The List

by Melanie Jacobson

  The crowd in the kitchen trickled out to take seats in the extra-wide hall space on the other side of the counter, and more people drifted in through the back doors. Before long, a crowd of roughly thirty people sat chatting and waiting for the sushi show to get going. Louisa called for quiet, picked a guy to say the opening prayer, and introduced the sushi man. His name was Kisho Nobu, he told us in a nervous voice, and his family had just opened their own sushi restaurant.

  He began by explaining a little about the history of sushi and how it fit culturally in his native country of Japan. When he explained that sushi originally meant fermenting the fish in vinegared rice to preserve it, several noses wrinkled in response, mine included. Mr. Nobu smiled and continued his brief history. As he picked up steam, his nerves faded and he began to joke and smile with the curious onlookers squished together in the chairs in front of him. He demonstrated each of his tools, his hands moving deftly, his quick, sure movements following a rhythm. I slipped into a pleasant daze as I watched until the sensation of my own hand being thrust into the air startled me.

  “You, pretty lady, come here,” Mr. Nobu called.

  I looked around.

  “Black shirt, come here,” he called again.

  “I just volunteered you to make a California roll,” Matt whispered.

  I narrowed my eyes at his high-handedness but then shrugged. It was on The List, after all.

  I rounded the kitchen door to take my place next to Mr. Nobu and waited for direction. When I saw him looking for another victim, I tugged on his smock and whispered in his ear. He smiled, then straightened.

  “This pretty lady says Matt Gibson loves to cook too,” Mr. Nobu said. “He will also demonstrate California rolls.”

  There were hoots from a couple of guys in the audience, the loudest coming from Derek, sitting in the back row. Matt shuffled around the doorway to take his place.

  “Okay, now you watch,” Mr. Nobu ordered, and he began to assemble his California roll, scooping the rice onto the bamboo mat, shaping it into a long thin strip, and placing his remaining ingredients at one end of the rice. Then he took one side of the mat and with sure fingers, rolled toward the other end, causing the California roll to emerge with the crab and avocado perfectly placed in the center of his rice roll when he sliced it.

  “Easy,” Mr. Nobu said. “You do it.”

  Matt lifted an eyebrow, like maybe he thought “easy” was an exaggeration, but he reached for the steamer and plopped some rice down on his own mat. When he began poking at it, I started on mine. I concentrated hard to get the rice just like I had seen Mr. Nobu do it. I could hear him clucking at Matt’s attempts to shape things properly. When I thought I had it right, I picked out some juicy crab and some pretty green slices of avocado and laid them at one end of my newly formed rice strip.

  “Mr. Nobu,” I interrupted him, trying to save Matt from the rather hilarious berating Mr. Nobu was dishing out. “Is this right?”

  He checked my work and his furrowed brow cleared. “Ah, pretty lady makes pretty sushi!” he exclaimed. Then turning to Matt he scolded, “No cooking. Find something else that’s better for you. Like the pretty lady,” he said and shooed Matt in my direction.

  Matt strode over and stood behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders and nestling my head under his. I saw Derek’s eyebrows shoot up all the way on the back row, and several other girls exchanged glances in the audience. I pretended not to notice and focused on rolling my sushi the way Mr. Nobu did.

  “You heard the man,” Matt drawled. The vibrations from his chin tickled my scalp. “You’re better than sushi, straight from the mouth of a sushi expert.”

  “Smooth, Gibson,” one guy called from the middle row. I reddened. Mr. Nobu grinned, so I asked, “Is my California roll done?”

  “Yes. Slice and eat,” he said.

  I scooped up a section and then whirling quickly, popped it in Matt’s mouth just as he was opening it to protest me moving, forcing him to chew instead of speak.

  “No more talking,” I murmured with my back to the audience. Then in a slightly louder voice I asked, “Is it good?”

  Mr. Nobu hurried over and nodded Matt’s head for him like he was a puppet. “It’s very good,” Mr. Nobu proclaimed in a voice two octaves deeper than his own. While the audience laughed, he ordered, “Everyone clap for the pretty lady and this guy.”

  The audience obeyed and we took our seats again. After whipping out over thirty California rolls in an eye-poppingly short span of time, Mr. Nobu ended the demonstration and we enjoyed the samples. Several people in the group planned to head over to Mr. Nobu’s restaurant to keep the feast going, but when Matt asked me if I wanted to join them, I shook my head.

  “I love sushi,” I said, “but more for lunch than dinner.”

  “Then I can take you out for dinner somewhere else.”

  We decided on a Chicago-style pizzeria downtown on Main Street, not far from Hannigan’s. One barbecue-chicken pizza later, we rolled ourselves out of our cozy corner booth and walked another block down to PCH, then crossed it and wandered down the pier. It was a pretty night, a nearly full moon clearly visible even beneath the usual evening cloud cover. Standing out at the end of the pier with nothing but a rail in front of us, we watched the moon’s reflection gleaming and rippling on the dark water beneath us, stretching and re-forming in rhythm with the waves slapping the concrete support pylons.

  Another comfortable silence descended between Matt and me. I savored it, appreciating how we could spend an hour over dinner cracking nonstop jokes and then slip into these quiet moments. Matt leaned next to me, his forearms resting on the rail as he stared out at the ocean. Shifting slightly, he angled his body to face me instead of the water, his head cocked, watching. I let him, not minding. When a small gust of wind snagged a long tendril of hair and blew it across my face, he reached out and replaced it with a tuck behind my ear, much like he had on the stairs at church.

  “You never said whether we have a deal or not,” he murmured.

  “What?” The question came out sounding sleepy, the waves having lulled me into a gentle trance.

  “Kissing,” he said, capturing my complete attention.

  “I’m a big fan of it,” I assured him.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, me too. But how does that fit with your attachment issues?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if I kiss you, I’m kissing only you, no matter who else I might go out with,” he said, causing me to feel an alarming twinge somewhere near my liver. “Are you okay with kissing only me right now?”

  “You’re saying it doesn’t matter who I date as long as I’m only kissing you?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’ll only kiss me if I agree to that?”

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  I pretended to think about it, although there wasn’t any argument from me. I’d always been a kissing monogamist no matter how many guys I’d dated at any given moment. And for the record, that number was only three, and it was a summer many, many moons ago when it sounded like a good idea. It wasn’t.

  “Then I agree.”

  He leaned forward, his lips scant inches from mine.

  “Ashley?”

  “Yes?” I managed to strangle out in a hoarse, tense syllable.

  “Is that your way of saying you want me to kiss you?”

  “No. This is,” I whispered and narrowed the distance between us to almost nothing. Almost. I wanted him to close the gap.

  And he did.

  Chapter 15

  I don’t know how long the kiss lasted because I think time stopped when my breath did, but the sound of a rowdy group of kids rounding the restaurant behind us broke the kiss up. For a split second, I decided I fervently hated teenagers, but their cheerful laughs and jokes with each other overcame my aggravation. In fact, I appreciated the distraction because it gave me a moment to recover from an unexpected weakness in my knees. Matt smiled
at me and turned back toward the water but kept his arm touching mine on the rail. Despite the moon’s brightness and the steady beat of the waves, the spell was broken. I took the hand he offered, and we headed back toward the shore and his car.

  “We need to do that again some time,” he said.

  “Kiss? Sure.”

  “Wow, Ashley. I meant eat pizza and take a walk, but I’ll make out with you if you really want me to.”

  I socked him, and he pulled me to his side.

  “I’m kidding,” he said into my hair. “And just so you know, I’m totally not attached.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “But I think I should test that pretty often with more kissing.”

  “If you think it will help,” I sighed, sounding put upon.

  “I do.”

  “Then I guess I’m there for you, buddy,” I said.

  “Thanks, pal.”

  I gave him a soft hip bump to let him know I was teasing and snuggled even closer to his side.

  “I’m not attached, either,” I said. “Just so you know.”

  “I never doubted it,” he said.

  * * *

  By the time my surf date with Matt rolled around the next morning, I had lectured myself at least three separate times over the ridiculousness of being nervous to see him. Even though we had kissed. Several times. And it was amazing. And . . . . Yeah, there went another tingle.

  Scowling at my traitorous nerves, I wrangled my surfboard into the back of the Jeep and got in to head to Taco Reef, our surf spot.

  “You surfing with Matt?” Dave called from the back doorstep.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Our usual spot off Taco Reef.”

  “You guys have a spot? Wow!” he teased.

  “I didn’t mean that as in our spot, our spot. I meant it like that’s just where we usually go.” I wanted to kick myself for taking Dave’s bait.

  “Sure, Smash. Whatever you say.”

  My scowl deepened and I backed out of the driveway faster than necessary, decapitating my aunt’s mailbox when I whipped the Jeep onto the street. Stifling a sigh, I parked at the curb and rushed back into the house carrying the mailbox. My aunt had painted a nest with a mother bird hatching a brood of pastel-colored envelopes, and the sad mama bird’s head now sported a disturbing dent.

  “Aunt Trudy!” I called.

  “Yes, dear?” I heard her reply faintly from the direction of her sewing room.

  “I decapitated your mailbox, and something bad happened to Mama Bird.”

  “That’s fine, dear. You can help your uncle fix it later. Have a good time!”

  “Thanks!” I hollered back and hustled back to the Jeep. I decided not to read too much into my compulsive need to hurry to see Matt.

  A creative interpretation of the speed limit got me to the beach on time, and Matt was there waiting for me. After a big hug, he nodded toward the ocean. “Ready to tame the beast?”

  An hour later, I limped out of the water, exhausted but satisfied after managing to catch a few good rides, and collapsed on the sand. The marine layer had disappeared earlier than usual, leaving the warm welcome rays of the sun to beat down on the beachgoers. Matt dropped down next to me, digging out a comfortable groove in the sand and then settling into it.

  “You’re really improving, you know,” he said. “You look way more confident out there than you did even a week ago.”

  “That’s because I know a wipeout isn’t going to kill me and also because I’m the boss, not my board.” I gave it a friendly pat.

  “Ah, the two main principles of surfing.”

  “I thought those were relaxing and focusing.”

  “That too,” he said, smiling.

  We lapsed into silence, letting the sun work its magic.

  Matt stirred himself after several minutes to ask, “Now that you’ve mastered surfing, what else are you going to tackle this summer?”

  “I haven’t mastered surfing,” I protested. “I’ve mastered wiping out less.”

  “You’ll be pro soon at this rate,” he teased me. “Are you still going to talk to me when you’re rich and famous?”

  “Oh, are there a lot of rich and famous women surfers out there?”

  “Uh, maybe not rich.” He thought for a minute. “That one girl that got her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing is pretty famous, though.”

  I blanched.

  “You didn’t hear about that?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “It was a few years back,” he said.

  “Tell me it happened in Australia or something.”

  He paused. “It happened in Australia. Or something.”

  “Great.” I regarded the ocean with a suddenly suspicious eye.

  “Don’t worry. The sharks around here are all sand sharks. They can barely gobble bait. Your toes are safe.” He leaned on one elbow and stared down at me. “Are you going to answer my question now?”

  I lost my train of thought as I watched the muscles flexing in his shoulders while trying to pretend I wasn’t staring. “What question?”

  “What other adventures do you have planned?”

  He’d handed me the perfect opening to tell him about The List, but I hesitated to take it. I didn’t want to open a potential can of worms about how he was on there as a summer fling and make him feel like our friendship meant less to me than it did. Not to say that it means more than a friendship either, I scolded myself. Then I sighed and abandoned the argument in favor of hashing it out with myself another time. I answered Matt with a version of the truth.

  “I think it’d be kind of fun to try skydiving.”

  “Really? I’ve been before.” He leaned back on both elbows again, away from me, and I stifled a sigh.

  “Did you love it?” I asked.

  “The final seconds before you fling yourself out of the plane are kind of brutal, but the fall is totally worth it. Why skydiving?”

  “I don’t know. Why did you do it?”

  He shrugged. “I’m kind of an adrenaline junkie, but I’m trying to be more mature,” he said. “I guess breaking a couple of bones and making it hard on yourself to get around for a few months will do that.”

  “That happened to you?” I winced just thinking about it.

  “Yeah. Two winters ago I busted my ankle and a wrist after an idiotic BASE jumping attempt. Lesson learned.”

  “What’s BASE jumping? I think I’ve heard of it, but remind me.”

  “It’s when you jump off tall stuff like buildings or bridges with a parachute or this wingsuit thing,” he explained.

  I laughed. “Don’t worry. BASE jumping is definitely not on The List.”

  “What list?” he asked.

  “Oh, uh, my bucket list. Everyone has one, right?”

  “A bucket list? I guess,” he said and closed his eyes, turning his face to the sun.

  Somehow an awkward silence had sprung up between us. I didn’t like it nearly as well as the comfortable ones that we enjoyed. Groping for a way to restore our usual good vibe, I asked, “If I went skydiving, would you go with me?”

  “Are you seriously up for it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I really am.”

  “I still have the contact info for the place I went when I did it. You want me to set something up?”

  “That would be great.” I felt an increased measure of respect for Matt. He disproved time and again the stereotype I had of surfers as flaky space cadets. He had a laid-back vibe, but the alertness he surfed with translated into everything else he did too. It was attractive. It worried me that I hadn’t found one off-putting thing about him yet.

  “I should probably get going,” he said.

  “Already?” We usually lazed around on the sand and chatted for a while before taking off after surfing.

  “Yeah. Today’s a busy day for work,” he explained.

  “Teaching?” I asked, because that’s
what he usually did in the mornings.

  “Nah. The shop.”

  “I’m totally embarrassed to admit this, but I have no idea what you do there,” I said. I felt a twinge of sheepishness that he knew so much about the details of my life when I knew so little about the details of his.

  He shrugged. “I probably haven’t mentioned it because a lot of it’s kind of boring,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Yeah, well, just so I don’t feel like a total narcissist, will you tell me about the store? Celia said you own it, right?”

  “Don’t be too impressed. I co-own it with my buddy. And it’s mostly menial labor, like today.”

  “What’s today?”

  “I have to spend the rest of the day loading trucks in a warehouse in Santa Ana,” he said, naming a city farther inland. “It’s going to be super hot. Feel free to make a ‘you are where you work’ joke there.”

  I rolled my eyes and waited for more details but none came. “That’s it?” I pressed. “That’s all there is to tell?”

  He grinned. “I told you it was boring. Are you working tonight?” he asked in a sudden change of subject.

  I resolved to get more information out of him later. “I have the later dinner shift,” I answered him. “I think I’m going to see if I can get some volleyball in.”

  “Cool. I’ll walk you over.”

  We split up at the edge of the sand courts after a long hug. One girl on the sideline caught my eye and nodded at Matt’s retreating form. “Nice,” she mouthed. I grinned.

  Surfing, a date with Matt on Saturday, and sand volleyball. I liked this town.

  * * *

  “I hate this thing!” I announced two hours later, menacing Aunt Trudy’s mailbox with a hammer. “I can’t get the dent out!”

  Aunt Trudy eyed me over her glasses, unperturbed. “You’re doing fine,” she said.

  “No, I’m not.” I stared in discouragement at Mama Bird’s head. It now bulged in the opposite direction, the result of trying to hammer the dent out from the inside with too much force. “She looks like her head’s going to explode from bird flu or something.”

  Celia wandered over. “She’s right, Mom. I guess Ashley can fix mailboxes about as well as she can surf,” she joked.