The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(32)

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. The 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 w*, 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.”