The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily

by Rachel Cohn

  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.

  “Think Mrs. Cratchit looked like this under her frock?” I asked Dash bashfully. Why was I standing so far from the light switch? I wanted to turn out the light immediately!

  “Mrs. Fezziwig is more like it. She threw great parties. Just like you.”

  “She also maimed librarians?”

  “Only when M-Fezz went ice-skating.”

  There was an awkward pause. I had the outfit. Now what were we supposed to do with it?

  “Get over here, Lily Present,” said Dash.

  My pirate pulled me to him. He kissed me. And kissed me and kissed me and kissed me. Slowly. Deeply. Commandingly.

  He stepped all the way inside my bedroom, and I tore Dash’s Santa hat off his head, running my hands across his hair, placing more kisses on his forehead, his cheeks, his beautiful lips. “Santa can definitely feel his face,” Dash muttered.

  Then we heard my parents stumble into the foyer, tipsy and laughing.

  “Should we check on her?” my dad asked.

  “You know she falls asleep before midnight every Christmas,” said Mom. “Can never stay awake after all the excitement of the day.”

  We heard them stumble toward their bedroom door.

  I moved toward my own bedroom door, assuming Dash would conclude our make-out session and return to his own home now that my parents were here.

  Instead, Dash said, “Close the door, Lily.”

  —

  The door stayed closed less than one minute before it opened again, with no knock to precede it.

  Dad tossed Dash’s tricorne hat into the room and said, “Good night, Jack Sparrow.”

  Dash said, “I take Depp offense.”

  “Good,” said Dad. “Now go home.”

  I walked Dash to the foyer and kissed him good night.

  “Know what the best thing your true love can give you is?” I asked him.

  “What?” said Dash.

  “True love.”

  He kissed me one last time, placed his pirate hat on his head, winked his non-patched eye at me, and took off.

  I was not tired at all, and I had those beautiful new cookie sheets Dash had given me. Time to start baking.

  Only 364 days left until next Christmas!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, as always, to our family and friends.

  Thank you to Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Bill Clegg, Alicia Gordon, and everyone at WME and the Clegg Agency.

  Thank you to Nancy Hinkel, as always, for making being edited feel like a holiday. Thank you to the many, many people at Random House Children’s Books who have made such a wonderful home for our books, including (but in no way limited to) Stephen Brown, Jennifer Brown, Melanie Cecka, Barbara Marcus, Mary McCue, Adrienne Waintraub, Laura Antonacci, and Lisa Nadel. And thank you to Egmont, Text, and all our foreign publishers for their ace support.

  Finally, thanks to everyone who told us how much Dash and Lily have meant to them over the years. This book wouldn’t exist without you.

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