Rachel Cohn - The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily

There wasn’t enough cold outside, so instead I brought it inside and turned it on Dash, who didn’t deserve it.

“If you have to go, then go,” I said brusquely. Brusque . It was such a Dash word – obscure, unknowable, distant – that it felt strange I even knew it. Along with the other million obligations overwhelming me at the moment, there was SAT study time, which left an amaroidal taste in my mouth. (How could an SAT taker possibly be more prepared for university by knowing such a word? Right – not at all. Complete waste of word, complete waste of time, complete certainty I will still not achieve my parents’ hopes for my college admissions prospects by the addition of the word amaroidal to my vocabulary.)

“You don’t want me to stay, do you?” asked Dash, as if he was pleading for me not to demand his spending any additional time with my beleaguered Grandpa and my brother, who at best tolerates my boyfriend and at worst is downright rude to him. I’d feel bad about Langston and Dash’s animosity except it seems to be an enjoyable sport between them. If Lily was the subject on Jeopardy! , the answer would be, “She does not understand it at all ,” and the question would be, “What is the human male species?”

“I want you to do what you want to do,” I responded, but what I meant was: Stay, Dash. Please. This Christmas tree gift is so lovely and exactly what I didn’t know I needed – for the season, and from you. And even though I have a ton of other things I need to do right now, there’s nothing I want more than for you to decorate the tree with me. Or for you to sit on the sofa and watch me bedazzle it while you make snarky comments about pagan traditions misappropriated by Christianity. Just to have you near.

“Do you like the tree?” Dash asked, but he was already buttoning his pea coat, which was too heavy for such a warm day, and looking at his phone like there were text messages on it beckoning him to better places than at home with me.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I said, not willing to further profess my profuse thanks. I had only just started sorting through the decorations when Dash announced his intention to leave, and he did it at the exact moment that I opened the gift box from the Strand that Dash had given me last January 19, to celebrate author Patricia Highsmith’s birthday. Inside the box was a red and gold ornament with a sketch in black picturing Matt Damon as the Talented Mr Ripley. Who else but Dash would delight in a Christmas decoration displaying the face of a celebrated literary serial killer and give it to his girlfriend as a present? The present only made me adore Dash more. (The literary hero part, not the serial killer part.)

In February, I had placed the gift box in the Christmas decorations storage box with a sigh of great hope – that Dash and I would still be together when it was time to put the ornament on the tree. And we were. But our relationship was ephemeral (finally an SAT word that applied to my life). It didn’t feel real anymore. It felt more like an obligation that somehow had survived till now so we should at least see it through the holidays, because that’s where it started. Then we could stop pretending that what had initially felt so right and true now felt . . . still true, but definitely not right.

“Be good to Oscar,” said Boomer. He gave the tree a military salute.

“Who’s Oscar?” I asked.

“The tree!” Boomer said, like it was obvious and I had maybe offended Oscar by not knowing his name. “Come on, Dash, we don’t want to miss previews.”

“Where are you fellas going? How far’s the walk?” Grandpa asked them with a touch of desperation in his voice. Grandpa’s been mostly housebound since the heart attack and the fall. He doesn’t have much stamina for walking more than a block or two anymore, so he practically interrogates visitors about their outside activities. Grandpa’s not a guy used to having his wings clipped.

Really what Grandpa should have been asking Boomer and Dash was, How can you be so rude as to deliver this beautiful tree and then just leave before the tree – I mean, Oscar – is properly decorated? What kind of uncouth urchins are you kids nowadays?

“We’re seeing a movie that starts in twenty minutes,” said Dash. His face didn’t look remotely guilty, despite the fact that he hadn’t invited me.

“What movie?” I asked. If Dash was going to see the one movie I was dying to see without me, then that would be the last sign I needed that he and I really were not connecting anymore and maybe we needed an official break. I’d been counting the days till holiday vacation so I could see Corgi & Bess, and I’d probably see it at least five times in the theater if I could find the time. Helen Mirren as a centenarian Queen Elizabeth with a supposedly fantastic animatronic corgi at the side of her walker at all times until an unfortunate fireworks display causes the corgi to run off, and frail old Bess and her walker have to find the corgi somewhere on the grounds of the enchanted Balmoral Castle, with countless adventures along the way for both queen and pup? Yes, please! Count me in, repeated viewings, IMAX and 3D! I’d seen the trailer enough times to already know it was my favorite movie of the year, but I’d been holding out hope that Dash would give me a date night first-time viewing of it as my Christmas present. Not just the movie – but the time with him.

“We’re seeing The Naughty and the Mice !” Boomer told Grandpa in the way Boomer had of delivering even the most basic information with an exclamation mark.

To me, Dash said, “I didn’t think you’d want to come, so I didn’t ask if you wanted a ticket.” Dash was right. I didn’t want to see the movie because I’d already seen it. I thought The Naughty and the Mice was derivative, but Edgar Thibaud loved the Pixar movie about speed demon attic mice who drag-race Matchbox cars when the house’s family is asleep.

I didn’t tell Dash I’d already seen The Naughty and the Mice, because I had gone to the movie with Edgar Thibaud. It wasn’t like me hanging out with Edgar was a big secret – Dash knew that Edgar also volunteered (court-ordered) at Grandpa’s rehabilitation center – but I’d neglected to mention that occasionally he and I hung out after hours. Usually just for a coffee, but this was the first time he and I had gone anywhere beyond a café. I didn’t know why I went. I didn’t even like Edgar Thibaud that much. Well, I liked him fine enough for a scoundrel who was responsible for the death of my pet gerbil in kindergarten. I just didn’t trust him. Maybe Edgar was my stealth side-rehabilitation project, Grandpa being my primary and only truly important one. I wanted to help mold Edgar into a good guy, despite the odds, and if seeing a movie with a girl with the full knowledge that she had nothing beyond a platonic interest in him might evolve Edgar, I could make the effort. I told myself that I’d been so busy the last several months, I needed the relief of a dark time-out in a movie theater, even if it was a movie I didn’t care about with a person I barely cared about. If I’d seen the movie with Dash, I would have been preoccupied the whole time, wondering, Is he going to kiss me now? If not, why not? With Edgar, all I wondered was, Is he going to ask me to pay for his popcorn?

“Have fun,” I said, and I managed to sound chipper, trying to be a good sport. I could never stay cold to Dash for long. But Dash’s leaving stung, like he’d given me the most fabulous gift only to prematurely snatch it away.

“Oh, we will!” Boomer promised, so anxious to leave he was hurriedly walking backward toward the door, which caused him to bump into a side table with enough force that the lamp on the table crashed to the floor. It was a minor crash – only the lightbulb broke – but the noise was enough to wake the beast that had been napping in my room. Boris, my dog, came racing into the living room and immediately pinned Boomer to the floor.