Carpe Diem (8 page)

Eat dinner and go to a movie by myself

Learn how to shoot a gun

Learn to dance

Slow dance in the rain

Skydive

Take a cooking class

Fall in love

Marry my best friend

Go on a no limit-shopping spree

Ride in a helicopter

Have a silly day

Write something in wet cement

Have a full moon party

Go skinny-dipping

Do a polar plunge

Go somewhere tropical

Win a contest

Volunteer my time

Watch the sun go down and the stars come out

Learn to knit

Go camping

Have my palm read

Create a board game

Go apple picking

Plant a garden

Take a canoe Trip

Take a walk with my mom

Go fishing with my dad

Eat a six-course meal

As I get to the end of my list, I find the item I am looking for and carefully draw a line through it.

Eat a six-course meal

Casey and Abby eventually say their good-nights and head home. Bryna heads up to her old room to head to bed. I was not nearly ready for bed, I was still sipping on some coffee, thinking about the evening. After tonight, I need to feel a little bit more of Jack with me so I brewed a small pot, and grabbed Jack’s favorite red coffee cup from the shelf. I pour a second glass for Flynn, and we move our conversation to the front porch.

“You don’t have to stay. I’m sure you are tired,” I say, taking a seat.

“No, I’m fine… I think I am still coming off the adrenaline of the day.”

“Flynn, you did an amazing job. Jack would be truly proud of everything you were able to pull off today.”

“I can’t take any of the credit, it was all his idea. He would go on and on about every little detail he could think of and wrote it all down in his ‘anniversary journal’ he kept at the office,” he replies, smirking.

I could tell he was reliving some of the conversations he had shared with Jack, as his smirk turned into a large smile and then a small chuckle.

“I can’t tell you how much this means to me, but I can’t ask you to foot the bill for Jack’s master plan. Tell me the amount and I will write you a check,” I offer.

“Ha, let me think about that. Ah, no. I don’t think so. And even if it was my money I used, I wouldn’t have let you pay me back.” Flynn chuckles.

“I don’t understand, whose money did you use?”

“Jack’s. He had been saving for this for years, doing odd jobs for extra cash in the beginning and then having payroll process two checks for him so you would never know he was skimming.”

“He did?” I ask.

“Yep, made me promise never to tell you no matter how broke you were at times.”

“I can’t believe he did that. Wait when did he work these side jobs?”

“Well, do you remember all those times he and I would hang out at my house for football, or helping me with some lame project, or the time he and I went on our fishing trip without his tackle box?”

“Yes…”

“He was off doing jobs. You almost caught us once in a lie, and Jack was convinced you were going to think he was cheating on you.”

“Oh my God, yes, I knew you were lying,” I blurt, laughing, knowing exactly the memory he was referring to.

It was about ten years ago, Jack and Flynn had made plans to go canoeing and camping for a boys’ weekend. It was supposed to be a cheap weekend away. After Jack got home, he was limited on his excitement to tell me about the weekend and then two weeks later when I got our visa bill it showed a charge for the River’s Edge Motel. When I asked Jack about it, he said that Flynn met some girl at the bar they stopped at along the river and Flynn hooked up with her. Jack claimed that Flynn didn’t have his wallet on him so he gave Flynn our credit card and that he would pay us back.

The story did not make sense to me since Flynn had been kind of dating someone at the time and Flynn didn’t seem the type to cheat. I was a little suspicious until later that day Flynn popped by with the amount of the charge and gave it to Jack. I walked in on the conversation and asked what was going on. When Flynn blushed at my question and told me he owed Jack some money, I believed the story

“That was a flat out lie. I never hooked up with a chick that weekend, I wasn’t even there. He rented a motel room for an out of town job and used the wrong credit card to pay for it,” Flynn explains.

“I can’t believe that is the story he came up with,” I reply, smiling.

“No kidding, I was pretty pissed. I, of course, played along so he wouldn’t blow his cover.”

“I suppose that clears that up, and I’m so glad that you didn’t hook-up with a random chick. I actually thought less of you after I heard that.”

“I know, I could see it in your eye when you looked at me that day,” he says as he takes his last sip of wine avoiding eye contact.

“So, are you going to let me in on the rest of Jack’s plan?” I ask, bringing the conversation back to something a little more comfortable.

“Nope.”

“No? Why not.”

“Because he wanted it all to play out a certain way and I’m going to do my best to help him with that.”

“Okay, so then what was his next step?”

“I’m not going to give you any details yet, I will give you some warning when the next item is coming,” Flynn says and then pauses for a moment

He is holding something back or trying to figure out how to tell me something. I can see the struggle he is fighting with himself and I want to help, but how can I when I don’t know what it is.

“The plan wasn’t fully complete,” he tells me.

“That’s okay, I…” I start to say before he interrupts me.

“I know, but I should warn you, I have a few of the letters he had already written. I wanted to warn you because I still plan to give them to you when the time is right,” he explains

I sit quietly, looking at him for more, but he doesn’t speak. He is sitting quietly playing with the empty coffee cup.

“Thank you,” I finally say.

“I thought after your reaction to the letter tonight I should warn you.”

“Yes, it was a bit of a shock. I never in a million years would have expected this from him. He never was into that mushy gushy romance stuff.”

“He loved you so much that he would have done anything for you.”

M
y dreams are
slowly pulled from me when I hear someone calling my name. I try to hold on tight to the random dream I can no longer recall.

“Piper, oooooh Piper,” I hear whispering in my ear.

“What?” I reply with my face buried in my pillow.

“It’s morning!”

I glance over at the clock and see the numbers 7:16 a.m. staring back at me. I roll my eyes and push my face back into the warmth of the down feathers that cradle my head so perfectly.

“Come on! Don’t you want to know what we are doing today?” Abby says while cuddling up next to me, stroking my hair.

“No, I want to go back to bed. You kept me up until all hours of the night, remember?”

“Oh come on, it was
not
that late.” She laughs.

“I think you are mistaken my dear, it was at least one twenty-five a.m. the last time I looked at the clock,” I remind her.

“Come on, I will start some coffee. Flynn will be here soon to give us the deets.”

“If by soon you mean two hours,” I yell to her as she leaves my bedroom.

“Yeah, well we need time to get ready,” she says peeking back around the wall.

“I love Abby, I love Abby, I will not strangle Abby, Abby is my friend, I will not kill her,” I quietly chant to myself.

My eyes are pretty pissed off at me right now and would really, really like me to let them close again so that I can fall back into the peaceful sleep I was enjoying. However, Abby is right, I do need to get up so we have time to shower and get ready.

My brain is starting to wake up and the excitement I felt last night when Flynn called to tell me that he will be stopping by at nine o’clock in the morning to pick me up for one of my Carpe Diem items. As soon as he said the words, my heart started to race and I could not stop the smile from forming on my face.

I, of course, asked for details, but he was a brick wall. I got nothing out of him, other than Casey would not be coming and that it would be only Abby and him joining me on this one.

The last month waiting and waiting to find out when and what I would be doing next has been extremely annoying. No one would tell me anything and Flynn was the worst, he kept insisting that this was all part of Jack’s plan and that I would find out only when it was time. I joked that I doubt it was Jack’s plan to end up in divorce court because toying with me like this may have done just that.

I have to admit I was impressed with Abby, even when I called Abby to come over to calm my nerves, she didn’t crack under the pressure, or the three bottles of wine, or the half-asleep interrogation I tried on her. Nothing, nada, el zippo… this makes me think she has no idea what we are doing but wants me to think she does.

I wish Bryna had come home for summer break. I might have been able to pull some information from her. Unfortunately, for me, she is a good girl who listens to her mother. After a good lecture from me about going on and living her life and not worrying about me, she decided to actually listen to me and stayed living with her friends and got a job there for the summer.

“Coffee is ready, get your ass down here,” Abby yells at me from downstairs.

“Coming, Mother,” I shout back at her.

“Don’t make me come up there and get you,” she yells, laughing.

Now that I am fully awake and it is getting closer to getting my answers, my tummy is fluttering with excitement. I jump out of bed and run toward the stairs, my feet quickly taking each step as it has done a thousand times before.

Turning the corner, I see Abby leaning on the kitchen island, coffee in hand with a smirk on her face. Jack’s red coffee mug is across from her, steaming with the freakily brewed brown liquid heaven waiting for me.

“Happy twenty years and one month anniversary,” she tells me.

“That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but thank you,” I reply.

As I approach the cup, I see that it is sitting on top of an envelope with my name scribbled in Jack’s handwriting.

“You asshole! Did you have that letter all night?” I demand, reaching across the island to give her a friend-punch to the bicep.

“Ouch, yes! You didn’t have to hit me so hard,” she says, laughing and rubbing her arm.

“Oh my God, I hate you. Why didn’t you let me have it last night?”

“Because that is was not part of the plan… The plan was for you to find it with your coffee.”

“How in the hell did you not break last night? I was determined to get information out of you.”

“For one, Flynn prepped me, and two, I have no idea what we are doing today. My job was to place the letter.”