The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(46)

Because we’d come in together from The Great Glitterskating Massacre, we were sharing a room in New York–Presbyterian. While I didn’t know any of the librarians, they all knew each other—the skate-off had been an add-on to their usual pre-holiday NYC bender. There is something a little disturbing but mostly remarkable about seeing a bunch of librarians become completely unshelved, and in the close quarters of our medical confinement, I was getting to see all this up close…albeit only through one eye. Although it hadn’t been a direct hit, the blade had gotten close enough to my cornea that they wanted me to wear a patch for protection as everything healed. Unfortunately, I’d taken a look in a mirror before they’d patched it up, and the eyeball looked like every vessel within it had burst, as if I’d stayed awake for a year straight without remembering to blink. Had I been auditioning to play a demon spawn in a Christmas pageant, I would have been a shoo-in. (Once bandaged, I was more of a shoo-in for Christmas Pirate #3.)

I’d gotten a text from my father saying he was “on his way”—but that had been two hours ago, which led me to wonder which way he was taking. In the meantime, my guardians were the Page-Turn Posse.

“?‘Santa Can’t Feel His Face’!” Kevin from Kalamazoo (injury requiring neck brace and morphine) called out. “I’ve never related to that song as much as I relate to it now!”

“Santa needs to redecorate this room!” Jack from Providence (dislocated shoulder) added. It didn’t surprise me that the drab hospital decor offended his sensibilities—he was dressed in the most elaborate Krampus sweater I’d ever seen, and bright neon blue pants that could have just as easily been leggings. “And Santa also needs a double….” He reached into his Marc Jacobs bag and pulled out a thermos, a cocktail shaker, and six cocktail glasses. “Voila!”

“Make mine a triple!” Chris, who’d arrived with Jack but was from somewhere in New York, called out. (He had only a few bruises but wanted to keep the rest of us company.)

“I’d settle for a double,” I said.

All the librarians turned their heads to me in a collective shush.

“I’m afraid you have to survive library school, put up with the general public on a daily basis, and endure several years of budget cuts in order to deserve these drinks,” Chris told me kindly. “But someday, Dash, all this will be yours! We know how to spot ’em, and you’re a young, temporarily one-eyed librarian in the rough!”

They all toasted me then. And even though I was injured and about to face my father, I felt sufficiently cheered. I knew this wasn’t the way Lily had wanted me to get it, but it was still, I was sure, what she had wanted me to get out of the evening.

I raised the paper cup of water the orderly had left me.

“Here’s to the glitter that brought us together,” I toasted. “All that glitters may not be gold, but sometimes glitter is much more fun than gold. And to Lily, for trying her best, even if it ended up injuring us considerably.”

“To Lily!” they called out.

Jack was readying another toast when my father came barreling into the room.

“There you are!” my father said in a tone that made it sound as if I’d been hiding from him.

“Exactly where I was supposed to be,” I replied.

From the way he was dressed (suit, tie, eau de Bombay Sapphire), I could tell I’d pulled him from a party. From his timing, I could tell that the pull hadn’t been an urgent one.

“Did I interrupt your festivities?” I asked.

“Yes,” my father replied. “In Philadelphia.”

I stood corrected. And for a moment, I pictured him riding frantically in a cab, desperate to get to his son in the hospital. It was a touching image.

“Come on,” my father said, impatient. “Leeza is waiting in the car. Get your stuff.”

Okay, I thought. That’s the way it is.

I started to gather my things, and my father started to leave the room.

“Not so fast,” Jack said, putting his drink down on a gurney.

“Who are you?” my father asked.

“Doesn’t matter. For the next minute, I am going to be your gosh darn conscience. And I am going to inform you that it’s standard operating procedure that when you’re picking your kid up in the hospital, the first, second, and third things you say to him are all versions of Are you okay?”

“That patch on his eye?” Chris chimed in. “Not a fashion statement.”

My father did not have the time or patience to be told what to do. As often happened with my mom, his defense was to go on the attack.

“Who do you think you are?” he gruffly challenged.

Kevin strode toward him and thrust out his drink so it sloshed a little in my father’s direction. “We’re librarians, sir. And we will not let you check out this future librarian unless you prove to us that you’ll take good care of him when he’s in your home.”

It was interesting to see my father face off against a librarian in a neck brace. But even more interesting was seeing how all the librarians in the room clearly thought my father was in the wrong here. I needed that reality check, because at this point in my life I was just too used to it.

“It’s okay,” I said to everyone in the room. “Dad, I’ll meet you in the waiting room. See if you can get some extra bandages from the doctor because I’ll have to change them in the morning, and we might as well get them for free here. Librarians, I will need all of your email addresses, since there’s a party I want to invite you to, if you’re still in town.”