On the plane, Libby insists that we order Bloody Marys. She actually tries to convince me to do shots, but finally settles for a Bloody Mary for me (and a plain tomato juice for herself). I’m not usually much of a drinker, especially not in the morning, but this is my first real vacation in ten years, and my nerves are so wound up that I down my drink in the first twenty minutes.
Traveling makes me tense; I’m uncomfortable with time off, and I hate leaving my clients unattended. Specifically, one very important client: Dusty. For the forty-eight hours before takeoff, I alternated between trying to reassure her and remind her of the book deadline looming ahead. We've already delayed her next book's deadline by six months, and if she can’t deliver some draft pages this week, the entire publishing schedule could be in jeopardy.
Dusty’s extremely superstitious about her writing process, and she hasn’t even shared what she’s working on. Regardless, I send her another quick, encouraging email from my phone, hoping to keep her on track.
Libby notices, raising an eyebrow. I put my phone down, raising my hands in surrender to show I’m fully present. “Good,” she says with a smile. She pulls her oversized purse onto her tray table and takes out a full-sized folder, which she dramatically unfolds in front of me.
“Oh my gosh, what is that?” I ask. “Are we planning a bank heist?”
“Heist, yes. Robbery sounds so déclassé. We’ll be in three-piece suits the whole time,” she replies, handing me a laminated sheet titled, “Life-Changing Vacation List.”
“Who are you, and where did you bury my sister?” I joke.
Libby grins, undeterred. “I know how much you love a checklist,” she says brightly, “so I took the liberty of creating one for our perfect small-town adventure.”
I reach for one of the sheets, raising an eyebrow. “I hope number one is ‘dance on top of a Coyote Ugly bar.’ Though I’m not sure any manager worth their salt would let you do that in your condition.”
Feigning mock offense, she asks, “Am I really showing that much?”
“Noooo,” I coo. “Not at all.”
She laughs. “You’re so bad at lying. It’s like your face muscles are being controlled by six different amateur puppeteers. Now, back to the bucket list.”
“Bucket list? Which one of us is dying?”
She meets my eyes, a mischievous glint dancing in hers. “Birth is a kind of death,” she teases, rubbing her belly. “Death of your independence, death of a full night’s sleep, death of laughing without peeing a little. But really, it’s more like a ‘small-town romance experience’ list—a way for us to transform into the relaxed, chill people we’ve always wanted to be.”
I glance over the list again, a little surprised at how much thought she’s put into this. Before Libby got pregnant for the first time, she briefly worked with a high-end event planner (one of many jobs she tried on for size). Despite her usual love for spontaneity (read: chaos), her organization has improved dramatically since motherhood. Seeing her so prepared is unexpectedly touching—and very much my style.
I laugh when I see the first item on the list: Wear a flannel shirt.
“I don’t even own a flannel shirt,” I tell her.
“Neither do I,” she says with a shrug. “We’ll have to thrift some. Maybe we’ll even find some cowgirl boots.”
Back when we were teenagers, we’d spend hours combing through Goodwill racks, finding treasures among the castoffs. I always gravitated toward sleek, designer pieces, while she’d rush for anything with color, fringe, or rhinestones. That old heart-pinch feeling returns, as though I’m already missing her—as if our best moments are behind us. That’s exactly why I’m doing this, I remind myself: to reconnect.
“Flannel, check,” I say. I read the second item on the list: Bake something. My sister loves to cook, and she always saves her more adventurous recipes for our nights together, away from the whims of her picky toddlers.
My eyes skim further down the list: 3. General makeover (hair down, or maybe bangs?) 4. Build something (literal, not figurative).
The first few items on Libby’s list almost directly mirror her past “Graveyard of Abandoned Potential Careers.” Before her event planning stint, she briefly ran an online vintage store, curating thrift shop treasures; before that, she dreamed of becoming a baker; then a hairstylist; and, at age eight, even envisioned herself as a carpenter because “there weren’t enough women in that field.”
So, everything so far makes sense—at least, in the uniquely quirky way things make sense in Libby’s mind. But then my eyes catch on number five. “Wait, what’s this one?”
Libby’s eyes brighten as she reads, “Go on at least two dates with locals!” She lifts her list, revealing that number five has been crossed out on her own copy. “That one’s just for you!”
“Isn’t that a little unfair?” I counter.
She reminds me, “Well, I’m married, and about five thousand weeks pregnant.”
“And I’m a career woman with a weekly cleaning service, a shoe closet, and a Sephora credit card,” I say. “I doubt my dream man is a lobster fisherman.”
Libby leans closer, practically glowing. “Exactly! Nora, you know I adore your organized, beautiful, Dewey-decimal-system mind, but you approach dating like car shopping.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking it as a compliment.
“And it always ends badly.”
“Oh, good,” I respond dryly. “I was worried that wouldn’t come up.”
Taking my hands, she says, “I’m just saying, you keep dating guys exactly like you—same priorities, same lifestyle.”
“You could just call them ‘compatible,’ you know.”
“Sometimes opposites attract,” she insists. “Think about all your exes. Think about Jakob and his cowgirl wife!”
Something sharp twinges inside me at the mention of Jakob, but Libby doesn’t seem to notice.
“The point of this trip is to get out of our comfort zones,” she presses on. “To maybe even be someone new. Who knows? Maybe if you branch out, you’ll find your own life-changing romance, instead of another walking checklist in boyfriend form.”
“I like dating checklists, thank you very much,” I say. “They keep things straightforward. Think about Mom, Lib.” She fell in love so easily, often with men who weren’t right for her, leading to messy breakups that would leave her in pieces, struggling to keep a job or even show up for auditions.
“You’re nothing like Mom,” she says lightly, but the comment stings. I know I’m different, and I felt it deeply every single day after we lost her, when I was just trying to keep things together for us both.
I realize Libby’s not implying anything hurtful, but her words feel uncomfortably similar to every breakup speech I’ve ever heard, each one ending with something like, “For all I know, you don’t even have feelings.”
“Come on,” Libby presses, unfazed. “When was the last time you got to relax and not think about how it fits into your perfectly organized life plan? You deserve some low-stakes fun, and frankly, I deserve to live vicariously through you. Hence, the dates!”
“So, am I allowed to take my earpiece out after dessert, or...?” I joke.
She throws up her hands. “Fine, forget number five! Even though it would be good for you. Even though I basically planned this whole trip so you could have your own small-town romance experience.”
“Okay, okay!” I relent. “I’ll do the lumberjack dates, but they’d better look like Robert Redford.”
Her eyes light up, and she squeals. “Young or old?”
I give her a look.
“Got it,” she says. “Moving on. Number six: Go skinny-dipping in a natural body of water.”
“What about bacteria? Should you really risk it?” I ask, feigning concern.
She sighs, her face falling. “Guess I didn’t plan this quite as thoroughly as I thought.”
“Nonsense,” I reassure her. “It’s an amazing list.”
“You’ll just have to skinny-dip alone, then,” she says, distracted. “A lone thirty-something woman, naked in the local swimming hole. Perfect way to meet someone... or get arrested.”
She continues reading, “Seven: Sleep under the stars. Eight: Attend a town event, like a wedding or festival.”
I dig out a Sharpie, adding “funeral, bris, or ladies’ night at the roller rink.”
“Trying to find a hot ER doctor, huh?” she teases, noticing. I cross out the roller rink and glance at number nine.
“Nine: Ride a horse.”
I gesture toward her belly. “Not exactly baby-friendly.” I cross out “ride” and replace it with “pet.” She sighs, half-amused.
She continues reading, “Ten: Start a (controlled) fire. Eleven: Go on a hike?? (Is it worth it??)”
When Libby was sixteen, she announced she’d be joining her boyfriend for a summer job in Yellowstone. Mom and I burst out laughing, knowing how unlikely that was; all the Stephens women shared an aversion to the great outdoors. Aside from our shared love of books, vitamin C serums, and stylish clothes, the closest we came to hiking was a brisk stroll through Central Park's Ramble—with paper bowls of food truck waffles and ice cream, of course. Needless to say, she broke up with him two weeks before the trip.
I tap the last line on her list: Save a local business. “You do realize we’re only here for a month, right?” We’ve got three weeks to ourselves, with Brendan and the girls joining us afterward, and I’m already unsure how I’ll manage week one. My last trip away didn’t even last two days before I headed back home. But this is different. I’ll make it work for Libby.
“They always save a local business in small-town romance novels,” she says, grinning. “It’s practically a requirement. I’m hoping for a struggling goat farm.”
“Oh, maybe we’ll rally the local ritualistic-sacrifice community to save the goats. You know, temporarily—until they’re needed for the altar.”
“Naturally.” Libby sips her tomato juice. “That’s just how things work.”
Our taxi driver looks like Santa Claus, down to his red T-shirt and suspenders holding up a worn pair of jeans. But he drives more like the cigar-chomping cabbie from Scrooged—taking corners so fast that Libby lets out little squeaks every time we swerve, and I catch her murmuring words of reassurance to her belly.
“Sunshine Falls, huh?” he yells, having rolled all four windows down unprompted. My hair whips across my face, making it hard to see his watery eyes in the rearview mirror.
In the time it took us to deplane and grab our luggage—somehow a full hour, even though our flight was the only one at the tiny airport—my inbox has doubled in size. With the annual slowdown in publishing, every delayed reply seems to throw my already anxious authors into spirals of “Does my editor hate me? Do you hate me? Does everyone hate me???”
“Yep!” I shout back to the driver. By now, Libby has her head between her knees.
“You must have family here!” he yells over the wind.
Maybe it’s my New York instinct or just general caution, but I’m not about to announce we don’t know a soul in town. “What makes you say that?” I reply.
“Why else would you come here?” He laughs, swinging around another corner.
When we finally come to a stop, I’m almost tempted to applaud, like a passenger after a rough landing. Libby sits up slowly, smoothing her miraculously untangled hair.
“Where… where are we?” I ask, looking around.
On either side of the dirt road, the dry grass stretches on. The road ends abruptly at a meadow, dotted with purple and yellow wildflowers on a gentle slope. A dead end.
Which raises an unsettling question: are we about to be murdered?
The driver ducks his head and gestures up the slope. “Goode’s Lily Cottage—just over that hill.”
Libby and I both lean forward, straining to see. Halfway up the incline, a staircase emerges in view, though staircase might be generous. It's more like a series of weathered wooden slats embedded into the grassy hill, forming makeshift steps.
Libby grimaces. “The listing did mention it wasn’t wheelchair accessible.”
“Did it also mention we’d need a ski lift?”
Meanwhile, our Santa look-alike driver has already started hauling our luggage out of the trunk. I step out into the intense sunlight, instantly feeling the heat through my all-black travel outfit. At the end of the dirt road, there’s a black mailbox with Goode’s Lily Cottage painted in curly white lettering.
“Is there no other way up there?” I ask. “Maybe a road that goes all the way to the house? My sister’s . . .”
Libby seems to draw in her stomach, as if that could somehow disguise her pregnancy. “I’m fine,” she insists.
I briefly consider pointing out my impractical four-inch heels, but I’m not about to lean into the stereotype.
“Nope, can’t get you any closer,” he replies as he climbs back into his cab. “There’s a road a couple of acres back that leads to Sally’s place, but it’s still a ways off.” He hands Libby a business card through the window. “If you need a lift, call this number.”
She takes it, and I catch a glimpse of the name: Hardy Weatherbee, Taxi Services and Unofficial Once-in-a-Lifetime Tours. She lets out a laugh, but it’s swallowed by the roar of Hardy’s car reversing back down the road like a bat out of hell.
“Maybe you should take your shoes off,” she suggests, eyeing my heels.
With all our bags, it’s going to take more than one trip, and it’s obvious that Libby isn’t about to carry anything heavier than my shoes. The climb is steep and the heat oppressive, but as we crest the hill, we finally see it: a small, white cottage nestled in overgrown gardens with a path winding through them. The cottage’s peaked roof is a lovely, weathered sienna, and its ancient, single-pane windows are free of shutters. A delicate, pale green arc of vines is painted over one of the first-floor windows.
Behind the cottage, a dense cluster of gnarled trees stretches into a sprawling forest, and off to the side, a gazebo draped in wild grapevines stands within a grove of trees. Wind chimes made of glass shards glimmer in the branches, alongside quirky bird feeders. The garden path winds past blooming bushes, curves over a small footbridge, and disappears into the woods.
The cottage looks like something straight out of a storybook—or maybe more like a scene from Once in a Lifetime. Quaint, charming, absolutely perfect.
“Oh my gosh,” Libby sighs, nodding toward the remaining steps. “Do I have to keep going?”
I shake my head, still catching my breath. “I could tie a sheet around your ankle and pull you up.”
She laughs, looping her arm through mine. “What do I get if I make it to the top?”
“Dinner duty?” I tease.
Together, we climb the last few steps, inhaling the gentle, warm scent of sunlit grass. I can already feel a sense of peace I haven’t felt in months. This feels like us—the way we were before my career and her growing family had us moving to separate rhythms. I hear a chime from my purse, signaling an email, and resist the urge to check it.
“Look at you,” Libby teases, “actually stopping to smell the roses.”
“I’m not City Nora anymore,” I say, grinning. “I’m laid-back, go-with-the-flow N—”
Another chime interrupts, and I glance at my purse, still trying to stay present. More notifications ping in quick succession until I can’t resist. I pause, drop our bags, and dig through my purse for my phone. Libby just shakes her head at me, amused.
“Tomorrow,” I tell her, “I’ll start being that Nora.”
As soon as we begin unpacking, it’s obvious we’re more alike than we sometimes admit. Out come our books, skincare products, and luxurious underwear—the “Stephens Women Trifecta of Luxury,” a legacy passed down from our mom.
“Some things never change,” Libby murmurs happily, her voice wrapping around me like sunshine.
Mom always said youthful skin could help a woman earn more (a true asset in both acting and waitressing), that quality lingerie could boost confidence (still holding true), and that good books would always bring happiness. Judging by our packing, Libby and I still live by this wisdom.
Within twenty minutes, I’ve unpacked, washed up, changed clothes, and fired up my laptop. Meanwhile, Libby has put away half her things before collapsing on the king bed we’re sharing, her worn copy of Once in a Lifetime lying facedown beside her on the quilt.
With my stomach growling, I spend a frustrating six minutes Googling dinner options (the Wi-Fi’s so slow, I’m forced to use my phone as a hotspot) and find that a pizza place is the only delivery option in town. Cooking’s out; back in the city, I get half my meals from restaurants and the rest from takeout.
Mom always used to say New York was a great place to be broke—so much free art and culture, so many cheap, delicious eats. But having money in New York, she’d told us once as we window-shopped on the Upper East Side in winter, that would be magical. She said it not with bitterness, but with wonder, as if imagining how much more beautiful life could be when you didn’t have to worry about electric bills.
Although she hadn’t pursued acting for the money (she was optimistic, not unrealistic), most of my mom’s income came from waitressing at the diner. She’d set me and Libby up with books or crayons to keep us entertained during her shifts. Occasionally, she’d take on a nannying job lax enough to allow her to bring us along until I was about eleven, when I could stay home or hang out with Libby at Freeman Books under Mrs. Freeman’s watch.
Even without much money, those days were filled with happiness. We spent our time wandering the city, munching on street cart falafel or dollar pizza slices as big as our heads, dreaming of grand futures. Ironically, thanks to the success of Once in a Lifetime, my life now resembles one of those imagined futures.
Here, though, life is a bit more rustic; there’s no pad thai delivery. If we want to eat, we’ll have to walk the two miles into town. I shake Libby awake, but she just groans, still half-asleep. “I’m starving,” I say, nudging her shoulder.
Without even opening her eyes, she mumbles, “Bring me something back.”
“Are you sure? Don’t you want to see your favorite little hamlet?” I say, trying to tempt her. “Aren’t you curious to see the apothecary where Old Man Whittaker almost overdoses?”
She just waves me off with a half-hearted gesture.
“Fine. I’ll bring you something,” I say.
I pull my hair into a ponytail, lace up my sneakers, and head down the sunny hillside toward the dirt road, bordered by scraggly trees. When the narrow lane meets a proper street, I turn left, following the winding road.
As I walk, Sunshine Falls comes into view all at once. One moment, I’m on a crumbling road on the side of a mountain, and the next, the town stretches out below me, like the set of an old Western. Tree-covered ridges rise in the distance, and the sky is a wide dome of endless blue.
It’s a little grayer and shabbier than the photos had shown, but I recognize the stone church from Once in a Lifetime, the green-and-white awning over the general store, and the lemon-yellow umbrellas outside the soda fountain.
A few people are out walking their dogs, and an older man sits on a green metal bench, engrossed in his newspaper. A woman is watering flower boxes outside a hardware store, where there isn’t a single customer in sight. Up ahead, I catch sight of a white stone building on the corner. It perfectly matches the description of Mrs. Wilder’s old lending library from Once in a Lifetime, my favorite setting in the book. It reminds me of rainy Saturday mornings when Mom would drop me and Libby off at Freeman’s, settling us in front of a shelf filled with middle-grade books before she hurried off for an audition across town. When she returned, she’d take us for ice cream or glazed pecans in Washington Square Park, and we’d wander through the paths, reading plaques on the benches and making up stories about who might have donated them.
“Can you imagine living anywhere else?” Mom would often ask.
I couldn’t.
Once, in college, some friends—mostly transplants—insisted they’d never want to raise kids in the city. I was stunned. Not only did I love growing up there, but I couldn’t imagine anything more inspiring. Every time I see kids traipsing through the Met, breakdancing for tips on the subway, or gazing in awe at a violinist under Rockefeller Center, I think, How incredible to be part of this, to share this city with so many others.
Now, I love exploring New York with Bea and Tala, too. It’s fascinating to watch what captivates a four-year-old and a newly-three-year-old, as well as what they accept as simply “normal” city life. Mom may have come to New York hoping to live in the set of a Nora Ephron movie (fittingly, my namesake), but the real city has a magic that’s far richer—so many lives, so many stories overlapping in one place.
Still, my love for New York doesn’t prevent me from being charmed by Sunshine Falls. I feel a growing excitement as I approach the lending library, but peering through the darkened windows, that excitement fades. The building’s white stone facade matches Dusty’s description perfectly, but inside, it’s filled with flickering TVs and neon beer signs.
Dusty made the lending library feel so real that I was convinced it actually existed. My initial excitement quickly fades, and when I think about Libby’s expectations, it turns to disappointment. This is far from what she’s hoping for, and I’m already planning how to manage her expectations or at least offer her something else to enjoy as a consolation.
I pass several empty storefronts before reaching the awning of the general store. One look through the windows tells me there won’t be any freshly baked bread or barrels of old-fashioned candy waiting inside. The glass is caked with dust, and beyond it, the shelves are cluttered with random items—old computers, vacuum cleaners, box fans, and dolls with tangled hair. It’s a pawnshop, and not even a tidy one.
I avoid eye contact with the man slouched over a desk inside and keep walking until I reach the café patio with yellow umbrellas across the street. At least there are signs of life here: people coming and going, a couple chatting over coffee at one of the tables. It's not perfect, but it’s something.
After a quick check for traffic (not a single car in sight), I jog across the street toward the café. The sign over the doors reads Mug + Shot in gold lettering, and there’s a small line of people waiting inside. I press my hands to the glass, trying to see through the glare, just as someone on the other side starts to open the door.
