The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(17)

“I’ll never find it,” Edgar Thibaud whined. “Come help me.”

“I’ll send you a link. I have to get to school.” I sighed. “Even though I don’t wanna go.”

“So don’t,” Edgar said, and hung up on me.

For once, Edgar was right. I was always such a good girl. I got good grades and I tried to take care of everyone and I never missed class or soccer practice or dog-walking appointments or SAT-prep class or volunteer work. I ate a lot of carbs like pizza and bagels but threw vegetables on them when I remembered, and if enough cheese was involved. I didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or do anything too naughty with Dash. I never even said the f-word.

“FUCK!” I yelled. Wow, that felt good. So I said it again. “Fuck, f*ck, f*ck!” Boris placed his paws over his ears again and refused to look at me.

I sent a quick message to that afternoon’s dog-walking clients that I was sick and couldn’t tend to their dogs today, along with the contact info for my dog-walking subs. Then I threw my phone on my bed so no one could text or email or call or FaceTime or tag me so I could be whoever I wanted to be today, without distraction or electronic intervention. I hastily left the apartment before I lost my courage to wander the city phoneless, like in olden days.

—

I had no plan for where I’d go, so I just walked. Roaming the streets of Manhattan on foot has always been one of my favorite ways to find inspiration. There’s so much to see and smell (not all of it pleasant, except this time of year, which smells of roasted cashews, crisp air, and gingerbread lattes). It was impossible not to feel exhilarated on a day like today, so sunny and warm, which was annoying for December, but also helpful since I was outside walking and the stores were decorated for the holidays and there was a palpable sense of cheer among my fellow pedestrians.

Truth: There wasn’t actually a palpable sense of cheer, but I decided to pretend there was, in hopes the holiday cheer would seep into my troubled soul.

“Don’t be such a coddled bird,” Langston had said to me this morning after I burst into tears when he said he was moving and I said I wasn’t ready for him to go, especially if that meant my parents thought their eldest leaving the nest opened the door for them to kidnap their youngest to Connecticut. Hah! Coddled bird. It was the name Langston sometimes teased me with, because of the framed picture on our living room mantelpiece picturing Grandpa holding five-year-old me in front of that year’s Christmas tree, with his sister, Mrs. Basil E., on one side of us, and his twin brothers, Great-Uncle Sal and Great-Uncle Carmine, standing on his other side. In the photo, the siblings are holding beers, their mouths open but not about to drink, because they were serenading their little girl with a Christmas carol. Whenever Langston gets annoyed with our relatives for babying me too much (because I am the youngest of all the grandchildren and, I’m told, the most delightful), he’ll look at that picture of the four siblings serenading their baby girl and, to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” will sing out, “Four coddle birds” instead of “four calling birds.” Who even knows what the fudge—I mean, f*ck!—calling birds are.

I know I am an overprotected, coddled bird, but I’d like to evolve past that. I mean, not to the extent that I don’t get generous birthday cash, but a certain amount of independence would be healthy.

I’d walked so far west from the East Village that I’d reached Seventh Avenue and Fourteenth. The universe had obviously landed me at the 1 train station for a reason. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I hopped the 1 downtown and took it to the end of the line at South Ferry, where I got onto the Staten Island Ferry.

Grandpa isn’t one of just four coddle bird siblings. They also have one rogue tribesman: Great-Uncle Rocco, their other brother, who no one talks to except when they have to, because he’s not very nice, and he lives in that outer, outer borough known as Staten Island. He might as well live in Connecticut for how far away Staten Island felt. Nobody likes Great-Uncle Rocco, and the feeling is mutual. I always made it my mission to like him, because somebody has to like the people no one else likes or the world would just be hopeless. And the best way to extract holiday cheer, I’ve found, is to spend some time with the most curmudgeonly person you know, and their grump can’t help but force you into feeling good, because it gives you perspective and balance. Maybe that’s why I love—I mean, very much like—Dash so much.

Maybe I should have corralled Dash for Lily’s Day Off, but everything we did together lately seemed to lead to disaster. A lone, rogue trip to Staten Island was probably a safer bet.

My mom calls the Staten Island Ferry “the poor-woman’s cruise,” and I could see why. For just the cost of a MetroCard swipe, travel grandeur was achieved. As the boat pushed forward, I marveled at the convergence of rivers and city skyline, and felt my mood immediately brighten. I waved hello to the Statue of Liberty and, as always, worried about Lady Liberty. Her arm must get so tired. I wish she could switch arms sometimes to give the one holding up the torch some relief. Her torch arm is probably way buff, though. Don’t mess with her, bad guys.

I was surprised how much I reveled in the aloneness of the day. I so rarely spend time with just myself. The coddle birds who coddled me were probably right. I was delightful, at least on a day like today, with no phone to trap me, no responsibilities, alone with my thoughts and the wonder of the water. It was almost Christmas! I could feel the organic inklings of excitement as I remembered one of the poems Mom used to read to us at this time of year, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.