Libby shoots me a pointed look, brow arched. I set my phone down and hold up my hands, hoping to signal I’m present.
“So,” she says, appeased, and drags her cartoonishly large purse onto the folding tray table, “I figure now is as good a time as any to go over the plan.” She fishes out an actual, full-sized folder and flops it open.
“Oh my god, what is that?” I say. “Are you planning a bank robbery?”
“Heist, Sissy. Robbery sounds so déclassé, and we’re going to be wearing three-piece suits the whole time,” she says, not missing a beat as she pulls out two identical laminated sheets with the typed heading LIFE-CHANGING VACATION LIST.
“Who are you and where did you bury my sister?” I ask.
“I know how much you love a checklist,” she says brightly. “So I took the liberty of crafting one to create our perfect small-town adventure.”
I reach for one of the sheets. “I hope number one is ‘dance atop a Coyote Ugly bar.’ Though I’m not sure any manager worth her salt will allow that in your condition.”
She feigns offense. “Am I showing much?”
“Noooo,” I coo. “Not at all.”
“You’re so bad at lying. It looks like your face muscles are being controlled by a half dozen amateur puppeteers. Now, back to the bucket list.”
“Bucket list? Which of us is dying?”
She looks up, eyes sparkling. I’d say it’s the glint of mischief, but her eyes are pretty much always sparkly. “Birth is a kind of death,” she says, rubbing her tummy. “Death of the self. Death of sleep. Death of your ability not to pee yourself a little when you laugh. But I guess it’s more like a small-town romance novel experience list than a bucket list. It’s how we’re both going to be transformed via small-town magic into more relaxed versions of ourselves.”
I eye the list again. Before Libby got pregnant the first time, she briefly worked for a top-tier events planner (among many, many, many other things), so despite her natural tendency toward spontaneity (read: chaos), she’d made some strides in organization, even pre-motherhood. But this level of planning is so extremely . . . me, and I’m weirdly touched she’s put so much thought into this.
Also shocked to discover the first item on the list is Wear a flannel shirt. “I don’t own a flannel shirt,” I say.
Libby shrugs. “Me neither. We’ll have to thrift some—maybe we can find some cowgirl boots too.”
When we were teenagers, we’d spend hours sorting through junk for gems at our favorite Goodwill. I’d go for the sleek designer pieces and she’d beeline toward anything with color, fringe, or rhinestones.
Again I feel that heart-pinch sensation, like I’m missing her, like all our best moments are behind us. That, I remind myself, is why I’m doing this. By the time we get back to the city, whatever little gaps have cropped up between us will be stitched closed again.
“Flannel,” I say. “Got it.” The second item on the list is Bake something. Continuing the trend of us being polar opposites, my sister loves cooking, but since she’s usually beholden to the taste buds of a four-and three-year-old, she’s always saved her more adventurous recipes for our nights in together. My eyes skim down the list.
General makeover (let hair down/get bangs?)
Build something (literal, not figurative)
The first four items almost directly correlate to Libby’s Graveyard of Abandoned Potential Careers. Before her event-planning job, she’d briefly run an online vintage store that curated thrift store finds; and before that, she’d wanted to be a baker; and before that, a hairstylist; and for one very brief summer, she’d decided she wanted to be a carpenter because there weren’t “enough women in that field.” She was eight.
So everything so far makes sense—at least as much as this entire thing makes sense (which is to say, only in Libby’s brain)—but then my gaze catches on number five. “Ummm, what is this?”
“Go on at least two dates with locals,” she reads, visibly excited. “That one’s not for me.” She lifts her copy of the list, on which number five is struck through.
“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” I say.
“You’ll recall that I’m married,” she says, “and five trillion weeks pregnant.”
“And I’m a career woman with a weekly housekeeping service, a spare bedroom I turned into a shoe closet, and a Sephora credit card. I don’t imagine my dream man is a lobster hunter.”
Libby lights up and scooches forward in her seat. “Exactly!” she says. “Look, Nora, you know I love your beautiful, Dewey-decimal-organized brain, but you date like you’re shopping for cars.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“And it always ends badly.”
“Oh, thank god.” I clutch my chest. “I was worried that wouldn’t come up soon.”
She tries to turn in her seat and grabs my hands on the armrest between us. “I’m just saying, you keep dating these guys who are exactly like you, with all the same priorities.”
“You can really shorten that sentence if you just say ‘men I’m compatible with.’?”
“Sometimes opposites attract,” she says. “Think about all your exes. Think about Jakob and his cowgirl wife!”
Something cold lances through me at the mention of him; Libby doesn’t notice.
“The whole point of this trip is to step outside our comfort zones,” she insists. “To get a chance to . . . to be someone different! Besides, who knows? Maybe if you branch out a little, you’ll find your own life-changing love story instead of another walking checklist of a boyfriend.”
“I like dating checklists, thank you very much,” I say. “Checklists keep things simple. I mean, think about Mom, Lib.” She was constantly falling in love, and never with men who made any sense for her. It always came crashing down spectacularly, usually leaving her so broken she’d miss work or auditions, or do so badly at either that she’d get fired or cut.
“You’re nothing like Mom.” She says it flippantly, but it still stings. I’m well aware how little I take after our mother. I felt those shortcomings every second of every day after we lost her, when I was trying to keep us afloat.
And I know that’s not what Libby’s saying, but it still doesn’t feel all too different from every breakup I can remember: a long-winded monologue ending with something along the lines of FOR ALL I KNOW, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE FEELINGS.
“I mean, how often do you get to just let loose and not worry about how it fits into your perfect little plan?” Libby goes on. “You deserve to have some low-pressure fun, and frankly, I deserve to live vicariously through you. Ergo, the dates.”
“So am I allowed to take the earpiece out after dinner, or . . .”
Libby throws up her hands. “You know what, fine, forget number five! Even though it would be good for you. Even though I basically designed this whole trip for you to have your small-town romance novel experience, I guess—”
“Okay, okay!” I cry. “I’ll do the lumberjack dates, but they’d better look like Robert Redford.”
She squeals excitedly. “Young or old?”
I stare at her.
“Right,” she says. “Got it. So, moving on. Number six: Go skinny-dipping in a natural body of water.”
“What if there are bacteria that affect the baby or something?” I ask.
“Damn it,” she grumbles, frowning. “I really didn’t think all of this through as well as I thought.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “It’s an amazing list.”
“You’ll just have to go skinny-dipping without me,” she says, distracted.
“A lone thirty-two-year-old woman, naked in the local swimming hole. Sounds like a good way to get arrested.”
“Seven,” she reads. “Sleep under the stars. Eight: Attend a town function—i.e. local wedding or festival of some kind.”
I find a Sharpie in my bag and add funeral, bris, ladies’ night at the local roller rink.
“Trying to meet a hot ER doctor, are we?” Libby says, and I scratch out the part about the roller rink. Then I notice number nine.
Ride a horse.
“Again.” I wave vaguely toward Libby’s stomach. I cross out ride and change it to pet, and she gives a resigned sigh.
Start a fire (controlled)
Hike???? (Worth it???)