The Next Thing on My List (2 page)

Avoiding the obvious response-visiting your sister who is dead because of me-I said, “If you’re working your way through the lines, I’ll save you time. I’m a Scorpio.”

“Good to know.”

“And to answer your question, no, I don’t come here often. But since today was six months”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

Apparently we then decided to observe a moment of silence, because we stood there not speaking, and just when I was about to make an excuse to leave, he said, “Care to walk around a bit?”

If only I’d dumped the flowers and run when I had the chance. “Sure,” I said, not wanting to be rude. “That’d be nice.”

We headed up a dirt path that wound through the grounds, taking a leisurely pace.

“You’re looking well,” he said, gazing over at me. “You were pretty banged up last time I saw you.”

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally, and to my relief, from there we chatted about nothing of significance-how we’d gotten so much rainfall lately and how dogs bark before earthquakes. He so resembled his sister. It stirred up what I’d tried to stuff deep inside-the shame I wore that was as ugly as if I still had the shiner. I feared if I said too much, he’d be able to see what I’d been able to hide from others for months. That I might look okay on the outside, but inside I was still tender and purple and swollen.

We eventually wound our way back to where we’d started, a short distance from my car. “I’m parked right here,” I said.

He walked me the rest of the way. I had my keys in one hand, my other reaching for the door handle, when he said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

Rats. So close, and yet.

“Of course not.”

“It’s just that you were the last person with Marissa.”

Alarms sounded in my head as he continued, “My parents and I have the details on the accident, but the one thing we can’t figure out is why wasn’t she buckled? She always wore her seat belt. It didn’t make any sense. I hate to bother you with it, but it’s been driving us crazy.”

There you had it. I was going to have to reveal her final moments. Granted, I could say I didn’t know, but that seemed crueler than the truth.

“She was getting a recipe for me from her purse.”

“A recipe?”

“For a taco soup.”

“A recipe.” He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “That’d be my sister.”

His expression was so disappointed that I added, “It sounded quite tasty.”

“I’m sure it did.”

Oh, why didn’t I lie? Tell him that she’d been telling me how she adored her family-especially that brother of hers?

“Sorry it wasn’t something better,” I said lamely.

“It’s okay. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It’s only that ‘”  He stuffed his hands in his pockets, leaning against my car. “There’s so much I don’t know-that I never will. That’s what keeps you up at night. It’s not only that you miss them. It’s the regret that you didn’t ask the big questions while they were still here.”

 He looked over toward where her grave sat and then continued. “A few weeks before she died, Marissa and I were at my parents’ house for dinner. We were outside, goofing around, playing a little one-on-one. I asked her how her life was different since she’d lost the weight-besides the fact that she could now whup my ass at basketball. She told me she had so many things she wanted to do. And she sounded so excited that I’d asked her what kinds of things. But then my mom called us for dinner, one thing led to another, and I never got around to following up. I mean, what was the big hurry, you know? We had all the time in the world.”

Oh God. My insides bubbled and frothed as he spoke.

Returning the list wouldn’t have been unkind. It was wrong to keep it, especially now that this perfectly nice guy standing in front of me had been grieving all the more because of my selfishness.

“Um actually,” I ventured, not sure what to say, but feeling I had to say something. “There was one more thing. She had a list.” When he didn’t respond right away, I blurted, “Your sister had written a list of things she wanted to do by her twenty-fifth birthday. I have it.”

His eyes shifted to meet mine, and-brrrr-did the temperature just drop fifty degrees? Because the look in them was icier than I could have ever imagined. “You kept it? There was a list and you kept it?”

Well, when he put it that way

“I had to,” I said defensively.

“Why?”

Why indeed? Panic was setting in when, luckily, I thought of a lie so brilliant that it felt as if it were the truth.

“Because I’m completing the list for her.”

The change in his face was like one of those square puzzles where you can move the pieces around to form a picture-it hadn’t settled yet, and since I didn’t know what it was going to be, I kept talking. “I figured since Marissa couldn’t do it for herself, well& it’s only right that it be me. I was the one driving when the accident happened. I feel responsible.”

And there it was: The coldness had melted and was replaced with an expression I couldn’t quite read but I knew that I liked. It lifted me up and floated me skyward. I was no longer June Parker, accidental murderess and borderline slacker. I was the sort of woman who’d find a list of uncompleted dreams and take it upon herself to get the job done. I fucking rocked.

“That’s so amazing,” he managed to say, and then to my horror he added, “Do you have the list with you? Can you show it to me?”

“It’s at home,” I replied hurriedly. “And I’m afraid you’d be disappointed to see it. There’s not much crossed off what with her birthday still being months away.” July 12, I remembered from her tombstone. Less than six months left to go. “In fact, if we could not make a big deal out of this, I’d be grateful. I’m nervous enough about it. I’d rather keep things to myself right now, if you don’t mind.”

“I understand.” He nodded. “No problem.”

I made a show of glancing at my watch and then said, “I’d better get going.”

“Sure.”

As I got into my car, he pulled out his wallet and fished through it. He handed me a business card. “Call me if there’s anything I can do to help. Anything at all.”

It occurred to me there was something he could do. “It’d probably be helpful for me to know more about Marissa. I don’t want to bother you too much. Maybe you could send me her old yearbooks or photo albums? Anything that might shed light on what might have motivated her to write the things on the list that she did.”

He agreed without hesitation, and I gave him my business card before driving away, the blood pumping through my veins so wildly that I suspected I must be visibly throbbing.

I was going to do this. I was going to complete the items on Marissa Jones’s list. If I couldn’t make something out of my own life, at least I’d make something out of hers.

For the first time in a long time-since the accident and even before-I felt a surge of an emotion so unfamiliar, it took me the entire drive home to figure out what it was.

Hope.

I felt hope.

WHICH BROUGHT ME to where I was: at a bar, realizing there was no way I was going to kiss this jerk, no matter how bad I wanted to cross something off a list.

“So,” he said, flashing a gleaming white grin as he handed me back my paper (and, may I add, there is such a thing as too much whitening), “what kind of kiss?”

His friend Frank filled him in: “Mouth tongue optional.”

“Never mind,” I said, “I’ll just-“

Before I could finish, his mouth was on mine, his tongue thrust between my lips. It wasn’t awful. My first attempts with Grant Smith back in high school were certainly a whole lot sloppier. But I’d experienced significantly more zing with Grant. This kiss, frankly, left me feeling as if I might as well be paralyzed from the waist down.

As he pulled away, he said a glib, “You’re welcome.”

Oh, please. I wish he’d said it while he was kissing me, because then I could have thrown up in his mouth.

“Unfortunately,” I said, feigning regret, “the list specifically states that I have to do this kissing-you know, be the kisser, not the kissee. I’m afraid this doesn’t qualify. But hey-“ I winked at the guys at the table before turning to go- “I appreciate the effort.”

On my way, I nearly bumped into a busboy. Hmm. He appeared to be about seventeen years old and was conveniently just my height. “Mind indulging me?” I asked. I took hold of his collar to pull him closer and-pausing for a few seconds to give him a chance to run for the hills if he wanted-planted a kiss on his mouth. No tongue, but plenty warm and moist, and-yes!-there was that zing I was talking about.

Then, over the sound of the guys at the table having quite a guffaw about the whole thing, I grabbed Susan. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. After all, I still had plenty more things I needed to cross off the list. And as my grandma used to say, there’s no rest for the wicked.

Chapter 2

20 Things to Do by My 25th Birthday

1. Lose 100 pounds

2. Kiss a stranger

3. Change someone’ s life

4. Wear sexy shoes

5. Run a 5K

6. Dare to go braless

7. Make Buddy Fitch pay

8. Be the hottest girl at Oasis

9. Get on TV

10. Ride in a helicopter

11. Pitch an idea at work

12. Try boogie boarding

13. Eat ice cream in public

14. Go on a blind date

15. Take Mom and Grandma to see Wayne Newton

16. Get a massage

17. Throw away my bathroom scale

18. Watch a sunrise

19. Show my brother how grateful I am for him

20. Make a big donation to charity

“Skydiving is at the top of my list,” Susan said, taking a bite of her ice-cream cone.

“You have a list?”

“Not anything written. But sure, there are things I want to do before I die.”

“Well, I for one can’t imagine anything worse than skydiving-hurtling through the air, no control over how fast you’re falling or where you might land. Why people find that fun is beyond me.”

We sat at an outdoor cafe; taking a break from work, slurping on double-scoop ice-cream cones. The offices of Los Angeles Rideshare-where Susan is client services director and supervises a staff of twenty and I work as a writer and am more, say, in the worker bee category-are located in one of the older downtown business districts. Ornate buildings line the narrow streets, making it seem unusually old for Los Angeles. On this particular afternoon, with the sun blazing warm on our shoulders, we watched pouring rain across the street where a Visa commercial was being filmed. Huge machines sprayed water on faux New York taxis. Tourists stood at the periphery in tank tops and shorts, holding pens and paper for autographs in case that guy grinning at the camera was a real celebrity.

As much as I was riding high from the success of kissing the busboy, I knew there was much more to do.

The list sat on the table between us so Susan could help me establish the rules-the dos and don’ts, as it were, for completing it. For example, we decided that I didn’t have to do the tasks in order. Also, I had to obey, as Susan put it, ‘the spirit of the law’ -a result of my saying that to do #8, Be the hottest girl at Oasis, I could merely walk into the bar and set myself on fire.

“So what’s your plan to get this done on time?” Susan asked as she used a napkin to dab at ice cream that had spilled onto her blouse. She looked amazing as always, wearing a simple silk pantsuit, no makeup except for red lipstick, and her black hair knotted into an effortless updo. It was the sort of look that made me regard my flowered skirt and blouse from the Everything $15 Store a little less charitably than I had when the cashier had been ringing it up.

“My plan?” My brow furrowed. “I figured I’d wing it.”

“I don’t know, June. Some of these seem time-consuming. Like this one: Change someone’s life. That’s hardly the sort of thing you can handle on your lunch break.”

“Oh, don’t worry-I did that already. In fact, do you have a pen? I’ll cross it off.” I sounded so gloomy that Susan looked at me perplexed until I elaborated. “Marissa was alive. Now she’s dead. That’s quite a change, don’t you think?”

“Ugh. How long do you intend to beat yourself up over this?”

“Until this list is done, that’s how long.”

“All the more reason to take it seriously.”

“I sure hope I finish.”

I didn’t need to say anything more than that. Susan and I have been best friends since we met as students at UC Santa Barbara-she’s been around long enough to know that it won’t be easy for me. She’s seen it all. The vacations I planned but never got around to booking. The half-completed master’s degree in marketing I thought would jump-start my career. For that matter, the poncho I recently tried to crochet that took so long, ponchos went back out of style.

“You know that anything I can do to help I will.”

“Thanks.” I glanced at my watch. “I’d better get back to the office. Lizbeth’s having one of her famous late afternoon meetings to make sure none of us tries to sneak out early. But hey, at least I’m getting one task accomplished today.” I held up my ice-cream cone in the gesture of a toast. “Number thirteen: Eat ice cream in public.”

“About this one, I don’ t get it. What’s the big deal about eating ice cream?”

“Fat people aren’t allowed to eat in public.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, a bit snobbily in my opinion. “I notice them eating all the time.”

“Exactly.”

“You lost me.”

“It’s hard to enjoy the eating experience when you feel everyone’s staring at you, thinking, No wonder she’s such a fat cow. Look how she eats.”

“I don’t think that!”

“Sure.” Although I’d never carried the sort of weight Marissa had, I was no stranger to how feeling fat can affect things. I’ve gone up and down the same ten or twenty pounds my whole life. I have one of those body types that lean in that direction: all curves and boobs and butt. Currently, thanks to being too miserable to eat after the accident, I was the lowest weight I’ve been in a long time-a diet strategy, by the way, that I don’t recommend. Logically I know that I’m not overweight, but I fear that one wrong move-one taco or burrito too many-and I could burst into fat without a moment’s notice.