Good Lucy would have tried to change the subject, but Viper didn’t give a damn what he thought. “The asterisks mark things I’d done by the time I was fourteen but sadly abandoned. I intend to rectify that, and if you think it’s stupid, that’s your problem.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Stupid? Make prank calls? Now why would I think prank-calling is stupid?”
“I probably won’t do that one,” she said innocently.
He took in her tie-dyed bra top. “You’ve got ‘dress like a skank’ under control. Not complaining, mind you.”
“Thanks. I had to order a few things off the Internet, but it’s working out for me.”
“Definitely.” He snapped his fingers at the paper. “Smoking pot is illegal.”
“I appreciate your concern, Officer, but I’m sure that didn’t stop you from doing it.”
He scanned further down. “You never swam naked?”
“Sue me.”
“You’ll let me know, won’t you, when you’re ready to try?”
“If I fucking remember.”
“If you’re going to use the word, at least use it at the right time. You sound ridiculous.” He frowned. “‘Make out in public’? Not with me you won’t.”
“S’okay. I’ll find somebody else.”
“Like fucking hell,” he growled. “And you can mark off ‘sleep around,’ since you’re doing that with me.”
“No way. ‘Around’ implies more than one partner.”
“Already forget about Ted?”
“Doesn’t count. He proposed.”
Panda looked like he had something to say about that, but didn’t. Instead he pointed to a doodle she’d made in the margin. “What’s that?”
He grinned. “Badass.”
THE BASIL PLANT ON THE baker’s rack was getting a little droopy. She hopped up from the chaise to water it, pulled some dead leaves off the geranium, and then resettled. She wiggled her pen between her fingers and started to write.
Something Lucy’s grandfather was writing about in detail and wouldn’t appreciate Lucy duplicating.
She tore up the page, pulled her reverse bucket list from her pocket, and jotted down a new item.
Then she added an asterisk.
BREE HAD NEVER FELT MORE out of place. It was fine for African-Americans to attend white churches—it gave white congregations a pleasant feeling of inclusiveness—but being the only white person in the island’s sole black church made her uncomfortable. She’d never enjoyed standing out. She liked to blend. But as the usher led them down the center aisle of the Heart of Charity Missionary Church, she didn’t see another face as pale as her own.
The usher handed them bulletins and gestured toward a pew in the second row. So much for her plans to sit in the back.
After they were seated, her discomfort grew. Was this how it felt to be a black person going solo into the white world? Or maybe her own insecurity was at play, and all her reading had made her more racially conscious than she needed to be.
Heart of Charity Missionary was the second oldest church on the island, a squat, red brick building that would never win points for style, although the airy sanctuary looked as though it had been recently remodeled. The walls were ivory, the high ceiling paneled in blond wood. A purple cloth covered the altar, and three silver crosses hung on the front wall. The congregation was small, and the air smelled of perfume, aftershave, and stargazer lilies.
The people sitting nearby smiled in welcome. The men wore suits, the older women hats, and the younger women bright summer dresses. After the opening hymn, a woman she assumed was the minister, but who turned out to be a deacon, greeted the congregation and announced upcoming events. Bree felt herself flush as the woman looked at her. “We have some visitors today. Would you introduce yourselves?”
Bree hadn’t been prepared for this, and before she found her voice, she heard Toby speak up. “I’m Toby Wheeler,” he said. “And this is Bree.”
“Welcome, Toby and Bree,” the woman said. “God has blessed us bringing you to join us today.”
“Whatever,” Toby muttered under his breath as the congregation delivered a chorus of “amens.” But unlike her cynical ward, Bree felt herself begin to relax.
The service began in earnest. She was used to cool, cerebral religion, but this was hot religion, loud in supplication and praise. Afterward, she lost count of the number of people who came up to greet her, and not one of them asked what a paleface like herself was doing in their church. A woman talked to Toby about their Sunday school program, and the minister, a man Bree recognized from the gift shop in town, said he hoped they’d come back.
“What do you think?” she asked Toby as they headed back to her used Chevy Cobalt.
“It was okay.” He pulled his shirttail out of his pants. “But my friends are at Big Mike’s church.”
