Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

by Rachel Cohn

  in the Strand with The Joy of Gay Sex

  bodes well for our future.

  However, if you already own this book

  or would find it useful in your life,

  I am afraid our time together

  must end here.

  This girl can only go boy-girl,

  so if you’re into

  boy-boy, I completely support that,

  but don’t see where I’d fit into the picture.

  Now, one last book.

  4. What the Living Do, by Marie Howe

  23/1/8

  24/5/9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

  I headed immediately to the poetry section, completely intrigued. Who was this strange reader of Marie Howe who’d summoned me? It seemed too convenient that we should both know about the same poet. Really, most people in my circle didn’t know any poets at all. I tried to remember talking about Marie Howe with someone—anyone—but came up blank. Only Sofia, probably, and this wasn’t Sofia’s handwriting. (Plus, she was in Spain.)

  I checked the Hs. Nothing. I went through the whole poetry section. Nothing. I was about to scream in frustration when I saw it—at the very top of the bookshelf, at least twelve feet from the floor. A slight corner peeking out—but I knew from its slimness and dark plum color that it was the book I was looking for. I pulled over a ladder and made the perilous climb. It was a dusty ascent, the out-of-reach heights clouded with disinterest, making the air harder to breathe. Finally, I had the volume in my hand. I couldn’t wait—I quickly turned to pages 23 and 24 and found the seven words I needed.

  for the pure thrill of unreluctant desire

  I nearly fell off the ladder.

  Are you going to be playing for the pure thrill of unreluctant desire?

  I was, to put it mildly, aroused by the phrasing.

  Carefully, I stepped back down. When I hit the floor again, I retrieved the red Moleskine and turned the page.

  So here we are.

  Now it’s up to you,

  what we do (or don’t) do.

  If you are interested in continuing this conversation,

  please choose a book, any book, and

  leave a slip of paper with your email address inside of it.

  Give it to Mark, at the information desk.

  If you ask Mark any questions about me,

  he will not pass on your book.

  So no questions.

  Once you have given your book to Mark,

  please return this book to the shelf

  where you found it.

  If you do all these things,

  you very well might hear from me.

  Thank you.

  Lily

  Suddenly, for the first time that I could recall, I was looking forward to winter break, and I was relieved that I was not, in fact, being shipped out to Sweden the next morning.

  I didn’t want to think too hard about which book to leave—if I started to second-guess, it would only lead to third-guessing and fourth-guessing, and I would never leave the Strand. So I chose a book rather impulsively, and instead of leaving my email address inside, I decided to leave something else. I figured it would take a little time for Mark (my new friend at the information desk) to give the book to Lily, so I would have a slight head start. I handed it to him without a word; he nodded and put it in a drawer.

  I knew the next step was for me to return the red notebook, to give someone else a chance of finding it. Instead, I kept it. And, furthermore, I moved to the register to buy the copies of French Pianism and Fat Hoochie Prom Queen currently in my hands.

  Two, I decided, could play this game.

  two

  (Lily)

  December 21st

  I love Christmas.

  I love everything about it: the lights, the cheer, the big family gatherings, the cookies, the presents piled high around the tree, the goodwill to all. I know it’s technically goodwill to all men, but in my mind, I drop the men because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist. Goodwill shouldn’t be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I’d even extend the goodwill not just to living creatures but to the dearly departed, and if we include them, we might as well include the undead, those supposedly mythic beings like vampires, and if they’re in, then so are elves, fairies, and gnomes. Heck, since we’re already being so generous in our big group hug, why not also embrace those supposedly inanimate objects like dolls and stuffed animals (special shout-out to my Ariel mermaid, who presides over the shabby chic flower power pillow on my bed—love you, girl!). I’m sure Santa would agree. Goodwill to all.

  I love Christmas so much that this year I’ve organized my own caroling society. Just because I live in the gentrified bohemia of the East Village does not mean I consider myself too cool and sophisticated for caroling. To the contrary. I feel so strongly about it that when my own family members chose to disband our caroling group this year because everyone was “traveling” or was “too busy” or “has a life” or “thought you would have grown out of it by now, Lily,” I did some old-fashioned problem solving. I made my own flyer and put it up in cafés around my street.

  Hark!

  You there, closet caroler!

  Care to herald some holiday song?

  Really? Me too! Let’s talk.*

  Yours sincerely, Lily

  *No creeps need apply; my grandpa knows

  everyone in the neighborhood and you will

  incur much shunning should you be anything

  less than sincere in your response. **

  Thx again, yours most truly, Lily

  **Sorry to be so cynical, but this is New York.

  That flyer was how I formed my Christmas caroling troupe this year. There’s me, Melvin (computer guy), Roberta (retired high school choir teacher), Shee’nah (cross-dressing part-time choreographer/part-time waiter) and his boi Antwon (assistant manager at Home Depot), angry Aryn (vegan riot grrrl NYU film student), and Mark (my cousin—because he owes Grandpa a favor and that’s the one Grandpa called in). The carolers call me Third-Verse Lily because I’m the only one who remembers past the second verse of any Christmas song. Besides Aryn (who doesn’t care), I’m also the only one not of legal drinking age, so with the amount of hot chocolate laced with peppermint liquor that my merry caroling troupe passes round from Roberta’s flask, it’s no surprise I’m the only one who remembers the third verse.

  Truly He taught us to love one another.

  His law is love and His gospel is peace.

  Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

  And in His name all oppression shall cease.

  Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

  With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

  Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

  His power and glory ever more proclaim!

  Hallelujah, third verse!

  In all honesty, I should admit I have researched much of the scientific evidence refuting G-d’s existence, as a result of which I suspect I am a true believer in him the way I am in Santa. But I will unhesitatingly, and joyfully, O-Holy-Night his name between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, with the mutual understanding that as of Christmas Day, once the presents are opened, my relationship with him goes on hiatus until I camp out for best viewing of the Macy’s parade the following year.

  I would like to be the person who stands outside Macy’s during the holiday season wearing a cute red outfit and ringing a bell to chime in donations for the Salvation Army, but Mom said no. She said those bell people are possibly religious freaks, and we are holiday-only lapsed Catholics who support homosexuality and a woman’s right to choose. We do not stand outside Macy’s begging for money. We don’t even shop at Macy’s.

  I may go begging for change at Macy’s simply as a form of protest. For the first time in, like, the history of ever—that is, all of my sixteen years—our family is spending Christ
mas apart. My parents abandoned me and my brother for Fiji, where they’re celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. When they got married, my parents were poor graduate students who couldn’t afford a proper honeymoon vacation, so they’ve gone all out for their silver anniversary. It seems to me that wedding anniversaries are meant for their children to celebrate with them, but apparently I am the minority opinion on this one. According to everyone besides me, if my brother and I tag along on their vacation, it won’t be as “romantic.” I don’t see what’s so “romantic” about spending a week in a tropical paradise with your spouse whom you’ve already seen almost every day for the past quarter century. I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to be alone with me that much.

  My brother, Langston, said, “Lily, you don’t understand because you’ve never been in love. If you had a boyfriend, you’d understand.” Langston has a new boyfriend and all I understand from that is a sorry state of co-dependence.

  And it’s not entirely true that I’ve never been in love. I had a pet gerbil in first grade, Spazzy, whom I loved passionately. I will never stop blaming myself for bringing Spazzy to show-and-tell at school, where Edgar Thibaud let open his cage when I wasn’t looking and Spazzy met Jessica Rodriguez’s cat Tiger and, well, the rest is history. Goodwill to Spazzy up in gerbil heaven. Sorry sorry sorry. I stopped eating meat the day of the massacre, as penance for Spazzy. I’ve been a vegetarian since age six, all for the love of a gerbil.

  Since I was eight, I have been in literary love with the character Sport from Harriet the Spy. I’ve kept my own Harriet-style journal—red Moleskine notebooks that Grandpa buys me at the Strand—since I first read that book, only I don’t write mean observations about people in my journals like Harriet sometimes did. Mostly I draw pictures in it and write memorable quotes or passages from books I’ve read, or recipe ideas, or little stories I make up when I’m bored. I want to be able to show grown-up Sport that I’ve tried my darnedest not to make sport out of writing mean gossip and stuff.

  Langston has been in love. Twice. His first big romance ended so badly that he had to leave Boston after his freshman year of college and move back home till his heart could heal; the breakup was that bad. I hope I never love someone so much that they could hurt me the way Langston was hurt, so wounded all he could do was cry and mope around the house and ask me to make him peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off, then play Boggle with him, which of course I always did, because I usually do whatever Langston wants me to do. Langston eventually recovered and now he’s in love again. I think this new one’s okay. Their first date was at the symphony. How mean can a guy be who likes Mozart? I hope, at least.

  Unfortunately, now that Langston has a boyfriend again, he has forgotten all about me. He has to be with Benny all the time. To Langston, our parents and Grandpa being gone for Christmas is a gift, and not the outrage it is to me. I protested to Langston about him basically granting Benny a permanent state of residence in our house over the holidays. I reminded him that if Mom and Dad were going to be away at Christmas, and Grandpa would be at his winter apartment in Florida, then it was Langston’s responsibility to keep me company. I was there for him in his time of need, after all.

  But Langston repeated, “Lily, you just don’t understand. What you need is someone to keep you occupied. You need a boyfriend.”

  Well sure, who doesn’t need a boyfriend? But realistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. I go to an all-girls school, and meaning no disrespect to my sapphic sisters, but I have no interest in finding a romantic companion there. The rare boy creatures I do meet who aren’t either related to me or who aren’t gay are usually too attached to their Xboxes to notice me, or their idea of how a teenage girl should look and act comes directly from the pages of Maxim magazine or from the tarty look of a video game character.

  There’s also the problem of Grandpa. Many years ago, he owned a neighborhood family grocery store on Avenue A in the East Village. He sold the business but kept the corner block building, where he had raised his family. My family lives in that building now, along with Grandpa in the fourth-floor “penthouse” apartment, as he calls the converted space that was once an attic studio. There’s a sushi restaurant on the ground floor where the grocery store once was. Grandpa has presided over the neighborhood as it went from low-income haven for immigrant families to yuppie enclave. Everybody knows him. Every morning he joins his buddies at the local Italian bakery, where these huge, burly guys drink espresso from dainty little cups. The scene is very Sopranos meets Rent. It means that because everyone looks affectionately upon Grandpa, they’re all looking out for Grandpa’s pet—me, the baby of the family, the youngest of his ten grandchildren. The few local boys so far who’ve expressed an interest in me have all been quickly “persuaded” that I’m too young to date, according to Langston. It’s like I wear an invisible cloak of unavailability to cute boys when I walk around the neighborhood. It’s a problem.

  So Langston decided to make it his project to (1) give me a project to keep me occupied so he could have Benny all to himself over Christmas and (2) move that project to west of First Avenue, away from Grandpa’s protection shield. Langston took the latest red Moleskine notebook that Grandpa bought me and, together with Benny, mapped out a series of clues to find a companion just right for me. Or so they said. But the clues could not have been further removed from who I am. I mean, French pianism? Sounds possibly naughty. The Joy of Gay Sex? I’m blushing even thinking about that. Definitely naughty. Fat Hoochie Prom Queen? Please. I’d include hoochie as a most un-goodwill type of curse word. You’d never hear me utter the word, much less read a book with that word in its title.

  I thought the notebook was seriously Langston’s stupidest idea ever until Langston mentioned where he was going to leave it—at the Strand, the bookstore where our parents used to take us on Sundays and let us roam the aisles like it was our personal playground. Furthermore, he’d placed it next to my personal anthem book, Franny and Zooey. “If there’s a perfect guy for you anywhere,” Langston said, “he’ll be found hunting for old Salinger editions. We’ll start there.”

  If it had been a regular Christmas season, where my folks were around and our normal traditions carried on, I never would have agreed to Langston’s red notebook idea. But there was something so empty about the prospect of a Christmas Day without opening presents and other, less important forms of merrymaking. Truthfully, I’m not exactly a popularity magnet at school, so it wasn’t like I had alternate choices of companionship over the holidays. I needed something to look forward to.

  But I never thought anyone—much less a prospect from that highly coveted but extremely elusive Teenage Boy Who Actually Reads and Hangs Out at the Strand species—would actually find the notebook and respond to its dares. And just as I never thought my newly formed Christmas caroling society would abandon me after only two nights of street caroling to take up Irish drinking songs at a pub on Avenue B, I never thought someone would actually figure out Langston’s cryptic clues and return the favor.

  Yet there it was on my phone, a text from my cousin Mark confirming such a person might exist.

  Mark: Lily, you have a taker at the Strand. He left you something in return. I left it there for you in a brown envelope.

  I couldn’t believe it. I texted back: WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?!?!?

  Mark answered: Snarly. Hipster wannabe.

  I tried to imagine myself befriending a snarly hipster wannabe boy, and I couldn’t see it. I am a nice girl. A quiet girl (except for the caroling). I get good grades. I am the captain of my school’s soccer team. I love my family. I don’t know anything about what’s supposed to be “cool” in the downtown scene. I’m pretty boring and nerdy, actually, and not in the ironic hipster way. It’s like if you picture Harriet the Spy, eleven-year-old tomboy wunderkind spy, and then picture her a few years later, with boobs she hides under a school oxford uniform shirt that she w
ears even on non-school days, along with her brother’s discarded jeans, and add to her ensemble some animal pendant necklaces for jewelry, worn-out Chucks on her feet, and black-rimmed nerd glasses, then you’ve pictured me. Lily of the Field, Grandpa calls me sometimes, because everyone thinks I am so sweet and delicate.

  Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to venture to the darker side of the lily-white spectrum. Maybe.

  I sprinted over to the Strand to retrieve whatever the mysterious notebook taker had left behind for me. Mark was gone, but he’d scrawled a message on the envelope he’d left behind for me: Seriously, Lily. Dude snarls a lot.

  I ripped open the package, and … what?!?! Snarl had left me a copy of The Godfather, along with a delivery menu for Two Boots Pizza. The menu had dirty footprints embedded on it, indicating perhaps it had been on the floor at the Strand. To go along with the unsanitary theme, the book wasn’t even a new copy of The Godfather, but a tattered used copy that smelled like cigarette smoke and had pages that were crinkled and a binding that was at death’s door.

  I called Langston to decipher this nonsense. No answer. Now that our parents had messaged us that they’d arrived in Fiji paradise safely, Benny was probably officially moved in, the door to Langston’s room locked, his phone off.

  I had no choice but to go grab a slice and ponder the red notebook alone. What else could I do? When in doubt, ingest carbs.

  I went to the Two Boots location on the delivery menu, on Avenue A just above Houston. I asked the person at the counter, “Do you know a snarly boy who likes The Godfather?”

  “I wish I did,” the counter person said. “Plain or pepperoni?”

  “Calzone, please,” I said. Two Boots makes weird Cajun-flavored pizzas. Not for me and my sensitive digestive system.

  I sat at a corner booth and flipped through the book Snarl had left for me but could find no viable clues. Well, I thought, I guess this game is over as soon as it’s started. I was too Lily white to figure it out.