Chapter 3 #2
“Phoebe, what’s happening?” Jonathan asks, but I’m too focused on the task in front of me to answer. I take a single piece of printer paper out of my accordion file organizer, and with a purple felt-tipped marker, I begin to write the title of the life-changing project I’ve been waiting for:
Phoebe’s Guide to Losing Her Virginity in Thirty Days
A Checklist
I hold up the paper, angling it the same way I would a children’s book during a read-aloud so everyone can see it.
“What is it that I always do when I need to get something done?” I ask them.
Meg claps her hands together. “Make a list!”
“Exactly,” I tell her, and I wish I had a gold star sticker to give her, but those are in my sticker bag. You should always bring the sticker bag, I chastise myself. “So why not make a list for the one thing I need to do more than anything else?”
“So just to be clear”—Jonathan clears his throat—“relaxing and letting things happen naturally is completely off the table?”
“Oh, Jonathan.” I look at him lovingly. “It was never on the table.”
“I guess this could actually work,” Alex says. “A list has never failed you before.”
I lift up the piece of paper, and it shakes along with my trembling hands.
“This will be a list of tasks,” I explain, the intricacies of the plan becoming increasingly clear to me as I go. “The more of these tasks I do, the higher the chances are of me having sex in the next thirty days. And I already have some ideas.”
I reach for a different colored marker to begin making the official list.
“There are a few things from my romance novels I can put on here. Like, Rear-end a guy and exchange information.”
I write that down in my neatest handwriting.
“Or maybe it can be something as simple as Compliment a stranger on his outfit.”
I write that one down, too.
“I hate to say it, Pheebs, but you need to add Go on a dating app date,” Nora says. “That’s really the only way any of us are getting laid these days.”
“Noted.” I write it down, grinning from ear to ear as the list begins to take shape. I also add Redownload Hinge near the top.
“Maybe now you’ll finally go out with Matthew!” Alex adds. My stomach does a little flip at the mention of his name. “You did technically match on Hinge. You can see him next week when you’re home in New York for the wedding. It works out perfectly.”
I shake my head. “That ship has sailed,” I tell Alex, knowing full well that I already messed up any shot I had with Matthew by bailing on that date last year. “We’re just friends.”
“Oh, please,” Alex scoffs. “If he was just your friend, you wouldn’t giggle at your phone like a teenager every time you get a text from him.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do,” Jonathan adds matter-of-factly. I shoot him a look.
“Plus, he wouldn’t be texting you every day if he thought you were just friends,” Nora adds. “Guys don’t do that.”
“We mostly only send each other our Wordle scores,” I tell them, even though that isn’t really the truth.
Our main priority is the New York Times crossword, followed by Word Hunt, followed by Words With Friends, and then Wordle.
I’ve also fallen into the habit of sending him tons of Star Wars memes I don’t totally understand but know he’ll enjoy based on a detailed analysis of his Twitter likes.
He sends me stuff, too. In fact, he sent me the video of Bev, the giant Pacific octopus I spent the entire summer obsessing over thanks to her ability to solve a Rubik’s Cube in 5.
24 seconds. I’ve never been able to solve one myself, something I’ve spent plenty of time lamenting to Matthew.
Maybe we should pay her a visit, he had texted along with the video.
I became fixated on it, because if an octopus could solve a Rubik’s Cube, maybe I could, too.
Maybe I could do a bunch of hard things if I set my mind to it.
I was inspired. And so earlier this summer, when Nora and Meg made a drunken decision to get tattoos, I went with them.
Now, tucked away in the crook of my left arm, I have a tattoo of a tiny octopus holding an even tinier Rubik’s Cube.
The whole thing is small enough to be mistaken for an oddly shaped birthmark but large enough to have made my mother stop talking to me for two weeks.
Matthew got a big kick out of it, though.
But that’s it. That’s the extent of our relationship.
Our friendship, I should say.
“If it makes you all happy, I can add Go on a date with Matthew to the list,” I concede. “But it would definitely be more of a friend date at this point. There’s no way he’s still interested in me after all the time that’s passed.”
“Of course he’s still interested,” Nora says. “But you better act fast and snatch him up while he’s still on the market. And if you don’t go out with him, maybe I will. He’s hot.” She smiles. I don’t smile back.
“You can add some easy stuff to the list, too, as a warm-up,” Jonathan suggests.
“Like Flirt with someone at work.” I nod as I write down his suggestion, already thinking of flirty things I can say to Teacher Rob, the only male teacher we have.
At sixty years old, he may not be the most ideal target, but he’s all I’ve got.
We spend the next half hour brainstorming ideas. When we’re done, I add one final bullet point to the bottom of the list: Advertise myself on Craigslist.
“I’m not letting you do that one,” Jonathan says before I even finish writing.
“That’s the great thing about this list!
” I feel myself coming alive the way I only do when I’m organizing.
“I’m ordering it from easiest to hardest, and the last few tasks on the list are worst-case scenario.
Ideally, I’ll only have to complete a few of the easier tasks toward the top of the list.”
I point to one of the easier tasks: Compliment a stranger on his outfit.
“For example, let’s say I tell the cute barista from Alfred that I like his shoes.
This opens the floor for him to say, ‘Thanks, I like your Shania Twain T-shirt. Would you like to have sex sometime?’ We go on a date to that sushi spot Jonathan and I have been begging everyone to try.
After dinner, he walks me back to my apartment, and he leans in to kiss me when we get to my door.
I panic, but it’s okay, because he finds it endearing.
He says we don’t have to do anything physical until I’m ready.
We spend every day together, and the more time I spend with him, the more comfortable I become expressing myself physically.
Fast-forward thirty days and I’ve lost my virginity to the cute barista, and all I had to do was check off two tasks.
” I draw two check marks in the air with my finger to signify the completion of Compliment a stranger on his outfit and Go on a date with one of the meet-cutes from above.
“And no Craigslist ads were made in the process.”
“Right, but what happens if the cute guy in the coffee shop doesn’t proposition you for sex immediately upon meeting you?” Nora asks. “You have to promise us you won’t give up.”
“The beauty of the list is that if one thing doesn’t work out, there’s always another!
Any of these tasks have the potential to get me to my goal.
” The more I explain the details of the list out loud, the more I want to kick myself for not having had this idea sooner.
I should have known that the one thing capable of lighting this kind of fire under my ass would be a good old-fashioned, goal-oriented checklist.
“I really feel like it’s gonna happen for you,” Nora says earnestly before switching to her signature sarcasm. “Plus, you’ve literally been oozing sex appeal recently.” She smirks and gestures to my oversized Rugrats shirt, which she tried to encourage me not to buy.
“Haha,” I respond dryly. Nora’s always going on about how I should be “showing off my assets” more, but that’s just Nora. I don’t take offense to anything she says. Even if it is directed toward my precious T-shirt collection.
I can hardly contain my excitement as I continue adding potential tasks to the list.
“It’s like a game of Candy Land! There are infinite routes to the end.”
A wave of calm washes over me as I admire the rows of evenly spaced bullet points, and everyone’s eyes move from left to right in synchrony as we read through the finished product.
Except for Meg’s. Her eyes move from right to left.
“I don’t like this one.” Jonathan points to one of the tasks in the middle of the list, one that I’d made sure to write down without anyone else’s input: Get drunk and make out with a stranger.
“You hate the way you feel after a drunk make-out,” he says, and the rest of the group nods in agreement.
It’s true. I find it highly unromantic. But for the most part, the only way I’ve mustered up the courage to do anything physical with a guy is by getting drunk beforehand, and even then, I always seem to sober up before the situation goes too far.
“Well, hopefully it won’t come to that,” I tell them.
Alex reaches for my hand across the table. “I’m really proud of you, Phoebe.”
Meg, sucking on an ice cube from someone’s empty glass, agrees. “This is the most determined I’ve ever seen you.”
She reaches for the remainder of Alex’s cosmo and downs it in one sip. Alex shoots the rest of us a silent, wide-eyed plea. Everyone pulls their drinks closer to their chests, away from Meg, except for Jonathan, who reaches out to grab my shoulders.
I can’t help but notice the way his thumb brushes lightly against the side of my neck. “Just promise us that you’ll still have time for us with all the sex you’ll be having.”
“I will always have time for you guys.”
Of course I will.
Meg raises Jonathan’s beer. “To Phoebe getting railed.”
Everyone else follows suit. “To Phoebe getting railed!”
“To getting railed!” I echo.