by Rachel Cohn
I was alone in a foreign place, in a foreign city. The wind picked up and I pulled my collar closer, tried to stay warm. For a minute, maybe three, I stood there in the center of it all, and as I did, a small piece of understanding came through the door.
Dear Father Christmas,
I am lost, for sure.
But there is value in being lost.
And one of the values is the way being lost can lead you to see what you want to find. It helps you sense where you want to be found. Or who you want to be found by.
“Lily,” I said out loud, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me.
“Lily,” I said again, safe in the knowledge that soon she would.
seven
December 22nd
Christmas Eve will find me, where the love-light gleams. I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.
My ringtone sang these words as my phone alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. It was a dreamy way to wake up, before my eyes opened, the song conjuring my happiest of holiday visions: Christmas in New York, its bright, twinkling lights under dark winter skies, that first smattering of snow, walking hand in hand across Washington Square Park with Dash, taking in his warmth.
Dash wasn’t just a dream. He was real. How lucky was I?
He’d texted me the night before that he was fine after ditching the Daunt event, and he was excited to see me, just the two of us, alone finally, today. My waking heart swelled in satisfaction, but then my body rebelled. Ouch! cried out my back. Motherfrocker! said my right shoulder. I hate you! announced both my knees. My eyes burst open, and I remembered why my bones were not agreeing with my heart’s content. I’d spent the night on possibly the world’s most uncomfortable sofa, lumpy and too short for me to sleep with my legs fully extended. Now I was sore and wondering why I hadn’t used my dog job earnings to spring for a hotel. I’d considered that prospect, of course, but the prices in London were ridiculous. Plus, staying in a hotel and paying for it seemed like something Actual Adults did, not an eighteen-year-old on a gap year who still lived at home. Sleeping on the floor would probably be more comfortable than my cousin’s sofa.
I sat up, trying to stretch and twist my body back into place. I had an exciting solo adventure ahead that morning—the real reason for coming to England, besides seeing Dash—and I wasn’t going to let a creaky body get in the way. I should have known better than to look at my email on my phone before digging through my purse for some ibuprofen. I saw a message from my mother with the subject line “College Plans,” and now I could add headache to my body’s aches.
Dear Lily:
Dad and I met with Professor Garvey at Barnard today, and we were very disappointed, to say the least, to learn that you have not responded to any of her invitations to sit in on one of her classes and talk about your freshman curriculum with her. As we’ve told you many times, most incoming students don’t have the opportunity to meet with and talk about their studies with one of the school’s most esteemed faculty members. This is not an offer to be taken for granted, and in continuing not to take it, you are giving Professor Garvey the impression you are not interested in her guidance.
I’m also disappointed that you didn’t clear out your cookie-baking materials from the kitchen and store them in Langston’s old room, as I requested. I spent an hour yesterday boxing all your kitchen items (who needs that many cookie cutters?!) to make room for me to start preparing for our Christmas festivities. I must have asked you dozens of times to take care of clearing out the space before you left for London, but, I know … drumroll, please … you were too busy walking dogs or designing crafts for and about dogs to take care of this one task I asked you to handle. I really could have used your help getting ready for Christmas this week, too. But, I know, I know, seeing your boyfriend in London was more important.
I do hope you’re having a lovely time with Dashiell and I will probably not be so grumpy by the time you return home, but I’m not making any promises. If you want to give me anything for Christmas, please answer Professor Garvey’s invitation to you already, and please consider getting rid of all the kitchen equipment you don’t need. We just don’t have the space.
Love,
Mom
So, two major things happened to my formerly mellow mother in the past year.
Number One is she decided not to move to Connecticut to be with Dad, who got a job at a rural boarding school and lives out there during the week. My parents have a weekend marriage now, which leaves my mother way too much alone time during the week. She uses this time to obsessively peruse the Barnard website to plan my future four years there. I should join the Bacchantae—the same a cappella troupe she belonged to when she went to Barnard! I’ll make more friends if I join the Skip Stop Commuter Organization, the organization for student commuters! Mom doesn’t want me to live on campus because it’s too expensive, she says—but what she really means is she doesn’t want to be the primary caretaker for Boris if I live at Barnard. She’s so rude to my dog; I would never leave him to live alone with her. When she’s not overdosing on planning my future college life, Mom likes to rent a car to go out to the wilds of New Jersey, where she wanders Ikea or Target aimlessly for hours and returns home with more kitchen gadgets, candles, and throw pillows than anyone could possibly want or need. Her other major time suck is she joined a feminist book club led by this Professor Garvey. It’s a monthly woke gathering of students, academics, and randos, where the participants leave the meetings even angrier than they arrived, fired up about economic inequality, patriarchy, and who makes the best chocolate chip cookie on the Upper West Side: Levain Bakery or Jacques Torres. (Only this Professor Garvey is not a Levain supporter, which makes me very, very suspicious of her.)
Number Two is Mom started having major middle-aged lady hormonal changes. And she is moody as frock. See Number One.
We never used to fight, not even when I had my major adolescent girl hormonal changes, but now we fight all the time, although we are not the type of family for loud shouting matches. Instead, Mom delivers a torrent of not-passive-aggressive-enough digs, which I return with silence, rolled eyes, and the occasional slammed door.
God forbid you take your education as seriously as dog-walking, Lily.
I seem to remember having taught you to clean all your dishes and put them away every night so the kitchen is clear for the morning. Did you just forget that habit I worked so hard to cultivate in you?
Our dinner reservation was for 6, not 6:30! It sure would be nice if you prioritized actual time with your parents as much as you prioritize FaceTime with your boyfriend.
After reading my mother’s email, I was about to throw my phone onto the floor in irritation when a text arrived from Dash. You up yet? Want to meet me and Gem for breakfast? She’s just discovered avocado toast. She says it’s more delicious than David Bowie circa 1975.
I let out a giggle that felt good to my achy body. I typed: I’m free after lunchtime. Meet you then? Dash texted the thumbs-up emoji back. I added, Do you want to continuewith the next Daunt Literary Challenge clue? Thumbs-down response. Dash added: I’m a Foyles bookstore man, to be honest. Before I could be disappointed that Dash wanted to opt out of the game, he sent me a photo of that day’s Advent calendar gift to him, along with heart emojis. Thinking hard on this one, he wrote.
I looked at the photo he’d sent, of a piece of paper torn from a Moleskine notebook, on which I’d written the following quote from poet Mary Oliver:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Dear God/Allah/Buddha/Oprah—how I love Dash.
Mark stepped into the living room from his and Julia’s bedroom. “Good morning!” I said.
“Coffee,” he muttered.
I joined him in their tiny kitchen as he brewed. Mark said, “I bring Julia her coffee in bed. We read our books or the news, when we can stomach it, for about an hour. It’s our morning ritual.”
“That’s—”
“—don’t say ‘so cute.’ ”
I mimicked the flat, nasal accent of so many Californian reality-TV stars. “So cyoot.”
Mark gave me the same face of disdain I give to my mother lately. He said, “I have our next Daunt literary clue. See if your rude boyfriend can be ready to meet us around noon.”
“He doesn’t want to play anymore.”
“I hate dropouts.”
“You dropped out of Williams College!”
“To follow Phish for a semester! And then I transferred to Boston University, which was a much better fit for me.”
“So maybe that’s what Dash needs too. Just a change in direction. Not dropping out.”
“Are we still talking about the Daunt Books Bibliophile Cup Challenge?”
I had no idea. I said, “Dash says he prefers Foyles, anyway.”
Mark gasped, as if I had just suggested to a Yankees fan that they could also support the Mets. He looked at me seriously. “Are you Team Dash, or are you Team Strand?”
“I’m Team Lily,” I said. “I play to be my best version of myself, so I can be the best girlfriend I can be, the best dog-walker, the best family member—”
Mark put up his hand. “I don’t need any more wisdom you probably acquired from a meme.”
Since he was already annoyed with me, I ventured, “I’m thinking I might stay at a hotel for the rest of my visit. I don’t want to be in your and Julia’s way.” I’d also woken up to a very surprising bank notification that I’d gotten a very generous Christmas tip from one of my favorite dog-walking clients. Suddenly a hotel seemed much more within my financial reach.
Mark sneered. “Yeah. I’m sure that’s the reason. Look, I can understand if you want to be alone with your boyfriend. But I have to report back to Grandpa, and if he finds out you weren’t staying with me—”
“That’s not why,” I said. Although it was a very good reason why.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He poured two coffees and headed back toward his bedroom. “Family stays with family.” He closed the bedroom door behind him with his foot.
Family stays with family. It was the reason during my childhood that my parents, Langston, and I crammed into the den every summer at my great-uncle’s summer house on the Jersey shore because the bedrooms were already taken. It was the reason I stayed at the hoarder house of second cousin once removed Louise during my college visit weekend to the University of Pennsylvania—and then my parents wondered why I didn’t like Philly! It was why my parents insisted I live at home at Barnard next year—a convenient excuse for not acknowledging the on-campus housing costs were more than they could afford, on top of tuition, or that my mother didn’t want her only roommate at our East Village homestead to be a giant bull-mastiff.
Family stays with family wasn’t the best of our family values—and I was sick of it.
I scribbled a note to Mark and Julia letting them know I was out sightseeing for the day and left their apartment.
After a half-hour’s train ride from Waterloo Station, I arrived in Twickenham, about eleven miles southwest of London. The town name itself appealed to me. Twickenham. It sounded so British, but in this vague way, like it could either be a very posh town or a stereotypical working-class one where people actually said, “Pip pip, guvnah.” Once I disembarked and started walking, Twickenham appeared to me to be an affluent town that, despite the so-cyoot houses and buildings I passed on my walk from the train station, was also dreary under the gray skies.
I followed the directions I was given, walking to the end of a long street off the main road, then finding the tall tree with a sign posted on it that said dogs welcome. people tolerated. Next to the tree was a high wooden gate. I unlatched it and, as instructed, made sure to close it all the way once I was on the other side of it. Behind the gate was a modest two-story thatched house, to my disappointment. I’d hoped Narnia would be on the other side of the gate, not an ordinary English house that looked like so many of the others I’d passed on my walk. I went to the door and rang the bell, which spurred my favorite of all noises—a very loud and excited dog’s bark. From a partially open window near the front door I heard a lady’s voice call out, “We have company, Innis!”
It was a chirpy voice talking to the dog, so I was surprised when a dour-faced lady, probably in her sixties, with ginger hair streaked with gray, answered the door and said, very brusquely, “I’m Jane Douglas, Head of School. You must be Lily?”
“I’m Lily!”
Her face burrowed more deeply into disapproval. “You Americans always sound so cheerful. It’s so unnecessary.” She had what I thought was a Scottish accent, based on my many viewings of Outlander, and a stern demeanor that suggested treachery, an assumption also based on my many viewings of Outlander.
But her dog! A short-haired terrier, a gorgeous brindle of tan and white, about thirty pounds, with a sweet face rather like a pit bull’s, greeted me with licks of love. “This is Innis,” the lady said.
“What breed is she?” I bent down to greet the mush more properly.
“Staffordshire bull terrier.”
“I think she likes me.” I certainly liked Innis. Her human? Not so sure.
“Don’t take her affection personally. She’s like that with everybody. Her breed is exceptionally patient. Their tolerance with people and children has earned them the nickname—”
“—nanny dog!” I proclaimed, remembering what I’d read about the breed in a book about British dogs.
“I don’t care to be interrupted,” said Jane Douglas. “But correct. Very good. Come in.”
I followed her through the foyer into a living room with glass walls at the back of it, facing a huge yard with a garden and ample frolic space for a pup. The living room had a fireplace, several chairs strewn about, and two sofas that faced each other. “This is where I conduct most of the classes,” she said, gesturing for me to sit down.
“Here?” I didn’t want to offend her, but this living room was the famous Pembroke Canine Facilitator Institute?
She sat down opposite me, and Innis sat by her side on the floor. “People are always surprised by that. I don’t understand why. I only take twenty students per year, and it’s much more comfortable to lecture in my own home than at an administrative building.”
“But … isn’t there a facility where students actually get to work with dogs?”
“Of course there is. We partner with a local rescue facility a bit further out of town. They’re busy preparing to host the Canine Supporters World Education Conference after Christmas, so I’m not able to give you a tour there today. But as you can see, we have everything we need for learning right here.”
“We do?”
“We have a dog right here. We have a yard outside. And we have a rigorous curriculum I’ve designed myself. Dog behavior—body language and vocalizations. How dogs think and learn. Therapy dog training. Anatomy and first aid.”
Again, I said, “Here?” Did Jane Douglas realize we were in a living room?
She said, “The book-learning part of the program we do here. The hands-on dog part we do at the shelter.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know what to say. This setup was so not what I expected from the “Harvard of dog schools.” I guess that’s what happens when you apply to a school you learned about from Reddit comments, one without a website or Instagram page, but with great reviews from British dog-walking enthusiasts. (A subject I became very interested in when Dash decided to go to Oxford.)
My parents would never agree to this over Barnard College of Columbia University in the city of New York. PCFI was only a one-year program so I could try to sell them on the idea that I’d go to college afterward, but it was going to be a very tough sell.
“What about housing?” I asked meekly.
“You’re on your own for that. Several of my students have found housing together, and they often pass down their rooms to the new students when they graduate. Or
you may apply for the Pet Store Residency.”
“The what?”
“Let’s go for a walk and I’ll show you. It’s an apartment over a pet store in the town center. The shopkeeper offers free rent to one of my lucky students each term, in exchange for tending to the store pets when the store is closed. Let’s go, Innis.”
I didn’t know which option appealed less: going to Barnard but still living at home with my moody mother, or going to PCFI and being “in residence” over a pet store.
The light drizzle had turned to a steadier rain when we went outside, making Jane Douglas’s front yard appear even more lushly green, but also dreary. I don’t know why, but I loved that. I had this weird feeling like I might actually love a school in a living room—especially if Dash was a train ride away. As we walked back toward town, Jane Douglas handed me Innis’s lead.
“Let’s see your technique,” she said. I took the leash in my right hand so that Innis would walk on my left, with my arm at an angle and my leash hand close to my body with enough slack for Innis to move freely but not so much that she could get tangled. “Nicely done,” Jane Douglas acknowledged.
“I’m a professional dog-walker,” I told her.
“I know that. I read your application.”
“Are there other dogfluencers in the program?” I asked hopefully.
“What are dogfluencers?”
“Dog people with social media followings.”
“I certainly hope not. I want students who are here to service the animals. Not who are looking for the animals to service them.”
I didn’t know what to think. Was this the worst program ever, or possibly a genius learning institute in disguise? “What’s it like living in Twickenham?” I asked as we came closer to the main road.
“Some students enjoy the proximity to London. For others, it’s not close enough. Twickenham Stadium is the home of England Rugby, so on game days, expect eighty thousand drunk fans descending on the town. We’re directly underneath the Heathrow flight path, so also expect jet noise and transportation pollution.”
