The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(56)
“I do wonder,” I confessed. “In the same way I wonder what it would be like to make out with an orangutan just before it has diarrhea.”
“Thanks, now I lost my appetite for Inga’s canapés.”
I placed a kiss on his lips. “Is that better?”
“Delicious,” said Dash. “Gingerbread-y.”
My boyfriend really knew the words to excite me. I felt I should give the man who loves language a word gift in exchange. “Edgar’s a sycophantile.”
“What?” Dash laughed.
“Someone who likes to surround himself with people who will fawn all over him. He pays them to do that, you know. The chess players in the park. The Korean party kids. Probably those little second-grade hustlers on the floor there.”
“Edgar pays people to hang out with him?”
“Yup. He has a roll of fivers in his argyle pockets at all times for just that purpose.”
“It all makes sense now,” said Dash.
Mrs. Basil E. stood on top of an ottoman and clinked her champagne glass. “Attention, my dear friends!” she called out. Usually at a party with that many people and that much nog in circulation, it takes more than one pronouncement to hush a room, but Mrs. Basil E. commanded that reaction immediately. She continued. “First, thank you for coming tonight. And Merry Christmas!”
“Happy Kwanzaa, Mrs. Oregano!” Boomer called back.
Mrs. Basil E. nodded at Boomer. “Thank you, Ricochet.” She moved her eyes around the room to direct the crowd, landing her gaze on Grandpa, sitting by her side. “As you may know, we’ve had our share of challenges this year, and next year will bring a new set. So we are thankful now, for your friendship, to celebrate with you, to—”
Grandpa nudged her ankle with his cane. “Let me talk already!”
Mrs. Basil E. stepped down from the ottoman. “You don’t have to be a Sadie about it,” she chided him.
Grandpa smiled and stood up. He said, “It’s a tradition going back many years that in the later hours of this Christmas party, when the adults turn to singing—”
“And singing and singing and singing,” his many nieces and nephews chimed in.
Grandpa continued, “Yes, and more singing, and the younger ones are exhausted and ready to go home to bed, that the grown-ups buy extra time for ourselves by putting a movie on in the basement for the kids to watch, and fall asleep to.”
“Wizard of Oz!” said Kerry-cousin.
“The Sound of Music!” said Cousin Mark.
“Make the Yuletide Gay!” cried out Langston.
“What’s that?” said Mrs. Basil E., looking scandalized—a Christmas movie she’d never heard of!
“Kidding,” said Langston. “That was the after-after party. For those of us who could stay awake that late.”
“Well, this year we have a special surprise,” said Grandpa. His gaze fell fondly on me. “Lily, if you’ll accompany me downstairs, my Christmas present for you is there. Those of you who want to watch a movie, please join us. Those of you who don’t, don’t! Continue making merry up here.” He looked at Edgar Thibaud and shook his cane at him. “Any gambling wins tonight will be donated to the center.”
Edgar laughed. I don’t think he’d ever been ordered what to do by anyone besides a judge. The appalled stares from many partygoers let Edgar Thibaud know that Grandpa had not been joking. Edgar shrugged and said, “Okay, fair enough.” A Christmas miracle! Generosity!
Some cousins started to head into the basement as Dash and I went to either side of Grandpa to lead him toward the stairs, and then help him down. “Did you know about this?” I asked Dash. It seemed weird to interrupt the party so early with a movie. I hoped it was an old home movie converted to DVD of Grandpa and his siblings as little ones.
“It’s all been a grand conspiracy,” said Dash.
When we reached the basement apartment, which Mrs. Basil E. kept as a man cave for family members during football and soccer seasons, with a proper bar and enormous television (she didn’t allow TVs in any other room in the house), the TV was already on, with a blank screen. The bar was set up like a movie concession stand, with a popcorn maker and a glass display case of candies like M&M’s, Milk Duds, Junior Mints, and an entire shelf with my favorites—Sno-Caps—tiered in the shape of a Christmas tree.
If I had any doubt what we were about to watch, it was removed when the blanket covering a life-size cardboard cutout next to the TV was removed. It was Helen Mirren as frail, elderly Bess, wearing a silk head scarf tied under her chin, and holding her movie corgi, Scrumpet!
“WHAT?” I shrieked, with all the decibel power of a tween girl getting a personal concert by the world’s biggest boy band.
“Down, Shrilly!” Langston called out from somewhere inside the crowd of people.
My heart was beating so fast, I thought I might die of happiness. “How?” I asked Grandpa.
He said, “My friend whom you know as Mr. Panavision gets these lovely little doodads called screeners, because he’s an awards-season voting guild member. He helped me get the screener and the promotional cutout. But Mr. Panavision has let me know that this is precious intellectual property, and the FBI will be called if the screener winds up in the hands of criminals, so no one give it to Edgar Thibaud or let him down here.”