? ? ?
?After a short drive from the theater, our taxi pulls to a stop amid a stretch of luxury stores on Fifty-Fifth Street, all closed for the holiday. We must look like a clown car as we exit: Hannah in her red gown; me in the technicolor dream cape; Theo in King George’s shiny red-and-gold suit, complete with a powdered wig, crown, and dalmatian-spotted capelet; and Priya in a black beaded flapper dress giving her best Velma Kelly. Across the street, a family of tourists in matching blue puffy coats stops to gawk. The dad pulls out his phone to snap a photo of the spectacle.
Theo leads the way to a gold door beside a planter box of hedgerows while Priya brings up the rear, toddling behind us on her pin-thin stilettos. Her range of motion is constrained by the dress, which is tight around her knees before splitting off into a curtain of beaded fringe.
When we enter, a ma?tre d’ in a plaid sport coat looks up from his iPad. “Ah! Mr. Benson, perfect! Welcome to the Polo Bar.” He shakes hands with Theo, clapping him on the shoulder like they’re old pals. “Would you like to have a cocktail before heading downstairs?” he offers.
After a round of dirty martinis served alongside silver bowls filled with perfectly salted chips, mixed nuts, and little fried balls that turn out to be olives stuffed with morsels of sausage, the ma?tre d’ leads us downstairs. The windowless dining room resembles the end-of-days bunker of an equestrian-obsessed member of the landed gentry. We’re seated in a cognac leather booth along one wall. Each seat has a plaid pillow, for decoration or lumbar support, I’m not sure. As I survey the wood-paneled dining room, I can’t help but grin at how we’ve upgraded from the dining hall pancakes of our first Christmas.
The moment we’re settled, another waiter in a plaid bow tie and vest descends on our table with a bottle of champagne. The sound of the cork popping echoes around the deserted dining room.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Theo says, clinking his knife on the side of his champagne flute.
“Finn,” he begins, “did you know I consider the night I met you to be one of the best nights of my life?”
Even though my memories of the evening are hazy, at best, my cheeks flame at the mention of that night. The only night we were more than friends.
“Because that night brought you all to me, and you’ve become more like family than my actual family.” Of course we cherish that night for wholly different reasons. I feel myself deflating, like a squeaky balloon giving its loud, flatulent death rattle. “I know today might be the end of a tradition, but it’s not the end of my love for each of you. Our kinship is tattooed onto my heart. Not literally, obviously, but if we have a few more bottles of this”—he points at the bottle of Perrier-Jouet in the ice bucket beside our table—“I could be convinced.”
A titter of laughter circles the table.
“I’m rubbish at talking about my feelings, but I wanted you to know how much being a part of this group has meant to me. So let’s raise a glass to Finn and possibly our last, but hopefully our very best, Christmas.”
“Hear! Hear!” Priya holds out her glass.
“Cheers!” Hannah adds her glass to the scrum.
I wordlessly lift my glass to meet theirs. Theo offers me a wink across the table. We all take a sip of our drinks to seal his words to fate.
There are no menus for lunch. Our bow-tied waiter returns with a two-tiered tea tray, the bottom filled with miniature pancakes and the top with a tin of caviar and a ramekin of crème fra?che. The caviar service is followed by a platter of pigs in a blanket with both beef hot dogs and vegetarian alt-meat ones for Priya, both kinds wrapped in a cocoon of pancake. Next there are miniature breakfast sandwich sliders—a runny egg, sausage patty, and slice of melted cheese sandwiched between two silver dollar pancakes. After that four waiters descend on our table simultaneously, each carrying a plate with a domed silver lid. They remove the lids with choreographed precision to reveal plates of obscenely fluffy Japanese-style pancakes in three stacks, the first drizzled with a berry compote, the second dotted with chocolate chips and topped with a cloud of whipped cream, and the third garnished with apple chutney.
A laugh escapes me when the plate is revealed. “Wait, did you get a restaurant to make us a meal that’s entirely pancakes?” The staff, who outnumber us two to one, must be so confused by our bizarre holiday meal.
“Historical accuracy is important,” Theo replies with a rakish tilt of his head, which sends his crown sloping to one side.
“Believe me, I was there, and there was no caviar at our first Christmas,” I tell him.
“No champagne either,” Hannah adds, “but I don’t see you complaining about that!”
“So, we gave it a little upgrade,” Theo says with a jaunty shrug.
We’re so full that we barely touch our dessert—rich chocolate pancakes that taste like flattened molten chocolate cakes. When the fifth and final course is cleared, we sit with coffees served in porcelain teacups and finish the dregs of our champagne. “So, what’s next?” I ask.
“Well . . .” Hannah hesitates. “This was kind of all we had planned.”
“I honestly thought it would take longer.” Theo looks down at his watch.
“We could head across the street to the King Cole Bar for another round?” Priya suggests.
“I think I’ll explode if I put anything else in my stomach,” Hannah begins, punctuating her statement with a sip of champagne. We’re onto a second bottle. “Plus, we’ll be sloshed and maudlin by sunset if we keep drinking. And David and I were maybe going to do gifts tonight.”
At the mention of David’s name, Priya flashes an approving smile at Hannah.
“I have an idea,” I say. “We’re right by Rockefeller Center and I’ve never been skating there. It feels like a New York Christmas rite of passage. Should we go? Mix in some new with the old?”
“Your wish is our command,” Theo says as Priya and Hannah nod their assent. “Lead on.”
* * *
? ? ?
?There’s a chance I miscalculated with my suggestion. The line of kids, hopped up on sugar and bouncing beside exhausted parents, starts at the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue and snakes back and forth on itself as far as the eye can see. Probably all tourists.
“Maybe this is the wrong line?” Hannah offers. “Maybe this is the line for Santa? Or Al Roker could be giving something away on the plaza?”
“Excuse me.” Priya taps the man in front of us on the shoulder. “Is this the line for skating?”
“You have to wait your turn like everyone else, weirdos,” he sneers back.
“Jeez, okay. I was just asking.”
It takes us an hour to reach the front, rent skates, and get them on, which requires some maneuvering because my fingers froze into icicles during the wait.