“The twenty-sixth.”

“I should write it down.”

He grabbed a pen o the table by our door and wrote THE 26TH on his arm.

“Don’t you have to write down what’s on the twenty-sixth?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I’l remember that. It’s your girlfriend’s party!”

I could have corrected him, but I knew I’d only have to do it again later.

Once Boomer was safely out of the building, I luxuriated in the silence. It was Christmas Eve, and I had nowhere to be. I kicked o my shoes.

Then I kicked o my pants. Amused by this, I took o my shirt. And my underwear. I walked from room to room, naked as the day I was born,

only without the blood and amniotic uid. It was strange—I’d been home alone plenty of times before, but I’d never walked around naked. It was

a lit le chil y, but it was also kind of fun. I waved to the neighbors. I had some yogurt. I put on my mom’s copy of the Mamma Mia soundtrack and

spun around a lit le. I did some light dusting.

Then I remembered the notebook. It didn’t feel right to open the Moleskine naked. So I put my underwear back on. And my shirt (unbut oned).

And my pants.

Lily deserved some respect, after al .

It pret y much blew me away, what she had writ en. Especial y the part about Franny. Because I’d always had a soft spot for Franny. Like most

of Salinger’s characters, she wouldn’t be such a fuckup, you felt, if these fucked-up things didn’t keep happening to her. I mean, you never wanted

her to end up with Lane, who was a douche bag, only without the vinegar. If she ended up going to Yale, you wanted her to burn the place down.

I knew I was starting to confuse Lily with Franny. Only, Lily wouldn’t fal for Lane. She’d fal for … Wel , I had no idea who she’d fal for, or if

he happened to resemble me.

We believe in the wrong things, I wrote, using the same pen Boomer had used on his arm. That’s what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of

belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Wel , the meanings are out there. We’re just so damn good at reading them wrong.

I wanted to stop there. But I went on.

It’s not going to be explained to you in a prayer. And I’m not going to be able to explain it to you. Not just because I’m as ignorant and hopeful

and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your

own. It’s like when you’re starting to read. First, you learn the let ers. Then, once you know what sounds the let ers make, you use them to sound

out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the

sound, the “cat” is connected to an actual cat, and that “dog” is connected to an actual dog. It’s that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning.

And a lot of the time in life, we’re stil just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to

present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that’s only spel ing.

I don’t mean this to sound hopeless. Because in the same way that a kid can realize what “c-a-t” means, I think we can nd the truths that live

behind our words. I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the let ers linked into words, and that the words

behind our words. I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the let ers linked into words, and that the words

linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don’t have the words for it, since we hadn’t yet learned the words. It must have

been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily.

My hands were starting to shake a lit le. Because I hadn’t known that I knew these things. Just having a notebook to write them in, and having

someone to write them to, made them al rise to the surface.

There was the other part of it, too—the I want to believe there is a somebody out there just for me. I want to believe that I exist to be there for

that somebody. That was, I had to admit, less a concern to me. Because the rest of it seemed so much bigger. But I stil had enough longing for that

concept that I didn’t want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn’t want to tel Lily that I felt we’d al been duped by Plato and the idea of a

soulmate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.

Too much. Too soon. Too fast. I put down the notebook, paced around the apartment. The world was too ful of wastrels and waifs, sycophants

and spies—al of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or writ en suspect. Perhaps this was what was so

unnerving about Lily at this moment—the trust that was required in what we were doing.

It is much harder to lie to someone’s face.

But.

It is also much harder to tel the truth to someone’s face.

Words failed me, insofar as I wasn’t sure I could nd the words that wouldn’t fail her. So I put the journal down and pondered the address she’d

given me (I had no idea where Dyker Heights was) and the ghastly Muppet that had accompanied it. Do bring Snarly Muppet, she’d writ en. I liked

the ring of the do bring. Like this was a comedy of manners.

“Can you tel me what she’s like?” I asked Snarly.

He just snarled back. Not helpful.

My cel phone rang—Mom, asking me how Christmas Eve at Dad’s place was. I told her it was ne and asked her if she and Giovanni were

having a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. She giggled and said no, there wasn’t a turkey in sight, and she was just ne with that. I liked the sound

of her giggle—kids don’t real y hear their parents giggle enough, if you ask me—and I let her get o the phone before she felt the urge to pass it

over to Giovanni for some perfunctory salutations. I knew my dad wouldn’t cal until actual Christmas Day—he only cal ed when the obligation

was so obvious even a goril a would get it.

I imagined what it would be like if my lie to my mom was actual y the truth—that is, if I was with Dad and Leeza right then, at some “yoga

retreat” in California. Personal y, I felt yoga was something to retreat from, not toward, so the mental image involved me sit ing cross-legged with

an open book in my lap while everyone else did the Spread-Eagle Ostrich. I’d vacationed with Dad and Leeza exactly once in the two or so years

they’d been together, and that had involved a redundantly named “spa resort” and me walking in on them while they were kissing with mud masks

on. That had been more than enough for this lifetime, and the three or four after.

Mom and I had decorated the tree before she and Giovanni had left. Even though I wasn’t into Christmas, I did get some satisfaction from the tree

—every year, Mom and I got to take out our childhoods and scat er them across the branches. I hadn’t said anything, but Mom had known that

Giovanni deserved no part in this—it was just her and me, taking out the palm-sized rocking chair that my great-grandmother had made for my

mother’s dol house and dangling it from a bow, then taking the worn-out washcloth from when I was a baby, its lion face stil peering through the

cartoon woods, and balancing it on the pine. Every year we added something, and this year I’d made my mother laugh when I’d brought out one of

my younger self’s most prized possessions—a mini Canadian Club bot le that she’d drained quickly on a ight to see my paternal grandparents, and

that I’d then proceeded to hold (in amazement) for the rest of the vacation.

It was a funny story, and I wanted to tel it to Lily, the girl I barely knew.

But I left the notebook where it was. I knew I could have but oned my shirt, put my shoes back on, and headed to the mysterious Dyker Heights.