“How about this one?” he asked.
He’d writ en revel. I took the R volume from Dash’s lap and read up on the word. “Hmm,” I said. “Revel. Circa 1300, ‘riotous merrymaking.’ What else? As a verb, ‘to feast in a noisy manner,’ circa 1325.” Next to Dash’s revel in the red notebook, I wrote, Slop that trough, wench. ’Tis New Year’s! We shal revel in slaughtering that there poor innocent pig and have bacon for breakfast! R-E-V-E-ll.
Dash read my entry and chuckled. “Now you choose a word.”
I opened the E volume and chose a random word, writing down epigynous.
Only after I’d copied the word into the red notebook did I actually read what it meant. Epigynous (i-pi-jә-nәs): having oral parts at ached to or near the summit of the ovary, as in the flower of the apple, cucumber, or daf odil.
Could I have chosen a more suggestive word?
Dash would think I was a trol op now.
I should have chosen the word trol op.
Dash’s cell phone rang.
I think we were both relieved.
“Hi, Dad,” Dash answered. His dashingness seemed to wither for a moment as his shoulders slumped and his voice became measured and … tolerant was the only word I could think of for the tone Dash used with his father. “Oh, it’s my usual New Year’s. Booze and women.” Pause. “Ah, yes, you heard about that? Funny story …” Pause. “No, I don’t want to talk to your lawyer.” Pause. “Yes, I’m aware you’ll be home tomorrow night.” Pause. “Awesome. Nothing I love more than our father-son chats about important mat ers in my life.” I don’t know what boldness came over me, but the resolute heaviness of Dash’s demeanor threatened to crush my soul. My pinky nger crept over and nestled against his, for comfort. Like a magnet, his pinky finger latched onto and intertwined with mine.
I like magnets a whole lot.
“Now, about that word,” Dash said after his call with his dad. “Epigynous.” I immediately jumped to my feet, in search of a new reference book with less embarrassing words. I picked up an edition of something called The Speakeasy Urban Dickshun-yary. I turned to a random page.
“ ‘Running lat e,’ ” I said aloud. “ ‘When you’re late because you stopped for a cof ee.’ ” Dash resumed writing in the red notebook.
Sorry I missed your bar mitzvah, I was running lat e.
I took the pen and added Sorry I just spilled cof ee on your tux, too!
Dash looked at his watch. “Almost midnight.”
My epigynous zone worried. Would Dash think I trapped him in the storage room to trap him into that awful (or wonderful?) midnight ritual of a New Year’s kiss?
If we stayed in this room much longer, Dash might nd out how completely inexperienced I was in the mat ers I was desperately wanting to experience. With him.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said quietly. I don’t know what I’m doing. Please don’t laugh at me. If I’m a disaster, please be kind and let me down gently.
“What?”
I meant to tell him, I really did. But what came out of my mouth was “Snarly Muppet has been returned to me by Uncle Carmine. It has asked to come live in this storage room, surrounded by reference books. It prefers these musty old tomes to suf ocating inside a nutcracker.”
“Smart Snarly.”
“Do you promise to visit Snarly?”
“I can’t make that promise. It’s ridiculous.”
“I think you should promise.”
Dash sighed. “I promise to try. If your curmudgeon cousin Mark ever lets me back into the Strand.” I looked up to a clock on the wall behind Dash’s head.
The midnight hour had passed.
Phew.
January 1st
“This is a rare opportunity we have, Lily. Alone in the Strand like this. I think we should take full advantage of it.”
“How so?” Was it possible my heart was shaking as hard as my hands?
“We should dance around the aisles upstairs. Pore through volumes of books about circus freaks and shipwrecks. Pill age the cookbooks for that ultimate Rice Krispie treat recipe. Oh, and we must track down the fourth edition of The Joy of—”
“Okay!” I screeched. “Let’s go upstairs! I love books about freaks.” Because I am one. You might be, too. Let’s be freaks together?
We walked to the storage room door.
Dash leaned in toward me mysteriously. Flirtatiously. He raised an eyebrow and declared, “The night is young. We have volumes and volumes of the OED to return to.”
I reached for the doorknob and turned it.
The knob did not budge.
I noticed a handwrit en sign next to the light switch I hadn’t bothered to turn on when we rst entered the room, so intent had I been on ef ecting a candle glow to our atmosphere. The sign read:
BEWARE!
In case you didn’t read the huge sign on the wal
outside the door, please read this one:
DUDE! How many times do you have to be reminded?
The storage door locks from the OUTSIDE.
Be sure to keep the key on you to open it from the inside,
or you won’t be able to get out.
No.
No no no no no no no.
NO! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
I turned to face Dash.
“Um, Dash?”
“Um, yes?”
“I kind of locked us in here.”
I had no choice but to call my cousin Mark for help. “You’ve awakened me, Lily Dogwalker,” he barked into the phone. “You know it’s my tradition to be asleep long before that stupid ball drops in Times Square.” I explained the predicament.