“I might have, Lily bear,” Uncle Carmine said. “But that’s not what I called to talk to you about. I heard your grandpa came back from Florida early and that things didn’t go so well down there. Is this true?”
“True. Now, about that boy …”
“I didn’t get any information about him, sweetheart. Although the kid did do a curious thing. You know the giant nutcracker we place on the lawn, near the fifteen-foot red soldier?”
“Lieutenant Clifford Dog? Sure.”
“Well, when your mystery friend left behind the red notebook, he also deposited something else. The most butt-ugly puppet I’ve ever seen.”
Snarl couldn’t have. Did he?
“Did it look like an early Beatle who’d gotten a makeover for a Muppet movie?”
Uncle Carmine said, “You could say that. A really bad makeover.”
Another call rang on my cell, this time displaying my favorite picture of Mrs. Basil E. sitting in the grand library of her brownstone, legs crossed, drinking from a teacup. What could Great-aunt Ida want to discuss right now? She probably also wanted to talk about Grandpa, when I had much more important things on my mind—like that I’d just learned Snarly Muppet, whom I had personally, lovingly, crafted for Snarl, had been recklessly abandoned by him inside a nutcracker!
I ignored Mrs. Basil E.’s phone call and said to Uncle Carmine, “Yeah. Grandpa. Depressed. Please visit him and tell him to stop asking me where I’m going all the time. And could you return the beautiful puppet to me next time you come into the city?”
“ ‘I love you, yeah yeah yeah,’ ” Uncle Carmine responded.
“I’m very busy,” I told Uncle Carmine.
“ ‘She’s got a ticket to ride,’ ” Uncle Carmine sang. “ ‘But she don’t care!’ ”
“Call Grandpa. He’ll be glad to hear from you. Mwah and goodbye.” I couldn’t help but add one last thing. “ ‘Good day, sunshine,’ ” I sang to Uncle Carmine.
“ ‘I feel good in a special way,’ ” he answered.
And with that, our call ended. I saw that Mrs. Basil E. had left me a voice mail, but I didn’t feel like listening. I needed to mourn the end of the notebook, and of idealizing a Snarl who’d tossed aside my Snarly. Time to move on with my life.
I wrote a final entry in the notebook and closed it, perhaps for good.
I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep.
The party had moved to a garden table outside, at the back of the pub. The late-December day had finally turned appropriately wintry and chilly, and the group huddled now with hot toddies as their drinks of choice.
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, they sang. It was an especially nice song to sing—a soft, sweet one that matched the feeling in the air like when snow’s about to fall and the world feels quieter, and lovelier. Content.
Edgar Thibaud had arrived and joined the group while I was in the bathroom. As they sang “White Christmas,” he placed his fist to his mouth and made a beat box of sound with it, rapping in “Go … snow … snow that Mary MacGregor ho,” over the carolers’ song. When he saw me approach the table, Edgar transitioned to join the carolers in their song, improvising, “Just like the Lily-white one I used to know …”
When the song ended, angry Aryn said, “Hey, Lily. Your chauvinist, imperialist friend Edgar Thibaud?”
“Yes?” I asked, about to cover my ears with the red pom-poms on my hat in expectation of an epithet-laden rant from Aryn about one Edgar Thibaud.
“He’s got a decent baritone. For a man.”
Shee’nah, Antwon, Roberta, and Melvin raised their glasses to Edgar Thibaud. “To Edgar!” They clinked.
Aryn raised her glass. “It’s my birthday!”
The group raised glasses again. “To Aryn!”
Edgar Thibaud did the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday.” As he sang “Happy birthday to you! Happy biiiiiirrrrrrthdayyyy …,” Edgar closed his eyes, nodded aimlessly, and placed his hands on the table to pretend he was a blind guy playing piano.
Aryn was surely wasted by this point, because the political incorrectness of such a performance normally should have made her insane. Instead, she bellowed, “I want my birthday to be a national holiday.” She stood up on her chair and announced to everyone within earshot, “Everybody, I give you the day off today!”
It seemed silly to remind her that most people already had the day off, since it was the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
“What are you drinking?” I asked Aryn.
“A candy cane!” she told me. “Try some!”
Since I was flirting with danger, I took a sip of her drink. It did taste like a candy cane … only better! I could understand why my carolers had made a habit of passing the peppermint schnapps flask when we’d made our rounds in the weeks before Christmas.
Tasty.
I looked over to Edgar. He was taking a picture with his cell phone of my feet: one part majorette boot, one part sneaker. “I’m sending out an all points bulletin to find your other boot,” Edgar said. He hit Send on the picture like he was a regular Gossip Girl.
The carolers laughed. “To Lily’s boot!” Glasses again clinked.
I wanted more Tasty. And Dangerous.
“I want to toast, too,” I said. “Who wants to let me sip their hot toddy?”
As I reached over for Melvin’s glass, the red notebook fell out of my purse, which was still slung over my shoulder.
I left the notebook on the floor.
Why bother?
“Lil-eee! Lil-eee!” the group—and by now, the whole bar—cheered.
I danced on the table and sang out a punkier-than-Beatles line o’ lyric, gesturing a defiant fist in the air: “ ‘It’s! Been! A! Long! Cold! Lonely! Winter!’ ”
“ ‘Here comes the sun,’ ” sang back dozens of bar voices.
All it had taken was three sips of peppermint schnapps, four hot toddy sips, and five sips of Shee’nah’s drink of choice, the Shirley Temple—not!—to turn me into a veritable party girl. I felt changed already.
Since Christmas, so much had happened, all started by the notebook I’d decided to leave discarded on the barroom floor. I was now a girl—no, a woman—transformed.
I had become a liar. A Lily bear who flirted with a gerbil killer. A Mary MacGregor who after only six random sippies unbuttoned the top two pearl buttons on her sweater to allow a glimpse of her cleavage.
But the real Lily—the way-too-tipsy-and-needing-to-nap-and/or-barf sixteen-year-old one—was also way out of her element in this birthday-party-turned-full-on-bash with party girl Lily at its center.
Winter’s early darkness had fallen; it was only six o’clock, but dark outside, and if I didn’t get home soon, Grandpa would come looking for me. But if I did go home, Grandpa would know I was mildly … mildly … inebriated. Even if I hadn’t ordered or been knowingly served alcohol in the pub—I had only taken sips of others’ drinks. Grandpa might also find out about Edgar Thibaud. What to do?
A new group of people arrived in the bar and I knew I had to stop singing and dancing on the table before they, too, joined the party. I was in way over my head already.
The clock was running out. I jumped off my chair and pulled Edgar over to a secluded corner in the outdoor garden. I wanted him to explain how he was going to get me home, and not in trouble.
I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted the snow to finally start falling, as the crisp night air and gray skies indicated would happen at any moment.
I wanted my other boot because my sneaker foot was getting really, really cold.
“Edgar Thibaud,” I murmured, trying to sound sexy. I pressed myself up against his warm, rock-solid body. I parted my mouth to his approaching lips.
This was It.
Finally.
I was about to close my eyes for It when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a teenage boy standing nearby, holding something I needed.
My other boot.
Edgar Thibaud turned to the boy. “Dash?” he asked, confused.
This boy—Dash, apparently—looked at me strangely.
“Is that our red notebook on the floor over there?” he asked me.
Could this be him?
“Your name is Dash?” I said. I burped. My mouth had one more nugget of wisdom to offer. “If we got married, I’d be, like, Mrs. Dash!”
I cracked myself up laughing.
Then I’m pretty sure I passed out in Edgar Thibaud’s arms.
thirteen
–Dash–
December 27th
“How do you know Lily?” Thibaud asked me.
“I’m not really sure I do,” I said. “But, really, what was I expecting?”
Thibaud shook his head. “Whatever, dude. You want something from the bar? Aryn’s hot, she’s twenty-one, and she’s buying for everybody.”
“I think I’m a teetotaler tonight,” I said.
“I think the only kind of tea they have at this place is Long Island. You’re on your own, my friend.”
So, presumably, was Lily. Thibaud placed her conked-out self on the nearest bench.
“Are you kissing me?” she murmured.
“Not so much,” he whispered back.
I stared up at the sky, trying to search out the genius who coined the term wasted, because she or he deserved mad props for nailing it so perfectly. What a wasted girl. What a wasted hope. What a wasted evening.
The proper response for a lout in this situation would be to walk away. But I, who had such anti-loutish aspirations, couldn’t muster up the bad taste to do that. So instead, I found myself taking off Lily’s sneaker and slipping her aunt’s second boot onto her foot.
“It’s back!” she muttered.
“Come on,” I said lightly, trying to disguise the crushing weight of my disappointment. She was in no state to hear it.
“Okay,” she said. But then she didn’t move.
“I need to take you home,” I told her.
She started to flail. Eventually I realized she was shaking her head.
“Not home. I can’t go home. Grandpa will kill me.”
“Well, I have no desire to accessorize your murder,” I said. “I’ll take you to your aunt’s.”
“That’s a good good good idea.”
To give them credit, Lily’s friends at the bar were concerned about her and wanted to be sure we’d be okay. To give him discredit, Thibaud was too busy trying to get the birthday girl to try on her birthday suit to notice our departure.
“Drosophila,” I said, remembering the word.
“What?” Lily asked.
“Why do girls always fall for guys with the attention span of drosophila?”
“What?”
“Fruit flies. Guys with the attention span of fruit flies.”
“Because they’re hot?”
“This,” I told her, “is not the time for being truthful.”
Instead, it was the time for us to hail a cab. More than a few of them saw the way Lily was leaning—somewhat like a street sign after a car had crashed into it—and drove right on by. Finally, a decent man pulled over and picked us up. A country song was playing on his radio.
“East Twenty-second, by Gramercy Park,” I told him.
I thought Lily was going to fall asleep next to me. But what happened instead was invariably worse.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And it was like a faucet had been turned, and only one sentiment could come gushing out. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I can’t believe how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to drop it, Dash. And I didn’t mean—I mean, I’m just so sorry. I didn’t think you were going to be there. I was just there. And, God, I am so sorry. I am really, really sorry. If you want to get out of the cab right this minute, I will completely understand. I will definitely pay for all of it. All of it. I’m sorry. You believe me, right? I mean it. I am so, so, SO sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Really, it’s okay.”
And, strangely, it was. The only things I blamed were my own foolish expectations.
“No, it’s not okay. Really, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “Driver, can you tell him that I’m sorry? I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I swear.”
“The girl’s sorry,” the driver told me, with no shortage of sympathy shot my way in the rearview mirror.
Lily sat back in the seat. “You see? I’m just so—”
I had to tune out then. I had to stare at the people on the street, the cars going by. I had to tell the cabbie when to turn, even though I was sure he knew perfectly well when to turn. I was still tuning out when we pulled over, when I paid for the cab (even though this got me more apologies), when I carefully maneuvered Lily out of the cab and up the stairs. It became a physics problem—how to prevent her from hitting her head on the cab as she got out, how to get her up the stairs without dropping her sneaker, which I still held in my hand.
I only tuned back in when the lock on the front door turned before I had a chance to ring the bell. Lily’s aunt took one look and said a simple, “Oh my.” Suddenly the torrent of apologies was directed at her; had I not been holding Lily up, I might have chosen this as my opportunity to leave.
“Follow me,” the old woman said. She led us to a bedroom at the back of her house and helped me sit Lily down on the bed. For her part, Lily was near tears now.
“This wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” she told me. “It wasn’t.”
“It’s okay,” I told her again. “It’s all okay.”
“Lily,” her aunt said, “you should still have pajamas in the second drawer. I’m going to walk Dash out while you change. I’ll also call your grandfather and let him know you’re safe with me, no harm done. We’ll concoct your alibi in the morning, when you’re much more likely to remember it.”
I made the mistake of turning back to look at her one last time before I left the room. It was heartbreaking, really—she just sat there, stunned. She looked like she was waking up in a strange place—only she knew she hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and that this was actually life.
“Really,” I said. “It’s okay.”
I took the red notebook out of my pocket and left it on the dresser.
“I don’t deserve it!” she protested.
“Of course you do,” I told her gently. “None of the words would have existed without you.”
Lily’s aunt, watching from the hall, motioned me out of the room. When we were a safe distance away, she said, “Well, this is quite uncharacteristic.”
“The whole thing was silly,” I said. “Please tell her there’s no need to apologize. We set ourselves up for this. I was never going to be the guy in her head. And she was never going to be the girl in mine. And that’s okay. Seriously.”
“Why don’t you tell her that yourself?”
“Because I don’t want to,” I said. “Not because of the way she is now—I know that’s not what she’s like. There was no way it was going to be as easy as the notebook. I get that now.”
I got to the door.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” I said. “Thank you for the tea you never served me.”
“The pleasure was mine,” the old woman replied. “Come back again soon.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I think we both knew I wouldn’t.
Back on the street, I wanted to talk to someone. But who? It’s moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. Boomer would never in a million years understand what I was going through. Yohnny and Dov might, but they were in such couple mode that I doubted they could see the forest because they’d be too busy pairing up the trees. Priya would just stare at me strangely, even over the phone. And Sofia didn’t have a phone. Not anymore. Not in America.
Either of my parents?
That was a laughable idea.
I started to walk home. The phone rang.
I looked at the screen:
Thibaud.
Despite my deeper reservations, I picked up.
“Dash!” he cried. “Where are you guys?”
“I took Lily home, Thibaud.”
“Is she okay?”
“I’m sure she would appreciate your concern.”
“I just looked up and you guys were gone.”
“I don’t even know how to begin to address that point.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “I mean—that is to say, what I really don’t understand is how you get away with being such a lout.”
“That’s not fair, Dash.” Thibaud actually sounded hurt. “I totally care. That’s why I called. Because I care.”
“But, you see, that’s the luxury of being a lout—you get to be selective about when you care and when you don’t. The rest of us get stuck when your care goes shallow.”
“Dude, you think too much.”
“Dude, you know what? You’re right. And you don’t think enough. Which makes you the perennial screwer and me the perennial screwee.”
“So she’s upset?”
“Really, does it matter to you?”
“Yes! She’s grown up a lot, Dash. I thought she was cool. At least until she passed out. You can’t really try to get with a girl once she passes out. Or even when she’s coming close.”
“That’s mighty chivalrous of you.”
“God, you’re pissed! Were the two of you dating or something? She didn’t mention you once. If I’d known, I promise I wouldn’t have been flirting with her.”
“Again, chivalry. You’re almost up to a knighthood.”
Another sigh. “Look, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. That’s it. Just tell her I’ll catch her later, right? And that I hope she doesn’t feel too bad in the morning. Tell her to drink lots of water.”
“You’re going to have to tell her yourself, Thibaud,” I said.