A text message came through on Langston’s phone. “Benny!” he said, grabbing for it. Langston’s thumbs went into hyper-motion in response. I knew Mr. Dickens and I were finished for the time being.
I left his room.
Langston hadn’t even bothered to ask if we should exchange presents. We’d promised our parents we would wait for New Year’s Day to do our gift exchanges, but I was willing to cheat, if asked.
I returned to my own room and saw I had five voice mails on my phone: two from Grandpa, one from Cousin Mark, one from Uncle Sal, and one from Great-aunt Ida. The great Christmas merry-go-round of phone calls had begun.
I didn’t listen to any of the messages. I turned my phone off. I was on strike this Christmas, I decided.
When I told my parents last year I didn’t mind if we celebrated Christmas late this year, I obviously hadn’t meant it. How had they not figured that out?
This should have been a real Christmas morning of tearing through presents and eating a huge breakfast and laughing and singing with my family.
I was surprised to realize there was something I wanted more than that, though.
I wanted the red notebook back.
With nothing to do and no one to hang out with, I lay on my bed and wondered how Snarl’s Christmas was going. I imagined him living in some swank artists’ loft in Chelsea, with a super-hip mom and her super-cool new boyfriend and they had, like, asymmetrical haircuts and maybe spoke German. I imagined them sitting around their Christmas hearth drinking hot cider and eating my lebkuchen spice cookies while the turkey roasted in the oven. Snarl was playing the trumpet for them, wearing a beret, too, because suddenly I wanted him to be a musical prodigy who wore a hat. And when he finished playing his piece, which he composed for them as a Christmas present, they cried and said, “Danke! Danke!” The piece was so perfect and beautiful, his playing so exquisite, even Snarly Muppet seated by the hearth clapped its Muppet hands, a Pinocchio come to life from the sound of such sweet trumpeting.
Since I couldn’t speak to Snarl myself and find out how his Christmas was going, I decided to get dressed and take a walk in Tompkins Square Park. I know all the dogs there. Because of the prior gerbil and cat incidents, my parents long ago mandated that it was better for me not to have my own pets since I get too attached. They compromised by allowing me to take on dog-walking jobs in the neighborhood, so long as they or Grandpa knew the owners. This compromise has worked out nicely over the last couple years, as I have gotten to spend quality dog time with loads more dogs than I would have gotten to know if I’d had my own, and I am also quite wealthy now.
The weather was weirdly warm and sunny for a Christmas Day. It felt more like June than December, yet another sign of the wrongness of this particular Christmas Day. I sat down on a bench while people walked by with their dogs, and I cooed, “Hi, puppy!” to all the dogs I didn’t know, and I cooed, “Hi, puppy!” to all the dogs I did know, but to those dogs, I pet them and fed them bone-shaped dog biscuits I’d baked the night before, using red and green food coloring so the biscuits would appear festive. I didn’t talk except as necessary to the humans, but I listened to them, and found out all the ways in which the Christmases of everyone else in the neighborhood were not sucking this year like mine was. I saw their new sweaters and hats, their new watches and rings, heard about their new TVs and laptops.
But all I could think about was Snarl. I imagined him surrounded by doting parents and the exact presents he wanted today. I pictured him opening up gifts of moody black turtle-necks, and angry novels by angry young men, and ski equipment just because I’d like to think there’s a possibility we might one day go skiing together even though I don’t know how to ski, and not one single English-Catalan dictionary.
Had Snarl gone to Dyker Heights yet? Since I’d turned my phone off and left it at home, the only way to find out would be to go see Great-aunt Ida, who was on my talk-to list for the day.
Great-aunt Ida lives in a town house on East Twenty-second Street near Gramercy Park. My family of four lives in a small, cramped East Village apartment (with no pets, grrr …) that my academic parents can afford only because Grandpa owns the building; our whole apartment is about the size of one floor of Great-aunt Ida’s house, which she occupies all by herself. She never married or had her own kids. She was a fabulously successful art gallery owner in her day; she did so well for herself she could afford to buy her own house in Manhattan. (Though Grandpa always points out that she bought that house when the city was in economic turmoil, and the prior occupants practically paid Great-aunt Ida to take it off their hands. Lucky lady!) Her fancy house in her fancy neighborhood doesn’t mean Great-aunt Ida’s gone all snobby, though. She’s so not snobby, in fact, that even though she has lots of money, she still works one day a week at Madame Tussauds. She said she needs something to do, and she likes hanging out with celebrities. Secretly I think she is writing a tell-all book about what happens between the wax people when no one’s looking.
Langston and I call Great-aunt Ida Mrs. Basil E. because of the book we loved when we were kids, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. That book’s Mrs. Basil E. is a rich old lady who sets the sister and brother in the book out on a treasure hunt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York. When we were kids, our Mrs. Basil E. used to take Langston and me on museum adventures on school holidays when our parents had to work. The days always ended with a trip for giant ice cream sundaes. How great is a great-aunt who lets her niece and nephew have ice cream for dinner? Truly great, in my opinion.
Great-aunt Ida/Mrs. Basil E. wrapped me in a giant Christmas hug when I arrived at her apartment. I loved how she always smells like lipstick and classy perfume. She always wears a proper ladies’ suit, too, even on Christmas Day, when she should be lounging around in her pj’s.
“Hello, Lily bear,” Mrs. Basil E. said. “I see you found my old majorette boots from my high school days at Washington Irving High.”
I leaned into her for another hug. I love her hugs. “Yes.” I nodded into her shoulder, grateful for it. “I found them in our old dress-up-clothes trunk. At first they were too big on me, but I put on a thick pair of socks over my tights, so they’re comfy now. They’re my new favorite boots.”
“I like the gold tinsel you added to the tassels,” she said. “Are you going to let me go anytime before New Year’s?”
Reluctantly, I released my arms from around her.
“Now please take my boots off,” she said. “I don’t want the taps on the soles scratching my wood floors.”
“What’s for dinner?” I asked.
Mrs. Basil E.’s tradition is to have tons of people over for Christmas dinner, and enough food for a ton more.
“The usual,” she said.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Right this way,” she said, turning toward the kitchen.
But I didn’t follow her.
She turned around. “Yes, Lily?” she asked.
“Did he return the notebook?”
“Not yet, dear. But I’m sure he will.”
“What does he look like?” I asked her, once again.
“You’ll have to find out for yourself,” she said. Aside from being snarly, Snarl must not be a total monster, because if he was, no way would Mrs. Basil E. have signed on as an accessory to the latest installment.
Into the kitchen we went.
Mrs. Basil E. and I cooked and sang till six while workers around us did the same, preparing the grand house for its grand feast. I kept wanting to shriek, WHAT IF HE DOESN’T RETURN THE NOTEBOOK? But I didn’t. Because my great-aunt didn’t seem too concerned. Like she had faith in him, and so should I.
Finally, at seven that night—perhaps the looooongest wait of my life ever—the Dyker Heights contingent of the family arrived. Uncle Carmine and his wife and their massive brood came in loaded with presents.
I didn’t bother to open mine. Uncle Carmine still thinks I’m eight and gives me American Girl doll accessories. Which I still love, by the way, but it’s not exactly like there’s a mystery about what’s inside his wrapped gift boxes for me. So I asked him, “Do you have it?”
Uncle Carmine said, “It’ll cost you.” He turned his cheek to me. I gave his cheek a Christmas kiss. The toll paid, he pulled the red notebook from his goody bag of presents and handed it to me.
Suddenly I didn’t see how I could survive one more second without absorbing the latest contents in the notebook. I needed to be alone.
“Bye, everyone!” I chirped.
“Lily!” Mrs. Basil E. scolded. “You can’t possibly think you’re leaving.”
“I forgot to tell you I’m not really talking to anyone today! I’m more or less on strike! So I wouldn’t be very good company! And since Langston’s sick at home, I should probably check on him.” I threw her a kiss from my hand. “Mwahhh!”
She shook her head. “That child,” she said to Carmine. “Kooky.” She threw her hands up in the air before throwing me back an air kiss. “What should I tell the caroling friends you invited here to dinner tonight?”
“Tell them merry Christmas!” I called out as I left.
Langston was asleep again when I got home. I filled his water glass and left some Tylenols by his bed and went to my own room to read the notebook in private.
At last I had it—the Christmas present I’d wanted all along, but hadn’t realized. His words.
I felt a sense of longing for him such as I’ve never experienced in my lifetime for any person, or even for any pet.
It seemed weird to me that he’d spent his Christmas alone … and had seemed to like it. He hadn’t seemed to think anyone should feel sorry for him about that, either.
I had spent my Christmas mostly alone for the first time in my life, too.
I had felt rather sorry for myself.
But it hadn’t been so terrible, actually.
In the future, I decided I would tackle the solitude thing more enthusiastically, so long as solitude meant I could also walk in the park and pet a few dogs and pass them treats.
What did you get for Christmas? he asked me in the notebook.
I wrote:
We didn’t do presents this year at Christmas. We’re saving it for New Year’s. (Long story. Maybe you’d like to hear it in person sometime?)
But I couldn’t concentrate on writing in the notebook. I wanted to live inside it, not write in it.
What kind of girl did Snarl think I was, sending me to a music club in the middle of the night?
My parents would never let me go.
But they weren’t here to say no.
I returned to the notebook. I liked what you said, my nameless new friend. Are we that? Friends? I hope so. Only for a friend would I consider going out at TWO IN THE MORNING on Christmas night—or any night, for that matter. It’s not that I’m afraid of the dark, so much as … I don’t really go out that much. In that teenager kind of way. Is that okay?
I’m not sure how this Being a Teenager thing is supposed to work. Is there an instruction manual? I think I have the moody muscle installed, but I don’t flex it that often. More times I feel so filled with LOVE for the people I know—and even more so for the dogs I walk in Tompkins Square Park—that I feel like I could well up like a giant balloon and fly away. Yes, that much love. But other teenagers? Historically, I haven’t always related so much. In seventh grade, my parents made me join my school’s soccer team to force me to socialize with other girls my age. It turns out I was pretty good at soccer, but not so great at the socializing part. Don’t worry—it’s not like I am a complete freak of nature that nobody talks to. It’s more like the other girls talk to me, but after a while they’ll sort of look at me like, “HUH? What did she just say?” Then they go off into their groups, where I’m pretty sure they speak a secret language of popularity, and I go back to kicking the ball by myself and having imaginary conversations with my favorite dogs and literary characters. Everyone wins.