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December 21st
I can’t be happy unless Dash is miserable at Christmas. It’s like it’s my job to turn his holiday scowl into a smile.
A happy-looking face doesn’t come naturally to Dash. Things that I think should provoke a grin, like a great dog, or cute toddler twins stumbling around a sandbox like drunken pirates, or a rained-on person finally hailing a cab, won’t turn his frown upside down. Things that will: a hipster Instagramming their walk through the park and then slipping on that great dog’s poo; toddler twins using their yogurt tubes for a sword match that quickly escalates into a not-so-cute food fight involving a lot of sand and angry parents; or a cab discharging an arrogant Wall Streeter directly into an ankle-deep puddle of water.
I don’t want to seem like a needy girlfriend, but I kind of live for those rare moments of Dash’s smile. It’s so pure, maybe because it’s so unexpected, and never forced. Dare I say, it could light a whole Christmas tree. (If he heard me say that, it would instantly disappear and threaten never to come back.)
I am determined to bring him some smiles this Christmas. It’s too long since I’ve seen his face, in any expression! He had two great choices last spring before we both graduated high school. He got into Columbia, which would have kept him in New York City and made me very happy, and he got into Oxford University, which, as an Anglophile and a booklover, made him very happy, with the ocean’s distance from his parents a big bonus. (They’re nice, I guess. But complicated. Not in the fun way.)
Dash and I have been together two years, and although I’m not usually selfless when it comes to letting go of the people or animals I love, I actually encouraged him to go to Oxford. It had always been his dream—he should live it! I deferred admission to Barnard College so I could take a gap year and focus on my dog-walking business and volunteer at my grandpa’s assisted-living care facility. The big bonus for me—for us—and what made the separation feel okay at the time of the big decisions, was that I’d have more free time to travel to England to visit Dash since I wasn’t in school.
That’s how it was supposed to work out, at least. My business grew beyond my wildest expectations and occupied more time than I ever imagined. I haven’t seen Dash in person since August. I want to run my hands through his mop of hair, which has grown even longer since he’s been studying so hard he hasn’t bothered to get it cut. He also hasn’t bothered much with shaving. I never thought an unkempt look was my guy type, and it’s not just how hard I’ve been missing Dash—I like it. I can’t wait to kiss his scruff.
His new life in England is not what Dash expected, either. I’ve gotten the sense he doesn’t like it as much as he thought he would. Or maybe it’s Oxford, with all its rules and traditions. Dash is vague about it, but I’m his girlfriend. I sense these things. (His mumbling that maybe he’ll look into transferring elsewhere next year was also a clue. I’m not a clairvoyant. I’d like to be, though!)
I figured we’d talk about it more when he came home for Christmas, but a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, he dropped a bomb on me. He called me for a “talk.” The kind that required a text announcing the “talk” ahead of time, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a good “talk.” Luckily, it turned out not to be the kind of talk that one of our favorite singers, Robyn, suggests some boys have with their girlfriends. Or the “maybe we should see other people” talk. Instead, Dash dropped a Christmas bomb. The I’M GOING TO STAY AT MY GRANDMOTHER’S IN LONDON OVER CHRISTMAS INSTEAD OF GO HOME TO NEW YORK TO BE WITH YOU bomb.
Trigger warning: full-on Lily meltdown.
Deep breaths. Cleansing breaths. Eating feelings.
That’s how I kept it together. When I emerged from the shock, I saw that I had two choices. One, I could rationally accept his decision and spend Christmas at home with my family like every other year, which is the joy of my life, although there would be a lot of missing Dash this year.
I hate being rational.
Or two, I could—
“This was a terrible idea, Lily Bear,” my cousin Mark said as we both looked with concern at the wall clock behind his cash register. It was 6:10 in the p.m., or 18:10 as they say in England because I don’t know why they talk in military time. “This is not the kind of surprise a boyfriend wants. Especially a snarly one. I shouldn’t have said you could crash with us while you waited to spring this on him.”
Or two, I could just show up in London as a surprise!
It was a last-minute, spontaneous decision that required a lot of schedule juggling and angry-texting with my mother, whose pre-Christmas plans did not include me sabotaging her expectation that I’d be available round-the-clock to help with cooking, cleaning, and shopping preparations for the big day. But she may have been as relieved as me to get a break from each other. Ever since I decided to put off college for a year, Mom’s made it her mission to remind me that my gap year is “just a temporary gap, Lily.” You’d think she would applaud me for cultivating a successful dog-walking business and social media presence—and now spinning those off with a collection of dog crafts that people are actually buying. But Mom thinks my entrepreneurial efforts are a “distraction.” She won’t let go of reminding me that getting a college degree should be my priority. “Accumulating likes and knitting sweaters for Chihuahuas won’t prepare you for how to think, Lily.”
I don’t just think she’s wrong. I know it.
I definitely thought I needed to see my boyfriend, sooner rather than later! Escaping my mother and what lately feels like our very, very small apartment was a bonus.
“He’ll be here,” I said to Mark, although I was starting to get concerned. “And please don’t call me Lily Bear in a foreign country. I get to be a new person here, not the family baby.” I couldn’t believe I was in London! I’d never traveled so far abroad and, already, I was enamored. The Tube! The accents! The Cadbury chocolates! Of course, I’d experienced a lifetime of public transportation, the English language, and quality treats, but in London, they all felt exotic and new. I loved when the subway conductors told passengers getting on and off the train cars to “Mind the gap.” Every time I heard the conductor’s “Mind the gap” announcement, I felt like it was a secret nod to my gap year, and a secret acknowledgment that maybe London would be the place I’d figure out what I’d do once that gap period was over. Not what everyone else wanted me to do—what I wanted. Mind that gap, Mom.
The event was supposed to start at 6 p.m., I mean 18:00, I think? Too much math! Mark assured me that bookstore events never start on time, but the room was filled with people expecting it to start, and Dash was nowhere in sight, despite my very specific invitation in that day’s Advent calendar gift from me to him. It was, simply, a note:
Daunt Books/Marylebone, 6PM, 21 December.
For the pure thrill of unreluctant desire.
How could Dash resist? He loves a treasure hunt, especially if it’s a literary one. Our relationship started because of clues we left each other in a red Moleskine notebook at the Strand Bookstore during the Christmas season two years ago. This year, I decided to continue that tradition, but with a British spin. Just after Thanksgiving, I mailed Dash a handmade Advent calendar. There’s little I love more than adding a new Christmas tradition, and I love the British for their Advent calendars, which begin on December 1 and end on December 24, to herald the days till Christmas. It was quite a project, as there are infinite ways to make an Advent calendar. Thanks, Pinterest—I literally lost a week of my life to researching craft ideas. But I loved the final result.