Jill Smolinski: The Next Thing on My List

And I said, “Really?”

And she said, “I have the recipe right here with me. I swear, it’s so simple-nothing but opening a bunch of cans.”

And I said, “Well, great, let’s see it!”

And she reached into the backseat of my car to grab her purse, which was the reason her seat belt was unbuckled at the moment of impact.

Marissa Jones’s Taco Soup

4 cans navy or northern beans

1 can Mexican-spiced tomatoes

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can corn

1 package taco seasoning

1 package fat-free ranch dressing mix

Mix ingredients in large saucepan. Heat and serve.

MAKES 8 SERVINGS.

As best I can recall (my head took quite a whack, so my memory is dodgy), a dresser toppled off a truck in front of us, and I’d jerked the steering wheel to avoid it. The rest is unclear. Witnesses reported that we skimmed the curb at an angle, which sent us rolling.

“Landed ass over teakettle,” I heard one paramedic say to another as they slid my stretcher into the ambulance.

Another thing I overheard: “No hurry on that one, she’s dead.”

Dead? My hands felt around on my body. I wasn’ t sure which one of us he referring to.

It wasn’t me.

Which meant.

Oh shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

After the accident, I tried to go back to life as usual, without success. Seemed I’d failed to account for one simple yet irrefutable fact, which is as follows: Knowing that you killed somebody is really depressing. Honestly, I can’t fathom how people like Scott Peterson can pick themselves up afterward and go fishing. I barely had the energy to report to the office and perform a job I’ve been doing so long that I suspect I could do it in a coma.

The weeks ticked by. The bruises faded, and yet, unable to shake the despair that clung to me like a fog, I was left to conclude that there are two types of horrible events: the type that shake you up and cause you to grab life by the throat and never again take it for granted, and the type that make you lie in bed and watch a lot of reality TV.

Mine fell into the latter category.

With no one close enough to witness my downward spiral, I was free to fall. No husband or kids. No roommate. My boyfriend Robert made his break in late August, a month after the accident. We’d been on the brink of splitting anyway, lingering at that stage where we both knew things were over and yet, like a car we weren’t quite ready to sell, we kept patching and paying for small repairs, waiting for something huge like the transmission to blow. As it turned out, the relationship was totaled. Robert could barely stand to look at the wreckage I’d become, and frankly, it was a relief when he left. I barely noticed him packing his toothbrush and the extra set of shoes he kept under my bed, what with the new fall TV season starting up.

If only Marissa hadn’t written that list or if hers had been more like my to-do lists: a bunch of nothing that nevertheless had occupied my time for the past three-plus decades. Pick up the dry cleaning. Run to the gym. Meet a friend for lunch. Some of the tasks got crossed off others were transferred from paper to paper until I’d either finally get around to doing them or decide they weren’t as important as I thought they were.

If I died, what could my obituary possibly even say? June Parker, on- and off-again girlfriend, midlevel employee, and lifelong underachiever, died waiting for something to happen. She is survived by a new pack of socks, the purchase of which was the greatest achievement crossed off her to-do list.

I’d read Marissa’s list only once before hiding it away in my dresser drawer. I wasn’t even sure why I’d kept it. Sure, I told myself it would be sad for the family-but still, why did it bother me so much?

It was only when bathed in the forgiving light of the TV that I could bear to admit the truth to myself: Horrible as it was that I’d killed someone, I was relieved I hadn’t died. For whatever reason, I’d been given a second chance.

Which is why I felt so guilty about squandering it. The gods who spared me were probably sitting around in the clouds, scratching their heads, and saying things like “You’d assume rescuing her from a pile of destroyed metal was enough! What do we need to get through to this woman? Plague? Locusts?!”

Problem was, I had no idea how to change. I wasn’t and had never been that person who could sit down and write a list of things I wanted to do and then actually do them. Marissa Jones needed to rub off on me all right. Not so much the part of her that could lose weight, but the part that seemed to at least have a clue about what she wanted once she did.

It seemed it would require a miracle to pry me from my malaise and set me on a new course. As it turned out, all it took was a guy at the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Eleventh Street selling ten-dollar bouquets of roses.

IT WAS JANUARY 20, exactly six months from the day Marissa died. My stomach had twisted when I noticed the date on my calendar and realized half a year had passed. It felt like both yesterday and a lifetime ago. My original plans to honor the occasion involved going home after work and& well, I had no plans. But then I stopped at a traffic light next to the man selling roses, and an idea instantly formulated in my head. I’d visit her grave. I’d apologize, and in doing so, maybe I’d be set free.

Flowers resting on my passenger seat, I stopped by a booth at the cemetery’s entrance for directions. A woman gave me a photocopied map, using a Sharpie to mark the route to Marissa’s grave site. I parked and then walked the rest of the way to where she was buried. Her tombstone, a tastefully simple marker, read, Marissa Jones, loving daughter, sister, and friend, and gave her birth and death dates.

“Sorry,” I whispered, and set down the flowers.

I stood there for a while, waiting for a sense of peace that didn’t come, when someone behind me said, “June?”

I turned around to find myself in that situation everybody hates: I didn’t recognize the guy. Easy on the eyes, though. Had that surfer-dude grown-up look. Thirtyish. Tall but not too tall, sun-kissed blond hair, a strong nose, and a jaw that worked well with it. Jeans and a Billabong T-shirt. “Oh, hi there,” I said, trying to pass off that I knew who he was.

“You probably don’t remember me. I’m Troy Jones. Marissa’s brother.”

“Of course I remember you.”

Okay, maybe not right away. He’d been dressed more formally at the funeral. And his hair had been shorter. Plus I’d met him only long enough to shake his hand.

“I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure. Do you come here often?” As soon as he said it, he shook his head. “Boy, did that ever sound like a pickup line. Next thing you know, I’m going to ask what a nice girl like you is doing in a place like this.”

Avoiding the obvious response-visiting your sister who is dead because of me-I said, “If you’re working your way through the lines, I’ll save you time. I’m a Scorpio.”

“Good to know.”

“And to answer your question, no, I don’t come here often. But since today was six months”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

Apparently we then decided to observe a moment of silence, because we stood there not speaking, and just when I was about to make an excuse to leave, he said, “Care to walk around a bit?”

If only I’d dumped the flowers and run when I had the chance. “Sure,” I said, not wanting to be rude. “That’d be nice.”

We headed up a dirt path that wound through the grounds, taking a leisurely pace.

“You’re looking well,” he said, gazing over at me. “You were pretty banged up last time I saw you.”

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally, and to my relief, from there we chatted about nothing of significance-how we’d gotten so much rainfall lately and how dogs bark before earthquakes. He so resembled his sister. It stirred up what I’d tried to stuff deep inside-the shame I wore that was as ugly as if I still had the shiner. I feared if I said too much, he’d be able to see what I’d been able to hide from others for months. That I might look okay on the outside, but inside I was still tender and purple and swollen.