I will admit: There was a part of me that wanted to wash my arm. Not because of Mark’s handwriting, which was the kind of chicken scratch more associated with death row convicts than bookstore clerks. No—it wasn’t the handwriting I was tempted to erase, but the information it conveyed. Because here was the key to meeting Lily … and I wasn’t sure I wanted to put it in the lock.
Sofia’s words were nagging at me: Was Lily the girl in my head? And if she was, wasn’t reality bound to be disappointing?
No, I had to reassure myself. The words in the red Moleskine were not written by the girl in your head. You have to trust the words. They do not create anything more than themselves.
When I rang the doorbell, I could hear it chime throughout the brownstone, the kind of intonation that lets you believe a servant will be answering the door. For at least a minute, there was a responding silence—I shifted the boot from hand to hand and debated whether to ring again. My restraint was a rare victory of politeness over expediency, and I was rewarded eventually by a shuffle of feet and a maneuvering of locks and bolts.
The door was answered by neither a butler nor a maid. Instead, it was answered by a museum guard from Madame Tussauds.
“I know you!” I sputtered.
The old woman gave me a long, hard look.
“And I know that boot,” she replied.
“Yes,” I said. “There’s that.”
I had no idea whether she remembered me from the museum. But then she opened the door a little wider and motioned for me to come in.
I half expected to be greeted by a waxwork statue of Jackie Chan. (In other words, I expected her to have taken some of her work home with her.) But instead, the foyer was an antechamber of antiques, like suddenly I had stepped back into a dozen decades at once, and none of them were later than 1940. Next to the door was a stand filled with umbrellas—at least a dozen of them, each with its own curved wood handle.
The old woman caught me staring.
“You’ve never seen an umbrella stand before?” she asked haughtily.
“I was just trying to imagine a situation where one person would need twelve umbrellas. It seems almost indecent to have so many, when there are so many people who don’t have any.”
She nodded at this, then asked, “What’s your name, young man?”
“Dash,” I told her.
“Dash?”
“It’s short for Dashiell,” I explained.
“I never said it wasn’t,” she replied flatly.
She led me into a room that could only be called a parlor. The drapery was so thick and the furniture so cloaked that I half expected to find Sherlock Holmes thumb-wrestling with Jane Austen in the corner. It wasn’t as dusty or smoky as one expects a parlor to be, but all the wood had the weight of card catalogs and the fabric seemed soaked in wine. Knee-high sculptures perched in corners and by the fireplace, while jacketless books crowded on shelves, peering down like old professors too tired to speak to one another.
I felt very much at home.
Following a gesture from the old woman, I settled on a settee. When I breathed in, the air smelled like old money.
“Is Lily home?” I asked.
The woman settled down across from me and laughed.
“Who’s to say I’m not Lily?” she asked back.
“Well,” I said, “a few of my friends have actually met Lily, and I like to think they would’ve mentioned if she were eighty.”
“Eighty!” The old woman feigned shock. “I’ll have you know I’m not a year over forty-three.”
“With all due respect,” I said, “if you’re forty-three, then I’m a fetus.”
She leaned back in her chair and examined me like she was contemplating a purchase. Her hair was fastened tightly in a bun, and I felt fastened just as tightly into her scrutiny.
“Seriously,” I said. “Where’s Lily?”
“I need to gauge your intentions,” she said, “before I can allow you to dillydally with my niece.”
“I assure you I have neither dillying nor dallying on my mind,” I replied. “I simply want to meet her. In person. You see, we’ve been—”
She raised her hand to cut me off. “I am aware of your epistolary flirtation. Which is all well and good—as long as it’s well and good. Before I ask you some questions, perhaps you would like some tea?”
“That would depend on what kind of tea you were offering.”
“So diffident! Suppose it was Earl Grey.”
I shook my head. “Tastes like pencil shavings.”
“Lady Grey.”
“I don’t drink beverages named after beheaded monarchs. It seems so tacky.”
“Chamomile?”
“Might as well sip butterfly wings.”
“Green tea?”
“You can’t be serious.”
The old woman nodded her approval. “I wasn’t.”
“Because you know when a cow chews grass? And he or she chews and chews and chews? Well, green tea tastes like French-kissing that cow after it’s done chewing all that grass.”
“Would you like some mint tea?”
“Only under duress.”
“English breakfast.”
I clapped my hands. “Now you’re talking!”
The old woman made no move to get the tea.
“I’m afraid I’m out,” she said.
“No worries,” I replied. “Do you want your boot back in the meantime?”
I handed it her way and she took it for a moment before handing it back to me.
“This was from my majorette days,” she said.
“You were in the army?”
“An army of cheer, Dash. I was in an army of cheer.”
There was a series of urns on the bookshelf behind her. I wondered if they were decorative or if they contained some of her relatives’ remains.
“So what else can I tell you?” I asked. “I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me.”
She triangled her fingers under her chin. “Let’s see. Are you a bed wetter?”
“Am I a …?”
“Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter.”
I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn’t.
“No, ma’am. I leave my beds dry.”
“Not even a little drip every now and then?”
“I’m trying hard to see how this is germane.”
“I’m gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?”
“Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that’s mostly because I was in my mother’s bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze?”
“What adjective do you feel the most longing for?”
That was easy. “I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful.”
“Let’s say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?”
“I don’t understand why it matters whether he’s in China or not. And of course I wouldn’t take the money.”
The old woman nodded.
“Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?”
“All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me.”
“Are you a museumgoer?”
“Is the pope a churchgoer?”
“When you see a flower painted by Georgia O’Keeffe, what comes to mind?”
“That’s just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn’t it? There. I’ve said it. Vagina.”
“When you leave a public bus, is there anything special that you do?”
“I thank the driver.”
“Good, good,” she said. “Now—tell me your intentions regarding Lily.”
There was a pause. Perhaps too long a pause. Because, to be forthright, I hadn’t really thought about my intentions. Which meant I had to think aloud while answering.
“Well,” I
said, “it’s not as if I’ve come to take her to the sock hop, or ask her to go double-spooning in some tapioca, if that’s what you mean. We’ve already established my position on dillying and dallying, which right now is chaste with a chance for inveterate lust, depending on the ripeness of our first interactions. I have been told by a source of surprising trustworthiness that I must not paint her too much with my ideas of her, and my intention is to follow that advice. But really? Completely uncharted territory here. Terra enigma. It could be a future or it could be a folly. If she’s cut from your cloth, I have a sense we might get along.”
“I think she’s still figuring out her pattern,” the woman told me. “So I won’t comment on the cloth. I find her to be a delight. And while sometimes delights can be tiresome, mostly they are …”
“Delightful?” I offered.
“Pure. They’re burnished by their own hopes.”
I sighed.
“What is it?” the old woman asked.
“I’m persnickety,” I confessed. “Not, incidentally, to the point of being snarly. But still. Delightful and persnickety are not a common blend.”
“Do you want to know why I never married?”
“The question wasn’t at the top of my list,” I admitted.
The old woman made me meet her eye. “Listen to me: I never married because I was too easily bored. It’s an awful, self-defeating trait to have. It’s much better to be too easily interested.”
“I see,” I said. But I didn’t. Not then. Not yet.
Instead, I was looking around the room and thinking: Of all the places I’ve been, this is the one that seems the most like a place that a red notebook would take me.
“Dash,” the old woman said. A simple statement, like she was holding my name in her hand, holding it out to me like I’d held out her boot.
“Yes?” I said.
“Yes?” she echoed.
“Do you think it’s time?” I asked.
She got up from her chair and said, “Let me make a phone call.”
twelve
(Lily)
December 26th
“Do you still kill gerbils?” I asked Edgar Thibaud.
We were standing outside the brownstone apartment building of some girl he goes to school with who was having a party that night.
From the street, we could see the party through the living room window. The scene looked very polite. No wild noises that one would expect to come from a teenager’s party boomed down to the street. We could see two parental types wandering through the living room, offering juice boxes and Mountain Dews on silver trays, which may have explained the lack of noise, and the open curtains.
“This party’s gonna suck,” Edgar Thibaud said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Do you still kill gerbils, Edgar Thibaud?”
If he gave me a sarcastic answer back, our newly discovered truce would end as abruptly as it had started.
“Lily,” Edgar Thibaud said, oozing sincerity. He took my hand in his. My hand, now oozing sweat, quivered from his touch. “I’m so sorry about your gerbil. Truly. I would never knowingly harm a sentient being.” His lips placed a contrite peck on my knuckles.
I happen to know that Edgar Thibaud graduated from killing gerbils in first grade to becoming one of those fourth-grade boys who use magnifying glasses to direct the sun to fry worms and other random insects in alleyways.
It is possibly true what Grandpa’s buddies have repeatedly told me: Teenage boys cannot be trusted. Their intentions are not pure.
This must be part of Mother Nature’s master plan—making these boys so irresistibly cute, in such a naughty way, that the purity of their intentions becomes irrelevant.
“Where would you rather go instead?” I asked Edgar. “I have to be home by nine or my grandpa will freak.”
I’d lied to Grandpa a second time. I’d told him an emergency holiday soccer practice had been convened because our team was on a massive losing streak. Only because he was moping over that Mabel lady did he fall for it.
Edgar Thibaud answered in a baby voice. “Gwanpaah won’t wet wittle Wily stay up wate?”
“Are you being mean?”
“No,” he said, his face turning serious. “I salute you and your curfews, Lily. With apologies for the brief and unnecessary foray into baby talk. If you have to be home by nine, that probably only leaves us enough time for a movie. Have you seen Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer?”
“No,” I said.
I’m getting good at this lying.
* * *
I am trying to embrace danger.
Once again, I found myself locked in a bathroom, communing with Snarl. The movie theater’s bathroom was a bit cleaner than the previous night’s music club’s, and the evening show meant the cinema wasn’t brimming with toddlers. But once again, life and action brimmed all around me, yet all I wanted to do was write in a red notebook.
Danger comes in many forms, I suppose. For some people, it might be jumping off a bridge or climbing impossible mountains. For others, it could be a tawdry love affair or telling off a mean-looking bus driver because he doesn’t like to stop for noisy teenagers. It could be cheating at cards or eating a peanut even though you’re allergic.
For me, danger might be getting out from under the protective cloak of my family and venturing into the world more on my own, even though I don’t know what—or who—awaits me. I wish you were part of this plan. But are you dangerous? Somehow I doubt it. I’m scared you’re just a figment of my imagination.
I think it’s time to experience life outside the notebook.
Edgar Thibaud whooped with laughter at fat Gramma on the screen as I returned to my seat. The movie was so stupid I had no choice but to fixate my stare away from the screen and onto Edgar Thibaud’s biceps. He has some kind of magical muscle arms—not too bulky, not too skimpy. They’re cut just right. I was rather mesmerized.
The hand attached to the end of Edgar’s arm decided to get frisky. His eyes never left the screen, but his hand discreetly landed on my thigh, while Edgar’s mouth continued to guffaw over the macabre massacre that was befalling Gramma on the screen as the reindeer’s tusks once again ran her over.
I couldn’t believe the boldness of the maneuver. (Reindeer’s and Edgar’s.) I was all for danger, but we hadn’t even kissed yet. (I mean, me and Edgar, not me and Reindeer. I love animals, but not that much.)
I’ve waited all my life for that first kiss. I wasn’t going to ruin it by allowing whole bases to be skipped.
“Ruff ruff,” I barked at Edgar Thibaud as his hand drew circles over the embroidered poodle on my poodle skirt. I returned his hand to the armrest, the better perch from which I could return to admiring his bicep.
In the backseat of the cab home, I let Edgar unbutton my sweater and take it off me. I pulled my skirt down myself.
I was wearing my soccer shorts and shirt underneath the sweater and skirt in case Grandpa was waiting for me when I got home. I took a water bottle from my purse and wet my face and hair so I’d appear sweaty.
The meter on the cab read $6.50 and 8:55 p.m. as we pulled up to the curb in front of my building.
Edgar leaned into me. I knew it could be about to happen.
I don’t delude myself that the first real kiss I experience will lead to a happily ever after. I don’t believe in any of that Prince Charming nonsense. I also don’t delude myself that I’d wish for it to happen in the backseat of a smelly taxi.
Edgar whispered in my ear, “Do you have money for your half of the fare? I’m kind of broke and won’t have enough for the driver to drop me off after you otherwise.” His index finger quickly brushed across my neck.
I shoved him away, even though I longed for more of his touch. But not in a taxi, for goodness’ sake!
I gave Edgar Thibaud five dollars, and a million silent curses.
Edgar’s mouth moved thisclose to mine. “I’ll get the
fare next time,” he murmured. I turned my cheek to him.
“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you, Lily?” Edgar Thibaud said.
I ignored his sleek bicep peeking at me from under his snug sweater.
“You did kill my gerbil,” I reminded him.
“I love a hunt, Lily.”
“Good.”
I stepped out of the cab and shut the door.
“Just like that reindeer loved a hunt!” Edgar called out to me from the window as the cab moved toward its next destination.
December 27th
Where ARE you?
It seemed I was destined to commune by notebook with Snarl most frequently while I was lodged in bathrooms.
This day’s bathroom was at an Irish pub on East Eleventh Street in Alphabet City. It was one of those pubs that are more family places during the day and become watering holes at night. I was there during the day, so Grandpa could relax.
I hadn’t wanted to lie to Grandpa again, so I’d told him the truth—that I was meeting my Christmas caroling group for a reunion. We were going to sing “Happy Birthday” to angry Aryn, the vegan riot grrrl, whose twenty-first birthday was December 27.
I didn’t mention the part to Grandpa about how I’d texted Edgar Thibaud to meet me there, too. Grandpa hadn’t asked me whether Edgar Thibaud would be at the birthday party; therefore, I had not lied to him.
Since it was Aryn’s twenty-first birthday, my caroling troupe had taken up drinking songs instead of traditional Christmas hymns to usher in her legal drinking age. The group was on its fourth round of beers by the time I arrived. And Mary McGregor / Well, she was a pretty whore, they sang. Edgar had yet to appear. When I heard the dirty words being sung, I quickly excused myself to the bathroom and opened the familiar red notebook to write a new entry.
But what was there left to say?
I still wore the one boot and one sneaker, just in case Snarl should find me, but if I was going to face danger head-on, I probably had to acknowledge that in forgetting to return the red notebook, I’d blown it with Snarl. I’d have to settle on the brand of danger Edgar Thibaud offered as my most promising consolation prize.
My phone rang, displaying a photo of a certain house in Dyker Heights decked out in celestial orbit Christmas lights. I answered. “Happy two days after Christmas, Uncle Carmine.” I realized I’d taken the notebook back from him on Christmas Day, and yet never asked him for any clues about Snarl. “Did you ever get a look at the boy who returned the red notebook at your house?”