The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(43)

“You don’t even eat fish?” asked Mrs. Basil E. I will never understand why meat eaters always ask that question when I say I’m a vegetarian. If she next asked where I got my protein, I’d be tempted to toss my plate at the wall like the ungrateful-but-sick-of-that-question not–Lily Bear that I am.

“No, I don’t eat fish,” I said sweetly.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” said Mrs. Basil E. “No use wasting this glory on your dull palate.”

She placed an additional slice of lox on Grandpa’s bagel. “Good!” said Grandpa between bites.

“And she’s no longer our bear,” Mrs. Basil E. said to Grandpa. They shook their heads sadly. “Is this your doing?” Mrs. Basil E. asked Dash.

Dash said, “I had nothing to do with it. Lily’s been a vegetarian since kindergarten.”

Mrs. Basil E. gasped. “No one ever told me!”

I’ve told her a million times. I’ve been to vegetarian restaurants with her. She’s sharp as a tack, my great-aunt—but, like Grandpa, she’s getting more forgetful. It’s worrisome. Right then I made up my mind. If my parents moved to Connecticut, I’d accept Mrs. Basil E.’s invitation to live at her house, with her and Grandpa. They needed me. Five stories of townhouse was more than enough room for us all. And Boris. Five stories of stairs would be a problem for Grandpa. But we’d figure out a way to keep him mobile.

Dash said, “The bagels are delicious.”

“Of course they are,” said Mrs. Basil E. “I don’t trifle with subpar carbs.”

“So how can we help you with your Christmas party?” Dash asked Mrs. Basil E.

“You show up,” she said, like it was obvious.

“I thought you asked us here because you need our help. We’d be glad to help,” Dash offered.

“I hire help for my parties, young man.” She looked at him, then at me, then back at Dash again. “So, it’s love now?”

“One-year anniversary!” I said proudly. A lark of a red Moleskine dare had led me to this wondrous boy. Now here we were a year later. Stronger than ever. Love officially declared.

“Hand me the list, brother,” Mrs. Basil E. said to Grandpa.

Grandpa reached into his pocket and extracted a folded piece of paper, which he handed to Mrs. Basil E. She unfolded the paper and pressed down the creases to straighten it, and then she handed the piece of paper to Dash. “If you’re to be official with Lily, here is the list of holidays, in descending order of importance. My Christmas-night party is at the top, obviously.”

I couldn’t believe Dash had gotten a copy of the List. Usually prospective members of our family didn’t get it until they were engaged to one of our relatives. And registered at a wedding gift store that met Mrs. Basil E.’s approval.

“I don’t understand,” said Dash.

“It’s the attendance sheet,” Grandpa told Dash, laughing. “Good luck, kid.”

“It’s no such thing,” Mrs. Basil E. chided. “It’s merely a list of holidays you are expected to celebrate with us if you are part of this family, ranked by order of importance. The asterisks denote optional holidays, and the footnotes indicate floating holidays that you are allowed to attend with your own family on a rotating basis.”

Dash scanned the list and then looked up, askance. “Canadian Thanksgiving is a footnote holiday?”

“Not to Canadians,” said Mrs. Basil E.

Dash said, “My father will be relieved. He’s Canadian.”

A shocked silence fell over the breakfast table. Finally, almost feeling betrayed, I said, “You never told me your father is Canadian.”

“Does it matter?” Dash asked.

“Of course it matters!” said Grandpa. But it was a defensive reaction. We all knew it didn’t matter.

The shock was, we all knew about Dash’s dad. “But your dad’s—” I didn’t want to come out and say it. Such a rhymes-with-ick.

Mrs. Basil E. spared me having to speak the harsh language aloud. She snapped, “Not all Canadians are nice, Lily. Don’t be so na?ve. Dashiell, we’ll take custody of you on Canadian Thanksgiving. You may direct your father to me if he has any concerns.”

“I love this family!” Dash said, beaming.

Mrs. Basil E. and I nodded knowingly at each other. We knew Dash meant he loved us the most. We knew he’d choose us for Canadian Thanksgiving.

Dash’s beam of happiness flooded my heart with joy, once again. He’d given me so much happiness yesterday.

But I owned Christmas. Everyone knew that. I couldn’t let Dash out-Christmas me in romantic gestures. I wanted to shout out my love for him from the rooftops. And now that I knew Dash was part Canadian, I knew exactly which rooftop I wanted to shout it from.

“How’s Mr. Zamboni?” I asked Grandpa.

—

Grandpa’s a ladies’ man, but he hasn’t acquired any new girlfriends since his heart attack. His bromances are still going strong, though. He has a standing weekly date with his buddies at our local Italian pork store, where the guys meet to sip espresso and play backgammon. Since I was a kid, I always referred to Grandpa’s friends by the names of their businesses instead of their proper names. Mr. Dumpling, the retired Chinese restaurant owner, prefers tea over coffee. Mr. Borscht, the retired Polish deli owner, bets too hard on his backgammon prowess and has lost many rolls of quarters to his pals as a result. (The ?ubrówka—bison grass vodka—that he adds to his sparkling water might also contribute to his losses.) Mr. Zamboni, the aging-but-not-yet-retired real estate developer, has gone gluten-free, so no pastries for him at their games anymore, but he goes “nuts” for the gluten-free peanut butter cookies I regularly make for him. Mr. Zamboni loves the cookies so much that he’s long been saying he owes me a favor, which I was ready to cash in on.