The Bucket List

by Georgia Clark

  Cooper has one of the throw pillows in his lap. He has an erection. Obviously. Why else would he do that? The possibility of sex doesn’t just enter the room, it barges in with maracas and a flag. The light blush I’m feeling turns into a forest fire, fanning alarm, not lust. My nipples are erect, painfully sensitive. We stare at each other, him “coolly,” me “openly panicked.” Sex doesn’t belong here, in the living room, at 8:00 a.m., between a random roommate and me. This whole performance is entirely inappropriate.

  Yet I can’t stop myself from finishing.

  “Number seven: sex in a white limousine. One too many hip-hop videos when I was a teenager, I suppose.” I bet he can see my ass hanging out of these boxer shorts. Is he staring at it? “And number eight: sex in a public place.” Why am I reading all of these out to him like a perverted schoolteacher? Why did I think this was a reasonable activity to suggest? “Again, something I have . . . not . . . done.”

  The living room is so quiet I can hear the upstairs neighbors using inside voices. I briefly consider exiting this situation by torpedoing through the front window, Jason Bourne–style.

  “So, that’s my list.” Surely, I’m the color of a stop sign. “I know it’s pretty sexcentric, but I figure boobs are related to pleasure, which is related to sex and I’m sort of . . .” Stop talking, stop talking, stop the words coming out of your mouth. “I mean, I figured a list would help, y’know . . . git ’er done.”

  Cooper folds his hands calmly over the throw pillow as if we’re both not hyperaware of its function. “I think it’s great. Everyone should have a list.”

  “What’s on yours?”

  He half laughs, glancing in the direction of the kitchen. He can’t leave, not with the huge freaking boner he’s hiding under that cushion. He’s my prisoner. And that’s . . . kind of hot. I sink onto the other end of the couch. “Just tell me one. You know eight of mine.”

  He exhales noisily, but he’s smiling. “Wow. Okay. Let’s see.” His fingers drum the cushion. “All right. I got one. Promise you’ll vault it, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, which is not how I usually address guys my own age.

  “Sometimes when I’m romancing the stone”—he indicates his crotch, which makes me giggle—“I think about this waitress who used to work at a diner my friends and I went to in high school.”

  “Oooh,” I tease. “Blond and buxom?” I do my best Marilyn Monroe purr. “Little more cream in your coffee, boys?”

  “No.” Cooper shakes his head, amused. “She was not sexy. Not in the traditional sense. She was older, like an aunt. Solid. She was actually kind of mean.”

  “And that turns you on?”

  He shrugs, in an adorably helpless sort of way. “I felt like if we did it, she’d . . . take care of me.”

  “Take care of you?” I’m laughing. “That is terrifying.”

  “The heart wants what the heart wants,” he says. “Emily Dickinson said it first.”

  “Well, she’s been dead for a hundred years,” I say. “Maybe she’d do it for you too.”

  “Oh, burn,” he says, thwacking me with the boner pillow.

  “Ew!” I cry, and we’re both grappling like little kids when Steph drags herself in and we spring apart.

  “What is going on? I’m so hungover.” She plops down between us. She smells like a winery.

  “Nothing,” we say in unison, which sounds far more incriminating than it should.

  “I need food,” Steph groans, cuddling into me. “I need the home fries at Freddies or I’ll die.”

  Cooper’s on his feet, heading for the kitchen. I think about asking him to come with us, but second-guess the best “casual” way to do it, and he’s gone. Which is probably for the best.

  Steph said he was off-limits, after all.

  8.

  * * *

  Freddies has always been our brunch spot. They make Steph’s favorite home fries in the whole world: crispy on the outside, creamy in the middle. The servers are uniformly chill and cute in a nonbinary sort of way. And it’s got that whole yard-sale-meets-Grandma’s-house vibe in the decor: mismatched chairs, framed paintings of big-eyed children, vintage rocking horse in the corner, ferns. For these reasons, it is also half of Astoria’s favorite brunch spot. Even though we get there earlier than usual, we still have to wait for a table. “This neighborhood is really changing,” Steph says, eyeing the blue-haired couple in front of us. “So many hipsters.”

  “Steph, we are hipsters,” I tell her. “We’re the ones changing the neighborhood.”

  She elbows my ribs, glancing around. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth.”

  “I feel bad,” Steph says. “Fifty years ago this was all Greek families; it was a community.”

  “It’s still a community now,” I say, but I know what she means. And she’s right: sometimes it feels like every success in New York happens at someone else’s expense.

  Steph stuffs her hands in her coat pockets. “My parents had to move out of East London when I was in high school—out of the house I was literally born in—because they couldn’t afford the rent anymore. Guess who moved in?”

  “Hipsters.”

  “Punks. Artist punks, a couple.” She pauses, remembering. “I had a huge crush on the woman. I made her a mix CD. Sent it anonymously.”

  “Mix CD.” I fan myself. “Be still, my beating labia.”

  She laughs.

  The server threads his way toward us.

  “And neighborhoods are always changing,” I add. Just like bodies. Just like everything. “Whether you like it or not.”

  As soon as we order, Steph declares it’s time to start on the List.

  I almost choke on my coffee. “What, now?”

  “Yup,” she says, unlocking her phone. “Otherwise you’ll chicken out.”

  A distinct possibility.

  Steph frowns at her screen. “Sunbathing topless is going to have to wait. January remains very January-esque. Let’s move on to ménage à trois.” She gives me a wicked grin, her thumbs flying as she scrolls and taps. “Threesomes are bonkers fun, because you’re the star of the show. It’s honestly the closest I’ve ever felt to being a celebrity. Ah: here we go. Welcome to your first step of sensual liberation.”

  Cam and Camila have dark hair, olive skin, and teeth the color of fresh snow. They look like they both enjoy smoothies, a lot.

  “They’re YouTubers,” Steph says, making it sound like they’re diamond thieves. “I met Camila at Pilates, when I was an undergrad.”

  “You don’t do Pilates.”

  “But I did frequent the café at Pilates. Amazing vegan cookies, couldn’t even tell they were vegan.” She taps open their channel. Camila 4 Cam. “Look. Three hundred thousand subscribers.”

  “That’s actually not that many.” A video about what they eat in a day starts. Lifestyle-brand stuff.

  “Snob.” Steph pokes me. “Don’t you think they’re cute?”

  I study their pictures: objectively attractive. “How long were you hooking up with them? How many times?”

  “I don’t know, a few times. Then a few more.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I don’t really remember.” This could be a lie. Steph flaps her hands about. “It was years ago, but I’ll totally text them if you want.”

  I’m looking for a reason to say no—they’re too bland/muscly/earnest. Which Oprah would say is my fear speaking. I hand her phone back. “Sure. If you think they’d be into me. And I wouldn’t have to do more than seven push-ups before we do it.”

  Steph squeals. “Oh, they’ll be into you,” she says. “You’re a hottie with the lottie.”

  “Just don’t tell them about . . .” I indicate my boobs.

  “They wouldn’t care!”

  “Steph, no. It’s bad enough your roommate knows everything, but the buck stops there. You, Viv, that’s it.”

  As someone who grew up without a mother, I
have zero interest in inviting other people’s tactlessness back into my life. Things people have said to my face: “Oh. Oh, God. I don’t know how I could’ve grown up without my mom. She’s my best friend. I love her so much. I’m going to call her right now.” And “Lucky you, I hate my mother, hopeless bitch. Seriously: you’re lucky.” And “My friend’s mother died when she was young.” “My friend’s cousin died of cancer.” “My friend did the catering for Fault in Our Stars. That’s about that. Cancer.” Or, most common of all, the nonreaction: “Oh. Er . . .” *Cue change of topic.*

  When it comes to cancer, I already know that what you so often get is other people’s fear.

  “Are you sure?” Steph frowns. “It might help to reach out to people. Your community.”

  “I don’t need shitty self-help nonsense, faux empowerment slogans, or ding-dongs judging my choices. This is strictly a need-to-know situation,” I say. “As far as the advertisement of my life as experienced through social media, you better believe it’s going to be Lacey Whitman’s Best Year Ever.”

  Our food arrives: chia seed breakfast bowl for me, bacon sandwich for Steph. “Didn’t you order it with home fries?”

  She shushes me. “Salad’s great!”

  I groan. “Just tell the waiter.”

  “I need the greens.” She takes a huge bite of pork, eyeing the chia bowl. “No egg-white omelet?” My usual order. “Are you trying to make me feel fat?”

  “I’m trying to be high-fiber,” I say. “I’m trying not to get cancer.”

  She swallows awkwardly. I shouldn’t have said that. Globs of chia seeds slime down my throat.

  “Speaking of prevention,” she says, which I wasn’t aware we were, “I’ve been researching some things I can do to help.”

  The idea of Steph helping me with something that is quite literally life-or-death is so ill fitting, it pools around my ankles, ten inches from my toes. I look after Steph. I help her through teary breakups, explain how taxes work, trap spiders, evaluate outfits. When she applied for grad school the year before last, I was the one who put all her schools into a spreadsheet and project-managed her application. The fact she’s in her second year of a master’s of psychology at NYU is partly due to me. I’m not complaining. I like it. It’s our dynamic. But I don’t think it works both ways. If she had to, say, pick me up from the hospital, chances are she’d arrive at the wrong one, an hour late. Research plastic surgeons? She’d end up balls-deep in the comments section of a truffle grilled cheese recipe on SmittenKitchen.com. Or worse still, being talked off a ledge over the drama of it all, fainting at the first mention of the word scalpel. But beyond her lovable screwball dysfunction and tendency to get a little overinvolved, there’s something about Steph’s helping me—about anyone helping me—that makes me feel so uncomfortable, I’m almost annoyed. Dealing with the gross aftermath of a mastectomy and breast reconstruction feels like a personal medical issue that I would as likely get my friends to help with as I would a case of diarrhea. The bucket list, they can have. But the surgery and all that goes along with it: that’s my business. “Don’t sweat it, babe.”

  “But I want to sweat it. I want to get sweaty.”

  Teary, more like. Any money Steph is the one who loses it before I do. I spear a slice of strawberry. “I got this, seriously.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watch her exhale, concerned.

  Her phone buzzes. It’s Camila and Cam. They’re interested.

  “Holy smokes, just like that?” I grab Steph’s phone. “Camila YouTube” wants me to call.

  “This is New York City,” Steph says. “You can get anything in less than forty minutes. Unless it involves fresh air or emotional vulnerability.”

  Is that a dig at me? I signal for the check. The morning is slouching into the afternoon and I promised Vivian I’d get on top of my Clean Clothes work this weekend. Lil’ Robot has never dropped the ball before.

  In my best not-that-it-matters voice, I ask, “What’s Coop’s deal?”

  Steph looks up from her hand mirror with half a mouth of red lipstick. “Huh?”

  “How did you find him?” I examine the fascination of my cuticles. “What does he do?”

  Steph snaps the mirror shut. “No. No way, Lace. Look, I just organized you a threesome, you’ve got your hands full.”

  “I only asked—”

  “Don’t mess up my living sitch, Lace, please. He leaves the toilet seat down and makes blueberry pancakes and paid three months’ rent in advance. And,” she adds, “I might kill myself if you end up dating someone before I do. To be honest, that’s why I stopped doing threesomes. I want to be in a relationship.” She gazes mournfully around the restaurant as if every single bruncher has individually rejected a romantic advance.

  “Don’t worry, I was just curious.” I stroke her hand. “I’m not interested. Frankly I find it offensive that bony hairless nerds have been elevated to Greek god status. I blame Silicon Valley.”

  I think I fool Steph. But I haven’t entirely fooled myself.

  9.

  * * *

  My apartment feels cool and deserted, like an empty theater. Signing the lease on my own apartment in New York City had been high on my list of grown-up fantasies ever since I was a kid. Vivian helped me decorate it. I try to think of it as chic and modern. Not stark. Or a little lonely. It just doesn’t feel like I thought it would. But it seems like everyone who has roommates longs to live alone, and everyone who does absolutely loves it. Maybe I should get a dog.

  My bills from NY3C arrived in a plain white envelope: doom and gloom, oh so discreet. My insurance does cover genetic counseling but it doesn’t cover the confirmation test I ordered to double-check my result, and there’ll definitely be a copay situation on pretty much everything I do from now on. Let the financial ruin begin.

  I pop a sparkling water, put on some languid electronica, and settle in for an afternoon of outfit curation for Clean Clothes. A long list of users requesting outfits greets me; I’m way behind. Usually I knock out a half-dozen outfits a night after work, or first thing in the morning on the days I don’t go to the gym. This past week has tossed every part of my schedule out the window. I have to get back on top of things.

  The first user’s board is SoCal with a twist of boho: crystals, fringed vests, vintage rock tees, hippie headbands. She’s sixteen, from California, wanting a new look for school. I put together a loose maxi slip with cute crochet accents, a big chunky cardigan, two-tone Western-inspired cowboy boots, light-reflecting John Lennon sunglasses, and a fun statement necklace heavy with rose quartz and long colorful tassels. Six months ago, I might’ve thrown in some velvet, but that trend is, thankfully, going the way of all waning trends: into the great recycle basket in the sky.

  The looks come in waves: last year there was the prom wave, the Christmas wave, then the New Year’s Eve wave. Putting together the outfits feeds my need to be a personal stylist, an online shopper, and busy, period. I believe in ethical clothing, and I genuinely love the brands making it: passionate people using their talent for good. I also love putting looks together. I was the girl who made her own dress for prom, who ruined the bathtub dyeing leather. I love nothing more than digging through a friend’s wardrobe, finding things that work, that are a true expression of who they really are. For me, fashion is about more than clothes or runway shows or airbrushed magazines. Coco Chanel said, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” This is what interests me. The intersection between culture, identity, politics, and play. I didn’t have these words when I first moved to New York, but I knew in my bones what they were about.

  Fashion wasn’t something that was happening in Buntley, Illinois. It was something that existed over the rainbow, way up high, in the far-off lands of New York and Paris and Milan. The discovery that it was something I had a knack for—not just pulling together an outfit but also
understanding the history, seeing the connections between designers, understanding what they were talking about in interviews—that was more than just interesting. It was exhilarating. It was a relief. When I was a kid, designers were my rock stars, the ones whose pictures covered my bedroom walls and school folders. They lived a life where clothes were currency. Where clothes mattered. To a kid who had to wear hand-me-downs, whose Barbie was the knockoff “Fashion Doll” from the dollar store, that seemed amazing. Even kind of ridiculous. But dreams are a bit ridiculous. Pursuing something that thousands of other people want to do, and what most of them won’t get to do, that is ridiculous. In the best, most exciting kind of way. For me, fashion has always been about so much more than just expensive clothes on skinny models. It’s about who I am. And who I’m not.

  Usually I find outfit curation for Clean Clothes soothing and enjoyable. It’s my meditation, sending brain and body into a placid, comfortable space, a relaxed, even indulgent state of consciousness.

  But today, I’m distractible. I can’t sink into it like I usually do.

  I shuffle through the pamphlets I got from Judy-Ann and Dr. Williams: Preparing for Mastectomy, BRCA1 and You, Finding Solidarity and Support. A sea of smiling, concerned women with more racial diversity than the UN. Conspicuously absent: men reeling away in horror, women bursting into tears at the sight of their butchered boobs. My own chest constricts with a small wave of panic. I shove the pamphlets in my desk drawer, telling myself I don’t need to rush into anything. Picking up my phone, I find my sister’s name. Mara Whitman. My finger hovers over her number.

  Hi sis, it’s me. Remember how much you didn’t want us to take that cancer gene test? Well, surprise, I took it, and, surprise, I have it, and surprise, there’s a 50 percent chance you might have it too, byeeee!

  Yeah, right. I’ll see her in a few weeks. It’ll be better face-to-face is the lie I settle on.