Dash & Lily's Book of Dares Read online

  He actually put the plastic toys in my hands so I could examine them.

  “Isn’t this the three-hole punch?” I asked.

  He slapped his forehead. “Dude, I thought that was the expandable file folder, Frederico!”

  As fate would have it, Collation was playing at the same theater to which I’d sent Lily. So I could keep my playdate with Boomer and still intercept Lily’s next message before any rascals or rapscallions got to it.

  “Where’s your mom?” Boomer asked.

  “At her dance class,” I lied. If he’d had any inkling that my parents were out of town, he would’ve been on the horn to his mom so fast that I would’ve been guaranteeing myself a Very Boomer Christmas.

  “Did she leave you money? If not, I can probably pay.”

  “Don’t you worry, my guileless pal,” I said, putting my arm around him before he could even take his coat off. “Today, the movie’s on me.”

  I wasn’t going to tell Boomer about my other errand, but there was no getting rid of him when I ducked behind Gramma’s cardboard booty to find the loot.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you lose your contact lens?”

  “No. Someone left something for me here.”

  “Ooh!”

  Boomer was not a big guy, but he tended to take up a lot of space, because he was always jittering around. He kept peering over cardboard Gramma’s shoulder, and I was sure it was only a matter of time before the minimum-wage popcorn staff would evict us.

  The red Moleskine was right where I’d left it. There was also a tin at its side.

  “This is what I was looking for,” I told Boomer, holding up the journal. He grabbed for the tin.

  “Wow,” he said, opening the lid and looking inside. “This must be a special hiding place. How funny is it that someone would leave cookies in the same place that your friend left the notebook?”

  “I think the cookies are from her, too.” (This was confirmed by a Post-it on the top of the notebook that read: The cookies are for you. Merry Xmas! Lily.)

  “Really?” he said, picking a cookie out of the tin. “How do you know?”

  “I’m just guessing.”

  Boomer hesitated. “Shouldn’t your name be on it?” he asked. “I mean, if it’s yours.”

  “She doesn’t know my name.”

  Boomer immediately put the cookie back in the tin and closed the lid.

  “You can’t eat cookies from someone who doesn’t know your name!” he said. “What if there are, like, razor blades inside?”

  Kids and parents were streaming into the theater, and I knew we’d have front-row seats to Collation if we didn’t move a little faster.

  I showed him the Post-it. “You see? They’re from Lily.”

  “Who’s Lily?”

  “Some girl.”

  “Ooh … a girl!”

  “Boomer, we’re not in third grade anymore. You don’t say, ‘Ooh … a girl!’ ”

  “What? You fucking her?”

  “Okay, Boomer, you’re right. I liked ‘Ooh … a girl!’ much more than that. Let’s stick with ‘Ooh … a girl!’ ”

  “She go to your school?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Look, we’d better get a seat or else there won’t be any seats left.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “I see someone took his persistence pills this morning. Sure, I like her. But I don’t really know her yet.”

  “I don’t do drugs, Dash.”

  “I know that, Boomer. It’s an expression. Like putting on your thinking cap. There isn’t an actual thinking cap.”

  “Of course there is,” Boomer said. “Don’t you remember?”

  And yes, suddenly I did remember. There were two old ski hats—his blue, mine green—that we’d used as thinking caps back when we were in first grade. This was the strange thing about Boomer—if I asked him about his teachers up at boarding school this past semester, he’d have already forgotten their names. But he could remember the exact make and color of every single Matchbox car with which we’d ever played.

  “Bad example,” I said. “There are definitely such things as thinking caps. I stand corrected.”

  Once we found our seats (a little too much toward the front, but with a nice coat barrier between me and the snot-nosed tyke on my left), we dove into the cookie tin.

  “Wow,” I said after eating a chocolate snowflake. “This puts the sweet in Sweet Jesus.”

  Boomer took bites of all six varieties, contemplating each one and figuring out the order in which he would then eat them. “I like the brown one and the lighter brown one and the almost-brown one. I’m not so sure about the minty one. But really, I think the lebkuchen spice one is the best.”

  “The what?”

  “The lebkuchen spice one.” He held it up for me. “This one.”

  “You’re making that up. What’s a lebkuchen spice? It sounds like a cross between a Keebler elf and a stripper. Hello, my name ees Lebkuchen Spice, and I vant to show you my cooooookies.…”

  “Don’t be rude!” Boomer protested. As if the cookie might be offended.

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  The pre-movie commercials started, so while Boomer paid rapt attention to the “exclusive previews” for basic-cable crime shows featuring stars who’d peaked (not too high) in the eighties, I had a chance to read what Lily had written in the journal. I thought even Boomer would like the Shrilly story, although he’d probably feel really bad for her, when I knew the truth: It was so much cooler to be the weird girl. I was getting such a sense of Lily and her twisted, perverse sense of humor, right down to that classic supercalifragiwant. In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice—ironic, Germanic, sexy, and offbeat. And, mein Gott, the girl could bake a damn fine cookie … to the point that I wanted to answer her What do you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please!

  But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was totally sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or, worse, kissing up.

  It was a hard question, especially if I had to batten down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spelling of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especially at this late date.

  Soon Collation was upon us. Parts of it were funny, and I certainly appreciated the irony of a film distributed by Disney bemoaning corporate culture. But the love story was lacking. After all the marginally feminist Disney heroines of the early to mid-nineties, this heroine was literally a blank piece of paper. Granted, she could fold herself into a paper airplane in order to take her stapler boyfriend on a romantic glide around a magical conference room, and her final rock-paper-scissors showdown with the hapless janitor showed brio of a sort … but I couldn’t fall for her the way that Boomer and the stapler and most of the kids and parents in the audience were falling for her.

  I wondered if what I really wanted for Christmas was to find someone who’d be the piece of paper to my stapler. Or, wait, why couldn’t I be the piece of paper? Maybe it was a stapler I was after. Or the poor mouse pad, who was clearly in love with the stapler but couldn’t get him to give her a second look. All I’d managed to date so far was a series of pencil sharpeners, with the exception of Sofia, who was more like a pleasant eraser.

  I figured the only way for me to really find the meaning of my own personal Christmas needs was to leg on over to Madame Tussauds. Because what better barometer could there be than a throng of tourists taking photos of wax statues of public figures?

  I knew Boomer would be game for a field trip, so after the stapler and the piece of paper were safely frolicking over the end credits (to the dulcet tones of Celine Dion piping “You Supply My Love”), I shanghaied him from the lobby to Forty-second Street.

  “Why are there
so many people out here?” Boomer asked as we bobbed and weaved roughly forward.

  “Christmas shopping,” I explained.

  “Already? Isn’t it early to be returning things?”

  I really had no sense of how his mind worked.

  The only time I had ever been in Madame Tussauds was the previous year, when three friends and I had tried to collect the world record for most suggestive posings with wax statues of B-list celebrities and historical figures. To be honest, it gave me the heebie-jeebies to go down on so many wax figures—especially Nicholas Cage, who already gave me the heebie-jeebies in real life. But my friend Mona wanted it to be a part of her senior project. The guards didn’t seem to mind, as long as there was no physical contact. Which made me expound upon one of my earlier theories, that Madame Tussaud had been a true madam, and had started her whole operation with a waxwork whorehouse somewhere near Paris, Texas. Mona loved this theory, but we could find no proof, and thus it did not transform into true scholarship.

  A wax replica of Morgan Freeman was guarding the entrance, and I wondered if this was some kind of cosmic payback—that every time an actor with a modicum of talent sold his soul to be in a big Hollywood action picture of no redeeming social value, his sellout visage was struck in wax and placed outside Madame Tussauds. Or maybe the people at Madame Tussauds figured that everyone loved Morgan Freeman, so who wouldn’t want to pose with him for a quick snapshot before stepping inside?

  Weirdly, the next two wax figures were Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, confirming my sellout theory, and also making me wonder whether Madame Tussauds was deliberately keeping all the black statues in the lobby. Very strange. Boomer didn’t seem to notice this. Instead, he was acting as if he were having real celebrity sightings, exclaiming with glee every time he saw someone—“Wow, it’s Halle Berry!”

  I wanted to scream bloody murder over the price of admission—I made a note to tell Lily that the next time she wanted me to fork over twenty-five bucks to see a wax statue of Honest Abe, she should slip some cash into the journal to cover my expenses.

  Inside, it was a total freak show. When I’d visited before, it had been nearly empty. But clearly the holidays had caused a lot of family-time desperation, so there were all sorts of crowds around the unlikeliest of figures. I mean, was Uma Thurman really worth jostling for? Jon Bon Jovi?

  To be honest, the whole place depressed me. The wax figures were lifelike, for sure. But, hell, you say wax and I think melt. There’s some kind of permanence to a real statue. Not here. And not only because of the wax. You had to know that in some corner of this building, there was a closet full of discarded statues, the people whose spotlight had come and gone. Like the members of *NSYNC whose initials weren’t JT; or all the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls. Were people really buddying up to the Seinfeld sculpture anymore? Did Keanu Reeves ever stop by his own statue, just to remember when people cared?

  “Look, Miley Cyrus!” Boomer called, and at least a dozen preteen girls followed him over to gawk at this poor girl frozen in an awkward (if lucrative) adolescence. It didn’t even look like Miley Cyrus—there was something a little off, so it looked like Miley Cyrus’s backwater cousin Riley, dressing up and trying to pretend to be Miley. Behind her, the Jonas Brothers were frozen mid-jam. Didn’t they have to know that the Closet of Forgotten Statues would call to them someday?

  Of course, before I found Honest Abe, I needed to figure out what I wanted for Christmas.

  A pony.

  An unlimited MetroCard.

  A promise that Lily’s uncle Sal would never be allowed to work around children again.

  A swank lime-green couch.

  A new thinking cap.

  It seemed I was incapable of coming up with a serious answer. What I really wanted for Christmas was for Christmas to go away. Maybe Lily would understand this … but maybe she wouldn’t. I’d seen even the hardest-edge girls go soft for Santa. I couldn’t fault her for believing, because I had to imagine it was nice to have that illusion still intact. Not the belief in Santa, but the believe that a single holiday could usher in goodwill toward man.

  “Dash?”

  I looked up, and there was Priya, with at least two younger brothers in tow.

  “Hey, Priya.”

  “Is this her?” Boomer asked, somehow diverting his attention long enough from the Jackie Chan display to make it awkward for me.

  “No, this is Priya,” I said. “Priya, this is my friend Boomer.”

  “I thought you were in Sweden,” Priya said. I couldn’t tell if she was irritated at me or irritated at the way one of her brothers was stretching out her sleeve.

  “You were in Sweden?” Boomer asked.

  “No,” I said. “The trip got called off at the last minute. Because of the political unrest.”

  “In Sweden?” Priya seemed skeptical.

  “Yeah—isn’t it strange how the Times isn’t covering it? Half the country’s on strike because of that thing the crown prince said about Pippi Longstocking. Which means no meatballs for Christmas, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s so sad!” Boomer said.

  “Well, if you’re around,” Priya said, “I’m having people over the day after Christmas. Sofia will be there.”

  “Sofia?”

  “You know she’s back in town, right? For the holidays.”

  I swear, it looked like Priya was enjoying this. Even her pipsqueak brothers seemed to be enjoying this.

  “Of course I knew,” I lied. “I just—well, I thought I was going to be in Sweden. You know how it is.”

  “It starts at six. Feel free to bring your friend here.” The brothers started to tug on her again. “I’ll see you then, I hope.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Sofia.”

  I hadn’t meant to say that last word aloud. I wasn’t even sure Priya heard it, she was whisked away so fast by the running tugs on her clothing.

  “I liked Sofia,” Boomer said.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “So did I.”

  It seemed a little strange to have two run-ins with Priya while on my Lily chase—but I had to dismiss it as coincidence. I didn’t see how she or Sofia could possibly fit into what Lily was doing. Sure, it could be one big practical joke, but the thing about Sofia and her friends was that while they were always practical, they were never jokers.

  Naturally, the next consideration was: Did I want Sofia for Christmas? Wrapped in a bow. Under the tree. Telling me how frickin’ great I was.

  No. Not really.

  I’d liked her, sure. We’d been a good couple, insofar as that our friends—well, her friends more than mine—had created this mold of what a couple should be, and we fit into it just fine. We were the fourth couple tacked onto the quadruple date. We were good board game partners. We could text each other to sleep at night. She’d only been in New York for three years, so I got to explain all kinds of pop cultural references to her, while she’d tell me stories about Spain. We’d made it to third base, but got stuck there. Like we knew the catcher would tag us out if we tried to head home.

  I’d been relieved (a little) when she’d told me she had to move back to Spain. We’d pledged we’d keep in touch, and that had worked for about a month. Now I read the updates on her online profile and she read mine, and that’s what we were to each other.

  I wanted to want something more than Sofia for Christmas.

  And was that Lily? I couldn’t really tell. For sure, the last thing I was going to write to her was All I want for Christmas is you.

  “What do I want for Christmas?” I asked Angelina Jolie. Her full lips didn’t part with an answer.

  “What do I want for Christmas?” I asked Charlize Theron. I even added, “Hey, nice dress,” but she still didn’t reply. I leaned over her cleavage and asked, “Are they real?” She didn’t make a move to slap me.

  Finally, I turned to Boomer.

  “What do I want for Christmas?”

  He lo
oked thoughtful for a second, then said, “World peace?”

  “Not helpful!”

  “Well, what’s in your Amazonian hope chest?” Boomer asked.

  “My WHAT?”

  “You know, on Amazon. Your hope chest.”

  “You mean my wish list?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  And just like that, I knew what I wanted. Something I had always wanted. But it was so unrealistic it hadn’t even made it to my wish list.

  I needed a bench to sit down on, but the only one I could see already had Elizabeth Taylor, Hugh Jackman, and Clark Gable perched atop it, waiting for a bus.

  “I just need a sec,” I told Boomer before I ducked behind Ozzy Osbourne and his whole family (circa 2003) to write in the Moleskine.

  No smart-assness (assy-smartness?) here.

  The truth?

  What I want for Christmas is an OED. Unabridged.

  Just in case you are not a word nerd like myself:

  O = Oxford

  E = English

  D = Dictionary

  Not the concise one. Not the one that comes on CDs. (Please!) No.

  Twenty volumes.

  22,000 pages.

  600,000 entries.

  Pretty much the English language’s greatest achievement.

  It’s not cheap—almost a thousand dollars, I think. Which is, I admit, a lot for a book. But, criminy, what a book. It’s the complete genealogy of every word we use. No word is too grand or too infinitesimal to be considered.

  Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language.

  Here’s a riddle for you:

  My name is a connector of words.

  I know that’s a childish tease—the truth is, I’d love to let the mystery remain, if only for a little longer. I bring it up solely to emphasize the point—that even though my parents had no idea (and I’m sure my father would have worked willfully against it), somehow they pegged me with my very name to know that while some fellows would find their creature comfort in sport or pharmacy or sexual conquest, I was destined to get that from words. Preferably read or written.