The Next Thing on My List

by Jill Smolinski

  “I’m not sure. I got going a couple times, but I don’t know if that was catching the wave.” It occurred to me that catching waves might be like having orgasms—if you’re not sure you’ve ever done it, then you haven’t. “Probably not.”

  “You going back out again?”

  Back out? Was he joking? I intended to never go back in the water…ever. In fact, in the time since what I considered my near death experience, I was seriously toying with packing up and moving to Montana—or any other state that was dead center and as far away as possible from anything large, wet, and salty.

  “Of course I am,” I said boldly, my pride winning over anything resembling rational thought.

  “I’m going to give you a shove-off.” Without saying anything else, he reached up and pulled off his T-shirt, then tossed it on the ground. Well now! He had strong shoulders and arms—working in the fields strong as opposed to standing in front of the mirror at the gym posing strong. And a bit of light brown hair on his chest that led down to firm but not six-pack abs. That was when I noticed the huge scar that ran almost the entire length of one of his legs, crossing from where his shorts ended to his shin at a diagonal.

  “What’s a shove-off?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t been staring too obviously. But he had, after all, removed clothing. It would be rude not to look.

  “You’ll see.” He shouted to his fellow garbage collectors that he’d be right back, then grabbed the board. I followed him into the water. It was easier to swim out past the break without the board—and getting back in the water did offer the benefit of allowing me to rinse the sand from my hair and from a few of my more critical orifices.

  The water reached him midchest, and I bobbed, hanging on to the board. We were no closer than we’d been when we chatted on the beach, but somehow being in the water made it seem strangely intimate.

  Troy proceeded to give me the same instructions Chase had—only he said that when the right wave came, he’d give me a shove.

  “So do you surf?” I asked, bobbing.

  “Once in a while. Not so much now since I get up at three in the morning for work.”

  “Gosh, that’s the time I’m usually stumbling home drunk.”

  “Right. You strike me as that type.”

  “You don’t know—I could be,” I said, finding myself mildly irritated that it was so obvious I wasn’t a party girl, even though he’d clearly meant it as a compliment.

  We chatted a bit about his favorite surf spots, and then he told me to get ready—that the waves were picking up. I clambered onto the board, my arms reaching to grab the top end and my butt and legs dangling in the water. I was pointed toward shore like a rocket ready to launch. Troy was behind and slightly to the left of me—not the proximity to my rear I would have chosen had it come up for a vote.

  “When I say go, start paddling,” he instructed. I glanced behind me, and a swell began to build. When it reached me, he shouted, “Go!” My hands grabbed at the water, and the wave started to lift the board. Troy put one hand on the back of the board, the other on my lower back, and gave a strong, hard shove.

  Suddenly I was soaring. This was catching a wave, and—my suspicions had been correct—I’d never done anything like it before. It felt as if the water beneath me had turned into a sea of hands that kept spiriting my board up and forward—gliding and skipping and lifting until I was shrieking with the unexpected thrill of it and wishing that this amazing rush would never, ever have to end.

  Chapter 9

  I’d driven past Oasis probably a hundred times but had never before been inside. I generally try to avoid tropical-themed bars located in minimalls. When Brie, her girlfriend Chanel, and I walked in, however, it was surprisingly large and lively and—for a Sunday evening—crowded.

  “Good, there’re mostly guys here. Less competition,” Brie said, tugging on the snug tank top she wore especially for the occasion because it was the color of baby barf—no worries she might upstage me. Chanel had announced that surely there’d be no brothers at a place called Oasis in a minimall so she might as well wear an ugly shirt, too—a gesture I would have appreciated more if I didn’t happen to own the same shirt.

  No matter. All that was important was that I meet the dictates of #8: Be the hottest girl at Oasis.

  To that end, I wore the aforementioned silvery blue top with the sequin action going and the low-rider jeans I’d bought for the blind date. I spent forever blow-drying my hair. Truly a child of the eighties, I can’t help myself: When it comes to hair, I still equate bigger with better. I did, however, pass on Brie’s offer to do my makeup for me. (I’d almost taken her up on it until she’d boasted, “I do one face and it works on everybody.” )

  We took a seat at a high cocktail table in the center of the room. The waitress came by, and Brie and Chanel ordered pink ladies, and I asked for a Chardonnay.

  “So now what?” Chanel said when our drinks arrived.

  I quickly surveyed the people around us. “I suppose as long as we establish that I’m the hottest woman in the room, then we’re free to have our drinks and go.”

  “I can’t see everybody good from here—let’s check it out,” Brie said. She and Chanel grabbed their drinks and left to case the room. I stayed at the table, trying to be…hot? Ugh. Could I please go back to my idea of setting myself on fire? Truth was, I’d never felt so ridiculous in my life. I felt silly because Brie and Chanel were walking around deciding if I was the prettiest girl in the room and even sillier because I kind of hoped I was. I understood what Marissa was after: that thrill of feeling that every eye is on you because you’re beautiful, not because you’re fat. But most of the eyes here weren’t on women, but rather on the TVs in the corners broadcasting a Lakers game.

  They returned, their faces a twist of pity. “Over there, by the jukebox, behind that pillar,” Brie said. “She’s hotter.”

  Chanel nodded. “The boobs are fake, but she’s got kind of a Lindsay Lohan thing going. You know, real fresh but slutty.”

  I craned my neck. Crap! She was hot! “I can’t compete with that! Now what am I supposed to do?” I whined. “Keep returning again and again hoping to hit a slow night? There’s always going to be somebody more beautiful!”

  “You don’t need to worry about it,” Brie said ominously. “We’ll get rid of her.”

  “What are you planning to do?” I asked, mildly alarmed.

  She reached into her purse, and I feared what she might whip out. She merely freshened her lipstick. “We got a few ideas. I figure we’ll stand there and talk about a designer shoe sample sale in the parking lot. That ought to get her moving. If that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll say we saw a rat in the kitchen.”

  After they took off for their second mission, I was left to sip my drink alone. I was in the midst of checking out the bartenders, wondering which one Marissa had a crush on, when up walked Troy Jones, a beer in his hand and a grin on his face. “You were right, you do clean up nicely,” he said.

  “Ha, ha.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my stopping by. I was in the neighborhood, mooching dinner off the folks.”

  “Aren’t you fortunate. I have to drive to the Valley to get a decent home-cooked meal.”

  “You here by yourself?”

  “No, my girlfriends are off…” Er, eliminating hot chicks? “Saying hi to people they know.” I glanced over to where Brie and Chanel stood. They were having what appeared to be a loud conversation with much gesturing behind the Lindsay Lohan look-alike’s table and being completely ignored.

  After I invited Troy to pull up a chair, he gave a nod toward the bar. “That’s the guy my sister had the crush on—in the pink polo shirt. She thought he looked like the lead singer from Nine Inch Nails.”

  It was hard to decide what seemed stranger: that the sweet girl I pictured Marissa Jones to be would have had a thing for Nine Inch Nails or that she thought anyone in a pink polo shirt could resemble Trent Reznor.

  “I see t
hat,” I said.

  “Thought I’d point it out—in case you needed to know.”

  It took a second for it to sink in this time. “Fishing again?”

  He took a swig of his beer instead of answering.

  “It’s not about the bartender,” I said.

  “I didn’t think it was. So you don’t need to chat him up or anything?”

  “Nope.”

  I knew he was here hoping to see the list, and he had every right to—in fact, I had no claim to it in the first place. Still, I was worried he’d be disappointed. There weren’t many crossed off yet, not as many as should have been. To stall, I asked, “So how did you get into traffic reporting?”

  “Ah, cleverly changing the subject. I’ll tell you, but I’m saving the steamy stuff for my best-selling memoir.” He leaned back and gave me an exaggerated dreamy stare. “It started at the age of three when I got my first tricycle….”

  “Is this where everything goes murky and we have the flashback?”

  “You prefer the short version? Basically, I’m a motorhead through and through. Got my driver’s license at sixteen. My motorcycle license the same year. Took me till seventeen to get the pilot’s license—and they don’t let you fly commercial until twenty.”

  “So that’s what you’ve always done? Piloted?”

  “Actually, I started out racing motorcycles out of high school. Picked up a few sponsors, too. Thought I might go pro. But then I took a spill…” He paused to knock on his leg as if it were wooden. “Split my leg open. Messed up my knee. That was the end of my racing career.”

  I grimaced and said, “That must have been terrifying.”

  “You know what’s weird? My family figured I’d be the one to die young. At the rate I was going, none of us thought I’d live to see thirty.” With that reminder of why we were sitting across from each other, I shifted uncomfortably, and mercifully moving on to other topics, he said, “So, what does your boyfriend think of all this?” I tried to remember when I had mentioned Robert when Troy added, “I assume that was your boyfriend who came with you to the funeral.”

  “Oh yeah, we broke up a while back.”

  “Sorry.”

  I gave a brief flick of my hand, as if to say, No big deal, c’est la vie, because nobody wants to admit they’ve been dumped and, even worse, that it hurt.

  “Hey, what’s that you’re drinking?” Troy asked. “Let me get you another….”

  “Oh, no thanks.” I caught a glimpse of Brie and Chanel. They sat at the table with the hotter girl and her friends—whooping over the Lakers game and high-fiving one another.

  “Come on,” he urged. “That one’s almost empty.”

  “Really, I’m fine. I’m driving.”

  “Too bad.” He gave me what my mom used to call a devil’s grin, the corners of his mouth sneaking up. “I was hoping if I got you good and drunk, you might show me that list.”

  What could I do? It was stolen property as it was. “Fine,” I said begrudgingly. “I’ll show it to you—but first, I want to make sure you understand that a lot of the things aren’t crossed off yet because they’re in progress.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m working on them.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “And it’s not fair to cross them off until I’ve finished them.”

  He nodded.

  “Done them proper justice.”

  “June…”

  “Yeah?”

  He held out a hand. “The list…?”

  I dug it out of where I kept it in my wallet and handed it to him.

  He unfolded it and started to read.

  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

  His expression was serious as his eyes darted over the items. At one point, he blew out a breath and rubbed his forehead. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, so I tossed out a simple, “You okay?”

  “Number nineteen’s a tough one.” I knew the list well by now: #19 was Show my brother how grateful I am for him. “It’s just that…,” he began, and then he stopped. After a moment he said, “Can you excuse me?”

  “Of course.”

  He left the list on the table and made his way to the men’s room.

  Brie scurried over the moment I was alone. “We haven’t been able to get her to leave, but we might be okay anyhow. She’s got a bad tooth in the back.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “You’re lucky all right—I see you got men making the moves on you. That one’s a cutie.”

  “You met him yesterday. He’s Troy Jones—Marissa’s brother.”

  “Damn, that’s right. I thought he looked familiar.”

  “I showed him the list,” I said, glancing toward the men’s room door. “He seemed upset.”

  “Well, sure. It’s hard to accept your sister wanting to go braless.”

  I winced—I hadn’t thought about how personal a few of the items were.

  I made Brie leave before Troy returned, apologizing as he sat back down. “Wasn’t expecting it to hit me like that.”

  “I take it you two were tight?”

  “She was my baby sister—I was already five years old by the time she was born. I looked out for her, you know?”

  A brother looking out for his sister? No, I wouldn’t know. I tended to think of myself as an only child—one who happened to have a sibling.

  “At any rate,” he said, “she expressed her gratitude to me fine in her lifetime. You can cross that one off the list.”

  Oh, how tempting that was! Reluctantly I said, “Not really.” I went on to explain to him the rules Susan and I had set up for the list: that I didn’t have to do the tasks in order, that I had to obey the spirit of the law, and that I had to try as best I could to make them my own. “It’d be too hard for me to predict what Marissa might have had in mind for that one, so it seemed more sincere to go after it from my own point of view.” Which meant, I added, that I needed to let my brother know how grateful I was for him before I could mark it as complete. I didn’t mention, however, that it was going to be interesting expressing how I felt about such Hallmark moments as the time he held me at butter-knife point in the kitchen to make me cry.

  “Although there is that one here, number fifteen: Take Mom and Grandma to see Wayne Newton. That needs to be your mom and grandma,” I said worriedly. I couldn’t imagine they’d want to go with me to see Wayne Newton—which obviously meant a trip to Les Vegas. I had no idea how I was going to pull that off.

  “They’d love it,” he said as if reading my mind. “They call themselves Wayniacs.”

  I gave a mock sigh. “Every family has its shameful secrets.”

  He asked to see the list again, and this time when he read it, he seemed to be in lighter spirits. “There are a few things on here a guy doesn’t want to think of his sister doing.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “But I don’t mind picturing you doing them.”

  He gazed up at me, and instinctively I crossed my arms.

  “So who’d you kiss?” he asked.

  “Some busboy.”

  “Bet that made his day.”

  And at that point—damn it—there was no denying it any
more. Something inside me lit up. The groundhog had been awakened in her tunnel and was about to pop her head up to see if the long winter was over. I searched for a mental baseball bat to pound her down. With all the men in the world, couldn’t I possibly aim my affections toward a man whose sister I hadn’t killed? If we became a couple—and my God, how had my thoughts even progressed so far so fast?—we’d for the rest of our lives have to lie anytime someone asked us, “So…how did you two meet?”

  “I’ll help you with the one about riding in a helicopter,” Troy said, and then drained the last of his beer. “Marissa wrote that because I was always bugging her to do a ride-along.”

  “Ride-along?”

  “Coming with me while I do a traffic report.”

  “I’d love that!” Stop it! I scolded myself. Stop with the eyelash fluttering!

  Brie and Chanel walked up then, shaking their heads. “They were robbed. There was no way that was a foul.”

  After I made introductions, Troy stood to leave. “I’d better get going—I’ve bothered you long enough.” He slid the list toward me. “And for the record, you have that one covered.” He pointed to #8: the unbelievably embarrassing reason we were gathered here today.

  I shook my head. “Except for Miss Cutie Pie over there.”

  Brie agreed sadly, “It’s true, she’s hotter,” and tipped her chin toward the competition. Troy’s eyes followed our gaze.

  He grabbed a pencil from the table display advertising the nachos special. Leaning over the list, he drew a neat line through Be the hottest girl at Oasis. Then he returned it me. “Not even close.”

  Chapter 10

  The gas giveaway project was stalling since we couldn’t find a single gas station that would work with us. Seems there’s this little thing called “liability” they were worried about. One gas station manager wanted me to take out a million-dollar insurance policy in case anyone had a heart attack from excitement when we offered to pay for their gas. Even when I tried to explain that the total value of each prize would be fifty dollars tops—and that would only be for those big gas-hog SUVs—he turned me down. “You never know,” he said. “My sister-in-law had a spider drop in front of her when she was vacuuming, and it gave her such a bad fright that, boom, that was all she wrote.”