noises as earlier.
“You forget I was once engaged,” I pointed out. “Surely that counts for something.”
“Once being the keyword here. You were once engaged, but you’re not anymore.”
I shrugged. “He wasn’t the right man for me.”
Who was he the right man for?
Well, that would’ve been the woman he was hooking up with while he and I were engaged. She got pregnant, he dumped me (before I had a chance to dump him), and now they were married with two kids and a dog.
Not once while we were engaged had he mentioned wanting a dog.
I didn’t have to tell them any of that. They knew the story of how he’d cheated on me just as well as I did.
“I get that you’re concerned about my single status,” I said, “but I really am okay. I’m busy learning everything there is to know about running the company so that once Beatrice passes the reins to me, the transition will be smooth.”
Robert leaned forward in his chair. “But you’re young. You should be out there enjoying life to the fullest.”
I shuffled the pages in front of me. “I can’t help that I love my job.” Of course, if I loved a man as much as I loved my job, it would’ve gone a long way in helping me with my darn bucket-list dilemma.
“We’re not saying you can’t love your job,” Alexia said. “We’re just asking: When was the last time you leaped out of the box and tried something new?”
“Something adventurous,” Robert added.
I contemplated their questions, straining to come up with even a tiny crumb to toss in their direction.
I drew a blank.
“I had strawberry shortcake ice cream last week with Amelia and Sarina.” That had to count for something.
I returned to shuffling the papers, stacking them in a neat pile, and I mentally compiled a list of things I had done in the past three months that would satisfy this bunch.
Item #1:
What about when I…?
Right, that wasn’t adventurous.
How about when I…?
Nope, not adventurous either.
Hmm. There had to be something.
“Any suggestions?” I asked Amelia, Rachel, and Dani three days after the conversation with my grandmother.
It was Friday night—also known as girls’ night out. The four of us were sitting on the patio of our favorite restaurant, the area bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun.
Because of our busy schedules, we didn’t get together as much as we wanted. But we made time to hang out together at least twice a month.
“I can’t believe you still have that list,” Dani said. “I’m sure mine got chucked out with the rubbish right after we wrote those bloody things.”
I’d known Dani since college. She had been studying to be an ER nurse and had needed an apartment at the time. And as luck would have it, Amelia and I had been looking for a roommate. The three of us hit it off famously (as Dani liked to put it).
She and I were both Black women, but that was where our similarities ended. Dani possessed the patience I lacked when it came to styling her hair. Hers was always long and smooth. I preferred to let my caramel, shoulder-length hair go naturally curly, using oils to coax it into tight ringlets.
Dani had a long, lean dancer’s body. I was shorter and slightly curvy.
Dani glided wherever she went. I bounced around like a puppy.
Yes, that was how Bibi had once described me.
But puppies were cute. So if people wanted to think of me as cute and bouncy, who was I to complain?
Dani’s English accent was another thing she had over me.
Amelia and Rachel burst out laughing. “Like Nala would ever throw out one of her lists,” Amelia said. “They’re like her babies.”
“Hey, I throw out my lists. Sometimes.” I mumbled the last part into my wineglass.
That only had Amelia and Rachel laughing harder. “You’re like the hoarder of lists,” Rachel managed to say between snickers, the light ocean breeze blowing strands of blonde hair in her face. “You probably have a dozen of your old notebooks stashed in your closet.”
“Remember when she wrote the list of the ideal traits for her future husband?” Dani asked.
I rolled my eyes while fighting back the smirk that wanted to join the conversation. “There was a good reason for that list. And if I had listened to my own insightful wisdom, I wouldn’t have made the mistake of being engaged to he-who-shall-not-be-named.”
Dani raised her wineglass. “Let’s make a toast to no more wankers like he-who-shall-not-be-named.”
“Hear! Hear!” Amelia, Rachel, and I