The List

by Melanie Jacobson

  BoardRyder: Do you have to kill all my good ideas?

  TwinkieSmash: Pretty sure I’ve only knocked down bad ones so far.

  BoardRyder: All right. That’s true. So we’re not talking about Mr. G?

  TwinkieSmash: Well . . .

  BoardRyder: What’s up?

  TwinkieSmash: Maybe I could use a little advice.

  BoardRyder: I’m the best advice giver ever.

  TwinkieSmash: Wow.

  BoardRyder: No, seriously. I’m awesome. Try me.

  TwinkieSmash: I guess I’m kind of confused.

  BoardRyder: About what? How he feels? Common problem.

  TwinkieSmash: No, I think I’m more confused about how I want him to feel.

  BoardRyder: Don’t you want him to like you?

  TwinkieSmash: Yeah. I don’t know how much, though.

  BoardRyder: He kissed you. That probably means something.

  TwinkieSmash: Maybe. But some guys don’t think kissing is such a big deal.

  BoardRyder: Does he have a reputation for kissing around or something?

  TwinkieSmash: No. Actually, he wanted me to agree that no matter who we dated, we’d only kiss each other.

  BoardRyder: Then kissing definitely means something to him, and that must mean that you mean something to him too.

  TwinkieSmash: Huh.

  BoardRyder: What?

  TwinkieSmash: I don’t think you’re using very good strategy if you’re trying to date me in the fall.

  BoardRyder: Are we going to have this conversation again?

  TwinkieSmash: Which one?

  BoardRyder: The one where I might be a troll or I might not like you.

  TwinkieSmash: Oh, that conversation.

  BoardRyder: Besides, if you came back here stuck on another guy, I definitely wouldn’t want to date you.

  TwinkieSmash: I’m not stuck on anyone.

  BoardRyder: No?

  And somehow, an hour later, after some surf talk that somehow morphed into a philosophical discussion and then devolved into trading stupid pirate jokes, I found myself exhausted and still reluctant to sign off. I’d have to cut back on chat time with Ryder, I decided. I couldn’t spend the whole summer dancing away from any attachments to Matt only to get all caught up with Ryder. That would make no sense at all . . .

  Chapter 19

  It was a good thing I wasn’t prone to introspection or meditating on my feelings because I suddenly had less time for it than ever. My boss at Hannigan’s had me taking extra shifts whenever he could stick them on my schedule while I wasn’t looking. He needed all hands on deck. Between Independence Day celebrations and the US Open of Surfing, July got a little nutty.

  I squeezed in a few phone calls with Matt during all the madness but kept it breezy. With Ryder, I let my guard down a bit. It felt safer to tell him things since he wasn’t a romantic interest. Yet. The whole situation had this weird dichotomy: every time Matt’s name lit up my caller ID, my stomach fluttered and I worked hard to keep things light. Ryder’s little green light on my computer screen had zero effect on my innards, but while every chat started as a snark fest, we somehow moved on to politics or heated debates about favorite bands by conversation’s end. It was kind of like having the best of both worlds without committing to either.

  When I got home from work on Thursday, it was only nine. My boss had let me go as soon as it slowed down because I’d worked all day. Dave slouched on the couch, not even turning his head to see who had come in. I plopped down next to him.

  “What’s going on, mopey?”

  “Not much,” he said. “Except I didn’t ask Laurel out tonight.”

  “She wasn’t at Institute?”

  “No, she was.” He picked at the fringe on one of throw pillows. “But Megan never went away, and I think she hates me because I’m related to you. She gave me the stink eye all night, and the last thing I wanted was her hanging around while I tried to talk to Laurel.”

  “So you’re going to call instead?”

  He winced.

  “Why not just call her?” I’d overhead him on the phone with her a few times so I knew they managed to talk somehow.

  “It’s embarrassing,” he confessed. “That’s why I want to ask her in person.”

  “That’s a little backwards,” I told him. “Usually people would rather risk rejection on the phone than face-to-face.”

  “That’s because there are no witnesses that way,” he said. “It’s a little different with Laurel.”

  “How?”

  “She uses this video relay thing when we talk, and there’s always someone else listening to our conversation.”

  “Whoa, what? How does that work?”

  “I’m not totally sure because I only know my side of it,” he shrugged. “I guess when I call her, the call goes through an interpreter who Laurel sees on a screen. Then the interpreter signs whatever I say to Laurel, and then Laurel talks back.”

  “So like, the interpreter tells you what Laurel’s signing?”

  He shook his head. “I think that’s normally how it goes, but Laurel’s speech is good so she talks directly to me.”

  “It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. I think you should call her tonight,” I said. “Just get it over with. Then you guys can go out this weekend and you don’t have to wait a whole week wondering if she’s going to be at Institute on Tuesday.”

  “I don’t know. I’m usually pretty confident about girls—”

  I snorted.

  “—but she’s got me all twisted up somehow.”

  I almost said I could relate but I caught myself before it slipped out. I could barely acknowledge Matt’s effect on me in the privacy of my own mind. I wasn’t about to confess that weakness out loud. Instead, I punched my cousin on the shoulder.

  “Call her,” I said. “She’ll say yes. I know she will. I’m going to go wander off to eat some fruit and pretend I’m not dying to hear the conversation.”

  “Thanks, Smash,” he said in relief.

  “You better hurry,” I said. “Celia’s off in about a half hour and I don’t think she’s going to cut you the same slack.”

  I left him fumbling his cell phone out of his pocket while I went foraging in the kitchen for food. There was always plenty to eat at Hannigan’s, but it turned out it is possible to get sick of steak. I craved something lighter. After I found and peeled a banana, I enjoyed it down to the last bite, wondering how Dave’s conversation was going. It was funny to see someone fall so fast for another person. He’d only had a couple of conversations with Laurel, but twitterpation already had a firm grip on him. For all of our banter and teasing, Dave was high on my list of Good Guys, and I hoped Laurel saw it too.

  I started in on a pint of fresh strawberries from the stand Aunt Trudy liked to visit on Beach Boulevard. I got to savor exactly one bite before Dave charged into the kitchen doing a jerky victory dance. I watched his graceless gyrations for a few seconds before guessing, “She said yes?”

  He nodded and pointed to the phone. “It’s on mute, but I asked her if you could listen in to how the video relay thing works.”

  “Really? Cool!”

  He unmuted the sound and then said, “Laurel? Ashley’s listening now too.”

  There was a short delay where Dave whispered, “The interpreter is signing to her.” Then I heard Laurel’s distinctive voice say, “Hi, Ashley.”

  “Hi, Laurel. Thanks for letting me listen in.”

  Another pause followed and then a male voice came on the line. “I’m going to let the interpreter voice for me for a minute so you can see how it is for most deaf people to talk on the phone.”

  It sounded so funny to hear a man saying Laurel’s words. “It would be really hard to whisper sweet nothings to him to pass along,” I whispered to Dave. He glared at me. In a normal voice I asked, “Do you talk on the phone much?”

  “Not really,” said the male interpreter’s voice. “Mainly if it’s something that ca
n’t be done with texting or e-mail.”

  “So what other cool gadgets do you get to use?” I asked.

  After a pause, Laurel answered the question herself. “There’s a lot of stuff. For example, when my alarm goes off, a light flashes. There’s no sound.”

  Dave spoke up again. “Um, Ashley has a gleam in her eye that I’m learning means she’s going to harass you with questions until you’re sick of her. I’m cutting her off now. Go away, Ashley,” he ordered.

  “Thanks for teaching me about the video relay thing,” I said. “I never even knew there was something like that around.”

  “No problem,” she said. “It’s kind of fun to answer questions about it.”

  “Oh, really?” I perked up. “Because I was wondering—”

  Dave clapped a hand over my mouth and shook his head. “Sorry, Laurel. I told you she had that gleam in her eye.”

  I heard Laurel’s soft laugh a few seconds later. The delay reminded me of when I see people interviewed on the news via satellite and the slight lapse that falls between the question and their answer.

  Dave left the kitchen, still talking to Laurel, and I picked up another strawberry, eavesdropping on his suggestions for their Friday-night date. I heard him throw out the idea of rock climbing before he shut the door to his bedroom. Spoilsport. Tired but not sleepy, I debated what to do next. Call Matt? Not exactly the smartest way to take advantage of a little space and distance. I could look for Ryder online. We’d been in the middle of an interesting discussion the night before when he had to sign off to take a phone call. I had no idea from whom and found that even the idea of him talking to another girl didn’t bother me. It felt more like another buffer I could use to keep him at a safe distance too. I tried not to think too hard about what it meant that the idea of Matt dropping a conversation with me to talk to another girl made me want to punch someone in the face. Like him. Or the imaginary girl in my scenario. Feeling ridiculous over my mental meandering, I decided to pull The List out again and cross off sushi making.

  I put the strawberries away and headed for my bedroom. I scrounged my scripture tote out from under the bed, the place where all of my things lurk in hiding whenever I need them, and thumbed through my Bible in search of my tattered paper. I couldn’t find it, so I leafed through my triple combination next. No luck. Since I threw away all the extra papers that went flying when Megan knocked my things over at Institute, my scriptures were the only thing left in the tote. It’s not like The List could hide. I checked both books again, but they came up empty. My stomach sank.

  I could only assume that I had managed to throw The List out with all the other odds and ends I purged that night. Maybe it and a Relief Society bulletin were locked in a permanent embrace at the bottom of a landfill somewhere. How sad. I sat for a while, stumped and mourning its loss, until I heard the front door open. Knowing it was probably Celia, I listened for her footsteps down the hall and sure enough, she shuffled in, exhausted from work. And smelling like onions, of course.

  “How come you look more tired than I do when I’m the one who had to run around serving tables all night?” I asked.

  “Because I get the customers when they’re cranky and waiting to eat, and they all snap at me and ask when their wait is up every two minutes. It’s like having a car full of four-year-olds on a never-ending road trip. ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’” She collapsed on her bed. “At least by the time you see them, they’ve got free bread and water to shut them up.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. How do you not beat them when they whine?”

  “Deep breathing and remembering my paycheck. I think I’d stop getting one if I hit someone.”

  “I know you’re only twenty, but you’re super smart,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes but didn’t otherwise stir.

  “Have you seen my list anywhere?” I asked.

  She raised her head the tiniest fraction from the mattress. “What list? The List?”

  “Yeah. It’s not in my scriptures where I usually keep it. I’m hoping it fell out in here somewhere.”

  “No, I haven’t seen it.”

  “Dang.”

  She propped herself on her elbows long enough to ask, “Dang? That’s it? Shouldn’t you be having a fit or something?”

  I sighed. “It’s kind of a bummer, but it’s not like I don’t have it totally memorized. I’ll just rewrite it on my laptop where it can’t fall out.”

  “I can’t believe you’re so calm. You’ve had that paper forever, haven’t you?”

  “Six years, I guess. I’m sure at some point I’m going to be all depressed that it’s gone, but stressing out about it right now won’t make it turn up.”

  She stared at me through narrowed eyes for a moment. “You are one cool customer, Smashley. If I hadn’t watched the karaoke meltdown, I’d think you had robot parts.”

  “I care,” I said. “And I really do hope it turns up, but if I throw myself down on my bed and cry about it, it’s not really going to do anything except for make me feel dumb. I’m just going to type the stupid thing up again.”

  Celia lay back down. “All right. What do you get to cross off?”

  I turned on my laptop and opened a new document. “Besides the ones I already did, I can cross off numbers eight, twenty-four, thirteen, and seventeen.”

  “Which are?”

  “Make sushi, try Internet dating, learn to surf, and have a summer fling.”

  “I guess Matt’s your summer fling, but when did you do Internet dating?”

  “I joined that LDS Lookup site. You’ve heard of it, right?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know you were on it. Who did you go on a date with, and how come I didn’t know about it?” She dragged herself off the bed and began rummaging around in the dresser for pajamas.

  “I haven’t gone on a date yet,” I admitted. “But I’ve been talking to this guy back in Utah for a couple of weeks, and he’s pretty cool. I’m sure we’ll go out when I get back there.”

  She stopped rummaging and peered over her shoulder at me. “What about Matt?”

  “He’s a fling. Fling means short-lived. Summer fling means over when summer’s over.”

  “Man, you really do have robot parts. It won’t bother you to leave him behind when you go back to school?” she asked.

  “Maybe a little,” I said. “That’s why we’re keeping everything light, you know? I like him well enough to have a good time with him, but we keep it relaxed so we don’t get too invested in each other. That way there’s no drama when I have to leave.”

  She sat back down on her bed and locked eyes with me. “No way,” she said. “I don’t believe that for a second. I’ve seen you sit on the phone with him for two hours, laughing and having a good old time. And I’ve seen you get all excited when he invites you to do anything. And I know for a fact that you’ll rearrange anything on your schedule if it means surfing with him.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t like him. I do like him.”

  “You’re also not saying how much, and the answer is, a lot. I can tell,” she said.

  “Can’t I like him a lot and have it still be a fling?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, Ashley. I didn’t grow up watching you date, so I don’t know how you work. I don’t know if it’s normal for you to like someone a lot and drop him when something else you need to do comes up. Is it? Normal for you to do that?”

  “If you mean do I jerk people around, the answer is no. Matt knows the score the same as every other guy I’ve ever dated has. I don’t get involved with guys who can’t keep a distance.”

  “I realize you have way more dating experience than I do, but I have to say that your whole take on this doesn’t sound at all healthy,” she said. “It seems to me that if you’re already into him that there’s no way you can leave in August and take back every part of you when you go.”

  A pang around my stone-cold heart told me she might be r
ight. I didn’t like that pang. “If I’m hurt, that’s my problem,” I said. “But it’s not like I haven’t told Matt exactly how things stand. If he’s hurt, it’s not my fault. And I’m not going to be hurt, anyway. I might be kind of bummed at first, but I already lined up a Plan B.”

  “Your Internet dating thing?”

  “Yeah. I’ll cry on Ryder’s broad shoulder, and I’ll forget Matt in no time.”

  Celia stared at me again. Finally she said, “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I really think Dave has a much better approach to love and dating than you do.”

  “That hurts.”

  “It should. I swear, if I had to try to keep up with the crazy logic that you use to run your love life, I’d probably never date again. It’s too hard,” she said.

  I grasped at a chance to change the uncomfortable subject. “Speaking of Dave’s love life . . .”

  Celia refused to be deterred. “In a minute. When you type up your list, you can’t cross off number twenty-four.”

  “Internet dating? Why not? I just told you about Ryder.”

  “Yeah, but you haven’t gone on an actual date with him, so it doesn’t count until you do.”

  “Fine.”

  “Now, what about Dave?” she asked.

  “He called Laurel tonight. I think they’re going out this weekend.”

  “Cool,” she said. “I don’t even need a love life with the two of you around for entertainment,” she said.

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “how come you aren’t going out with anyone right now?” Celia was a classic California girl: tall, athletic, blonde with a fresh-scrubbed pretty face. I knew boys thought she was cute.

  “Because I’m twenty, and I’m weighing my options before I pick one,” she said.

  “Going out with someone doesn’t limit your options. Just pick someone and say yes to him,” I said.

  “It limits your options around here,” she said. “The rumors start flying, and everyone assumes you’re together, and no one else asks you out. So a good strategy is flirt like crazy with lots of boys but only say yes to the one you really like.”

  “And who’s that?” I asked.