Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (20 page)

My cluttered 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 coffee.

“Do pancakes come with this coffee?” 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 still … 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 butter and syrup. As it was, I could barely recall 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 tall side, his hair looked neat and freshly combed, he wore regular jeans and a peacoat, possibly vintage, and he smelled 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 Dashiell,” Mrs. Basil E. said, passing me a glass of OJ.

“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 Hollywood.”

“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 will be hard to recover from
that first 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’ll figure something out. I have faith in you.”

“You like him,” I teased.

Mrs. Basil E. pronounced, “I find young Dashiell 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
Collation
, Dash had not only brought me my other boot when my toes were wanting to turn frostbitten, 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 killer, Edgar Thibaud.

Where can I find 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 full and untouched by luscious matter other than pancakes and syrup.

Wanna get wasted again tonight?

From Edgar Thibaud.

Suddenly I recalled Edgar hitting 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 totally inconvenient stop between Mrs. Basil E.’s in Gramercy Park and my apartment in the East Village, 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 still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and dogs chased snowballs. 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 different apartment buildings at each corner of East Ninth and University. I approached the first 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 strolled the hallway behind him. “Hello!” I greeted him. “I’m wondering if Dash lives here?”

“Is Dash an eighty-year-old retired cabaret singer?”

“I’m pretty 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 college applications. Also, I like old people.”

“How generous of you. I’ll 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 coffee 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 tall 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 allowed 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. Especially 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 fallen crazy in love with me, but I would like to think that if you’d had a chance to meet me under different 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. Especially 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 will 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 offer, or try to call me ever, but I figured 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 written it
.

fifteen
–Dash–

December 28th

I woke up next to Sofia. 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 traffic 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.
“Sofia? ¿Estás lista?”

Her hand grabbed for mine. Squeezed.

“Un minuto, Papa!”
she called out.

As it happened, the maids at the Belvedere did a fine job of
vacuuming, so when I hid under the bed, I was attacked by neither rats nor dust mites. Just the general fear of a vengeful father storming into a hotel room.

More knocking. Sofia headed for the door.

Too late, I realized my shoes were lollygagging on the floor about an arm’s length away from me. As Sofia’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 Sofia’s bare feet. My shoes followed in quick succession—Sofia shooting them right into my face. I let out an involuntary cry of startled pain, which Sofia covered by telling 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 fall onto the mattress, and I found myself cheek to cheek with the indentation of his sizable behind.

“
¿
Dónde está Mamá?”
Sofia 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 basically pinned to the floor, my forehead bleeding from being attacked by my own shoe.

“En el vestíbulo, esperando.”

“¿Por qué no vas a esperar con ella? Bajo en un segundo.”

I wasn’t really following this exchange, just praying it would be a quick one. Then the weight above me shifted, and Sofia’s father was once more floor-based. Suddenly the space under the bed seemed the size of a downtown loft. I wanted to roll over, just because I could.

As soon as her father was gone, Sofia climbed under the bed with me.

“That was a fun wake-up call, 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 well?”

“Clearly.” I made a move to kiss her—and hit my head again.

“Come on,” Sofia 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 well as you can see me,” Sofia pointed out.

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

“Actually,” 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 matter how much the canoodling impulse was striking.

A new shirt went on, and Sofia walked over to me, putting her face next to mine in the bathroom mirror reflection.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” I said.

“It was never this fun when we were actually 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 regretting 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.