Текст книги "Dash & Lily's Book of Dares"
Автор книги: Rachel Caine
Соавторы: David Levithan
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
“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 tel the cabbie when to turn, even though I was sure
he knew perfectly wel when to turn. I was stil tuning out when we pul ed over, when I paid for the cab (even though this got me more
apologies), when I careful y maneuvered Lily out of the cab and up the stairs. It became a physics problem—how to prevent her from hit ing her
head on the cab as she got out, how to get her up the stairs without dropping her sneaker, which I stil 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 bel . 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.
“Fol ow 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 al okay.”
“It’s okay,” I told her again. “It’s al okay.”
“Lily,” her aunt said, “you should stil have pajamas in the second drawer. I’m going to walk Dash out while you change. I’l also cal your
grandfather and let him know you’re safe with me, no harm done. We’l 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, real y—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 actual y life.
“Real y,” 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 hal , motioned me out of the room. When we were a safe distance away, she said, “Wel , this is quite
uncharacteristic.”
“The whole thing was sil y,” I said. “Please tel 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 tel 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
smal est. Boomer would never in a mil ion 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 So a 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 real y don’t understand is how you get away with being such a lout.”
“That’s not fair, Dash.” Thibaud actual y sounded hurt. “I total y care. That’s why I cal ed. 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 shal ow.”
“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?”
“Real y, does it mat er to you?”
“Yes! She’s grown up a lot, Dash. I thought she was cool. At least until she passed out. You can’t real y 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
irting 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 tel her I’l catch her later, right? And that I hope she doesn’t feel
too bad in the morning. Tel her to drink lots of water.”
“You’re going to have to tel her yourself, Thibaud,” I said.
“She didn’t answer.”
“Wel , I’m not there now. I’m gone, Thibaud. I’ve left.”
“You sound sad, Dash.”
“One of the failures of cel ular communication is that tiredness often comes across as sadness. But I appreciate your concern.”
“We’re stil here, if you want to come back.”
“I’m told there’s no going back. So I’m choosing forward.”
“I’m told there’s no going back. So I’m choosing forward.”
I hung up then. The exhaustion of living was just too much for me to talk any longer. At least to Thibaud. And, yes, there was sadness in that.
And anger. And confusion. And disappointment. Al exhausting.
I kept walking. It wasn’t too cold for December 27, and al the holiday-week visitors were out in force. I remembered where So a had said her
family was staying—the Belvedere, on Forty-eighth Street—and walked in that direction. Times Square sent its glow into the air, blocks before it
actual y began, and I walked heavily into the light. The tourists stil crowded into a thronging pulse, but now that Christmas was over, I wasn’t as
repel ed. Especial y in Times Square, everyone was enraptured by the simple act of being here. For every exhausted soul like myself, there were at
least three whose faces were lifted in absurd wonder at the neon brightness. As much as I wanted to have the hardest of hearts, such plaintive joy
made me feel what a leaky, human vessel it real y was.
When I got to the Belvedere, I found the house phone and asked to be connected to So a’s room. It rang six times before an anonymous voice
mail picked up. I returned the receiver to its cradle and went to sit on one of the couches in the lobby. I wasn’t waiting, per se—I simply didn’t
know where else to go. The lobby was ful of hustling and bustling—guests negotiating each other after negotiating the city, some about to plunge
back in. Parents dragged vacation-tired children. Couples sniped about what they’d done or hadn’t done. Other couples held hands like teenagers,
even when they hadn’t been teenagers for over half a century. Christmas music no longer wafted in the air, which al owed a more genuine
tenderness to bloom. Or maybe that was just in me. Maybe everything I saw was al in me.
I wanted to write it down. I wanted to share it with Lily, even if Lily was real y just the idea I’d created of Lily, the concept of Lily. I went to the
smal gift shop o the lobby and bought six postcards and a pen. Then I sat back down and let my thoughts ow out. Not directed to her this time.
Not directed at al . It would be just like water, or blood. It would go wherever it was meant to go.
Postcard 1: Greetings from New York!
Having grown up here, I always wonder what it would be like to see this city as a tourist. Is it ever a disappointment? I have to believe that New
York always lives up to its reputation. The buildings real y are that tal . The lights real y are that bright. There’s truly a story on every corner. But it
stil might be a shock. To realize you are just one story walking among mil ions. To not feel the bright lights even as they l the air. To see the tal
buildings and only feel a deep longing for the stars.
Postcard 2: I’m a Broadway Baby!
Why is it so much easier to talk to a stranger? Why do we feel we need that disconnect in order to connect? If I wrote “Dear So a” or “Dear
Boomer” or “Dear Lily’s Great-Aunt” at the top of this postcard, wouldn’t that change the words that fol owed? Of course it would. But the
question is: When I wrote “Dear Lily,” was that just a version of “Dear Myself”? I know it was more than that. But it was also less than that, too.
Postcard 3: The Statue of Liberty
For thee I sing. What a remarkable phrase.
“Dash?”
I looked up and found So a there, holding a Playbil from Hedda Gabler.
“Hi, So a. What a smal world!”
“Dash—”
“I mean, smal in the sense that right at this moment, I’d be happy if it only had the two of us in it. And I mean that in a strictly conversational
sense.”
“I always appreciate your strictness.”
I looked around the lobby for a sign of her parents. “Mom and Dad leave you alone?” I asked.
“They went for a drink. I decided to come back.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
I didn’t stand up. She didn’t sit down next to me. We just looked at each other and saw each other for a moment, and then held it for another
moment, and another moment. There didn’t seem to be any question about what was going to happen. There didn’t seem to be any doubt about
where this was going. We didn’t even need to say it.
fourteen
(Lily)
December 28th
Fan•ci•fulfan(t)si-fәladj (ca. 1627) 1. marked by fancy or unrestrained imagination rather than by reason and experience.
According to Mrs. Basil E., fanciful is the adjective for which Snarl—I mean Dash—feels the most longing. Certainly it explained why he’d answered
the cal of the red notebook at the Strand to begin with and played along, for a while, until he discovered that the real Lily, as opposed to his
imagined one, would turn him less fanciful and more dour (3. gloomy, sullen).
What a waste.
Although, fanciful’s origin circa 1627 made me stil love the word, even if I’d ruined its applicability to my connection with Snarl. (I mean
DASH!) Like, I could total y see Mrs. Mary Poppencock returning home to her cobblestone hut with the thatched roof in Thamesburyshire, Jol y
Olde England, and saying to her husband, “Good sir Bruce, would it not be wonderful to have a roof that doesn’t leak when it rains on our green
shires, and stu ?” And Sir Bruce Poppencock would have been like, “I say, missus, you’re very fanciful with your ideas today.” To which Mrs. P.
responded, “Why, Master P., you’ve made up a word! What year is it? I do believe it’s circa 1627! Let’s carve the year—we think—on a stone so no
one forgets. Fanciful! Dear man, you are a genius. I’m so glad my father forced me to marry you and al ow you to impregnate me every year.”
I placed the dictionary back on the shelf, next to a hardcover edition of Contemporary Poets, as Mrs. Basil E., who is keen on reference books,
returned to the parlor with a silver tray bearing a pot of what smel ed like very strong co ee.
“What have we learned, Lily?” Mrs. Basil E. asked me as she poured me a cup.
“Taking too many sips of other people’s drinks can lead to disastrous consequences.”
“Obviously,” she said imperiously. “But more importantly?”
“Don’t mix drinks. If you’re going to sip peppermint schnapps, only sip peppermint schnapps.”
“Thank you.”
Her calm observation was what I appreciated best about that smal degree of separation between a parent or grandparent and a great-aunt. The
lat er could react sensibly, pragmatical y, to the situation, without the complete and whol y unnecessary hysteria that would have befal en the
former.
“What did you tel Grandpa?” I asked.
“That you came over last night to have dinner with me, but I asked you to stay over to shovel the snow from my sidewalk in the morning. Which
is entirely true, even if you slept through dinner.”
“Snow?” I pul ed back the heavy brocade drapery and looked out the front window to the street.
SNOW! ! ! ! ! ! !
I had forgot en about the previous evening’s promise of snow. And darned if I hadn’t slept through it, conked out on too many sips and too
many hopes—dashed (so to speak). Al my own fault.
The morning’s view onto the street of Gramercy town houses was blanketed with snow, at least two inches deep—not a lot, but enough for a
good snowman. The accumulation stil appeared gloriously new, the street a blanket of white, with cot ony tufts heaped on cars and sidewalk
railings. The snow had yet to lose its luster to multiple foot tramplings, yel ow dog markings, and the scars of engine fumes.
My clut ered brain formed a vague idea.
“May I build a snowman in the back garden?” I asked Mrs. Basil E.
“You may. Once you shovel my front sidewalk. Good thing you got my other boot returned to you, eh?”
I sat down opposite my great-aunt and took a sip of co ee.
“Do pancakes come with this co ee?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d be hungry.”
“Starving!”
“I thought you might have woken up with a headache.”
“I did! But the good kind!” My head was pounding, but it was a light, giddy tap in my temples as opposed to a thunderous roar across my whole
head. For sure some pancakes doused in maple syrup would do the job of relieving the headache, and the hunger. Since I’d skipped dinner the
previous night, I had lots of eating to make up.
Despite the minor headache and hungry tummy, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of satisfaction.
I had done it. I had embraced danger.
The experience might have been an epic disaster, but it was stil … an experience.
Cool.
“Dash,” I murmured over a heaping pile of pancakes. “Dash Dash Dash.” I needed to absorb his name while the pancakes absorbed the but er and
syrup. As it was, I could barely recal what he looked like; my memory’s image of him was shrouded in a champagne-colored mist, sweet and
woozy, unclear. I remembered that he was on the tal side, his hair looked neat and freshly combed, he wore regular jeans and a peacoat, possibly
vintage, and he smel ed like boy, but in the nice and not gross way.
Also he had the bluest eyes ever, and long black lashes almost like a girl’s.
“Dash, short for Dashiel ,” Mrs. Basil E. said, passing me a glass of OJ.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked.
“Precisely.”
“I guess it’s not going to be true love between him and me,” I realized.
“True love? Pish posh. A concept manufactured by Hol ywood.”
“Ha-ha. You said pish posh.”
“Mish mosh,” she added.
“Put a kibosh on that nosh.”
“Enough, Lily.”
I sighed. “So I guess I blew it with him?”
Mrs. Basil E. said, “I think it wil be hard to recover from that rst impression you made on him. But I’d also say if anyone deserves a second
chance, it’s you.”
“But how do I get him to give me a second chance?”
“You’l gure something out. I have faith in you.”
“You like him,” I teased.
Mrs. Basil E. pronounced, “I nd young Dashiel to be not contemptible, for a specimen of teenage male. His persnicketiness is not nearly as
delightful as he’d have one believe, but he has his own charm nonetheless. Articulate to a fault, perhaps—but a forgivable and, dare I say, an
admirable misdemeanor.”
I had no idea what she just said.
“So he’s worth a second shot, then?”
“The more apt question, my dear, is: Are you?”
She had a good point.
Just as much, if not more than, a hero as that stapler in Col ation, Dash had not only brought me my other boot when my toes were wanting to
turn frostbit en, he’d placed that boot on me when I’d passed out, and he’d made sure I got home safely. What had I done for him, except probably
dashed his hopes, too?
I hoped I’d apologized to him.
I texted that rascal of a gerbil kil er, Edgar Thibaud.
Where can I nd Dash?
R U a stalker?
Possibly.
Awesome. His mom’s place is at E Ninth & University.
Which building?
A good stalker doesn’t need to ask.
I did want to ask Edgar: Did we kiss last night?
I licked my morning lips. My mouth felt very ful and untouched by luscious mat er other than pancakes and syrup.
Wanna get wasted again tonight?
From Edgar Thibaud.
Suddenly I recal ed Edgar hit ing on Aryn as Dash had helped my unfortunately wasted self out of the pub.
1. No. Retiring from that game. 2. And especially not with you. Regards, Lily
The snow crunched beneath my boots as I made my way home that afternoon. East Ninth Street at University Place was a not total y inconvenient
stop between Mrs. Basil E.’s in Gramercy Park and my apartment in the East Vil age, and I reveled in the winter’s walk along the way. I love snow
for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands stil . Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children
trudged sleds and dogs chased snowbal s. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, with each other,
whenever and however it happened.
There were four di erent apartment buildings at each corner of East Ninth and University. I approached the rst one and asked the doorman,
“Does Dash live here?”
“Why? Who wants to know?”
“I’d like to know, please.”
“No Dash lives here that I know of.”
“Then why did you ask who wanted to know?”
“Why are you asking for Dash if you don’t know where he lives?”
I took a spare Baggie of lebkuchen spice cookies out of my bag and handed it to the doorman. “I think you could use some of these,” I said.
“Merry December 28.”
I walked across the block to the next building. There was no uniformed doorman, but a man sat behind a desk in the lobby as some elderly
people using walkers strol ed the hal way behind him. “Hel o!” I greeted him. “I’m wondering if Dash lives here?”
“Is Dash an eighty-year-old retired cabaret singer?”
“I’m pret y sure not.”
“I’m pret y sure not.”
“Then no Dash here, kiddo. This is a nursing home.”
“Do any blind people live here?” I asked.
“Why?”
I handed him my card. “Because I would like to read to them. For my col ege applications. Also, I like old people.”
“How generous of you. I’l hold on to this just in case I hear of anything.” He glanced down at my card. “Nice to meet you, Lily Dogwalker.”
“You too!”
I crossed the street to the third building. A doorman was outside shoveling snow. “Hi! Would you like some help?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Union rules. No help.”
I gave the doorman one of the Starbucks gift cards one of my dog-walking clients had gifted me with before Christmas. “Have a co ee on me on
your break, sir.”
“Thanks! Now whaddya want?”
“Does Dash live here?”
“Dash. Dash who?”
“Not sure of his last name. Teenage boy, on the tal side, dreamy blue eyes. Peacoat. Shops at the Strand near here, so maybe he carries bags
from there?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Seems sort of … snarly?”
“Oh, that kid. Sure. Lives at that building.”
The doorman pointed to the building on the fourth corner.
I walked over to that building.
“Hi,” I said to the doorman, who was reading a copy of the New Yorker. “Dash lives here, right?”
The doorman looked up from his magazine. “16E? Mom’s a shrink?”
“Right,” I said. Sure, why not?
The doorman tucked the magazine into a drawer. “He went out about an hour ago. Want to leave a message for him?”
I took a package from my bag. “Could I leave this for him?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I handed the doorman my card also. He glanced at it. “No pets al owed in this building,” he said.
“That’s tragic,” I said.
No wonder Dash was so snarly.
The package I’d left for Dash contained a gift box of English breakfast tea and the red notebook.
Dear Dash:
Meeting you through this notebook meant a lot to me. Especial y this Christmas.
But I know I botched its magic, big-time.
I’m so sorry.
What I’m sorry about is not being a tipsy idiot when you found me. I’m sorry about that, obviously, but more sorry that my stupidity caused us to
lose a great opportunity. I don’t imagine you would have met me and fal en crazy in love with me, but I would like to think that if you’d had a
chance to meet me under di erent circumstances, something just as nice could have happened.
We could have become friends.
Game over. I get that.
But if you ever want a (sober) new Lily friend, I’m your girl.
I feel like you may be a special and kind person. And I would like to make it my business to know special and kind people. Especial y if they
are boys my age.
Thank you for being a real stapler of a hero guy.
There is a snowman in the garden at my great-aunt’s house who’d like to meet you. If you dare.
Regards,
Lily
PS I’m not going to hold it against you that you associate with Edgar Thibaud, and I hope you wil extend me the same courtesy.
Below my dare, I’d stapled my Lily Dogwalker business card. I didn’t hold out hope that Dash would take me up on the snowman o er, or try to
cal me ever, but I gured if he did want to get directly in touch with me again, the least I could do was not make him go through several of my
relatives.
After my last entry in the notebook, I’d cut out and pasted a section of a page I’d photocopied of the Contemporary Poets reference book in Mrs.
Basil E.’s parlor library.
Strand, Mark
[Blah blah blah biographical information, crossed out with Sharpie pen.]
We are reading the story of our lives
As though we were in it,
As though we had writ en it.
As though we had writ en it.
fteen
–Dash–
December 28th
I woke up next to So a. At some point in the night, she’d turned away from me, but she’d let one hand linger, reaching back to rest on my own
hand. A border of sunlight ringed the curtains of the hotel room, signaling morning. I felt her hand, felt our breathing. I felt lucky, grateful. The
sound of tra c climbed from the street, mingled with parts of conversations. I looked at her neck, brushed back her hair to kiss it. She stirred. I
wondered.
Our clothes had stayed on the whole time. We’d cuddled together, looking not for sex but comfort. We’d sailed to sleep together, with more ease
than I ever would have imagined.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
POUND. POUND. POUND.
The door. Three pounds on the door.
A man’s voice. “So a? ¿Estás lista?”
Her hand grabbed for mine. Squeezed.
“Un minuto, Papa!” she cal ed out.
As it happened, the maids at the Belvedere did a ne job of vacuuming, so when I hid under the bed, I was at acked by neither rats nor dust
mites. Just the general fear of a vengeful father storming into a hotel room.
More knocking. So a headed for the door.
Too late, I realized my shoes were lol ygagging on the oor about an arm’s length away from me. As So a’s father lumbered in—he was a
sizable man, roughly the shape of a school bus—I made a desperate grab, only to have my hand kicked away by So a’s bare feet. My shoes
fol owed in quick succession—So a shooting them right into my face. I let out an involuntary cry of startled pain, which So a covered by tel ing
her father loudly that she was almost ready to go.
If he noticed she was wearing yesterday’s clothes, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he came closer and closer to the bed. Before I could maneuver,
he let his weight fal onto the mat ress, and I found myself cheek to cheek with the indentation of his sizable behind.
“¿Dónde está Mamá?” So a asked. When she bent down to pick up her shoes, she shot me a stern Stay put look. As if I had a choice. I was
basical y pinned to the oor, my forehead bleeding from being at acked by my own shoe.
“En el vestíbulo, esperando.”
“¿Por qué no vas a esperar con el a? Bajo en un segundo.”
I wasn’t real y fol owing this exchange, just praying it would be a quick one. Then the weight above me shifted, and So a’s father was once more
oor-based. Suddenly the space under the bed seemed the size of a downtown loft. I wanted to rol over, just because I could.
As soon as her father was gone, So a climbed under the bed with me.
“That was a fun wake-up cal , was it not?” she asked. Then she pushed back my hair to look at my forehead. “God, you’re hurt. How did that
happen?”
“Bumped my head,” I replied. “It’s an occupational hazard, if your occupation happens to be sleeping over with ex-girlfriends.”
“Does that occupation pay wel ?”
“Clearly.” I made a move to kiss her—and hit my head again.
“Come on,” So a said, starting to slide away from me. “Let’s get you somewhere safer.”
I stomach-crawled out after her, then went to the sink to clean myself up. Meanwhile, in the other room, she changed her clothes. I sneaked
peeks in the closet mirror.
“I can see you as wel as you can see me,” So a pointed out.
“Is that a problem?” I asked.
“Actual y,” she said, lifting her shirt over her head, “no.”
I had to remind myself that her father was no doubt waiting for her. Now was not the time for canoodling, no mat er how much the canoodling
impulse was striking.
A new shirt went on, and So a walked over to me, put ing her face next to mine in the bathroom mirror re ection.
“Hel o,” she said.
“Hel o,” I said.
“It was never this fun when we were actual y going out, was it?” she asked.
“I assure you,” I replied, “it was never this fun.”
I knew she was leaving. I knew we were never going to date long-distance. I knew that we wouldn’t have been able to be like this back when
we were dating, so there was no use in regret ing what hadn’t happened. I suspected that what happens in hotel rooms rarely lasts outside of them.
I suspected that when something was a beginning and an ending at the same time, that meant it could only exist in the present.
And stil . I wanted more than that.
“Let’s make plans,” I ventured.
And So a smiled and said, “No, let’s leave it to chance.”
It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by al passersby. When I got back to my mother’s apartment, I was a mixture
It was snowing outside, anointing the air with a quiet wonder shared by al passersby. When I got back to my mother’s apartment, I was a mixture
of giddy thril -happiness and muddled gut-confusion—I didn’t want to leave anything regarding So a to chance, and at the same time I was
enjoying this step away from it. I hummed my way into the bathroom, checked on my shoe-in icted wound, then headed to the kitchen, where I
opened the refrigerator and found myself yogurtless. Quickly I bundled myself up in a striped hat and striped scarf and striped gloves—dressing for
snow can be the keenest, most al owable kindergarten throwback—and traipsed down University and through Washington Square Park to the
Morton Wil iams.
It was only on my way back that I encountered the ru ans. I have no knowledge of what I did to provoke them. In fact, I like to believe there
was no provocation whatsoever—their target was as arbitrary as their misbehavior was focused.
“The enemy!” one of them cried. I didn’t even have time to shield my bag of yogurts before I was being bombarded by snowbal s.
Like dogs and lions, smal children can sense fear. The slightest inch, the slightest disinclination, and they wil jump atop you and devour you.
Snow was pelting my torso, my legs, my groceries. None of the kids looked familiar—there were nine, maybe ten of them, and they were nine,
maybe ten years old. “At ack!” they cried. “There he is!” they shouted, even though I’d made no at empt to hide. “Get ’im!”
Fine, I thought, bending over to scoop up some snow, even though this left my backside ripe for an o ensive.
It is not easy to hurl snowbal s while holding on to a plastic bag of groceries, so my rst few e orts were subpar, missing their mark. The nine
maybe ten nine-maybe-ten-year-olds ridiculed me—if I turned to aim at one, four others out anked me and shot from the sides and the back. I was,
in the parlance of an ancient day, cruising for a bruising, and while a more disdainful teenager would have walked away, and a more aggressive
teenager would have dropped the bag and kicked some major preteen ass, I kept ghting snowbal with snowbal , laughing as if Boomer and I
were playing a school yard game, inging my orbs with winter abandon, wishing So a were here by my side.…
Until I hit the kid in the eye.
There was no aim involved. I just threw a snowbal at him and—pow!—he went down. The other kids unleashed the last of their snowbal s and
ran to him to see what had happened.
I walked over, too, asking if he was okay. He didn’t look concussed, and his eye was ne. But now vengeance was spreading across the faces of
the nine/tens, and it wasn’t a cute lit le vengeance. Some took out cel phones to take pictures and cal their mothers. Others began to reload on
snowbal s, making sure to create them from patches where the snow mixed with gravel.
I bolted. I ran down Fifth Avenue, skirted onto Eighth Street, hid in an Au Bon Pain until the elementary school mob had passed.
When I got back to my mom’s building, the doorman had a package for me. I thanked him, but decided to wait until I got to the apartment
before opening it, because this was the doorman who was notorious for “tithing” the residents by stealing one out of every ten of our magazines
and I didn’t want to share any potential goodies.
As I was let ing myself back into the apartment, the phone rang. Boomer.
“Hey,” he said after I answered. “Do we have plans for today?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Wel , we should!”
“Sure. What are you up to?”
“Tracking your celebrity! I’l send you a link!”
I took o my boots and mit ens, unwrapped my scarf, set my hat aside, and headed to my laptop. I opened up Boomer’s email.
“WashingtonSquareMommies?” I asked, picking the phone back up.
“Yeah—click it!”
The site was a mommy blog, and on the front page a headline screamed:
CRIMSON ALERT!
ATTACKER IN PARK
Posted 11:28 am, December 28
by elizabethbennettlives
I am activating the crimson alert because a young man—late teens, early twenties– assaulted a child in the park ten minutes ago. Please study these photos, and if you see him, alert the police immediately. We know he shops at Morton Williams (see bag) and was last seen on Eighth Street. He will not hesitate to use force against your children, so be alert!!!
