by Rachel Cohn
Friday, December 19th
“Do you see that?” I said. But of course Lily saw the swan. Carefully, we approached. It was now cold enough for us to wear gloves. Now I took her gloved hand in mine.
“What is it doing here?” she asked.
“A little lost?” I offered. “Or maybe it just wanted to see the Bergdorf windows like everyone else on Fifth Avenue.”
The swan saw us. It glided across the surface of the unfrozen pond, beholding us with a cold curiosity.
Lily disengaged her hand so she could take a picture.
But before she could, it began to sing.
Thursday, December 18th
The song ended. I still held on. At least for an extra moment. Then it was awkward, since Thibaud was stranding us without a new song.
“I take it back,” Lily said.
But the thing was: She didn’t sound certain.
I let her take it back anyway.
The only problem with taking something back?
It’s still inside there somewhere.
Friday, December 19th
The swan began to sing, and it wasn’t a honk or a squawk or a dirge. It had a tune. It was something between a lament and a hosanna.
When it was done, I applauded. Because I was wearing gloves, it didn’t make much of a sound.
Lily looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s going to die. It sings a beautiful song…and then it dies.”
“That’s just a phrase,” I assured her.
The swan went back to ignoring us. It went back to swimming. It stayed afloat.
Saturday, December 20th
The next morning, Lily went missing again.
Saturday, December 20th
You’re missing again, said the text from my brother.
I didn’t answer.
I’m staying at Benny’s tonight. We’re planning our new apartment and I’m not going out searching for you.
I still didn’t answer.
I see the dot dot dot. I know you see this message.
“Stalker Brother,” a new movie-by-text, streaming now on iMessage.
This is getting annoying, Lily Bear. You’re crossing that fine line from adorable to obnoxious.
Said by every adult to every teenager, ever.
My brother was ready to move into his own apartment. He was one of them now.
I rolled my eyes and turned off my phone.
I wasn’t missing.
I was lost.
—
Five days before Christmas, and excitement should have been building, but all I felt was doom and gloom. I’d yet to bake my favorite lebkuchen cookies, wander the holiday stalls in Union Square, go ice-skating in Central Park—numbers two, six, and eight in my top-ten favorite holiday traditions that herald the arrival of the Great Present Exchange (number one, obviously) of December 25. I hadn’t even made a wish list of what I wanted. I hadn’t joined my caroling society for singing excursions—and I was the founding member of the group.
I had been intervened about my Christmas blues, making me only bluer.
My grandpa had decamped for his sister’s house with his cat, and I had let him, without running after him to beg him to stay with us, or begging for his forgiveness for worrying him when I disappeared to Staten Island, or at least insisting he leave the cat with me.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Dash knows how I hate seeing animals suffer, and yet I didn’t tell him how upsetting I thought our visit with the swan in the park had been. Like, I wanted to be sick about it afterward, but I said nothing to Dash at the end of our walk besides “See ya later, I guess.” We just were not connecting, and I couldn’t fake it any longer. I had to get away.
“You’re getting everything wrong.” Dash’s words repeated in my head like the earworm of that mean guy calling Alviiiiiin the chipmunk to attention.
“You’re getting everything wrong.”
Alviiiiiin!
“You’re getting everything wrong.”
Alviiiiiin!
Please, Lily’s brain. BE QUIET.
I was almost irritated enough to turn my phone back on to correct Langston, to remind him I have a dog, and dogs I walk, and I would never willfully go missing on them. I might ignore the people in my life, but I would never disregard my responsibilities to my fur babies. Boris had not only been walked early this morning. I’d taken him for a long run and play at the off-leash dog park all the way over on Randall’s Island, which required two very expensive taxi rides because the New York City Transit Authority says pets are only allowed on public transportation if they are “enclosed in a container and carried in a manner which would not annoy other passengers.” The first part Boris could handle; the second part he could not. So now there are two very not-happy taxi drivers because of large Boris’s small farting and slobbering problem, and the exchange of smelly and wet dollar bills from my purse, which Boris had been sitting on during the rides. But Boris was so tired out from the excursion, he would be sleeping for the rest of the day and not even notice I was gone, so why was my brother worried if I wasn’t home and didn’t tell him where I’d gone?
And seriously, if my family just checked with my dog-walking clients, who received dutiful texts this morning letting them know I was not available today, along with a list of alternate, responsible dog walkers, they’d know I was not missing. Missing implies unintentional gone-away-ness. Like when a girl mistakenly ingests hallucinogenic gingerbread men and then her intentional day away turns into legit overnight missing.
Maybe that’s my real problem. Not that I’m lost but that possibly now I’m an addict, craving more and more wild experiences. Danger. Risk. More Jahna, less Lily.
I sighed, and could see my breath in the cold air of the train car. Freezing winter had finally arrived, but the mean kind. Bitter, single-digit temps that kept the train moving slowly because of signal problems, and kept the few people on the barely heated train huddling under their down coats, tying their scarves tightly across their heads and necks and rubbing their gloved hands together. Nobody talked; they just teeth-chattered and shivered.
The air felt as cold as my heart. I looked out the window at the afternoon sun, beaming brightly, as if to say, Here I am, your master of light, so big and powerful that I can radiate no warmth whatsoever if I so choose, and just to be spiteful, I’m going to block any possibility of snow to go along with this frigid cold. Who owns winter? I own winter, that’s who. Suck it, humans of the northeast Atlantic!
I wanted to cry but was afraid the tears would freeze on my face. Dash was right. I was getting everything wrong. I couldn’t read him at all, and I couldn’t even break up with him convincingly, because I was a neurotic mess who loved him too much to insist he let me go, for both our sakes.
The train pulled into its next stop. At first I thought I had imagined it, so I took my glasses off and cleaned them with a tissue and put them back on. Indeed, the sign on the Metro-North platform said PLEASANTVILLE. That was really a place? And if so, why were an army of noisy, angry, drunken Santas getting on? I mean, every kind of Santa—male, female, young, old, fat, skinny, from fully dressed Santas with long white beards to practically naked, almost-a-stripper Santas. More disturbingly, the Santas were followed by a group of carousing carolers tossing hooch flasks to each other as they sang a ditty I know for a fact was not true to the era of the singers’ Victorian costumes.
The kids cry
The reindeers lie
Only the missus knows why
And Santa can’t feel his face
Enough with that song already. It’s worse than Alviiiiiin. So disrespectful. And catchy!
The train conductor entered behind the crowd surge and announced, “Next stop, Chappaqua!” When none of the embarking passengers budged, he said, louder, “Anyone who thinks they’re on the train to Manhattan should know that train is on the other platform.” Still, no one exited. T
he train conductor tried one more time. “This is not the Manhattan train. Unless you’re going upstate, you oughta get off now. Last call, Wassaic.” The Santas and carolers settled into seats. “Damn,” the train conductor said, and left the car.
A late-middle-aged male caroler dressed in a Victorian-era suit and top hat sat down next to me. He tipped his top hat to me. “Merry Christmas, darlin’. I’m Wassail from Wassaic.” His breath smelled like Jack Daniel’s from Tennessee (and not the fancy Sinatra Century Limited Edition variety).
I wasn’t sure if he was teasing about his name, and it’s hard to get a straight answer from straight-up drunks. So while the train conductor had made it pretty clear, I tried also. I wasn’t so lost that I wasn’t fully aware what today was. Trying to be helpful, I told Wassail from Wassaic, “If you’re going to SantaCon, you need to be on the train going to Manhattan. On the other platform.”
My seatmate scoffed. “We were on the train to Grand Central, a coupla hours ago. We got kicked off in Mount Kisco.”
“But this is Pleasantville.”
“Isn’t it? We barhopped our way down here, and then decided to try again going to the city. But a little fight erupted between the Santas and the carolers—lots of gang warfare this year, sorry to say. And the grand marshal in charge of the Wassaic brigade decided it was better to abandon our mission altogether.”
“Better to end up passed out on Metro-North than wake up in jail in the city?” I asked him.
“Ah, yer a pretty and smart sassy lassie,” he said, looking and sounding more like a lecherous Irish leprechaun than a chivalrous Victorian English gentleman.
A goth lady Santa with a pierced lip, tunneled ears, and black spiked hair popped her head up from the seat in front of us. She pointed at my seatmate. “Don’t be a wasshole, Wassail,” she said. “Don’t hit on a child!”
“I’m doing no such thing!” Wassail said, indignant.
“You are!” said a platoon of Santas in our perimeter.
“I’m not a child,” I mumbled.
I didn’t want the gang warfare to spiral out of control, so at long last, the childish Lily from the days of yore emerged from her holiday-resistance stupor. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was carol her way out of trouble.
I sang, Here we come a-wassailing / Among the leaves so green!
Goth Santa shot devil eyes at me, but the Victorian carolers immediately picked up the song. Here we come a-wand’ring / So fair to be seen.
I mean, it was impossible not to feel the mood change, from drunk and cold and restless, to drunk and cold and verging on festive.
At least half the train car—including many Santas—joined in. Love and joy come to you / And to you your wassail, too, / And God bless you, and send you / A Happy New Year.
Wassail from Wassaic stood up and bowed at the end of the verse, like it had been written just for him.
No one continued singing after the second verse. Old Lily—aka Third-Verse Lily—might have continued on anyway but was silenced by a Victorian gown-wearing lady whose bonnet had just been yanked off her head, who delivered a sudden, epic slap to the red face of a portly Santa wearing angel wings on his back.
“Can Santa feel his face now?” Vicky shrieked at fat Santa angel.
“Fight! Fight!” the drunks chanted.
I’m all for drunk people, but the jolly kind, not the contentious kind.
I really wanted my mommy.
—
I emerged from the train at the end of the line in Wassaic. Wassail from Wassaic and his not-merry band of SantaCon artists and raucous carolers did not follow me off the train. They’d been kicked out at Katonah.
My mother was waiting in the parking lot, shivering inside her rental car. “Your train was an hour late.”
“The bitter cold weather is causing delays,” I said. “And some drunken Santas that had to be kicked off the train.”
“Was SantaCon today?” Mom said. I nodded. “Good day to be gone from the city. Like the streets aren’t packed enough at this time of the year. They were cute at first. Now they’re nuisances.”
I saw the ends of a cocktail dress peeking from beneath Mom’s long, heavy coat, and she wore fancy high-heeled shoes on her feet. I knew Mom had more important places she was supposed to be, but I was having an existential crisis. I needed her more. “Thanks for meeting me at such short notice. You didn’t say anything to Dad or Langston, right?”
Mom shook her head. She couldn’t outright say no to my question, because we’d both know she was lying, like when she swore to me she hadn’t told them when I got my first bra and my first period, but she totally had. Mom said, “I’ve got an hour, tops. Dad’s entertaining financial donors now, so I don’t need to be there for that, but I have to get back in time for the start of the faculty party, if I still want to be married by the end of it. So unless you want to come with me and be paraded around as the headmaster’s daughter, I’m going to have to put you back on the train to Manhattan in an hour.”
“I understand.” Along with all my other faults of late, I was wasting my mother’s lovely party dress and face on sitting in a car with sullen me. “You look very pretty.” My mother usually goes for the yoga-pants-and-loose-shirts-with-unbrushed-hair-pulled-back-in-a-bun look, but when she puts on some mascara and lipstick and blows out her hair, it’s like, Wow, Mom, you’re a babe!
“Thank you. I got you this.” Mom handed me a paper coffee cup that had a molasses cookie on top of it.
“It’s coffee? This cup is cold.” She was being so nice to me when I didn’t deserve it, so I don’t know why I was acting so whiny besides that I was having an existential crisis and I’m just moody and awful.
“It’s supposed to be. Before your train pulled in, there was a hipster coffee truck parked across the street. They were making holiday-themed drinks for the passengers headed into the city. I got their last two gingerbread lattes before they closed up.”
“Where’s yours?”
“It was so good I finished it in about one minute flat. Say what you will about hipsters, but those suspender-wearing beardies really know how to pull an artisanal brew.”
“It looks weird for a latte,” I said, suspiciously eyeing the creamy dollop in the cup.
“Stop pouting and just try it. ‘Latte’ is a misnomer. It’s actually an ice-cream shake made with espresso mixed with some kind of vanilla ice cream, with bits of malted milk balls and candied ginger pieces mixed in.”
Sold! I dunked the cookie into the drink and then took a bite. “Oh my god! This is possibly the best drink I’ve ever had in my life.” I silently included in that calculation the one time I got drunk last year on peppermint schnapps, which tasted like a peppermint patty in a beverage. Heaven. This gingerbread latte was heaven, squared. “You’re the best, Mom.”
“Is that a smile I see on your face? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, so I’m not sure.”
I gulped down the remainder of the latte, not caring if the rush of the consumption would give me an ice-cream headache. I licked my lips. “Smiling!” I said. Add to my list of mental woes: My moods could swing violently from sulking to delirious with the right infusion of sugar.
Teenage hormones. I don’t know. They’re exhausting trying to monitor.
Mom said, “If I’d known all it took was a gingerbread latte, I’d have hunted down that coffee truck a long time ago.” She worriedly looked at the time on the car dashboard, and then her face turned serious. “So what’s going on, Lily? You’ve got my full attention until the 2:37. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about me, too.”
She placed her hands over the car heater, and then pressed her warmed hands on my cold cheeks. They felt so good. “Tell me, sweetheart. Is this about Langston moving? Or Dad and me possibly moving up here? Or Grandpa? You understand that heart attack victims often get depressed and angry as they recover? He’s not himself anymore.”
“I’m upset a
bout all that. But no.”
“So we’re not the center of your life anymore?” she asked gently.
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
“Ah,” said Mom. “Dashiell.”
Moms always know.
“I tried to break up with him. He said no!”
“Really? That’s a surprise.” I wasn’t sure if she was surprised I’d want to break up with him or that he’d refused me. “What did you say to him?”
“I said, ‘I think we should break up.’ ”
“Doesn’t sound like a convincing breakup directive to me. What did Dash say to that?”
“He said no, and that I was getting everything wrong. But he didn’t say what exactly.”
“I don’t understand. Why’d you want to break up with him in the first place? I know the men in our family try not to like him despite themselves, but I think he seems lovely. And pretty devoted to you.”
“That’s the problem!” I felt the cold, bitter tears forming in my eyes, and I didn’t care if they froze my face. They needed to come out. “Dash likes. I…love.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom wiped the tears from my face and pulled me to her for a hug. “Did you tell him that?”
“I tried. Once. It was like he didn’t hear me. And he never said it back. And it hurts so much to love someone who doesn’t love you back, Mom!” It was such a relief to just say it out loud. Already I felt better, despite how bruised my heart was.
“Honey, I know you’re hurting, but think about it. Is saying ‘I love you’ really what defines a relationship? It’s the actions, not the words.”
“But Dash is a man of words!”
Mom’s face reflected the bitter truth of my comment. “That’s true,” she admitted. “But how do you know he doesn’t feel the same way about you? Maybe he thinks you already know. It seems obvious to everyone else.”
I knew she was just saying that to make me feel better. It was nice. I appreciated her comfort, even though it was misguided. “I can’t talk to him about it!”
“But why not? He’s your boyfriend. I don’t understand.”
It took a moment to finally admit the real truth. “Because then he’ll just see what a clingy, insecure mess I am.”