made a habit of passing the peppermint schnapps ask when we’d made our rounds in the weeks before Christmas.

Tasty.

I looked over to Edgar. He was taking a picture with his cel phone of my feet: one part majoret e boot, one part sneaker. “I’m sending out an al

points bul etin to nd your other boot,” Edgar said. He hit Send on the picture like he was a regular Gossip Girl.

The carolers laughed. “To Lily’s boot!” Glasses again clinked.

I wanted more Tasty. And Dangerous.

“I want to toast, too,” I said. “Who wants to let me sip their hot toddy?”

As I reached over for Melvin’s glass, the red notebook fel out of my purse, which was stil slung over my shoulder.

I left the notebook on the oor.

Why bother?

“Lil-eee! Lil-eee!” the group—and by now, the whole bar—cheered.

I danced on the table and sang out a punkier-than-Beatles line o’ lyric, gesturing a de ant st in the air: “ ‘It’s! Been! A! Long! Cold! Lonely!

Winter!’ ”

“ ‘Here comes the sun,’ ” sang back dozens of bar voices.

Al it had taken was three sips of peppermint schnapps, four hot toddy sips, and ve sips of Shee’nah’s drink of choice, the Shirley Temple

—not!—to turn me into a veritable party girl. I felt changed already.

Since Christmas, so much had happened, al started by the notebook I’d decided to leave discarded on the barroom oor. I was now a girl—no, a

woman—transformed.

I had become a liar. A Lily bear who irted with a gerbil kil er. A Mary MacGregor who after only six random sippies unbut oned the top two

pearl but ons on her sweater to al ow a glimpse of her cleavage.

But the real Lily—the way-too-tipsy-and-needing-to-nap-and/or-barf sixteen-year-old one—was also way out of her element in this birthday-

party-turned-ful -on-bash with party girl Lily at its center.

Winter’s early darkness had fal en; it was only six o’clock, but dark outside, and if I didn’t get home soon, Grandpa would come looking for me.

But if I did go home, Grandpa would know I was mildly … mildly … inebriated. Even if I hadn’t ordered or been knowingly served alcohol in the

pub—I had only taken sips of others’ drinks. Grandpa might also nd out about Edgar Thibaud. What to do?

A new group of people arrived in the bar and I knew I had to stop singing and dancing on the table before they, too, joined the party. I was in

way over my head already.

The clock was running out. I jumped o my chair and pul ed Edgar over to a secluded corner in the outdoor garden. I wanted him to explain

how he was going to get me home, and not in trouble.

I wanted him to kiss me.

I wanted the snow to nal y start fal ing, as the crisp night air and gray skies indicated would happen at any moment.

I wanted my other boot because my sneaker foot was get ing real y, real y cold.

“Edgar Thibaud,” I murmured, trying to sound sexy. I pressed myself up against his warm, rock-solid body. I parted my mouth to his

approaching lips.

This was It.

This was It.

Final y.

I was about to close my eyes for It when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a teenage boy standing nearby, holding something I needed.

My other boot.

Edgar Thibaud turned to the boy. “Dash?” he asked, confused.

This boy—Dash, apparently—looked at me strangely.

“Is that our red notebook on the oor over there?” he asked me.

Could this be him?

“Your name is Dash?” I said. I burped. My mouth had one more nugget of wisdom to o er. “If we got married, I’d be, like, Mrs. Dash!”

I cracked myself up laughing.

Then I’m pret y sure I passed out in Edgar Thibaud’s arms.

thirteen

–Dash–

December 27th

“How do you know Lily?” Thibaud asked me.

“I’m not real y sure I do,” I said. “But, real y, what was I expecting?”

Thibaud shook his head. “Whatever, dude. You want something from the bar? Aryn’s hot, she’s twenty-one, and she’s buying for everybody.”

“I think I’m a teetotaler tonight,” I said.

“I think the only kind of tea they have at this place is Long Island. You’re on your own, my friend.”

So, presumably, was Lily. Thibaud placed her conked-out self on the nearest bench.

“Are you kissing me?” she murmured.

“Not so much,” he whispered back.

I stared up at the sky, trying to search out the genius who coined the term wasted, because she or he deserved mad props for nailing it so

perfectly. What a wasted girl. What a wasted hope. What a wasted evening.

The proper response for a lout in this situation would be to walk away. But I, who had such anti-loutish aspirations, couldn’t muster up the bad

taste to do that. So instead, I found myself taking o Lily’s sneaker and slipping her aunt’s second boot onto her foot.

“It’s back!” she mut ered.

“Come on,” I said lightly, trying to disguise the crushing weight of my disappointment. She was in no state to hear it.

“Okay,” she said. But then she didn’t move.

“I need to take you home,” I told her.

She started to ail. Eventual y I realized she was shaking her head.

“Not home. I can’t go home. Grandpa wil kil me.”

“Wel , I have no desire to accessorize your murder,” I said. “I’l take you to your aunt’s.”

“That’s a good good good idea.”

To give them credit, Lily’s friends at the bar were concerned about her and wanted to be sure we’d be okay. To give him discredit, Thibaud was

too busy trying to get the birthday girl to try on her birthday suit to notice our departure.

“Drosophila,” I said, remembering the word.

“What?” Lily asked.

“Why do girls always fal for guys with the at ention span of drosophila?”

“What?”

“Fruit ies. Guys with the at ention span of fruit ies.”

“Because they’re hot?”

“This,” I told her, “is not the time for being truthful.”

Instead, it was the time for us to hail a cab. More than a few of them saw the way Lily was leaning—somewhat like a street sign after a car had

crashed into it—and drove right on by. Final y, a decent man pul ed over and picked us up. A country song was playing on his radio.

“East Twenty-second, by Gramercy Park,” I told him.

I thought Lily was going to fal asleep next to me. But what happened instead was invariably worse.

“I’m sorry,” she said. And it was like a faucet had been turned, and only one sentiment could come gushing out. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I can’t

believe how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to drop it, Dash. And I didn’t mean—I mean, I’m just so sorry. I didn’t think you were going to be there. I

was just there. And, God, I am so sorry. I am real y, real y sorry. If you want to get out of the cab right this minute, I wil completely understand. I

wil de nitely pay for al of it. Al of it. I’m sorry. You believe me, right? I mean it. I am so, so, SO sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Real y, it’s okay.”

And, strangely, it was. The only things I blamed were my own foolish expectations.

“No, it’s not okay. Real y, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “Driver, can you tel him that I’m sorry? I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I swear.”

“The girl’s sorry,” the driver told me, with no shortage of sympathy shot my way in the rearview mirror.

Lily sat back in the seat. “You see? I’m just so—”

I had to tune out then. I had to stare at the people on the street, the cars going by. I had to tel the cabbie when to turn, even though I was sure

he knew perfectly wel when to turn. I was stil tuning out when we pul ed over, when I paid for the cab (even though this got me more

apologies), when I careful y maneuvered Lily out of the cab and up the stairs. It became a physics problem—how to prevent her from hit ing her

head on the cab as she got out, how to get her up the stairs without dropping her sneaker, which I stil held in my hand.