“Like self-esteem based on your relationship with God?” I asked her.
Now she stopped walking. “Yes! I let it go when I talked to Olivier last night, but I was bothered. I barely slept. And this morning, after I showered and put on my scarf, I knew. It was over.”
“Are you sad?”
“Yes. And relieved. He’s a lot of work, that Olivier. He’s hypercompetitive, a bit pretentious. We’re about to go into a new year and I don’t feel like carrying that energy of his into it.”
“Are your parents happy?”
“They were surprised and tried very hard to disguise their glee.”
I spied the entrance to the Bavarian Village nearby. “I think you need some delicious German treats. How about some lebkuchen cookies, my treat?”
“And a mocktail to go with them, please.”
We headed in that direction. I said, “I don’t know how you walk in those shoes. Do your feet hurt?”
“No. A girl I went to boarding school with, who did some modeling, taught me how to walk in heels. I’ve just been texting with her, actually. Your Dash’s ex, Sofia—”
“You know Sofia?”
“Yes!”
“You never mentioned you knew her before.”
“It never came up before. Does it matter?”
It really didn’t matter, and it was silly of me to feel jealous, once again, of perfect Sofia, whose skill set I’d now learned included modeling, and not only wearing high heels but mentoring others in how to do so. “Nah,” I said. “Was she perfect back then, too?”
“She was naughty! She had a Swiss boyfriend that she used to sneak out and see after curfew. She wouldn’t get back to our dorm until, like, four in the morning. I was such a proper girl and I was so scandalized and impressed. Then her family moved to New York and she dumped him. But the poor fellow. I don’t think she told him she was moving, because he would come to the dorms in the middle of the night and stand outside yodeling for her!”
“Yodeling ironically or for real?”
“We honestly never knew.”
Somehow this story made me like Sofia. And reminded me I still hadn’t answered Sofia’s and Boomer’s texts. But I was too distracted and delighted to bother with texts now. Azra and I had walked inside the Bavarian Village, which was strung with lights and filled with people laughing, drinking, and eating, and there, before us, was my Holy Grail of Christmas: a carol-oke bar for singing Christmas carols!
A waitress dressed in Bavarian costume approached us holding a tray shaped like a long ski, with container holes that had—“Shotski?” she asked us.
Azra said, “I don’t drink. Lily?”
“Sure, why not?” I said. The legal drinking age in England was eighteen. Enjoying this drink now could be like time-traveling to my twenty-first birthday in New York. The party would be legendary and could start now.
“Five quid,” the waitress said, and handed me a shot glass filled with a Scotch-colored liquid from the ski tray.
I gave the waitress a £5 note and took the glass. I didn’t sip it but drank it just as instructed—as a shot. And it felt like one—a shot directly to my heart, warming my body and reminding me what this Christmas had been missing for me all along. SONGS!
Three, four, five shotskis later? I don’t know, I lost count. I was the star of carol-oke and had a crowd of merrymakers joining me, with Azra laughing on the sidelines. I was perched center stage with a giant screen behind me broadcasting my face to the whole park as a new song came onto the carol-oke monitor. I sang aloud into the microphone.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year …
Before I could sing the next line, the microphone was grabbed from my hand. By Dash. Looking not happy at all, but scrumptious in his favorite old pea coat.
“Is it?” Dash asked the crowd.
twelve
December 22nd
It was, frankly, time for Hyde Park to go back to being Jekyll. Because the holidays had brought out its most festive beast from within.
At first, the state of Lily’s sobriety or lack thereof wasn’t entirely clear. Because, truth be told, Lily was a girl who could get completely drunk on caroling, no liquor needed. All it took were a few jingling chords for her Little Drummer Girl to take over the beat, and after that, it was all goodwill hunting. When she got into that zone, all I could do was step aside and give in to the sheer harmonious delight of it. Did I stop to observe the irony of a group of people loudly asking Do you hear what I hear when their voices would clearly drown out any other sound? Sure. Did I think the proper answer to the question Do they know it’s Christmas after all? was “Don’t you think it’s problematic that you’re rating their problems on a scale of a holiday that many of them don’t even celebrate? Don’t you think the lyric And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime is possibly the most ridiculous piece of condescending, colonialist crap that has ever been committed to vinyl?!” It’s possible that thought has crossed my mind once or twice. But did I keep those thoughts inside and let the music fill the night without my commentary? Yes. Because I appreciated the spirit in which it was being sung.
So after I saw Boomer and Sofia off … after I made my way to Hyde Park amidst people wearing plush antlers without any sense of shame … after I found Lily by hearing her voice take a solo on “Santa Baby” … at first, I was inclined to hold off on any humbug. I wasn’t even peeved that the screen behind her would soon be showing a certain holiday “classic” (its title should really be Love … Actually Not).
No, what Scrooged me over was the fact that as Lily was out in front, giving a new song her all with a proclamation of the “hap-happiest season,” there were three drunk Santas behind her, elbowing the more earnest carolers out of the way and pretending to grab Lily’s ass.
Now, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to take on three drunk Santa bros without having to be carried away on a sleigh, so the best I could do was move Lily to safety while providing my own ass for them to ogle.
“Is it?” I said, taking the mic. “Is it really the most wonderful time of year when anyone can slap on a beard and cater to his own monstrous jolliness? So appropriate that Santa lives where he does, because so many of you Santas live and die by your own poles. Did you really need another excuse to act like drunken jerks? Did you have to create one more white-male myth where it’s the old white guy judging everyone and dispensing all the gifts? We all know who really buys those gifts, and that is a pretty strong argument for it being Mother Christmas in charge, no? Also, didn’t you get the memo that you’re supposed to be aiming for nice, not naughty? I’m not supposed to be able to smell the Christmas spirit on your breath, you jolly Saint Nickheads.”
“Get off the stage!” one of the Santas hollered.
“No, sir.” I turned to the more earnest carolers. “I think the stage should belong to the people who want to sing, not the people who want to dick around. Can I get an amen?”
“Amen!” the carolers yelled. Except, since they were British, it came out sounding like, “Why, yes, I think so, amen.”