Chapter 1 | Remember Me

[instrumental music] She was my best friend.

Tina Scorza was raised in Putnam County.

Her best friend, Robin Murphy, was not.

She moved to Carmel, um, our freshman year of high school.

And, you know, she would, like, go to school in, like, Doc Martens and fishnet stockings and, you know, cut-off jeans short in the middle of winter.

Tina and Robin rode the school bus together.

Straightaway, the two girls hit it off.

Robin hipped Tina to her favorite bands, The Clash, The Pixies, The Ramones.

She might have been exotic for small-town Carmel, New York, but Robin would have fit right in in hipster Brooklyn.

She was nothing like any of my other friends, you know? So, uh...

But we hung out, like, a lot together.

Like, a ton.

It was Tina who introduced Robin to James Blaisdell.

James was another recent arrival in Carmel, having moved there from California.

Within days of meeting Robin, James developed a crush on her She looked like an introvert, but she acted more like an extrovert, 'cause she was always getting things going, and she was always energetic.

Now picture me.

I am dressed up like a little banker on a, on casual Friday with just, like, a polo shirt, some khaki pants.

And we started talking and realizing that we had more and more in common, you know, making fun of movies, uh, just driving around listening to music.

We both were aspiring, uh, to be writers of some sort.

We loved reading books.

So we had a lot of stuff bouncing off of each other, which, uh, really drew me to her.

It's not hard to suss out Robin's influences.

She was an avid reader of Anne Rice novels and had plans to become a writer herself.

But Carmel High School bored her stiff, and after a short stint in voc ed, she dropped out for good at 16.

Now, practically every kid in Carmel bitched about being bored, but Robin actually did something about it.

[instrumental music] She was my best friend.

Tina Scorza was raised in Putnam County.

Her best friend, Robin Murphy, was not.

She moved to Carmel, um, our freshman year of high school.

And, you know, she would, like, go to school in, like, Doc Martens and fishnet stockings and, you know, cut-off jeans short in the middle of winter.

Tina and Robin rode the school bus together.

Straightaway, the two girls hit it off.

Robin hipped Tina to her favorite bands, The Clash, The Pixies, The Ramones.

She might have been exotic for small-town Carmel, New York, but Robin would have fit right in in hipster Brooklyn.

She was nothing like any of my other friends, you know? So, uh...

But we hung out, like, a lot together.

Like, a ton.

It was Tina who introduced Robin to James Blaisdell.

James was another recent arrival in Carmel, having moved there from California.

Within days of meeting Robin, James developed a crush on her She looked like an introvert, but she acted more like an extrovert, 'cause she was always getting things going, and she was always energetic.

Now picture me.

I am dressed up like a little banker on a, on casual Friday with just, like, a polo shirt, some khaki pants.

And we started talking and realizing that we had more and more in common, you know, making fun of movies, uh, just driving around listening to music.

We both were aspiring, uh, to be writers of some sort.

We loved reading books.

So we had a lot of stuff bouncing off of each other, which, uh, really drew me to her.

It's not hard to suss out Robin's influences.

She was an avid reader of Anne Rice novels and had plans to become a writer herself.

But Carmel High School bored her stiff, and after a short stint in voc ed, she dropped out for good at 16.

Now, practically every kid in Carmel bitched about being bored, but Robin actually did something about it.