Текст книги "Dash & Lily's Book of Dares"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: David Levithan
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Now I could see the fright beneath the de ance.

“You’re evil,” he said. “You know that?”

I nodded, even though I usual y saved the word evil for perpetrators of genocide.

He continued, “And if I tel you, you’l stop cal ing and coming by. Even if you don’t like what you nd?”

That seemed uncharitable to Lily, but I would not let my pique peak.

“I wil stop cal ing,” I said calmly. “And while I wil never al ow myself to be banned from the Strand, I promise not to seek information when

you are sit ing at that particular desk, and if you are ever working the cash register, I wil make sure to maneuver so that you are not the clerk who

rings me up. Wil that su ce?”

“There’s no need to snarl,” Mark said.

“There’s no need to snarl,” Mark said.

“That wasn’t snarling,” I pointed out. “Not even remotely. If you’re planning to make it in the booksel ing arena, I would advise you to learn to

make the distinction between a snarl and a wel -placed bon mot. They are not one and the same.”

I took out a pen and o ered him the inside of my arm.

“Just write down the address and we’l be squared away.”

He took the pen and wrote down an address on East Twenty-second Street, pressing down a lit le too hard on my skin.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, reclaiming the boot. “I’l be sure to put in a good word with Mr. Strand for you!”

As I exited the aisle, I felt a treatise on American naval misadventure shot-put past my head. I left it on the ground for the shot-put er to reshelve.

I wil 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.

So a’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 writ en by the girl in your head. You have to trust the words. They do not

create anything more than themselves.

When I rang the doorbel , I could hear it chime throughout the brownstone, the kind of intonation that lets you believe a servant wil 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 eventual y by a shu e 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 sput ered.

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 lit le 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 l ed with umbrel as—at least a dozen of them, each with its own curved wood handle.

The old woman caught me staring.

“You’ve never seen an umbrel a stand before?” she asked haughtily.

“I was just trying to imagine a situation where one person would need twelve umbrel as. 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 Dashiel ,” I explained.

“I never said it wasn’t,” she replied atly.

She led me into a room that could only be cal ed a parlor. The drapery was so thick and the furniture so cloaked that I half expected to nd

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 al the wood had

the weight of card catalogs and the fabric seemed soaked in wine. Knee-high sculptures perched in corners and by the replace, while jacketless

books crowded on shelves, peering down like old professors too tired to speak to one another.

I felt very much at home.

Fol owing a gesture from the old woman, I set led on a set ee. When I breathed in, the air smel ed like old money.

“Is Lily home?” I asked.

The woman set led down across from me and laughed.

“Who’s to say I’m not Lily?” she asked back.

“Wel ,” I said, “a few of my friends have actual y met Lily, and I like to think they would’ve mentioned if she were eighty.”

“Eighty!” The old woman feigned shock. “I’l have you know I’m not a year over forty-three.”

“With al 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 al ow you to dil ydal y with my niece.”

“I assure you I have neither dil ying nor dal ying 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 o . “I am aware of your epistolary irtation. Which is al wel and good—as long as it’s wel and good. Before I

ask you some questions, perhaps you would like some tea?”

“That would depend on what kind of tea you were o ering.”

“So di dent! 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 wel sip but er y wings.”

“Might as wel sip but er y 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? Wel , green tea tastes like French-kissing that cow

after it’s done chewing al 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 majoret e 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 tel you?” I asked. “I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me.”

She triangled her ngers under her chin. “Let’s see. Are you a bed wet er?”

“Am I a …?”

“Bed wet er. I am asking if you are a bed wet er.”

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 lit le 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 methodical y?”

“Vogue. Although, in the interest of ful 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 wil admit I have a soft spot for fanciful.”

“Let’s say I have a hundred mil ion dol ars and o er it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China wil fal o his bicycle

and die. What do you do?”

“I don’t understand why it mat ers 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?”

“Al 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 ower painted by Georgia O’Kee e, 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—tel me your intentions regarding Lily.”

There was a pause. Perhaps too long a pause. Because, to be forthright, I hadn’t real y thought about my intentions. Which meant I had to think

aloud while answering.

“Wel ,” 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 dil ying and dal ying, which right now is chaste with a chance for inveterate lust, depending on the

ripeness of our rst 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 fol ow that advice. But real y? Completely uncharted territory here. Terra enigma. It could be a future or it could be a fol y.

If she’s cut from your cloth, I have a sense we might get along.”

“I think she’s stil guring out her pat ern,” the woman told me. “So I won’t comment on the cloth. I nd her to be a delight. And while

sometimes delights can be tiresome, mostly they are …”

“Delightful?” I o ered.

“Pure. They’re burnished by their own hopes.”

I sighed.

“What is it?” the old woman asked.

“I’m persnickety,” I confessed. “Not, incidental y, to the point of being snarly. But stil . 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 admit ed.

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 bet er to be too easily interested.”

It’s much bet er 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 al 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 cal .”

twelve

(Lily)

December 26th

“Do you stil kil 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, o ering 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 stil kil 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 kil ing gerbils in rst 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 al eyways.

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 wil 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 fal for it.

Edgar Thibaud answered in a baby voice. “Gwanpaah won’t wet wit le 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 get ing 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 al around

me, yet al I wanted to do was write in a red notebook.

Danger comes in many forms, I suppose. For some people, it might be jumping o a bridge or climbing impossible mountains. For others, it could

be a tawdry love a air or tel ing o 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 al ergic.

For me, danger might be get ing 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

gment 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 xate

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 at ached 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 gu aw over the macabre massacre that was befal ing 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 al 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 al my life for that rst kiss. I wasn’t going to ruin it by al owing whole bases to be skipped.

“Ru ru ,” 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 bet er perch from which I could return to admiring his bicep.

In the backseat of the cab home, I let Edgar unbut on my sweater and take it o me. I pul ed 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

bot le from my purse and wet my face and hair so I’d appear sweaty.

bot le 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 pul ed 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 rst real kiss I experience wil 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 smel y 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

o after you otherwise.” His index nger 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 ve dol ars, and a mil ion silent curses.

Edgar’s mouth moved thisclose to mine. “I’l 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 kil 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 cal ed 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– rst 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– rst 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 / Wel , she was a pret y 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 stil wore the one boot and one sneaker, just in case Snarl should nd me, but if I was going to face danger head-on, I probably had to

acknowledge that in forget ing to return the red notebook, I’d blown it with Snarl. I’d have to set le on the brand of danger Edgar Thibaud o ered

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?”

“I might have, Lily bear,” Uncle Carmine said. “But that’s not what I cal ed to talk to you about. I heard your grandpa came back from Florida

early and that things didn’t go so wel 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 fteen-foot red soldier?”

“Lieutenant Cli ord Dog? Sure.”

“Wel , when your mystery friend left behind the red notebook, he also deposited something else. The most but -ugly puppet I’ve ever seen.”

Snarl couldn’t have. Did he?

“Did it look like an early Beatle who’d got en a makeover for a Muppet movie?”

Uncle Carmine said, “You could say that. A real y bad makeover.”

Another cal rang on my cel , this time displaying my favorite picture of Mrs. Basil E. sit ing 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 personal y, lovingly, crafted for Snarl, had been

recklessly abandoned by him inside a nutcracker!

I ignored Mrs. Basil E.’s phone cal and said to Uncle Carmine, “Yeah. Grandpa. Depressed. Please visit him and tel him to stop asking me where

I’m going al 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!’ ”

“Cal Grandpa. He’l 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 cal 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.

notebook, and of idealizing a Snarl who’d tossed aside my Snarly. Time to move on with my life.

I wrote a nal 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 nal y turned appropriately wintry and

chil y, 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 especial y nice song to sing—a soft, sweet one that matched the feeling in the air like

when snow’s about to fal 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 st 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 bi i i rrrrrrthdayyyy …,” 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 normal y should have made her insane. Instead,

she bel owed, “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 o today!”

It seemed sil y to remind her that most people already had the day o , 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 irting with danger, I took a sip of her drink. It did taste like a candy cane … only bet er! I could understand why my carolers had

made a habit of passing the peppermint schnapps ask when we’d made our rounds in the weeks before Christmas.

Tasty.

I looked over to Edgar. He was taking a picture with his cel phone of my feet: one part majoret e boot, one part sneaker. “I’m sending out an al

points bul etin to nd 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 fel out of my purse, which was stil slung over my shoulder.

I left the notebook on the oor.

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 de ant st in the air: “ ‘It’s! Been! A! Long! Cold! Lonely!

Winter!’ ”

“ ‘Here comes the sun,’ ” sang back dozens of bar voices.

Al it had taken was three sips of peppermint schnapps, four hot toddy sips, and ve 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, al started by the notebook I’d decided to leave discarded on the barroom oor. I was now a girl—no, a

woman—transformed.

I had become a liar. A Lily bear who irted with a gerbil kil er. A Mary MacGregor who after only six random sippies unbut oned the top two

pearl but ons on her sweater to al ow 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-ful -on-bash with party girl Lily at its center.

Winter’s early darkness had fal en; 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 nd 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 o my chair and pul ed 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 nal y start fal ing, as the crisp night air and gray skies indicated would happen at any moment.

I wanted my other boot because my sneaker foot was get ing real y, real y 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.

This was It.

Final y.

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 oor 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 o er. “If we got married, I’d be, like, Mrs. Dash!”

I cracked myself up laughing.

Then I’m pret y sure I passed out in Edgar Thibaud’s arms.

thirteen

–Dash–

December 27th

“How do you know Lily?” Thibaud asked me.

“I’m not real y sure I do,” I said. “But, real y, 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 o Lily’s sneaker and slipping her aunt’s second boot onto her foot.

“It’s back!” she mut ered.

“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 ail. Eventual y I realized she was shaking her head.

“Not home. I can’t go home. Grandpa wil kil me.”

“Wel , I have no desire to accessorize your murder,” I said. “I’l 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 fal for guys with the at ention span of drosophila?”

“What?”

“Fruit ies. Guys with the at ention span of fruit ies.”

“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. Final y, a decent man pul ed 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 fal 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 real y, real y sorry. If you want to get out of the cab right this minute, I wil completely understand. I

wil de nitely pay for al of it. Al of it. I’m sorry. You believe me, right? I mean it. I am so, so, SO sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Real y, it’s okay.”

And, strangely, it was. The only things I blamed were my own foolish expectations.

“No, it’s not okay. Real y, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “Driver, can you tel him that I’m sorry? I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I swear.”