The Fall in Love Checklist

by Sarah Ready

  “Side of ice cream?”

  “Double scoop.”

  She turns back to me. “I love dive bars,” she says.

  “You’re drunk on grease and the second-hand fumes of old beer.”

  She tilts her head back and laughs. I stare at the column of her neck. It’s smooth where it meets the pearl buttons of her cardigan. I flag down the waitress for an ice water.

  A few minutes later, I watch Dany down the bowl of fried sugar. She pops ball after fried ball into her mouth and licks the vanilla ice cream from the spoon. She moans in appreciation.

  Dang.

  “Want some?” she asks.

  “No.” I shake my head.

  “You look like you really want some,” she says. She holds out the spoon to me.

  I shake my head again. This is the first time in my life I’ve had a hard-on from fried balls. I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

  “What’s happening over there?” Dany points to the other end of the bar. There’s a crowd of people cheering.

  “That’s Chet’s mechanical bull contest. The longest rider on gets to wear the beer cap crown the rest of the night.” I’m talking to myself. Dany’s already off the bench. She strides to the other side of the bar.

  I throw forty dollars on the table and follow her.

  Her eyes shine. “I’m doing this,” she says.

  Currently, there’s a champion on the bull. She has on hot pants and a midriff shirt showing off her six-pack.

  “Really?” I ask.

  Dany’s eyes shift to the bull. She bites her lips. Tilts her head. I think she’s going to change her mind. Then she pushes her shoulders back and she mutters under her breath, “You’re doing this, Dany. You’re living.”

  When she looks up I can tell she’s decided on the bull.

  “I’m signing up,” she says. She points to the emcee holding a clipboard.

  After she’s signed in we work our way to the front of the sidelines.

  “If I win, I also get a twenty-five dollar cash prize and a bucket of peanuts,” she says.

  “Heck, maybe I should sign up too,” I say.

  She elbows my side.

  I try to hold back a laugh, but can’t.

  “Laugh now, buddy. But you won’t be laughing when I don’t share my winnings.” She arches an eyebrow at me. I grin back.

  Finally, the pro bull rider is bucked.

  The crowd cheers.

  The emcee silences them. Then he announces Dany.

  “Next up, a virgin rider. We love our virgins here. Miss Dany. She’s here to get bucked with a capital F.” The crowd hoots. “If any of you boys have the school teacher fantasy, you might try our girl after she’s had her bull cherry popped.”

  Heck no.

  I send a glare around the crowd and let them know she’s not available for bucking with a capital F.

  I look at her. Her face is white. Is she losing her confidence?

  “You can do this,” she whispers. Then, “Just a minute,” she calls. She hustles over to the jukebox and slides in two quarters. When she turns around a 1980s dance song starts to play.

  She winks at me and mouths trouble.

  Wow.

  The guys in the bar go wild.

  She struts over to the bull. She’s nervous, but I don’t think anyone else can tell.

  She climbs onto the bull and wraps her legs over the saddle. Her pencil skirt rides up her legs. She has on thigh-high stockings with a dark line up the edge and stiletto heels. I’ve never seen anything more erotic in my life. She rolls up the sleeves of her pink cardigan and sends me a wink.

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  The emcee turns on the bull.

  Her body sways to the bucking. She clenches her thighs and rocks. As the music picks up and the electric guitar and drums play, Dany sends one arm in the air and starts doing the lasso. She sends the imaginary rope to me and mimics pulling me in.

  Holy…

  The bull enters its beastly bucking stage. This is when most riders get tossed. I can tell Dany isn’t ready for it. Her arms are up and she’s doing, what is that, the sprinkler dance from the eighties?

  Oh no.

  The mechanical bull bucks.

  The guys in the crowd cheer.

  You have to give Dany points for class. As she flips through the air, she tucks under and, dang, she makes it look graceful.

  “She’s bucked,” yells the emcee.

  “Yeah!” The guy next to me pumps his arms in the air.

  Dany bounces off the landing trampoline and knocks into a big guy at the edge of the crowd.

  He falls to the ground with an “oof.” Dany lands on top of him. His container of cheesy fries and beer are squished between them.

  I shove my way through the crowd. They’re all cheering and hollering. Dany pushes herself up off the chest of the cheesy fry-covered man. I grab her and help her up. She wobbles back and forth on her feet.

  “Hey, I know you.” The guy stands up and looms over Dany.

  “Back up, buddy,” I say.

  He shoves a finger into my chest. “And I know you, too.”

  I look up from his cheese-covered belly to his beefy shoulders to his red bearded face. He’s nodding at my look of recognition. He hits a fist into his hand.

  “Oh yeah,” he says.

  “Dany,” I say. “We should go.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Dany, we need to go.”

  “I don’t feel so—” She cuts off. Then she lets loose a fried onion bacon burger, fries, and a basket of deep-fried Snicker balls all over our bearded friend.

  The song has ended. There’s dead silence in the bar.

  The big guy looks at his cheesy puke-covered T-shirt and roars. He swings a fist in my direction. I’m ready this time. I duck. The guy slips in the mess and crashes to the ground. He knocks a few guys over on his way down.

  You better believe all hell is about to break loose. Dany’s still standing, staring with horror at the guy rolling on the ground.

  “Let’s go,” I say over the sudden yelling and cursing. The bar fight has begun.

  She doesn’t hear me. So I do what any good date would. I grab her and fireman-carry her butt out of the bar.

  I bust out onto the street and rush to the truck. I toss her into the front seat, jump into the driver’s side and lock the doors.

  My heart is jackhammering in my chest.

  “You alright?” I ask after I’ve caught my breath.

  “No. I didn’t get my bucket of peanuts.”

  I look at her in shock. Then she starts to laugh. “Your face. Your face.” She points and starts laughing again.

  I try to level a stare, but I can’t. It’s too funny.

  “You’ve got a little vomit,” I say. I touch her hair. “Right here.”

  “Oh jeez,” she laughs. She stops and holds her stomach. Her face turns green.

  “Chemo sucks,” she says. Then she opens the car door and lets loose everything left in her stomach.

  She comes back up after a minute. She closes the door with a snick.

  “Sorry about that,” she says.

  “Don’t worry. You alright?” I ask.

  “I’m okay. Vomiting’s okay. It means I’m still alive.”

  “Amen to that,” I say.

  I start the truck.

  “Well, Jack Jones. You’re signed up now. Official sidekick. Rescuer. Back-gotter.” The slang sounds funny mixed with her proper accent.

  I chuckle. “That’s right. I’ve got your back.”

  “I’ve never had a back-gotter before,” she says. There’s a small smile on her lips.

  I put the truck in gear and pull onto the street.

  “Can we go home now?” I ask.

  “Absolutely. Have to rest up for tomorrow’s fun.”

  I give her a quick, startled look then turn back to the road. “You’re kidding.”

  “I never kid. It’s against the 1950s debutante
handbook.”

  I laugh. Then look over at her again. The headlights behind us illuminate the inside of the truck.

  She sits all prim and proper with torn stockings, a cheese-stained cardigan and puke in her hair. And I’m struck. Dumbstruck by the fact that I’m deeply, irrevocably in love with this woman. My heart thuds. She can never know.

  I can’t…

  The truck swerves a little and I pull back into my lane.

  I glance at Dany again. Nothing’s changed. She hasn’t noticed a thing.

  I let out a sharp, painful breath.

  For the rest of the ride home I avoid looking at her. I ignore her smiles and her hilariously awful humming renditions of eighties songs. Instead, I concentrate on the task at hand. Driving. Building my business. Raising my sister. Daniella Drake as a means to absolution. Nothing else.

  19

  Dany

  * * *

  I hear crying. It’s muffled, but it’s definitely crying. The house is inky dark and otherwise quiet. It must be the middle of the night.

  After Jack and I got back to the house on Rose Street, I slept. And slept. I slept through the next day, waking up for quick bathroom breaks and glasses of water. And then I slept some more.

  List doing takes a lot out of me. Or it’s the chemo. Take your pick.

  I look at my clock, its 12:05 in the morning. I hear another sob. It’s coming from downstairs.

  “This doesn’t sound good,” I say. Sometimes I talk in the dark. It’s a hold-over from when I was a kid and afraid of nights alone in my mausoleum-white bedroom. I swing my legs off the bed and touch my bare feet to the cold wood floor.

  Brrr.

  I wonder if I should wake Jack? No, I’ll go see what it is myself. I tiptoe down the stairs. The crying’s coming from the kitchen. I stop at the entry and peek around the corner. It’s Sissy. She’s at the kitchen table with her face in her hands. The kitchen’s dimly lit by the under-cabinet lighting. Sissy’s shoulders shake and she lets out another cry.

  I don’t know if I should stay or leave.

  Sissy lifts her head. Her face is streaked with mascara. “Hey,” she says.

  “Oh, um…hey.” I don’t think it’s polite to ask her why she’s crying. I shift my bare feet on the cold kitchen tile.

  She shakes her head. “You may as well come in.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

  “I just came down for some, uh, cookies. I’ve always wanted to make cookies. And I woke up and said to myself, this is my moment. My cookie moment.”

  Sissy lets out a small laugh. “You are seriously weird.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  She grins and wipes at her eyes with her sleeve.

  I walk into the kitchen and start randomly opening cupboards. Now that I came up with the idea, I kind of like it. Growing up, chef always made the meals and the desserts. I’ve never in my life made a cookie. Now’s the time. Plus, I am actually hungry.

  “Do you know what goes in a cookie?” I ask.

  “What kind of cookie? Like peanut butter?”

  “What about chocolate chip?” I love chocolate chip cookies.

  Sissy stands and pokes around in the cupboards. She grabs a bunch of containers then pulls eggs and butter from the refrigerator. She puts everything on the counter next to a mixer, measuring cups and spoons.

  “Wow. You must be really good at baking,” I say.

  “Seriously? I’ve never baked in my life.”

  I look at the ingredients on the counter and back at her.

  She shrugs. “Did you know I grew up in the back of a car?”

  She watches me and waits for my reaction. I shake my head. “Didn’t you…I thought…didn’t you grow up with Jack?”

  She turns and opens the container of sugar. “Nah. I only met Jack like half a year ago. My whole life I didn’t know he existed. I lived in a car with my dad.”

  She’s drawing little patterns in the sugar. Stars, flowers, hearts.

  “That must’ve been hard,” I say. I think of my childhood home. Then I think of her, living in a car.

  “I loved it,” she says. She wipes away her doodles and turns to me. There’s a deep earnestness on her face.

  I shake my head. What do I say?

  “Dad figured I’d be more settled with Jack. He’s an alright brother.”

  “So, your dad dropped you off and then…what?”

  “It wasn’t like that. Dad wanted me to stay, it just didn’t work out.”

  I nod. “Right. Of course.”

  “Seriously,” she says.

  “I believe you.”

  I grab a measuring cup and scoop up some sugar.

  “Cream it with the butter,” Sissy says. She drops a stick in the bowl.

  “Don’t know what cream means,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes and turns on the mixer.

  “How’d you learn to bake cookies if you grew up in a car?”

  “I binge watch cooking shows. I’ve seen chocolate chip cookies made about five thousand times. Trust me. We can figure it out.”

  “Alright,” I say.

  Sissy directs and I add and mix. I’m pretty sure she’s making up half the measurements, but that’s okay.

  “Done,” she says.

  I look down at the soupy mixture. “Do you think it needs more flour?”

  “Nah.”

  I poke my finger in. When I pull it out it makes a sucking noise.

  Sissy laughs and plunks a cookie sheet onto the counter. I drizzle the mix into little circles on the pan.

  “Are you sure it shouldn’t be less, I don’t know, less…wet?”

  Sissy sighs and shakes her head. “Is this your cookie moment or not?”

  I put back my shoulders. “It’s my cookie moment.”

  “That’s right.” She points at me, “it’s your cookie moment. No wussing out.”

  I set the baking sheet in the oven and then clean up the mess. Sissy watches. I start to feel brave.

  “Why were you crying?” I ask. “Do you miss your dad?”

  Even though I never knew my biological dad, sometimes, when I was little, I missed him. Or the idea of him. Then John Drake became my dad, and that was that.

  She leans back on the counter and stares up at the ceiling. “Maybe I was crying because I don’t miss him.”

  I turn to her. She’s still looking at the ceiling.

  “Really?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Dude. No. I got dumped.”

  She wipes at her nose.

  “You did?” This, I can handle. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugs. “He was a dick.”

  “You too?” I ask.

  She gives a small laugh. “He was, like, pressuring me to get a hotel room on prom night.”

  “Oh. Ohhh. What did you tell him?”

  She shrugs. “That I wasn’t super excited about losing my virginity to an inexperienced sixteen-year-old who’d jizz all over me within thirteen seconds of fumbled groping in the dark.”

  I snort. I can’t help it. My hand flies to my mouth and I try to cover my laugh but I can’t. “You didn’t.”

  “Dude. I did.”

  I grin at Sissy. She shrugs.

  “I thought thirteen seconds was generous. But he was pretty mad.”

  “No,” I say.

  She nods and wipes at her eyes. “Then he said that my chest was flat and I was too tight for a man of his size, blah blah blah, and he said he was going to take Jessie to the prom anyway seeing that I’m not even a woman yet.”

  “What a dick,” I say. I feel liberated saying it.

  Sissy nods.

  “Seriously,” I say. I use her tone of voice.

  She looks at me, a glint of humor in her eyes. A grin spreads over my face.

  “Seriously,” she laughs.

  We both crack up.

  The oven beeps. “The cookies,” I say. I open th
e door with anticipation.

  A huge puff of smoke pours out and fills the kitchen.

  “Ack,” I say.

  Sissy coughs and waves her hands in the air. Within three seconds, the fire alarm starts to blare. I grab an oven mitt and yank the cookie sheet out.

  Sissy jumps up and down and waves a towel in front of the alarm. I toss the cookies on the stove and then open a window. Then I grab a towel and start waving. The alarm won’t stop beeping.

  Over the noise I hear feet pounding down the hall and then Jack runs into the kitchen.

  He’s in pajama bottoms and his hair is tousled and sleep mussed. He stops short when he hits the smoke. “Sissy. Are you okay? Dany?”

  I drop the towel. So this is what he looks like in bed. My word.

  Then I take in his expression.

  His eyes are wild, his face white. He’s pulling in short, harsh breaths.

  He’s not just scared or startled by the alarm, he’s…panicked?

  Sissy manages to stop the beeping.

  “Hey, Jack. Sorry to wake you,” she says.

  “You’re alright,” he whispers. He takes a breath and the wild look in his eyes fades. “You’re alright,” he says again.

  “Dude. What’s the deal?” asks Sissy. She frowns at Jack. “It’s just a little smoke.”

  “Right. It’s alright,” he says. He walks into the kitchen and manages to half hide a wince when he reaches the lingering smoke.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He nods. “I’m fine.”

  I clear my throat and change the topic. “We were just making…” I gape at the long rectangular blob with blackened edges.

  “What is that?” Jack asks.

  Sissy comes over and looks at the pan. “That, my friends, is a Texas chocolate chip cookie bar cake.” She stops and her face scrunches up as she tries to restrain a laugh. “Not. It’s not,” she says.

  I poke at the glob with a fork. A piece of burnt sugar sizzles. “I’m still eating it,” I say.

  “Oh yeah. Me too,” says Sissy.

  Jack looks skeptically at the tray.

  “Come on, bro. This is Dany’s cookie moment.”

  He shakes his head, but takes the fork I offer.

  I blow on the hot sugary mess. It burns my tongue as I chew.

  “It’s surprisingly…”

  “Awful, it’s awful,” says Sissy.