The drunk Santas held fast, refusing to relinquish their positions.
“There’s only one thing to do,” I whispered to Lily. “You have to deploy ‘Silent Night.’ ”
She looked at me blankly. I realized that, since she’d been oblivious to the simulated groping, it looked to her like I was randomly picking a fight with Santa(s).
“Okay, then,” I said. And then, seeing no other way out of it, I began to sing… .
Silent night, holy night …
There were a few hiccups, but soon the earnest carolers were with me. The carol-oke machine was off. It was just us, singing into the night.
All is calm, all is bright …
There are many wonderful things about “Silent Night.” Somehow it calms everyone down like the divinest form of lullaby. Almost everyone knows the words, and because it’s quiet, you feel less self-conscious singing along. It feels timeless, but it also links to all of the other times you’ve heard it in your life. And, in this particular case, it is a song that it is impossible to be a raging jerk within. If you’re not part of the harmony, you have to cede the stage. As we moved into the first verse, the drunk Santas were disarmed.
I put the mic down—“Silent Night” doesn’t need any soloists. And as soon as I did, the earnest carolers gathered around me and Lily.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
The crowd hushed. It felt like the entire city hushed. A few people turned on the flashlights on their phones and waved them in the air like lighters. Others waved lighters. The song was spinning its own magnificent constellations.
It would have been impossible to not be moved by it.
Lily, though, was more than moved. She was shaken. It was at that moment I realized she was, in fact, intoxicated by more than just the caroling. It wasn’t that tears had formed in her eyes; no, she was completely sing-sobbing, or sob-singing. This is what can happen when a song creates such a caesura; in the calmest pause, other emotions can surface. Especially if you’ve been drinking. The song unlocks the depths. The breath becomes the sob.
But we sang on, because the choir and the congregation were the same body right now, and that body was going to carry us to the final notes. The bad Santas had slunk away, and all that was left was the voices of the rest of us.
When it was over, there was a brief pause, the length of a good exhalation. Then there was a rousing cheer, and people started hugging and smiling. I hugged Lily close, but she would not stop crying.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I ruined Christmas,” she said. “I ruined everybody’s Christmas.”
“No, you didn’t,” I assured her.
“My family hates me.”
“No, they don’t.”
As we walked off the makeshift stage, Azra was waiting in the makeshift wings. Solo.
“What happened to your posh male accessory?” I asked. Then, seeing the expression on her face, I had to ask, “Has there been an Olivier twist?”
“Too soon,” Lily mumbled to me.
“Too late,” Azra said, followed by a sigh. “Olivier and I are no longer together.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Well,” Azra said, “neither did I.”
“It’s just so sad,” Lily told me.
“How many has she had?” I asked Azra.
“Plenty,” Azra replied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I’m fine,” Lily said. “I can walk. I can do math in my head. Test me. Ask me the square root of something.”
“The fact that you even know what a square root is bodes well,” I observed.
“It’s not like when I first met you,” Lily said. “It doesn’t hit me as hard. It just makes me a little”—here she paused to yawn—“sleepy.”
“I guess you’ve built up something of a tolerance,” I said.
Suddenly Lily made a retching noise. I couldn’t tell whether it was a reaction to the liquor or to what I’d said.
“Hairball?” I inquired.
“That word!” Lily spat out. “Tolerance. How can it apply to both how I handle my drinking and how my family handles you?!”
I hoped the question was rhetorical, because it left me speechless.
Azra stepped in. “Her family has been texting incessantly. Telling her Christmas is canceled this year because she jetted off. Not fair, if you ask me.”
“I should text them back!” Lily proclaimed, taking out her phone. “I really should!”
“No!” Azra and I said at the same time, both of us lunging for the phone. Lily snapped it away from us … then put it back in her pocket.
“Okay okay okay,” she said. “Now what?”
“I think we should call it a night,” I said. It wasn’t long past nine, but I knew that if Lily had been up all day, the jet lag would be having something to say on top of the blood-alcohol level.
Azra nodded. “Her bags are already at Claridge’s.”
I was very relieved to hear I wouldn’t have to deal with Mark.
“Also,” Azra added, “you should know that your texts to her aren’t coming through. You’ll need to get your mobiles sorted out. Or maybe it was just a glitch. See what happens when you’re on wifi.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “And thanks for tipping us off about where you were. I am sorry to hear about you and Olivier. Even if the two of you together were pretty—”
“Insufferable?”
“Well, yeah. But you alone. You’re—”
“Sufferable?”
Probably for the first time ever, Azra had made me smile. “Exactly.”
And, lo and behold, I had made her smile back. “I’m going to call my family’s driver and have him take you to Claridge’s. I’m going to meet up with some people a short walk away, so won’t need him for a bit.”
“I mean, if you have an extra driver just sitting around …” I said.
“Thank you,” Lily chimed in.
“Yeah, that too.”
Azra said to call her tomorrow and that hopefully we could make more plans. Then she walked us to the street and introduced us to her driver, who was wearing a suit and cap like he’d just come from being an extra in an episode of The Crown. He did not question who we were or why he had to take us. He barely gave us any expression at all.
Once we were ensconced in the back of the car, I could tell there was a string of sorrys about to unfurl from Lily’s lips.
“I’m sorry too,” I said before she could get any of her own out. “Bygones?”
Lily thought about it for a moment, then rested her head on my shoulder.
“Bygones,” she murmured.
In less than a minute, she was asleep.
I had to wake her when we got to the hotel.
“Are we there?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Yes,” I said, wondering if she had any idea where there was.
This wondering was soon dismissed, because when Lily stepped out of the car, she did so as if she was returning home. She thanked the driver with such sweet gratitude that he almost melted into an expression. Then she said hello to the doormen like she’d been coming here for years.