Book Lovers(8)

She never actually asked for any of those things, but she’s asking now, her palms pressed together and her lower lip jutted, and it makes me feel panicky and breathless, even more out of control than the thought of leaving the city. “Please.”

Her fatigue has made her look insubstantial, faded, like if I tried to brush her hair away from her brow, my fingers might pass through her. I didn’t know it was possible to miss a person this much while she was sitting right next to you, so badly everything in you aches.

She’s right here, I tell myself, and she’s okay. Whatever it is, you’ll fix it.

I swallow every excuse, complaint, and argument bubbling up in me. “Let’s take a trip.”

Libby’s lips split into a grin. She shifts on the windowsill to wriggle something out of her back pocket. “Okay, good. Because I already bought these and I’m not sure they’re refundable.” She slaps the printed plane tickets in my lap, and it’s like the moment never happened. Like in the matter of point five seconds, I got my carefree baby sister back, and I’d trade any number of organs to cement us both into this moment, to live here always where she’s shining bright. My chest loosens. My next breath comes easy.

“Aren’t you even going to look where we’re going?” Libby asks, amused.

I tear my gaze from her and read the ticket. “Asheville, North Carolina?”

She shakes her head. “It’s the airport closest to Sunshine Falls. This is going to be a . . . once-in-a-lifetime trip.”

I groan and she throws her arms around me, laughing. “We’re going to have so much fun, Sissy! And you’re going to fall in love with a lumberjack.”

“If there’s one thing that makes me horny,” I say, “it’s deforestation.”

“An ethical, sustainable, organic, gluten-free lumberjack,” Libby amends.





2





ON THE AIRPLANE, Libby insists we order Bloody Marys. Actually, she tries to pressure me into taking shots, but she settles for a Bloody Mary (and a plain tomato juice for herself). I’m not a big drinker myself, and morning alcohol has never been my thing. But this is my first vacation in a decade, and I’m so anxious I chug the drink in the first twenty minutes of our flight.

I don’t like traveling, I don’t like time off work, and I don’t like leaving my clients in the lurch. Or, in this case, one rather indispensable client: I spent the forty-eight hours pre-takeoff alternating between trying to talk Dusty down and pump her up.

We’ve already bumped the deadline for her next book back six months, and if she can’t start getting her editor pages this week, the whole publishing schedule will be thrown off.

She’s so superstitious about the drafting process that we don’t even know what she’s working on, but I fire off another encouraging you-can-do-it email on my phone anyway.

Libby shoots me a pointed look, brow arched. I set my phone down and hold up my hands, hoping to signal I’m present.

“So,” she says, appeased, and drags her cartoonishly large purse onto the folding tray table, “I figure now is as good a time as any to go over the plan.” She fishes out an actual, full-sized folder and flops it open.

“Oh my god, what is that?” I say. “Are you planning a bank robbery?”

“Heist, Sissy. Robbery sounds so déclassé, and we’re going to be wearing three-piece suits the whole time,” she says, not missing a beat as she pulls out two identical laminated sheets with the typed heading LIFE-CHANGING VACATION LIST.

“Who are you and where did you bury my sister?” I ask.

“I know how much you love a checklist,” she says brightly. “So I took the liberty of crafting one to create our perfect small-town adventure.”

I reach for one of the sheets. “I hope number one is ‘dance atop a Coyote Ugly bar.’ Though I’m not sure any manager worth her salt will allow that in your condition.”

She feigns offense. “Am I showing much?”

“Noooo,” I coo. “Not at all.”

“You’re so bad at lying. It looks like your face muscles are being controlled by a half dozen amateur puppeteers. Now, back to the bucket list.”

“Bucket list? Which of us is dying?”

She looks up, eyes sparkling. I’d say it’s the glint of mischief, but her eyes are pretty much always sparkly. “Birth is a kind of death,” she says, rubbing her tummy. “Death of the self. Death of sleep. Death of your ability not to pee yourself a little when you laugh. But I guess it’s more like a small-town romance novel experience list than a bucket list. It’s how we’re both going to be transformed via small-town magic into more relaxed versions of ourselves.”

I eye the list again. Before Libby got pregnant the first time, she briefly worked for a top-tier events planner (among many, many, many other things), so despite her natural tendency toward spontaneity (read: chaos), she’d made some strides in organization, even pre-motherhood. But this level of planning is so extremely . . . me, and I’m weirdly touched she’s put so much thought into this.

Also shocked to discover the first item on the list is Wear a flannel shirt. “I don’t own a flannel shirt,” I say.

Libby shrugs. “Me neither. We’ll have to thrift some—maybe we can find some cowgirl boots too.”