My brother, Langston, said, “Lily, you don’t understand because you’ve never been in love. If you had a boyfriend, you’d understand.” Langston has a new boyfriend and all I understand from that is a sorry state of co-dependence.
And it’s not entirely true that I’ve never been in love. I had a pet gerbil in rst grade, Spazzy, whom I loved passionately. I will never stop blaming myself for bringing Spazzy to show-and-tell at school, where Edgar Thibaud let open his cage when I wasn’t looking and Spazzy met Jessica Rodriguez’s cat Tiger and, well, the rest is history. Goodwil to Spazzy up in gerbil heaven. Sorry sorry sorry. I stopped eating meat the day of the massacre, as penance for Spazzy. I’ve been a vegetarian since age six, all for the love of a gerbil.
Since I was eight, I have been in literary love with the character Sport from Harriet the Spy. I’ve kept my own Harriet-style journal—red Moleskine notebooks that Grandpa buys me at the Strand—since I rst read that book, only I don’t write mean observations about people in my journals like Harriet sometimes did. Mostly I draw pictures in it and write memorable quotes or passages from books I’ve read, or recipe ideas, or lit le stories I make up when I’m bored. I want to be able to show grown-up Sport that I’ve tried my darnedest not to make sport out of writing mean gossip and stuf .
Langston has been in love. Twice. His rst big romance ended so badly that he had to leave Boston after his freshman year of college and move back home till his heart could heal; the breakup was that bad. I hope I never love someone so much that they could hurt me the way Langston was hurt, so wounded all he could do was cry and mope around the house and ask me to make him peanut but er and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut o , then play Boggle with him, which of course I always did, because I usually do whatever Langston wants me to do. Langston eventually recovered and now he’s in love again. I think this new one’s okay. Their rst date was at the symphony. How mean can a guy be who likes Mozart? I hope, at least.
Unfortunately, now that Langston has a boyfriend again, he has forgot en all about me. He has to be with Benny all the time. To Langston, our parents and Grandpa being gone for Christmas is a gift, and not the outrage it is to me. I protested to Langston about him basically granting Benny a permanent state of residence in our house over the holidays. I reminded him that if Mom and Dad were going to be away at Christmas, and Grandpa would be at his winter apartment in Florida, then it was Langston’s responsibility to keep me company. I was there for him in his time of need, after all.
But Langston repeated, “Lily, you just don’t understand. What you need is someone to keep you occupied. You need a boyfriend.” Well sure, who doesn’t need a boyfriend? But realistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. I go to an all-
girls school, and meaning no disrespect to my sapphic sisters, but I have no interest in nding a romantic companion there. The rare boy creatures I do meet who aren’t either related to me or who aren’t g*y are usually too at ached to their Xboxes to notice me, or their idea of how a teenage girl should look and act comes directly from the pages of Maxim magazine or from the tarty look of a video game character.
There’s also the problem of Grandpa. Many years ago, he owned a neighborhood family grocery store on Avenue A in the East village. He sold the business but kept the corner block building, where he had raised his family. My family lives in that building now, along with Grandpa in the fourth-floor “penthouse” apartment, as he calls the converted space that was once an at ic studio. There’s a sushi restaurant on the ground oor where the grocery store once was. Grandpa has presided over the neighborhood as it went from low-income haven for immigrant families to yuppie enclave. Everybody knows him. Every morning he joins his buddies at the local Italian bakery, where these huge, burly guys drink espresso from dainty lit le cups. The scene is very Sopranos meets Rent. It means that because everyone looks a ectionately upon Grandpa, they’re all looking out for Grandpa’s pet—me, the baby of the family, the youngest of his ten grandchildren.
The few local boys so far who’ve expressed an interest in me have all been quickly “persuaded” that I’m too young to date, according to Langston. It’s like I wear an invisible cloak of unavailability to cute boys when I walk around the neighborhood. It’s a problem.
So Langston decided to make it his project to (1) give me a project to keep me occupied so he could have Benny all to himself over Christmas and (2) move that project to west of First Avenue, away from Grandpa’s protection shield. Langston took the latest red Moleskine notebook that Grandpa bought me and, together with Benny, mapped out a series of clues to nd a companion just right for me. Or so they said. But the clues could not have been further removed from who I am. I mean, French pianism? Sounds possibly naughty. The Joy of Gay Sex? I’m blushing even thinking about that. De nitely naughty. Fat Hoochie Prom Queen? Please. I’d include hoochie as a most un-goodwil type of curse word. You’d never hear me ut er the word, much less read a book with that word in its title.
I thought the notebook was seriously Langston’s stupidest idea ever until Langston mentioned where he was going to leave it—at the Strand, the bookstore where our parents used to take us on Sundays and let us roam the aisles like it was our personal playground.
Furthermore, he’d placed it next to my personal anthem book, Franny and Zooey. “If there’s a perfect guy for you anywhere,” Langston said,