Sugar Pine Trail

For now, she had to worry about the book club showing up at her house in twenty minutes.

And, of course, the man who suddenly lived upstairs.

* * *

ROXY NASH STOOD in front of the book club and gave a sharp smile that filled Julia with apprehension.

“Tonight I thought it would be fun to try something different,” she said.

“You mean like actually read the book?” Samantha asked in an undertone that made everyone sitting close enough to hear laugh.

“Since the theme of Filling Your Well is wringing every drop of joy out of life while you can, I thought it would be so fun for us to write down some of the things on our own bucket lists. We’re about to head into a new year. What better time for a little self-reflection?”

Beside her, Megan Hamilton groaned. “I already don’t like this,” she muttered.

Julia completely agreed.

“At least the booze is good,” Sam said, taking another sip of the autumn sangria Roxy had so thoughtfully provided for the book club.

Julia had to agree with that sentiment, as well.

“Ask yourself, what am I not happy about?” Roxy said to the room of twenty or so women gathered in Julia’s large living room. “What would I like to change about myself? Remember, this is not about resolutions. This isn’t about saying you want to lose ten pounds, though that might be a worthy goal. I want you to think a little deeper.”

“Fifteen pounds?” Julia murmured, which made Megan laugh.

Roxy didn’t seem to find their side comments amusing. She gave their corner of the room a stern look before she pulled out a stack of papers from a pink file folder.

“To help you out a little, I’ve printed out a form for each of us. At the top, it says, This year I want to... For this exercise, I’d like you to put at least five things on the list, things that have been hovering on the edge of your mind, things you might not even have admitted to yourself you want.”

“I want more sangria. Does that count?” Megan asked, making both Julia and Sam laugh and earning another glare from Roxy, which made Julia wince.

Considering she was the hostess for the gathering, maybe she should be setting a little better example. She dutifully got up to help Roxy pass around the papers, along with pencils from a tin she kept in her kitchen.

When everyone had a paper and a writing instrument, Julia returned to her seat and gazed down at the paper, not sure what to write.

For so long, her goals in life had involved taking care of others. Her parents, her library patrons.

Maksym.

She wasn’t very good at projects like this. Whenever she was forced to take a good, hard look at her life, she rarely liked what she saw.

“Can I put something involving Jamie Caine and his pecs?” Sam asked, tilting her head to look at the ceiling as if he might somehow appear there and wink down at them—and perhaps flex said pectorals.

Julia took another sip of her sangria. The man wasn’t even home, though she didn’t bother telling Sam that. She hadn’t seen his vehicle earlier. When he did get home, he wouldn’t be able to pull into the driveway, as it was filled with the vehicles of her book group friends.

“Really?” Roxy said. “Is that the first thing that comes to mind when you look at what would bring you joy next year?”

“Yes,” Sam said emphatically.

Megan laughed, though Sam’s mother rolled her eyes from across the room.

“What’s wrong with that?” Samantha said. “You specifically wanted us to think about something missing from our lives. I would have to say that is definitely missing from my life.”

“Thanks,” Wynona Emmett said with an eye roll of her own. “Now we’re all thinking about Jamie’s pecs.”

Megan snorted. “Why would you care about that when you have a hot man in uniform waiting for you at home?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Wyn said with the sort of self-satisfied smile that made Julia ache with envy.

Once, she thought her life would turn out like Wyn’s, married to a man she loved, with children and a home too small to hold in all her happiness.

Things hadn’t quite turned out that way.

She gazed down at her paper as all the wasted years seemed to march across the empty whiteness.

“You can put whatever you want on your list,” Roxy said. “There’s no right or wrong here. It’s your list. Your dreams. But be honest with yourself. Like we learned in the book, you are the chief architect of your life. No one else. I’ll give you ten minutes to finish this.”

To set the scene, Roxy turned on the music she had brought along, tuned to some kind of new age harp music playing Christmas songs. Julia didn’t find it necessarily very helpful. Between the music and the sangria, now she just wanted to take a nap.

She stared at her paper for a long moment while a hundred thoughts chased themselves around in her brain. The sad truth was, she didn’t have a problem coming up with things missing in her life. The problem was narrowing the list down so she wasn’t writing a novel about it.

She took another sip of her drink and finally wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Drive my new car on the Interstate.

She had owned the Lexus for a month and so far had avoided any highways or freeways that might require her to put the pedal to the metal. That was fine when she was running around town, but it was becoming apparent to her that she was starting to go out of her way to avoid having to travel too fast. What was the point in owning such a fine vehicle, if she was afraid to drive it?

And while she was thinking about speed, another lifelong dream popped into her head, and she wrote it down before she had time to think.

Learn to ski.

She lived in the mountains, for heaven’s sake, where they could have snow upwards of seven months out of the year. How could she have lived to be thirty-two and not ever have tried the area’s most popular winter sport?

“Learn to ski. That’s a good one!” Megan said. “Can I use that one, too?”

Julia fought the urge to cover her paper. “Um, sure. If that’s your dream.”

“One of many, hon. One of many.”

“No peeking at each other’s papers,” Roxy said sternly. “You can share later if you choose, but for now I want you to do this on your own.”

Megan sat back in her chair. “Wow, harsh. Roxy is as bad as Miss Chestnut. Remember her?”

“Oh, yes,” Julia said. Agatha Chestnut had been the librarian in Haven Point for years. She had a dour, pinched face, a beehive hairdo and cat glasses that magnified her eyes about a hundred times. All the children had been terrified of her.

“Okay, you should have written down at least half of your list,” Roxy said.

Julia had exactly two items. She looked down at her list and quickly wrote the next thing that came into her mind.