Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (15 page)

I was completely disarmed.

Sofia smiled and handed over the book. Its cover screamed
LORCA!
Literally, that was the title:
LORCA!
Which wasn’t very
SUBTLE!
I started to thumb through.

“Oh, look,” I said. “It’s poetry! And in a language I don’t speak!”

“I know you’ll go out and buy a translation, just to make me believe you’ve read it.”

“Touché. Absolutely true.”

“But really, it’s just a book that means a lot to me. He is a beautiful writer. And I think you’d like him.”

“You’ll have to give me Spanish lessons.”

She laughed. “Just like you gave me English lessons?”

“Why did you just laugh?”

She shook her head. “No, it was sweet when you did that. Well, sweet
and
condescending.”

“Condescending?”

She began to mimic my voice—inadequately, but enough so that I knew she was mimicking my voice. “ ‘What, you don’t know what a
pizza bagel
is? Do you need me to explain the derivation of the word
derivation
? Is everything
copacetic
—I mean,
all right
?’ ”

“I never said that. I never said any of that.”

“Maybe, maybe not. That’s just how it felt. To me.”

“Wow,” I said. “You could’ve said something.”

“I know. But it wasn’t my thing, to ‘say something.’ And I liked that you never minded explaining things. I felt there was a lot that needed to be explained to me.”

“And now?”

“Not as much.”

“Why?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Sofia sighed and sat down on the bed.

“I fell in love. It didn’t work out.”

I sat down next to her.

“All in the past three months?”

She nodded. “Yes, all in the past three months.”

“You didn’t mention …”

“In my emails? No. He didn’t want me talking to you at all, not to mention talking to you about
him
.”

“I was such a threat?”

She shrugged. “I exaggerated you a little at first. To make him jealous. It worked in making him jealous, but didn’t work so much in making him love me more.”

“Was that why you didn’t tell me you were coming?”

She shook her head. “No. I only knew I was coming last week. I convinced my parents I missed New York so much that they had to take me here for the holidays.”

“But really, you wanted to get away from him?”

“No, that wouldn’t work. I just thought it would be nice to see people. Anyway, what about you? Are you in love with anybody?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Ah. Then there
is
someone.
The Joy of Gay Sex
?”

“Yes,” I said. “But not in the way you’re thinking.”

So I told her. About the notebook. About Lily. Sometimes I looked at her while I was talking. Sometimes I was talking to the room, to my hands, to the air. It was too much at once to be so close to Sofia, yet also trying to conjure some closeness to Lily.

“Oh my,” Sofia said when I was through. “You think you’ve finally found the girl in your head.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like most guys, you carry around this girl in your head, who is exactly who you want her to be. The person you think you will love the most. And every girl you are with gets measured against this girl in your head. So this girl with the red notebook—it makes sense. If you never meet her, she never has to get measured. She can be the girl in your head.”

“You make it sound like I don’t want to get to know her.”

“Of course you want to get to know her. But at the same time, you want to feel like you already know her. That you will know her instantly. Such a fairy tale.”

“A fairy tale?”

Sofia smiled at me. “You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here’s a hint—ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn’t just the women. It’s the great male fantasy—all it takes is one dance to know that she’s the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know—this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don’t want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately.”

She actually put her hand on my leg and squeezed. “You see, Dash—I was never the girl in your head. And you were never the boy in my head. I think we both knew that. It’s only when we try to make the girl or boy in our head real that the true trouble comes. I did that with Carlos, and it was a bad failure. Be careful what you’re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head.”

“Wishful thinking,” I said.

Sofia nodded. “Yes. You should never wish for wishful thinking.”

ten
(Lily)

December 26th

“You’re grounded.”

Grandpa stared at me in all seriousness. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Grandpas give out dollar bills and bicycles and hugs. They don’t give punishments to grandchildren! Everybody knows that.

Grandpa had unexpectedly driven back to NYC, all day and night, all the way from Florida! Once he got home, he immediately went looking for me and my brother to check on us, only to find my brother passed out in bed, lost under a sea of blankets and snotty tissues, and worse, his Lily Bear not only not upstairs in her Lily pad but nowhere to be found in her own family’s apartment.

Luckily, I arrived home around three-thirty in the morning, within minutes of Grandpa’s discovery of my disappearance. He’d only had enough time to nearly have a heart attack, and to search for me inside every closet and cabinet in the
apartment. Before Grandpa had a chance to call the police, along with my parents and several thousand other relatives to instigate a full-on worldwide panic, I waltzed in the door, still breathless and flushed from the night’s club scene excitement.

Grandpa’s first words to me when he caught sight of me were not “Where have you been?” That came second. First was “Why are you only wearing one boot? And dear God, is that my sister’s old majorette boot from high school on your foot?” He spoke from the kitchen floor in my apartment, where he was lying down, trying to determine, I believe, if I was hiding beneath the sink.

“Grandpa!” I cried out. I ran to smother him in day after Christmas kisses. I was so happy to see him, and exhilarated from the night out, despite how I’d ended it by sacrificing one of my great-aunt’s shoes to the gumshoes and neglecting to return the notebook for Snarl.

Grandpa wasn’t having my affection. He turned his cheek to me, then went for the “you’re-grounded routine.” When I failed to meet his pronouncement with fear, he frowned and demanded, “Where have you been? It’s four in the morning!”

“Three-thirty,” I corrected him. “It’s three-thirty in the morning.”

“You’re in a world of trouble, young lady,” he said.

I giggled.

“I’m serious!” he said. “You’d better have a good explanation.”

Well, I’ve been corresponding with a complete stranger in a notebook, telling him my innermost feelings and thoughts and then blindly going to mystery places where he dares me to go…
.

No, that wouldn’t go over so well.

For the first time in my life, I lied to Grandpa.

“This friend from my soccer team had a party where her band played a Hanukkah show. I went to hear them.”

“THIS MUSIC REQUIRES YOU TO GET HOME AT FOUR IN THE MORNING?”

“Three-thirty,” I said again. “It’s, like, a religious thing. The band’s not allowed to play before midnight on the night after Christmas Day.”

“I see,” Grandpa said skeptically. “And don’t you have a curfew, young lady?”

The invocation not once, but twice, of the dreaded
young lady
term of endearment should have put me on high fear alert, but I was too giddy from the night’s adventures to care.

“I’m pretty sure my curfew is suspended on holidays,” I said. “Like alternate side of the street parking rules.”

“LANGSTON!” Grandpa yelled. “GET IN HERE!”

It took a few minutes, but my brother finally moped into the kitchen, trailing a comforter, looking like he’d been woken from a coma.

“Grandpa!” Langston wheezed, surprised. “What are you doing home?” I knew Langston was relieved now to be sick, because if he wasn’t, Benny would surely have spent the night, and overnight companions of the romantic sort have not yet been authorized by the designated authority figures. Langston and I both would have been busted.

“Never mind me,” Grandpa said. “Did you allow Lily to go out on Christmas night to hear her friend’s music?”

Langston and I shared a knowing glance: Our secrets needed to stay just that, secrets. I initiated our covert code
from childhood, batting my eyelids up and down, so Langston would know to confirm what had just been asked of him.

“Yes,” Langston coughed. “Since I’m sick, I wanted Lily to go out and try to have some fun on the holiday. The band was playing in, like, the basement of someone’s brownstone on the Upper West Side. I arranged a car service to take her home. Totally safe, Grandpa.”

Quick thinking for a sickie. Sometimes I really love my brother.

Grandpa eyed the two of us suspiciously, not sure whether he’d been caught in a siblings’ web of deceit and got-your-back-yo.

“Go to bed,” Grandpa barked. “Both of you. I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

“Why
are
you home, Grandpa?” I asked.

“Never mind. Go to bed.”

I couldn’t fall asleep after the klezmer night, so I wrote in the notebook instead.

I’m sorry I didn’t return our notebook to you. It was such a simple task, I mean. Yet I botched it. Why I’m writing to you now even though I have no idea how to return this to you, I don’t know. There’s just something about you—and this notebook—that gives me faith
.

Were you even at the club tonight? At first I thought you might have been one of those gumshoe boys, but I quickly realized that was impossible. For one thing, those boys seemed too upbeat. It’s not that I imagine you to be a miserable person, by the way. But I don’t see you as the grinning type, either. Also, I feel like I would have known, like a sensory perception, if you had been standing there near me. For
another thing, even though I don’t know how to picture you yet (every time I try, you seem to be holding up a red Moleskine notebook to cover your face), I have a solid feeling you don’t have hair ringlets dangling from your temples. Just a hunch. (But if you do, could I braid them sometime?)

So I left you with a boot and no notebook. Or, rather, I left it with two complete strangers
.

You don’t feel like a stranger to me
.

I’ll be wearing the spare boot at all times, just in case you happen to be looking for me
.

Cinderella was such a dork. She left behind her glass slipper at the ball and then went right back to her stepmonster’s house. It seems to me she should have worn the glass slipper always, to make herself easier to find. I always hoped that after the prince found Cinderella and they rode away in their magnificent carriage, after a few miles she turned to him and said, “Could you drop me off down the road, please? Now that I’ve finally escaped my life of horrific abuse, I’d like to see something of the world, you know? Maybe backpack across Europe or Asia? I’ll catch back up with you later, Prince, once I’ve found my own way. Thanks for finding me, though! Super-sweet of you. And you can keep the slippers. They’ll probably cause bunions if I keep wearing ’em.”

I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say
.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of the day after Christmas could keep Grandpa from meeting his buddies for coffee the following afternoon.

I went along, feeling like Grandpa needed the moral support.

While Grandpa was in Florida, where he usually spends the winters, he had indeed proposed on Christmas Day to Mabel, who lives in his complex down there. I have never liked Mabel. Aside from her always telling me and my brother to call her Glamma, her list of step grandmother-to-be infractions is long. Here’s just a sampling: (1) The candies in the bowl in her living room are always stale. (2) She tries to put lipstick or rouge on me even though I don’t like makeup. (3) She’s a terrible cook. (4) Her vegetarian lasagna, which she made sure to mention a million times she made because I’m such a pain that I won’t eat meat, tastes like glue with grated zucchini. (5) She kind of makes me want to barf. (6) So does her lasagna. (7) And the candies in her living room.

Shockingly, Mabel turned down Grandpa’s proposal! I thought
my
Christmas morning had been sucky—but Grandpa’s had been way worse. When Grandpa presented her with a ring, Mabel told Grandpa she likes the single life and likes having Grandpa as her winter fella, but she’s got other fellas during the rest of the year, just like he has other gals during the non-winter months! She told him to get his money back for the ring and use it to take her on a swell vacation somewhere grand.

Grandpa never imagined she would turn down his proposal, so rather than consider the logic of Mabel’s answer, he typically returned home to New York a few hours later, totally heartbroken! Especially when he came home to find his sweet little Lily bear was out having a wild night on the town. Like, in twenty-four hours, his whole world turned upside down.

It’s good for the old fella, I think.

However, Grandpa seems, like, genuinely depressed. So that afternoon, I stayed close to Grandpa’s side as he met with his buddies, all of them retired business owners from around the neighborhood who’ve been meeting regularly for coffee since my mom was a baby, so they could weigh in with their opinions about Grandpa’s Christmas misadventure. Most of his buddies’ names are complicated and involve many syllables, so Langston and I have always referred to them by the names of their former businesses.