Page 14 of Unless It's You
BUCKET LIST DAY 1
Rushing from my weekly one-to-one meeting with Tessa, I log in to the video call from a small huddle room, exactly on time. Four tiles appear on my laptop screen, and my own image is the biggest, next to smaller ones of Reese, Maddie, and Richard Ramsey, Evelyn’s lawyer.
“Hi, everyone.”
“Hey, Stella,” Reese says. “How was your week?—”
The lawyer loudly clears his throat, cutting me off, and my older sister goes quiet, eyes wide. Maddie covers her mouth, presumably to stifle a laugh, even though she’s muted.
“Shall we get started?” The older man taking up the fourth spot on the screen is in his late seventies or early eighties, with wispy white hair that barely covers his scalp, and age spots visible underneath to showcase how long he’d survived under the sun. “I’m Richard Ramsey, Evelyn’s lawyer. I’m here to share the contents of her last will and testament.” He shuffles some papers around and leans close to the laptop screen, lifting his glasses upand peering under them while clicking his mouse noisily. I can see right up his hairy nostrils.
I bite back a grin and gulp some coffee.
Richard proceeds to read a bunch of sentences from a printed piece of paper, legalese that I block out and reach for my phone instead.
Me
Couldn’t this have been an email?
We could all use the money from Evelyn’s estate, for different reasons and purposes. Reese is the oldest sister, and her divorce three years ago was rough. Luckily, she’d already had a solid career and means to support herself and her teenage daughter. Reese is the perfect example of someone who has thrived without her ex-husband. But this money will help her get through, as she’ll have to pay college tuition soon.
Over the years, Reese has given me shit for not really opening myself up to the men I date, but I manage to avoid the drama that she’s been through... mostly. It’s my way of protecting who I am. I’ll admit her hot Scottish boyfriend worships her and is appropriately humbled by her love. As he should be! Everything is going well with them... unless he screws it up somehow.
Maddie
Stuffy Richard has no sense of humor. Best we just suffer through this and laugh about it later
Maddie, the youngest of the three of us, could definitely use any monetary help she can get. She’s unhappy in her current job as the manager of an Italian restaurant in New Jersey, but working in the hospitality sector is all she’s done since dropping out of college a decade ago. Reese is constantly harping on her to go back to school, or find a better job with real benefits, or at least one that pays more so she can move out of her crappy apartment.
“Your great-aunt was my client, and she was also my closefriend.” Richard adjusts his glasses and pauses for a beat. “As you know, she’s never been... traditional. And two years ago, when she came to me with this idea, I tried very hard to talk her out of it.” Richard tilts his chin down and leans even closer to the camera. “So very hard.”
I crinkle my forehead and an uncomfortable seed of suspicion burrows in my belly. Idea? Twoyearsago? My fingers fly on my phone screen.
Me
What’s he talking about?
Maddie
No clue. She only told me that the three of us were the main people in her will. That’s it
“When Evelyn would come to see me, she spoke about her life quite passionately. The things she did. The things she didn’t do. Her regrets.”
Regrets? I thought Evelyn didn’t have any regrets. That’s what’s always made her such a role model for me. She lived her life her way, following her own rules, and didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought.
Richard breathes in loudly through his nose.
“Deathbed regrets.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Your great-aunt watched an inappropriate number of YouTube videos and TED Talks for a ninety-year-old lady.”
A bubble of laughter rolls around in my throat. Evelyn watched TED Talks? Yeah, okay, I could see that, I guess. She also had the iPad we’d FaceTime on, and was always downloading the newest social media apps so she could see what the younger generations were up to. Evelyn was Life Goals, doing whatever she wanted for her nine-plus decades. Nothing held her back. No husband, no kids. Just traveled the world, worked at a job she loved, and generally did exactly—and only—what she wanted.
“You are probably wondering what she regretted in her life.” Richard plucks the question from my brain. “More importantly, at least to her in the end, how could she have avoided those regrets?” Richard pauses and I blink too many times, my throat feeling thick.
“Um, did you want us to answer that question?” Maddie runs her hands through her long, dark hair, pulling it over her shoulder and re-muting herself. I scratch the back of my head, wishing he’d get on with it.
“No. But you’d be surprised at how Evelyn tried to do so.” One side of Richard’s mouth turns up briefly. “Evelyn became fixated on bucket lists.”
Bucket lists? I tilt my head and slide my hand off of my neck. I’m tired. Lounging in my flat all weekend and binge reading a new romance novel calledDon’t Date Medidn’t shake my lingering jet lag. And now he’s talking about bucket lists?
