“Okay!”
I started to turn around to execute the plan, but Boomer called after me.
“Lily!”
“Yes?”
“Max Brenner is across the street! I forgot about that!”
Boomer referred to a restaurant a block away from the Strand, a Willy Wonka–esque chocolate-themed eating extravaganza place—a tourist trap for sure, but of the best kind, not unlike Madame Tussauds.
“Want to split a chocolate pizza?” I asked Boomer.
“Yes!”
“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes,” I said, walking away.
“Don’t forget to come back for the notebook when I’m not looking!” Boomer said. It both mysti ed and intrigued me that such a seemingly dour person as Dash was great friends with an extremely exclamation-pointed person as excitable Boomer. I suspected this spoke well for Dash, that he could appreciate this brand of Boomer dude.
“I won’t,” I called back.
I enlisted my cousin Mark to join us at Max Brenner, since bringing along an adult meant Mark would pick up the check, even if he likely would just Bill it back to Grandpa.
Boomer and I ordered the chocolate pizza—a warm, thin pastry shaped like a pizza, with double-melted chocolate as the “sauce,” topped with melted marshmal ows and candied hazelnut bits, then carved into triangle slices like a real pizza. Mark ordered the chocolate syringe, which was exactly what it sounded like—a plastic syringe filled with chocolate that you could shoot straight into your mouth.
“But we could share our pizza with you!” Boomer told Mark after Mark ordered the syringe. “It’s more fun when the sugar infusion is a truly communal experience.”
“Thanks, kid, but I’m trying to reduce my carbs,” Mark said. “I’ll stick with shooting up straight chocolate. No need to add more dough to my waistline.” The waitress left us and Mark turned to Boomer in all seriousness. “Now, tell us everything about your lit le punk friend Dash.”
“He’s not a punk! He’s pret y square, actually!”
“No criminal record?” Mark said.
“Not unless you count the crimson alert!”
“The what?” Mark and I both said.
Boomer took out his phone and displayed a website called WashingtonSquareMommies.
Mark and I read through the crimson alert posting, inspecting the evidence on the site.
“He eats yogurt?” Mark asked. “What kind of teenage boy is he?”
“Lactose tolerant!” Boomer said. “Dash loves yogurt, and anything with cream in it, and he especially likes Spanish cheeses.” Mark turned to me consolingly. “Lily. Sweetie. You realize this Dash may not be straight?”
“Dash is for sure straight!” Boomer announced. “He has a super-pret y ex-girlfriend named So a, who I think he still has a thing for, and also, in seventh grade, there was a game of spin the bot le and it was my turn and I spun and it landed at Dash, but he wouldn’t let me kiss him.”
“Proves nothing,” Mark mut ered.
Sofia? Sofia?
Sofia? Sofia?
I needed a bathroom break.
I don’t think we should ever try to meet again; there’s such freedom in that.
And now, for his final trick, Dash had insulted me.
Postcard 6: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
met past and past part of MEET meet\mēt\1 a : to come into the presence of: FIND b : to come together with esp. at a particular time or place c : to come into contact or conjunction with : JOIN d : to appear to the perception of …
“Are you okay, Lily?” a voice at the bathroom sink next to me asked as I read through Dash’s latest inexplicable (to make no sense; see: BOYS) message.
I shut the red notebook and looked up. In the mirror, I saw Alice Gamble, a girl from my school who was also on my soccer squad.
“Oh, hey, Alice,” I said. “What are you doing here?” I half expected her to turn around and leave me standing there since I was not part of the “cool crowd” at school. Maybe because it was the holidays, she didn’t.
“I live around the corner,” Alice said. “My younger twin sisters love this place, so I get dragged here anytime the grandparents are in town.”
“Boys make no sense,” I told her.
“For sure!” Alice said, looking happy to have a topic on hand more interesting than younger siblings and grandparents. She glanced at the red notebook curiously. “Do you have any particular boy in mind?”
“I have no idea!” And I really didn’t. I couldn’t understand from his last message whether Dash was saying we should meet again or we should just correspond through the notebook. I couldn’t understand why I even cared. Especially if there was some other girl named So a in the picture.
“Do you want to go get cof ee or something tomorrow and discuss and analyze the situation at length?” Alice asked.
“Are your grandparents really that bad?” I couldn’t imagine Alice wanting to hang out and do girl stu with me like talk about boys endlessly unless she was really desperate.
Alice said, “My grandparents are pret y cool. But our apartment is small, and cramped with too many people visiting for the holidays. I need to get out of the house. And it would be fun to, you know, finally get to know you.”
“Really?” I asked. I wondered if these kinds of invitations had always been available to me and I just hadn’t noticed before, too shrouded in Shrilly fear?