The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily(57)

Mom said, “The movie concession stand is from us, sweetie.”

Dash said, “I arranged the Sno-Caps.”

Langston said, “Poorly. It looks more like a poo pile.”

For everything that was wrong in the world—war, global warming, Grandpa having to move to a nursing home, my lifelong family home being dismantled and probably sold—there was so much that was so right. My brother and my boyfriend bicker-bantering. My dad eating most of the Reese’s Pieces before the other guests could get to them. Mrs. Basil E. holding court over a sea of guests. The smell of popcorn. My grandpa hugging me. All the people I loved most gathered in one room, to watch a queen and her dog.

I’d thought my dream date would be sharing this movie alone in a movie theater with Dash. This cave was so much better. These people were my coven. Merry Christmas, Lily. Your Highness.

—

I loved the movie. I loved the party.

But, priorities.

Eighty-seven screen minutes of that precious nugget Scrumpet, and I needed to be reunited with my dog, immediately.

Certainly Boris’s behavior had improved over the last year—he was down to maybe one or two pinning-a-human-to-the-floors per month, but he was not yet socialized to big parties, so he’d been left at my apartment during the Christmas party. So Dash and I took an early leave of Mrs. Basil E.’s after the movie so we could walk him and I could smother my face in his beastly fur.

After we walked him and I cried, telling Boris how much I loved him and would be honored to get lost in the deep forest surrounding Balmoral Castle with him, Dash and I returned to the apartment so I could give my boyfriend and my dog their Christmas presents. First, I gave Boris a chew toy that he massacred within a minute of receiving. One moment it was a perfectly good Donald Trump doll. The next it was a flying toupee and dismembered body parts.

“That was beautiful, Boris,” Dash told him, patting the satisfied dog’s head. Then Dash crouched down to face Boris on Boris’s level. Using his most queenly Helen Mirren voice to intone Corgi & Bess’s catch phrase, Dash reminded Boris: “?‘Always chew with dignity, dear Scrum.’?”

My Christmas present to Dash was possibly going to make me lose my own dignity, but I tried to muster the courage to go through with it. Before I did, I gave him the easy part of his gift. We sat down next to Oscar, and I handed Dash his first present from under the tree. (Stealing a kiss—or five—from Dash meanwhile.)

I took the Santa hat I’d bought with Dash’s $12.21 Macy’s gift card, and placed it on his head. “Guess,” I said.

Santa Dash held up the present and shook it. “Saltshaker?” he asked. It was clearly the size and shape of a book. “That Snuggie you knew Santa asked himself for? Because Santa doesn’t have enough soft, warm things in his life already?” He looked down at Boris. “I’m not talking about you, softy. I’m partial to Prancer, as you know. No offense.”

Boris licked Dash’s ankle. No offense taken.

“Open it,” I said.

Dash carefully removed the gift wrap and placed it to his side to reuse it. My eco-conscious dreamboat. “It’s a book!” Dash cried out, with all the excitement of having been given a new car. “I don’t believe it.”

Then he took a closer look at the book—A Christmas Carol, but not just any edition. This one was red cloth with a blind-stamped binding and gilt lettering, design, and edges. “Lily! This isn’t a first edition, is it?”

“I wish! I wanted to get you one, but that costs about thirty thousand dollars, and Mrs. Basil E. said if I wanted to continue on my mogul trajectory, I should be more frugal. So this is an exact replica of the 1843 first edition. Not the real deal. But less dusty and probably less a candidate to be a carrier of a century and a half’s germs. And much more reasonably priced.”

Dash clutched the book to his chest. “I love it!”

I leaned over to place a light kiss on his eye patch. And then I handed him another present. “This one was an impulse buy at the Strand. Rare-book room.”

He opened the second present. “Treasure Island!” he exclaimed.

“Bona fide first edition, with illustrations,” I said proudly. “For my favorite pirate.”

“Aargh!” exclaimed my pirate.

“There’s more,” I said.

“I can never get too many books!”

“Not books. The other present is something…you have to see.”

Here’s where I needed my courage. And the hope he would have the dignity not to laugh when I made myself my most vulnerable and possibly the dorkiest I’d ever been—no small challenge.

—

Dash waited outside my bedroom while I changed privately. Then I half opened the door and invoked some words from one of his gift books. “?‘Come in and know me better, man!’?”

Dash laughed, recognizing the quote from A Christmas Carol, and cautiously stepped inside. “Why all the secrecy?” he said.

I took a deep breath, and did it. I opened the door all the way, so he could see.

He had a sharp intake of breath—not of disgust, but surprise.

“You’re the present of Lily present!” he said.

He got it! Ding, ding, ding!

It wasn’t fancy lingerie, but it felt just as risky. I wore bright red undergarments ordered online from an old-fashioned ladies’ wear emporium: traditional Victorian bloomers—like loose capri pants with crocheted lace patterns below the knee, a tie-string waist, and a modest red corset covering my chest. By modern standards, I was overdressed. By Lily standards, I was practically naked. I didn’t even have my glasses on.