“I’ll be there,” Nick says again, running his hand over the blond stubble beginning to sprout from Charlie’s shaved, pink head.
She pictures Nick’s wife and children at home, waiting for him, and knows she should protest one more time. But instead she basks in the warm feeling in her chest, slowly spreading everywhere.
“That’s really nice of you,” she finally says, and nothing more.
***
Later that afternoon, while Charlie naps, Valerie begins to have second thoughts about accepting Nick’s spur-of-the-moment Halloween promise and feels the sudden need to let him off the hook. From years of logistical difficulties, she is well aware that Halloween is a two-parent operation, requiring one to stay home and pass out candy, the other to take the kids door-to-door—and recognizes the high likelihood of Nick’s wife balking at his decision to attend the hospital party. She wants to spare him that domestic squabble and avoid the awkward exchange that will ensue in the event he loses the debate. More important, the thought of a broken promise or anything smacking of a disappointment in Charlie’s life is too great for her to bear. So she decides to make a preemptive strike—a strategy she has come to know well.
She considers waiting for Nick’s next round to have the conversation, but feels a sense of urgency to settle matters before she can change her mind again. Rapidly removing her BlackBerry from her purse and Nick’s card from her wallet, she fights a wave of inexplicable nervousness and dials his number, hoping he’ll answer.
After the third ring, he answers abruptly, impatiently, as if he’s just been interrupted doing something very important—which is probably the case.
Valerie hesitates, suddenly regretting the call, feeling that she’s just made things even worse, that she has no right to call his personal cell even though he gave it to her.
“Hi, Nick,” she says. “It’s Valerie.”
“Oh! Hi, Valerie,” he says, his tone transforming into a familiar, friendly one. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s great,” she says, hearing background noise that does not sound like the hospital. “Is this a good time?” she asks, worrying that he might be with his family.
“Yeah,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Well, I just. . . wanted to talk to you about the Halloween party tomorrow,” she stammers.
“What about it?” he asks.
“Listen. It was so nice of you to say you’d come . . . But. . .”
“But what?” he says.
“But it’s Halloween.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sure you need to be somewhere else,” she says. “With your family. Your kids . . . and I just don’t feel comfortable . . .”
“Would it make you feel better to know that I was scheduled to work anyway?” he asks. “So unless you want to call the chief of staff and tell him that you think I should have the day off. . .”
“Are you really scheduled to work?” she replies, now pacing in the hall outside Charlie’s room, feeling simultaneously relieved and foolish for making such a big deal out of the party, and wondering why it never occurred to her that he could have been scheduled to work anyway. That his decision to attend might have nothing to do with them.
“Val—“ he says, the first time he has used the abbreviated form of her name, a fact that is not lost on her, a fact that she can’t help liking. “I want to be there. Okay?”
The warm glow returns to her chest. “Okay,” she says.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says. “I’m in the middle of buying a Darth Vader costume.”
“Okay,” she says. She feels a silly, uncontrollable grin spread over her face as she hangs up, doing her best not to admit to herself the real reason she just made the call.
19
Tessa