The Survival List

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “Oh, wow. Lucy and Ethel,” I said.

  “Ethel was her friend!” Griff said.

  “Griff!” came a call from the back. “Did you give Mr. Shivers his worm medication?”

  “Negative,” Griff called back. “So,” he said to us. “That it?”

  “Just a couple more questions,” I said. “Did you guys watch a sunset together?”

  “Nope, it was the middle of the day.”

  “What did Ethel look like?” Adam asked.

  “She was taller than Lucy. Talley, whatever you want to call her. Ethel was taller. Like yea high.” Griff held a hand up to just below his nose. I’d guess that meant Ethel was at least five foot eight, given how big Griff was.

  “Anything else? Hair color?”

  “I don’t know. She was wearing a hat.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “She told me to sit on the bench so Talley could reach my head to put the flowers,” Griff said. “Mostly she talked to Talley, not me. She was cracking her up. They were cracking up each other. They seemed very close. I asked Talley for her number. I didn’t tell you that before—but that was the end of our convo, and she declined to give it to me, so maybe that’s why. But I’ll tell you something.” Now he was looking at me again. “I felt something between us, a spark of something. Tell your sister I’d love to take her out sometime. Even if it’s just as friends, if that’s more her bag. I like to surround myself with good people who have good energy. Your sister had the good energy of a dozen good people.”

  Now I was going to cry. “I can’t give her the message. She died. Talley died.”

  “Aw, man,” Griff said. “I am sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear that. That’s just . . . you meet a person like that, and they’re frozen in that moment. You never think anything bad could happen.”

  Adam rested a hand on the small of my back, and I was grateful for the square of heat, like a palm-shaped blanket.

  “Would it be all right if I texted you my phone number?” I asked Griff. “I know you only spent a few minutes with Talley, but if you remember anything else—anything at all—I’d love to know it.”

  “Of course you can text me,” he said.

  He recited his digits, and I sent a text: This is Sloane Weber, Talley (Lucy’s) sister.

  “And if you wouldn’t mind,” he said, “could you text me that photo of your sister and me? I have the memory, but sometimes it’s nice to have the picture, too.”

  Chapter Thirty

  ADAM SUGGESTED WE GRAB A BITE TO EAT. HE COULD GO for a fried-egg sandwich, he said, unless there was something else I was craving. I didn’t have any idea as to where we should go next, so I said getting something to eat was fine with me. We went to the El Camino Diner, because it was close by, because it was a diner and therefore definitely had fried-egg sandwiches on the menu, and because eating there was a way to stay on task—the task being Talley’s list. We’d made progress today—we’d found Griff, and found out about a friend of Talley’s named Ethel.

  But when I texted Aunt Elise from the car to see if she’d met anyone named Ethel, or at least someone who matched the vague description that Griff had given, she said no, she hadn’t. So now what?

  Adam plugged his car into the charging port in the parking lot. There was still plenty of juice left—at least half a charge, but he said he might as well since there was an empty spot right there. Anna was there when we walked into the diner. She recognized me and even remembered my name. “Sloane!” she said. “Did you connect with Elise from Down Dog?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s my aunt.”

  “Well, what do you know?” she said. “No wonder you look so much like her.”

  “I only found her because of you,” I said. “I really owe you an enormous thank-you.”

  “You don’t at all,” Anna said. “I didn’t even know what I was doing, but I am happy to have helped. Go on—take a seat.” She raised the pot of coffee she was holding and gestured in the direction of the tables. “Anywhere you’d like.”

  The corner booth was empty again. Talley might have said it took sixty-six days to form a habit, but apparently after only four days, on my second visit to the El Camino Diner, I already felt like there was a table at the diner that was my table. I pointed it out to Adam. Anna came over within seconds of us sitting down to fill our water glasses. She also had a Coke with no ice for me—“On the house, dear,” she told me. I thanked her profusely, and she gave me a wink and said it was her pleasure. She’d be back in a couple minutes, after my friend and I had a chance to look at our menus. “I think my friend knows what he wants already,” I said.

  “But do you know what you want?” Adam asked.

  “Nah, I’m not really hungry.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we didn’t have to stop, then.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “You’re hungry, and I don’t mind sitting and thinking for a little while.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure,” Adam said. I nodded, and he gave his order to Anna: “Two fried eggs on a roll please, and fries.”

  After Anna left, I flipped over the place mat. When I was little, I used to flip over the paper place mats at the Good Day Café in Golden Valley and draw on the other side. But the other side of this place mat was a map instead of a blank page, and there weren’t any crayons on the table anyway. I flipped it over again.

  “How are you feeling about everything?” Adam asked me. “Besides not being hungry.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Telling Griff about Talley was hard, but I’m glad we found him. Even if he isn’t the large gentleman. This whole time I thought Talley’d put Lucy and Ethel on her list because she liked the TV show, which was weird, since I’d never seen her watch it. But now I know Ethel was a person in her life. And who knows—maybe Griff was the large gentleman. Maybe Talley and Ethel saw a sunset afterward or something, and it meant enough to them for Talley to put it on her list.”

  Adam stirred the ice around in his water. “That’s entirely possible.”

  My phone buzzed with a text from Juno: U free yet?

  I pressed the button to darken the screen, then turned the phone over in my lap. Whatever was going on with Audrey, I didn’t have time for it right then.

  “Do you think Talley called herself Lucy because Ethel was actually her friend’s name, or that it was a fake name for her, too?” I asked Adam.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You don’t meet too many twentysomethings named Ethel these days, so it feels like they were both fake names. An ode to another pair of best friends.”

  “You think they were best friends and not, like, together?”

  “I guess they could’ve been. I don’t know what’s harder to wrap my brain around—the idea that Talley would have a best friend she didn’t tell me about, or that she’d have a girlfriend she didn’t tell me about.”

  “Maybe it was both and she thought it would upset you,” Adam said.

  “No way,” I said. “She knew me better than that.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean you were the kind of person who’d be upset.”

  Anna arrived with the food. Adam and I had both been sitting forward, but we sat back, like retreating into our corners, as Anna put the plates down—one plate with Adam’s fried-egg sandwich, and the plate of fries, big enough to feed half a dozen people. “Need anything else?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I think we’re good,” Adam told her. He picked up a small fry, crisped to perfection, and leaned forward again, holding it out to me. I nodded thanks and took it from him, not because I really wanted it, but because it felt like the fry was a peace offering, and I needed to take it to let him know that I wasn’t mad.

  “The truth is,” I said, “I’ve been really struggling to understand why she did what she did. Maybe part of it was that she felt she couldn’t tell me the truth about herself—about her sexuality.
But that doesn’t ring true for me. She knew what we did for Soraya. She’s my closest friend, other than Juno. She came out to Juno and me and a few of our other friends at the beginning of ninth grade, and she was so nervous. Juno and I wanted to do something to assure her that we didn’t think of her any differently. We were just so happy to know, because we love her and we want to know and celebrate the truth about her. So we told her to meet us at Golden Oaks Park just before sundown. There was a crew of us, and we gave her a big bouquet of flowers and half a dozen helium balloons.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Adam said. “I’m sure it meant a lot to her.”

  “That’s not even the half of it,” I said. “Juno had a whole elaborate plan. The flowers were for Soraya to keep, and the balloons were for her to share. One for each of us. We’d gotten biodegradable ones, because Talley insisted, and of course she was right that they’re the best kind to use. I’d brought along Sharpies, per Juno’s instructions, and we each wrote a personal truth on the balloon.” I made air quotes around the words personal truth—those were the words Juno had used that day. “Then we released the balloons into the sky.”

  “You should write that up somewhere,” Adam said. “I bet it would go viral. It’s the exact perfect thing to do for a friend.”

  “Well, it was Juno’s idea, really. I just brought the Sharpies.”

  “Those Sharpies were essential,” he said. “How could you send personal-truth balloons out into the world without Sharpies? You couldn’t do it.”

  “Fair point,” I said.

  “What did you write?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I’d written that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. It just wasn’t my personal truth anymore. I didn’t want to write anything since I’d written Talley’s eulogy.

  “My point is,” I told Adam, “Talley knew all about that. She even supplied the champagne that we toasted Soraya with.”

  “What about your dad?” Adam asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Would one of his daughters having a girlfriend be the kind of thing he’d be upset about?”

  “I don’t think so. Once I had a study group at my house and this guy Tanner said ‘that’s so gay,’ about something. My dad was passing through the kitchen and he interrupted our study session to say that kind of homophobic talk wasn’t acceptable in his house. I was totally mortified.”

  “Sounds like Tanner was the one who should’ve been mortified,” Adam said.

  “Oh, I think he was. It was a bad moment for everyone. My friends don’t talk like that. I noticed when he said it, and I’d like to think I would’ve corrected him, or that someone else at the table would have. But we didn’t have a chance, because my dad jumped in immediately. It’s a thousand times worse when someone else’s parent reprimands you, so in retrospect, maybe it’s a good thing that my dad did it before the rest of us could get a word in. Tanner was really contrite: ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Weber. I didn’t mean it. I won’t do it again.’ I bet he hasn’t. Or if he ever does, I bet he’ll hear my dad’s voice in his head, reprimanding him again.”

  “Every time I hear someone else say something like that from now on, I’m going to think of your dad,” Adam said. “But just because he wouldn’t let someone use the word ‘gay’ in a derogatory way doesn’t mean he didn’t expect his kids to be straight. Most parents expect that. My parents pat themselves on the back all the time for how evolved they are, and yet they’ve been making the same joke my whole life that I’ll marry my mom’s college roommate’s daughter Eloise. And it’s not that they actually think I’ll marry Eloise, but I know they do assume I’ll marry someone of the female persuasion. Though I don’t anticipate testing their preconceived notions on this one.”

  “I don’t anticipate testing my dad on it, either,” I said, and I felt my cheeks pink up. I hadn’t meant to talk about my dating habits with Adam—even in the abtract. “Talley told me that it’s a form of privilege to fit into the boxes of other people’s default assumptions.”

  “She was right,” Adam said.

  “I know,” I said. “And maybe you’re right about her. She could’ve been in love with Dean, and then she could’ve met Ethel, whoever she is, and fallen in love with her, too. Talley just didn’t seem scared of challenging my dad’s assumptions. Like he had this deeply held assumption that Talley and I would go to college—especially Talley because she had this genius IQ. She didn’t care about breaking the rules he set. Unlike me.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam said. “You’re the quintessential rebel. In fact, look up the word ‘rebel’ in the dictionary, and your picture is there. It’s a really good picture, by the way. I bet you’ve never taken a bad one.”

  “There are plenty of bad pictures of me,” I said, blushing some more. I looked down at my place mat and flipped it over again, staring intently at the map like it was the most interesting thing in the world. There was the airport in San Francisco. I traced a finger south through Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Palo Alto, and then toward the coast: Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, Monterey. “Oh, I found Big Sur,” I told Adam. “It’s right by the ocean on the map. I thought it was a forest.”

  “The mountains are on the left, and the ocean on the right,” Adam explained. “Unless you’re looking at it from the south, in which case flip that, and put the mountains on the right.”

  “When you said Big Sur, I thought you meant ‘sir’—s-i-r.”

  “Like, hello, big sir,” Adam said. “You look awfully large today.”

  “Yeah . . . oh my God.”

  “What?”

  “Big sir. Large gentleman. A large gentleman’s sunset. Talley’s list.”

  “Big Sur has famously beautiful sunsets,” Adam said. “There are cliffs that drop down to the Pacific.”

  “You said it’s like a three-hour drive?”

  “About that. Maybe not even.”

  “Can we—”

  I didn’t even finish my sentence before Adam had motioned for the check. “Absolutely,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ACCORDING TO GOOGLE MAPS, IT WAS JUST OVER A hundred and twenty miles from the parking lot of the El Camino Diner to Big Sur. Adam said his car’s charge typically lasted up to a hundred and twenty-five miles, so we were cutting it really close. But he assured me that there’d be charging stations along the way if we needed one, and we’d charge up again in Big Sur before heading back.

  Heading back. I couldn’t think that far ahead. I could only think of getting there.

  No one knew where we were going. Adam didn’t tell his parents, and I didn’t tell Aunt Elise, either. I just texted her to say I’d be with Adam for a few more hours, and she shouldn’t worry.

  I didn’t tell Juno, either. There wasn’t an explicit reason for me to hold anything back. I knew she’d want to know about the progress I was making, and maybe I even owed it to her to tell her; after all, I wouldn’t have gotten to California without her. But I hadn’t responded to her Audrey-emergency texts yet. Besides, Adam felt like my partner now. If you woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me who my best friend was, like a reflex, I would’ve said Juno. But in this moment, it wasn’t true. Adam was the only friend who mattered.

  I pulled Google up on my phone, and even though Adam already knew a good amount about Big Sur, I read aloud: “Big Sur is not a town; it’s a region that stretches along eighty-five miles of undeveloped coastline, where the Saint Lucia mountains rise dramatically above the Pacific Ocean. Known for its scenic views, Big Sur is the longest undeveloped coastline in the contiguous United States, and some say it’s the most beautiful in the world.”

  “It’s definitely the most beautiful place I’ve ever been,” Adam said. “Though when you’re a kid, you’re not really impressed by beauty like that. I was impressed by the jade, though—but only because I thought I could make a lot of money.”

>   I’d read about the jade online—Big Sur had an underwater concentration of jade, and sometimes the stones washed up on the shore.

  “We had a whole business plan,” Adam went on. “Which basically consisted of finding as much jade as we could, selling it, and becoming super rich.”

  “Who had the plan? You and your friends from school?”

  “Yep,” he said.

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  “We found a few pebbles on one trip,” Adam said. “My mom bought them off me for five bucks. So I’m not retiring just yet.”

  “You don’t even have a job to retire from,” I reminded him.

  “Maybe today will be my lucky day. We’ll hit the jade jackpot and I’ll never have to have one.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you have any idea where in Big Sur you want to go?” he asked.

  “The only clue I have to go by is what was on Talley’s list—a large gentleman’s sunset.”

  “I know,” Adam said. “I just meant—did anything online pop out at you as the place we should go?”

  The online pictures of Big Sur were as stunning as anything I’d ever seen—deep-blue water, vibrant green trees, and sunsets in every color of the rainbow. They’d all popped out at me, but I couldn’t tell if there was any spot in particular that Talley had had in mind.

  “I think we just need to go there,” I said. “And we’ll see what we see.”

  It took us three and a half hours, including a pit stop to charge the car, to reach the northernmost point of Big Sur. At some point along the way I lost my cell phone signal, but I’d expected that. A couple of the online articles had mentioned that the cell service in Big Sur was exceptionally spotty. The signal bars on my phone had been going down as we got closer, and now there was the X of no service. I couldn’t write to Juno even if I wanted to.

  The highway we were on was at the top of a cliff, and below it was the ocean—the friggin’ Pacific Ocean! It was so blue, like a mirror of the sky. Long ago, Talley had told me the reason the sky was blue: the sun looks white, but it actually contains many colors, and all the different colors collide with particles of air as the light from the sun travels to earth. Each color has a different wavelength, so it collides in different amounts. Blue has the shortest wavelength, so it scatters the most.