Nope.
I’d witnessed my dad in public, fooling strangers and friends with a phony charisma he wore like a mask. Behind closed doors, he never treated us with the same consideration. He’d probably wooed my mom with that bullshit. How long until he revealed his true nature? Worse, whenever he’d go too far, he’d fake nice to make amends. And my mom bought it every single time.
Love blinded her, but my eyes were wide open.
“Call him,” she singsonged.
Easy for her to say.
I worried she might issue it as an actual dare, but I didn’t think she’d threaten nuclear annihilation over anything this real. At least she never had before. Still, I swallowed down bile at the prospect of her dropping that letter in the mail. I’d filled pages with caustic anger toward my dad, placing the blame for my fucked-up emotional state at his feet. It was never intended for his eyes, but Elizabeth, evil genius that she was, threatened to get his address from my mom and send it for any dare I failed to do.
With that threat hanging over me, I’d never failed to complete any challenge, including baring my soul to a sexy Greek guy. Now I was paying for it.
My lizard brain drifted back to his magnificent body, wishing Icouldcall him and ask him to come over tonight. And I bet he’d come. Hard. In me. He seemed eager enough.
I couldn’t explain why he scared me, what I feared. “There are plenty of other fish in the sea.”
“The sea has been overfished,” she countered.
“Well, who wants a fish anyway?”
“Seriously. Where’s my Prince Eric?”
Fuck that. “Where’s my Aquaman?”
“Oh, hey.” She sounded serious as an empty wineglass. “I just got a text from Evan, what the fuck?”
“Yeah?” Had we conjured him? “What’d he say?”
“He wants to call me. What do I do?”
If it were me, I’d ignore it, but Elizabeth was infinitely forgiving. Whatever I advised, she’d find a rationale to let him take another crack at her heart. “You know you’re going to talk to him. Go on. I’m almost at the wine shop. Call me later, okay? Or come by if it’s not too late.”
“You got it.”
I clicked off the call and crossed the street alone with my thoughts.
And my loneliness.
And the unwanted longing for something I couldn’t even name.
I was tempted to search for weekend flights to Puerto Rico. I could pick up a faraway stranger and slake the unhealthy desire Bas had unearthed.
Elizabeth always chided me that running away would never solve anything.Wherever you go, there you are.But if I changed enough variables, the constants might follow. I didn’t expect travel to free me of my baggage or to fix me. What I needed, what would make me happy, would be to become someone else entirely, but since science hadn’t come that far, I had to make do.
Travel, sex, even art allowed me to escape myself. I had to admit, the checklist served a similar purpose, distracting me from me. If only for a moment.
My therapist, Dr. Rubin, had challenged me to create the list to reprogram my patterns of behavior so I wouldn’t go straight to old habits, easy fixes when I was plummeting into anger and depression. I kept asking myself what I would do if I were that new person. I kept scratching at the possibilities.
When I entered the wine cellar below street level, I paused to breathe in the atmosphere, the damp, musty smell of the underground, the chill of dank spaces. I loved this small store with its cramped inventory of curated wines. It was like stepping out of time, or out of place maybe, like I’d gone to France or Italy. And I let myself be transported as I perused the pinot.
My shoulder nudged someone, and I looked up, right into the curious face of one Basil Stavros.
I stopped breathing.
What were the odds?
“Oh,” I said.
