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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 disco
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 co
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 u
former.
“What did you tel Grandpa?” I asked.
“That you came over last night to have di
is entirely true, even if you slept through di
“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 di
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