The Bucket List

by Rachel Hanna

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

I NEVER wanted to be a daredevil. Even as the 49-year old adult that I am, I still don’t want to ride a roller coaster or jump out of a perfectly good airplane. And I don’t understand people who want to do those things - even my lifelong best friend. And yet, here I am, holding a list of daredevil-ish things in my hand at my best friend’s will reading. I am SO going to get her back for this in the afterlife. So, my outgoing, adventurous best friend decided to leave me her estate but only if I completed her bucket list. HERS, not mine. And I have to do it before I turn 50 because she didn’t make it to 50. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to want to kill someone who’s already dead, but I can’t help how I feel. Still, I want to honor her wishes. And I kind of want that beach house she left me, too. The next few months will either change my life, or I might join her in heaven if one goes terribly wrong.

Release date: April 25, 2023

Print pages: 286

Sample

PROLOGUE

My hand grips my phone, as it does around this time each day, while I stare at the GPS app. Watching my technically adult daughter make the one hour drive from her workplace to her apartment always puts me on edge. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I do. I just don’t trust every single other idiotic individual on the road next to her.

I sit on my patio like this every evening, having my cup of decaf coffee, staring at her car moving. Well, it’s not really her car. It’s a little blue dot. And sometimes, when it sits for too long, I panic. I think all kinds of scary thoughts like what if she crashed and needs my help? It’s not like I own a pair of those “jaws of life”, but doesn’t everybody need their mom when they’re scared?

Oh gosh, what if she’s scared? What if she’s sitting there with her hazard lights on in the middle of that busy Atlanta interstate, cars whizzing by, and nobody is stopping to help her? What if she’s having an asthma attack? Wait, does she still carry that rescue inhaler I got her before she went off to college almost four years ago? Is it expired? Oh, geez, what kind of mother sends her kid off with an expired inhaler?

The little dot starts moving again, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. As soon as Annie makes it home, I’m calling the pharmacy to make sure she has a new inhaler.

Even though she moved out years ago to go to college, I still can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen to her. After all, it’s not without precedence. Her father died right in front of me when she was seven years old, and I’ve never gotten over the feeling that I need to watch after her even more carefully.

I don’t like to think about the day Jesse died. He was the love of my life, and I still haven’t dated. Yeah, it’s been fifteen years, and I haven’t joined any of those dating apps or gone to a singles bar. Jesse set the bar too high for any other man to reach.

Why is it, when someone you love dies, they suddenly have no faults? I can’t think of one fault that man had, but I know he had some because we were in marriage counseling when he died. Those bad memories have been wiped out of my brain. I only remember positive things. I guess that’s a good thing, but it sure has made the last fifteen years lonely.

Just as I’m allowing myself to go down a mental rabbit hole, my phone rings, scaring the absolute crap out of me. I hope it’s not Annie because that would either mean she’s driving and using her phone (which is a major no-no), or she’s in trouble.

Instead, I see that it’s my best friend in the whole world, Monica. She’s always a light on a dark day. She’s been there for every single life event I’ve had since we were both ten years old, when I showed up at our elementary school as the new kid. I had unwieldy curly brown hair and an enormous gap between my front teeth that you could’ve stuck two quarters through, but she liked me anyway. I will never understand why.

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Jilly!” She has always called me Jilly. She knows I hate it. She does not care one iota.

“Hey, Mon. What’s up?”

“Oh, just sitting here eating a big bowl of cereal and looking at the ocean.” Typical Monica. Eating cereal instead of a proper dinner. It probably has those little colored marshmallows in it.

Monica is what one would call “lucky”. She lives in a beautiful home sitting right on the ocean in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. Her ex-husband, who she was married to for about sixteen months many moons ago, gave it to her in the divorce. Monica is lucky like that. Everyone likes her, and they always have. Even her ex-husband likes her. Of course, they’ve been divorced for over ten years now. The place is paid off and probably worth a fortune.

Monica is successful in her own right, too. She sells real estate when she wants to, and it’s always these multi-million dollar homes. When she gets a commission check, it’s more than I make in a year.

She lives alone and loves it. Monica never had kids of her own. Just didn’t want them. Thinks of Annie as her child, too. Instead, Monica has traveled the world and gone on so many adventures that I can’t even keep count. Bali, Thailand, some little village in Peru. She’s been to places I didn’t even know existed.

Now, I would never want to do the things she does. The thought of getting on an airplane alone and going across the world does not appeal to me in the slightest. But I’m glad she’s happy. She comes home and shows me pictures. Tells me stories. That is more than enough for me.

“Are you ever going to grow up and eat actual food?”

“Like what?”

“Broccoli? Spinach?”

Monica makes a gagging sound. “That sounds horrible. I did eat alligator once. Didn’t care for it.”

“Yuck.”

“Come on! You know I’m an adventurous eater.”

“The most adventurous I get is putting too much salt on my mashed potatoes.”

Monica laughs. “Oh, you wild woman.”

“So, how did your day go?”

She pauses for a long moment. “Not great, but let’s not talk about that. How’s Annie?”

I look down at the GPS app and notice she’s made it back to her apartment. “She made it home.”

“Are you still watching that GPS app every day?”

“Of course.”

“You realize that’s not normal, right? She’s twenty-two years old, Jilly. You have to let her fly.”

“She can fly, but I can watch her while she does it.”

I hear her chuckle under her breath. “You can’t protect everyone from everything.” This is something she tells me often, but I never really listen. If I’d been paying better attention to my late husband, he might still be with me today. We would’ve celebrated twenty-five years of marriage this year. Instead, I hid under the covers and cried on the fifteenth anniversary of his death.

“I can try.”

“Honey, you’ll drive yourself crazy living like this. You need to get out there, meet people, maybe meet a nice man. Fall in love. Get a dog.”

“I’m happy like I am.”

“No, you’re not. You deserve fun, Jilly. And love. Lots and lots of love.”

“Why are you talking like this?”

Monica sighs. “I guess I just miss my best friend. Any chance you can drive up tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? That’s k

ind of short notice, don’t you think?” Monica lives on Pawley’s Island, but I live about an hour and a half away inland. It’s a nice enough area, but I’d much rather be on the beach like she is. What a gift it must be to wake up every day and see the ocean. It’s my favorite place on earth.

It’s not like I can’t make the trip. After all, it’s my weekend off from the restaurant, and I have nothing else to do except laundry. Who wants to spend the weekend staring at their dirty underwear while it spins round and round?

“Come on. I’ve been feeling a little blue. I need you to come drink wine and judge people wearing horrible swimsuits with me.”

I laugh. When Monica and I are together, we’re like two hyper-critical fashion correspondents, although neither of us has a clue how to dress ourselves. I spend all my off time in yoga pants and t-shirts, although I haven’t done yoga a day in my life. Monica wears beach clothes and jumpsuits like it’s her job.

“Okay, fine. But you’re buying me lunch at that taco place.”

Monica laughs. “Always with the taco place. You know, we have other places to eat here.”

“Why change to something else when I know I like the taco place?”

She sighs. “Oh, Jilly. You’re like an old lady in an almost fifty-year-old’s body.”