To: Mark Levine

Fr: Cal Langdon

Re: Where are you?

I’m at the gate. I don’t see you. You didn’t take my advice and cancel the thing at the last minute, did you?

Forget it, you’re not the leave-em-at-the-altar type.

So. Nervous yet? I’ve got the flask, don’t worry. We’re going to need it, too, there’s a real nut job on this flight. Apparently she thinks there’s a possibility we might crash land in the Sahara.

Hurry up and get here, I want to kiss the bride—

Oh, there you are.

Cal

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Oh my God.

Cell Phone Guy is Cal.Cal Langdon , Mark’s best buddy since elementary school, the one who’s been traveling all around the world for the Journal , writing about social unrest and economic instability for the past ten years. The one with the new book that’s just out—the one he supposedly got this huge advance for.

I wish I were on that plane that’s stuck in the San Francisco airport instead of on this one. I would rather have a deadly virus than have to spend a minute more in the company of Cal Langdon, aka Cell Phone Guy, aka Mark Levine’s Best Friend.

Oh, but guess what? HE’S SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME. That’s what he was so mad about before. He was calling Travel Services at the Journal , trying to get them to change his seat so he could sit in business class, or at least on the aisle, and not in the middle, like he is now.

Ha ha. Ha ha, Cal In the Middle. Hope you like bumping your elbow into mine every five seconds, Mr. IHighly-Doubt-Anyone-Is-Going-To-Steal-Your-Water,-Miss. Because I am SO not giving up my aisle seat. No way.

And don’t expect me to share my water with you, either. OR my Toblerone. Or my cheese popcorn. I don’t care how long we’re stuck on this runway, or what kind of virus might get into the ventilation system. You’re getting nada from me, mister.

I’m not telling Holly how much I hate her husband’s best man, though. I don’t want to spoil this special time for her.

I am so not going to be able to give them this travel diary as a wedding gift. Oh well. It’s probably just as well, since my handwriting is barely legible, thanks to the Armrest Nazi next to me. Excuse me, Mr. I’m- So-Big-I-Need-To-Take-Up-Your-Space-Too. Could you please move your stupid hairy arm with the stupid waterproof watch that tells the altitude and the exact time on all seven continents which I know you so need, being such a fancy world traveler who knows so much about foreign policy and things a poor little cartoonist like me couldn’t even begin to understand?

I’ll tell you one thing: if this is a setup, Holly is dead. I mean, I know she doesn’t like Malcolm, but could she seriously, even for one second, entertain the idea that I might like Mister Nothing-Comes-Between- Me-And-My-Blackberry here? Please! He asked me what I do for a living (he was so just making conversation because Holly and Mark are seated right behind us, and he didn’t want to look like the Uptight Anal Retentive Control Freak he really is in front of them), and when I said I was a cartoonist, he was like, “You’re kidding.”

Totally deadpan. You’re kidding.

And get this: he’s never heard of Wondercat.

Never. Heard. Of. Wonder. Cat.

He has to be lying. He writes for the paper in which Wondercat was born.

And OK, he’s abroad all the time, and you can’t get the Journal everywhere. But doesn’t he watch television ? He may have been gallivanting all around the world for the past decade, but excuse me, he’s back now, promoting his stupid book. Hasn’t he seen Wondercat’s commercial for energy saving products on New York One? Everyone watches New York One, if only to check the temperature.

My God. Who is this guy? And why does Mark even like him????

I think I’m going to have to have a word with Holly. Does she know what she’s getting herself into, marrying a man who’d be best friends with a guy who doesn’t watch TV????

___________________________________________

To: Mark Levine

Fr: Cal Langdon

Re: I’m going to kill you

What in hell is a Wondercat?

Cal

___________________________________________

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Mark Levine

Re: I’m going to kill you

Excuse me. I don’t believe you are allowed to use these things on planes.

Mark

PS You didn’t tell her you didn’t know who Wondercat is, did you?

___________________________________________

To: Mark Levine

Fr: Cal Langdon

Re: I’m going to kill you

You can’t use them while you’re in the air, according to the FAA— although I doubt the veracity of this, as I’ve left mine on plenty of times and none of my flights have ever plummeted into the sea because of it.

You can, however, still legally use them when you’re sitting uselessly on the tarmac while the air control tower guys are having a limbo contest, as they are apparently doing right now because I can see no other conceivable reason why we’re not being allowed to take off.

And yes, I did ask her what a Wondercat was. Is that why she is busy scribbling into the travel diary she bought at the duty free? Because I offended her so deeply with my lack of knowledge about her cat?

Cal

___________________________________________

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Mark Levine

Re: I’m going to kill you

Yes. And stop emailing me, Holly keeps asking who I’m writing to. I told her it was the hospital, and now she’s mad that the hospital is emailing me when I’m supposed to be eloping.

Mark

___________________________________________

To: Mark Levine

Fr: Cal Langdon

Re: I’m going to kill you

How would the hospital even know that, anyway? The word elope means to run away with a lover with the intention of wedding in secret. How secret is your wedding going to be if the hospital knows about it?

C

___________________________________________

To: Cal Langdon

Fr: Mark Levine

Re: I’m going to kill you

I had to tell the hospital I was getting married.And the paper. They weren’t going to give the time off, or let me out of my column, otherwise. DON’T TELL Holly. She still thinks the only people who know what we’re really doing are the four of us.

And of course the entire art department at the New York Journal . But she doesn’t know that I know that.

Mark

PS Quit writing to me. I’m turning this thing off.

___________________________________________

To: Mark Levine

Fr: Cal Langdon

Re: You Dog