The Bucket List

by Georgia Clark

  But he was lying.

  The technology was cool, but it wasn’t selling the way they thought it would. Their business-development team started signing bad deals just to keep the lights on. They weren’t bringing in real revenue, and now they were burning a ton of money every month on employees. Liam and Cooper started getting nervous they were going to run out of cash and wouldn’t be able to raise more because, ultimately, the business was failing.

  That’s when SynCorp International came knocking and offered to buy them out.

  They were offering $40 million.

  I stop in my tracks and gasp, a real movie gasp. “You’re fucking kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  I stare at him, frantically recasting him in my mind as a multimillionaire. It’s like finding out he’s part alien.

  Cooper holds up a hand. “Wait,” he says.

  Even though this was less than the mega millions they wanted the company to be worth someday, it was better than their valuation, and could be a good way out. But Cooper didn’t want to do the deal. SynCorp International was a billion-dollar engineering company whose biggest client happened to be the US military. They were responsible for training and simulation services. Not rocket science to work out that See365 would be used to train US soldiers. Things were already strained between the cofounders. Both felt the other was getting more than his fair share. It was Liam who had the connections to the Rockefeller investment money, but Cooper who created the software in the first place. Starting at a fifty-fifty split, both their equity was chipped away as they brought on new employees, and was now at 33 percent a piece.

  They argued. Viciously. Creating technology for warfare was a major ethical disaster for Cooper. But it seemed like the only way out, and it was a huge carrot being dangled in front of them: $40 million. In the end, Liam wore Cooper down. He agreed to the deal.

  “Holy smokes,” I say. “Payday, times forty million.”

  “Not exactly,” Cooper says.

  What Cooper didn’t know was that Liam did the deal with the Rockefeller at a three-times liquidation preference. That meant the Rockefeller got his money back times three before anyone else got paid out, in the event of a deal. Liam was desperate to get a big, fat deal done to look good in front of Father. It was the only way he could get the Rockefeller over the line in the first place. Now, of the $40 million the company was bought for, $30 million went to the Rockefeller, leaving $10 million to divide among the other shareholders.

  Cooper should’ve ended up with close to $13.2 million. In the end, he walked away with just over $3 million and never spoke to Liam again. He was twenty-four years old.

  It takes me a long time to gather a response. “Why are you living in a shared loft if you’re a millionaire?”

  “Because I’m not a millionaire.” Taxes ate up a chunk. Then Cooper’s dad Moritz was hit by an Uber. He was on an informal sabbatical from his untenured university position. After fighting with the insurance company and Uber for six months, both refused to pay the hospital bill, which was fast approaching seven figures. Cooper footed the bill. He says it like he was picking up the check. “Then I bought the dads a big fancy house. It’ll be my house eventually, so it wasn’t totally a martyr move. I have some stocks and bonds and shit, nothing too crazy. I’m not scraping by but I’m not superrich.”

  “But you could afford to get your own place. You don’t need a roommate.”

  “True,” he says. “But I wanted some company. After everything went to shit in San Francisco, I moved to LA, got an overpriced one-bedroom, and ended up spending a lot of time talking to my cactus. When it started talking back, I figured I needed a change. I like Steph; I like Astoria. It’s a good place for me to figure out what I actually want to do. What makes me happy. And that,” he says, “is what I’m assuming you meant by my story.”

  I’m experiencing that distinct sensation of arriving at an online date and realizing that the guy is . . . amazing. And cute. And clever, and has a cool job, and appears interested in me. Ladies of the world know how rare and thrilling and off-putting this is. I liked Cooper, but I didn’t really like like him. Now that is becoming a distinct possibility. I feel underdressed, underprepared.

  Coop isn’t an easy get. He’s a catch.

  Be. Cool.

  The grocery store doors slide open. He smiles at me. “We’re here.”

  We go in search of blueberries, eggs, maple syrup. Everything organic, farm-fresh, local. It’s easy. Fun. I tease him; he teases me back. I’m getting groceries with my boyfriend, and after we go home and make pancakes, we’ll have lazy Sunday-morning sex, then see a movie, then get dumplings. By the time we leave the store, my interest in Cooper has reached DEFCON 1. I am actively containing an adrenaline spike.

  When he asks me about my story, I don’t give him my usual set of half-truths and sleight of hand.

  “My mom died when I was five,” I say. “Breast cancer.”

  He doesn’t look at me like I’m someone who needs saving. He doesn’t appear mortified or unsure. He doesn’t say, “I’m sorry,” prompting an equally generic and thus meaningless response. He just listens. And that lets me talk. Openly, without pretense or sarcasm.

  I tell him about growing up without a mother, raised by an odd confluence of Mara, my dad, PTA mom–types, and the internet. How my sister was the one who made my middle school lunches and did the laundry and helped me with my homework but how much she openly resented that, how much she hated my father. I adored my dad, idolized him, even. When I was a preteen his constant new business ventures—importer of Balinese furniture, real estate agent, manager of a Beatles cover band—were exciting and cool. They meant we moved around Illinois a lot, and I got good at moving. Sometimes I just lived out of boxes, and there wasn’t anyone around to tell me not to. There wasn’t anyone around to tell me not to do anything: I never had a curfew; I could watch as much television as I wanted. My memories of those years are happy. Piling into our beat-up yellow Kombi van, singing along to Paul Simon cassettes, Dad grinning down at me, one hand on the steering wheel, the other flicking a cigarette out the car window, on the road, yet again. When I started high school in the small town of Buntley (home of a turkey farm he’d invested in), things changed. I didn’t want to move anymore. I’d made friends, real ones, ones I didn’t want to discard. My sister had a boyfriend whose house she basically lived at. Or, could have lived at, if it wasn’t for me. When Dad’s next great big thing arrived, Mara and I put our foot down. I remember that day clearly: my father was furious, yelling at us to start packing. Mara yelled back. She was nineteen years old and fierce as a tiger. We weren’t going. Not again. We were done.

  She won. We stayed. Then the disappearing years started. He’d just leave, middle of the night, usually with a note and a few bills for food. He’d come back, eventually, maybe after a few days, a few weeks. One time it was months. And, like my sister, I started hating my father too. He wasn’t an adventurer. He was a loser. A vagrant.

  I put myself through high school. I worked part-time jobs, saving what I could and studying the rest of the time. Education was my ticket out. I knew this, and everyone kept telling me I was smart, I could make it. Got into Ohio State with financial aid. Interned at Hoffman House like my life depended on it. Landed an entry-level sales job. And here we are.

  “Wow,” Cooper says. “That’s quite a tale.”

  I can tell I’ve rattled him. We walk in silence for a few moments. I said too much. I sound like the kid of a hobo and the sister of a rage monster, which in some ways I am. He sold a company for $40 million, and I worked a summer job at Fudgy Wudgy Ice Cream. He loves Berlin. I’ve never even been to Boston.

  Good one, Whitman.

  “You’re really impressive.” He sounds embarrassed. “I obviously had a pretty sheltered upbringing.”

  “I think you’re really impressive,” I say. “Not just selling a company, which is obviously pretty baller. Taking real time to work out w
hat your deal is: it’s very . . . evolved.”

  “Thanks,” he says. “Can I ask a big question?”

  We’re back at the loft, outside the front steps. I remember when these steps seemed novel. My childhood was entirely flat. “Sure.”

  He looks me right in the face. I take the chance to stare back. It’s not that he has male-model cheekbones. But I really like where his cheekbones are. “What makes you happy?” he asks. “What’s worth doing?”

  I don’t want to say, “I don’t know,” but they are the first three words to come to me. I can’t say “pancakes” (too glib) or “talking to you” (too honest). What makes me happy? Who asks questions like that? Noam Cooper, emotionally evolved egghead and far too attractive for my own good. “I’m still figuring that out,” I say. “But when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Excellent,” he says, “and for the record, you’re impressive, Lacey Whitman.”

  We climb the stairs to the first floor, and I’m buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.

  He takes the lead with breakfast, and is there anything more attractive than a dude who knows his way around a cast iron? I make coffee, subtly admiring the way he can crack an egg with one hand. Technically, I only allow myself pancakes on Sundays. But if Cooper was my boyfriend, I’d eat them every single day. We chat about trend forecasting. He knows the basics. I fill in his gaps, like how powerful celebrities are these days. Kim Kardashian wears a trucker hat and cutoffs on Monday, and Forever 21 has a new line of trucker hats and cutoffs in just two weeks. “It’s all about having your finger on as many pulses as possible,” I say. “In order to stay ahead of the curve.”

  “And you’re ahead of the curve, now.” He flips a pancake. “Thinking about getting a mastectomy.”

  The word invades the kitchen. I’m aware we haven’t discussed my bucket list or my health, and it felt deliberate, the cozy construction of a fantasy where we’re just two regular twentysomethings, maybe, kind of, crushing on each other. The morning splits a little. I mumble affirmation, hoping we can skate past it.

  He puts a plate of pancakes in front of me. They smell like butter, sugar, heaven on earth. “How’s everything going with that?” he asks, taking a seat opposite me.

  I promptly lose my appetite. “Fine.”

  He forks pancake into his mouth, watching me as he chews and swallows. “You don’t like talking about it?”

  “I don’t talk about it.”

  “Forgive me for sounding like a touchy-feely liberal, but I am a touchy-feely liberal, so: it’s probably a good idea to talk about it.” He shoves more pancake into his mouth and smiles idiotically, which makes me laugh a little.

  I carve off a tiny piece of pancake and swirl it into some syrup. “I’m not big on emotional theatrics.”

  He shrugs. “Okay.”

  His acceptance feels unusual. I take a little bite. Delicious. “Well . . . it’s . . . a nightmare.”

  Cooper keeps eating but he’s listening closely.

  The tight ball of apprehension in my chest loosens a tiny bit. That little drip of honesty felt . . . good. “Feels like I have to plan my own funeral but I can’t tell anyone I’m going to die.” I take a deep, cautious breath. I can hear my heart in my chest. “I just feel . . . very alone and very scared. I’ve worked really hard to create a life for myself here, but this makes me feel that it’s not a solid life. I get this surgery, something goes wrong, I’m sick, in pain, I can’t go back to work, I can’t pay rent, I end up where? With my sister?” I let out a hard laugh.

  “How common is that?” Cooper asks. “Complications, things going wrong?”

  “I don’t know. The forums are full of horror stories.”

  “Forums?”

  “Online cancer clubs. Real cheery places,” I say, even though my sarcasm is a little unfair: some of the women who post seem perfectly cool.

  “They could be a good way to meet people,” he says, “who are going through the same thing you are.”

  “Maybe.” I take another bite, then another.

  “You got dealt a shit hand, Lacey. There’s no denying it. But the more you can open up to people, let them help you and support you, the easier it’s going to be.”

  We gaze at each other, a deep, raw space opening between us.

  It’s not sexy.

  It’s intimate.

  Cooper pushes his plate aside, scraped clean. “And how about the other thing?”

  “The bucket list?” I smile. The mood in the room lightens. “Not bad, actually. Kicking ass, taking names.”

  “I was thinking about that list,” he says.

  “Oh, really,” I tease. “What were you thinking about?”

  “Do you feel like you won’t be able to do those things afterward?”

  I think on this. “No. I guess I’d be able to. But some of them wouldn’t be the same, and some of them I just want to do now.” I eat a big mouthful of pancake, suddenly hungry. “What about you: made any moves on that diner waitress yet?”

  He grins and takes his plate to the sink. “Not exactly.” He checks the time. “But I do have a date this afternoon.”

  The word ricochets through me. I keep my voice indifferent. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, we’re seeing a movie at BAM.” I can’t tell if he sounds apologetic or not: there’s something definitely off in his tone.

  I keep chewing, casually. “First date?”

  He pauses. He’s counting. “Sixth, I think.”

  “Sixth?” The word shoots out of me like a flare. “You like her.” It sounds like an accusation, and why did I believe Steph when she said he was single, why, why, why?

  “I don’t know. I guess.” He definitely sounds uncomfortable, and of course he fucking should, we’ve basically been on a date all morning. Haven’t we? “She, ah, started an organic tampon company.”

  I bet I know who it is. Elsa, a ridiculously beautiful Swede who doesn’t shave her armpits and smells like essential oils. A wifey. They’d make a great couple.

  “Fun.” I want to stab something. “I should get going.”

  I gather up my purse and coat. The waves of humiliation I’m radiating could fill an ocean. I stayed over for him, opened up to him, orchestrated this entire morning for someone who has a girlfriend, and of course he does, and of course it’s not me, with my dud DNA and potential breast removal. I zip up my coat so fast I catch the skin on my stomach. I don’t even flinch at the pain. “Bye!” I zoom toward the front door.

  “Lacey,” he calls after me.

  I don’t want to turn around, but I do. My smile is so frozen it could cut glass.

  He’s rubbing the back of his neck, awkward, unsure. Poor baby: must be so hard when all the girls you’re stringing along catch up with one another. But even as I’m resisting the urge to scratch out his eyes, I want him to want me. To choose me. Because don’t we have something?

  Finally he looks up. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “Just bad timing.”

  I cock my head, smiling; Whatever do you mean? “Thanks for the chat,” I say. “See you later.”

  I’m not going to feel it: the hard wallop of rejection, the slow crush of disappointment. This is the time girls like me call their mothers. I hear them, walking from the subway or curled into coffee shop corners, I don’t know what went wrong. I really cared about him, Mom. And in the silence when they’re listening, faces a crunch of sadness, I imagine what they’re hearing. He doesn’t deserve you, darling. It’ll be okay. I love you so, so much.

  I, on the other hand, make escape plans.

  He picks up on the second ring. “Aziz-am,” Elan says, “I’m so glad you called.”

  22.

  * * *

  I don’t tell Steph or Vivian about my pending dinner date with Elan. I want to, but I want them to be excited for me more, and I have a feeling what I’ll get is a warning and even the possibility of this irritates me, so I keep my mouth shut. Funnily enough, the person I do end up telling is a com
plete stranger. Beatrice “Bee” Weiner, the “crown jewel of Staten Island” (her words) is forty-six, a divorced New York native, and active on the BRCA forums. While most forum regulars are fond of using abbreviations like DH (“dear husband”; gag) and signing off their polite, hopeful posts with smiley emojis and hearts, Bee is as frank and funny as a well-timed fart. Her first post: All right bitches, I’m getting my titties cut off this summer. Gotta couple of beaver tails strapped to my chest: size 40D squared. How soon till I can motorboat my ex? We’ve started emailing, and it’s her I confide in. Nice one, Whitman, she writes me back. Let’s hope Persia knows how to speak pussy.

  I work some contacts and borrow an Opening Ceremony dress for our date. It’s a sample from the upcoming spring collection: pleated black silk with a subtle gold-metallic shimmer that falls an inch above the knee. Tie-up spaghetti straps, scoop neck. It’s a loose A-line so I wear it belted, no necklace, and after much consideration, pair it with fierce orange stilettos (Louboutins, eBay) and a dark green clutch, which sounds totally bonkers but looks wild in a let’s-party-like-it’s-1999 way. I blow-out my hair and am in the process of finishing big smoky eyes when my doorbell rings. It’s UPS. A package for me: a large cream envelope and a short note in scratchy, messy handwriting on Elan’s custom stationery.

  Wear this.

  A red lace bra and matching panties fall into my hand.

  I stare at them, confused. Does he think I don’t have my own underwear?

  Then it lands.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I toss it all on my bed, panicked. I can’t wear underwear that a man—essentially, a stranger—couriered me before a date. I don’t even know how he got my address. Called Hoffman House? Bribed an intern?

  It’s obviously a power play. Wearing the underwear indicates that I’m submissive, that I can be controlled.

  Or does it? Are we playing a game; is this an offering?

  Am I supposed to play hard to get? Should I be indignant; is that the good-girl thing to do?