Page 8 of The Summer List

She beams like that should be a revelation, but I just blink at her some more while Priya wrinkles her nose.

“Ew. What are we? A pre-teen BFFs club? That is so cheesy.”

“I don’t care if it’s cheesy. We’re doing it,” Shal says with a huff. “Plus, we’re only putting cool things on here, so it won’t be cheesy.”

Shal is now a woman on a mission. She sets her supplies on one of the black metal side tables flanking the couch and then picks the whole table up to deposit it in front of the empty spot between me and Priya. There doesn’t seem to be any stopping her, so the two of us just watch as she sits down and scrawls the words SUMMER BUCKET LIST across the top of the page.

“We’ll put ten things,” she narrates as she writes. “So we each get to pick three, and then there’ll be a bonus tenth one we all have to agree on.”

“Wait.” Priya scooches in closer. “Is this, like, a shared bucket list? We’re all supposed to do everything on it?”

“Duh,” Shal says like it should be obvious. “Solidarity, sister. We don’t have to do all of them all at the same time, but we do all have to do all of them.”

My wine-addled brain spins a little as I try to process that sentence. Shal writes out the first two items on the list while we continue to watch:

1. Skinny dip in the mansion’s pool.

2. Have a summer fling.

Priya starts to protest a single date escalating to a ‘summer fling,’ but Shal shushes her and says it’s her own turn now.

“Okay. Hmm. Something wild and free.” She taps her chin for a few seconds, and then her eyes light up. “I know! I want to try smoking a joint.”

“What? No!” Priya shrieks. “That’s crazy.”

Shal scoffs. “It’s not even illegal.”

“You have to be nineteen to buy it!” Priya insists.

Shal is already writing again. “And that’s always seemed really arbitrary to me. I know plenty of people who can hook us up.”

“It’s dangerous!”

Shal turns to stare at Priya. “We can literally watch them walk into a dispensary and buy it for us—”

Priya starts to argue about it being illegal for someone else to buy us weed, but Shal cuts her off.

“And if you really don’t want to do it, I’ll scratch it out.”

“But it’s—oh. Really?”

Shal nods. “Uh-huh. I want you to live a little, but I’m not going to freaking force-feed you marijuana, Pri. I just thought it might be fun to try together. I’ve never done it.”

Shal has had so many firsts without me and Priya that it adds a note of vulnerability to her voice when she admits this would be new for her too.

“Oh,” Priya says.

‘Vulnerability’ isn’t a word I often associate with Shal, and I’m considering getting up from the couch to give them a private sister bonding moment when Shal turns her attention to me.

“What about you, Naomi? How do you feel about sampling the devil’s herb?”

None of us can keep a straight face after she says that, and by the time we’ve stopped laughing, I find myself nodding even though just the thought of touching a joint—never mind actually smoking one—makes a jolt of nerves zing through my chest.

“As long as we know where it came from, I mean…okay. I’d take a hit.”

The phrase ‘take a hit’ sounds so unnatural coming out of my mouth we all have to stop and laugh again.

“This is so crazy,” Priya wheezes after she’s caught her breath.

---