Page 20 of This Is How It Started
I do and I don’t, knowing that our top priorities from last year will once again top this year’s list and make me feel like a loser.
“Let me print last year’s list,” Josh says.
I’ve never met a person more organized than my husband. Everything has its rightful place. Unlike me, he cleans his closet—and his computer—frequently. His rule of thumb is, if he hasn’t worn something in the last year, out it goes. He’s equally as fanatical about cleaning out old emails. His architecture files are color coded. And his vinyl records and CDs are in alphabetical order.
He goes to the tiny alcove we use as an office, and I can hear the grind of the printer. I grab two cold sodas from the fridge and take them to the living room. The best thing about our apartment is the large picture windows with views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s another reason Josh has been so picky about buying a house. While our place is small, it’s got location, location, location.
Josh brings last year’s list and his laptop and plops down next to me on the sofa. We set about marking off our accomplishments on the hard copy. That’s my job. I find a pen in the coffee table drawer.
“New bed. Check. New car. Check.” My MINI finally gave up the ghost, and we splurged on a plug-in hybrid for the reason that it was roomy enough to fit my real estate clients.
“Date nights. Check.” Watching Hannah and Stephen’s marriage go from bad to worse, Josh and I made a conscious decision to spend more time together. Every Wednesday night, no matter what, we go on a date, even if we just order delivery and watch a movie on Netflix. The point is not to take each other for granted.
I scan the list to see what I’ve missed. “Living trust. Check.”
It was Josh’s idea after my dad died. I thought it was premature. We’re only in our midthirties and don’t have kids. But after talking to an estate lawyer—a friend of Hannah’s—she said it was never too early to “plan” for the future.
“What else is on there?” Josh stares at the list over my shoulder.
I hold Josh’s gaze. “You know what’s on there.”
His hand gently rubs my back. “We’ll get there, Rach. I promise.”
“I guess you should add it to our new list.”
“Yep,” he says, but instead of starting a new list, he just deletes everything from our old one.
“What are you doing? Don’t you want to keep that?”
He nudges his head at my hard copy. “Why? You’ve got that one.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just to keep a permanent record, so that when we’ve been married for fifty years we can look back and say, ‘Remember when...?’ Tell me you have our old ones?”
He shakes his head. “I assumed it was out with the old and in with the new.”
Maybe I’m being overly sentimental, but it bothers me that he’s being so cavalier about it. This is our thing. Someday we may want to show our kids our lists.
“When we’re done, send me a copy,” I say, annoyed. “I’ll keep a record.”
“Sorry. Seriously, Rach, I didn’t know we were keeping these.”
“Whatever.” I toss my head.
He kisses me on the back of my neck, and I feel my irritation slipping away.
“Are we doing this?” Josh says.
“Put that you promise never to delete any more of our lists as number one on the list. There is a limit to how anal you are about cleaning up your computer files.”
“I promise,” Josh says and pulls me onto his lap. And for the rest of the evening, the list is forgotten.
Chapter 9
Jessica Simpson
Campbell is getting married. It’s nine in the morning, and I haven’t yet had my first cup of coffee as I try to process the news.
“She’s the one,” he says, his voice almost reverent in a way I’ve never heard it before. In a way that, if I didn’t know Campbell better, was designed to be mean.
