Book Lovers(9)

When we were teenagers, we’d spend hours sorting through junk for gems at our favorite Goodwill. I’d go for the sleek designer pieces and she’d beeline toward anything with color, fringe, or rhinestones.

Again I feel that heart-pinch sensation, like I’m missing her, like all our best moments are behind us. That, I remind myself, is why I’m doing this. By the time we get back to the city, whatever little gaps have cropped up between us will be stitched closed again.

“Flannel,” I say. “Got it.” The second item on the list is Bake something. Continuing the trend of us being polar opposites, my sister loves cooking, but since she’s usually beholden to the taste buds of a four-and three-year-old, she’s always saved her more adventurous recipes for our nights in together. My eyes skim down the list.

         General makeover (let hair down/get bangs?)



     Build something (literal, not figurative)





The first four items almost directly correlate to Libby’s Graveyard of Abandoned Potential Careers. Before her event-planning job, she’d briefly run an online vintage store that curated thrift store finds; and before that, she’d wanted to be a baker; and before that, a hairstylist; and for one very brief summer, she’d decided she wanted to be a carpenter because there weren’t “enough women in that field.” She was eight.

So everything so far makes sense—at least as much as this entire thing makes sense (which is to say, only in Libby’s brain)—but then my gaze catches on number five. “Ummm, what is this?”

“Go on at least two dates with locals,” she reads, visibly excited. “That one’s not for me.” She lifts her copy of the list, on which number five is struck through.

“Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” I say.

“You’ll recall that I’m married,” she says, “and five trillion weeks pregnant.”

“And I’m a career woman with a weekly housekeeping service, a spare bedroom I turned into a shoe closet, and a Sephora credit card. I don’t imagine my dream man is a lobster hunter.”

Libby lights up and scooches forward in her seat. “Exactly!” she says. “Look, Nora, you know I love your beautiful, Dewey-decimal-organized brain, but you date like you’re shopping for cars.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“And it always ends badly.”

“Oh, thank god.” I clutch my chest. “I was worried that wouldn’t come up soon.”

She tries to turn in her seat and grabs my hands on the armrest between us. “I’m just saying, you keep dating these guys who are exactly like you, with all the same priorities.”

“You can really shorten that sentence if you just say ‘men I’m compatible with.’?”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” she says. “Think about all your exes. Think about Jakob and his cowgirl wife!”

Something cold lances through me at the mention of him; Libby doesn’t notice.

“The whole point of this trip is to step outside our comfort zones,” she insists. “To get a chance to . . . to be someone different! Besides, who knows? Maybe if you branch out a little, you’ll find your own life-changing love story instead of another walking checklist of a boyfriend.”

“I like dating checklists, thank you very much,” I say. “Checklists keep things simple. I mean, think about Mom, Lib.” She was constantly falling in love, and never with men who made any sense for her. It always came crashing down spectacularly, usually leaving her so broken she’d miss work or auditions, or do so badly at either that she’d get fired or cut.

“You’re nothing like Mom.” She says it flippantly, but it still stings. I’m well aware how little I take after our mother. I felt those shortcomings every second of every day after we lost her, when I was trying to keep us afloat.

And I know that’s not what Libby’s saying, but it still doesn’t feel all too different from every breakup I can remember: a long-winded monologue ending with something along the lines of FOR ALL I KNOW, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE FEELINGS.

“I mean, how often do you get to just let loose and not worry about how it fits into your perfect little plan?” Libby goes on. “You deserve to have some low-pressure fun, and frankly, I deserve to live vicariously through you. Ergo, the dates.”

“So am I allowed to take the earpiece out after dinner, or . . .”

Libby throws up her hands. “You know what, fine, forget number five! Even though it would be good for you. Even though I basically designed this whole trip for you to have your small-town romance novel experience, I guess—”

“Okay, okay!” I cry. “I’ll do the lumberjack dates, but they’d better look like Robert Redford.”

She squeals excitedly. “Young or old?”

I stare at her.

“Right,” she says. “Got it. So, moving on. Number six: Go skinny-dipping in a natural body of water.”

“What if there are bacteria that affect the baby or something?” I ask.

“Damn it,” she grumbles, frowning. “I really didn’t think all of this through as well as I thought.”

“Nonsense,” I say. “It’s an amazing list.”