by Rachel Cohn
“Who is he?”
Adwin arrived in the room before Mrs. Basil E. could answer, but he needed no further explanation. He wore a butler’s uniform and carted in a bottle of champagne on ice, along with champagne glasses, and a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries.
He bowed to Mrs. Basil E. “Madam,” he said formally.
“Thank you, Adwin. Would you care to join us for an après?”
“Thank you kindly, madam. But my children are expecting Christmas presents, which means—”
“You’d better get started on your last-minute shopping?” Mrs. Basil E. asked him.
“Yes. Will you require anything further?”
“No, thank you. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. And good luck with your shopping. I hear that Harry Potter is popular with the young ones.”
“How old are your children?” I asked him.
“Twins. Age four,” Adwin said.
“Too young for HP,” I said. Then, as if I were Dash, the best of anyone I know at book recommendations, I added, “Captain Underpants is your man.”
Adwin bowed to us again. “I’ll take that under advisement. Goodnight.” And he left the Grand Piano Suite.
Seriously, Lily, I said to myself. You just said “Captain Underpants” to a fancy-pants Ghanaian-British butler. You are the definition of uncouth American!
Aloud, I said to Mrs. Basil E., “Seriously … your room came with a butler?!”
“Isn’t he charming? He speaks five languages, he’s a fabulous pinochle player, and he makes the perfect martini. His husband’s a lucky man.” She stepped over to the silver cart with the champagne and strawberries on it. “I thought we should have some champagne.”
“Because you’re toasting my engagement or elopement or … WHAT WERE YOU THINKING EVEN SUGGESTING THAT TO ME AND DASH?”
“Don’t raise your voice at me, young lady. I’m not toasting you. I’m disappointed in you. I thought this difficult conversation would go down better with some quality bubbly.”
I gulped. My heart dropped. But she opened the champagne bottle with a New Year’s Eve flourish and poured us each a glass.
“Why disappointed?” I asked, feeling very, very small. I took a sip of the champagne. It felt crisp in my mouth, with sturdy bubbles that tasted like happy, subtle fireworks going down my throat. It was actually a lovely precursor to being chewed out, as I suspected was about to happen.
“Deciding not to go to college and announcing that by email to someone other than your family is not the way to handle such an important decision.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Which brings us to the second disappointment. You should be apologizing to your mother, not to me. More importantly, your refusal to answer her calls and texts is cowardly, at best. Mean, at worst. You know better.”
“I know,” I repeated. “Sorry.”
“You’ve upset my favorite niece and I don’t appreciate it.”
Hey, wait a minute. “I thought I was your favorite niece.”
Mrs. Basil E. took a sip of her champagne, then said, “Your mother was my first favorite. Here, have a strawberry.”
I’d kind of lost my appetite from being called out, but the strawberry was so perfectly red and so perfectly formed, and the chocolate so looked like it had been melted on by perfect Adwin himself, that it felt rude to decline. I took a bite. I was right. It would have been rude to decline.
“So what should I do?” I asked her.
“You know what to do. Apologize. Take responsibility for your actions. Because otherwise you know what is happening?” I shook my head. “They blame Dash.”
“He had nothing to do with my decision!”
“But they don’t know that, because you haven’t explained it to them. In the absence of your honesty, and clarity, with your parents, the impression you’ve left by darting off to London at Christmas and then suddenly announcing you’re not going to Barnard, is that your boyfriend is your only real priority. They don’t want you to blindly follow Dash.”
“That’s insulting.”
“You have to understand they’re operating from a place of fear, like Fox News viewers. Your parents married young—too young. They’ve done fine, had their ups and downs like any other couple, but they’re at an age where they’re taking stock of their regrets and they’re fearful of you repeating their mistakes. They worry you’re holding yourself back by limiting yourself to one person, so soon. They feel—and so do Grandpa and I—that you’re too young to be in a serious relationship.”
Had she already been drunk when we had afternoon tea earlier that day? “You’re the one who suggested Dash and I get married!”
“I was trying to smoke you out. Gauge your true intentions toward Dash.”
“So Dash was right!”
“He’s too smart for his own good. But yes, he was right. So tell me, Lily. What are your intentions toward Dash? Do you intend to marry him?”
“How would I know? I mean, maybe, in the wayyyyy distant future. I have a lot of things I’d like to accomplish before then. Choosing not to go Barnard has nothing to do with Dash and everything to do with me.”
She nodded. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I’d like it if Dash and I lived closer. But it’s not going to determine what I do or don’t do in my immediate future.” I took another sip of champagne. This stuff was good! And emboldening. “And another thing! I’m so sick of hearing how I’m too young to be in a serious relationship. If anything, you should be congratulating me for choosing someone like Dash, someone so smart, and kind—”
She waved her hand at me. “Enough of the Dash platitudes. We are all aware of his good qualities. But you’re the baby of the family. We would have liked to see you experience more of the world independently, come into your own on your own. Perhaps you were ready. We weren’t.”
I thought of what my life might have been like in the last two years if I hadn’t been involved with Dash, and I saw a life that might have been just as rewarding, certainly more overprotected … but so much less sweet. It wasn’t that he’d filled some void in my life. He’d enriched it.
I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. “I can’t help loving him. What do you want me to do?”
“Be compassionate. I know you don’t want to be the family baby and of course you shouldn’t have to be. I am saying, be kinder to your parents and grandfather as you become more independent from them. Letting go is harder than you can imagine.”
I could imagine. I let go of my boyfriend so he could follow his dream to Oxford and it had hurt like hell. But it was the right thing to do.
“I’ll try,” I said.
“They think you don’t want to go to Barnard because you don’t want the responsibility of helping care for Grandpa.”
I’d had no idea they thought that. It was frustrating. “One has nothing to do with the other. Of course I want to be there for Grandpa.”
“But this school you’re considering in England?”
“It’s a one-year program. I wouldn’t be gone long. I’d come back home as much as I could.”
“You wouldn’t really move to England, would you?”
“If you mean, for Dash, the answer is, maybe I would. But I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have a very good reason to be here otherwise. One of the concentrations the dog school offers is learning how to work with therapy animals. That’s a skill I’d like to bring back to Grandpa’s nursing home.”
“Interesting.” Champagne sip. Strawberry bite. “I still don’t approve. But you’re going to do what you’re going to do.”
“And I’ll still be your favorite niece, no matter what I choose.”
She set her glass down. “You are excused. Go to your room and call my other favorite niece. Resolve this. Get Christmas un-canceled!”
“I’m sorry,” I told Mom once I’d returned to my hotel room, which now seemed like a one-star travesty in comparison to Mrs. Basil E.�
�s Grand Piano Suite. But it was mine, and mine alone, and I’d earned it, and I loved my luxurious little hovel.
No phone filter could have helped how bad Mom looked—exhausted, like she hadn’t slept in days, and puffy-faced, like there’d been a lot of crying and mainlining Christmas cookies during all that time she wasn’t sleeping. In the background behind her, I could see that the Christmas decorations we’d put up in the living room after Thanksgiving had been taken down. I added, “I handled it badly.”
“You think?” she said, her face revealing the tiniest glimmer of humor. “If you didn’t want to go to Barnard, why’d you even apply?”
“If you really want to know, I wasn’t ready to make a decision about college at all last year. I only applied to Barnard because I was sure I wouldn’t get in.” My grades and test scores were good, but below the school’s averages for its admitted candidates. It had been a calculated risk on my part, one I’d lost either because I was a legacy or because Dash helped me with my personal essay and edited it to perfection.
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“It’s much more disappointing that you let us have the expectation you would go, when you had no intention to do so.”
“I did intend to go.”
Mom tried to smile. “Really?”
“I mean, theoretically, yes. I wanted to fulfill your college ambitions for me. Follow in your footsteps. Be closer to Grandpa. But it never felt like the right fit.”
“So what is the right fit?”
“I’m still deciding. I guess that’s what I wanted and didn’t know how to tell you. I wanted the freedom to figure it out in my own time, in my own way.”
“Fair enough. I’m sorry you’re just telling me that now, but glad to know it.”
“Don’t freak out, but there’s a dog school here in England I’m considering.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mom.” I paused, not just for dramatic effect, but also to gather my courage. “That’s my decision to make. Not yours.”
She made a surprised face. Then wiped a tear from her cheek. “Harsh, Lily.”
“But I’d like you to help me make the decision,” I added. “When I get home, I’ll tell you more about it and you can see why it might be a great opportunity.”
“To be near Dash?”
“That would just be a bonus. Not the reason.” I took a deep breath and then said it. “I love him, Mom. I’m sorry you’re not ready to let me go, but I’m ready to go. He’s not just a big part of my life. He’s the best part of it.” I thought of this time last year, when I’d been a mess of insecurity because I didn’t know where my relationship with Dash stood, if he really felt the same about me as I did about him, and now, a year later, it was a world of difference. I felt confident in my relationship and confident in myself in a way I never had before. Dash hadn’t done that. I did it. By following my own path (and as many dogs as I could).
“I know, honey. It’s just that Dad and I want you to experience more on your own before you commit yourself to Dash.”
“Too late. My heart landed on him. And it’s not going anywhere.”
The slow, single tear gave way to a gush. “Okay,” Mom finally said. Or blubbered.
And now for the good news. I said, “I’m also going to apply to FIT.”
Her face perked up as she wiped the tears from her face with a tissue. “Here in New York? Really?”
“Yes. I’m interested in design. And entrepreneurship. I think I might be good at both?”
“Something other than dogs! You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that.” I do know, I thought. Thanks, Dashiell.
“Where is my dog, by the way?” Mom turned her camera to her feet, where Boris’s head was nestled, asleep. I couldn’t believe it. If Mom “tolerated” Dash as my boyfriend, she blatantly “loathed” (her word, not mine) my ginormous dog. Or so I thought.
“We miss you,” Mom said, turning the camera back on her sweet, tired face.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too. Let’s agree to talk things through more before making major decisions.”
“Agreed. Please un-cancel Christmas,” I said.
“Agreed. Come home already!”
I awoke the next morning, wishing for another vision of Dash in his purple pajamas. Then I remembered today was not only THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS but also a big day for Dash. He wanted to cast his fate to books and today was his first big step in that direction, his interview with what sounded like Sinjin Blakey someone-or-other. I was so excited for Dash and wondered if he’d opened my final Advent calendar gift to him yet. Dash wanted books? He’d get books.
The last present was a USB key with photos I’d taken in late October, when I’d gone on a day trip with my brother up to the Hudson Valley during peak fall foliage. We went to a glorious bookstore in Hillsdale, New York, called the Rodgers Book Barn, which was a rickety old country house filled with books, books, and more books, in every room, and outside on shelves. Langston photographed me holding many of Dash’s favorite books under the gold-, yellow-, and red-covered trees, and hiding in the Book Barn’s many reading nooks.
I opened my eyes. Alas, Dash was not standing at the window wearing purple pajamas, but luckily I had my photo of him doing so from the day before to brighten my morning. As I gazed at the photo, a text from Dash appeared.
I just opened your last Advent present. Sooooo many books.
I waited for him to tell me how awesome the present was.
Nothing.
And? I finally typed back.
I think I’m having a panic attack, he answered.
sixteen
December 24th
’Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the flat came the cry, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR!”
This was not a line I uttered with any frequency in my daily life. Most clothes, to me, were fairly interchangeable, as long as you put them on the part of the body they were meant to correspond with.
But an interview? With St. John Blakemore … aka SJB … aka one of the most high-powered literary editors in New York … aka (inexplicably) Gem’s friend “Blakey”? Gem came into my doorway.
“Goodness, you’re just like your father!” she exclaimed.
I flinched, and she must have seen it, because she immediately amended, “Your father when he was in high school. Before he became … what he is today.”
I had a hard time picturing my father in high school. My father never gave any indication that he’d once been young.
Gem, on the other hand, wore all of the ages she’d ever been at the same time. I could trust that.
“So what should I wear?” I asked her.
Gem smiled. “Whatever you think suits you. Don’t be too formal. Just be yourself. That’s what Blakey will want to see. Believe me, this interview will be about words, not clothes.”
I bypassed the finery Gem had benefacted me and went with one of my favorite sweaters instead.
I would get this or lose this as myself, not some pretend version I thought someone else might want to see.
I do believe that most of the times your life changes, you don’t realize in the moment that it’s on the cusp of being altered. I can’t remember the last family outing we had before my parents decided to split. I had no idea spotting a flash of red on the shelves of the Strand would lead me to Lily. It would have been impossible to figure that receiving a sweatshirt in the post would lead to my greatest academic miscalculation.
But sometimes, just sometimes, there are moments that feel like an appointment with the future. Fate stops being a wind and takes the shape of a flight path.
This was one of those moments: Standing outside the Blakemores’ town house, deciding whether to use the knocker or ring the bell.
I opted for the knocker.
The footsteps I heard behind the wood door were much slower than my heartbeat. Then
the door opened, and I faced …
Sir Ian?
“Oh,” he said, equally surprised. “It’s you.” Then he gave me a camaraderie-tinged smile. “It makes perfect sense, in a way. Who better for Uncle SJB to interrupt our Christmas to see?”
He ushered me inside and offered to take my coat. As I passed it over to him, I asked, “You call him ‘Uncle SJB’?”
“Yes, Salinger,” Sir Ian replied. “But I’m the only one who does. I don’t suggest you call him that.”
Much to my horror, it was starting again. The walls of my skull pushing on my brain. Thoughts dizzying to a degree they threatened to lose their ability to speak.
Sir Ian touched me lightly on the shoulder.
“Breathe,” he said.
I nodded, breathed.
Sir Ian continued, “Don’t call him Uncle SJB … but think of him that way. I know you must envision him as a knight of the royal order of editors, but he also keeps a rubber ducky on the side of his tub in his bathroom here. He’s allergic to chocolate and tries to eat it anyway. He has published some of the greatest authors of our time, but he also rejected J. K. Rowling’s adult mystery when it was submitted to him under a pseudonym. He lost his first love when she fell in love with a zoologist. He has yogurt for breakfast every morning. On mornings when he really wants to treat himself, he might add berries.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“To remind you he’s human. And to make sure you don’t bring up zoology.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything to help a fellow Oxford escapee get to where he wants to be. Now come this way—I believe he’s in the parlor.”
It was only a few steps away, behind another old wooden door.
“Here we go,” Sir Ian said, opening it with a flourish.
Deep breath.
Appointment with the future.
I stepped inside, and for a moment I thought Sir Ian was going to follow. But instead he said, “Good luck,” and winked at me. Then he flourished again and left me in the parlor, where a man with salt-and-pepper hair was standing up from an armchair, grinning at me.