Once Upon a List

by Robin Gold

  The first grief counselor with whom Clara met shortly after Sebastian’s fatal accident shared with her an Abraham Lincoln adage that he suggested was “profoundly inspirational.” Gazing up from his little black notebook where he’d been jotting down notes, and sticking his chewed pencil behind his ear, the grief counselor quoted, “People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Nodding, as if she understood, Clara thought to herself, “What a trite load of flaming donkey crap.” Aching, she longed to counter, “Yeah, doc, how about you and I discuss the wisdom of Honest Abe after you receive a random phone call from the Boston police department telling you that the love of your life—the soul mate you planned to grow old with and can’t possibly imagine existing without—was just brutally killed in a freak accident nine days before your wedding. How about we talk then?”

  The second psychiatrist Clara sought for help offered her a “powerful” quote from Aristotle, citing in a terribly serious voice and questionably authentic British accent, “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Once again, Clara’s eyes glazed over as she pretended to comprehend the ancient philosopher’s message. In reality, however, she was thinking, “So Aristotle was a cliché-spouting philosopher like Abraham Lincoln . . .”

  The third and final psychiatrist Clara met with—an unnaturally tan man with a bright orange glow whom Leo dubbed “Dr. Oompa Loompa”—told her, “A very wise man once said, ‘In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life—’ ”

  “ ‘It. Goes. On,’ ” Clara interrupted with a blatantly dismissive eye roll, adding, “Robert Frost.” She exhaled a troubled sigh, wondering if this orange fellow really believed he could help solve her problems by presenting to her a quote that she knew like the back of her own hand. “I know about poetry,” Clara muttered to Dr. Oompa Loompa.

  But sitting there at the Ping-Pong table, holding her cell phone, gathering the courage to dial The Beer King’s telephone number for their scheduled 2:00 p.m. call to discuss her future at Scuppernong, Clara found herself contemplating all three quotations that the various doctors had shared. And suddenly, they not only rang true—they made sense. The great Robert Frost had hit the nail right on the head. Life does go on. However, as Clara had come to learn, sometimes it’s just too damn painful and difficult—if not altogether impossible—to recognize it.

  Once upon a time, Clara’s promising career at Scuppernong had been exactly what she wanted, and it brought her great joy. For too long she had clung to the fading illusion of that joy. Frightened and disoriented after her fiancé’s death turned her world upside-down, she had desperately grasped on to every last remaining shred of the comforting life she once knew. But that old life was nothing more than a beautiful part of the past. A memory to be cherished. Clara finally accepted not only this, but also that she was a different person because of it. A different person with different desires and needs. Sitting at the Ping-Pong table, contemplating her long, enlightening odyssey, she was struck by the incompatibility of her past with her future. Clara knew in her heart there was no going back. What’s more, she no longer ached to go back.

  Thus, with a new glow of aspiration, Clara told The Beer King that she loved him and the company dearly—there was no denying it had played a critical role in her life and provided her with a strong sense of both direction and satisfaction. But part of conquering grief, and growing up in general, was accepting that things change. Adjusting and adapting is necessary, because if you don’t, it’s not long before you’re living a lie. And, as Clara had learned the hard way, life’s just too short for that. She was not quite certain yet what her future held, but she was sure of one thing. Scuppernong was an important part of her past.

  And then, having made up her mind to be happy, Clara tendered her resignation.

  July

  30.

  After their trip to the Wisconsin Dells, Clara and Lincoln spent almost every night together, making up for lost time. Milk Dud’s water bowl in Lincoln’s living room was transferred to the kitchen, becoming a permanent fixture, and Clara left a toothbrush in his bathroom, as well as an extra copy of her time capsule list amidst a stack of old science journals and Fossil News magazines in his entryway.

  Late one scorching hot evening shortly after Independence Day, while Clara and Lincoln were zipped inside of an old camping tent erected in the middle of Lincoln’s comfortably air-conditioned living room, he brought up Clara’s list. “There can’t be much left on it,” he supposed, lying on his side next to Clara on top of a green sleeping bag built for two.

  “Nope,” she confirmed, resting on her back. “In fact, now that I get to cross off Sleep in a real tent, I have only seven items remaining.” She proudly held up seven fingers.

  “Seven items!” Lincoln placed a gentle kiss on her bare shoulder. “Good for you. That’s terrific.” He kissed her right cheek. “Let’s hear them.” He kissed her left cheek.

  “Well, I still have to find Leo’s damn recorder that seems determined to stay buried,” Clara began, having committed her list to memory by this stage. “I’m seriously contemplating snapping that bastard piece of plastic in half when I get my hands on it. And then there’s Grow my own garden with an avocado tree.”

  “Mmmm, I like avocados.” Lincoln kissed her forehead.

  “I like you,” Clara twinkled, continuing. Find a cure for heart attacks, Beat Leo at Memory.” She let out a soft little moan as Lincoln traced a sensual trail of kisses down the side of her neck.

  Morphing into a science geek, he stopped lavishing her with affection. “You can do it. It’s all about math and strategy.”

  Clara wondered if she’d misheard him. “Math and strategy? Memory?”

  “Absolutely. Based on your dubious tone, I’ll assume the strategic value of different Memory moves may not be obvious, so I’ll share some basic game mechanics.”

  “Oh, by all means.” Clara couldn’t believe how serious he’d suddenly become. “Please do.”

  “The first key is to memorize the grid’s four corner cards. They’re critical. It’s easier to remember other cards if you can relate them to a corner card. And then you have to master the efficient use of the ‘match’ versus the ‘miss.’ The ‘match’ being the intentional reveal of an unknown card that makes a pair together with a previously known card. The ‘miss’ being the intentional reveal of an unknown card that does not make a pair with a previously known card. The unknown card is all about risk. When do you turn one over? When do you choose not to turn one over in order to advance your position?” Lincoln paused. “Do you follow?”

  Clara’s head was starting to reel. “Christ, what did you do? Write your graduate thesis on Memory?”

  “I grew up playing it with my brother. Besides, it never hurts to apply a scientific approach.”

  “Right. Got any other helpful tips? Perhaps something just a touch less scientific?” Clara smirked. It turned out Lincoln was even nerdier than she’d given him credit for.

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I do.” He kissed her belly button. “Repetition. Let’s say you flip over a ‘red apple’ card in the bottom left-hand corner on one turn, and then on your next play, you flip over a ‘blue bird’ card that’s just a few cards away from the red apple. What you need to do is mentally repeat ‘blue bird/red apple, blue bird/red apple, blue bird/red apple’—just keep repeating it again and again in your mind. Then, the next time you flip over a blue bird, your temporal lobe will subconsciously connect blue bird and red apple, and you’ll know you need to turn over a card that’s near the red—”

  “Okay, okay, okay! My brain hurts!” Clara laughed. “I think I got it.”

  “Really?” Lincoln quirked an eyebrow. “Good. Then I can go back to doing this . . .” Pushing up Clara’s camisole just far enough to expose her abdomen, he covered it with light kisses. “Oh!” He stopped kissing her. “Typically, the player who takes the last tu
rn and scores the final collect sequence wins.” He inched her camisole up even higher.

  “Ooooh, I love it when you talk Milton Bradley to me! It’s strangely alluring.” She flashed an amused smirk, delighting in the thrilling sensation of his lips on her body.

  “Yeah? Wait ’til you hear my hypothesis on Chutes and Ladders.” He grinned mischievously. “But back to your list . . .”

  “Yes! Please! Back to my list,” Clara chuckled, trying her best to remain focused, which Lincoln certainly wasn’t making easy. “Next is Apologize to Stella for stealing her Twirly Curls Barbie & give it back to her . . . as well as Apologize to Stella for stealing her Chia Pet (and accidentally killing it).

  He kissed her right thigh. “Jesus. Now I know who to blame if any of my stuff goes missing.”

  “Yes, I’d suggest you hide your Barbie dolls,” Clara warned. “And, finally, last, but not least, Become a teacher. Voila!” She beamed. “That’s the whole list.”

  “I have a brilliant idea.” Lincoln kissed her left thigh. “You can teach people Memory strategy for winners!”

  “Not bad . . .” She mulled it over, challenging with a smirk, “Perhaps I’ll do just that. Oh yes, perhaps I will.”

  “Well, it sounds to me like you’ve got this in the bag. You should be able to accomplish all of that before you turn thirty-five. You still have—what? Six and a half, seven weeks? I think you’re gonna do it.” Lincoln planted a deep, passionate kiss on Clara’s lips, pressing his body against hers.

  “Mmmm.” She emitted a little gasp, wrapping her legs around him. “I think we’re gonna do it.”

  “By God, I think you’re right.” He gave her a long, probing kiss. “That, my dear, is what you get when you sleep in a real tent.”

  “In that case”—Clara giggled—“we might have to go apartment camping more often.”

  The next day, back at her apartment, Clara sat down at the Ping-Pong table in front of her computer, logged on to the Internet, and got down to business. First, she conducted some basic research on the American Heart Association. As a child who missed her daddy something fierce, she had always dreamed of discovering a magical cure for heart attacks so that other kids wouldn’t have to grow up without parents who suffered the same, cruel fate as James Black. As an adult who missed her daddy something fierce, Clara knew, sadly, that there was no such thing as a magical cure for heart attacks. Since she was not a doctor—hell, she could barely even draw a convincing heart on paper—she had no choice but to accept that her options were limited regarding Find a cure for heart attacks on her time capsule list. Thanks to Sebastian’s hefty life insurance policy, however, her funds were not limited. Thus, with the goal of doing everything in her power to help prevent heart attacks, Clara jotted down the mailing address of the American Heart Association, retrieved her checkbook from her purse, and made an extremely generous donation in her father’s name, saying a silent prayer that somehow it might make a difference.

  Second, Clara conducted some research on Stella Hirsch, her elementary school classmate with enviable toys from whom she occasionally pilfered. A Google search yielded a list of nine different people. Clara had no idea if any of them was actually the person she was looking for, but, figuring it couldn’t hurt to try, she sent each of them the following message with the subject line, “STELLA HIRSCH FROM RIVER POINTE, IL?”:

  Dear Stella,

  Please forgive the intrusion if I’ve got the wrong “Stella Hirsch,” but by any chance might you have attended River Pointe Elementary School and had your Twirly Curls Barbie and Chia Pet stolen from you as a child?

  If so, I hold important information concerning the abovementioned burglaries and would appreciate it most sincerely if you could reply to this e-mail at your earliest convenience.

  Thank you in advance and I hope to hear from you soon.

  Sincerely,

  Clara Black

  P.S. I feel compelled to add that I am of sound mind and mean you no harm.

  “Well, all we can do now is wait and see if anybody responds,” Clara said to Milk Dud, who was lying by her feet chewing on a plastic cheeseburger toy. “What do you think, boy? Will we hear back from Stella?”

  Milk Dud barked.

  Leaning back in her folding chair, she stretched her arms and exhaled as her mind turned to her conversation with Lincoln inside of the tent. How astonishing it was to consider her dwindling time capsule list had only a few remaining tasks! Soon, Clara knew, she would accomplish them. And then, at long last, she’d be done. Her list would be conquered. That would be that. She could retire her trusty red pen, for she’d have succeeded in what she set out to do. Only, wondered Clara, then what?

  For the first time, it began to sink in that the finish line truly was in sight. She didn’t even have to squint to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and somehow, this shocked her. In a way, it felt to Clara like ages ago that she had shared her magical, gay kiss with Billy/William Warrington and then joked about doing everything else on her “silly” time capsule list. Yet, in another way, it felt like only yesterday that she and Leo were sitting at that old kitchen table after Thanksgiving, reading the Saturday newspaper, discussing the unlikely possibility of Clara registering for Chef Guillaume’s gingerbread class. Pondering her long, surprising journey, again Clara asked herself, THEN WHAT?

  Scrunching her eyebrows, deep in thought about what form her life was supposed to take next, she realized how much she would miss carrying the old, worn-out piece of paper around with her in her pocketbook, crossing a triumphant line through the goals she accomplished—one by one—feeling a sense of achievement as she watched her list gradually decrease over time. As Leo had hypothesized over half a year ago when Clara resembled the walking dead trudging morosely through life, her list had indeed given her a sense of purpose. It had provided her with desperately needed direction, serving as an unusual form of security and comfort. It did not happen overnight, but as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, Clara had come to revere that list because of it. It occurred to her the issue wasn’t really completing everything on it. She had lost herself. And the real issue had been finding herself again. The time capsule list was simply an end to that means. And now it was all coming to an end. For some reason, this made Clara anxious as well as sad.

  Turning off her computer, she let out a heavy sigh.

  And then, out of nowhere, she had an epiphany.

  Clara leaped from her chair and hurried to her bedroom, where on her nightstand she kept a spiral notebook that served as a journal to keep track of her strange and vivid dreams. After tearing out a piece of paper at its perforated edge, she returned to the living room.

  Concentrating fiercely as she tapped her pen against the Ping-Pong table, she thought long and hard for a long while before writing anything down.

  And then, Clara began composing a list of goals that she hoped to accomplish in the future.

  Unlike her first list, this new one did not include a finite deadline, for Clara hoped that she would have many years ahead of her to accomplish its items. Nor did this new list occupy merely the front of one page, but rather it snaked along the margins, ultimately concluding at the bottom of the page’s backside. Clara’s first list was public knowledge, and over time, many interested pairs of eyes had perused it. Her new list, however, would be private. It was for her, and only for her. Clara knew that she would never share it with another living soul. Not even Leo. For there was no need, really. All that mattered was that she knew the list was there. And the fact that it was made Clara smile.

  • Sleep in a real tent

  • Find a cure for heart attacks

  August

  31.

  The moment Lincoln and Clara sat down to Thursday night dinner at Syn-Kow, Lincoln, wearing an enormous grin, announced that he had “big news.” And then, practically bouncin
g in his seat, far too ecstatic to let anticipation build, he blurted, “I’m going to Argentina!”

  “No,” gasped Clara, immediately suspecting what the trip was about. “Lincoln! Tell me you’re going to see the Argentinosaurus!” By this point, she too was practically bouncing in her seat.

  “I’m going to see the Argentinosaurus!”

  Clara squealed, quickly covering her mouth with both hands. She’d only been listening to him chatter about the remarkable, staggering Argentinosaurus—the world’s largest known dinosaur for which there existed good evidence—for three months straight now. “Holy crap, Link! This is huuuge.”

  “I know,” he said, nearly bursting with excitement. “Sayid invited me to fly out there a week from Monday to help with the dig. Check it out!” Retrieving an official itinerary from his sport coat’s inner pocket, he handed it to Clara. “Can you believe it?”

  She glanced at the piece of paper. “I sure can.” She rose and embraced Lincoln, her fingers sliding into the soft, thick hair at his nape before she planted a steamy, celebratory kiss on his lips. “Nobody deserves this more than you do. I am so thrilled for you.”

  “Aw, thank you,” he said, blushing. “And thanks, Sayid.”

  South America had become paleontology’s newest hot zone—its dusty, eroding slopes producing an explosion of finds—and Sayid, Lincoln’s good friend and colleague at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was a member of a renowned team of scientists working to excavate the Argentinosaurus, named after the location where its fossil was first discovered in Argentina’s sprawling Patagonian province of Neuquén. Lincoln had mentioned to Clara on multiple occasions that he hoped Sayid might invite him to visit the site and possibly even ask him to lend a hand. He’d said that merely having the rare honor to glimpse the fossil still buried in the earth would be not only one of the highlights of his career, but of his life.