Indeed, Cleo had instead used the list to purge herself of guilt, of any sort of misdeed—big or small—but she hadn’t used it to become better. And though her dad wasn’t around to ask, she was starting to suspect that was his intention. Her father was a good man. He was faithful and devoted and funny and smart. And maybe his list made him this way or maybe he made his list to avoid becoming anything he didn’t want to be—unfaithful, cruel, less informed. Cleo didn’t know; she couldn’t know now. But she did know that writing things down and using them for good were not the same thing. It occurred to her how much this notion echoed the very beginning of MaryAnne’s op-ed.
“Anyway,” Gaby said. “Two orders of business. One: Oliver Patel has asked if he can come visit.” She grimaced as if this were a terrible thing as Cleo raised her eyebrows. “But I’ve decided I like him and so I said yes.”
“Wow,” Cleo said, swallowing the last of her Trefoil sandwich. “That’s unexpected.”
“I shouldn’t have started with that because we’ll have to unpack that at a different time.” Gaby talked over her. “I should have started with: I just got off Skype, and Veronica Kaye wants a meeting.”
“Veronica Kaye? Of Veronica Kaye?” Cleo knew it sounded stupid even as she asked it, and she hated sounding stupid. But she, who was pretty hard to stun, was stunned.
Veronica Kaye ran the empire Veronica Kaye Cosmetics, which she had founded when Cleo was in about middle school (Cleo and MaryAnne just loved, loved, loved their frosty pink lip gloss) and which over its first decade became a billion-dollar company. It was female-led from top to bottom, from Veronica herself to the women on the sales floor at Nordstrom and Macy’s and now on QVC, which hocked a slightly lesser brand of the goods for a discount price. She was known to write big checks for candidates she supported, but receiving this support was elusive, the white whale of the political world. She’d never jumped into the presidential race, instead choosing to focus on smaller, local campaigns where she thought grassroots work could make a bigger difference. Cleo had always admired her for that. It was easy to write a check for a splashy candidate who got coverage on all the news networks. It was probably more authentic to quietly endorse a state senator or a local mayor who could bring immediate change to a community.
“You led with Oliver Patel when you could have started with Veronica Kaye?” Cleo said. “Oliver was cute in high school and obviously foxy now, but seriously?”
“I know, I know. I’m allowed one swoony mistake at the thought of his cheekbones, and that’s it. Oh, also, he FaceTimed me this morning and I was almost late for work . . .”
Cleo held up her hand. “I love you more than anyone in this world other than Lucas, but I really do not need to hear about your phone sex.”
“Technically, it was FaceTime sex, but point taken.” Gaby checked her phone. “Also, I need that list of your ten regrets by end of day. That’s what put you on Veronica’s radar in the first place.”
“My regrets put me on her radar? Gaby, no one knows about this list other than you.”
“Right, but I mean, the video, the buzz. The spunk behind it.”
Cleo met her gaze. “I mean it, Gaby. I don’t care if you want to tell the world that I’m trying to make some . . . reparations. I do care if you share that I have two hundred and thirty-three of them.” She didn’t add: And that this was my thing with my dad. And it was private. And it was ours. And also, there were items on that list that she did not want exposed, could not have exposed.
“Understood. You have my word. She won’t know. And honestly, there’s no reason she has to.” Gaby nodded, an affirmation. “It’s my understanding that she likes the gumption—and that’s all she really needs to see. Also, though, she wants to meet on Friday, and I think we should bang out another one by then.”
“Gaby, these aren’t like . . . items on my grocery list.” Cleo debated another Trefoil but felt a stomachache coming on, so she closed the box and opened her bottom drawer, dropping the box back inside. “Besides, the mess of MaryAnne hasn’t exactly been cleaned up.”
This was true. Lucas had been texting nonstop with Esme (Cleo had yet to ask him about the girl here at home and whether or not he was being unfaithful, though she didn’t know what this meant for fourteen-year-olds), and this morning on the drive to school he informed her that her visit had only made MaryAnne more determined. The video of Cleo’s escapade was still blazing through YouTube, rocketing all over Twitter, and viewers remained split on who really was in the wrong. Maybe MaryAnne liked her odds of swaying the public opinion tide. Or maybe she was still just furious.
“More determined to do what?” Cleo had asked Lucas.
“She just said more determined, then put the rolling-eyeball emoji,” he said. He held up his phone to show her, but then the light turned green, and someone behind them honked, and Cleo jolted forward.
“Well, can you ask? Also, I thought emojis were—”
“God, Mom,” he interrupted. “I’m just trying to help. I’m not, like, your spy.”
Gaby’s phone buzzed, and she hopped to her feet, her message to Cleo received. “By the way, speaking of MaryAnne, CNN sent over a request for a comment.”
“Comment on what?”
“MaryAnne posted something else on Facebook, and you’re right, the story isn’t going away.”
Cleo nodded. One of their male reporters had chased her down the hall this morning before she ducked into a bathroom, just about the only place he couldn’t pursue her. She’d waited him out until he finally gave up. Stall tactics. Another thing politicians excelled at.
“I don’t think we should give them one,” Gaby said. “I don’t want to have to answer everything she does with a tit for tat. Let’s think on it, put a pin in it. And in the meantime, ten regrets, and I choose four more. ASAP.” She paused. “Please.” Her phone vibrated again, and she grinned and held it up for Cleo to see. “Oliver.”
“Lovebirds already,” Cleo said.
“Speaking of good sex, I’ve been thinking.” Gaby sat back down.
“Oh God.”
“No, seriously. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we lined up some dates.”
“Whatever happened to being proud of how independent I am? How I don’t need a man to stand by my side?” Cleo reached back down for the Girl Scout cookies.
“Jesus, you don’t.”
“So then what?”
Gaby stood again—moving on to her next item, ready to put this one to bed. “For you, Cleo, for you. Not because you need one or because you’re lesser for it. But because Lucas is getting older now, and maybe I might actually like Oliver Patel.” She laughed, corrected herself. “Who fucking knows. But you can’t be on your own forever.”
“I can be single forever,” Cleo snapped. “I am perfectly happy being single.”
“Being single and being on your own are two different things,” Gaby said, not unlike what Matty had echoed at the bar in the Sheraton. “No one can do anything in this career, much less in this world, on their own. I’d think you’d know that by now.”