(Our unorthodox Orthodox Jewish friends Dov and Yohnny were next to the big menorah in the lobby of the 92nd Street Y, holding up candles and a clue.) It’s time for the other boot to fall…in the same place you lost the first one.
(Sofia had sweet-talked the owner of a popular club to let Lily in during the day. Mrs. Basil E. had loaned me a boot of hers to place in the restroom stall where I’d left a message for Lily a year ago. That message had said Please return the notebook to the handsome gumshoe wearing the fedora hat. Now Sofia had traced my handwriting to write, The Little Foxes want you to know this isn’t a dead end. The children’s hour may be over, but there’s still time for frozen hot chocolate.) (That would lead to Serendipity—because everyone in New York knows there’s only one place in Manhattan to get frozen hot chocolate. There, Lily’s grandfather would be waiting at a table—Sofia would text him to get the frozen hot chocolate ready. He was instructed not to talk about the red notebook with Lily, but to talk about anything else she wanted to talk about. Then, when the bill came, the waiter would have written the next clue on the back of the receipt—If a tree falls in the forest, who’s most likely to go over to it to see if it’s okay?)
That would lead to Boomer.
And Boomer would lead to Brooklyn.
—
Boomer texted me as I got off the subway.
The good news is she’s on her way. She didn’t even ask for clarAfication.
I waited for the bad news.
And waited.
Finally, I typed, What’s the bad news?
Oh yeah! The bad news is that even though I warned her hard against it, she tried one of the cookies.
I didn’t have time to worry about this—baking prowess had never been the basis of our relationship, so I hadn’t really compromised much by showing her the limits of my flouring. Instead, I headed over to the Brooklyn Academy of Music—BAM, for short—and prepared for Lily’s arrival.
The current production at BAM was the Mark Morris Dance Group’s production of The Nutcracker, called The Hard Nut. It took the familiar Nutcracker story and moved it to a wacky suburban house in the 1970s. One of the big scenes was a swingin’ holiday party that went tipsily awry. Another involved Marie, the Clara of this Nutcracker, holding her own against the Rat King with only a flashlight to defend herself.
The stage looked like a cartoon version of a 1970s sitcom home—everything a little larger than life. But there was a tree, and under the tree were presents.
One of them was for Lily.
This was the most elaborate part of the plan. Luckily, Mrs. Basil E. had an in with BAM. (“I’ve supported the arts for so long, it’s only natural that I should call on the arts to support me,” she explained.) Lauren, the dancer who played Marie, let me into the theater. When Lily arrived, she would find David, the dancer who was the Nutcracker Prince, waiting to guide her to the stage. Then he’d disappear, and everyone else would wait in the wings. This was a run-through that wasn’t usually open to the public, and they were adding an extra character for a short time.
I took my place in the highest balcony of the otherwise empty opera house. Langston, Sofia, Boomer, Mrs. Basil E., Dov, and Yohnny were all texting me from afar to see how it was going. I gave them a quick update, then turned off my phone.
I almost didn’t hear the door opening. From my perch, I couldn’t see Lily at first—only when she walked down the aisle toward the stage. She held the red Moleskine in one hand, Joey McIntyre in the other. From so far away, it was hard to read her expression.
There was a single spotlight haloing the tree. Lily walked the stairs to the stage, then looked around to see if anyone else was there. The spotlight narrowed to focus on a single present, and Lily stepped toward it. If you squinted, you could imagine she was Clara, woken on Christmas morning. When you opened your eyes, you could see that she was grown-up, nearly an adult. But with the same wonder showing in her movements, because that’s not something you have to grow out of.
I had wrapped the box with the recipe for lebkuchen cookies. Inside was another box, wrapped in quotations from Baby Be-Bop. Then another box, with wrapping paper I’d saved from FAO Schwarz. And an even smaller box, wrapped in a newspaper advertisement for Corgi & Bess. Finally, the smallest box of all, with her name on its lid in my handwriting.
She opened it. Took out the envelope. Opened the card and read the two words I’d written before signing my name. A gift card fell out of it. She took a look, saw where it was from and what the amount was.
Smiled.
Then, as if knowing I would want to be there to see her smile, she looked up. I thought for sure I’d be caught, and wasn’t sure whether or not that was a bad thing. But as her eyes lifted into the eaves, the lights on the stage burst alive and Tchaikovsky began to play. Startled, Lily pulled back to the tree.