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“How do you propose to work things out?” Langston asked. His face was stil pale, his voice hoarse and nose ru
his second scrambled egg and had already devoured a stack of toast with jam, clearly feeling much bet er.
“What was I thinking with that we-have-to-get-married business?” Grandpa said. “Outdated concept. I’m going to propose that Mabel and I just
be exclusive to one another. No ring, no wedding, just … partnership. I’d be her only boyfriend.”
“Guess who has a boyfriend, Grandpa?” Langston asked menacingly. “Lily!”
“I do not!” I said, but in a quiet, not Shril y-like tone.
Grandpa turned to me. “You’re not al owed to date for another twenty years, Lily bear. In fact, your mother stil isn’t al owed to date, according
to my recol ection. But somehow she slipped away anyway.”
At the mention of her name, I realized I missed Mom. Fiercely. I’d been too busy the last week with the notebook and other random
misadventures to remember to miss my parents, but suddenly I wanted them home right now. I wanted to hear why they thought moving to Fiji
was a good idea, I wanted to see their unfortunately ta
wanted TO OPEN MY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS ALREADY.
I bet they were starting to miss me just as much. I bet they were feeling truly awful with missing me, and for abandoning me at Christmas, and
for possibly making me move to a remote corner at the farthest end of the world when I’ve been perfectly content living right here in the center of
the world that is the island of Manhat an.
(But maybe trying a new place could be interesting. Maybe.)
I held the truth to be self-evident: There was no way I wouldn’t be able to mine a puppy out of this situation. So much parental guilt, so much
Lily need for a dog. And I believed I could make the case that I’d evolved as a human and as a personal dog owner rather than just walker. I could
handle pet ownership this time around.
Merry Christmas, Lily.
Practical y speaking, no way would I set le for a bu
I barely had time to search dog shelter sites in Fiji for an appropriate adoptable pooch when I received a text from my cousin Mark.
Lily Bear: My co-worker Marc needs to go upstate to tend to his mother, who’s been felled by eggnog poisoning. Do you have room in your client list for his dog, Boris? Needs to be fed and walked twice a day. Just for a day or two.
Sure, I texted back. Admit edly, part of me had been hoping Mark’s text would involve a Dash sighting, but a new dog job was adequate
distraction.
Can you come by the store and pick up his keys?
Be there in a few.
The Strand was its usual mix of bustling people and laconic aisle readers. Mark wasn’t at the information desk when I arrived, so I decided to do
a lit le browsing. First I went to the animals section, but I’d read almost every book there, and I could only look at puppy pictures so many times
without needing to pet one instead of just coo at its picture. I wandered and found myself in the basement, where a sign on a bookcase in the
deepest trenches at the back a
edition), which in turn, of course, made me blush, and then think of J. D. Salinger. I returned upstairs to Fiction and there found a most curious
male depositing a familiar red notebook in between Fra
“Boomer?” I said.
“Boomer?” I said.
Startled, and looking guilty, as if he’d been caught shoplifting, Boomer clumsily grabbed the red notebook back from the shelves, causing several
hardcover editions of Nine Stories to noisily tumble to the oor. Boomer clutched the red notebook to his chest as if it were a Bible.
“Lily! I didn’t expect to see you here. I mean, I kinda hoped to, but then I didn’t, so I got used to that, but then here you are, just when I’m
thinking about not seeing you, and—”
I reached my hands out. “Is that notebook for me?” I asked. I wanted to snatch the notebook from Boomer and read it posthaste, but I tried to
sound casual, like, Oh, yeah, that old thing. I’l read it whenever I get to it. It might be a while. I’m super-busy, not thinking about Dash or the
notebook or anything.
“Yes!” Boomer said. But he made no movement to hand it to me.
“Can I have it?” I asked.
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because! You have to discover it on the shelves! When I’m not here!”
I hadn’t realized there was a rule book for the notebook exchange. “So how about if I leave, and you put the notebook back on the shelves and
walk away, and then when you’re gone, I’l return and pick it up?”
“Okay!”
I started to turn around to execute the plan, but Boomer cal ed after me.
“Lily!”
“Yes?”
“Max Bre
Boomer referred to a restaurant a block away from the Strand, a Wil y Wonka–esque chocolate-themed eating extravaganza place—a tourist trap
for sure, but of the best kind, not unlike Madame Tussauds.
“Want to split a chocolate pizza?” I asked Boomer.
“Yes!”
“I’l meet you there in ten minutes,” I said, walking away.
“Don’t forget to come back for the notebook when I’m not looking!” Boomer said. It both mysti ed and intrigued me that such a seemingly dour
person as Dash was great friends with an extremely exclamation-pointed person as excitable Boomer. I suspected this spoke wel for Dash, that he
could appreciate this brand of Boomer dude.
“I won’t,” I cal ed back.
I enlisted my cousin Mark to join us at Max Bre
just bil it back to Grandpa.
Boomer and I ordered the chocolate pizza—a warm, thin pastry shaped like a pizza, with double-melted chocolate as the “sauce,” topped with
melted marshmal ows and candied hazelnut bits, then carved into triangle slices like a real pizza. Mark ordered the chocolate syringe, which was
exactly what it sounded like—a plastic syringe l ed with chocolate that you could shoot straight into your mouth.
“But we could share our pizza with you!” Boomer told Mark after Mark ordered the syringe. “It’s more fun when the sugar infusion is a truly
communal experience.”
“Thanks, kid, but I’m trying to reduce my carbs,” Mark said. “I’l stick with shooting up straight chocolate. No need to add more dough to my
waistline.” The waitress left us and Mark turned to Boomer in al seriousness. “Now, tel us everything about your lit le punk friend Dash.”
“He’s not a punk! He’s pret y square, actual y!”
“No criminal record?” Mark said.
“Not unless you count the crimson alert!”
“The what?” Mark and I both said.
Boomer took out his phone and displayed a website cal ed WashingtonSquareMommies.
Mark and I read through the crimson alert posting, inspecting the evidence on the site.
“He eats yogurt?” Mark asked. “What kind of teenage boy is he?”
“Lactose tolerant!” Boomer said. “Dash loves yogurt, and anything with cream in it, and he especial y likes Spanish cheeses.”
Mark turned to me consolingly. “Lily. Sweetie. You realize this Dash may not be straight?”
“Dash is for sure straight!” Boomer a
seventh grade, there was a game of spin the bot le and it was my turn and I spun and it landed at Dash, but he wouldn’t let me kiss him.”
“Proves nothing,” Mark mut ered.
So a? So a?
I needed a bathroom break.