“It’s Saturday night,” Eve was tutting. “You work for yourself. From home.”
“Which is precisely why I have to be disciplined. Call Dani.”
“Dani sings like a howler monkey.”
“But she has stage presence,” Chloe said reasonably.
“Stage presence can’t hide everything. She’s not Madonna, for Christ’s sake. I don’t think you are grasping the gravity of this situation, Chlo; this isn’t just a karaoke night. There is a competition.”
“Oh, joy.”
“Guess what the prize is?”
“I couldn’t possibly,” Chloe murmured.
“Go on. Guess!”
“Just tell me. I am bursting with excitement.”
“The prize,” Eve said dramatically, “is . . . tickets to Mariah Carey’s Christmas tour!”
“Tickets to—?” Oh, for goodness sake. “You don’t need to win those, Eve. Have Gigi arrange it.”
“That’s really not the point. This is for fun! You remember, fun—that thing you never have?”
“This may come as a shock to you, darling, but most people don’t consider karaoke exciting.”
“All right,” Eve relented, sounding rather glum. But, as always, she brightened quickly. “Speaking of fun . . . how is that list of yours developing?”
Chloe sighed and let her head fall back against the cushions. Heaven protect her from little sisters. She should never have told either of them about her list, the one she’d written after her near-death experience and subsequent resolution. They always made fun of her itemized plans.
Well, more fool them, because planning was the key to success. It was thanks to the list, after all, that Chloe’s imaginary eulogy was now looking much more positive. Today, she could proudly claim that if she died, the papers would say something like this:
At the grand old age of thirty-one, Chloe moved out of her family home and rented a poky little flat, just like an ordinary person. She also wrote an impressive seven-point list detailing her plans to get a life. While she failed to fully complete said list before her death, its existence proves that she was in a better, less boring, place. We salute you, Chloe Brown. Clearly, you listened to the universe.
Satisfactory, if not ideal. She had not yet transformed her life, but she was in the process of doing so. She was a caterpillar tucked into a universe-endorsed chrysalis. Someday soon, she would emerge as a beautiful butterfly who did cool and fabulous things all the time, regardless of whether or not said things had been previously scheduled. All she had to do was follow the list.
Unfortunately, Eve didn’t share her patience or her positive outlook. “Well?” she nudged, when Chloe didn’t respond. “Have you crossed anything off yet?”
“I moved out.”
“Yes, I had noticed that,” Eve snorted. “Do you know, I’m the last Brown sister living at home now?”
“Really? I had no idea. I thought there were several more of us roaming the halls.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Perhaps you should move out soon, too.”
“Not yet. I’m still saving my monthly stipend,” Eve said vaguely. God only knew what for. Chloe was afraid to ask, in case the answer was something like A diamond-encrusted violin, of course. “But you moved out weeks ago, Chlo. There’s all sorts of things on that list of yours. What else have you done?”
When in doubt, remain silent—that was Chloe’s motto.
“I knew it,” Eve sniffed eventually. “You are letting me down.”
“Letting you down?”
“Yes. Dani bet me fifty pounds that you’d abandon your list by the end of the year, but I—”
“She bet you what?”
“I supported you like a good and loyal sister—”
“What on earth is the matter with the pair of you?”
“And this is how you repay me! With apathy! And to top it all, you won’t help me win Mariah Carey tickets.”
“Will you shut up about the karaoke?” Chloe snapped. She ran a hand over her face, suddenly exhausted. “Darling, I can’t talk anymore. I really am working.”
“Fine,” Eve sighed. “But this isn’t the last you’ve heard of me, Chloe Sophia.”
“Stop that.”
“I won’t rest until you’re no longer such a boring—”
Chloe put the phone down.
A second later, a notification flashed up on her screen.
Eve: :)
Chloe shook her head in fond irritation and got back to work. The SEO of local restaurants, hair salons, and the other small businesses on her roster wouldn’t maintain itself. She sank into the familiar mental rhythm of research and updates . . . or rather, she tried to. But her focus was shattered. After five minutes, she paused to mutter indignantly at the empty room, “Dani bet fifty pounds that I would abandon the list? Ridiculous.”
After ten, she drummed her fingers against the sofa and said, “She simply doesn’t understand the fine art of list-based goal setting.” The fact that Dani was a Ph.D. student was neither here nor there. She was too rebellious to grasp the importance of a good, solid plan.
Although . . . Chloe supposed it had been a while since she’d taken stock. Maybe she was due a checkin. Before she knew it, her laptop was closed and abandoned in the living room while she strode off to find the blue sparkly notebook hidden in her bedside drawer.
Chloe had many notebooks, because Chloe wrote many lists. Her brain, typically fogged by pain or painkillers (or, on truly exciting days, both), was a cloudy, lackadaisical thing that could not be trusted, so she relied on neatly organized reminders.
Daily to-do lists, weekly to-do lists, monthly to-do lists, medication lists, shopping lists, Enemies I Will Destroy lists (that one was rather old and more of a morale boost than anything else), client lists, birthday lists, and, her personal favorite, wish lists. If a thing could be organized, categorized, scheduled, and written neatly into a color-coded section of a notebook, the chances were, Chloe had already done so. If she didn’t, you see, she would soon find herself in what Mum called “a wretched kerfuffle.” Chloe did not have the time for kerfuffles.
But the single list contained in the notebook she now held was not like all the others. She opened the book to the very first page and ran her finger over the stark block lettering within. There were no cheerful doodles or colorful squiggles here, because, when she’d designed this particular page, Chloe had meant business. She still meant business.
This was her Get a Life list. She took it rather seriously.
Which begged the question—why were its check boxes so woefully unticked?
Her questing finger moved to trace the very first task. This one, at least, she had accomplished: 1. Move out. She’d been living independently—really independently, budgeting and food shopping and all sorts—for five weeks now, and she had yet to spontaneously combust. Her parents were astonished, her sisters were delighted, Gigi was yodeling “I told you so!” to all and sundry, et cetera. It was very satisfying.
Less satisfying were the five unachieved tasks written beneath it.
2. Enjoy a drunken night out.
3. Ride a motorbike.
4. Go camping.
5. Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
6. Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.