Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It(11)

“I am?” she asks as I reach under the table to grab my bag. I dump the contents on the table, all the supplies I could possibly need spilling out in front of me. I reach for the unopened box of felt-tipped markers.

“Oh my god!” everyone cries in unison as I rip open the packaging.

“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.