by Rachel Cohn
I gave Dash the address and then told him to meet me there at seven p.m. I needed the afternoon to myself to take care of the details. Invitations. Food. Performers. Pyrotechnics.
—
When Dash arrived at the lobby entrance to Mr. Zamboni’s building that night, the first thing he asked was, “Aren’t you cold in that?” The weather was indeed very chilly, but I wore thick tights under my Rockette Christmas outfit—a red crushed-velvet dancer’s A-line dress, falling just above my knees, tight at the waist with a sash, trimmed in faux white fur along the bottom hem and the plunging neckline.
I said no, and gave Dash a kiss. I was a little cold, admittedly, but my heart was so very warm. Would I ever get over this flush of happiness at the sight of him? Probably never.
Next, Dash asked, “Are we going to the High Line?” It was one of his favorite places in Manhattan—an elevated train track on the West Side that was turned into a beautiful garden and park area.
“Sort of,” I said.
I took his hand in mine and led him to the elevator. Before I pressed the Up button, I untied the white sash from my waist. “Blindfold?” I asked Dash. I wanted his first sight of our party to be a surprise.
“This isn’t some bondage party, is it?” Dash asked. He must have started one of those D. H. Lawrence books. Oh yes, I Googled.
“No. But thank you for thinking me capable of such a kinky idea.”
I placed the sash over Dash’s eyes and tied it at the back of his head. Then I swiped the keycard that would allow us to gain entrance to the elevator and the top floor of the building.
“This isn’t, like, a surprise party?” Dash asked, worried, as the elevator went up. “My birthday’s not in December.”
“It’s not.”
“I mean, people aren’t going to jump out from behind bushes on a rooftop garden and scare me? I’m all for a good fright. But not in a tall building.”
“Relax.”
The elevator opened, and I led Dash into the staging area, where benches and tables were set up, with a tented dome built overhead to resemble an igloo. The music was loud and the party was already in full swing. I could see Boomer and Sofia skating together, holding hands. Edgar Thibaud and his argyle coat, aggressively speed-skating like he’d just downed a case of Red Bulls. Our guests of honor, none of whom I knew personally, were also out on the rink. Some of them were good skaters, but more of them were holding on to the outer rink rail for dear life. Their many canvas bags filled with books were lined up alongside their street shoes and boots in the igloo area.
I untied the sash and told Dash, “Behold. A Christmas ice-skating. With all your favorite people!”
Dash looked at the rink, then back at me. “The only people I recognize on the rink are Boomer and Sofia. And Edgar. Ugh.”
I said, “The rest are librarians. My cousin Mark at the Strand knows about a Listserv for librarians, so he posted the invitation there for them. You are literally surrounded by book people tonight. Literally. Get it?”
Dash winced at my lame joke, but brightened at the sight of the refreshment stand at the other end of the igloo. “Is that a hot chocolate station?” Dash asked.
“Sure is! I hired Jacques Torres Chocolate to cater the party with hot chocolates and regular chocolates and chocolate chip cookies and—”
“People are going to be in a diabetic coma by the time they leave.”
“Hopefully! That’s how we know it’s a good party. Mrs. Basil E. always says, ‘The worse people feel the next day, the better the party.’ ”
Dash smiled. Then frowned. “This must have cost a lot of money.”
“Only the catering. And the talent. It’s my pleasure.”
I don’t like to brag, but I’m quite wealthy. Not through my pauper academic parents, but because of my dog-walking business. My bank account has five numerals in it (barely), and that’s before the decimal point. The money is supposed to be my college fund. I’d rather spend it on Christmas.
“The talent?” Dash said.
“You’ll see,” I said. I handed him his pair of skates. “Let’s lace up.”
“True confession. I’m not a very good skater.”
“But you’re part Canadian!”
“My love for Arcade Fire is all I got from the Canada gene.”
I put my own skates on, then helped Dash with his. He stood up, wobbling, and I held on to him as we approached the rink. “You’re not going to believe the view,” I promised him.
I took his hand and led him to the rink. He really was a very bad skater. Overcautious, nervous, wobbly, until we reached the edge, and he saw the view. The Manhattan skyline to the north, co-headlined by the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, and to the west, the Hudson River and New Jersey (whatever). Below us, the High Line. “Incredible,” said Dash. “Even if the height kind of makes me want to throw up.”
“Merry Christmas,” I told him.
We barely had time for another kiss and to skate the loop of the rink before the talent arrived. They were there earlier than I’d originally planned, because the weather had turned from very cold to freezing, and drizzling, which meant freezing rain might be next, so I’d texted the entertainers to start immediately after Dash’s arrival.
Edgar Thibaud skated to the middle of the rink like a pro hockey player. I’d hired him to emcee. He held up celebratory sparklers in each of his hands and announced, “Ladies, gentlemen, distinguished librarians. Please join me in welcoming…the Rawkettes!”
The Rawkettes are a punk rock dance troupe started by my great-uncle Carmine’s dancer granddaughter, who decided to take all the experience from her failed Rockette auditions and use it to turn her stage act into a sideline more commensurate with her talent. The dancers in her group are also sci-fi fangirls, so for a while they were called the Spockettes and wore blue Rockette costumes designed like Starfleet uniforms, but after a lack of bookings, they recently changed their name to the Rawkettes, to try a new direction. This skate party was their first booking in their latest incarnation. Possibly their first booking ever.
“Is that Kerry-cousin?” Dash asked me as she took center stage with her troupe, all of them wearing “punk” outfits that looked more Ziggy Stardust than Sid Vicious. Lots of bright face glitter and gold-lamé 1970s-era pantsuits. I couldn’t wait to commend Mrs. Basil E. Dash was indeed so worthy of receiving the List! He recognized and also knew to call Great-Uncle Carmine’s granddaughter “Kerry-cousin,” to distinguish her in our family language from “Carrie-aunt” and “Kharie-neighbor,” and Cary Grant, whose name needs no quotations, and whose movies everyone adores.
“It is!” I said.
Edgar cued the music, and Kerry-cousin and her troupe began their dance interpretation of one of Dash’s favorite songs—“Calamity Song” by the Decemberists. Not a band I particularly like, except during the month of December, but I do like how their lyrics make no sense. Hetty Green / Queen of supply-side bonhomie bone-drab.
Dash looked at me like, No! and I looked at him like, Oh, heck yes!
It was amazing. All of Dash’s favorite things in one place. The High Line! Librarians! Hot chocolate! The Decemberists!
And then the rain really started to fall—in mean, icy pellets. “Now!” I beseeched Kerry-cousin. I wanted the Rawkettes to hurry the night’s grand finale before the rain did it for them. And so, holding Santa-present satchels, the Rawkettes skated around the rink, weaving in and out of librarians, and me and Dash, and Sofia and Boomer, and Edgar, throwing glitter into the air from inside their satchels. I’d wanted the night to end with an explosion of crystal color on the ice.
And for a moment, it was indeed a magical world of color, just like at Disneyland. The ice twinkled in pinks, greens, purples, golds, and silvers. But too quickly, I realized: The glitter shouldn’t have been twinkling. The sprays of glitter should have been more iridescent, like soft snow flurries.
Why was everyone suddenly falling down? Was it
the freezing rain, or the glitter?
“What kind of glitter is this?” I shouted to Kerry-cousin as she weaved between Dash and me. Glitter, glitter, glitter—everywhere there was glitter as the Rawkettes tossed handfuls on the rink like fairy dust.
“Craft store glitter!” she said. “You said to spare no expense, so I didn’t!”
I picked up a handful of glitter from the ice. It was not the cosmetic kind of glitter, like Kerry-cousin had on her face. This glitter was on a Martha Stewart level of fancy, made of finely ground glass, the size and shape of small pebbles. This craft store glitter was not fairy dust at all, but thousands of tiny, sharp, lethal weapons strewn across ice. And it was causing a free fall of skaters on the rink, taking hard knocks down onto the ice.
Boomer flew by us—“Whee!”—and then took a nasty fall on the glitter. Dash leaned over to help him up just as another librarian took a fall, and the blade of her skate made a direct slice on Dash’s face. “My eye!” Dash cried out.
“My knee!” someone else shouted.
“I think I broke my wrist,” said another voice.
It all happened so fast. One minute the Rawkettes were performing while librarians happily skated around them, and the next, there was a triage scene on the rink and emergency medics trying to maneuver stretchers across the ice, passing over streaks of blood from so many blade wounds. It was Chaos on Glitter Ice. A massacre of librarians.
As Dash was wheeled away to the ambulance, his wounded eye covered in bloody gauze, his hands already bruised and sliced from all the other skaters that had fallen on him, I told him, “I’m so sorry, Dash! I’ll call your dad and let him know you’re on the way to the hospital.”
“Don’t throw glitter in the wound, Lily,” said Dash.
Kerry-cousin handed me an invoice. “You still owe me a hundred bucks.”
I couldn’t have felt worse. I was responsible for a small army of librarians—the nicest people in the world—being taken away in ambulances from a party designed to celebrate them. I’d mortally wounded my boyfriend.
The Lily who loved Christmas had just ruined it.
Monday, December 22nd
’Twas three nights before Christmas and all through the hospital, not a creature was stirring…except for a half dozen librarians on painkillers.
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.”
Everyone did as I asked. As the librarians scribbled down their emails on a back page of my journal, a text came through from Lily.
How are you doing? she asked.
(We’d already had a very long I’m-so-sorry-You-have-no-reason-to-be-sorry exchange.)
About to be discharged, I replied. Up for something tomorrow that doesn’t involve depth perception?
You name it, she replied.
I will, I promised.
But first I’d have to survive a night with my father.
—
Leeza’s first words to me when I got into the car were, “Oh no, you poor baby!”
Good sentiment, unfortunate word choice.
The whole ride home, she fussed and fretted about my eye, and by the time we got to the apartment, I felt my father was more annoyed at her than he was at me. Which was quite an achievement.
In many ways, Leeza was not what I’d been expecting for a stepmother. For one, I was expecting someone closer to my own age. But Leeza was actually a year older than my mother—something that annoyed my mom to no end, because it was one thing to be left for a newer model and quite another to be left for someone with as much mileage as you had. (My mother shouldn’t have told me this, but on a particularly dark pre-stepfather night when I was ten, she had.)
Along similar lines, I was relieved that Leeza and my dad hadn’t wanted to have another kid—my father broadcast this fact at many dinner parties that I was at in my formative years. This meant my status was secure. But at the same time, it also confirmed that maybe I hadn’t been entirely wanted in the first place. Because if my dad had experienced such a good time with me, wouldn’t he have wanted to experience it again? (I knew it was more complicated than this, but emotionally, this was how it sometimes felt.)
My room in my father’s apartment was maybe one-quarter bedroom and three-quarters storage for yoga equipment and odds and ends. Usually Leeza cleaned it out to make the ratio at least fifty-fifty before I arrived, but this time she hadn’t had a chance.
