“Termites?”
“Shut up. The reason there’s a big gaping hole in our apartment is because we don’t have a Christmas tree. Lily usually can’t wait until Thanksgiving leftovers are through before running out and getting a tree—she feels that in this city, all the good ones are taken early, and the longer you wait, the more likely you are to get a tree that isn’t worthy of Christmas. So the tree is up before the first of December, and then she spends the next two weeks decorating. On the fourteenth, our family has a big tree-lighting ceremony—Lily acts like it’s an age-old family tradition, but the truth is, she started it when she was seven years old, and now it just feels like an age-old family tradition. Only, this year—nothing. No tree. All the decorations are still in boxes. And the tree lighting is supposed to be tomorrow. Mrs. Basil E. has already ordered the catering—and I don’t know how to tell her that there isn’t a tree to light.”
I understood his fear. The minute their great-aunt—who we all called Mrs. Basil E.—opened the door to their apartment, she’d be able to smell the lack of a tree, and would not hide her displeasure at the breach.
“So why don’t you just get a tree?” I asked.
Langston actually smacked his forehead in amazement at my daftness. “Because that’s Lily’s job! That’s what Lily loves to do! And if we get it without her, it’s like we’re pointing out that she hasn’t done it, and that will only make her feel worse.”
“True true true,” I said.
The waitress came, and we ordered pastries—I think we both knew we didn’t have enough conversation within us to sustain a proper meal.
Once we’d ordered, I continued. “Have you asked her about the tree? I mean, about getting one?”
“I tried,” Langston said. “Point blank—‘Hey, why don’t we get a tree?’ And do you know what her response was? ‘I’m just not feeling it right now.’?”
“That doesn’t sound like Lily at all.”
“I know! So I figured desperate times called for desperate measures. Which is why I texted you.”
“But what can I do?”
“Has she talked to you about it at all?”
Even in our conversational détente, I didn’t want Langston to know the whole truth—that Lily and I hadn’t talked about very much in the weeks since Thanksgiving. Every now and then we’d go to a museum or get dinner. Every now and then we’d kiss, or lightly make out—but nothing that would be out of place on CBS. Ostensibly, we were still dating. But the dating was feeling rather ostensible.
I didn’t tell this to Langston because I was embarrassed that I’d let it happen. And I didn’t tell this to Langston because I was worried it would alarm him. My own alarms were the ones that should’ve been going off.
So instead of getting into it, I said, “No, we haven’t talked about the tree.”
“And she didn’t invite you to the tree-lighting ceremony?”
I shook my head. “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“I thought so. I think the only people who are planning to come are the family members who come every year. Usually Lily hands out invitations. But I guess she just wasn’t feeling that, either.”
“Clearly, we have to do something.”
“Yes, but what? It really feels like it would be a betrayal if I went out and bought a tree.”
I thought about it for a moment, and something came to me.
“But what if there’s a loophole?” I asked.
Langston cocked his head, looked at me. “I’m listening.”
“What if I got her the tree? As a present. Part of my Christmas present to her. She doesn’t know that I know about your family tradition. I could just bluster and bluff my way into it.”
Langston didn’t want to like the idea, because it would mean liking me, at least for a minute. But his eyes kicked in with a gleam that, for a moment, countered his doubt.
“We could tell her it’s for the twelve days of Christmas,” he said. “To celebrate the kickoff.”
“Don’t the twelve days of Christmas come after Christmas?”
Langston brushed this away. “Technicality.”
I wasn’t sure it was that simple, but it was worth a shot.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bring the tree. You act surprised. This conversation never happened. Right?”
“Right.” Our pastries arrived and we dug in. About seventy seconds later, we were done. Langston reached for his wallet—I figured to pay the bill. But then he was trying to slide a few twenties my way.
“I don’t want your filthy lucre!” I exclaimed. Perhaps too loudly for a restaurant of such quotidian pain.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I translated, sliding his money back to him.
“But you do understand—it has to be a nice tree. The best tree.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him, and then employed a sentence that has been the coin and currency of New York since the days of yore: “I know a guy.”