scoop on Becca’s news,” Lex said, reaching for the glass she’d placed beside her chair.
“What I’m trying to say is that you advised her with a trust me, girlfriend, been there, done that vibe.” I snapped twice in the air and bopped my head from side to side, the way we did when we were kids. I hadn’t made that gesture in years. There was something about hanging out with this group again that altered my chemistry. My inhibitions felt unshackled; my speech loosened. “I was just wondering if everything is okay with you.”
Lex looked at me over her glass as she swirled the wine in it. Based on her squinted gaze, she seemed to be debating what information to share and what to keep private. I hoped I hadn’t overstepped any boundaries.
After a lengthy sip, she finally spoke. “Do you think you’d be as successful as you are now if you hadn’t gone through all that crap when you were younger?”
I looked at her quizzically, unsure where she was going with this.
“You know,” she said, “getting kicked out of school and flailing around all those years? You ever wonder if it all happened for a reason?”
Wait, I thought, my old insecurities kicking in, so, does she consider me a success or a slacker? “I don’t really think about it much. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been on my mind a lot.”
“My getting kicked out of Princeton has been on your mind?”
“No, you doof. About all the curveballs I’m seeing lately.” She leaned her head back onto the chair and looked into the distance. “I wonder if there’s a grand plan, some divine construct that we all just need to sit back and ride out, or if it’s ultimately up to us to catch those curveballs and take control of our own destiny.” She turned back toward me.
“Lex, did you . . .” I suggestively raised my eyebrows and pinched my fingers to my lips as if I were smoking a joint.
“No! Stop it! I’m serious!” She smacked me playfully on the arm. Her gigantic diamond ring actually hurt upon contact.
When we were kids, Lex was the life of the party and the loudest of the bunch. I remembered her reading Seventeen magazine or Sweet Valley High books under her desk and claiming not to care about school, despite making the honor roll every semester. She was the kid who didn’t study but aced the final, the one teachers swore was daydreaming but had the most insightful comments to share when called upon. Of our group of friends, she and I were the only two selected to take the admissions test for the Bronx High School of Science. When we were accepted, she claimed the hour-long commute each way would cramp her social life and didn’t enroll. My mother and the rest of the neighborhood yentas went on for weeks about how her parents were insane for allowing “such a bright young lady” to prioritize loitering outside the local pizzeria to flirt with cute boys on the baseball team and forfeit a coveted spot at one of the nation’s top schools. Mom said Lex “hid her light under a bushel.” Back then, I didn’t understand what that meant, but now those words were ringing in my ears. Lex was funnier, deeper, and more complex than I had remembered.
“I have to say,” Lex went on, “it was very hard to listen to Becca and not get passionate, to use your words. It’s not just the illness that’s upsetting; it’s all this unnecessary drama. That’s what pisses me off. She should be free of that so that she can focus her energy on being healthy. She has to make the choice for herself. I’d hate for her to think that if she and Nolan don’t see eye to eye and she gives in and chooses to do what he wants with her body, it will guarantee happily ever after. It won’t. That, I can promise.”
How can she promise? What’s with this authoritative tone?
My phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was Nolan:
Hey, man. Sorry didn’t make it up tonight. Got your email earlier—thanks for the list of docs. I looked them over and have a favor to ask. Would you mind calling and getting me an appointment ASAP with the second doc on the list? Thanks, buddy. I know I can count on you. —N
“Shit,” I muttered.
“What?” Lex asked.
I handed her my phone. She read the screen.
“Fuck no!” she cried, passing it back to me. “He’s got some chutzpah, putting you in the middle.”
Just then, the front door creaked open. I turned around, and there was Becca, standing on the porch. She inquired about Nolan’s behavior and his whereabouts after our physical therapy appointment that morning.
“He definitely seemed more stressed than usual,” I offered. “He didn’t exactly say why, but now that I know what’s happening, it makes total sense.”
Seeming satisfied with my response, Becca hugged us both good night, then retreated inside.
“This sucks, on so many levels,” I said, and stood up to stretch my arms, before crouching to do a few deep knee bends.
“Wanna go for a walk?” I asked.
“Sure.” Lex took a final swig of her drink and set the glass beneath her ch
air.
We stepped off the porch and, with our cell phones illuminating the way, started down the pebbled path. We stopped at the base of the driveway.
“Holy cow! Is this the Beast?’” she asked, giggling when we came upon Sal’s disheveled secondhand pickup truck. “Jordana told me about this when he got it. Her description is spot-on!”
“It must be,” I said, circling and inspecting the truck with my flashlight. “It’s exactly how she described it: rusty, corroded hubcaps, chipped paint job, broken front grill, a virtually useless two-wheel drive, 1980s styling . . . This thing is fantastic! Totally inconsistent with his high-tech house and Brooks Brothers shirts, but if he thinks this makes him a legit country boy, more power to him.”
I heard a clank and looked up. Lex was standing on the bed of the truck. “What do you think?” she asked, posing with a hand on her jutted hip. “I have to admit, it’s kind of cool! Actually, my kids would love this! Come check it out!”
“Maybe you should follow Sal’s lead and scour the used-truck ads. Would your husband spring for one?” I couldn’t remember his name.
“Jack? Pfft!” She waved her hand dismissively in front of her face. “If everyone at the club did it, then for sure he’d buy one. He marches to the beat of others’ drummers, not his own. Ask him his favorite color, he’ll take an office poll and get back to you.”
“Ouch.” A slight electricity came over me when I sensed tension in their union—a sense of possibility. I noted it and then pushed it down.
“Maybe that’s the ‘wisdom’ or ‘insight’ you detected in me at dinner,” she said, as she sat down and reclined so that she could look up at the sky.
The Cast Page 15
